“Well, sir, it is rather. What countryman are you, if I may be so bold?”
“Guess.”
“To judge from the fishing-rod and the gun, you must be an Englishman. I once guided an Englishman—let me see—one Capitan Biddul (Biddulph?) over the mountains to the Sogne Fjord. Capitan Finne, too, the Norwegian Engineer, when he was surveying, I was a good deal with him.”
“Do the people hereabouts believe in the hill-folk?” (Haugefolk = fairies).
“To be sure. There used to be a strange man living at Bjöberg before my father took to the place; one Knut Sivardson Sivard. His head was full of those hill-people. He used to tell an odd tale of a circumstance that happened to him years ago. One Yule, when he was just going to rest, came a tap at the door. ‘Who is there?’ he asked. ‘Neighbours,’ was the reply. Opening the door, he let in three queer-looking people, with pointed white caps and dark clothes. ‘I’m Torn Hougesind,’ said one, with a swarthy face and a hideous great tooth in the middle of his upper jaw. ‘I’m your nearest neighbour.’ ‘I’m Harald Blaasind,’ said another. ‘I’m’—I forget what the other called himself, but it was like the other two names, the name of some of those mountains near by. ‘Strange that I never saw you before,’ said Sivard, doubtfully. ‘But we don’t live so far off; we’ve called in to see how you do this Yule time.’ Sivard did not like the appearance of matters, but said nothing, and set before them some Yule ale in a large birch bowl, such as we use for the purpose in these parts. How they did drink, those three fellows! But Hougesind beat the rest hollow. Every now and then, as the ale mounted to his brain, the creature laughed, and showed his monster tooth.”
“A modern Curius Dentatus,” mused I.
“Presently, in mere wantonness, he bit the board, saying, he would leave a mark of his visit. Sivard’s son, Knut, who was a determined young fellow, lay in bed all this while, and rightly judged that if the ale flowed at this pace, there would be very little left for the remainder of the Christmas festivities. So he slily reached his gun, which hung on the wall, and taking good aim, fired right at Hougesind, him with the tooth, when the whole three vanished in a twinkling! Sivard used to show the mark of the tooth in the board, but I have heard that it looked just as if it had been made by a horse tooth hammered into it. However, the tale got all over the country, and folks used to come up from Christiania to see Sivardson Sivard, and hear the description of what he had seen.
“Fond of a joke was Sivard. There is a patch of grass you passed up the road—a very scarce article hereabouts. Drovers used to stop there unbeknown to him, and give their cattle a bellyful, and then came and took a glass at the house, and said nothing about it. He was determined to be even with them; so he dressed up a guy with an old helmet on, and a sword in his hand, and placed the figure close by a hovel there. Not many nights after, a drover came rushing into the house almost senseless with fright. ‘He is coming, he is coming! the Lord deliver me!’ ‘What now?’ exclaimed Sivard. The drover explained that he was coming along, when he spied a man in armour, with dreadful glaring eyes and sword, rushing after him. He ran for his life. It was one of the Hill folk. ‘Are you certain he moved?’ inquired Sivard, ready to burst with laughter. ‘Quite certain.’ ‘But where were you?’ ‘Oh! I had just turned out of the road a bit, to give the horses a bite of grass’—‘that did not belong to you,’ continued the other. ‘Serve you right for trespassing.’
“But we all believe in these people up here,” continued my companion. “Not so very long ago, Margit and Sunniva—two sæter girls—just when they were leaving with the cattle for home, at the end of the summer, saw two little trolls steal into the deserted hut. They observed them accurately. They were dressed in red, with blue caps, and each had a pipe and a neat little cane.”
“And do these people ever do harm?”