by the road on the further side of the lake. Until very lately a carriage road was unknown here. The Fogderi, or Bailewick, in which we now are, is called Robygd: a reminiscence, it is said, of the days not long since over, when the sole means of locomotion up the valley (bygd) was to row (roe). The vehicle being a common cart, with no seat, a bag is stuffed with heather for me to sit on; and this acts as a buffer to break the force of the bumps which the new-made road and the springless cart kept giving each other, while, in reality, it was I that came in for the brunt of the pommelling. The Norwegian driver sat on the hard edge of the cart, regardless of the shocks, and as tough apparently as the birch-wood of which the latter was composed. It wont do for a person who is at all made-up to risk a journey in Saetersdal: he would infallibly go to pieces, and the false teeth be strewed about the path after the manner of those of the serpent or dragon sown by Jason on the Champ de Mars. Armed men rose from the earth

"Look at that hole," said my attendant, pointing

to an opening half-way up the limestone cliff, surrounded by trees and bushes. "That is the

"

"Cave of the Dragon ?" interrupted I, abstractedly.

"The Tyve Helle (thieves' cave), which goes in one hundred feet deep. For a long time they were the terror of all Saetersdal. The only way to the platform in front of the cave was by a ladder. One of their band, who pretended to be a Tulling (idiot), used to go begging at the farm-houses, and spying how the ground lay.

66

On one occasion they carried off along with some cattle the girl who tended them. Poor soul! she could not escape, they kept such a sharp watch on her. The captain of the band meanwhile wanted to marry her; she pretended to like the idea, and the day before that fixed for the wedding asked leave just to go down to the farm where she used to live and steal the

could dispense with the parson, but not with this. But first they made her swear she would not speak to a soul at the house. At midnight, Asjer, as she was called, arrived at her former home, to the astonishment of the good folks. She at once proceeded to take a piece of white linen, a scrap of red home-spun cloth, and a pair of shears. This done, she went to the chimney-corner and told the picewood-beam, 'I have been stolen by robbers; they live in a cave in the forest, I will cut little bits of red cloth on the road to it; to-morrow the captain marries me. To-night, when they are all drunk and asleep, I will hang out the piece of white cloth. Without exchanging a word with the inmates, she then set off back. The master of the house and a few friends collected, and followed her track. At night-fall they saw the flag waved from the mouth of the cave. In they rushed upon the thieves, who, unable to escape, threw themselves over the precipice. The captain, suspecting her to be the author of the surprise, seized her by the apron as he dashed over the ledge, determined that she should die with him. But

the leader of the bonders, a ready-witted fellow, cut her apron-strings with his knife, just in the nick of time, so that she was saved; and the robber, in his fall, took nothing with him but her apron."

CHAPTER VII.

A wolf trap-The heather-Game and game-preservesAn optical delusion-Sumptuous entertainment-Visit to a Norwegianstore-room-Petticoats-Curious picture of the Crucifixion-Fjord scenery-How the priest Brun was lost-A Saetersdal manse-Frightfully hospitableEider-down quilts-Costume of a Norwegian waitingmaid-The tartan in Norway-An ethnological inquiry -Personal characteristics-The sect of the HaugiansNomad life in the far Norwegian valleys-Trug-Memorials of the Vikings-Female Bruin in a rage-How bears dispose of intruders-Mercantile marine of Norway-The Bad-hus-How to cook brigands-Winter clothing.

CLOSE by Langerack we pass a wolf-trap (baas), formed on the principle of our box-trap, for catching rats, only that the material is thick pine-boles fastened side by side. More than one wolf and