Mountain Scenes: An Evening at the Pasture

One Sunday in August, I left Lårgard in Sell, together with a young Englishman, Sir John Tottenbroom, and the reindeer shooter Tord Ulsvollen and his brother, who were to take us hunting in the mountains between Østerdalen and Sell. The Englishman had visited parts of our country; he understood Norwegian, and could, if need be, make himself understood, too; but like most English tourists, he had mostly been in the company of farmers, and thus spoke a strange, halting farmer’s tongue. It was not always sufficient; when he grew enthusiastic, he would suddenly switch to his own language, or carry on in a crow’s tongue, which is impossible to reproduce.

Tord Ulsvollen was of medium height, dark-eyed, and had a bold, somewhat swarthy face. He looked both wise and sympathetic, was lean, but broad across his shoulders, and walked lightly but self-confidently, with a tough strength in his gait. He was an easy-going fellow. Life up there in the mountains is both dangerous and tiresome; it had taken from him all clumsiness, and had taught him to trust himself, and there was therefore a credible confidence to everything he did.

His brother Anders was light and tall and strong. He was of another kind: reckless of speech and behaviour; he set off, cared little where he placed his foot, and of course he had to hold his balance with his arms; he resembled a bear that pads off on its hind legs.

Both had red woollen hats, and pepper-and-salt coloured trousers. Anders wore a long coat, or spælkjol of the same colour; it had long skirts that slapped against his legs. Tord had laid his reindeer-skin clothes across the yoke, and walked in his shirtsleeves. He had a great rifle with an octagonal muzzle; Anders carried a fine bird rifle.

It was quiet in the forest; we heard no sound other than the tramping of the shooters’ shoe taps and the hoof falls of the yoked horse, which followed along with our food, hunting bags, and our fishing baskets. It was nature’s holiday. Towards the evening, a solitary bird began to twitter quietly in the forest; the fragrance of the spruce and pine wafted towards us in the warmth of the sun; above the forest tops, once in a while we could glimpse the river Lågen, which rushed and glittered far below, so far away that that its roar and bubbling did not reach us. The shadows grew longer and longer; the twilight and river mist laid itself across the valley, but the sun still played red between the spruces up on the ridge, and laid a glow on the Lesja mountains, which were blueing, far away. When we reached the top of the hill, the forest opened up, the pines were shorter and sparser; birch and juniper took over, the heather was lush, and we came over marshes with succulent grass. Høvringen’s thirty pastures soon lay before us, edge to edge, between thicket and rock and green banks, and behind them rose the tops of the Ronde giants towards the eastern sky. The girls called, the lur sounded, calling in in the evening stillness, and the cows streamed together, with jostling and the jangling of bells.

Tord owned one of the first pastures we came to; he bade us go in and drink some milk, but we did not have the time; we wanted to go up whither we would spend the night, and Tord promised to come after us at once. I caught a glimpse of a beautiful girl at the window, and a couple of menfolk faces. Anders told that the girl was Tord's wife's sister's daughter; the schoolmaster spent his time courting her, when he was free from school, but she would not have him, even though he owned both a farm and land and was a good schoolmaster; she liked a young boy better, who was also courting her.

When we came to the Lårgard pasture, the milkmaid stood on the flagstone outside the farmhouse door. She was a fine girl, tall and erect, in white shirtsleeves, red waistcoat, and black skirt. She stood with her back to us, and we saw only her neck and a well-formed head with blonde hair, to which the evening sunshine lent an even redder cast than it actually had; she was fetching a long-haired black goat that had climbed up on to the grassy turf roof, and stood, tearing and pulling at a birch sapling that had shot up from the turf.

“Teksa, Teksa, Teksa, Teksa, now, come, goat! Trinselire, come now, then! Here with you, you sorry troll. Will you leave the birch be and stop ripping up the roof! Here, then!” she cried.

“Good evening, Brit,” said Anders.

“God's blessing,” she replied; she turned, shielding her eyes from the evening sun, and looked at us. “God's peace! Are these stranger folk I am to greet, since Anders is with them?”¹

“Yes,” said Anders, “and stout and gentle fellows they are whom you receive at the pasture. They want nothing special,” he said frankly.

“They may be stout fellows,” said Brit, but she could not keep herself from smiling as she considered us; Sir John's neat figure and long locks especially drew her attention. “And him, then? Is he a fellow, too? I think he looks to be a womanfolk in a fellow's clothes,” she said, in jest.

“Have you seen a womanfolk with a beard, and womenfolk so tall, girl?” asked Anders.

“No, no, you are right, Anders,” she replied, laughing well. “You may go in; stranger folk must not stay standing outside, you know. It is terribly unusual for you to be here, visiting us, but we are north of manners, we are, as you well know,” she continued, talking continuously with us and Anders, jesting at times a little sarcastically.

The pasture was a cabin with a sloping roof, and a large hearth in one corner. As is usual in the pastures of Gudbrandsdalen, it was spotlessly clean and tidy inside. On shelves beneath the roof, the cheeses stood in columns and rows, below were displayed the rings and harnesses, and everything had been scrubbed clean and shiny white, even to the tables and benches. The big fire in the hearth, beneath the cheese cauldron, caused a lively draught; here there was no stuffy cabin odor, but a fresh fragrance from the juniper spread across the floor, and the beautiful white saxifrage, which stood in the windows on its pulpy, mild-green crown of leaves, with ring and runners of deep yellow marigolds around—all on the occasion of our visit.

“But what do these fellows want somfar up in the mountains, then? They would do much better at home than in the pasture with the milkmaids,” Brit said, a little curious.

“We wanted to see what the mountains look like, and then we wanted to shoot reindeer,” replied Sir John.²

“Yes, shoot reindeer, you! You may hope you get to shoot some; I am afraid you will give it up, both you and your companions, before you get so far. But you should have been here this spring, when we came to the pasture; then a great reindeer buck came right up to the walls. A little way north on the Vågå pasture, there is a milkmaid called Barbro; she is some girl, she is, as young as she is; she shot a reindeer that had come inside the livestock boundary. Up beneath the roof in the cabin, there hung a blunderbuss, which she had heard should be loaded in case of wolves; she took it and stood steady, laying it across the back of the bull. Then she aimed well and long, you can imagine; and when it went off, they fell all three, both the girl and the buck and the bull; the bull began to howl terribly, afterwards, so frightened he was. But the buck remained down, and the parson had a roast.”

“We have another errand, Brit,” I said; “we would like to hear tales. Do you know anyone who is good at telling?”

“There are a couple of girls here on the pastures, whom I will send for by the herder girls, so they will come here this evening,” she replied, “and I think they can tell you some tales, if only they will. And what about the schoolmaster? He is terrible to tell stories. He was down at Marit’s, yesterday, and if he is not there, now that Hans has come, then we shall certainly hear the cuckoo at Michaelmas.”³

“Yes, I asked the schoolmaster to look in on us, and Hans and Marit, too,” said Tord, who had just come in and lain aside his rifle. “I remembered that you spoke of tales—and they certainly know some.”

“When the schoolmaster first gets going, there is no end to them, both out of the Bible and other nonsense,” said Brit. “But poor man, he will certainly be miserable now; it must be sad to burn like a piece of fatwood, alone.”

It was not long before the company from Tord’s pasture came after him. The girl was the picture of health, and red and white; she had a lively face, and a pleasant figure. Out of the boy’s open, bold face shone a fresh, uncorrupted nature. The third in the company was the schoolmaster; he was not much more than thirty years old, but his face was wrinkled; it apparently came of his eager attempts at giving himself a worthy mien. His cassock told the same story, too; it was intended to set him apart from the farmers; he went in a tobacco-brown gown with long, pointed seams, around his neck a white kerchief and a tall winged collar, tagged at the edges. On the right side of his chest, a large bump stood out; I thought at first it was a growth, but heard afterwards that it was a large inkwell that he always carried with him. His whole figure made a wholly unpleasant impression. The mountain farmer’s curiosity and frank, naïve questions were here become an intrusive, half-educated interrogation, and with every question he ventured, he looked around, as if he stood the the midst of the unwashed youth of Vågå. He pursed together his mouth in a smile that asked, “is it not well-said? Oh yes, I can certainly feel such folk in my teeth!” A flood of personal questions cascaded upon us, all in an exaggerated impersonation of obsolescent book language, but the odd bold word and idiom from the Gudbrandsdal tongue intruded occasionally.

I had heretofore replied to the schoolmaster, but now my travelling companion lost his patience; he was more sensitive than I, and it burst out of him in his mother-tongue: “God damn this man, and his staring and his mouth and his impertinence!”⁴

The schoolmaster looked as if he had solved a regula de tribus problem when he heard the foreign tongue. “Oh,” he said, “now I may truly remark that these are travelling men from foreign parts! Perhaps from England or France, or possibly even from Spain; a count from there came here last year.”

“Oh no, schoolmaster,” I replied. “You can certainly hear that I am Norwegian; but my friend, Sir John Tottenbroom is from England.”

“Is that so… So this well-educated man is from the Britannic kingdom?” said the schoolmaster, looking around to draw attention to his knowledge of geography, which he intended to bring to light. “Has he travelled here by way of the waters of the significant body of water called the North Sea, or has he taken the land route through France, Holland, Germany, and Sweden? And on which errand does he come to this country—if I may be permitted to be so nosey as to ask?”

“You ask, schoolmaster,” I said. “The first question I can answer. He has come by means of water, across the North Sea. But of his errand, you must ask him yourself.”

“Then you shall certainly be wise, schoolmaster; he only speaks English,” said his youthful co-suitor; he sat smoking a small meerschaum pipe with a silver lid, horn bit, and stem of copper wire.

“Well, if only he had command of the German language,” said the schoolmaster, condescendingly, “then I should talk to him; for in that I am somewhat conversant—I have studied Geddick’s Reader and Hübner’s Geography in this language!”

“Speak to him in German, schoolmaster,” I said. “He can certainly reply in the same language.”

“Damn you!” blurted Sir John; as irritated as he was, he could but laugh at the schoolmaster’s preposterous behaviour.

“You ask of my errand, schoolmaster?” he said in reasonable German. “Among other reasons, I travel to study the foolishness of mankind, and it appears there is study to be made here, too.”

“Das ist inglis, can nix underschtehn,” said the schoolmaster. “Aber!” he snapped at the first thing he grasped from the treasure chest of his knowledge: “Was ist Ihre meinung anbelangende the fact that stands geschriebet about the Euxinsch sea, dass in the year 715 das ice fraus such that it was forty ells thick, und da das eis gesmalt, so gestand von thereof likewise an excitedness out in the air, dass ein pestilence came up von which all people bestarb out in Konstantinopolis?”⁵

The German conversation was drowned out by our laughter at this “faktum” from Hübner’s Geography, and the schoolmaster was for a while quite embarrassed; but he appeared to be of a reconciliatory nature, and when we gathered around the hearth, he joined the circle. The girls who had been sent for had come; pretty and friendly were they all, and one of them had a really lovely face and was a winning creature, but was a little too pale to be a mountain bloom.

I asked them to tell tales, but even though Brit helped me, they claimed with laughter that they did not know any. They demurred, all of them, and no one would begin.

“No. Schoolmaster, schoolmaster!” they all cried. “He can tell; he knows both tales and canards.”

“Yes,” said the schoolmaster, “I could always tell something from the Bible story, or, for eksamplum, of the emperor Octavianus. Besides, I know a very sorrowful love story of the manly Tristram and the virtuous princess Indiane, and so on, et cetera.”

“No, dear schoolmaster,” I interrupted him; “I know these stories like the back of my hand. What I want to hear is stories of the hulders, of trolls, tales of Askeladden, and such that has never been in print before, but lives only in the mouths of the folk.”

“I cannot tell such a finasserie,” said the schoolmaster, grumpily; “it is not the business of a teacher of youths, like me, a representative of the council executive, who has sworn to uphold the Constitution. What should I say if they asked if it was true that Halsten Røen had sat telling tales like a gossipy woman?”

“What did you reply to the executive when you had told those canards—you know—and sung the evening prayer to the girls at the Christmas banquet at Ulsvolle?” asked his co-suitor, teasingly.

“What I answered has nothing to do with this matter,” said the schoolmaster. “And it is not appropriate to tell travelling men who study the variation of nature, and the customs of humanity, that which may be appropriate for you and other lay folk. I consider it much better to reap wisdom by paying attention to sharp minds and the speech of such men than telling frivolous and foolish peasant stories; though travelling men are worldly wise, and I would therefore ask some of these to teach me by means of their speech.”

I tried to make him understand that I had as much to do with teaching as I could want, in the city, and on a trip to the mountains, I would rather take a break from the burdens of teaching.

“Since no one will tell anything,” began Anders, “can I tell you a bit about a man from Heidal, a little way towards Vågå. He was called Hogne, but afterwards, they called him Hogne Trollcleaver. He was at sea for some years, but when he had earned a bit of money so he could redeem his father’s farm, he came home again to his village, and began to court a girl from Vågå, who slept at the pasture, and was a milkmaid.

“But as he came to the pasture one time, the milkmaid was gone, and the herder girl came home weeping from the mountain with the herds.

“‘What is the matter with you; where is the milkmaid?’ asked Hogne.

“‘Three mountain trolls came and took her,’ said the herder girl.

“He went off on his way to find the girl, and take care of the trolls, and he took with him one called Hårrik Longshanks. They went far and wide, over forest and mountain and deep valleys; but they found neither the mountain trolls nor the girl. When they came to Stuttgong boulder, they bumped into a troll.

“‘Stay a while, you,’ said Hogne, and he scratched him a little with his sword. Then he made a ring in the ground around him, and hewed a cross in the air above his head, so the troll remained standing, paralyzed, and could not move from the spot.

“‘Where is the milkmaid who was staying at Bønnes?’ said Hogne. The troll would not answer, but Hogne threatened his black life, and then he said that it was Flatnose in the Stuttgong boulder who had taken her.

“‘Tomorrow is the wedding,’ he said, ‘and I am going to Skola and to Presteberg to invite his kin to the banquet,’ he said.

“‘You stand there until I return,’ said Hogne, hewing some crosses above his head, and the troll is supposed to stand there by the Stuttgong boulder even to this day, according to what they tell; but I have never seen him. Either Hogne came into the mountain and got the girl, or not, I have not heard anything about that, either, but they called him Hogne Trollcleaver ever since.”

“This is an immoral story from the popish time, the indication of which is the sign of the cross, and as such it belongs to the devil,” said the schoolmaster, animatedly. “There were probably some troublesome rascals from another village who had forcefully kidnapped the milkmaid, who reasonably enough would have been a loose woman, such as there are many of at the pastures; and the trolls have been invented. I shall now tell you a true story, wherein the hulders and the trolls were given the blame in the same manner, but which was carried out by the sharp-minded machinations of a scheming man.”

He cleared his throat and built himself up, and let his gaze go slowly from one to the next. “In Prestestulen, in the parish of Våge, there lived, a long time ago, a married couple, Steingrim and Jøda, who on this hilly landscape provided for themselves and their children by breeding livestock and hunting game. Steingrim, the husband was taken by an avalanche in the mountains in Jønndal. Their grown son, Ivar was was commissioned in the same year, and Jøda was left alone to provide for many children. The second son, Bjørn, despite his young age, became his mother’s only support. He was big of growth, capable, and reckless, and soon made his mark out in the ski races, trapping, and shooting; but he was especially adept at identifying animal shelters, that is the animals’ dwellings and scrapes, during various kinds of weather, and so he was probably also as good a hunter as they say, as his experience with the delicate, sharp scent of the reindeer brought him within range of the blind shooter. Most often Bjørn was plagued with the need to go alone, and sought on every occasion to go by himself on the hunting trail, and his success in hunting caused the folk to wonder greatly. Some thought he could paralyze the birds and animals by enchantment, as soon as he laid his eyes on them, others that he lived in a compact with the mound trolls, and in certain ways, he acquired help and information of the best hunting tracks from them. Folk had their suspicions greatly strengthened when they saw him digging reindeer traps, and building himself cabins of stone in the mountains, and the mountain valleys, where others could by no means dwell at night on account of the mountain trolls. Once in a while, he told how the jutuls played pranks on him, and worked against him, but that his close friend, the jutul in Skula—called the Skulgubbe—came to his aid on such occasions.”

It was easy to see that the schoolmaster’s story would be as long and boring as his style of piety was ridiculous. It was therefore not without some satisfaction that I noticed the agitation that came upon him, when he noticed how his intended had removed herself; through the window we saw that she was on her way to one of the neighbouring pastures, and when her co-suitor followed her, the schoolmaster’s disquiet grew into distraction; he stuttered and stammered and fumbled after words.

“No, forgive me, I cannot remember it correctly; I do have a small errand to attend to. You, Tord, you should tell the ending. You know it, too,” he said, hurrying out.

The girls laughed and felt sorry for the “poor schoolmaster” and his jealousy. Then Tord began, and continued to tell.

“The neighbouring farm to Preststule is Øvsteng. There lived a man called Bård. He was also a shooter, but he was continually envious of Bjørn, for he always had such good fortune. This Bård Øvsteng had a daughter called Rønnog. To her Bjørn went a-courting in secret; but when her father got wind of it, he said that if he so much as saw Bjørn on the farm, then it would go no better with him than with a reindeer: he would shoot him down on the spot.

“‘My daughter shall not have any old forest bear,’⁶ he added.

“But now he would marry her off to one from Skårvangen who was called Sevall Uppistugum, who was a fool and ‘scaregirl.’⁷ Rønnog pleaded her case beautifully enough; it did no good, but she didn’t have to move to the bridegroom’s before the banquet, which would be held on St. John’s Feast.⁸

“The bride groom himself rode around, inviting to the banquet, and he came to Skogbygde, too, where the bride had her kin and neighbours. At Synsteng the man went out and asked:

“‘Which day will it be, then? You forgot to say.’

“‘I don’t know if it will be tomorrow, or a day out in next week, but you must be ready—then we will blow the lur when we come up the road,’ he replied.⁹

“This heard Bjørn’s brother, and he made short work of telling him about it; Bjørn didn’t take long to find out what he would do. He let his mother and brother look after things in Skogbygde; he lived in Skårgangen himself. First he thought he would meet the procession on the church road, so they would not reach the bride. In the night he went up the cleft at Skårvang, and would pull down the goat bridge that lies in the heights there, but Sevall’s father and a couple of others were there, fixing it up. So he thought he would flood out the lower Mål bridge, and he did so, too.

“The day after, Sevall and the wedding procession rode from Skårvangen. When they came down in Skogbygde, some of the procession rode up towards Øvsteng, for the bride. The others were content to remain on the road. While they rested and drank to each other from their hipflasks, and blew on their lurs, Bjørn’s brother lay in wait in a dense birch thicket, a little way down the road, and when they left, he quietly followed.

“But it took time enough for the guests to get ready to follow, since the banquet was not a daily occurrance. Finally, the bride came, and her folk, and with them, the bridegroom and those who had gone to get her.

“When they came on to the road, they heard that the Mål bridge had been swept away, and so they went a long way up on the moor, and came across the ford at Sambu. The church stood in southern Sambu at that time, and when they arrived, it was long into the evening. It was simply a bad idea to come to the banquetting farm in the night, and therefore Bottol Hole and Alv Svare divided the banquetting party between them. There they were given both food and drink, and they needed it, too, for they had been out nearly all day, and had not tasted anything but from their hipflasks.

“When they had eaten their fill, Bottol and Alv managed to quiet them down a while. The bride and the bridegroom lay in the tithe loftet.

“Late in the evening, Bjørn’s brother told him that the bride now lay in the tithe.

“‘I wonder if she will remain lying there until the sun rises,’ said Bjørn.

“As the night drew on, and the bride and groom quietened down in the tithe loft, there came in through the door an immensely large frigge, with a green skirt and a long, gleaming knife in her hand.

“She snatched the bride out of the bridegroom’s arms; he grasped after her, but at the same time the hulder stabbed with her backhand into the wall with the knife, so the splinters flew. The the bridegroom dared not even look after them. He went out into the cabin, where all the invited party slept, and wept and carried on, and said he thought the Jønndal hulder had been in the loft, and had taken from him his bride, for she had said that Rønnog should be her son’s wife, and mistress in Jønndal; and now he said he would make an end of himself.

“‘Had she but let me lie with her, then perhaps the trolls would not have been so eager for her,’ he added.

“They tried as best they could to comfort him; but when they heard this, they began to laugh heartily. Now Sevall wanted to go home to Skarvangen and complain to his mother. But when the company came to the bridge across Skjerva, the timbers had been hewn asunder; the bridge was gone, and they could not get across. And no matter how they cried and called, it was not possible to hear a word, for the river had grown, and ran as if in a waterfall.

“So they sent word to the parson. He said they should take the bells from Vågå church, carry them up Jønndalen, and ring them for three whole days.

“Well, they took the Vågå bells across the Jætta river, and up a tall hill, into the Jønndalsgråtom; it was called the bells boulder afterwards.

“They rang them for three whole days, but the bride was gone, and gone she remained.

“Then there was an old fellow, who advised them to ring three Thursday evenings after one another. But that didn’t help any better, either. Finally Bjørn Preststule came, and said that he had dreamt that Rønnog had struggled terribly against the enchantment; but the old man of Skule had promised to help him to free her again, for the old man of Skule bore a grudge against the Jønndal hulder. And there was no one but Bjørn who could free her, for it was he she held dear.

“When Bård and Sevall heard this, they approached Bjørn, threatened his life, and tried to get him to produce Rønnog. But this got Bjørn’s cockles up, and he argued with them for so long that he finally got her.”

“Yes, it happened so,” said Brit, when Tord had ended his tale, which with its bold elements resembled the days of the sagas; “but when the schoolmaster tells it, he goes on for so long about the parson and the bailiff that no one can understand; and on top of that, he says that it was Bjørn Preststule who took the bride from the tithe loft. But it was not. He only freed her out again; it was the Jønndal hulder who took her.”

None of us contradicted Brit; but we needed a closer explanation of all the many names and places in Tord’s tale, as unfamiliar as we were up there. And now it was told in great detail of the rivers, mountains, and fishing waters, of fish, birds, animals, and people. While we spoke of this, Brit set forth everything that was good of pasture food. When we were all but finished eating, Marit came back and began to whisper and laugh with the other girls; Brit laughed and enjoyed herself, too. And when Anders would know what Marit had done with the schoolmaster, she told him that Hans had led him a fool around the district, from one pasture to the next. He had first gone around and told the girls what they should answer the schoolmaster, and whenever the schoolmaster lifted the latch and asked after Marit, they replied: “Yes, they just now went out through that door, Hans and Marit; they said they would go on to the next pasture.” But in the end, he met some fellows who drank to him and poured him a drink, and so that was the end of the schoolmaster, “for he cannot take more than a hen can, the poor thing,” said Brit, in sympathy.

“Yes,” added Marit, “now he is so satisfied that his mouth is nearly square on him. But he is angry at Hans. I am very sure he will come here soon, and then you will hear a fuss.”

It was not long before we heard Hans. He had a good bass, and sang a shepherd’s ballad with an unusual melody. He made himself clearly heard, remained standing outside, and sang clearly some verses that appeared to be about the schoolmaster’s love and his red hair:

Pål’s Hens

Pål on the hill slipped his hens out one morning,
Over the hill all the hens they did run.
Pål he could tell by the way they were running,
A fox was abroad with its tail so long.
   Cluck, cluck, cluck, said the hens on the hillside,
   Cluck, cluck, cluck, said the hens on the hillside,
Pål he flew off, and was bawling his eyes out:
"Now I don't dare go straight home to my ma!”

Pål he went farther out over the hillside,
There saw a hen that a fox lay and gnawed.
Pål in his fist picked a stone up to throw it,
Well did he strike so the fox it did run.
   The fox it flew, its tail was wagging,
   The fox it flew, its tail was wagging,
How Pål did weep for the hen he was missing,
“Now I don't dare go straight home to my ma!

“Had I a beak then, and had I some claws,
And did I know just where the foxes did lie.
Then I would scratch them, and then I would claw them,
On the fore of their necks and the backs of their thighs.
   Shame on all the foxes so ruddy,
   Shame on all the foxes so ruddy,
God, how I wish they all lay as dead now,
Then would I dare to go home to my ma!

She cannot lay and she cannot crow,
And she cannot crawl, and she cannot strut.
I shall go to the mill for some grinding,
And make up the flour I yesterday lost.
   “Well!” said Pål, “I'm not at all fearful,
   Well!” said Pål, “I'm not at all fearful,
A mouthful of courage has helpéd so many,
Now do I dare go straight home to my ma!”

Pål dropped the corn down on to the millstone,
So that it sounded from every wall.
So that the chaff it did flurry about him,
and grew like a goat’s coat—shaggy and long.
   Pål began his bleating in laughter,
   Pål began his bleating in laughter,
“I have been paid for the hen and the egg, now,
Now do I dare go straight home to my ma!”

When the ballad had come to an end, he came in, a little red on his head, and sat calmly in away in a corner, and lit his pipe. It wasn’t long before the schoolmaster came, too, together with a stranger. He had pulled his collar up high and sought to present himself in all his dignty. But his stiff eyes and his uncertain step gave him away before he opened his mouth.

“With your permission, begging your pardon, my high-born gentlemen,” he said with a thick tongue, making a brave attempt at bowing, “it was not well done of me to fly out of the door without a by-your-leave, respectfully leaving your entertainment to this worthy reindeer shooter, who is a layman by calling, and these lovely shepherd girls. But I am a teacher of youths, and in reverence to, and in the fear of God, I am not to be trifled with, for I am to be held as a lower stratum of the clerical class, and hold a strict watch on discipline and the sixth commandment, so I do not suffer such. No, I do not! And I must tell you plainly, that it was a nasty thing that the boys ran after the skirts before their beards grow on their chins. And as I now saw this Hans so easily run after the womenfolk… well, well!”—here he spat in righteous indignation—“for as I say, I am a great counterpoint to common foolery, flapping, easy boasting, and prating, drunkenness, and loose dancing.”

“Golly, how hard you are today, schoolmaster!” said Margit. “I suppose you are fun when the fiddle begins to play; I am almost as happy as a fiddle myself.”

“It is true, my child,” said the schoolmaster evasively, and with a sweet smile, “I spoke only of the loose dancing. And I too consider it to be a rare pleasure to see the girls dance, that is when it is by the side of a worthy man, who maintains an appropriate decency.”

But immediately it was as if the loveliness he praised overmanned him; he broke out in a sniffling tremolo, in praise of wine and beauty, which did not appear to agree too well with the strict principles he held in his mouth:

“What is all the world’s gold and riches,
and what then is pleasure?
Without wine and lovely girls
is the world merely an event
Everyone who hold
the girls so dear
is a fool
whoever he is.”

“That is a lovely verse, that is,” said Hans, sticking his head forth from his corner, with his pipe in his mouth. “But now I shall sing a verse for you that perhaps you have never heard before:

“Oh you poor thing, you old fool,
You drank of the bottle in the cupboard,
You thought that it was brandy
But all the time, it was terpentine,
But all the time, it was terpentine.”

The verse referred, as I later heard, to an incident in the schoolmaster’s life; it provoked him strongly, so much more as he had stood in the belief that his co-suitor was not present. He dried his mouth with the corner of his shirt collar, and said:

“Youths today are so impertinent; it comes from their not having tasted the rod enough. You mouthy pillock! You stick a tobacco pipe in your mouth, and run a-courting of a Saturday, unloading insults upon worthy men, who are in possession of greater learning than you; stand up, I say, when I am talking!” he interjected. “This was the custom among the Spartans, that the youths should stand before the aged and old fellows. I have gone to school at Parson Grønbech’s for twenty years, I have, you hear; stand up, I say!”

But Hans remained sitting calmly, exactly where he sat, with an amused face, and two rows of gleaming white teeth. The schoolmaster’s inebriation had obviously affected him, and I do not know how it would have ended, had Marit not come between them. She offered him a bowl of milk, and said:

“Oh, don’t take any notice of the upstart, schoolmaster! Be glad again, and remember there are folk from far away among us.”

When he had drunk, he turned to us, as if he would excuse his condition and contradict the impression that Hans's innuendos may have given us.

“That corrupting alcohol! It is that which is the mother of foolishness. But I am a humble sober man, if I should with respect say so myself, and I am generally not given over to any superfluous enjoyment of the corrupting habit of drunkenness. But I must certainly make excuse, my high-born gentlemen and worthy parishioners, for being away for so long. It is not easy to go through the doorway to leave a neighbour’s party. Truly, some good friends and neighbours came travelling with brandy bottles in their pockets, and sometimes a dram does the world of good in your body. Yes, I readily admit it does; I am in possession of such vanity that I will take a dram when I can get one, but never immoderately.

“Let us drink, let us drink
Brandy while we can!
Many an unfortunate has it not,
but must drink water.”

he recklessly began to sing.

“No,” he insisted, “not in immoderation, God bless me! for I remember well both what I have said and done, and what I shall do and say, too. But it is a corrupting drink anyway, for it draws you in the same way Botta Moen’s Christmas beer does. But what I was supposed to remember, that was the strange story about Bjørn Preststulen, whom I unfortunately left in the midst of the game. I suppose you told everything, my worthy friend Tor Ulsvollen, concerning how the clergy came into disrepute, and the civil courts had to discuss the matter?”

"No, that's what I said,” said Brit; “you have such a long tale on top, school master, that no one can understand. He said nothing about it, did Tor.”

“It is a lack of enlightenment, my child, a lack of learning,” said the schoolmaster importantly, “that which is forgotten, is almost the strangest thing in the whole story, even though that is where the disagreement and process begins, I should think. Yes, it went thus, you see, that the time these fellows—yes, Sevald Oppistuen—when he and Bård Østeng, they sat firmly upon Bjørn Preststulen, and with threats and oaths would force him to release her, or to reveal how this might happen, then Bjørn began to doubt what he should do. For he saw the hay mowing before him, and naturally he had something to do other than to keep Rønnog hidden away in shooter cabins or other holes in the mountains. He told them that they would be unsuccessful in such an attempt against the jutul, and that he did not dare try, himself, for until he had requested the help of the old man of Skule, however he had been made aware of this. But then he suggested to them that all three of them should go to the parson and choose him as arbitrator, to which they agreed. And Bjørn explained very abstractly what manner of spirit had spoken to him, with revelations in a dream, and especially that he had with all respect received a command to marry her. The parson demanded a postponement for both parties, until the girl herself could give testimony, and when Bjørn, a day later, came out with her, she explained what she had suffered from the jutul, and how the hulder of Jønndal hurried along her marriage to her son, so that after this match they should be entirely in her possession, and how Bjørn and the old man of Skule had freed her from staying in the mountain and becoming a troll woman. While he examined the evidence and the assertions of both parties, the parson fell into confusion, which means so much as that he was so intricately involved in this labyrinth that he did not know how to extricate himself from it. Bjørn’s revelation, he thought, was perhaps the intervention of the Highest, against which the parson would hardly bring judgement. Sevald and Rønnog had been consecrated by the parson and the word of God, both of which were significant. Bjørn had Rønnog’s undivided love even from her childhood. Sevald had by no means her love, but the consent of her parents, who were old and consequently understood and realized what served their children’s well-being and happiness more than they did themselves. But the parents’ unrestricted exercise of authority in their children’s marriages often makes them executioners, and so on, said the parson—yes, to himself, you understand. Upon reflection, this was the result: “I am not dealing with this intricate matter; it must, of course, be judged in the civil courts. In the meantime, however, Bjørn as her deliverer must keep her.”

But the civil court judged thus:

“Bjørn Preststulen may enter into marriage with Rønnog Bårdsdatter Østeng without any charge, and Sevald Oppistuen and Bård Østeng must flee the country for having disqualified him.”

But nothing came of that, for Bjørn took his father-in-law into grace for his misdemeanor, and they eventually became the best of friends. “

This triumph put the schoolmaster on to the legend of Bjørn Preststulen. But the written word is dead and powerless. An impotent, indescribable comedy lay over his presentation, calm in intonation, in expression, in the rise and fall of his voice, in the way his intoxication appeared in what he said, for “the beer went with him.” Suddenly all of us had to laugh together; even Tor laughed loudly, as serious as he was. And the Englishman lay on a bench, bent over in laughter “at this caricature.” But the schoolmaster understood nothing; he laughed along, and accepted it as approval. He asked Brit for another bowl of milk, and then let his mouth run again.

"Now,” he said, “I want to tell a terribly truthful story from a more recent time, which is also somewhat of a peculiarity, because it contains foretellings or revelations about approaching times and events. At the farm Fliti in the parish of Lesja, there was a man named Jens Ivarssøn, whose forefathers from time immemorial had inhabited this farm. This Jens was a thoughtful man, helpful, of few words, and no one had anything to say about his morality and reputation. Once he went to the pasture in Lordal, and there he would pick up his horses, to work them in the fields, and drive lumber on the river. But he did not come to the pasture, and no one asked of him any more, since all inquiry was in vain. But in the eighth year his wife married again, and while the wedding procession was at the church, her previous husband Jens came into the farm without anyone having noticed where he came from. He immediately left the farm again by a side entrance, to avoid company, and would not speak to any person. But now there was gossip and prating and talk and chatter about who this man could be. Some said it was one, and some said it was not another; but no matter who saw him, they all agreed that he had the appearance of Jens.

“But he avoided their gaze and curious questions, until the wedding procession came home, and when his eldest son, with others, took the wedding horses, to tether them in a remote meadow, then he went with with his son, who did not recognise him, before Jens by the tethers appealed to him thus: ‘Not like that, my son; you should always attach the tether to the left forefoot, otherwise the horse is forced to go against its nature.’ Now he recognised his father and asked him to go home with him, to which he expressed his willingness. And when Jens entered the wedding parlour, everything fell silent. For now everyone recognized him, and his wife burst into tears and asked for forgiveness and would embrace him. While Jens comforted her as best he could, and then said too that he had no objection to her new marriage, and then he expressed in a curious manner that he himself was neither able nor determined to marry or to remain there, but that his purpose was merely to arrange matters for his defenseless descendants. When he had said this, he asked the married folk to sit in the high seats, and in the hearing of the whole curious wedding entourage, he spoke forth to them his last will with regard to the division of his estate between his children, in so far as their inheritance and estate rights to the farm were required, which was confirmed by hand and mouth. When all this had been accomplished, Jens would take his leave and go; but they continued to beleaguer him with their curious questions, to which he mostly gave evasive answers. Among other things, his wife said:

“‘Bless God, you came home, so we could discover your will, and that you may know your offspring will remain here.’

“‘Yes,’ replied Jens, ‘my offspring will stay here until the end of the country, but then a battle will be fought at Lillehammer, and it will be the largest that has ever taken place on Norwegian soil. The blood of men shall flow above the knees of the cockerels, and the those from Gudbrandsdalen shall decide whether Norway should yet be called a kingdom. In France, the peasant club was established, and there it will again rise first, and with the scallopian battles change the state of the peoples in the countries.’

“‘When will that great battle in this country take place?’ was the question remaining.

“‘When broad roads through the country's fjords make the enemy’s entrance easy,’ Jens replied, ‘and when voting is the country’s law, then this spark of war will be slowly ignited, and Norway and Sweden shall be ruled under one scepter. Before the union of these, Lågen shall abduct the beautiful Flat-Sell and unite with the Scottish lochs, and the Norwegian mountains should begin to calve, as well as a magpie building its nest in the parlour stove in Fliti.’

“After these and other amusing and remarkable predictions, Jens Ivarssøn left the folk, and no one saw where he went any more.”

It looked as if the schoolmaster now came more and more to his senses and roused himself. He spoke more clearly than before, especially towards the end; it appeared that his tongue had regained its accustomed skill. But as he was about to rise, he began to rave, much to our wonder. He said good-bye and pressed our hands all with reckless bowing and scraping, and went on his way, “because his health was not the best,” he said.

When the schoolmaster was well gone, and his life and peculiarity had properly been discussed, Anders asked the beautiful pale girl from the neighboring pasture to tell. “I know you know a lot, Ragnill, and you can tell, too, you can, when you’re of a mind,” he said. “Tell us a bit now, you! About how it was with Steffen Åseng’s daughter.”

“It is soon told,” she replied happily, though blushing modestly when she turned to us and began to tell.

“This Steffen was from Røllstad at Fron; he was married to the daughter of Åseng in Heiddal, and had a little girl by her. But as they were staying at the pasture one summer, she was taken into the mountain; she wasn’t more than eight years old at the time. Her parents searched for her so, because she was such a strikingly beautiful young girl. I have some kinship with the Røllstad folk; my grandfather was often with them, and he often told me about her.

“When she disappeared, they formed a manhunt, and rang the church bells for her; but gone was she, and gone she remained, and they never saw her again.

“Many years later, two fishermen were staying up in the Heimdal mountains. They were staying in a small stone cabin there, and had a fire at night. Then a woman came in, and she was both big and beautiful and well-formed. She told them that she was Steffen Åseng’s daughter, and that she was the one who had been taken many years before, and had been with the mound-folk the whole time.

“‘But tomorrow I shall have a wedding with the old man in the Rånå boulder,’ she said, ‘and so I would ask you to throw steel over me and loose me, for if I am not loosed, then I shall have to remain with them for ever. When you are fishing at the mound down by the river, you will see us,’ she said, ‘for we will come from the Trostem boulder and travel to Rånå boulder. It’s easy to recognise the bridegroom; he rides before on a black horse, and has a nose so long that it reaches down to the saddle button.’

“They promised that they would be careful when the bridal procession came, and offered to throw steel over her, and with that she left.

“The next day, they hid themselves away a little way from the mound by the river and waited. As the sun began to set, the bridal procession came. You’ve never seen som many stately fellows, urbanely dressed and proud, and so many matrons and maidens with silk dresses and silver finery. And every one of them rode on a good horse; but the bride rode before, and the bridegroom had had a nose so long that it reached down to the saddle button. The fishermen were mostly confounded, for such a stateliness and finery had they never seen. When the procession came so close, the bride looked to one side. Then they took aim, but when they should throw over her, they had no steel. And so she had to go with the mound-folk to the Rånå boulder at Lesja, and there she is still, if she hasn’t pined away and died.”

“Yes,” said the herding girl, who had just come in, “I heard such a tale once, of one who was called Kari. She was staying at the Graven pasture out by Øyer and was taken while she was there, but she came well from it. There was one evening when she herded the cattle home. Just as they came down in the home stretch, she became aware of a little boy who was herding cattle back into the woods—for there is a forest on the mountains out there. Kari asked him to stop, but it did not help. So Kari grew angry, she did, and began using her mouth at him, and eventually she took him and shook and struck him on the top of the knoll; but then the top burst, and Kari fell, too, and the knoll collapsed so that both the boy and Kari fell a long way down through the mountain. At last they fell down to a large castle, and the boy took her with him. Now she understood that he was of the mound-folk, even though he was both big and stout. They went through many rooms, which were so beautiful that Kari would never have believed there could be anything so beautiful in the world. And there was such music that no one can believe how beautiful it was.

“There they bade her dance and offered her both food and drink, and they came with lefser—they looked like our plane shavings—but Kari said no, and they didn’t get another word from her, either: ‘No, not even thank you.’

“The time that Kari was away, and they missed her from the pasture, they sent to the farm to tell of it. When her parents were told she was gone, they were sorrowful, you understand; they thought she had got lost in the mountains, and they searched and formed a manhunt, but it didn’t do much good. Then they began to understand how things hung together, so they fetched the sexton from the church at Øyer.

“When it began to ring, an old man in the castle got up—he had a long white beard—and got into a bed away in a corner.

“‘Throw her out again!’ he shouted so that it thundered in the mountain. ‘The bell-cow from Øyer is in the mountains, clanging so as to break my skull.’

“With that they threw Kari out of the castle, from aloft, so she fell into a marsh.

“And gone was the castle and all its glory. They found her again close by the pasture, and there she walked on a grassy ground, wading, as if in a marsh.

“She followed the folk who were up there, looking for her and got a horse to ride home to Graven. But just as she rode, she jumped down off the horse and sang and danced some strange dances; it was so beautiful that the they nearly wept as they listened. And she had learned them in the hulder castle with the mound-folk, she said.”

“Now, you must also tell us something, Brit,” said Anders, who appeared to be eager to bring each and everyone into the entertainment. “You must remember Mari Kleivmillom, your grandmother’s sister; and if you remember her, then you remember when she told about the time she stayed as milkmaid in the pasture at Val, north of Høvringe here,” he added for our benefit.

"I remember that well,” Brit replied. “And when my brothers and sisters were small, she often told them of it, and every time she told it, she wept.

“It was while she was away that she had to go up to the pasture at Val and stay as undermilkmaid, and she went up with the cattle early in the spring.

“It must have been so good to go up to Valsætré and be underbudeie, and ho went uphill with quintessential tilé in the spring.

“When she had been there for a while, there came up a fellow called Gullbrann, who was supposed to fix the fence at another pasture; but he stayed at the pasture at Val and slept there at night, and Marit was glad, for she was afraid, and there were no other folk anywhere else. At length he was engaged to her, I think. Then there was one morning she should slip the cows; she had just watered the milk cow, so it would be able to put it away while she tended to the heifer; and when she had slipped them, she bent over the bulkhead to loose the milk cow, which stood licking up from the slop bucket. But suddenly the cow fell so mad that she jumped forward across the floor. Foam came from its mouth, and Marit couldn’t loose it. But on the side of the stall, there stood a big, stranger fellow, spreading his fingers towards her. She was terribly scared, you understand, when she saw such a fellow, ran ​​out of the door, and shouted for Gullbrann, who was fixing the fence just down below. Well, he came up immediately, but he saw no one. But the cow was almost mad, and foamed at the mouth.

“At length he managed to loose it. But Marit was nearly out of her mind, and that was because she had spoken of it immediately, and had not waited overnight. Gullbrann had to take her home, and at every brook she had to cross, she nearly lost her wits. At great length, she recovered, but every time she spoke of it since, she wept.

“Then they sent up the proper milkmaid. That was one called Myra-Rønnog, and she brought one they called Mad-Kari. They said that they wouldn’t be afraid of the mound-folk; they could just come. At that time a milkmaid had come to the Lom pasture, too. These three girls went about, herding the cattle, and were so wild and mad that there was no moderation. They flew over every mound that summer, running after grouse chicks, to kill them, and when they came to Valfjell, they shouted for Trond Fjell, and said he could come to them on Saturday night, and he would be allowed to lie with them. When they came to the Kvennstugu valley, they shouted for Tjøstol Bakke, and when they reached a mountain knoll away by Sletthø, which was called the Eldførpungen, they called for Kristoffer Pungen, and said the same to him.

“When they had cleared up in the evening, they clambered up on the cattle trap and cried: "Trond Fjell, Kristoffer Pungen, Tjøstol Bakke, come now; we are going to bed!” For these girls didn’t believe what folk said, that there were mound-folk abroad, and that these fellows lived in the mountains here. But they did become aware of them, I should think .

“For one Thursday evening late in the autumn—yes, it was so late that folk were going home from the pastures—then the girls had made finished their toilette for the evening and sat by the fire, talking about their boys, you see. Suddenly the door opened and in came the three small fellows. They didn’t say one word, and neither did the girls, either, but they saw them well enough, for the fellows went back and forth there, or sat on the bench. They had blue, foot-length tunics, big red eyes and long noses. After a while they left; but the following night they returned; then they began to appear more, and Myra-Rønnog and the girls from the Lom pasture grew more and more frightened. They prayed God for help; but Mad-Kari was not yet afraid.

“They were out again Saturday evening, and then they made such a noise with the girls that there was no end, for they were certainly fellows, no matter how small they were. But then a shooter arrived, called Per Gynt. He shot Bakke and killed Trond Valfjell, but Eldførpungen went up the chimney.”

We sat a little, talking about how lonely the girls are in the desolate mountains when, as the custom is on some farms, they stay up at the pasture with the young animals until wintertime, to give them the mountain feed and the moss that has been gathered. As we sat like that, a couple of the girls who had gone home came back and told, through incessant laughter, that the schoolmaster had got stuck in a stone quarry down the hill and could neither come up or go down.

“I’ll try to help him, I shall,” said Hans; “but I would rather go with your pack-horse to the cabins at Uløy, and look to your getting some reindeer tomorrow.”

“No, no, I think the world must be coming to an end!” said Brit, laughing, “Are you leaving Marit while the schoolmaster is here?”

“The schoolmaster hasn’t thought of proposing, neither tomorrow, nor the next day; he’d rather kill himself, after such a trip as he’s had this evening. I know how he does, I do,” Hans replied.

“Well, of course you can go with the pack-horse!” said Anders. “I’ll go with Tor and these fellows; there may be an opportunity to shoot a reindeer.”

“That may be so,” said Hans, as he left with Marit, to help the schoolmaster.

We pulled the benches up to the fireplace, made ourselves places out of hunting bags, knapsacks and capes, and soon lay sleeping soundly.

---

1. Historically, the use of the third person in addressing someone directly is a marker of civility in Norwegian.  ↩

2. Sir John’s language is a grotesque mixture of Norwegian and English, and as the narrator says, it is “impossible to reproduce.” I have therefore not even made an attempt. ↩

3. The common cuckoo leaves Norway in late July. Michaelmas is at the end of September. ↩

4. This exclamation is, for some reason, given in Norwegian, in the original. ↩

5. Johann Hübner (1668–1731) published Kurtze Fragen aus der alten und neuen Geographie (Short Questions from the Old and the New Geography) in Leipzig in 1693. [Svenska: http://runeberg.org/ymer/1884/0315.html] In Asbjørnsen’s text, this passage is given as a mixture of Norwegian and German, which I have attempted to translate into English and German. However, the syntax that German and Norwegian, but not English, have in common makes this a fool’s errand. ↩

6. Bjørn means bear; there is thus a play on words here in the original. ↩

7. “Scaregirl,” after the model of “scarecrow.” ↩

8. 23^rd June. ↩

9. This custom of blowing lurs to call the guests to the wedding that has been prepared is the origin of “trumpeting a wedding,” which appears in Norwegian folktales. ↩