When the dalesman locked his door, blew out his candle, and crept into his sheepskins, then the light gleamed as bright as ever from Gaupa’s hut. About midnight he would often steal out into the forest only to return at day-break, when he would creep into his hut, lie down and sleep as a wild animal does in its lair after its hunt for food. Gaupa was indeed a strange man.
There was an old schoolmaster in the valley, who went from one farm to another teaching for a time at each place. He wore spectacles and was exceedingly learned, and he always sang the corpse out of the house at funerals. He was the oracle of the valley. He knew everything, and could tell you why Gaupa slept by day and went out by night.
There were two kinds of people, he used to say. Some were born by day and some by night. Those born by night often had a strange longing for darkness. “Look,” he would add, “at that singular being at the Lynx Hut. He was born by night and avoids the day.”
The schoolmaster was quite right about that. To Gaupa the sunshine was not warm, but cold, while the moon was quite different. In the moonlight the shadows in the forest moved like the shades of dead animals, a steady movement, hardly noticeable and yet unmistakable. Then Gaupa felt as if he himself were stealing about on hairy soles. What a delightful thrilling, silent restlessness there was around him! He seemed to be watched by unseen eyes from the heaps of rocks and wooded copses, where soft paws trotted over the moss, sinewy bodies crouched, the whole copse felt like one mighty enchanting mystery. There was magic music in the air about him, a subdued melody, and he seemed to hear the burning stars sparkle in the firmament.
On such nights Bjönn would often accompany him. The manner of Bjönn’s arrival at Lynx Hut was as follows. One winter a dalesman from Lower Valley was travelling towards the plains with a load of butter and cured fish. When he left the town of Hönefos on his return, he noticed a large deer-hound following him. It was dark in colour with a grey head and grey legs. The man drove on, wrapped in his black sheepskin coat, with his old horse drawing the sledge. The dog followed.
But on the evening of the second day the dog disappeared, and a week later the same animal, all skin and bones, crawled up to Lynx Hut. Gaupa gave him food, and the dog remained there. No one asked questions about him, and Gaupa named him Bjönn.
Towards the spring, in April, Gaupa happened to show the dog a huge spoor in the crusted snow under Ré Mountain. Bjönn went absolutely mad, and the elk ox who was at the other end of that spoor was unprepared for such a terrible pursuit by such a tiny animal as Bjönn appeared to be. The elk sank through the snow crust, but Bjönn kept on top, and three days later Gaupa carried home venison which no one was allowed to see.
From that day Bjönn grew to be the best elk-hound in the valley. Wonderful stories were told in the district of Gaupa and his dog. When those two started to follow a spoor they never gave up. They had their meals on the spoor, they rested, and even slept there. They followed it from one horizon to the other, from one county to another, till at last the elk lay dead.
Gaupa and Bjönn were like the animals they were called after, wild and ferocious. People would say to Gaupa, “You’ll kill yourself yet with such mad chase”—but the prophets fell ill and died, whilst Gaupa ran on as mad as ever.