§ 6
Years passed.
In the wilderness between Gipsy Lake to the South and Lower Valley to the north there roamed about a wizard elk that no dog and no marksman could conquer.
The dalesmen called him Rauten; why, no one could say. Such names come floating on the north wind, and have no origin. Perhaps the name stuck because when he was still a calf he would low, for all the world like cattle on an autumn evening.
Rauten wandered about Ré Mountains, not like an ordinary earthly elk, but like a being half body and half spirit. No lead bullets could wound him. He was rarely seen by human eyes.
During the mating season, at dawn and in the gloaming, foresters sometimes heard his mating call. It sounded more human than animal, and it made the foresters realise that they had nerves after all.
Now and then they happened to see his spoor, unlike all other elk spoors. The clefts pointed outwards, like the spoor of a man walking toes outwards. The Ré Valley Swede had also walked toes turned outwards. When he went along the high road northwards one foot pointed east, the other west.
Long-limbed men strode miles and leagues after Rauten, but his spoor never ended. Dogs chased him, and returned limping and moaning.
There was a black-bearded man whom they called Gaupa. He and his dog Bjönn followed elk spoors from one horizon to the other, from one county to the other. But whenever they happened to see an elk spoor with the clefts pointing apart they turned away. Chasing a spirit is like chasing a shadow.