Growth of the Soil

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Title: Growth of the Soil
Author: Knut Hamsun
Release Date: February 8, 2004 [EBook #10984]
Language: English
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GROWTH
OF THE
SOIL
Translated from the Norwegian of
KNUT HAMSUN
by W.W. WORSTER
[ORIGINAL TITLE "MARKENS GRØDE"]
1917Chapter I
The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest—who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first
that came here. There was no path before he came. Afterward, some beast or other, following the faint tracks over marsh
and moorland, wearing them deeper; after these again some Lapp gained scent of the path, and took that way from field
to field, looking to his reindeer. Thus was made the road through the great Almenning—the common tracts without an
owner; no-man's-land.
The man comes, walking toward the north. He bears a sack, the first sack, carrying food and some few implements. A
strong, coarse fellow, with a red iron beard, and little scars on face and hands; sites of old wounds—were they gained in
toil or fight? Maybe the man has ...