Stress

Stress – the word’s the same in Norwegian – is a common term for the psychological and physiological changes that may result from adverse circumstances. In small amounts, stress can be physically and mentally stimulating. But prolonged, high levels of stress are believed to be among the contributing causes of some illnesses, including high blood pressure, ulcers and coronary thrombosis. Chronic mental over stimulation and burden can cause psychological disturbance. Consequently, stress management is a factor in health care, particularly as stress is second after overload maladies as a cause of sick leave. Despite a decreasing work-week – now 35 hours, compared to more than 40 hours in the 1960s – and more labour-saving devices in the home and the workplace, reported cases of stress are increasing. However, stress scientist Holger Ursin at the University of Bergen believes that the stress levels may be overstated. Many people may be stressed because stress is in fashion, a part of the increasingly hectic lifestyle.

Suicide (Selvmord)

Suicide is declining but remains one of the leading causes of violent death. Now each year there are some 360 suicides, half again as many as the number of traffic fatalities and nine times the number of murders. Depression is believed to be the leading cause of suicide, particularly among young men, for which the suicide rate is high and nearly double that of 1970. Surveys have been conducted on the bases of data from police, road authorities and road transport organisations and have concluded that about one traffic fatality in 10 is probably a suicide, so the actual number of suicides in a year may be higher than statistics indicate.

Tipping and charges (Driks og avgifter)

Restaurants add service charges (service) into bills, so you should tip only if the service has been superior. Most cloakrooms and left-luggage rooms post fixed charges (avgift) for their services, but some do not, so you must ask what is expected. Porters at airports will tell you their charges upon request. Taxi drivers, barbers, hairdressers and others who provide personal services do not expect tips, but you can round off a bill upwards to the nearest NOK 10 if you feel you have been well served. Doormen usually expect tips for services provided, such as for calling or hailing a taxi. Rates vary widely, by location (city or town) and by service (hotel or entertainment), so your best guide to tipping tradition is to ask someone who has been to the place before.

The Vikings (Vikingene)

The Vikings were the adventuresome Scandinavian peoples of medieval times. Their age of prominence, the Viking Era (Vikingtiden), began in AD 793 with the sacking of the monastery at Lindisfarne and ended in 1066 at the Battle of Stanford Bridge, in which King Harald Harråde was killed. Though relatively short, the Viking Era is vital in the history of Scandinavia in general and Norway in particular. Before it, the country was pagan and was divided into innumerable chiefdoms and small kingdoms. When it ended, the country was united under a King and the Christian Church.

The origin of the word Viking remains a mystery. Scandinavians regard it to have been derived from Vik, the word for bay or inlet, with the suffix ing meaning “hailing from”, so the Vikings were the people who “came from the bays”. However, the word may be older, as it appears in Anglo-Saxon glossaries of the early 8th century. If so, the Vikings owed their name to those they met abroad.

Written records in Europe describe the Vikings as warlike pirates who committed depredations on land. But they also were exceptionally skilled seafarers who developed the long ships, the most advanced of their day. Modern marine architects have run the vital measurements of the long ships through a computer and have found that the Vikings got it right: the ships are not only graceful, but also have the optimum combination of two conflicting concepts – maximum stability and minimum friction. Vikings’ voyages crossed the oceans to discover Iceland, Greenland and North America, as well as southward and eastward, to the Mediterranean Sea and up the Russian rivers to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. As they went, the Vikings traded and set up international commerce; cities afar, such as Dublin and York, were Viking trading ports.

There are Viking burial mounds and historical sites throughout Norway. Two museums are devoted entirely to the Vikings. The Viking Ship Museum (Vikingskiphuset) at Bygdøy in Oslo features three exceptionally well preserved and restored long ships found at Gokstad, Tune and Oseberg as well as extensive collections of Viking artefacts, Huk Aveny 35, 0287 Oslo, Tel: 22438379, Fax: 22445581, www.ukm.uio.no, info@ukm.uio.no. The Lofotr Viking Museum at Borg (Vikingmuseet pá Borg) in the Lofoten Islands is a reconstruction of a Viking chieftain’s homestead, the largest of its kind ever found. The displays include objects that connect Viking trade to England, France, Germany and southern Europe, Prestegårdsveien 59, 8360 Bøstad, Tel: 76084900, Fax: 76084910, www.lofotr.no, vikingmuseet@lofotr.no.

Viking themes are also part of entertainment. The Tusenfryd amusement park south of Oslo includes the Vikingland theme park and provides rentals of Viking headgear and costumes for use in plays and at parties, Tusenfryd, 1407 Vinterbro, Tel: 64976497, Fax: 64976401, www.tusenfryd.no, firmapost@tusenfryd.no. The annual Vikingfestival held in June at Kopervik on the west coast features an extensive programme of battle reenactments and other activities and exhibitions, Rådhuset, 4250 Kopervik, Tel: 52857375, Fax: 52857360, www.vikingfestival.no, aij@karmoy.kommune.no.

In the summertime, there are Viking markets (Vikingmarked) and Viking plays (Vikingspillene) at several locations. Replicas of Viking jewellery are popular, and some rock music groups have taken Viking names, most notably Ragnarock, the ultimate and final battle in Norse mythology, and now the name of a Norwegian black metal band, www.ragnarokhorde.com. Other names from Norse mythology are widely used, in company names as well as in the names of offshore oil platforms in the North Sea. The Vikings are historical, but their legacy is very much a part of contemporary life.

War history (Krigshistorie)

Though hostilities ended more than 60 years ago, in Norwegian krigen (”the war”) principally means the Second World War, when the country was invaded and occupied by Germany from 9 April 1940 until final liberation on 8 May 1945. Many books have been written about the period, and several films have been made on events during the occupation, particularly on the sabotage of the heavy water plant of the Vemork power station at Rjukan in Telemark county on 27 February 1943. And author John Steinbeck early paid tribute to the spirit of the occupied people in The Moon is Down, a novel first published in March 1942. In it, the occupiers and the occupied are not identified. But the story is so clearly of Norway that copies of the book printed in the original English in neutral Sweden in 1942 were circulated in Norway by the home front, each clearly rubber stamped Denne bok tilhörer det norske folk. Send den vider nár du har lest den (“This book belongs to the Norwegian people. Read it and pass it on”).