The first journey I undertook in my life was a Christmas journey. It was a pleasure without equal, and all the small episodes and events of the journey made such a vivid impression upon me as if it were yesterday. A parson’s family that lived a few leagues from town, whose sons were students and who lodged with my parents, had invited my sisters and me at Christmas.
We left town on Christmas Eve, at dinner time. It was a great sleigh trip, for a whole entourage, who would be visiting the parsonage or making their Christmas visits elsewhere in the village, had agreed to leave at the same time. There were fellows clothed in reindeer skins in their cutters, gentlemen and ladies in broad sleighs, and two-horse box sleighs full of numerous and mixed parties. In two of these drove the parson’s sons and their parties: ladies from the city, a couple of other students—of which one was a theologist, the other studying medicine, which was the cause of his being called the doctor—together with me and some children.
As the conditions on the country road were dire around the city, we drove on the ice, which had formed early. After about a league we turned up through the forest. The conditions were superb; it was fresh winter weather, and we travelled merrily along, the sleigh-bells ringing jollily; the company laughing and joking, the children rejoicing loudly; the steam of the horses competed with that from the students’ whistles; the rays of the sun broke through the fog, and glittered on the snow and ice, on trees and frosted bushes. When we had come up on the heights, where the views opened up, the sky stood in the glowing colours of the winter evening, and the sun cast its powerful red light over mighty, knurled tree trunks, groups of leafless trees, and forests and groves, which with uncertain boundaries emerged from the fog and mist; it spread its rose-coloured winter cast across the sea of fog, where the waves, like cover—here opaque, here translucent—lay broad across ice and fjord and villages. But our view point was higher; we were now out of the fog, high above the fog ceiling, and close before us the dark, forested hills rose clearly above the mist. Against the glittering evening sky, we could perceive each tree on the heights. From a church, the tower and white walls of which rose above a spruce copse some way from the road, loud, solemn tones rang towards us; the landscape itself lay in an atmosphere that affected them. Gripped by the mild evening mood, which in this manner was emphasised by the solemn knell of the bells, the company grew more silent and still, until we came to the change, where the horses could rest, and we eat supper.
When we again set off, the day had passed, but it was not too dark, for the white snow reflected the light of the stars and the sky. The drivers said that it would be cold during the night, because of the clear sky, they said. Eastwards, over the forest, cold, clear silver stripes glittered on the edge of the sky, and after a while the moon came out. Here we walked beside the sleighs up the slopes, there we chased off across hills and heights, where the spruces stood, powdered and weighed down with the snow, and we could look beneath the branches and between the trunks into secretive grottoes and passages, where it must have been cozy for elves and trolls to conduct their mocking games; now and then broad views of the dark forested landscape opened up, too. Then we went through plains of pine, where the road was as even as a parlour floor, where the upright trunks formed high halls of columns, between which fairy-tale characters from the animal- and fable worlds were merrily fancied forth, to show themselves in the uncertain light that the moon sparingly cast down through the forest, for so in the next moment to disappear again, or transform into snow-covered bushes, stumps, and windfalls. Now the road twisted itself down through a deep gorge, the steep sides of which framed the snow-covered landscapes in the shadow of the hills and dark forests, which broad and wide lay beneath. We had finally come down, and now our pace picked up again across the ice-covered fjord. The cold grew more noticeable; a sharp northerly wind blew here, which made it necessary for us to pull our hats further down over our ears, to tie our scarves tighter about our necks and waists, to stomp in the carriages and beat our hands together. The horses trotted sharply, and their long shadows flew quickly across the fjord. Once in a while a resounding crack came from the ice; the city ladies cried aloud, and a middle-aged gentleman, who had recently tried the value of his life by getting engaged, and who with his young sweetheart, drove behind us in a broad sleigh, cried even more loudly and each time it cracked, he cried, “God’s death, we ought to turn and drive to land!”
His driver quite drily made him aware of the fact that it was just as far to land in all directions. Another added sardonically that it would be more dangerous to drive back than forward; he would then be alone and find it difficult to save both horse and sweetheart from the pack of wolves, which someone on the estate said lived along the fjord beneath the forest. To the relief of the fearful one, we approached land quite quickly, despite the old proverb that the ice road is slow. During the journey one of the stranger students rose in his sleigh, and as he stared away into the shadows on one of the high islands that lay here, he cried:
“What is it, that is moving in there?”
“What?” — “Where?
“In there, on the ice below the island; it’s coming out into the moonlight, north of the deep mountain wall.”
“A pack of wolves!” everyone cried together.
“You mustn’t paint the devil on the wall!” exclaimed one of the party. “There are seven of them.”
“Yes, if only we had a rifle, and at least one of them would be fey!” said the doctor with an earnest conviction.
“They are following after us!” cried the driver of the broad sleigh.
“Hu! Hu!” cried our city ladies.
“Who?” asked the fiancé, for he had been sitting, slouched in deep conversation with his sweetheart, and now he didn’t know what we were talking about, or what was going on. “What is it?” he asked, frightened and confused.
“Oh, the pack of wolves there, north of the island,” said his driver.
“Where?” he cried quickly, and in fear, before he had caught sight of the wolves, he clicked with his mouth, and tapped the horse, so that with great speed it set off, past us and towards land. Our horses, which would not break up the party, followed this good example. But just as we turned up towards a headland, where the ice road touched land, the horses caught wind of the wolves, which had also come on to land, and which came loping, one after the other, showing themselves long and grey against the sky, on a small rise beyond the road. The horses were distracted; the great box sleigh careened at an angle, suddenly tipped, and deposited its entire load of gentlemen dressed for travelling, with tobacco pipes in their mouths, ladies with foot bags, us children, together with all kinds of pails, hat boxes, and travelling bags, tumbling over one another in a tight ball in the deep snow. There were screams and clamour and laughter; there was crunching and scurrying so that no one would suffocate in the snow or from the mass that lay on top, to come apart from one another and regain their feet. One had got a suitcase on their lap, another a couple of ladies, one had fallen headfirst into a hat box, another was feet first in a pail of food—certainly an unlucky position, but one that for the smiling children opened the prospect of pancakes and pastries. The doctor, who because of his eagerness and interest for the noble art of driving had taken possession of the coachman’s seat, had in overturning let go the reins and let the horses run. When he now discovered that no one had been hurt, he began to scold and tell off the whole party for making such a noise and fuss for nothing, most likely to distract attention from his own poor performance as coachman.
“Can you not come apart from one another?” he exclaimed.“ It looks as if that bed in the snow is not at all uncomfortable! I just wish I could fetch you a bigger pile of snow, for your pillows and bedspread! You laugh and scream both your lungs and heart out before you get up, and you may do so with good reason, for you look like ghosts and julebukker, and will probably want to present yourselves to the parson as a Christmas troll-procession. Make sure you get up again! The little rascal in the yellow cape—does he really think that now is the time to lie on his belly eating pancakes? Let us come away, all of us, and cease this noise and laughter!” he called eagerly.
His inappropriate behaviour, the powdery snow, the strange mumbling figures that raised themselves up or were pulled out into the moonlight, and the helpless condition in which certain members of the party found themselves, made the laughter and noise quite worrying. The coachman grew even angrier about this. No one thought of the wolves any more, which had been frightened by the clamour, the laughter, and the sleigh bells, and had run off—no one thought of the box sleigh or the horses before one of the parson’s sons raised himself up on his knees and said:
“Yes, let us! You will most certainly carry us all on your broad back—but take a breather first—you can see they are only laughing at you. Or perhaps you can tell us where our horses have got to. Didn’t you let them go?”
“What happened to the horses?! Let them go? Certainly I let them go, yes,” replied the coackman boldly; “do you think I can hold the horses back, when they take fright and run? Thank me rather that everyone is whole.”
“When you tip over, you must never let go the reins, my boy, but rather let the hoses drag you over log and stone.”
This driving lesson, which was given in an unusually deep voice, and so slowly and with great seriousness, came from the district governor, who at the head of the other party now came back to collect us here. He quickly looked to our helpless condition, instructed his driver to help us, and gave a helping hand himself. Now it was told us that the box sleigh lay in a hollow or grotto a little farther up; the shafts were broken, but fortunately the horses had been halted by the driver of the broad sleigh, who had driven ahead. Amidst a lot of talk and nonsense here and there, and after countless calls, our city ladies were picked up and packed together on some of the other newly-arrived sleighs, while certain gentlemen found it good to climb on to the runners like footmen. The whole company soon disappeared from us; we were left behind around the box sleigh and tried to keep warm by tramping in the snow and beating our arms like fishermen. After a while the footmen, who had been sent to one of the nearest farms, came back with some borrowed shafts, and we quickly repaired the damage. And at length, we arrived at the parsonage farm, pathetically frozen.
“Are you finally here? Welcome, welcome; God bless all of you!” said the old parson, who received us on the porch. “And twice welcome, since you weren’t hurt by the horses—and since the wolves didn’t get you,” he added, jokingly, following us—after our travelling clothes had been shed and our noses and ears accounted for—in to the families and the ladies, who were just installing themselves at the Christmas supper table.
The pleasant home, these friendly people, and this evening remain in my memory among the best memories of my childhood. The merry lighting and table setting, the mild peace that in the shadow of unfeigned piety appeared to made its dwelling there, the benevolent impression of evening devotion before the Lord’s table, the old, friendly parson folk, their contented, modest daughters, their steady, solemn sons, the lively conversation with jokes and laughter (which later moved on to the remembrance and telling of the events and the accidents of our journey), the quick students, and the nonsense and foolery of the light-hearted ladies—all this was as if it placed me in a new, unknown country.
A great deal of that which was said and spoken, has in the intervening years been lost from my memory; the best of what has remained is the stories, legends, and tales that were told. I have also had occasion to refresh them later, by listening to them again in the meadows where they have their home. In the following, I will, as well as I can, attempt to retell them and that which is connected to them.
One of the ladies from the city set this entertainment in motion when she, during the conversation—I forget how it started—expressed her belief that the hulder-folk and subterraneans are extinct. The students disagreed, giving examples from the immediate vicinity of the city. The eldest of the parson’s sons said that in Valdres, where he had spent part of his childhood, one was certain of these “offspring of superstition” just as surely as of the gospel.
“Yes,” said the old parson, “that is unfortunately all too true, and I shall in that connection tell you a story which in all seriousness has been told to me as if it really happened and was experienced in Valdres, a couple of years ago.”
The party drew together; those who stood sat down, and the parson began his tale.
“There was a schoolmaster from Etnedalen, who went fishing in the hills. He always had a great desire to read, this man, and so he always had some book or other with him, that he lay reading on holidays, or when the weather forced him to stay inside his fishing hut. One Sunday morning as he lay thus, reading his book, he thought he perceived the pealing of church bells—sometimes the sound was weak, as if it were far away, but sometimes it sounded loud, as if the wind carried the ringing to him. He listened to this for a long time and wondered about it; he did not want to trust his senses, for he knew it was impossible to hear the village church bells so far out in the hills, but the the ringing did not stop in his ears.
“Now he laid aside his book, got up, and went out. The sun was shining; it was beautiful weather, and one group of church folk after the other went past, with their hymn books, and dressed in their best. A little way off on the hill, where before he had never seen anything but forest and scrub, there stood an old wooden church. After a while the parson came walking past, and he was so old and weak that his wife and daughter supported him. When they came past the place where the schoolmaster stood, they stopped, and asked him to go with them to the church to listen to the mass. The schoolmaster thought a little about this, but as he thought it would be fun to hear how these folk worshipped God, he replied that he would go with them, if it would not do him any harm. No, no harm would come to him, but rather good, they said.
“In the Church things went quietly and calmly; there were no dogs or screaming children there to disturb the service, and the singing was beautiful, but he could not understand the words. When the parson was led up to the pulpit, he preached (in the schoolmaster’s ears) A beautiful, edifying sermon, but it had, it occurred to him, a strange line of reasoning, which he was not always able to follow. ‘Our father’ did not ring true, either, and he did not hear ‘deliver us from evil’ at all; never was the name of Jesus mentioned, and when it was over, no blessing was proclaimed, either.
“When the mass was finished the schoolmaster was invited to the parsonage. He replied to this in the same way he had replied at first, that he would like to go, if it would not do him any harm, and they said the same as they had already said, that if he obliged them, then it would be of benefit, not harm for him. So he went with them to the parsonage, and it was like a neat and good country parsonage usually is. There was a garden of flowers and apple trees and a pretty picket fence around it. They invited him to eat dinner, and it was well made and prettily served. He said as before that he would like to do as they asked, if it would not do him any harm, and he received the same reply. He ate there, therefore, and said later that he could find no difference between their food and the Christian food he had eaten a couple of times he had sat at the parson’s table in the village.
“When he had taken some coffee, the parson’s wife and daughter took him out to a chamber, and the wife complained that father was so old and delicate that he could not do it any more, then she said that the schoolmaster was a quick and lithe man, and finally both she and her daughter said that they would like to have him as parson, after the old father, if he wanted to stay with them; for there was no danger of a visitation from the bishop or an interrogation from the provost; they had nothing to do with that kind of thing. When the schoolmaster heard this, he said that even though he were in possession of the necessary learning, he doubted that he had the gifts, and as it was such an important matter, both for him and them to make a hasty decision about, then he required a year in which to consider the matter. After he had said this, he stood by a tarn by the hill, and could see neither parsonage nor church, and so he thought the story was done.
“But a year later, on exactly the day when his time of consideration should come to an end, he was working on a building, for when school was not in session he did joinery or fished. As he sat with his axe, astride one of the walls, he saw the parson’s daughter, whom he had seen in the mountains, walking straight towards him. She asked if he was now finished considering. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I have considered, but I cannot do it; I cannot defend doing it before my God and my conscience.’ The subterranean parson’s daughter was gone the that very moment, but immediately afterwards, he hewed himself on the knee, so that he was a cripple the rest of his days.”
The parson and the students now began to discuss what had brought about these legends, and what it was that was so vivid that it had imprinted this superstition on the public’s imagination. One said that it came from the old tales, which in varying forms returned in dreams, until one thought one had experienced them. The doctor guessed that they most often came from confused minds, a sickly condition of the soul or physical illness; for one had often heard, he said, that they who thought they had experienced something supernatural, grew ill or crazy, as it was called, afterwards, but this was not correct; the illness or confusion had come first, and the visions, the tales of trolls, nisses, etc. afterwards, during the sickness. That many such stories came from drunkenness and imbibing beer was all too certain. One had good reason to conclude that these visions, legends, or supernatural stories were something that had no home outside, only within the souls of certain persons, and thus such narratives generally vivdly intervened in the daily business and habits of the narrator. Was it a smith who was telling, then he would have heard the subterranean tread the bellows and swing the sledgehammer, and seen the fire and the sparks fly in the smithy from their hammer strokes; was it a woodcutter, he would have heard axe strokes after that he had ended his work; were it a miller, he would have heard the slapping of the mill; were it a minstrel, he would hear melodies in the mounds and mountains, and the hulder playing the langeleik. All this was so natural that it needed no explanation; he needed only remind the ladies of the sound of song in their ears when they had danced a number of evenings in a row at Christmas; he needed merely to remind the gentlemen who had been at sea, of the memory of the sailing trip the unexperienced man has, long after he has come ashore, as the floor or the ground appears to gyrate with the waves. So was it also with most sounds and sights that are considered supernatural; it was something that in reality that was no more, but which through nerves and the sensory apparatus, which had long been affected by natural means, still thought them present. A schoolmaster hearing peeling bells was nothing remarkable, for that belonged in a way to his field; perhaps he wished to be a sexton or a bellringer.
That which had been recounted, said the youngest of the parson’s sons, could in many cases be true and right, especially the last point, but with the condition that one took the superstition as a remnant of the ideas of the remote olden times, and not simply and plainly as a trick of the mind and drunkenness or stomach ache or hysteria. Such an understanding of the matter was so sensory and coarse that it it could not stand up to scrutiny. Superstition was the poetry of the folk and had once been their religion; the old ideas of creatures that were hidden or hostile to humans was their foundation. Who among us didn’t know of the old legends of the jotner, riser, elves, and dwarves? For the original people it was a natural thought that the wide sea, the wild mountains, the uneven forest, the deep lakes, the desolate moors, with their loneliness and foreboding, with their strange, shifting play of light and shadow, with all their sounds and gripping natural tones, was a home for supernatural creatures. There were a multitude of them in the age of the sagas. At the time Christianity was introduced, St. Olav and the priests conjured them into logs and stones, but the old faith was far too ingrained; the old ideas would not let themselves be bound, so long as the mighty surroundings remained in the view of the folk in the same way; and it is so even today. And subsequently, the old legends of the gods, and ancient ideas would, even though they had been fractured and distorted through the ages, still, under certain moods and conditions of the soul, be able to be called to life as living and present. That is the way it was, too; a multitude remained still in folk beliefs; there are even some that may be said to be overpopulated, as in each pasture, every tarn, every prominent point, according to the sagas was inhabitated by hulders and subterraneans. One might not want to admit that such ancient material was everywhere. But anyone who knows anything of the Nordic olden times, and of the poetry that still lives among the folk, knows and feels how much heathenism appears in our folktales, legends, and signing-verses. Anyone who had looked a little deeper into this, knows that most of the folktales and legends contain remnants of such from the most remote past faith, which shows itself in the figurative understanding of supernatural things. But, he continued, a famous author has in truth said that the mystical in these god-legends lies like fragments of a gem that have sprouted from the ground that is so overgrown with grass and flowers that it demands the sharpest of eyes to discover them. This is certain and true; for though the meaning of it was certainly lost a long time ago, we still feel it, and it is this which gives the folktales and legends their content and meaning, at the same time that it satisfies the desire for the wonderful. It is never merely and only the play of colour on an empty power of imagination. The farther we go back, the wider the mystical has spread, and it looks as if the god-legends formed the only content of the oldest poetry. But neither has this repudiated the most unbelievable, uncanny, and terrible, when—unconcerned with reality—depicts the secretive forces and effects of nature, carried away with the greatness of the material and its edifying character. One ought in the meantime not believe that remnants of such an ancient faith were only with us; he knows that most of our folktales also occur in many European countries, yes, some even in the farthest reaches of Asia; that something like that was the case with the legends of the supernatural creatures with which the public still populates our mountains and wildernesses, he thought was certain; that some of them nearly word-for-word occur both in Germany and among the Scots, he knows for certain. Many have probably experience that the same legend and folktales occur in differing forms, widely dispersed in this country. “I know one like that from Gudbrandsdalen,” he said, “which in several points agrees with the one from Valdres that father has but newly told. If you still want to, and have the patience to hear it, then I shall tell it.”
After a confirming and encouraging answer, he began:
“There was a farmhand or labourer at a parsonage in Gudbrandsdalen. He was unusually eager to work; he was up early in the morning and late in the evening; he always thought that he had most left undone on Sunday, and he therefore worked Sunday after Sunday. When the parson became aware of this, he arrested him for his impropriety, and said that it was better to spend Sunday as a Christian should spend it, listening to the preaching of the word of God. This he promised to do, and as there next Sunday should be a mass at the annex-church, he should walk thither. He walked both far and at length, and even though he knew the road well, he thought that he must have got lost and walked on different paths. After a while he arrived at a church, but it was closed and locked, and he saw neither parson nor congregation. Close by the church lay a farm, and there he went in. Inside was a gorgeous girl, making dinner. Now he understood that he hadn’t come to the annex church but that he had, as he had supposed, got lost and come to another village church, and that this was the parsonage he had come into. The girl gave him food and drink and looked after him, and when he wanted to leave, she said: ‘father is preaching at the annex today, and that is where all our folk are, but next Sunday there shall be a mass here; you should come again, and listen to our liturgy.’ The farmhand replied neither yes nor no, but he thought: ‘The liturgy ought to be the same everywhere, and blast it if I am going to walk so far for a sermon, when I can listen to one across the road; next Sunday the sermon shall be preached at the main church at home.’ But when the weekend came around, he began to think of the beautiful girl, and finally he started on his way. He met her in the kitchen this time, too, just like the previous Sunday, and she knew no limit to all the good she could do him. She gave him beer and brandy and good food, and when he had eaten and drunk, she took him to church. The parson stood in the pulpit, and had begun his sermon, but when they came in, the church grew restless, for everyone turned to take a look at this stranger fellow. When the girl noticed, she said: ‘It’s best we go out, for when father is finished in the pulpit, there will be such gazing at you; they aren’t used to such folk here?’ They went out, then, and he had again to go with her to the parsonage, where he was given dinner and coffee, when the parson and the parson’s wife came from the church. When they had drunk their coffee, the parson-folk took him into a chamber and told him that their daughter liked him so well that she could no longer resist. To this the farmhand replied that he certainly thought she was beautiful, but that he was not cut out for such, he said. The parson’s wife both threatened and pleaded but he would not have her; finally the daughter came too, but that did no good, either.
“‘Will you by no means have our daughter?’ asked the parson’s wife at last.
“‘No,’ he said, he would not. Then she struck him on his shoulder. Immediately he fell lame and went out of his mind. How he got home, he did not know, but he was abed for a long time.
“A year to the day afterwards, he began to recover and regain his senses. As the day drew on, a man whom he thought he had seen before came into him. ‘How do you feel?’ said the man. ‘Oh, pretty bad,’ replied the farm labourer, ‘for I have not been myself for a whole year.’ — ‘Now you shall sleep for an hour,’ said the man, taking out a pocket flask; he poured him a dram: ‘Perhaps you shall feel better when you wake. In the meantime, I shall sit here,’ he said, and took a chair over to the bed. The sick man fell asleep immediately, and when he awoke, he was as healthy and rested as he thought he had never been. He thanked the parson—for it was him—for the cure; but this one said: ‘Now it is well and good with you again, but at my home things are worse; my wife is dead, and my daughter is dead too, because she couldn’t have you.’”
“It may sound strange enough,” said one of the parson’s daughters, “but I have really believed that I have seen and experienced something similar.”
“Experienced?” asked one of the visiting students. “Is that possible? You must be so good as to tell us!” — “That you haven’t told us this!” said her sisters. — “Dear marie, you cannot mean that you have really seen the subterraneans or anything supernatural!” said the madame, in a tone that was both questioning and scolding.
“Experienced? No, that is not the right word, but the whole scene of legendary visions and the tale about them stood living for me, as if I had seen them myself, as if I had heard the bells and the church singing; in short, as if I had experienced it, and after this impression, I wrote it down in my journal.”
“Yes, yes, we are familiar with Marie’s experiences,” said her eldest brother, who went by the name The Prosaist, mockingly. “It’s a shame that they most often come out a little sentimental and overwrought. She is capable of making an enchanted prince of a beggar boy, and a poem of a twittering bird.”
His sister grew a little indignant at these exclamations, and held her tongue, but after repeated encouragements to tell, she said:
“While the impression was still fresh, I wrote down these experiences in my journal, and since it is now demanded, I shall fetch my journal and read it out.” After a moment she returned and read the following with beautiful expression and a sonorous voice:
“The first year we had moved here from Valdres, I spent some time in the city; but I did not like it at all there, and lay with a great illness. When I had somewhat recovered, the doctor advised me to come home—which was also my dearest wish—and that I should travel and spend as much time as possible in the open air. There was no opportunity of a big journey, you understand, but then father, at the beginning of the summer should undertake his usual trip to the annex in the valley, and I was allowed to go along with him. I felt so well now. Health coursed through my veins again; I thought it was so glorious to be alive; I found a childish joy in the surroundings, over the often appealing, often pathetic, but gripping meadows and landscapes we travelled through, over the transparent river we rowed up, with its reflections of deciduous forests, green slopes and hills, with its whorls and currents and falls. Certain of these landscapes are so vivid for me that I can still see them. Thus I walked that Sunday afternoon, when father had gone on parish business in the hills, from Sundgårgen across the moor to a tributary where I met Hans, the son on the farm we were staying at; he was fly fishing, an art he understood best of any, far and wide; and a number of young girls had gathered themselves by the river bank to look at the fish and the fisherman. Here I heard of the invisible church on the moor and of the subterraneans in Bratteberget.
“But there is not only one, but many who have heard the church bells ringing in the invisible church on the Bratteberg moor; they sound almost like the church bells of the annex church. During the time that mother Sundet was home in Tverrdalen, she should once fetch some water in the evening. Then she heard ringing from north of the moor; she laid aside her buckets to listen, and it sounded like the annex church. Hans has also heard the same. When he was a small boy, and he had spent a night fishing in the tributary, together with a tenant’s boy, who was a little older, they heard the church bells ringing on the moor, and they thought there was ‘mumbling and shuffling’ all over the moor, where they were. When they came to the place, Hans dared not go home alone, but the tenant’s boy had to go with him to the gate, and when he came home, he dared not lie in his bed in the barn, but stayed in the parlour for the night. They had only heard the pealing of the bells; but when Elling Hvitmyr, who was a tenant under Sundet, had been at the fishing in the tributary one night, and he went home by the north hay moor, as they called it, he suddenly thought the path that goes between the tributary and Sundet close by Bratteberget, and which is just not broad enough, was as broad as a church road; and before he knew how it had happened, he was close by the church wall. It was brown with new pitch. There was a tower on the church, and on the tower a pennant of gold, as large as a gate. Inside, the church was full of people; they sang, and there was a bright light there, so that it shone from all the windows; behind the church there were green meadows, broad and wide, but he could not see any farm. The key stood in the church door and a great gleaming ring hung there; he thought the door was no further away than that he could stab his knife into it. As he stood looking at the door and at the church and at all this glory, and began to reach for and fumble after his knife, it was as if someone swept his legs from beneath him, for he fell with his nose in the dirt, right against the church wall. When he came to himself again, he lay in the middle of the path, and saw neither church, nor church road, nor any of all these glories; the path and moor lay before him, Bratteberg to his left, and to his right rose Bjørndalskollen high above the hill.
“This Bratteberg is not supposed to be quite right, either. It is a small forested knoll, the east side of which falls off in a smooth, sheer wall that turns right towards the aforementioned path across the moor. One winter evening, the same Elling Hvitmyr and another man, who was called Nils, came from the mill by the tributary.
“Each went to his sleigh-load; Elling’s load was not terribly heavy; he therefore went quickly in the lead, so that Nils had to hold on tight, and go as quickly as he could to keep up with him. When they came to the middle of Bratteberg, they sat down for a rest, each on his load, and turned their back on the knoll. Nils, who had his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, soon began to nod and nap; but Elling, who was wide awake, saw a glimt away on the hill on the other side of the moor, and then it grew so bright that he could see well enough to thread a needle. When he turned around, a great door was open in the mountain; he could look right in to an excellent, high parlour; there was a fire beneath the chimney, which gave such a strong light that he could see all the nail heads in a row across the floor. Women went back and forth in front of the fire; they were very busy, and it looked to him as though they were making ready a banquet. “Do you see this?” he cried to Nils. “Oh, cross in Jesus’ name, what is this, then?” cried Nils as he awakened, and the light shone in his eyes. But he had hardly uttered these words before a gate was slammed shut in the mountain, with a screech and a bang. The clang was so loud that it echoed in Bjørndalskollen and the hill on the other side of the moor, and all at once they sat in the deepest darkness. Elling Hvitmyr compared the sound with one he had heard before, and said that it was just like when one slammed shut the great fortress doors, when he was in the infantry in Fredrikstad.
“It was a lovely afternoon, when I heard this; during the conversation and stories, the river bubbled and rushed beneath the deciduous trees; the fish jumped high out of the water for the flies and butterflies, and flashed in the sunshine, and the birds sang so eagerly in the green crowns; there was something mild and warm in their song, which I have never felt before or since—it was for me as if the summer and its healthy life celebrated its entrance that day. One of these songs, which has always been a favourite, although I have never known its name, began now to sing in low, dampened tones that lulled me into a mild, dreamlike, summery mood. The song called forth favourite images, which changed with the intonation. First it occurred to me that it sang of the dark Nordic autumn, of the yearning of creation for the sunny clear sky of the south. Then I thought it whispered of how it sat there in the deep shadow and cool of the evergreen crowns, when the mid-day sun burned hot, and no living creature was to see, except the wild buffalo, which wallowed in the bogs; I thought it sang of how it sat in evening in the pine crown, listening to the guitar, to the lovers’ whispering, which sounded like song in a strange tongue; but ‘soon came a third man, dark and foreboding; I was afraid of the harsh words, of the steel that flashed in the moonlight; I flew far away between the tall mountains, where strutted the wild robbers.’
“It sang of shots, of murder and assault, of gorgeous women, who were taken far into the deep forest. It flew farther south in fear, across the blue shining sea, and visited Shiraz, Damaskus and Cairo’s palm groves; in cheerful tones it sang of the gorgeous daughters of the east and of the wonderful, colorful lives, which in clear colours have appeared for the one who with the whole of her mind has lost herself in the enchanting land of the Arabian tales. But now the tones were melting, for soon to climb in dampened rejoicing. It was the Nordic longing for spring; it was the journey to the north; the parade in the summer-fresh leafy crowns; it was the river and the falls and the forest and the summer’s night, that rang through the lush tones.
“I walked alone across the moor. To my right lay Bjørndalskollen; only its naked top was illuminated by the evening sun, whilst a cloud cast its shadow on its dark forested masses, and made it even darker; from the foot of this, the moor stretched out with its upright pines, even and flat towards the stout Bratteberget, where it makes a depression and forms a valley; on the other side of this mountain runs the great river, which in one place only may be glimpsed between the trunks. When I got there, a ray of sunshine slipped beneath the cloud that shaded the evening sun, and played a red cast between the trees. While the rushing of the river and the bird song from away there still rang in my ears like the sweetest melody, a mistle thrush began it’s cheerful ballad; another small bird followed it tirelessly with a monotonous song. I heard and listened; suddenly the whole forest was filled with the loveliest fragrance; I felt as if I myself was a bird, hovering between flower and birdsong, like a smaller terrestrial creature between higher creatures, in short, like something invisible, supernatural was close by me. Hymn-singing and distant church-bells sounded in my ears—so I thought—and it occurred to me that I saw the old church they had told me should stand between the trees, and when I turned to look at the blinking of the river between the tree trunks, the church suddenly stood before me; in the afternoon haze that rose from the river, I could not discern its outline clearly, but high up on the tower flew the golden pennant and out through its windows came a light stronger than the afternoon light in the forest. Confounded, I got up to go closer, to see better; the song still sounded in my ears; but I had not taken a step before the whole thing disappeared.”
Here the reading ended, and she continued orally:
“This event has, once in a while, popped up for me as a remote and indistinct remembrance, but during the conversation and the stories this evening, it has come forth with unusual clearness. Until now I have thought it really was the invisible church I saw, that it was the subterranean song and bells I heard, but after what has been said this evening, I suppose it was nothing but an echo in my soul of the legends that I had but recently heard, a reflection of my surroundings, and of the natural sounds I had listened to.” The parson and his wife shook their heads from time to time at this story, while her eldest brother still now and then interjected some words about badly digested novels, sentimentality, and overwroughtness; the others appeared to listen with wonder and approval, as they were quick to smile, soon to nod at the narrative. When it was finished the doctor spoke up:
“I cannot else,” he said as, bowing, he approached the racontense. “I can but thank the young miss for this poetic realisation of the opinion I have set forth. I am nevertheless not completely certain that it was your intention to defend it in this way.” The young miss sat with her distant, confounded, and inquisitive face up towards this speech, like the other listeners. Some even burst out laughing, upon which the doctor continued: “No, it was not meant like that. If it may be permitted me to continue concerning the origins of the visions or feelings you had, by means of the sights and sounds you experienced, then it is my unassailable opinion that a fever of the nerves, and the increased vigour that came after the illness, further increased by the effect of the sunshine on the trees and forest, and the oxygen this caused to richly flow out of them, instilled an excitement or overwrought mood, whereof the visions came naturally.” The whole party began to laugh, after which the youngest of the parson’s sons, to everyone’s enjoyment tried to affirm that the whole narrative was clear and concrete evidence of what he had said earlier.
During the argument that now ensued, the elder of the parson’s sons returned from a trip out to the folk cabin. “Do you want,” he said, “to hear riddles and tales? Do you want to play Christmas games, or watch, then go out to the servants’ cabin, where it is in full swing.”
