Fairy Tales From All Nations

by Anthony R. Montalba

THE FEAST OF THE DWARFS.

The procession arrived at the house, as was clearly perceived by the nearer approach of the howl. They now all entered. Light and active, the dwarfs skipped over the benches; heavy and dull sounded the steps of the giants among them. Orm and his wife heard them lay out the table and celebrate their feast with the clattering of plates and cries of joy. When the feast was over and midnight was approaching, they began to dance to that magic melody which wraps the soul in sweet bewilderment, and which has been heard by some persons in the valleys and amid the rocks, who have thus learnt the air from subterranean musicians.

No sooner did Aslog hear the melody than she was seized with an indescribable longing to witness the dance. Orm was unable to restrain her. "Let me look," said she, "or my heart will break." She took her infant and placed herself at the furthest extremity of the chamber, where she could see everything without being herself seen. Long did she watch, without turning away her eyes, the dance, and the agile and wonderful steps and leaps of the little beings, who seemed to float in the air and scarcely to touch the ground, whilst the enchanting music of the elfs filled her soul.

In the mean time the infant on her arm grew sleepy and breathed heavily, and, without remembering the promise she had made to the old woman, she made the sign of the cross (as is the custom) over the child's mouth, and said, "Christ bless thee, my child!" She had scarcely uttered the words when a fearful piercing cry arose. The sprites rushed headlong out of the house, their lights were extinguished, and in a few minutes they had all left the house. Orm and Aslog, terrified almost to death, hid themselves in the remotest corner of the house. They ventured not to move until day-break, and, not until the sun shone through the hole over the hearth, did they find courage to come out of their hiding-place.

The table was still covered as the sprites had left it, with all their precious and wonderfully wrought silver vessels. In the middle of the room stood, on the ground, a high copper vessel half filled with sweet metheglin, and by its side a drinking-horn of pure gold. In the corner lay a stringed instrument, resembling a dulcimer, on which, as it is believed, the female giants play. They gazed with admiration on all, but did not venture to touch anything. Greatly were they startled, however, when, on turning round, they beheld, seated at the table, a monstrous form, which Orm immediately recognised as the giant whom Guru had embraced. It was now a cold hard stone. Whilst they stood looking at it, Guru herself, in her giant form, entered the room. She wept so bitterly that her tears fell on the ground, and it was long before her sobs would allow her utterance; at length she said:—

"Great sorrow have you brought upon me; I must now weep for the remainder of my days. As, however, I know that you did it not from any evil intention, I forgive you, although it would be easy for me to crumble this house over your heads like an egg-shell.

"Ah!" exclaimed she, "there sits my husband, whom I loved better than myself, turned for ever into stone, never again to open his eyes. For three hundred years I lived with my father in the island of Kuman, happy in youthful innocence, the fairest amongst the virgins of the giant race. Mighty heroes were rivals for my hand; the sea that surrounds that island is full of fragments of rock which they hurled at each other in fight. Andfind won the victory, and I was betrothed to him. But before our marriage came the abhorred Odin into the country, conquered my father, and drove us out of the island. My father and sister fled to the mountains, and my eyes have never since beheld them. Andfind and I escaped to this island, where we lived for a long time in peace, and began to hope that we should never be disturbed. But Destiny, which no one can escape, had decreed otherwise; Oluff came from Britain. They called him the Holy, and Andfind at once discovered that his journey would be fatal to the giant race. When he heard Oluf's ship dashing through the waves, he went to the shore and blew against it with all his strength. The waves rose into mountains. But Oluf was mightier than he; his vessel flew unharmed through the waves, like an arrow from the bow. He steered straight to our island. When the ship was near enough for Andfind to reach it, he grasped the prow with his right hand, and was in the act of sending it to the bottom, as he had often done with other ships. But Oluf, the dreadful Oluf, stepped forwards, and crossing his hands, cried out with a loud voice:—'Stand there, a stone, until the last day!' and in that moment my unhappy husband became a mass of stone. The ship sailed on unhindered towards the mountain, which it severed, and separated from it the little islands that lie around it.

"From that day all my happiness was annihilated, and I have passed my life in loneliness and sorrow. Only on Yule evening can a petrified giant recover life for seven hours, if one of the race embraces him, and is willing to renounce a hundred years of life for this purpose. It is seldom that a giant does this. I loved my husband too tenderly not to recall him to life as often as I could, at whatever cost to myself. I never counted how often I had done it, in order that I might not know when the time would come when I should share his fate, and in the act of embracing him become one with him. But ah! even this consolation is denied me. I can never again awaken him with an embrace, since he has heard the name which I may not utter, and never will he again see the light until the dawn of the last day.

"I am about to quit this place. You will never again behold me. All that is in the house I bestow on you. I reserve only my dulcimer. Let no one presume to set foot on the little surrounding islands. There dwells the little subterranean race, whom I will protect as long as I live."