"There was once a grown-up lad who tended cattle, and who often drove them upwards near a broad stream. On one side was a high steep cliff, jutting out so far over the stream that when he was upon it he could talk to any one on the opposite side; and all day he could see a girl over there tending cattle, but he couldn't go to her.
'Now, tell me thy name, thou girl that art sitting
Up there with thy sheep, so busily knitting,'
he asked over and over for many days, till one day at last there came an answer:—
'My name floats about like a duck in wet weather;
Come over, thou boy in the cap of brown leather.'
"This left the lad no wiser than he was before; and he thought he wouldn't mind her any further. This, however, was much more easily thought than done, for drive his cattle whichever way he would, it always, somehow or other, led to that same high steep cliff. Then the lad grew frightened; and he called over to her—
'Well, who is your father, and where are you biding?
On the road to the church I have ne'er seen you riding.'
"The lad asked this because he half believed she was a huldre.[3]
'My house is burned down, and my father is drowned,
And the road to the church-hill I never have found.'
"This again left the lad no wiser than he was before. In the daytime he kept hovering about the cliff; and at night he dreamed she danced with him, and lashed him with a big cow's tail whenever he tried to catch her. Soon he could neither sleep nor work; and altogether the lad got in a very poor way. Then once more he called from the cliff—