THIS is the story of a wizard elk—Rauten, as people called him. He was a human being in animal guise.
The story begins in Ré Valley, which lies like a yawning gap between mountains, long and flat with borders of forests so dark that they look as though part of the blackness of night lingered in them. A river moves sluggishly along the bottom of the valley, making its way slowly and carefully between stretches of light-red sand. It runs northwards, a rare thing in Norway.
There are bogs along the banks of the river, bearing tall, stiff sedge, and when the weather is calm they appear to be bristling. But in sunshine and wind they sway to and fro like undulating carpets of silk. Sometimes a long neck appears, and a crane moves with his measured stride, in which there is peace and contentment. For the crane does not trouble himself about the past or the future. The present with its long round of days suffices for him.
An ancient mountain farm lies there with its fence all tumbled down. The thin pasture is covered here and there with copses. The houses rot and are never rebuilt. At one time bears were so troublesome round about Tolleiv Mountain Farm that it was impossible to remain there, and even to-day it often happens, especially in the autumn, that a bear is seen feeding on berries far up the mountain side.
But in the spring, life seethes in all the animals of the valley. The capercailzie stretches his neck, shuts his eyes, and hisses passionately towards the sunrise. Each night is a time of fierce unrest. Wings flap, claws tear and rend, and slavering rows of teeth snarl angrily at each other in the purple moonlight. Above the forests the Ré Mountains rise like white swans.
§ 2
It was in the summer-time a good many years ago. On the slopes between Svart Mountain at the upper end of Ré Valley there might have been seen an elk with her calf. The strange feature of the calf was that it had lost half one of its ears. I will tell you later on how this happened. The calf was born amongst the patches of hard snow below the region where the snow melts in spring, and at the time of which we write he was still quite small. But as by degrees the weeks passed by he developed gristle, he gained in bulk, marrow formed in his bones, and he grew heavy. That calf was bound to grow into a giant elk if only he were allowed time enough.
