Tarald had also something to say about Luther’s Postils; but like most of these Lesere, he had no relish for a good story or legend. He had a cock-and-a-bull story—excuse the confusion of ideas—of a bear and a fox, but it was so rigmarole and pointless, that it reminded me of Albert Smith’s engineer’s story. The real tale is as follows. I picked it up elsewhere:—Once on a time, when the beasts could talk, a fox and a bear agreed to live together and have all things in common. So they got a bit of ground, and arranged, so that one year the bear should get the tops and the fox the bottoms of the crop, and another year the bear the bottoms and the fox the tops. The first year they sowed turnips, and, according to agreement, the bear got the tops and the fox the bottoms. The bear did not much like this, but the fox showed him clearly that there was no injustice done, as it was just as they had agreed. Next year, too, said he, the bear would have the advantage, for he would get the bottoms and the fox the tops. In the spring the fox said he was tired of turnips. “What said the bear to some other crop?” “Well and good,” answered the bear. So they planted rye. At harvest the fox got all the grain, and the bear the roots, which put him in a dreadful rage, for, being thick-witted, he had not foreseen the hoax. At last he was pacified, and they now agreed to buy a keg of butter for the winter. The fox, as usual, was up to his tricks, and used to steal the butter at night, while Bruin slept. The bear observed that the butter was diminishing daily, and taxed the fox. The fox replied boldly—“We can easily find out the thief; for directly we wake in the morning we’ll examine each other, and see whether either of us has any butter smeared about him.” In the morning the bear was all over butter; it regularly dropped off him. How fierce he got! the fox was so afraid, that he ran off into the wood, the bear after him. The fox hid under a birch-tree root, but bruin was not to be done, and scratched and scratched till he got hold of the fox’s foot. “Don’t take hold of the birch-root, take hold of the fox’s foot,” said Reynard, tauntingly. So the bear thought it was only a root he had hold of, and let the foot go, and began scratching again. “Oh! now do spare me,” whispered the fox; “I’ll show you a bees’-nest, which I saw in an old birch. I know you like honey.” This softened the bear, for he was desperately fond of honey. So they went both of them together into the wood, and the fox showed the bear a great tree-bole, split down the middle, with the wedge still sticking in it. “It’s in there,” said the fox. “Just you squeeze into the crack, and press as hard as you can, and I’ll strike the wedge, and then the log will split.” The trustful bear squeezed himself in accordingly, and pushed as hard as ever he could. Reynard knocked out the block, the tree closed, and poor Bruin was fast. Presently the man came back who had been hewing the tree, and directly he spied the bear, he took his axe and split open his skull; and—so there is no more to tell.
On the bare, rocky pass which separates Sætersdal from Vatnedal were several stones, placed in a line, a yard or two apart from each other.
“Those are the Bridal Stones,” observed Tarald. “A great many years ago there was no priest on the Bykle side (I suppose this was after the murder by Wund Osmond, the Lehnsman), and a couple that wanted to wed came all the way over here to be married. Those stones they set up in memory of the event. On this stone sat the bridegroom, and on that the bride.”
The mountain pink (Lycnis viscaria) occurs on most of these stony plateaus. I also met with a mighty gentian, with purplish brown flower, emitting a rich aromatic odour, the root of which is of an excessively bitter taste, and is gathered for medicinal purposes.
A mile or two beyond this we stood in a rocky gorge, from which we had a glorious view of the Vatnedal lake, and another beyond it several hundred feet below us. After a very precipitous descent, on the edge of which stood several blocks, placed as near as they could be without rolling over, we skirted the lake through birch-grove and bog till we got opposite a house visible on the further shore. At this a boat was kept, but it was very uncertain whether anybody was at home. Leaving Tarald to make signals, I was speedily enticing some trout at a spot where a snow-stream rushed into the lake. At last Tarald cried out—
“All right, there are folk; I see a woman.” And sure enough, after a space, I could discern a boat approaching. A brisk and lively woman was the propelling power. We were soon on the bosom of the deep—the two men, the woman, and the horse, all, in spite of my protestations, consigned to a flat-bottomed leaky punt, though the wind was blowing high. The horse became uneasy, and swayed about, and, being larger than usual, he gave promise of turning the boat upside-down before very long. I immediately unlaced my boots, and pulled off my coat. The Norwegians seemed at this to awake to a sense of danger, and rowed back to the shore; the horse was landed and hobbled when he forthwith began cropping the herbage. We then made a safe passage. Unfortunately, Helge’s husband, whom I had counted on to help me on my journey, had started with his horse the day before to buy corn at Suledal, thirty-five miles off.
In this dilemma, I begged Tarald to take pity on me, or I might be hopelessly stopped for some days. The “Leser” was like “a certain Levite.” He had been complaining all day of fatigue. He felt so ill, he said, he could hardly get along. I had even given him some medicine. In spite, however, of his praiseworthy antipathy to swearing, and the nasal twang with which he poured out some of his moral reflections, I had felt some misgivings about the sincerity of his professions; for he had begged me to write to the Foged, and complain of the absence of the station-master at Bykle, that he might be turned out, and he get his place. And, sure enough, I found him to be a wooden nutmeg with none of the real spice of what he professed to be about him. No sooner did he finger the dollars, than his fatigue and indisposition suddenly left him, and he started off home with great alacrity, reminding me of those cripples in Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, who, from being hardly able to crawl, suddenly became all life and motion.
“Truly,” mused I, “these Lesere are all moonshine. They profess to be a peculiar people, but are by no means zealous of good works. But this lies in the nature of things. Which is the best article, the cloth stiffened and puffed up with starch and ‘Devil’s dust,’ or the rough Tweed, which makes no pretence to show whatever, but, nevertheless, does duty admirably well against wind and weather?” But enough of the thin-lipped, Pharisaical Tarald.
There was a beaminess about the hard-favoured countenance of Helge Tarjeisdatter Vatnedal, together with a brusque out-and-out readiness of word and deed, that jumped with my humour. The fair Tori too, her daughter, with her good-tempered blue eyes and mouth, and comfortable-looking figure, swept up the floor, and split some pine stumps with an axe, and lit the fire, and acted “Polly put the kettle on” with such an evident resolve to make me at home, that the prospect of being delayed in such quarters looked much less formidable. The two women had netted some gorgeous trout that afternoon, and I was soon discussing them.
“We must go now,” said Helge.