He informs me that there is generally a kind of lyke-wake on the melancholy occasion, where the “grave öl” and “arve öl,” “grave ale,” or “heirship ale,” is swallowed in considerable quantities. In a recent Skifte, at which he presided, the executors charged, among the expenses to come out of the estate, one tonder malt and sixty-five pots of brantviin; while for the burial fee to the priest, the modest sum of one ort was charged. While the Sörenskriver was overhauling these items with critical eye, the peasant executor, who thought the official was about to take exception to the last item, or perhaps, which is more likely, wishing to divert his attention from the unconscionable charge for drink, observed that he really could not get the funeral service performed for less. The pastoral office would seem, from this, not to occupy a very high position among these clod-hoppers. Sixty-five pots, or pints, of brandy, a huge barrel of malt liquor, and ten-pennyworth of parson.
Mr. C., who is acquainted with Mr. Gieldrup, the priestly Samson of Aal, in Hallingdal, gives me some account of his taking the shine out of Rotner Knut, the cock and bully of the valley. It was on the occasion of Knut being married, and the parson was invited to the entertainment, together with his family. During the banquet, Rotner, evidently with the intention of annoying the priest, amused himself by pulling the legs of his son. Offended at the insult, Gieldrup seized the peasant, and hurled him with such force against the wooden door of the room, that he smashed through it. After which the parson resumed his place at the board, while Knut put his tail between his legs, as much abashed as Gunther, in the Nibelungenlied, when, at his wedding, he was tied up to a peg in the wall by his bride, the warrior virgin Brunhild.
It is customary in Hallingdal, where this occurred, to accompany the Hallingdance with the voice. One of the favourite staves in the valley had been—
Rotner Knut, Rotner Knut,
He is the boy to pitch the folks out.
It was now altered, and ran as follows, greatly to Knut’s chagrin,—
Rotner Knut, Rotner Knut,
The priest is the man to pitch him out.