“Yes, and now you shall travel the same road your snakes have gone!” cried Per Gynt, and shot him. Then he made an end of Aabakken with the butt-end of his firelock; but Eldförkungen had fled through the chimney. After Per Gynt had done this, he accompanied the dairy-maids back to their village, for they did not venture to stay in the hut any longer.
When Christmas came, Per Gynt once more got under way. He had heard of a farmstead at Dovre, where so many trolls were accustomed to congregate on Christmas Eve, that the people who lived there had to flee, and find places to stay at other farms. This farmstead Per Gynt decided to hunt up; for he thought he would like to see these trolls. He put on torn clothing, and took with him a tame bear which belonged to him, together with an awl, some pitch and some wire. When he had reached the farmstead, he went into the house and asked for shelter.
“May God aid us!” cried the man. “We cannot shelter you, and have to leave the house ourselves, because the place is alive with trolls every Christmas Eve!”
But Per Gynt thought he could manage to clear the house of the trolls. So they told him to stay, and gave him a pig’s skin into the bargain. Then the bear lay down behind the hearth, Per took out his awl, his pitch and his wire, and set out to make a single large shoe out of the pig’s skin. And he drew a thick rope through it for a lace, so that he could lace the whole shoe together, and besides he had two wagon-spokes for wedges at hand. Suddenly the trolls came along with fiddles and fiddlers, and some of them danced, and others ate of the Christmas dinner that stood on the table, and some fried bacon, and others fried frogs and toads and disgusting things of that kind—the Christmas dinner they had brought along themselves. In the meantime some of them noticed the shoe Per Gynt had made. Since it was evidently intended for a large foot, all the trolls wanted to try it on. When every one of them had thrust in his foot, Per Gynt laced it, forced in a wedge, and then drew the lace so taut that every last one of them was caught and held in the shoe. But now the bear thrust forth his nose, and sniffed the roast.
“Would you like to have some cake, little white cat?” said one of the trolls, and threw a burning hot, roasted frog into the bear’s jaws.
“Thump them, Master Bruin!” cried Per Gynt. And the bear grew so angry that he rushed on the trolls, raining blows on every side and scratching them. And Per Gynt hewed into the crowd with his other wagon-spoke as though he meant to break their skulls. Then the trolls had to make themselves scarce, but Per Gynt remained, and feasted on the Christmas fare all of Christmas week, while for many a long year no more was heard of the trolls.
NOTE
“Per Gynt” (Asbjörnsen, Norske Huldreeventyr og Folkesagn, Christiania, 1859, Part II, p. 77. From the vicinity of the Dover mountains. The story was told Asbjörnsen by a bird hunter, whom he accidentally met while hunting reindeer). Like “The Island of Udröst” which follows it, it is distinctively a Northern tale. The bold huntsman of Kvam, whose name and weirdly adventurous experience with the great crooked one of Etnedal, thanks to Ibsen, have been presented in an altogether different, symbolic form, makes his appearance here with all the heartfelt spontaneity of the folk-tale, as it is still recounted, half in pride, half in dread, in the lonely herdsman’s huts of the Dovre country.