“Hereabouts, not so bad; but yonder at Ulsvig they are very troublesome. It was only the other day that Ulsvig’s priest was going to one of his churches, when a bear attacked him. By good luck he had his hound with him—a very big one it is—and it attacked the bear behind, and bothered him, and so the priest managed to escape.”
“Aren’t there some old sagas about the Folgefond?” asked I.
“To be sure. I know one, but it is not true.”
“True or not true, let me hear it.”
“Well, then, it is said among the bonders that once on a time under all this mountain of ice and snow there was a valley, called Folgedal, with no less than seven parishes in it. But the dalesmen were a proud and ungodly crew, and God determined to destroy them as He did Sodom and Gomorrah—not by fire, however, but by snow. So He caused it to snow in the valley for ten weeks running. As you may suppose, the valley got filled up. The church spires were covered, and not a living soul survived. And from that day to this the ice and snow has gone on increasing. They also say that in olden days there used to be a strange sight of birds of all colours, white, and black, and green, and red, and yellow, fluskering about over the snow, and people would have it that these were nothing but the spirits of the inhabitants lingering about the place of their former abodes.”
“That’s a strange story, no doubt,” said I.
“And, now I think of it,” continued Jörgen, “I’ve heard old men say that this tale of the snowing-up must be true, for, now and then, when there has been a flom (flood), pieces of hewn timber, as if they had belonged to a house, and household implements, such as copper kettles, have been brought down by the stream that comes out of Overhus Glacier.
“Now and then, too, the traveller over Folgo is said to hear strange noises, as of church bells ringing and dogs barking. But the fact is, there’s something so lonely and grewsome about the Fond, and the ice is so apt to split and the snow to fall, that no wonder people get such-like fancies into their heads.”
As we ascend I see tufts of a dark green herb growing in the crevices of the grey rocks.