Zahl or Sahl is a Nordland family belonging to and mainly living in the County of Nordland in Norway. The family arrived there in the 17th century. Traditionally, members of the family have been traders, shippers, and sheriffs.
The family immigrated from Denmark to Norway in the 17th century with Niels Jensen Zahl (Saell), District Stipendiary Magistrate (Norwegian : sorenskriver) in the 1620s and residing in Vadsø. [1] The family's geographical origin is uncertain. Several villages named Sahl/Sall in Denmark are presented as likely possibilities. [2]
Family members have been traders and shippers, and some have as sheriffs (Norwegian : lensmann) held local police authority. Among trade seats related to the family are Kjerringøy [3] and Nordvika in Dønna. [4]
Among prominent members of the family is Erasmus B.K. Zahl (1826–1900), a wealthy trader and an island owner (Norwegian : væreier) in Kjerringøy. In the late 1800s, he gave financial support to Knut Hamsun, then a young and poor author. Later, Hamsun—a 1920 Nobel Literature Prize laureate—used Zahl as a model for the famous character Mack appearing in many of his novels, among others Pan (1894).
Anders Nicolai Zahl (1807–1857) of the Nordvika branch married Lorentze Sophie Lie, née Krogh (b. 1797), a daughter of Mathias Bonsach Krogh, bishop of Hålogaland.
Whilst the name in the aspect of orthography is identical with the German word Zahl, which means digit or number, its etymological origin remains unknown or unconfirmed. Among other spellings are Sahl, Saell, and Zal. As the name has been inherited also from mothers through generations, the group of past and present name bearers belong to various patrilineally defined families. The two most important branches are that whose paternal line descends from shipper Tomas of Sund in Leirfjord and that whose paternal line descends from trader Hans Olsen Zahl of Nordvika (in present-day Dønna Municipality). Erasmus Zahl belonged to the latter.
Knut Hamsun was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective and environment. He published more than 23 novels, a collection of poetry, some short stories and plays, a travelogue, works of non-fiction and some essays.
Bodø is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Salten. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Bodø. Some of the notable villages in Bodø include Misvær, Skjerstad, Saltstraumen, Løding, Løpsmarka, Kjerringøy, Sørvær, and Fenes.
Dønna is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the Helgeland region. The administrative centre of the island municipality is the village of Solfjellsjøen. Other villages include Bjørn, Dønnes, Hestad, Sandåker, and Vandve. The main island of Dønna is connected to the neighboring municipality of Herøy to the south by the Åkviksundet Bridge.
(Norwegian) or Fuossko (Lule Sami) is a municipality located in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Salten. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Fauske. Some of the villages in Fauske include Nystad, Venset, Straumsnes, and Sulitjelma.
(Norwegian) or Suortá (Northern Sami) is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Vesterålen. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Sortland. Other population centres in Sortland include Bø, Holand, Holmstad, Liland, Sigerfjord, Strand, and Vik. The Norwegian Coast Guard has its northern base in Sortland, called Kystvaktskvadron Nord.
Petter Pettersen Dass was a Lutheran priest and the foremost Norwegian poet of his generation, writing both baroque hymns and topographical poetry.
Torolf Prytz was a Norwegian architect, goldsmith and politician for the Liberal Party. He led the goldsmith company J. Tostrup of Oslo from 1890 to 1938, having inherited it from his grandfather-in-law Jacob Tostrup. He also served as Norwegian Minister of Industrial Provisioning from 1917 to 1918 and President of the Norwegian Red Cross from 1922 to 1930.
Bodin is a parish and former municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The 672-square-kilometre (259 sq mi) municipality existed from 1838 until its dissolution in 1968. It was a large municipality encompassing all of the mainland area around the town of Bodø and part of the land on the southern shore of the Saltfjorden. The municipality also included over 100 square kilometres (39 sq mi) of islands, notably the islands of Helligvær, Landegode, Bliksvær, and Givær plus numerous others. In all there were over 700 islands, islets, and skerries in Bodin Municipality. All of what was Bodin Municipality now lies entirely inside the present-day Bodø Municipality.
The Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature is awarded by the Norwegian Literature Critics' Association and has been awarded every year since 1950. The prize is presented to a Norwegian author for a literary work as agreed to among the members of the Norwegian Literature Critics' Association. Since 1978 the Norwegian Literature Critics' Association has also awarded a prize for the best work of children's literature. In 2003 the Critics Prize for the year's best work of translation was established, and in 2012 the Critics Prize for the year's best work of nonfiction for adults was established. For other Norwegian Critics Awards, see Norwegian Theatre Critics Award, which has been awarded every year since 1939, the Norwegian Music Critics Award, which has been awarded every year since 1947, and the Norwegian Dance Critics Award, which has been awarded every year since 1977.
Øystein Sørensen is a Norwegian historian. A professor at the University of Oslo since 1996, he has published several books on the history of ideas, including Norwegian nationalism and national socialism, as well as general Norwegian World War II history.
Alfred Eriksen was a Norwegian priest, politician, newspaper editor and non-fiction writer.
Bernhard Folkestad was a Norwegian naturalist painter and essayist.
Thomas Peter Krag was a Norwegian novelist, playwright and writer of short stories. He was born in Kragerø, grew up in Kristiansand, and settled in Copenhagen. Some of his books were bestsellers in Denmark when they were published, but today Krag is more or less sunk into oblivion.
Erasmus Benedicter (Benedigt) Kjerschow (Kjerskov) Zahl was a privileged trader and an island owner at Kjerringøy in Nordland, Norway. Zahl is known as Nobel Literature Prize laureate Knut Hamsun's monetary supporter, and a representative of the old, traditional Nordland—Hamsun's ideal society. He is also internationally known through the character Mack, who appears in several works of Hamsun, among them Pan (1894), Dreamers (1904), and Benoni and Rosa (1908).
Nordland families are the older families of burgher or clerical estate in today's counties of Nordland and Troms, plus Finnmark, in Norway. These families belonged to the leading social classes of Northern Norway.
Kjerringøy trading post is an open-air museum at Kjerringøy in Nordland, Norway. It is operated as part of the Nordland Museum of cultural history.
Dreamers is a novel by Knut Hamsun from 1904. The novel is among Hamsun's last set in Nordland and it contains many comical and caricatured people and events.
A privileged trader is a term that was used for fish merchants or landowners that enjoyed special privileges along the coast of Northern Norway from the second half of the 1700s onward. The term nessekonge itself goes back centuries earlier, to the Viking era, referring to local chieftains that held power over a peninsula. Their privileged status refers to their having received special permission from the king to engage in trade. There are believed to have been 200 to 300 privileged traders' centers or fishing villages from Brønnøysund in the south to Vardø in the north. The privileged traders experienced their peak from the second half of the 1800s to 1910. After this, the development of fishing fleets and public transport by steamship made fishermen less dependent on the local fish buyers, and catches could then be traded wherever the best profit was to be had.
Johan Augustinussen, also written Augustiniussen, was a Norwegian curate/choirmaster, teacher and politician.
Kolbjørn Brenda was a Norwegian actor.