Some time later another Troll came to the peasant’s cottage and asked if that great savage cat still lived.
“Look out!” said the peasant, “she is lying there on the oven, and has seven young ones, all worse than she.”
“Oh!” cried the Troll, and rushed for the door. From that time no Trolls have ever visited Norrhult. [[129]]
[1] Not longer than thirty years ago a cross, said to be the one raised on this occasion, was still standing in Norrhult. [↑]
Lady Barbro of Brokind.[1]
On the estate of Brokind, in the parish of Vardsnäs, dwelt, in days gone by, a rich and distinguished [[130]]lady named Barbro, who was so hard-hearted and severe with her dependents that for the least transgression they were bound, their hands behind their backs, and cast into prison, where, to add to their misery, she caused a table, upon which a bountiful supply of food and drink was placed, to be spread before them, which, of course, bound as they were, they could not reach. Upon complaint being made to her that the prisoners were perishing from hunger and thirst, she would reply, laughingly: “They have both food and drink; if they will not partake of it the fault is theirs, not mine.”
Thus the prison at Brokind was known far and wide, and the spot where it stood is to this day called Kisthagen, in memory of it.