If modern Norse customs give any clue, England might have had fair warning of the Viking raids. Indeed, the citizens of York would not have struggled to hear, as the sound carried across the water, the gruesome reverberations of boatloads of Vikings as they vacuumed their nasal passages.
Maybe the sound was strange to the English because they had the common sense to blow intruders out of their snitch and be done with them. Or maybe the cacophony was so loud that they were frozen with terror, and overrun by the Viking hoard. But hear it they surely did, for it is a fearsome sound and it can still be heard in Norway today.
I encountered it again on a visit last Christmas. Even my Viking wife, who visits home regularly, was astonished this time around. But it was, after all, one of the coldest winters in memory.
Here, in the depths of winter, when the nation’s nasal passages are most afflicted, there is no decorum attached to the process of chugging a big one. Any occasion will do. In fact, it is so common it may as well be a form of punctuation, or even affirmation, for many a stoic socialist will end a statement with the chug of a good booger.
A pause in conversation or quiet moment at the dinner table is good timing for this gap filler. A boardroom becomes a concert for nasal percussionists; a wedding toast – a great opportunity to test out the low frequency response of the PA system. The glottal stop takes on a new meaning in Norway.
Living there for a while, I became accustomed to it. Once my eardrums had recovered from the initial shock they became even stronger for it, treated, as it were, to a regular workout. After three winters I must have acquired the auditory range of a Scandinavian wolf for, returning to South Africa, I was able to detect a wide range of low frequency noises I was not able to before. I could hear the subwoofers from a Honda Civic long before the glow of the blue halogen lights lit up the horizon. I could tell the Stormers weren’t performing at Newlands by the low grumble of their fans that, to me, seemed even louder than the opposition’s cheers.
But returning to Norway, my eardrums were put into over drive. Phil Collins couldn’t have kept pace with the pounding. No environment, no matter how intimate, was free of its wall-shaking rattle. In Oslo, my welcoming was an airport elevator full of people too shy to look one another in the eye, but it seemed a good place for some geezer to roll a rumbler. And not an eyelid fluttered, not a grimace was seen, If anything it was a signal for everyone to let loose. Velkommen til Norge. The national anthem had begun, nasal percussion section innumerable.
My wife has five siblings and they, and their extended families, descended on the old wooden family house in Haugesund to test the double-glazing and rattle the Christmas tree. Visits to mom-and-dad’s small flat were just a little too intimate for me so, despite the temperature, one morning I gladly volunteered to take the little Maltese poodle, Minnie, for a walk. She was always anxious to go out, no matter how cold, and I realised what an assault this noise must be on her wolf-like hearing.
So out we went, little Minnie and I. She relaxed the moment she was clear of the door and there, in the quiet air, we both enjoyed a respite from the racket. The winter scenery around the coastal town of Haugesund is something to behold and it was wonderful to explore, the bitter cold was hardly a compromise and we walked for ages. Minnie glided ahead like a ghostly white apparition against the snow, until suddenly she skidded to a stop and looked back at me accusingly. It was then that I realized I had just joined the percussion section for another rendition of the Norwegian national anthem.
