“Such lots of them,” continued she, excitedly, as if she saw them there and then, “he could not count them. He hurried after them to the doorway, and got a sight of them, by the light of the snow and the stars, mounting on their horses, and riding away as fast as they could lay legs to ground. On examining his shirt, he found it was quite whole again. So no damage was done after all. He took care, however, to move the horse, in order to abate the nuisance complained of, and the animal throve remarkably well in his new quarters. But I must get your dinner ready.”
And so out the old lady went, in due time returning with some pancakes and fried siek, a sort of fresh-water herring, which, with perch and trout, abounds in the lake close by.
While the repast was digesting, I began to ruminate on these stories, and the remarkable likeness, nay, even identity, some of them exhibit to the superstitions of that part of Great Britain where the Northern invaders mostly frequented. Fairy lore is traced by some authors to the Pagan superstitions of Greece and Rome, and to the superstitions of the East. But we prefer to regard these supernatural beings in Scandinavia rather as in the main of home-growth than as exotics; the creations of a primitive people, who, living among wonderful natural phenomena, and being ignorant of their cause, with the proverbial boldness and curiosity of ignorance, were fond of deriving an origin for them of their own manufacture, and one stamped with the impress of their own untutored imaginations. And what a country they live in for the purpose![22] None fitter could have been devised for the residence and operations of mysterious and frightful beings. Plod along the calm, friendly landscape of England, dotted thickly with houses and steeples, with the church bells ringing merrily, or the station bell clanging imperatively (bells are the bête noire of Trolls), and the scene alive with people,—a chaw-bacon, with no speculation in his eye, driving along the heavy wain, or a matter-of-fact “commercial” labouring along with his loaded four-wheel over the dusty strata viarum,—and I’ll defy you to be otherwise than common-place and unimaginative. But let even a highly-educated man wander alone through the tingling silentness of the mighty pine-woods of the North, broken at one time by the rumble of an earthslip, at another by the roar of a waterfall, seething in some weird chasm. Let him roam over the grey fjeld, and see through the morning mist a vast head bent threateningly over him, and, unless he be a very Quaker, his imagination will turn artist or conjuror, and people the landscape with the half-hidden forms of beings more or less than human. And so it was with the old heathen Norskman, living all alone in the wilderness. When he heard the tempest howl through the ravine, and saw the whirlwind crumple up the trees, it must be the spirits of Asgaard sweeping by with irresistible force. If in autumn evenings strange gabblings were heard aloft, caused by the birds of passage moving southward, it must be troll-wives on their airy ride. If lights were seen on the stream at night, they were “corpse lights,” though in reality only caused by some fellow burning the water for salmon. If the ice split with sudden and fearful sound, engulphing the hopeless wayfarer, it was an evil spirit, requiring a human sacrifice. Those pot-looking holes and finger-marks in the rocks—those mysterious foot-marks, whence were they? Those strange, grotesque figures, as like as they can be to human forms and faces—they must once have been evil beings or demons, now turned to stone by some superior power—a power that at one time revealed itself in the hissing race aloft of the Borealis; at another time blasted and shivered the rocks in thunder and lightning. The sea naturally would be a special locality for these sprites. Did not they often see phantom-ships, which a modern would explain by the natural phenomenon of the mirage? Did not sea-monsters from time to time show themselves to the lone fisherman? Did not they often see strange sights at the bottom of the transparent deep? Did not the calm surface suddenly rise into ruffian, crested billows, while dismal shrieks would echo at the same time from the rock-piercing caverns?
But other causes were at work. The more ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia, some of them of giant size and prodigious strength, others small of stature but very agile, like the Fins or Laps, were driven into the mountains by Odin and his Asiatics. From these hiding-places they would at times emerge—the former to do deeds of ferocity and violence, the latter to practise some of their well-known tricks, such as thieving, changing children, kidnapping people away with them. And this would, in process of time, give rise to the fancy of the existence of supernatural beings, gigantic Jotuls and tiny Trolls (in the Edda Finnr is the name for dwarfs), endued with peculiar powers. In the same way the vulgar Scotch ascribed superhuman attributes to the Picts, or Pechts.
Adam of Bremen, in the eleventh century, says that Sweyne Estridson, King of Denmark, told him that in Sweden people used to come from the hills and do great damage, and then disappear. The same author relates that in Norway there were wild women and men, who lived in the woods, and were something between men and beasts. The existence of these creatures, by whatever name called, being once assumed, all sorts of explanations were given of their origin. Thus, there is an odd Swedish superstition, that when God hurled down Lucifer and his host from heaven, they did not all fall into the burning lake, but that some fell into the sea, others upon the earth, and became the various spirits proper to those places. Another not less quaint Danish legend is to this effect:—When Eve was washing her bairns one day in a spring, the Almighty suddenly called to her. Alarmed, she threw those of her bairns that she had not washed aside, when God asked her whether all her children were there. She replied, “Yes.” Whereupon he said, “What thou hast tried to hide from God shall be hidden from men.” In a moment the unwashed children were separated from the others, and disappeared. Before the flood, God put them all into a hole, the entrance of which he fastened. From them all the underground people spring. Others again, say that they descend from Adam, by his first wife, Lileth, while others pronounce them to be a mixed race of the sons of God and daughters of men. Even Hermann Ruge, the pastor of Slidre, in Norway, in 1754, gravely talked of underground people who were something between men and beasts. While that strange compound of superstition and enthusiasm, Luther himself, speaks of changelings as a matter of course.
But it is time to think of another sort of changeling, I mean the fresh horse, which, after a long delay, has arrived at the door. “Good bye, Mrs. Anna, many thanks.”
“Farvel, farvel! if you meet with Tidemann on your travels, say Anna Gulsvig sends him her greeting. Bless you, sir, we knew him well; he was at my son’s wedding, and pictured us all.”
She was alluding to the celebrated painter of that name, who resides in Düsseldorf, but visits his native country, Norway, every summer, returning home rich with pictorial spoils, gained in scenes like these. Professor Gude, the eminent painter, also of Düsseldorf, is the son of a gentleman who held a government office in this neighbourhood.