“Glory be to the holy mother of God!” cried an old woman, her bald head shaking as she twirled her distaff. “I only wish I might see the head of that Hans, so that I might make sure if his eyes are really live coals, as they say.”
“Yes, to be sure,” replied another old woman; “it was just by looking at it that he set Throndhjem cathedral on fire. Now I should like to see the monster whole, with his serpent’s tail, cloven foot, and broad wings like a bat.”
“Who told you such nonsense, good mother?” broke in the hunter, with a self-satisfied air. “I’ve seen this Hans of Iceland with my own eyes in the gorges of Medsyhath; he is a man like ourselves, only he is as tall as a forty-year-old poplar.”
“Indeed!” said a voice from the crowd, with singular emphasis.
This voice, which made Spiagudry shudder, proceeded from a short man whose face was hidden by the broad felt hat of a miner, his body wrapped in rush matting and sealskin.
“Faith!” cried, with a coarse laugh, a smith who wore his heavy hammer slung across his shoulder, “they may offer one thousand or ten thousand crowns for his head, and he may be four or forty feet tall, but I’ll not offer to go in search of him.”
“Nor I,” said the fisherman.
“Nor I; nor I,” repeated every voice.
“And yet any one who may feel tempted,” rejoined the little man, “will find Hans of Iceland to-morrow at the ruins of Arbar, near Lake Miösen; the day after that at Walderhog cave.”
“Are you sure, my good man?”