I hummed to myself, as I thought of Young Tamlane—
The queen of fairies keppit him
In yon green hill to dwell.
“They wanted,” continued he, “to keep him altogether, but he got away notwithstanding. Cari Olsdatter, my sister, was changed in the cradle too when my mother had gone out one evening; but she came back just in time to see an old woman carrying off the baby, and made her give it up. There was a bag of stones left in the cradle instead.
“Torkil Hermandson, too, who lived among the hills, they say he was married to a troll-qvind (‘elf-quean,’ as a Lowlander would say), called Turi Hougedatter. She was to have for her dowry his fold, as full as it would hold, of fat troll-cattle. So he set to work the night before, and wattled in twice as much ground as his fold usually covered. Sly fellow was Hermandson.”
“Yes, indeed,” thought I, “it seemed almost as if he was taking a leaf out of dame Dido’s book, when she over-reached the simple aborigines of Africa with her ox-hide double entendre.”
My attendant has got in his harvest, so he has comparatively little for the horse to do, and offers to schuss me all the way to Naes, which offer I accept. Presently we descend the hill at Gool, the former residence of the Samsonian Gielstrup.
“You see that hillock yonder, covered with firs,” said my guide, pointing to a spot lying at the confluence of the Hemsedals Elv and that of Hallingdal. “There it was where Arne Hafthorn wrestled with a troll one Christmas Eve, and got from him the great drinking horn, which has been in the family ever since. But it brought him no good. There has always been one of the family stumm (dumb) or halv-vittig (half-witted); and it is not so many years ago that Arne was found dead close by the hill there. This horn is still to be seen at a farm-house a little way up Hallingdal. It is made of ox-horn, and mounted with some unknown metal, and rests on a stand. Ah! you smile, but it is all virkelig sant (actually true).”[19]