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 of Young Tamlane—

“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-hide double 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, which abounds 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 station of 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 of Paris 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 observed at 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 were hors 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-keeper was 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 much former 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 durst not 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 let them 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 loud lowing 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 was out 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!’ And forthwith 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 had enough, 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 sort of 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 the bÊte noire of 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 dusty strata 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 Asgaard sweeping 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 not they 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 the hills 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, say that 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.