Come now the peasants. In this volume of translations "peasant"
is the rendering of the Norwegian word "bonde." The meaning is
"farmer," i.e., in general the independrnt owner of land, which he
cultivates and on which he lives. In Norway the conditions have for
many centuries been more favorable for the "peasant" than in any
other European country; this is due to the topography and to the
absence of a powerful nobility. At the present time scarcely one-
twentieth of the tilled area in Norway is cultivated by tenants.
The Norwegian "peasants" have always had great self-consciousness in
the best sense, and importance in the political, economic, and
social life of the country, especially since the adoption of the
democratic Constitution of 1814. Very often the "peasants" have an
aristocratic pride in a lineage traced back to ancient "kings," and
in their own distinctively "Norse" culture.
?sterdal's ... chieftain, a peasant of large stature, named
Hjelmstad, a radical member of the Storting.
The old banner. A flag much used in earlier times as specifically
Norwegian, dating back to King Erik (1280-1299), before the union
with Demnark, showed on a red ground a lion wearing a golden crown
and bearing an axe. As late as 1698 it flew over the fortress
Akershus in Christiania. The future, i.e., the independence
realized in 1905 through the dissolution of the union with Sweden.
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