“Well, if that is the case, I do not think, if I were you, I would be too hard upon poor Nilssen about the next world. But you ought to be able to judge for yourself whether the laager was a ghost-house or not; what became of it?”
“O, there it is still,” said Torkel. “I have slept in it often myself since, and no harm has happened from it. But all that hill-country is a terrible place. Do you know, the Evil One once leaped over the Tind Sö, where it is four miles across? He did, indeed; I have seen the prints of his footsteps with my own eyes—and a very curious thing it is, that one foot is bigger than the other. Our Kyrkesonger says it is to mark the difference between mortal and venial sins.”
“I am afraid your Kyrkesonger will never rise to the rank of Candidatus,” said the Parson, “if he does not get up his theology a little better. Is not this the place where your witches meet?”
“It is not far from it; and it is generally supposed that it was in hurrying away from one of these meetings, which was suddenly dispersed by some one having accidentally named a holy name, that the Devil left the mark of his feet on the shores of the Tind Sö; but the actual place of meeting is the top of Gousta Fjeld. The ridge of the mountain is so narrow that you may sit astride on it, with a leg on each side in the air, and no resting-place under either foot for a thousand fathoms. On this ridge the Devil sits playing on the bagpipe, while the witches dance the polska round him in the air. They come from all parts of the country, riding upon the skyts-horse, which looks like a flying cow, and carrying with them all the children they can catch, in order to enlist them in the Devil’s service; for each witch has a needle, by which she unlocks the sides of the houses, and makes an opening, if she likes, big enough for a carriage and horses to pass through; and after she has passed, she locks them up so that no one can know where she has been. When she arrives at the convent—so the assembly is called,—she presents to the Devil all those children whom she has brought with her: she cannot force the children to take service with him,—some refuse, and the witches are obliged to carry them back again. These are good and holy people ever afterwards; but most of them do enter the Devil’s service, for though he is bound down with a chain, which he has always worn ever since our Lord came upon earth, yet he can make himself look so fine and so glorious that very few of them like to say ‘no,’ and to go back to their homes through the dark night. If they once say ‘yes,’ he gives them a silver dollar each, and marks them, by biting the crown of their heads; and then they are taught to curse all that is holy—the Heaven, and the earth, and the fruits of the field, and the birds of the air,—all except the magpie, for that is the Devil’s own peculiar favourite. And then the witches make them a mess of rö-gröd, with corn that has been stolen. They have a way of their own for stealing corn: they put a sack to the roof of the granary as they fly past, and say ‘Corn draw corn, and straw draw straw,’ and then all the corn flies up into their sacks, and the straw remains behind. I know this to be true, for I have lost lispund after lispund myself that way. I had a girl in my service once, who was a witch, and I lost as much as three tonne of corn, and a great many things besides, while she was with me. But she vanished one night and has never been heard of since, and with her a great scoundrel, who had lately come into our parts, whom she called her lover,—but the people said he was the Devil in disguise.”
“Very likely,” said the Parson, “lovers very often are; but what about your witch children?”
“When they have done all this, the Devil gives notice of the next convent, and the witches take the children, and they grow up with their brothers and sisters just like any of the others, only that they are cross-grained children from that time forward, and are always getting into one mischief or another, and quarrelling, and fighting, and stealing, and lying, and doing the Devil’s work on earth; for they have all had new names given them at the convent, and whenever the Devil calls them by those names, they must go and do whatever work he sets them at, for they have taken his wages, and, having once engaged to be his servants, they cannot help themselves now.”
The Parson felt by no means inclined to laugh at Torkel’s demonology, every bit of which may be found gravely and solemnly recorded in the State papers of Sweden, for it once formed the grounds of accusation upon which men and women were executed by the dozen; for with the exception of the material and tangible facts, the cow-like horse, and the silver dollar, and the ridge of Gousta, and the bagpipes, the whole of Torkel’s story was but an over-true allegory, the antitype of which may be found everywhere in real life; and the fact of the Superior Power compelling the restoration of all who do not willingly engage in the Devil’s service, is a very sound piece of theology. So he very readily joined in the prayer of the Evening Hymn, a very ancient composition, dating from centuries before the Reformation, which Torkel sang as well and as heartily as if he had been kyrkesonger himself. A portion of it has been thus translated:—
“Ere thy head, at close of day,
On thy lowly couch thou lay,
On thy forehead and thy breast