“Yes, but then I’m in a hurry,” answered the man. “I have to get back to Vaage this very evening.”
“I only wish that I could get there!” sighed John.
“You can stand on the runner of my sledge,” said the man, “for I have a horse that covers a mile in twelve steps.”
So they set out, and Blessom had all that he could do to hold fast to the runner of the sledge; for they went through weather and wind, and he could see neither heaven nor earth.
Once they stopped and rested. He could not tell exactly where it was, but when they began to hurry on again, he thought that he spied a skull on a pole. After they had gone on a while, John Blessom began to freeze.
“Alas, I forgot one of my gloves where we stopped, and now my hand is freezing!” said he.
“Well, Blessom, you’ll have to make the best of it,” said the man. “We are not far from Vaage now. When we stopped to rest we had covered half the way.”
When they crossed the Finnebridge, the man stopped and set John down.
“Now you are not far from home,” said he, “but you must promise me that you will not look around, when you hear a roaring and notice a flare of light.”
John promised, and thanked him for the quick journey. The man drove off on his way, and John crossed the hill to his home. As he went he heard a roaring in the Jutulsberg, and the path before him suddenly grew so bright that one could have picked a needle from the ground. And he forgot what he had promised, and turned his head to see what was happening. There stood the giant gate of the Jutulsberg wide open, and out of it streamed a light and radiance as of thousands of candles. In the midst of it all stood the giant, and he was the man with whom he had driven. But from that time forward John’s head was twisted, and so it remained as long as he lived.