He added, in Dalecarlian, for his sister’s benefit:
“Come, Karine, look at this young man, and tell him whether he must go with me to hunt the wicked one?”
So it is that the Dalecarlian peasant calls the bear, whose name he is extremely reluctant to pronounce.
Karine hid her eyes with her hand, and spoke to her brother with great vivacity.
“Speak in Swedish, since you know Swedish,” said Christian, who wanted to understand the practices of the seeress. “I beg you, good mother, to tell me what I am to do.”
The seeress closed her eyes with a sort of obstinacy, and said:
“You are not he I was dreaming about, or else you have forgotten the language of your cradle. Leave me, both of you, you and your shadow; I will not speak; I have sworn never to tell what I know.”
“Have patience,” said the danneman to Christian. “She is always so at first. Beg her mildly, and she will tell your fortune.”
Christian renewed his petition, and the seeress, still concealing her eyes with her pale hands, and assuming a poetic style which seemed learned by heart, at last replied:
“The ravenous one howls on the heath, his supports fail him; he rushes forth!—he rushes towards the east, through a valley full of poisons, of peat, and of mud.”