days long, and then all was still. No human labour could have extricated them."

Further in the wood a spot was shown me where a man was found murdered some time back, and nobody ever found out who did it, or who the murdered man was-a region of horrors.

CHAPTER XIII.

Fairy lore-A wrestle for a drinking horn-Merry time is Yule time-Head-dresses at Haga-Old church at Naes-Good trout-fishing country-A wealthy milkmaid-Horses subject to influenza-A change-house library-An historical calculation-The great national festival-Author threatens, but relents-A field-day among the ducks-Gulswig-Family plate-A nurse of ninety years-The Sölje-The little fat grey mancapital scene for a picture-An amazing story-As true as I sit here-The goat mother-Are there no Tusser now-a-days-Uninvited guests-An amicable conversation about things in general-Hans saves his shirt-The cosmopolitan spirit of fairy lore-Adam of Bremen.

-A

NEXT morning I found my schuss-karl was brimful of tales, which he firmly believed, about the trolls.

"You see that Fjeld," said he, pointing to a magnificent abrupt mountain behind us. "A friend of mine was taken in there on Yule night, and feasted with the hill people."

I hummed to myself, as I thought of Young

Tamlane

The queen of fairies keppit him

In yon green hill to dwell.

"They wanted," continued he, "to keep him altogether, but he got away notwithstanding. Cari Olsdatter, my sister, was changed in the cradle too when my mother had gone out one evening; but she came back just in time to see an old woman carrying off the baby, and made her give it up. There was a bag of stones left in the cradle instead.

"Torkil Hermandson, too, who lived among the hills, they say he was married to a troll-qvind (‘elfquean,' as a Lowlander would say), called Turi Hougedatter. She was to have for her dowry his fold, as full as it would hold, of fat troll-cattle. So he set to work the night before, and wattled in twice as much ground as his fold usually covered. Sly fellow was Hermandson."

"Yes, indeed," thought I, "it seemed almost as if he was taking a leaf out of dame Dido's book, when she over-reached the simple aborigines of Africa with her ox-hide double entendre."

My attendant has got in his harvest, so he has comparatively little for the horse to do, and offers to schuss me all the way to Naes, which offer I accept. Presently we descend the hill at Gool, the former residence of the Samsonian Gielstrup.

"You see that hillock yonder, covered with firs," said my guide, pointing to a spot lying at the confluence of the Hemsedals Elv and that of Hallingdal. "There it was where Arne Hafthorn wrestled with a troll one Christmas Eve, and got from him the great drinking horn, which has been in the family ever since. But it brought him no good. There has always been one of the family stumm (dumb) or halv-vittig (half-witted); and it is not so many years ago that Arne was found dead close by the hill there. This horn is still to be seen at a farmhouse a little way up Hallingdal. It is made of ox-horn, and mounted with some unknown metal, and rests on a stand. Ah! you smile, but it is all virkelig sant (actually true)."*

* The famous Oldenburg horn was, according to Danish tradition, given by a mountain sprite to Count Otto of Oldenburg,

"And what do you do for the fairies at Yule?" said I.

"Oh! we always place some cake and ale on the board when we go to bed at night."

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Well, and what then? Do they partake of it?" "To be sure! It's always gone in the morning. No doubt it is taken by the hill people.' Merry time is Yule. We brew ale for the occasion, and bake a large cake, which we keep till Twelfth Night. Everybody stops at home on Christmas Day; but on the day after everybody goes out to visit everybody, and if you meet a person you always say, 'Glaedelig Jule' (a happy Yule to you)."

At Haga a different sort of head-dress begins to prevail among the male peasants, being a skull-cap of red cloth, like that worn by the Kirghis chiefs, as sketched by Atkinson, with stripes of black velvet radiating from the crown to the edge. Instead of the usual jacket, a green frock is worn, with stand-up collar, and an epaulet of the same coloured cloth on the shoulders.

A grove of beautiful birches here overhangs the two streams, now joined in one fine river, which