“Ah! but I can easily explain that,” said the Lehnsman. “When I first came here, some years ago, the young men were a very lawless lot; they thought nothing of taking the neighbours’ horses at night, and riding them about the country, visiting the jenter (girls); and it is my firm belief that they took advantage of the old superstition about the Aasgaardsreia coming by, and making the horses sweat, to carry on their own frolic with impunity. It was they that made the horses sweat, by bringing them back all of a heat, and not these sprites that you talk of.”
I felt inclined to take the Lehnsman’s view of the case; but the old man shook his head doubtingly.
“Ride, sir! why, at the time I speak of, you could not possibly ride, the snow was so deep that the roads were impassable. But now we are talking about it, it strikes me there may have been another cause. The horses used to get so much extra food just then, in honour of Yule, and the stalls are so small and close, that perhaps it made them break out in a sweat. Be that as it may, we used all to be terribly frightened when we heard the Aasgaardsreia.”
“It was merely the rush of the night wind,” said I, “beating against the house sides.”
“Would the night wind carry people clean away?” rejoined Solomon, returning to the charge. “Once, when they came riding by, there was a woman living at that gaard yonder, who fell into a besvömmelse (swoon); and in that state she was carried along with them right away to Toftelien, five old miles to the eastward.[15] And more by token, though she had never been there before, she gave a most accurate description of the place. I was by, and heard her. What do you think of that, Herr Lehnsman?” concluded Solomon, who was evidently halting between two antagonistic feelings, his superior enlightenment and his old deep-rooted boyish superstitions.
“I don’t believe it at all,” was the incredulous functionary’s reply; “it was, no doubt, the power of imagination, and the woman had heard from somebody, though she might have forgotten it, what Toftelien looked like.”
“You talked about the night-wind,” continued Solomon, turning to me. “I remember well when I was a lad, if there was a virvel-vind (whirlwind), I used to throw my toll-knife right into it. We all believed that it was the sprites that caused it, and that we should break the charm in that way.”
“Of course you believed in the underground people generally?”
“Well, yes, we did. I know a man up yonder, at Bykle, who, whenever he went up to the Stöl, used, directly he got there, and had opened the door, to kneel down, and pray them not to disturb him for four weeks; and afterwards they might come to the place, and welcome, till the next summer.”