national music. In Lindeman's collection will be found songs which
tell of the heroic exploits of old Norse vikings, kings, and earls
of the heathen days of Thor and Odin, together with lyrics, deep and
ardent, which sing of the loves, the joys, and the sorrows of the
humbler Christian folks.

The Hardanger violin, the lur and the langeleik have played a leading
role in the development of Norwegian folk-songs and dances. The
Hardanger instrument is more arched than the ordinary violin; there
are four strings over the finger-board and four underneath, the latter
of fine steel wire, acting as sympathetic strings. The men of the
Hardanger fjord have long been distinguished for the workmanship and
tonal qualities of their violins, and with them the peasants have
improvised the rich and varied impressions of nature which we find
embodied in folk-songs. The lur is a long wooden instrument, of the
trumpet order, and is usually made of birch bark. It is much used in
the mountains. The langeleik, or Norwegian harp, is a long, narrow,
box-like stringed instrument, something of the character of the
ancient zither. It has seven strings and sound holes, but its tone is
weak and monotonous.

The national dances of Norway have bold rythms which at once arrest
the attention. Perhaps the most characteristic is the hailing, a solo
dance in two-four time. It is usually danced by young men in country
barns, and its most striking feature is the kicking of the beam of
the ceiling. In the story of Nils the fiddler, in his novel _Arne_,
Björnson has given this account of the hailing: "The music struck up,
a deep silence followed, and he began. He dashed forward along the
floor, his body inclining to one side, half aslant, keeping time to
the fiddle. Crouching down, he balanced himself, now on one foot, now