“Father,” said Lars one day, “you shoot so well, why haven’t you ever tried to kill the Gausdale Bruin that hurt Stella so badly?”
“Hush, child! you don’t know what you are talking about,” answered his father; “no leaden bullet will harm that wicked beast.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like to talk about it—but it is well known that he is enchanted.”
“But will he then live for ever? Is there no sort of bullet that will kill him?” asked the boy.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to have anything to do with witchcraft,” said Thorkel.
The word “witchcraft” set the boy to thinking, and he suddenly remembered that he had been warned not to speak to an old woman named Martha Pladsen, because she was a witch. Now, she was probably the very one who could tell him what he wanted to know. Her cottage lay close up under the mountain-side, about two miles from his home. He did not deliberate long before going to seek this mysterious person, about whom the most remarkable stories were told in the valley. To his astonishment, she received him kindly, gave him a cup of coffee with rock candy, and declared that she had long expected him. The bullet which was to slay the enchanted bear had long been in her possession; and she would give it to him if he would promise to give her the beast’s heart.
He did not have to be asked twice for that; and off he started gayly with his prize in his pocket. It was rather an odd-looking bullet, made of silver, marked with a cross on one side and with a lot of queer illegible figures on the other. It seemed to burn in his pocket, so anxious was he to start out at once to release the beloved Stella from the cruel enchantment. But Martha had said that the bear could only be killed when the moon was full; and until the moon was full he accordingly had to bridle his impatience.