Chapter Sixteen.
Old Tales and Better Tidings.
When the bishop came forth in the afternoon to take his seat in the shade of the wood, those who were there assembled were singing “For Norgé.” Instead of permitting them to stop, on account of his arrival, he joined in the song, and solely because his heart was in it. Seldom had he witnessed such a scene as this; and as he looked around him, and saw deep shades and sunny uplands, blue glaciers above, green pastures and glittering waters below, and all around herds on every hill-side, he felt his love of old Norway, and his thankfulness for being one of her sons, as warm as that of any one of the singers in the wood. Out of the fulness of his heart, the good bishop addressed his companions on the goodness of God in creating such a land, and placing them in it, with their happiness so far in their own hands as that little worthy of being called evil could befall them, except through faults of their own. M. Kollsen, who had before uttered his complaints of the superstition of his flock, hoped that his bishop was now about to attack the mischief vigorously.
The bishop, however, only took his seat,—the mossy seat prepared for him,—and declared himself to be now at the service of any who wished to consult or converse with him. Instead of thrusting his own opinions and reproofs upon them, as it was M. Kollsen’s wont to do, he waited for the people to open their minds to him in their own way, and by this means, whatever he found occasion to say had double influence from coming naturally. The words dropped by him that day to the anxious mother awaiting the confirmation of her child,—to the young person preparing for that important event,—to the bereaved,—to the penitent,—to the thoughtless,—and to those who wondered why God had given them so many rich blessings—what the good bishop said to all these was so fit and so welcome, that not a word was forgotten through long years after, and he was quoted half a century after he had been in his grave, as old Ulla had quoted the good bishop of Tronyem of her day.
In a few hours many of the people were gone for the present,—some being wanted at home, and others for the expected affair on the fiord. The bishop and M. Kollsen had thought themselves alone in their shady retreat when they saw Erica lingering near among the trees. With a kind smile, the bishop beckoned to her, and bade her sit down, and tell him whether he had not been right in promising, a while ago, that God would soothe her sorrows with time, as is the plan of his kind providence. He remembered well the story of the death of her mother. Erica replied that not only had her grief been soothed, but that she was now so blessed that her heart was burdened with its gratitude. She wished,—she needed to pour out all that she felt; but M. Kollsen was there, and she could not speak quite freely before him. He, for his part, observed that, if she was now so happy, she must have given up some of her superstitions, for certainly he had never known any one less likely to enjoy peace than Erica, on all occasions on which he had seen her,—so great was her dread of evil spirits on every hand.
“I wish,” said Erica, with a sigh,—“I do wish I knew what to think about Nipen.”
“Ay! here it comes,” observed M. Kollsen, folding his arms, as if for an argument.
Encouraged by the bishop, Erica told the whole story of the last few months, from the night of Oddo’s prank to that which found her at the feet of her friend, for she had cast herself down at the bishop’s feet, sitting as she had done in her childhood, looking up in his face.
“You want to know what I think of all this?” said the bishop, when she had done. “I think that you could hardly help believing as you have believed, amidst these strange circumstances, and with your mind full of the common accounts of Nipen. Yet I do not believe there is any such spirit as Nipen, or any demon in the forest, or on the mountain. Did you ever hear what spirits everybody in this country believed in before the blessed gospel was brought to old Norway?”
“I have heard of Thor, that yonder islet was named after; and that, when there was a tempest, with rolling thunder, such as we never hear in this region, the people used to say it was Thor driving his chariot over the mountain-ridge.”
“That was what people said of the thunder. What they said of fire and frost was that they were giants called Loke and Thrym, who dwelt in a dreadful tempestuous place, at the end of the earth, and came abroad to do awful things among men. The giant Frost drove home his horses at night,—the hail-clouds that sped through the air; and there sat the giant on the frost winds, combing the manes of his horses as they went. Fire was a cunning demon that stole in where it was not wanted: and when once in, it devoured all that it chose, till it rose into the sky at last in smoke.—Then there was the giant Aegir, who brought in squalls from the sea, and made whirlpools in the fiords.”
“Why, that is like Nipen.”
“Very like Nipen;—perhaps the same. Then there was the good god Balder (the white god), who made everything bright and beautiful, and ripened the fruits of the earth. This god Balder was the sun. Then there were the three magical women, the Fates, who made men’s lives happy or miserable. Did you ever hear how these giants and Fates were worshipped before Jehovah and Christ were known in this land?”
“I have heard Ulla sing many old songs about these and more; and how Thor and two companions as mighty as himself were travelling, and entered a curious house for the night; and wandered about in the great house, being frightened at a strange loud noise outside: and how they found in the morning that this house was the mitten of a giant, infinitely greater than themselves; and that what they had taken for a separate chamber in the great house was the thumb of his mitten; and that the strange noise was the snoring of this giant Skrymir, who was asleep close by, after having pulled off his mittens.”
“That is one of the many tales belonging to the old religion of this country. And how did this old religion arise?—Why, the people saw grand spectacles every day, and heard wonders whichever way they turned; and they supposed that the whole universe was alive. The sun as it travelled they thought was alive, and kind and good to men. The tempest they thought was alive, and angry with men. The fire and frost they thought were alive, pleased to make sport with men.”
“As people who ought to know better,” observed M. Kollsen, “now think the wind is alive, and call it Nipen, or the mist of the lake and river, which they call the sprite Uldra.”
“It is true,” said the bishop, “that we now have better knowledge, and see that the earth, and all that is in it, is made and moved by One Good Spirit, who, instead of sporting with men, or being angry with them, rules all things for their good. But I am not surprised that some of the old stories remain, and are believed in still,—and by good and dutiful Christians too. The mother sings the old songs over the cradle; and the child hears tell of sprites and demons before it hears of the good God who ‘sends forth the snow and rain, the hail and vapour, and the stormy winds fulfilling his word.’ And when the child is grown to be a man or woman, the northern lights shooting over the sky, and the sighing of the winds in the pine-forest, bring back those old songs, and old thoughts about demons and sprites; and the stoutest man trembles. I do not wonder; nor do I blame any man or woman for this; though I wish they were as happy as the weakest infant, or the most worn-out old man, who has learned from the gentle Jesus to fear nothing at any time, because his Father is with him.”
“But what is to be done?” asked M. Kollsen.
“The time will come,” said the bishop, “when the mother will sing to her babe of the gentle Jesus; and tell her growing child of how he loved to be alone with his Father in the waste and howling wilderness; and bade his disciples not be afraid when there was a tempest on the wide lake. Then, when the child grows up to be a man, if he finds himself alone on the mountain or in the forest, he will think of Jesus, and fear no demon: and if a west wind and fog should overtake a woman in her boat on the fiord,” he continued, looking with a smile at Erica, “she will never think of Nipen, but rather that she hears her Saviour saying, ‘Why are ye afraid, O! ye of little faith?’”
Erica hid her face, ashamed under the good man’s smile.
“In our towns,” continued he, “much of this blessed change is already wrought. No one in my city of Tronyem now fears the angry and cunning fire-giant Loke; but every citizen closes his eyes in peace when he hears the midnight cry of the watch, ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’ (The watchman’s call in the towns of Norway.) In the wilds of the country every man’s faith will hereafter be his watchman, crying out upon all that happens, ‘It is the Lord’s hand: let Him do what seemeth to Him good!’ This might have been said, Erica, as it appears to me, at every turn of your story, where you and your friends were not in fault.”
He went on to remark on the story she had told him; and she was really surprised to find that there was not the slightest reason to suppose that any spirit had been employed to vex and alarm her. The fog and the pirates had overtaken and frightened many in the fiord with whom Nipen had no quarrel. Rolfs imprisonment, and all the sorrows that belonged to it, had been owing to his own imprudence. The appearance of a double sun the night before was nothing uncommon, and was known to take place when the atmosphere was in a particular state. She herself had seen that no Wood-Demon had touched the axes in this very grove last night; and that it was no mountain-sprite, but a Laplander, who had taken up the first Gammel cheese. She had also witnessed how absurdly mistaken Hund had been about the boat having been spirited away, and Vogel island being enchanted, and Rolf’s ghost being allowed to haunt him. Here was a case before her very eyes of the way in which people with superstitious minds may misunderstand what happens to themselves.
“Oh!” exclaimed Erica, dropping her hands from before her glowing face, “if I dared but think there were no bad spirits—if I dared only hope that everything that happens is done by God’s own hand, I could bear everything! I would never be afraid again!”
“It is what I believe,” said the bishop. Laying his hand on her head, he continued, “We know that the very hairs of your head are all numbered. I see that you are weary of your fears—that you have long been heavy-laden with anxiety. It is you, then, that He invites to trust Him when He says by the lips of Jesus, ‘Come, ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’”
“Rest—rest is what I have wanted,” said Erica, while her tears flowed gently; “but Peder and Ulla did not believe as you do, and could not explain things; and—”
“You should have asked me,” said M. Kollsen; “I could have explained everything.”
“Perhaps so, sir; but—but, M. Kollsen, you always seemed angry; and you said you despised us for believing anything that you did not: and it is the most difficult thing in the world to ask questions which one knows will be despised.”
M. Kollsen glanced in the bishop’s face, to see how he took this, and how he meant to support the pastor’s authority. The bishop looked sad, and said nothing.
“And then,” continued Erica, “there were others who laughed—even Rolf himself laughed; and what one fears becomes only the more terrible when it is laughed at.”
“Very true,” said the bishop. “When Jesus sat on the well in Samaria, and taught how the true worship was come, He neither frowned on the woman who inquired, nor despised her, nor made light of her superstition about a sacred mountain.”
There was a long silence, which was broken at last by Erica asking the bishop whether he could not console poor Hund, who wanted comfort more than she had ever done. The bishop replied that the demons who most tormented poor Hund were not abroad on the earth or in the air, but within his breast—his remorse, his envy, his covetousness, his fear. He meant, however, not to lose sight of poor Hund, either in the prison to which he was to travel to-morrow, or after he should come out of it.
Here Frolich appeared running to ask whether those who were in the grove would not like to look forth from the ridge, and see what good the budstick had done, and how many parties were on their way from all quarters to the farm.
M. Kollsen was glad to rise and escape from what he thought a schooling, and the bishop himself was as interested in what was going on as if the farm had been his home. He was actually the first at the ridge.