This is the way the ladies ride,This is the way the gentlemen ride,
This is the way the ladies ride,This is the way the gentlemen ride,
This is the way the ladies ride,
This is the way the gentlemen ride,
will have to be inverted for the benefit of Norsk babies. The damsel stares at me with much astonishment, and I stare at her, and, as we pass each other, a “good morning” is exchanged. Andnow the water-shed is passed, as I reach an old barrow, which appears to have been opened; and I dart down hill in company with a swiftly coursing stream, the beginning of the Hemsedal River.
Yonder to the left, auspicious sight, stands the change house of Bjöberg. I am soon in the Stuê, eating mountain trout, and regaling myself with Bayersk Öl, and then coffee. The biting cold, although August was not yet over, sharpened my appetite. The waiters, who alternately bustled in and out of the room, were a thickset burly man, wearing a portentously large knife, with a weather-beaten, “old red sandstone” sort of countenance; and a female, dressed in the hideous fashion of the country, her waist under her armholes; a fashion none the less hideous from her being in an interesting condition. These two were the landlord, Knut Erickson Bjöberg, and his spouse, Bergita.
Warmed by the repast, I have leisure to survey the apartment. There were the usual amount of carved wooden spoons, painted bowls and boxes, but the prints upon the log-walls were what chieflyengaged my attention. One of these was “The Bible map of the way to Life and Death.” A youth, in blue coat and red stockings, is beheld on the one side, bearing a cross. After a series of most grotesque adventures, he arrives at heaven’s gate, and is admitted by angels, who crown him with a chaplet. On the other side of the picture is a sort of “Rake’s Progress.” A man is seen dancing with a lady in a flame-coloured dress. Garlands, drinking, and fighting, are the order of the day. At last a person in black, with red toes and red horns, appears. There is a door into a lion’s mouth, and, amid flames burning, evil spirits are descried. In another picture the “Marriage of Cana,” is described not less graphically, and with equal attention to costume. Thebizarre—an educated person would pronounce it profane—treatment, one would think, must sadly mar the good moral of the story. Knut was a most intelligent fellow, as I detected at a glance, and so I prevailed upon him to schuss me to the next station, Tuf, instead of sending a stupid lad.
“This is a strange wild country you live in,Knut,” said I, when we had driven a little distance.
“Well, sir, it is rather. What countryman are you, if I may be so bold?”
“Guess.”
“To judge from the fishing-rod and the gun, you must be an Englishman. I once guided an Englishman—let me see—one Capitan Biddul (Biddulph?) over the mountains to the Sogne Fjord. Capitan Finne, too, the Norwegian Engineer, when he was surveying, I was a good deal with him.”
“Do the people hereabouts believe in the hill-folk?” (Haugefolk = fairies).
“To be sure. There used to be a strange man living at Bjöberg before my father took to the place; one Knut Sivardson Sivard. His head was full of those hill-people. He used to tell an odd tale of a circumstance that happened to him years ago. One Yule, when he was just going to rest, came a tap at the door. ‘Who is there?’ he asked. ‘Neighbours,’ was the reply. Opening the door, he let in three queer-looking people, with pointedwhite caps and dark clothes. ‘I’m Torn Hougesind,’ said one, with a swarthy face and a hideous great tooth in the middle of his upper jaw. ‘I’m your nearest neighbour.’ ‘I’m Harald Blaasind,’ said another. ‘I’m’—I forget what the other called himself, but it was like the other two names, the name of some of those mountains near by. ‘Strange that I never saw you before,’ said Sivard, doubtfully. ‘But we don’t live so far off; we’ve called in to see how you do this Yule time.’ Sivard did not like the appearance of matters, but said nothing, and set before them some Yule ale in a large birch bowl, such as we use for the purpose in these parts. How they did drink, those three fellows! But Hougesind beat the rest hollow. Every now and then, as the ale mounted to his brain, the creature laughed, and showed his monster tooth.”
“A modernCurius Dentatus,” mused I.
“Presently, in mere wantonness, he bit the board, saying, he would leave a mark of his visit. Sivard’s son, Knut, who was a determined young fellow, lay in bed all this while, and rightly judged that ifthe ale flowed at this pace, there would be very little left for the remainder of the Christmas festivities. So he slily reached his gun, which hung on the wall, and taking good aim, fired right at Hougesind, him with the tooth, when the whole three vanished in a twinkling! Sivard used to show the mark of the tooth in the board, but I have heard that it looked just as if it had been made by a horse tooth hammered into it. However, the tale got all over the country, and folks used to come up from Christiania to see Sivardson Sivard, and hear the description of what he had seen.
“Fond of a joke was Sivard. There is a patch of grass you passed up the road—a very scarce article hereabouts. Drovers used to stop there unbeknown to him, and give their cattle a bellyful, and then came and took a glass at the house, and said nothing about it. He was determined to be even with them; so he dressed up a guy with an old helmet on, and a sword in his hand, and placed the figure close by a hovel there. Not many nights after, a drover came rushing into the house almost senseless with fright. ‘He is coming, he is coming!the Lord deliver me!’ ‘What now?’ exclaimed Sivard. The drover explained that he was coming along, when he spied a man in armour, with dreadful glaring eyes and sword, rushing after him. He ran for his life. It was one of the Hill folk. ‘Are you certain he moved?’ inquired Sivard, ready to burst with laughter. ‘Quite certain.’ ‘But where were you?’ ‘Oh! I had just turned out of the road a bit, to give the horses a bite of grass’—‘that did not belong to you,’ continued the other. ‘Serve you right for trespassing.’
“But we all believe in these people up here,” continued my companion. “Not so very long ago, Margit and Sunniva—two sæter girls—just when they were leaving with the cattle for home, at the end of the summer, saw two little trolls steal into the deserted hut. They observed them accurately. They were dressed in red, with blue caps, and each had a pipe and a neat little cane.”
“And do these people ever do harm?”
“Oh, yes! Sometimes they injure the cattle, and make people ill. There are some women who are skilled in breaking the charm. They are called‘Signe-kone’ (from signe, to exorcise, and kone, woman). One or two such live in the valley. They are considered better than any doctor for a sore.”
“And what is their method of cure?”
“Why, they smear something over the place, and say a few words, and blow (blaese). Blowing is an important part of the ceremony. They measure children, too, from head to foot; that is a good thing.”
“And what sort of people,” asked I, “are there in the valley?”
“Oh! I can’t say much for them. I’m the vorstand (a kind of churchwarden or parish trustee), so I know something about it. The priest, not long ago, told them from the pulpit that there were more bastards born, than children in lawful wedlock. But they don’t care. It’s all Brantvun that does it. I’ve seen lads come to church with a bottle of brandy, and, directly it’s over, give the girls a drink. Hard work for the clergyman, I believe you. But Pastor Engelstrup—you’ve heard of him no doubt;—he was the man to managethem. Prodigiously strong he was. When he was building his gaard at Gool, there was a beam three of them were trying to lift on the roof, but couldn’t. ‘Let me try,’ said he, and raised the timber without more ado. He is gone up to Aal, in Hallingdal now. We missed him very much. He was as good as he was strong.”
“Is he a big man?”
“No, not so very; but he is very thickset, with curly black hair, now got grey.”
I find that Knut gets pretty well paid for maintaining a change-house in such a solitary spot as Bjöberg. The Government allows him three hundred dollars per annum for keeping the house open for travellers through the year, besides thirty dollars for every horse. He and others, he tells me, are endeavouring to get the Storthing to advance money for the purpose of rendering the river navigable to Naes, which might be done at an inconsiderable expense.
After a continued descent, we arrive at Tuff. Here a pale-faced little tatterdemalion offers to dance the Halling dance for the sum of two skillings.They have a marvellous way in this national dance of flinging their legs high up into the air (the Hallingkast), and twisting the body a couple of times round, horizontally, in the air. Some peasant girls in green skirts, with no cincture, fastened over their shoulders with braces,—their yellow hair surmounted by a red ‘buy-a-broom-girl’-shaped cap, are among the bystanders. The first course over, the lad tells me he is very poor, and begs me for some pig-tail tobacco to chew, which I was unable to give him.
I find that the peasants hereabouts keep two thousand tame reindeer, but they are not found to answer.
As we coursed down the road from Tuff to Ekre, a new station, my schuss, Ingval Olsen, points out by the waning light, to some large stones that strewed the Fjeld to the left.
“There was a gaard there, Gytogaard, under the mountain fifty years ago,” said he; “but one night, when all were a-bed, the mountain came down and buried them all. Some human voices were heard for a day or two, and the cock kept crowing for eightdays long, and then all was still. No human labour could have extricated them.”
Further in the wood a spot was shown me where a man was found murdered some time back, and nobody ever found out who did it, or who the murdered man was—a region of horrors.
Fairy lore—A wrestle for a drinking horn—Merry time is Yule time—Head-dresses at Haga—Old church at Naes—Good trout-fishing country—A wealthy milkmaid—Horses subject to influenza—A change-house library—An historical calculation—The great national festival—Author threatens, but relents—A field-day among the ducks—Gulsvig—Family plate—A nurse of ninety years—The Sölje—The little fat grey man—A capital scene for a picture—An amazing story—As true as I sit here—The goat mother—Are there no Tusser now-a-days—Uninvited guests—An amicable conversation about things in general—Hans saves his shirt—The cosmopolitan spirit of fairy lore—Adam of Bremen.
Fairy lore—A wrestle for a drinking horn—Merry time is Yule time—Head-dresses at Haga—Old church at Naes—Good trout-fishing country—A wealthy milkmaid—Horses subject to influenza—A change-house library—An historical calculation—The great national festival—Author threatens, but relents—A field-day among the ducks—Gulsvig—Family plate—A nurse of ninety years—The Sölje—The little fat grey man—A capital scene for a picture—An amazing story—As true as I sit here—The goat mother—Are there no Tusser now-a-days—Uninvited guests—An amicable conversation about things in general—Hans saves his shirt—The cosmopolitan spirit of fairy lore—Adam of Bremen.
Next morning I found my schuss-karl was brimful of tales, which he firmly believed, about the trolls.
“You see that Fjeld,” said he, pointing to a magnificent abrupt mountain behind us. “A friend of mine was taken in there on Yule night, and feasted with the hill people.”
I hummed to myself, as I thought ofYoung Tamlane—
The queen of fairies keppit himIn yon green hill to dwell.
The queen of fairies keppit himIn yon green hill to dwell.
The queen of fairies keppit him
In yon green hill to dwell.
“They wanted,” continued he, “to keep him altogether, but he got away notwithstanding. Cari Olsdatter, my sister, was changed in the cradle too when my mother had gone out one evening; but she came back just in time to see an old woman carrying off the baby, and made her give it up. There was a bag of stones left in the cradle instead.
“Torkil Hermandson, too, who lived among the hills, they say he was married to a troll-qvind (‘elf-quean,’ as a Lowlander would say), called Turi Hougedatter. She was to have for her dowry his fold, as full as it would hold, of fat troll-cattle. So he set to work the night before, and wattled in twice as much ground as his fold usually covered. Sly fellow was Hermandson.”
“Yes, indeed,” thought I, “it seemed almost as if he was taking a leaf out of dame Dido’s book, when she over-reached the simple aborigines of Africa with her ox-hidedouble entendre.”
My attendant has got in his harvest, so he has comparatively little for the horse to do, and offers to schuss me all the way to Naes, which offer I accept. Presently we descend the hill at Gool, the former residence of the Samsonian Gielstrup.
“You see that hillock yonder, covered with firs,” said my guide, pointing to a spot lying at the confluence of the Hemsedals Elv and that of Hallingdal. “There it was where Arne Hafthorn wrestled with a troll one Christmas Eve, and got from him the great drinking horn, which has been in the family ever since. But it brought him no good. There has always been one of the family stumm (dumb) or halv-vittig (half-witted); and it is not so many years ago that Arne was found dead close by the hill there. This horn is still to be seen at a farm-house a little way up Hallingdal. It is made of ox-horn, and mounted with some unknown metal, and rests on a stand. Ah! you smile, but it is all virkelig sant (actually true).”[19]
“And what do you do for the fairies at Yule?” said I.
“Oh! we always place some cake and ale on the board when we go to bed at night.”
“Well, and what then? Do they partake of it?”
“To be sure! It’s always gone in the morning. No doubt it is taken by the ‘hill people.’ Merry time is Yule. We brew ale for the occasion, and bake a large cake, which we keep till Twelfth Night. Everybody stops at home on Christmas Day; but on the day after everybody goes out to visit everybody, and if you meet a person you always say, ‘Glaedelig Jule’ (a happy Yule to you).”
At Haga a different sort of head-dress begins to prevail among the male peasants, being a skull-cap of red cloth, like that worn by the Kirghis chiefs, as sketched by Atkinson, with stripes of black velvet radiating from the crown to the edge. Instead of the usual jacket, a green frock is worn, with stand-up collar, and an epaulet of the same coloured cloth on the shoulders.
A grove of beautiful birches here overhangs the two streams, now joined in one fine river, whichabounds with trout, some of which reach the weight of six pounds and upwards. The fly and bait are both used, I understand. At Naes there is very good accommodation at the “Merchant’s,” including excellent wine and fresh meat. Part of the church here is seven hundred years old, and there are one or two old pillars and a trefoil arch at the east end worth observing. The altar piece, representing the crucifixion, is by no means contemptible.
From here boats may be procured right down the stream to Green, on the Krören Fjord, some fifty miles. Every now and then the stream widens into a lake, and at times narrows into a cataract, so that a skilful boatman is required. This is by far the best way of proceeding; but the peasants are not bound by law to forward you otherwise than on the high road; so, finding there was some difficulty, I took horse and gig, thereby missing some excellent shooting and fishing. Trout of ten pounds are taken here, and there are numbers of ducks. Oats begin now to be cultivated instead of the hardier barley.
The plump, red-faced damsel who routed me out of bed in the morning, at the wretched stationof Sevre, had actually a row of five silver brooches confining the shirt over her exuberant bust. But this is nothing to the jacket with fifty silver clasps, which one of the ancient Scalds is narrated to have worn.
As I journeyed along, on a most lovely quiet autumn morning, the road would every now and then pierce into a thick pine wood, and then emerge upon the banks of the stream. More tempting spots for trout-fishing I never saw. All the horses about here, I find, come from the north of the Fjeld, few being bred in the valley. They almost invariably get a kind of influenza on coming south. The horse I am driving, which was bought at Leirdalsören for fifty dollars in the spring, is only just recovering from an attack of this kind.
At Trostem I find a bear has been seen five or six times, but there is no shooter about.
While I wait for the horse, I eat breakfast, and look about me. Wonderful to relate, I find on a shelf—what do you suppose, reader?—a Bible! yes, that was there, but there was another volume, a cookery book, printed at Copenhagen, 1799. One might as well expect to meet with a book ofParis fashions among the squaws of the Ojibbeways. Eating, it is true, forms the main part of a Norwegian’s daily thoughts. The word mad (meat, food) is everlastingly in their mouths, and the thing itself almost as frequently, six meals a day not being uncommon. But then, what food! No cookery book surely required for that. So that no doubt this book got here by mistake.
The little almanac, edited by Professor Handsteen, of Christiania, who is known in England as the author of “Travels in Siberia,” also lay on the table. A little note I found in it is very significant of the simple-minded superstition that still lingers among the peasantry, of which I have been giving indications above. It is to this effect:—
“The orbit of the moon (maane-bane), has the same position with regard to the equator every nineteenth year, and it possibly may influence the atmosphere. It has been supposed, in consequence, that there is some similarity in the weather on any day to that of the corresponding day nineteen years ago. For this reason, in one column under the heading ‘veirliget,’ the weather is given as observedat Christiania, nineteen years ago. This, however, must not be looked on as divination (ingen spædom), but only as an historical calculation.” This veirliget (weather) column having, notwithstanding the above caution, been turned by the peasants to superstitious uses, was, I hear, omitted for a time, but it had to be restored, as the bonders would not buy the almanac without it. I may here mention that the old dispute about the exact day on which St. Olaf fell at Stikklestad has been recently revived with great vigour. This great national festival has hitherto been kept on the 29th of July, “Olsok.” Hakon Hakonson was crowned king on that day in 1247, and ever since it has been the coronation day of Norway. But the national mind was some time ago disagreeably disturbed by the discovery that the 29th could not after all have been the day of St. Olaf’s death; for although tradition and Snorro assert that there was an eclipse of the sun on that day, it has been ascertained by astronomical calculation, that this eclipse did not take place on the 29th July, but on the 31st of August. One party, therefore, is contending for the observance of the festival on the actual day(31st of August), while another insists upon adhering to the former date. Upon the whole, it would seem preferable to observe the day hallowed by the traditional recollections of the people. If we may be permitted such a comparison, who would like to see the festival of the Nativity altered from December 25th to some other day in the calendar?
Meantime, after an unusual delay, the fresh relay arrives; a fine black stallion, dripping wet.
“I must write a complaint in the book for this,” said I. “You are long after your time. I shall never get to the end of my journey at this rate. You’ll be fined a dollar, and serve you right.”
“Oh! pray don’t, sir; it’s not my fault; the landlord’s son is to blame; he never comes straight to tell us. And then the horse was over the river. I’ve had to swim him across, and the water is bad just now for swimming. He shall go fast, and make up for lost time.”
Somewhat mollified, I did not put my threat in execution, much to the satisfaction of Svend.
Svend was a simple-minded individual in shooting matters, as I presently had occasion to see.On the sedgy shallows of a lake, just before the river began again to contract into rapids, a score of ducks were assembled; some motionless, others busily employed in standing on their heads in the water. Leaving the carriole, I stole with much circumspection towards them, managing to keep some bushes between me and the birds, until I got within shot. Bang went one barrel, and then another, and four ducks werehors de combat. When I returned to the vehicle with my prize, Svend expressed great astonishment that I had fired the barrels separately, as he thought they both went off at once.[20]He had never seen a double-barrelled gun before. Another peasant who was by, speedily cut some birch twigs with his toll-knife, and packed up the birds, taking care to stick the bills inside, that the flies might not get into the gape (Gapë).
At length we descend upon Gulsvig, at the head of the Krören Fjord. I at once perceived, from a glance at the interior of the house, that the station-keeperwas a man of some importance. In fact, he turned out to be the Lehnsman of the district. In the inner room there were a large quantity of silver spoons, and a huge tankard of solid silver, pegged inside, and of great weight, which at once bespoke the owners to be people of substance.
“Ah! that was left me by my grandfather,” said the landlord. “It has been a very long time in the family.”
“Have you got any curious remains about here?” inquired I; “any bauta-stones, for instance, or do you know any legends?”
“There is a bauta-stone up yonder in the field; but as for legends, old Moer can tell you a lot of stories about the hill-folk, but she is not always in the humour.”
Gamle Moer (old mother), as he called her, Anna Olsdatter Gulsvig, just then entered the room with a pipe in her mouth. An excellent portrait of her, by a Norwegian artist, hung against the wall. Her tall figure was still erect, her eye undimmed, while her face, the complexion of which years had failed to sear, preserved traces of muchformer beauty. A neat white cap, bound tight round with a red silk kerchief, confined her grey locks. On her bosom were two or three pairs of silver studs, and the national ornament, the sölje. The one which she wore was of the size and shape of a small saucer. It was of silver filigree-work, with a quantity of silver saucers (or bracteates), each about half an inch in diameter, hung to it. Similar ornaments have been found, I believe, in barrows; the pattern of them having probably been imported hither by the Varangian guard from Byzantium and the East; in the same way that these Northern mercenaries probably gave the first idea of the Scandinavian-looking trinkets which have been recently discovered in the tombs at Kertch.
“How do you do, Mrs. Anna?” so I accosted the old lady, propitiating her by the offer of some tobacco. “I hear you have some old stories; will you tell me one?”
“I can’t awhile now; besides, I’ve forgotten them.”
“Oh! but now do, Moer,” supplicated a little boy, her grandson. But the old lady left the room.Presently, however, she came in again. There was a look of inspiration in her clear grey eye, which seemed to betoken that my desire would be granted.
“It’s some Huldra stories ye were wanting to hear?” said she in an odd dialect; “well, I’ll just tell you one before I go and cook your dinner; you must be hungry. Let me see; yes, I once did see one of the Houge-folk.”
“Indeed! how was that?”
“Well, you see, it’s many years ago. I am an old woman now, over seventy. Then I was a lass of eighteen. It was one Thursday evening in September, and I was up at the sæter. Two other girls had come in, and we thought we would have a dance—and so we danced up and down the floor. The door was open, when suddenly I saw outside, staring fixedly at us, a little man, with brown breeches, grey coat, and a red cap on his head. He was very fat, and his face, it looked so dark, so dark. What a fright I was in to be sure, and the other girls too. As soon as we saw him, we left off dancing, you may depend upon it, directly. The next moment he was gone, but the other girls durstnot go to their sæters, though they were only a few yards off. We all sat crouching over the fire for the rest of the night.” Rapt into days of old, the intelligent eye of the old lady gleamed like a Sibyl’s, as she told her story, with much animation. At the same time, she placed her hand, half unconsciously, as it seemed, on mine, the little boy all the while drinking in the tale with suspended breath and timid looks; reminding me of the awful eagerness with which Béranger, I think, describes the grandchildren listening to some old world story of grandmamma’s. A capital scene it was for a picture—the group is still before me.
“You must have been mistaken,” said I.
“Not at all. That’s not the only time I’ve seen a Tuss.”
“Indeed! How was that?”
“One time I was up at the sæter with Turi, another girl. We were just going to bed, when a stave was put through the little window-pane (gluggen), and moved gently backwards and forwards. We were frightened at first, but we heard a titter outside, and then we knew directly what it meant. It was two Friers (lovers) come, so we got up and letthem in, and we were soon all four in bed together.”
“What!” exclaimed I, in amazement.
“Oh, that’s the way we have here. Of course, you know we were dressed.”
“And were you married to the man afterwards?”
“No; I married quite another person.”
“I did just the same,” put in her son, the Lehnsman, who had just entered. “We see no harm in that. A young farmer’s son often sleeps with a companion in this way, but she must be of the same rank of life as he is. If it was with a servant girl, it would be considered a disgrace.”
“Well, but go on with your story,” said I to the narrator.
“Where was I? Let me see. Yes, we were in bed all snug, chatting away, when suddenly I heard a noise at the window. ‘Hush!’ whispered I—‘what’s that? Listen.’
“We saw at this moment a pole put through the window, just like before. What a fright we were in. But we lay quite still. Presently the pole was drawn back, and a minute after there was a terrible noise in the fiös among the cattle—a loudlowing and bellowing, just as if one of them was being killed. Up we all got in a trice, and rushed out, and I saw a tuss stroking a black cow. It was in a muck sweat; this is as true as I sit here. It was at Nor-sæter, a mile from the farm in Signedal, where I lived before I was gift (married) up here.”
“What is that tale about the goat, mother?”
“Oh, ah! At Fagerlid, in Eggedal, a woman came one evening with a white female goat, and begged the master to change it for a buck. He declined. She came again three Thursday evenings running, till at last he consented. They knew pretty well who she must be, for they saw something like the end of a tail behind her. So, when she went away, they cast a toll-knife after her, to prevent any evil consequences. They never repented the change; the female goat she left gave such an astonishing quantity of milk. As for the person who brought her, they never saw her again.”
“But there are no tusser now-a-days?” inquired I.
With a mysterious look the old lady took a pinch of snuff, and started off talking again, to the great delight of the small urchin; and so fast did she talk,that it was only by extraordinary attention, and stopping her now and then for an explanation of her antique dialect, that I succeeded in mastering the story.
“To be sure there are; people are seeing them constantly. It is only ten years ago, that on the evening after Christmas, Hans Östenson, of Melbraten-gaard, three-quarters of a mile above Trostem, which you passed, heard a terrible noise in the fiös (byre). He thought that the cows and sheep must have got together. So he lit a torch, and went out to see; but directly he came into the byre all was quiet in a moment, and the cattle were in their right places. The man, suspecting glamour, took effectual means to put a stop to it, by immediately striking his axe into the beam over the door of the cattle-shed.[21]Meantime Hans’ wife, who was sick in bed, observed a crowd of little people hustle into the house as soon as her husband wasout of it, and lay dunen (bedding of eider-down) for themselves on the floor, and betake themselves to repose. She kept quite still. Presently the master returned with the news that ‘It’s all right; no harm done;’ at the same moment he claps his eyes on the little people stretched on the floor. ‘Holloa, my masters! What now?’ said he, in a jovial tone, having drunk a tolerable quantity of Yule ale that evening. ‘Who are you, and whither bound?’ ‘We’ve had a long journey of it,’ replied one of the little people, rousing up, in somewhat shrill tones. ‘We’ve come all the way from Kongsberg town. We’ve been to the doctor there.’ ‘Why so?’ ‘Why, Mars Hulte (the servant of the gaard), when he was pouring the ale from the vat into the barrel, the other evening, let the cullender drop on the leg of one of our people, who happened to be near, though Hulte did not see him, and hurt it sorely. We want to stop here to-night; besides which, we wish to have a talk with you.’ ‘Very good,’ said Hans, not a whit disconcerted; ‘make yourselves at home; you seem to be acquainted with the house already. Just look out there, while I step into bed!’ Andforthwith he picked his way, with much circumspection, between the prostrate forms of the tiny people. This was no easy matter, as they lay so close together upon the floor. But he gained the bed, fortunately without doing any more damage than treading on the tip of one oldish fellow’s toe, who set up a sharp scream.
“‘Well, and where do you live?’ said Hans, resuming his place under the skin (fell) by the side of his better half, who was perfectly astonished at her good man’s boldness. ‘We live just below here, under Melbraten Hatte; but we are a good deal annoyed by one of your horses, that stables near there. The sewage leaks through, and drops on our table. The request we have to make is, that you’ll be so good as to move his quarters.’ ‘Besides which,’ said a Huldre, larger than the rest, who, at this moment, came from a corner, and stood bolt-upright by the bed-side, ‘one good turn deserves another. You were making a coat for the lad, just before Yule—you remember?’ At this Hans started. ‘And you thought you should not have enough cloth, but you had. Do you know why? It was I who stretched out the cloth, so that you hadenough, and to spare. There was a bit left for me too. Look here, this coat I have on was made of it!’
“On this, Hans said he should have no objection to comply with their request. The conversation then dropped, and from odd noises, a sort of miniature snore, which Hans heard about, he perceived that the little men in grey were dropping off to sleep again. It would never do, however, for the master of the house to follow their example, with such outlandish guests in the house. So he took care to keep his eyes well open. Before long, by the flickering embers of the fire, he saw the tallest gentleman take his (Hans’s) shirt, which his wife had put out for the morrow, and begin tearing it into shreds. ‘Hold hard there!’ exclaimed Hans, whose wife, overcoming her fears, had jogged him, when she saw the produce of her industry thus impudently destroyed. ‘Hold hard! I say.’ ‘We’re short of linen,’ answered the Huldra, soothingly, ‘and this shirt of yours will make up into a great many shirts for us.’ ‘Hold hard!’ again screamed Hans, whose mettle was thoroughly roused, his spouse also being in a great state of pucker, ‘or I’ll cock the rifle, by the rood!’
“Whether it was his gesture to reach down the rifle, or whether the name of Cors (Rood or Cross) did it, Hans could not say; but they were all off in a moment. It was quite a treat to see them bundling out, helter-skelter, as hard as ever they could get out,” added the ancient dame, whose upraised eyebrows, and a twitch at the corner of her mouth, showed that she was no foe to mirth, and enjoyed the rapid exit of the Trolls extremely.
“Such lots of them,” continued she, excitedly, as if she saw them there and then, “he could not count them. He hurried after them to the doorway, and got a sight of them, by the light of the snow and the stars, mounting on their horses, and riding away as fast as they could lay legs to ground. On examining his shirt, he found it was quite whole again. So no damage was done after all. He took care, however, to move the horse, in order to abate the nuisance complained of, and the animal throve remarkably well in his new quarters. But I must get your dinner ready.”
And so out the old lady went, in due time returning with some pancakes and fried siek, a sortof fresh-water herring, which, with perch and trout, abounds in the lake close by.
While the repast was digesting, I began to ruminate on these stories, and the remarkable likeness, nay, even identity, some of them exhibit to the superstitions of that part of Great Britain where the Northern invaders mostly frequented. Fairy lore is traced by some authors to the Pagan superstitions of Greece and Rome, and to the superstitions of the East. But we prefer to regard these supernatural beings in Scandinavia rather as in the main of home-growth than as exotics; the creations of a primitive people, who, living among wonderful natural phenomena, and being ignorant of their cause, with the proverbial boldness and curiosity of ignorance, were fond of deriving an origin for them of their own manufacture, and one stamped with the impress of their own untutored imaginations. And what a country they live in for the purpose![22]None fitter could have been devised for the residence and operations of mysterious and frightful beings. Plod along the calm, friendly landscape of England,dotted thickly with houses and steeples, with the church bells ringing merrily, or the station bell clanging imperatively (bells are thebête noireof Trolls), and the scene alive with people,—a chaw-bacon, with no speculation in his eye, driving along the heavy wain, or a matter-of-fact “commercial” labouring along with his loaded four-wheel over the dustystrata viarum,—and I’ll defy you to be otherwise than common-place and unimaginative. But let even a highly-educated man wander alone through the tingling silentness of the mighty pine-woods of the North, broken at one time by the rumble of an earthslip, at another by the roar of a waterfall, seething in some weird chasm. Let him roam over the grey fjeld, and see through the morning mist a vast head bent threateningly over him, and, unless he be a very Quaker, his imagination will turn artist or conjuror, and people the landscape with the half-hidden forms of beings more or less than human. And so it was with the old heathen Norskman, living all alone in the wilderness. When he heard the tempest howl through the ravine, and saw the whirlwind crumple up the trees, it must be the spirits of Asgaardsweeping by with irresistible force. If in autumn evenings strange gabblings were heard aloft, caused by the birds of passage moving southward, it must be troll-wives on their airy ride. If lights were seen on the stream at night, they were “corpse lights,” though in reality only caused by some fellow burning the water for salmon. If the ice split with sudden and fearful sound, engulphing the hopeless wayfarer, it was an evil spirit, requiring a human sacrifice. Those pot-looking holes and finger-marks in the rocks—those mysterious foot-marks, whence were they? Those strange, grotesque figures, as like as they can be to human forms and faces—they must once have been evil beings or demons, now turned to stone by some superior power—a power that at one time revealed itself in the hissing race aloft of the Borealis; at another time blasted and shivered the rocks in thunder and lightning. The sea naturally would be a special locality for these sprites. Did not they often see phantom-ships, which a modern would explain by the natural phenomenon of the mirage? Did not sea-monsters from time to time show themselves to the lone fisherman? Did notthey often see strange sights at the bottom of the transparent deep? Did not the calm surface suddenly rise into ruffian, crested billows, while dismal shrieks would echo at the same time from the rock-piercing caverns?
But other causes were at work. The more ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia, some of them of giant size and prodigious strength, others small of stature but very agile, like the Fins or Laps, were driven into the mountains by Odin and his Asiatics. From these hiding-places they would at times emerge—the former to do deeds of ferocity and violence, the latter to practise some of their well-known tricks, such as thieving, changing children, kidnapping people away with them. And this would, in process of time, give rise to the fancy of the existence of supernatural beings, gigantic Jotuls and tiny Trolls (in the Edda Finnr is the name for dwarfs), endued with peculiar powers. In the same way the vulgar Scotch ascribed superhuman attributes to the Picts, or Pechts.
Adam of Bremen, in the eleventh century, says that Sweyne Estridson, King of Denmark, told him that in Sweden people used to come from thehills and do great damage, and then disappear. The same author relates that in Norway there were wild women and men, who lived in the woods, and were something between men and beasts. The existence of these creatures, by whatever name called, being once assumed, all sorts of explanations were given of their origin. Thus, there is an odd Swedish superstition, that when God hurled down Lucifer and his host from heaven, they did not all fall into the burning lake, but that some fell into the sea, others upon the earth, and became the various spirits proper to those places. Another not less quaint Danish legend is to this effect:—When Eve was washing her bairns one day in a spring, the Almighty suddenly called to her. Alarmed, she threw those of her bairns that she had not washed aside, when God asked her whether all her children were there. She replied, “Yes.” Whereupon he said, “What thou hast tried to hide from God shall be hidden from men.” In a moment the unwashed children were separated from the others, and disappeared. Before the flood, God put them all into a hole, the entrance of which he fastened. From them all the underground people spring. Others again, saythat they descend from Adam, by his first wife, Lileth, while others pronounce them to be a mixed race of the sons of God and daughters of men. Even Hermann Ruge, the pastor of Slidre, in Norway, in 1754, gravely talked of underground people who were something between men and beasts. While that strange compound of superstition and enthusiasm, Luther himself, speaks of changelings as a matter of course.
But it is time to think of another sort of changeling, I mean the fresh horse, which, after a long delay, has arrived at the door. “Good bye, Mrs. Anna, many thanks.”
“Farvel, farvel! if you meet with Tidemann on your travels, say Anna Gulsvig sends him her greeting. Bless you, sir, we knew him well; he was at my son’s wedding, and pictured us all.”
She was alluding to the celebrated painter of that name, who resides in Düsseldorf, but visits his native country, Norway, every summer, returning home rich with pictorial spoils, gained in scenes like these. Professor Gude, the eminent painter, also of Düsseldorf, is the son of a gentleman who held a government office in this neighbourhood.
A port-wine pilgrimage—The perfection of a landlady—Old superstitious customs—Levelling effects of unlevelled roads—A blank day—Sketch of an interior after Ostade—A would-be resurrectionist foiled—The voices of the woods—Valuable timber—A stingy old fellow—Unmistakable symptoms of civilisation—Topographical memoranda—Timber logs on their travels—The advantages of a short cut—A rock-gorge swallows a river—Ferry talk—Welcome—What four years can do for the stay-at-homes—A Thelemarken manse—Spæwives—An important day for the millers—How a tailor kept watch—The mischievous cats—Similarity in proverbs—“The postman’s knock”—Government patronage of humble talent—Superannuated clergymen in Norway—Perpetual curates—Christiania University examination—Norwegian students—The Bernadotte dynasty—Scandinavian unity—Religious parties—Papal propagandists at Tromsö—From fanaticism to field-sports—The Linnæa Borealis.
A port-wine pilgrimage—The perfection of a landlady—Old superstitious customs—Levelling effects of unlevelled roads—A blank day—Sketch of an interior after Ostade—A would-be resurrectionist foiled—The voices of the woods—Valuable timber—A stingy old fellow—Unmistakable symptoms of civilisation—Topographical memoranda—Timber logs on their travels—The advantages of a short cut—A rock-gorge swallows a river—Ferry talk—Welcome—What four years can do for the stay-at-homes—A Thelemarken manse—Spæwives—An important day for the millers—How a tailor kept watch—The mischievous cats—Similarity in proverbs—“The postman’s knock”—Government patronage of humble talent—Superannuated clergymen in Norway—Perpetual curates—Christiania University examination—Norwegian students—The Bernadotte dynasty—Scandinavian unity—Religious parties—Papal propagandists at Tromsö—From fanaticism to field-sports—The Linnæa Borealis.
Driving through the woods on the shores of the lake, after a good deal of up and down hill, I at length arrived at the ferry, twenty miles fromGulsvig, where the Krorenfjord contracts into a river. Green, the station for the night, affords excellent accommodation; so much so, that the notorious Danish Count (SeeOxonian in Norway), so addicted to bear-hunting, has been up as far as here on purpose to taste the port-wine. By-the-bye, I encountered a Norsk proverb to-day, which if it were not ancient, would almost seem to have been made for the Count: “Han har skut Björn,” literally, “he has shot a bear,” is said of a man who is drunk. People in that state not only see double, but shoot with the longbow.
Gunild Green was the perfection of a landlady, putting meat and good bread before the wayfarer, and beer of the best. Her blue jacket, with its odd gussets behind, and broad edging of red and yellow braid, did not, it is true, reach nearly down to the place where a woman’s waist ought to be. But that was no matter, for the skirt made up for the omission by advancing to the jacket. Her Quaker-like, quiet face was framed in a neat cap, and the forehead bound in with a silk kerchief. All about the house betokened considerable wealth.
But notwithstanding that these people are of the Upper Ten Thousand of Norway, I hear that the old superstitious customs still obtain at the gaard. A cross in chalk, or an axe or a toll-knife is placed over every cattle-shed at Yule. The old lady gave no reason further than it was skik (custom). A cake with a cross of juniper berries made on the top of it is baked at Christmas against Candlemas-day (Kyndel-misse). In other parts of Norway a small cake is baked for each person, and not eaten till twenty days after. Again, the sledges are never allowed at Christmas to lie flat on the ground, but are reared up against the wall. If anybody goes thrice round the house, then looks in at a window through a black kerchief and sees anyone at the board without a head, that person will die before next Yule.
The day after Yule the men go out with the cow-house ordure very early, before light. They never, if they can help it, bring in water for the copper on Yule, but get a supply into the house the day before. On Christmas Eve every person of condition has a mess of rice-porridge, and the servants in better class houses come into the room and receive a glass of something comfortable. Thecattle are not overlooked on this great Christian festival. “Come, Dokkero,” says the milkmaid, just like some girl in Theocritus, to her cow, “you shall have some good food to-day.”
Finding that I can go some five miles by water, I select that method of conveyance. Indeed, I should prefer this species of locomotion for the rest of the journey, for I find, on examination, that in consequence of the jolting motion of the country carts, my effects are pounded up as if they had been brayed in a mortar. One or two silk kerchiefs have turned into tatters, and the sand of the cartridges has oozed out and become mixed up with the contents of the broken Macassar oil bottle, which I had destined for my elf-locks on again reaching civilization. The boat was long and narrow, and easily rowed, but the stalwart rower was hardly a match in speed for some little black and white ducks to which we gave chase. At last we got among them. Down they dived, and, as they reappeared, off went my gun; but in consequence of the crankness of the boat, it was impossible to take aim quick enough, and, after a few unavailing shots, I gave up the game, fairly beaten. My fishing tackle likewisedid no execution among the trout, which now begin to get smaller. The boatman mentioned two other kinds of fish to be found here, “scad” and “jup.”
In fact we are now getting out of the wild sporting of the upper valleys, although six rifles suspended in the passage of the next station-house, Vassenrud, betokened the existence of large fowl, and probably beasts of prey, in the forests around. Countless logs float down this river, and I see here a list of the different brands used by the Drammen merchants to distinguish the several owners.
As the horse I was to have lived across the Sound, I had ample time to look about me, and observe the peculiarities of the establishment. The best room floor was painted in figures, around it were ranged a score of high-backed, old-fashioned leather chairs, stamped with a pattern. I wish the author of the Sketch-book could have seen them; he would have made them all tell a history at once. Leaving this room, I followed my nose, and entered the door facing. A very fat man, with a heavy, sleepy eye, quite a tun of a fellow, a red skull-cap striped with black on his head, sat in his shirt sleeves eating a leg of veal, which wasflanked by some nice-looking bread and a bottle of brandy. It was only nine,A.M., but the opportunity was not to be lost, so I fell to also. Beside me, on a shelf, was a tankard of massive silver, weighing one hundred and twenty lod = about sixty-five ounces English. Pretty well to do, thought I, these peaceful descendants of the Vikings.
In reply to my query whether there were any old memorials about, the obese Boniface moved his lack-lustre eye slowly, and shook his head. Old memorials, forsooth! were not the newly-killed calf and its appetizing adjuncts subjects much more worthy of attention? Presently, however, after an interval of seemingly profound thought, he observed that there was something like a coffin or two in the forest a mile off.
“Had they been opened?”
“No. People thought it unlucky to touch them. They were near his hûsman’s, and the hûsman would show me them if I mentioned his name.”
At the hûsman’s I found nobody but his wife, who was ignorant on the subject. So, after a fatiguing search, I returned without having accomplished my purpose, and the horse having arrived,I had to start. The fat man was now recumbent on the bed within, looking uncommonly like a barrel of beer. All Norwegians take a siesta at noon. The charge made for my sumptuous repast was twelve skillings = five-pence English. As we roll along gaily through the sombre pine-forests, the odour of which the Norwegians, I think wrongly, compare to that of a “dead house” (Liighus). I fall, as a matter of course, into conversation with Knut, my schuss.
“Had he ever seen these trolls which people talked of so much higher up the valley.”
“No; I neversawone; but I’veheardone.”
“Indeed, where?”
“When I was hewing wood in the forest.”
“What did he say?”
“He only said ‘Knut’ three times.”
“And did you speak?”
“No—that would have been unlucky. They are not such bad people, folks say, if you only become well acquainted with them.”
In the forest we passed some splendid trees near Snarum. “Valuable timber about here,” I observed.
“Yes, very. It’s not long ago that some sold for a hundred dollars apiece (twenty pound sterling); they were seventy feet long, and more than four in diameter. Vassenrud (the fat station-master, no wonder, with all this property, he is fat) has a deal of forest. He sold some lately. He got sixteen thousand dollars for giving leave to fell the timber on a square mile (seven English), none to be cut smaller than nine inches in diameter, eighteen feet from the ground. These trees just here belong to a stingy old fellow, who lives down there by the side of the river, Ole Ulen. A man came from the By (town) to see them, and make a purchase.
“‘I have come to look at the trees,’ said he.
“‘Oh, yes,’ said Ole Ulen; ‘we’ll go and see them.’
“Arrived in the forest, the stranger measured the big trees with his eye, and thought they would suit exactly.
“‘Fine trees, aren’t they?’ said Ole Ulen, adjusting his spectacles, and almost breaking his neck to look up at the trees. ‘So tall and so thick,’ he continued, like a miser gloating over his treasure.
“‘Not bad,’ replied the proposing buyer, in a careless tone, chuckling inwardly at the thought of the bargain he was going to drive with the plainly-dressed, simple-looking old bonder, but careful not to betray his admiration of the magnificent timber, for fear of sending up the prices.
“‘No, not so bad,’ said Ole Ulen, as they walked homeward.
“‘Well, what’s to be the price?’ asked the merchant, while they were drinking a glass of brandy.
“‘Price!’ replied the other; ‘I’m not going to sell them—never thought of it. You asked to look at them, and so you have, and welcome, and well worth seeing they are.’
“‘Well, no doubt,’ said Knut; ‘he might do what he liked with his own trees. Sell them or not, as he thought proper.’
“‘But he’s so fond of his money, he won’t help his own kith and kin. There was his son-in-law, over the river, had just completed a purchase, and went to him to borrow three hundred dollars.
“‘Very sorry,’ was his reply, ‘but he had got no cash in the house.’
“The young man went and got accommodated at another farm, and then returned to Ule’s.
“‘Well, how have you fared?’
“‘All right; I got the loan. They were the more willing to lend, for they had some notes of old date, which are to be called in by the bank at Trondjem, before the month’s out, and it will save them the trouble and expense of sending them up there.’
“‘Ay, so,’ replied Ule, meditatively. ‘What is the date of the notes that are to be called in? Perhaps I may have some.’ And going to an old cupboard, he produced from a coffee-pot seven hundred dollars.”
We now get into an enclosed and more cultivated country, and see symptoms of civilization as we approached Vikersund, in the shape of a drunken man or two staggering homewards; and, at the merchant’s, where I stop to make some small purchase, there is a crowd of peasants clustering round the counter, or sitting in corners, imbibing corn brantviin.
At Vikersund the road forks. That to the leftleads to Christiania, by the shores of the beautiful Tyri Fjord and the pass of Krog-Kleven; the other crossing the wide sound, the only vent of the Tyri, Hols, and Rand fjords, by a very long bridge, goes to Drammen and Kongsberg.
In the stream lie thousands of logs that have been cut down in the mountains and along the feeders of this glorious waterway, to the very foot of the Fillefjeld. Some of them have, perhaps, left their native grove two or three years ago, and would never have got here were it not for certain persons jogging their memories and goading them into unwilling activity. One of the most characteristic features of a Norwegian valley are gangs of burly broad-chested men, armed with huge poles, the ends of which are shod with a hook and spike. Directly there are symptoms of the water rising after rain, these fellows appear suddenly, and are seen pushing the stranded timbers from the shore, dashing through the water in their great jack-boots, to islands or shoals, for the like purpose, or boating across the river to set afloat some straggling laggard; and, forthwith, all these, like so many great cadises,just disengaged from their anchor, and soon to take wing, go swarming down the stream. The boat, by-the-bye, used by these Norsk equivalents to the Far West lumber-men, is never destined to return to its mountain home, but will be sold below for what it will fetch.
In Norway scenes are constantly meeting the traveller’s eye, whether it be such as that just described, or the rude log-huts, or the countless tree stumps, the work of the axe, or the unthinned density of forests which are not near any watercourse, which forcibly bring to one’s mind Oliphant’s description of Minnesota and the Far West. But there is this trifling difference, that whereas there you may as likely as not be bulleted, or your weasand slit by a bowie-knife, you are safer in this country than in any land in Europe.
As it was my purpose to visit a clergyman in the neighbourhood, I left the main route, and took a short cut, by which I saved six miles in distance, though not in time. For the short way was a pleasant alternation of ledges of rock and mudpits. Fortunately I was provided with an air-cushionto sit upon, or the jolting must have proved fatal, at all events to my teeth. If there is no dentist here—such a thing I never heard of in Norway—there ought to be.
After four or five miles up and down, we descended in good earnest through a straggling grove of pines, their dark foliage now rendered darker by the fast approaching night. To our left I could see something white, and heard fierce roarings. The broad expanse of water at Vikersund had narrowed into a mere fissure, only a few yards across, with splintered walls of overhanging rock. What! that small-throated boa-constrictor going to swallow up such a monstrous lump of water at a mouthful? Choked it will be, and no mistake. See, what a chattering, and frothing, and smoking! That lot of trees, too, they must stick in his gizzard; half-a-dozen have lodged there already, firm and immovable, as if riveted by the strongest bolts. A few steps more, and behold! the strife has ceased; the logs, together with the boiling soapsuds, have shot through the tunnel or funnel, and lie heaving and panting on the waters ofanother river of no little breadth and volume, which, swiftly gliding through the forest, cuts in here, and joins the narrow outlet of the great Drammen river at right angles.
After their prodigious tussle, it must be quite a relief to those much battered logs to rock in the comparatively tranquil lap of the Hallingdal river; for it is my old friend of Hemse-Fjeld reminiscence—who kept now rollicking and roaring like a schoolboy, now floating lightly and whispering softly, like a miss in her teens, as we journeyed along together—that here clubs its fortunes with the lusty progeny of the Fillefjeld.
At the fork made by the two streams dwelt a ferryman, who speedily transferred my effects from the carriole to his frail boat. It required careful navigation to get over; as the surge of the Vikersund river—which, as the ferryman told me, albeit it had come through such an eye of a needle, was by far the bigger of the two—was of such momentum and so sudden in its dash that the crowding waters of the Halling were struck all of a heap by the concussion, and fairly turned roundand fled. After recovering the first shock, however, it gradually established a nearer intimacy with the boisterous stranger, and they presently made a fresh start forward, and vaulted together over a rugged rapid below, which I could just see gleaming through the dusky shades of the evening, and the forest. The first struggles with the world of the new-married couple.
“We have only to get up the hill,” said the ferryman, shouldering my pack, as we safely reached the opposite shore, “and we shall be soon at the parson’s house.”
A warm welcome did I get from my friend the pastor. He recognised my voice directly, as he opened the door in the dark.
“Vilkommen, Vilkommen, Metcalfe! Hvor staae til? (welcome, Metcalfe! how are you?) Det fornoie mig meget, at de har ikke glemt os (I’m glad you’ve not forgotten us).”
And I was speedily in the Stuë, shaking hands with the Fruë (clergymen’s wives have by law this title; merchants’ wives are only madame). Her fair, good-humoured face fatter, and her figurerounder than when I saw her four years ago at the mountain parish in the west. Lisa, too, the hobbledehoy girl, all legs and arms, like a giblet pie, has now become quite a woman, and more retiring. The baby, Arilda, too, runs about bigger and bonnier, while Katinka, another and elder sister, whom I have never seen before, comes forward to greet her father’s friend. There are also some ladies from the “by” (town), with the latest news, foreign and domestic.
I spend a day or two with my kind and intelligent host and his family. Much of his income is derived from land, so that he farms on a large scale. The house is beautifully situate. Beneath us may be seen the river playing at hide and seek among umbrageous woods. On the hills opposite is the mother church of the district, with large farms clustering about it. The neighbourhood abounds in minerals. Not far off is a cobalt-work, now under the auspices of a Saxon company, and which is said to be productive. If the old derivation for cobold be from cobalt, because that particular sort of sprite’s favouritehabitatis a mine of this description, I shall, no doubt, pick up a goblin story or two at the manse.
Katinka, the eldest girl, is very well read; better certainly than any I have met with in the country, for they are not a reading people. She sings a national song or two with much feeling, and explains to me the meaning of them, which, as they are written in old Norsk, would be otherwise difficult of comprehension.
“But how do you know the meaning of this outlandish lingo?—it’s not a bit like the written Norsk of the present time.”
“It was not for nothing,” replied she, “that I lived from a baby in the mountain parish where we first saw you. The inhabitants of those sequestered dales still use many of the old words and forms of speech.”
I was soon on my hobby—legends and superstitions.
“Have you any witches or spæ-wives, as they are called in Scotland?” asked I.
“Signe-kierringe, you mean. Oh, yes. Theyare still to be found. My aunt there, when she was a girl, was measured by one.”
“How so?”
“They take a string, which they pretend has been prepared in some wonderful manner, and measure round the waist, and along the arms, and so on most accurately, and there is supposed to be some wonderful virtue in the operation. It is a sure recipe against all harm from the Nisser. But I have a book here, with a tale of one Mads, a warlock. He was cutting timber in the forest; it was about mid-day. He had just got the wedge into a fallen tree, when he saw his old woman come up with his dinner. It was romme-gröd (a peculiar sort of porridge). She sat down, when he just spied a tail peeping out behind her, which she chanced to stick in the cleft that he had made in the tree. Mads bade her wait a bit, and he would sit down and eat directly. The cunning fellow meantime managed to get the wedge out. The crack closed, and the tail was fast. At the same time he uttered Jesus’ name. Up started the hag, and snapped off the end of her tail. What a screamshe gave. On looking at the dinner, he found it was nothing but some cow-dung in a bark basket.”
“Have not the peasantry here,” I inquired, “some odd notions about the fairies stopping the wheel of the water-mill?”
“Oh, yes!” replied Miss Katinka. “September 1st is an important day for the millers. If it is dry on that day it will be dry, they say, for a long time. This is owing to the Quernknurre (mill sprite).
“There is a tale in Asbjörnsen of a miller near Sandok Foss, in Thelemarken (I visited this place afterwards), whose mill-wheel would not go, although there was plenty of water. He examined the machinery accurately, but could not discover what was amiss. At last he went to the small door that opened into the wheel-box. Opening it a very little he spied a most vicious-looking troll poking about inside. Closing the door with all speed, before the troll caught sight of him, he went to his hut and put on the fire a large pot full of tar. When it was boiling hot he went to the wheel door and opened it wide. The troll inside, who wasbusy scotching the wheel, faced round at him in a moment, and opened his mouth (or rather his head) wider than a warming pan, indeed so wide that his gape actually reached from the door sill to the top of the door. ‘Did you ever see such a gape as that in all your life?’ said he to the miller. Without a moment’s delay the miller poured the hot pitch right into the monster’s throat (which might be called pitching it into him), and answered the inquiry by asking another, ‘Did you ever get such a hot drink before?’ It would appear that the miller had effectually settled the creature, for he sunk down into the water with a fearful yell, and never was heard of more. From that day forward the miller throve, and much grist came to him, actually and figuratively.”
Miss Katinka was not a classical scholar, so I suppressed certain illustrations which rose to my tongue, as she told the story, such as “hians immane,” and the miller having used a most effectual digamma for stopping the hiatus; and I told her instead, that in the Scottish highlands there is a kindred being called Urisk, a hairy sprite,who sets mills at work in the night when there is nothing to grind, and that he was once sent howling away by a pan full of hot ashes thrown into his lap when asleep.
“I have read another curious story of a mill,” continued my fair informant.
“There was a peasant up in the west whose mill (quern) was burned down two Whitsuntides following. The third year, on Whitsun Eve, a travelling tailor was staying with him, making some new clothes for the next day. ‘I wonder whether my new mill will be burnt down to-night again?’ said the peasant. ‘Oh, I’ll keep watch,’ exclaimed the tailor; ‘no harm shall happen.’ True to his word, when night came on, the knight of the shears betook himself to the mill. The first thing he did was to draw a large circle with his chalk on the floor, and write ‘Our Father’ round it, and, that done, he was not afraid, no not even if the fiend himself were to make his appearance. At midnight the door was suddenly flung open, and a crowd of black cats came in. The tailor watched. Before long the new comers lit a fire in the chimney-corner,and got a pot upon it, which soon began to bubble and squeak, as if it was full of boiling pitch. Just then, one of the cats slily put its paw on the side of the pot, and tried to upset it. ‘Mind, nasty cat, you’ll burn yourself,’ said the tailor, inside his ring. ‘Mind, nasty cat, you’ll burn yourself, says the tailor to me,’ says the cat to the other cats. And then all the cats began dancing round the ring. While they were dancing, the same cat stole slily to the chimney-corner and was on the point of upsetting the pot, when the tailor exclaimed, ‘Mind, nasty cat, you’ll burn yourself.’ ‘Mind, nasty cat, you’ll burn yourself, says the tailor to me,’ says the cat to the other cats. And then the whiskered crew began to dance again round the tailor. Another attempt at arson was made with no better success. And all the cats danced round the tailor, quicker and quicker, their eyes glowing, till his head spun round again. But still he luckily kept his self-possession and his sense. At last the cat, which had tried to upset the pot, made a grab at him over the ring, but missed. The tailor was on the alert, and next time the cat’s pawcame near he snipped it off short with his shears. What a spitting and miauling they did make, as they all fled out of the mill, leaving the tailor to sleep quietly in his ring for the rest of the night. In the morning he opened the mill door and went down to the peasant’s house. He and his wife were still in bed, for it was Whitsun morning, and they were having a good sleep of it. How glad the miller was to see the tailor. ‘Good morrow to you,’ he said, reaching out his hand, and giving the tailor a hearty greeting. ‘Good morrow, mother,’ said the tailor to the wife, offering her his hand. But she looked so strange and so pale, he could not make it out. At last she gave him her left hand, and kept the other under the sheepskin. Ay, ay, thought the tailor, I see how the ground lies.”
“The miller-wife was one of the subterranean people, then,” I put in.
“No doubt of it,” said Miss Katinka.
“If the tailor had been an Englishman,” observed I, “we should have said that he ‘knew which way the cat jumped;’” and then I had to explain, andthis elicited the remark, that the Norwegians are by no means deficient in proverbs.
“Have you a Norwegian equivalent to our commonest of English proverbs—‘to carry coals to Newcastle?’”
“Yes,” put in the worthy pastor, “but with a difference. We say, ‘to carry the bucket over the brook to fetch water.’”
“Well, we have another, not less common—‘to reckon upon your chickens before they are hatched.’”
“That’s our ‘you must not sell the skin till you’ve shot the bear.’ It’s just the same as yours, but with a local colouring.”
“All these proverbs, by the way, are not true,” continued I. “There is an English proverb that it requires nine tailors to make a man: as if a tailor was inferior to the rest of mankind in courage. That last story of Miss Katinka’s is a proof to the contrary. I remember being in Berlin, just after the revolution of 1848, and visiting the cemetery of those who had fallen. There was one monument to the memory of one Johann Schwarz, with an inscriptionto the effect that he fought like a hero, and received nine, or maybe nineteen wounds. Indeed, at the London police-offices, whenever a man is brought before his Worship for assault and battery of the worst description, or for drubbing the policemen within an inch of their lives, the odds are that it will be a tailor with a little body and a great soul.”