The Bjerg Trold, as the name suggests, frequents the mountains, and belongs to the same class as the former, though smaller, attaining a height of only twelve feet; in fact, it is a medium male ogre.
The Huldre.—This is a great fairy-tale mystery—the refined beauty in peasant Hardanger costume, who sometimes appears—as mentioned in our notes on Thelemarken—at dances and festivities, turning the heads of all the beaux of the evening until, in some swing of the spring dance, her dread cow-tail is revealed, when she vanishes as the music of D. T. A. Tellefsen suggests, leaving many broken hearts behind her.
Nökken.—Water sprites, generally depicted with Neptune crowns, grey beards, and seaweed garments.
Nisser.—These are the mischievous little rascals who are always up to tricks here, there, and everywhere, and are closely allied to the sprites known in the Romsdal fjelds as the Höboken. These latter are seriously spoken of as existing, and having blue heads; and while up at the sæters a spare place inside is invariably left for them by the piger. The Nisser are depicted with grey clothes, long beards, short bodies, and red caps; the shortness of the body recalling to our minds a remark of days gone by, “Perhaps Mr. Nobody did it.”
Hauge folket are a combination of Huldre and Nisser.
Tufti folket are a peculiar variety of Nisser.
Drangen are the ghosts or spirits of drowned persons.
Having classified these mystic folk, we can only hope that the information we have culled from authentic and local sources will not only help those who have already read Norwegian legends, but give a zest to those that may be forthcoming in future translations. Those interested in early witches will find details of Craca, the witch of Norway, in Olaus Magnus, “De Gentibus Septentrionalibus,” a work probably well known to our immortal bard Shakspere, as Craca was great in using “venomous moisture of snakes.” A caldron, too, was the common instrument of witches, wherein they boiled juices, herbs, worms, and entrails for enchantments.
Norwegian fairy tales are numerous, and traces of Trold lore are found all through the provinces, and constantly referred to in every-day life; at least, so we found. It is, however, possible that “the wish was father to the thought,” and that we rather courted than avoided referring to them. Unfortunately they came not, although a rattle of flying rocks down a couloir was always attributed to them. We shall not find them in Bergen, that is certain; only Huldre appears in public, and she coyly at the festivities: she delights not in war-paint, gibuses, or opera hats.
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