'Well, who is your father, and where are you biding?
On the road to the church I have ne'er seen you riding.'
"The youth more than half believed her, in fact, to be a hulder.[19]
'My house is burned down, and my father is drowned,
And the road to the church-hill I never have found.'
"Now this also made the youth no wiser than before. By day he lingered on the crag, and by night he dreamed that she was dancing around him, and gave him a lash with a great cow's-tail each time he tried to take hold of her. Soon he could not sleep at all, neither could he work, and the poor youth was in a wretched state. Again he called aloud,—
'If thou art a hulder, then pray do not spell me,—
If thou art a maiden, then hasten to tell me?'
"But there came no answer, and then he was sure that this was a hulder. He gave up tending cattle, but it was just as bad, for wherever he went, or whatever he did, he thought of the fair hulder who blew on the horn.
"Then one day, as he stood chopping wood, there came a girl through the yard who actually looked like the hulder. But when she came nearer, it was not she. He thought much about this; then the girl came back, and in the distance it was the hulder, and he ran directly toward her. But the moment he came near her it was not she.
"After this, let the youth be at church, at a dance, at other social gatherings, or where he would, the girl was there too; when he was far from her, she seemed to be the hulder; near to her, she seemed to be another; he asked her then whether it were she or not; but she laughed at him. It is just as well to spring into it as to creep into it, thought the youth, and so he married the girl.
"No sooner was this done than the youth ceased to like the girl. Away from her, he longed for her; but when with her, he longed for one he did not see; therefore he was harsh toward his wife; she bore this and was silent.
"But one day, when he was searching for the horses, he found his way to the crag, and sitting down, he called out,—