Erasmus Zahl

Erasmus Benedicter (Benedigt) Kjerschow (Kjerskov) Zahl (19 January 1826 – 29 April 1900) 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.

In 1840–50, Erasmus Zahl came to Kjerringøy, where he met and married tradesman Jens Nicolai Ellingsen's widow, Anna Elisabeth née Sverdrup.

Later, 1920 Nobel Literature Prize laureate Hamsun used Zahl as a model for the character Mack appearing in many of his novels, among others Pan (1894), Dreamers (1904), and Benoni and Rosa (1908).

Traditions were challenged by modern ideas, and the social hierarchy, in which Zahl had a leading position, would gradually be changed due to factors like industrialisation and urbanisation.