The Boy. The sheep were so restless to-day. Some of them came near slipping away from me.
Oddny. If they had, you wouldn't be riding such a high horse now!
Gudfinna. Have they been bad to you, laddie? Do you never feel timid when you are alone so much?
The Boy. Sometimes I keep thinking what I should do if a mad bull came tearing down the mountains.
Gudfinna. Don't speak of them! They are the worst monsters in the world—except, perhaps, the skoffin.
The Boy. What is a skoffin?
Gudfinna. Don't you know that? When a rooster gets to be very old, he lays an egg, and if that's hatched, it becomes a skoffin. It kills a man by just looking at him, and the only thing that can slay it is a church-blessed silver bullet. Indeed, there are many things you have to be careful of, my child. Are you not afraid of the outlaws? They're not good, those fellows; they go about in skins with the wool on them and carry long sticks with ice-spurs, and that at midsummer. Have you ever seen anything of them?
The Boy. No, but yesterday I pretty near got scared. There came a man with a big bag under his arm. I didn't know him at first, but it was only Arnes.
Gudfinna. And what did he want of you?
The Boy. He asked me to show him the way to a spring. He was thirsty.