Ski, Flat-brod (1833)

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LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF EUROPE:
OR, A JOURNAL OF TRAVELS IN HOLLAND, DENMARK, NORWAY, SWEDEN, FINLAND, RUSSIA, PRUSSIA, AND SAXONY
by Charles B. Elliott
Philadelphia: Key and Biddle
1833

Pg. 128:
*The following account of the _Skielobere_ is extracted from the 8th chapter of his Travels through Norway.
   "The uniform of the _Skielobere_, or regiment of skaters, is light green; and in summer they are chasseurs, and armed with rifles.  As soon as the snow falls in sufficient quantity, and is in a state to bear them, they put on their _skies_, and commence their winter manoeuvres, in this (Pg. 129--ed.) singular kind of skate.  The left _skie_ is shorter than the right, to enable them to turn quicker in wheeling.  They are covered with seal-skin, that the men may ascend the mountains with greater ease and safety; the hair preventing the _skie_ from sliding backward.  The speed with which these skaters perform their different manoeuvres is very astonishing: they glide along the frozen surface of the snow like lightning; and go down the steepest precipices with inconceivable velocity." (...)
   "A pair of their _skies_, which I brought to England with me, are six feet five inches in length."
(From TRAVELS THROUGH NORWAY AND LAPLAND DURING THE YEARS 1806, 1807, AND 1808 (1813) by Leopold von Buch.  OED states that its 1755 "skie" is an isolated use, and then cites 1885--ed.)

Pg. 131:  The common food of the peasantry is milk, cheese, butter, and oat or rye cakes, about the size of pancakes but a little thicker, (like the Indian _chipattees_,) which they call in the Norse tongue "_flat-brod_."  To this simple diet some piquant dried fish is added, such as herring or smoked salmon.
(OED has 1799, then 1881 for "flat-brod"--ed.)