the winter noons
The high rocky banks shelter these deep bays -LRB- called fiords -RRB- from almost every wind ; so that their waters are usually as still as those of a lake . For days and weeks together , they reflect each separate tree-top of the pine-forests which clothe the mountain sides , the mirror being broken only by the leap of some sportive fish , or the oars of the boatman as he goes to inspect the sea-fowl from islet to islet of the fiord , or carries out his nets or his rod to catch the sea-trout or char , or cod , or herrings , which abound , in their seasons , on the coast of Norway . It is difficult to say whether these fiords are the most beautiful in summer or in winter . In summer , they glitter with golden sunshine ; and purple and green shadows from the mountain and forest lie on them ; and these may be more lovely than the faint light of the winter noons of those latitudes , and the snowy pictures of frozen peaks which then show themselves on the surface : but before the day is half over , out come the stars , -- the glorious stars which shine like nothing that we have ever seen . There , the planets cast a faint shadow , as the young moon does with us : and these planets , and the constellations of the sky , as they silently glide over from peak to peak of these rocky passes , are imaged on the waters so clearly that the fisherman , as he unmoors his boat for his evening task , feels as if he were about to shoot forth his vessel into another heaven , and to cleave his way among the stars . Still as everything is to the eye , sometimes for a hundred miles together along these deep sea-valleys , there is rarely silence . The ear is kept awake by a thousand voices .