With thy many winding wiles,
With thy deep, meandering arts,
Ruffling calm and quiet hearts;
“Hence!—for Christ, yea, Christ is here,—
At His token disappear;
Lo! the sign thou well hast known
Bids thy cursed crew begone!”
It is a fact that the Gousta Fjeld and the Tind Sö, a very large and lonely lake at its foot, are popularly supposed to be the resort of the Devil and his adherents. The author, however, has not been able to meet with any authentic accounts of the diabolical convents in Norway. He has, therefore, substituted those of Sweden, the locality of which is Blaakulla, in Dalecarlia. These are quoted by Frederika Bremer from the manuscript of Kronigsward, which details the judicial murders which took place under Councillor Lawrence Kreutz, in 1671,—were continued for three years, and were suppressed at last by the exertions of Countess Catharine de la Gardie. But, though the executions for witchcraft were put an end to, the belief in it is as rife as ever. The same book contains a laughable story of a supposed witch residing in the island of Söllezo, in the Silya Sjön, and of her recovery; which proves that the clergy of Sweden have not lost their power as exorcists. Not many years ago, a young girl of that island asserted positively that she was conveyed every evening to Blaakulla. Her parents, who were honest but simple folks, were much disturbed about it. They closely watched their daughter by night,—bound her fast in bed with cords,—but nothing would avail; for, in the morning, weeping bitterly, she still maintained she had been at Blaakulla. At last, her unhappy parents took her to the clergyman upon the island, and begged him, with earnest tears, to save their child from the claws of Satan. After having had several interviews with the maiden, the clergyman one day said to her, “I know a remedy,—a certain remedy to cure you! but it will give me much trouble. Yet, as nothing else appears to be of any avail, we will have recourse to it.” With much solemnity, he caused the girl to seat herself upon a commodious chair in the centre of the apartment, took up a “Cornelius Nepos,” and began reading one of the lives. Before he had finished, she fell fast asleep; and when she awoke, the clergyman told her she was cured—and she was so!