This is probably the answer. I know that during winter and summer the daylight ‘hours” were much, much shorter.

Maybe because Norwegians have traditionally been a sea oriented culture, could that mean they were exposed to other languages more?

A few years ago, as part of a document review, I read some menus from Alabama state prison and they looked horrible - all starch and fat, very little fresh food, except sometimes collard greens.

I was reading (somewhere - I don’t remember where), that most people do better on a slightly longer than 24-hour day. They conducted a study of people while keeping them in dark caves. I know when I have no scheduled obligations, I end up flipping my hours around and sleeping a lot less.