From Tales from the Fjeld, A Series of Popular Tales from the Norse of P. Ch. Asbjörnsen, A New Edition with more than a Hundred Illustrations by Moyr Smith, by Sir George Dasent, D.C.L; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons; (no date); pp. 17-20.

Tales from the Fjeld,
A Series of Popular Tales
From the Norse of P. Ch. Asbjörnsen,
by
Sir George Dasent, D.C.L.

Another Haunted Mill

ONCE ; Goody ’Gainst-the-Stream

ONCE on a time there was a man who had a goody who was so cross-grained that there was no living iwth her. As for her husband,he could not get on with her at all, for whatever he wished she set her face right against it.

So it fell one Sunday in summer that the man and hsi wife went out into the field to see how the crop looked; and when they came to a field of rye on the other side of the eriver, the man said —

“Ay! now it is ripe. To-morrow we must set to work and reap it. ”

“Yes,” said his wife, “to-morrow we can set to work and shear it?!”

“What do you say?” said the man; “shal we shear it? Mayn’t we just as well reap it?”

“No,” said the goody, “it shall be shorn.”

“There is nothing so bad as a little kowledge,” said the man, “but you must have lost the little wit you had. When did you ever hear of shearing a field?”

“I know little, and I care to know little, I dare say,” said the goody, “but i know very well that this field shall be shorn and not reaped.”

That was what she said, and there was no help for it; it must and should be shorn.

So they walked about and quarrelled and strove till they came to the bridge across the river, just above a deep hole.

“ '’Tis an old saying,” said the man, “that good tools make good work, but I fancy it will be a fine swathe that is shorn with a pair of shears. Mayn’t we just as well reap the field after all?” he asked.

“No! no! shear! shear!,” bawled out the goody, who jumped about and clipped like a pair of scissors under her husband’s nose. In her shrewishness she took such little heed that she tripped over a beam on the bridge, and down she went plump into the stream.

“ ’Tis hard to wean any one from bad ways,” said the man, “but it were strange if I were not sometimes in the right too.”

Then he swam out into the hole and caught his wife by the hair of the head, and got her head above water.

“Shall we reap the field now?” were the first words he said.

“Shear! shear! shear!” screeched the goody.

“I’ll teach you to shear!” said the man, as he ducked her under the water; but it was no good, they must shear it, she said, as soon as ever she came up again.

“I can't think anything else than that the goody is 232 mad,” said the man to himself, “Many are mad, and never know it; many have wit, and never show it; but all the same, I’ll try her once more.”

But as soon as ever he ducked her under the water again, she held her hands up out of the water and began to clip with her fingers like a pair of shears. Then the man fell into a great rage and ducked her down both well and long; but while he was about it, the goody’s head fell down below the water, and she got so heavy all at once, that he had to let her go.

“No! no!” he said, “you wish to drag me down with you into the hole, but you may lie there by yourself.”

So the goody was left in the river.

But after a while the man thought it was ill she should lie there and not get Christian burial, and so he went down the course of the stream and hunted and searched for her, but for all his pains he could not find her. Then he came with all his men and brought his neighbours with thim, and they all in a body began to drag the stream and to serch for her all along it. But for all there searching they found no goody. ”

“Oh!,” said the, “I have it. All this is no good; we search in the wrong place. This goody was a sort by herself; there was not such another in the world while she was alive. She was so cross and contrary, and I’ll be bound it is just the same now she is dead. We had better just go and hunt for her up stream, and drag for her above the force;[1] maybe she has floated up thither. ”

And so it was. They went up stream and sought for her above hte force, aend there lay the goody, sure enough! Yes! she was well called GOODY GAINST-THE-STREAM. ”

[1] Waterfall.

ONCE on a time there was a king’s son who made love to a lass, but after they had become great friends and were as good as betrothed, the prince began to think little of her, and he got it into his head that she wasn’t clever enough for him, and so he wouldn’t have her.

So he thought how he might be rid of her; and at last he said he woudl take her to wife all the same if she could come to him —

“Not driving

  And not riding;

  Not walking,

  And not carried;

  Not fasting,

  And not full-fed;

  Not naked,

  And not clad;

  Not in the daylight,

  And not by night.”

For all that he fancied she could never do.

So she took three barleycorns and swalled them, and then she was not fasting, and yet not full-fed; and next she threw a net over her, and so she was

  Not naked,

  And yet not clad;

Next she got a ram and sat on him, so that her feet touchd the ground; and so she waddled along, and was

“Not driving

  And not riding;

  Not walking,

  And not carried;

And all this happened in the twilight, bewixt night and day.

So when she came to the guard at the palace, she begged that she might leave to speak with the prince; but they wouldn’t open the gate, she looked such a figure of fun.

But for all that the noise woke up the prince, and he went to the window to see what it was.

So she waddled up to the window, and twisted off one of the ram’s horns, and took it and rapped with it against the window.

And so they had to let her in and have her for their princess.

ONCE on a time there was a man who was out on a journey; so at last he came to a big and a fine farm, and there was a house so grand that it might well have been a little palace.

“Here it would be good to get leave to spend the night,” said the man to himself, as he went inside the gate. Hard by stood an old man with grey hair and beard, who was hewing wood.

“Good evening, father,” said the wayfarer. #8220;Can I have house-room here to-night?.”

“I’m not father in the house,” said the, “Go into the kitchen, and talk to my father.”

The wayfarer went into the kitchen, and there he met a man who was still older, and he lay on his knees before the hearth, and was blowing up the fire.

“Good evening, father,” said the wayfarer. #8220;Can I have house-room here to-night?.”

“I’m not father in the house,” said the old man, “but go in and talk to my father. You’ll find him sitting at the table in the parlour.”

So the wayfarer went into the parlour, and talked to him who sat at the table. He was much older than either of the other two, and there he sat, with his teeth 177 chattering, and shivered and shook, and read out of a big book, almost like a little child.

“Good evening, father,” said the wayfarer. #8220;Will you let me have house-room here to-night?.”

“I’m not father in the house,” said the man who sat at the table, whose teeth chattered, and who shivered and shook; “but speak to my father yonder — he who sits on the bench.”

So the wayfarer went to him who sat on the bench, and he was trying to fill himself a pipe of tobaco; but he was so withered up and his hands shook so with the palsy that he could scarce hold the pipe.

“Good evening, father,” said the wayfarer again. #8220;Can I get house-room here to-night?”

“I’m not father in the house,” said the old withered fellow; “but speak to my father who lies in bed yonder.”

So the wayfarer went to the bed, and there lay an old, old man, who but for his pair of big staring eyes, scarcely looked alive.

“Good evening, father,” said the wayfarer. #8220;Can I get house-room here to-night?.”

“I’m not father in the house,” said the old carle iwth the big eyes; “but go and speak to my father, who lies yonder in the cradle.”

Yes, the wayfarer went to the cradle, and there lay a carle as old as the hills, so withered and shrivelled he was no bigger than a baby,and it was hard to tell that there was any life in him, except that there was a sound of breathing every now and then in his throat.

“Good evening, father,” said the wayfarer. #8220;May I have house-room here to-night?”

It was long before he got an answer, and still longer efore the carle brought it out; but the end was he said, as all the rest, that he was not father in the house. “But go,” said he, “and speak to my fahter; you'll find him hanging up in the horn yonder against the wall.”

So the wayfarer stared about round the wallls, and at last he caught sight of the horn; but when he looked for him who hung in it, he looked more like a film of ashes that had the likeness of a man's face. Then he was so frightened that he screamed out —

“Good evening, father! will you let me have house-room here to-night?”

Then a chirping came out of the horn like a little tom-tit, and it was all he could do to make out that the chirping meant, “YES, MY CHILD.”

And now a table came in which was covered with the costliest dishes, and with ale and brandy; and when he had eaten and drank, there came in a good bed, with reindeer skins; and the wayfarer was so very glad because he had at last found the right father in the house.

ONE day as Bruin lay by a horse which he had slain, and was hard at work eating it, Reynard was out that day too, and came up spying about and licking his lips, if he might get a taste of the horse-flesh. So he doubled and turned till he got just behind Bruin's back, and then he jumped on the other side of the carcass and snapped a mouthful as he ran by. Bruin was not slow either, for he made a grab at Reynard and caught the tip of his red brush in his paw; and ever since then Reynard's brush is white at the tip, as any one might see.

But that day Bruin was merry, and called out —

“Bide a bit, Reynard; and come hither, and I'll tell you how to catch a horse for yourself.”

Yes, Reynard was ready enough to learn, but he did not for all that trust himself to go very close to Bruin.

“Listen,” said Bruin, “when you see a horse asleep, sunning himself in the sunshine, you must mind and bind yourself fast by the hair of his tail to your brush, and then you must make your teeth meet and in the flesh of his thigh.”

As you may fancy, it was not long before Reynard 136 found out a horse that lay asleep in the sunshine, and then he did as Bruin had told him; for he knotted and bound himself well into the hair of his tail, and made his teeth meet in the horse's thigh.

Up sprang the horse, and began to kick and rear and gallop, so that Reynard was dashed against stock and stone, and got battered and blue, so that he was not far off losing both wit and sense. And while the horse galloped, they passed Jack Longears, the hare.

“Whither away so fast, Reynard,” cried Jack Longears.

“Post-haste, on business of life and death, dear Jack,” cried Reynard.

And with that Jack stood up on his hind-legs,and laughed till his sides ached and his jaws split right up to his ears,. It was so funny to see Reynard ride post-haste.

But you must know, since that ride Reynard has never thought of catching a horse for himself. For that once at least it was Bruin who had the best of it in wit, though they do say he is most often as simple-minded as the Trolls.

ONCE upon a time there was a poor woman who went about begging with her son; for at home she had neither a morsel to eat nor a stick to burn. First she tried the country, and went from parish to parish; but it was poor work, and so she came into the town. There she went about from house to house for awhile, and at last she came to the Lord Mayor. He was both open-hearted and open-handed, and he was married to the daughter of the richest merchant in the town, and they had one little daughter. As they had no more children, you may fancy she was sugar and spice and all that's nice, and in a word there was nothing too good for her. This little girl soon came to know the beggar-boy as he went about with his mother; and as the Lord Mayor was a wise man, as soon as he saw what friends the two were, he took the boy into his house, that 133 he might be his daughter's playmate. Yes, they played and read and went to school together, and never had so much as one quarrel.

One day the Lady Mayoress stood at the widnow, and watched the children a sthey were trudging off to school. There had been a shower of rain, and the street was flooded, and she saw how the boy first carried the basket with their dinner over the stream, and then he went back and lifted the little girl over, and when he set her down he gave her a kiss.

When the Lady Mayoress saw this, she got very angry. “To think of such a ragamuffin kissing our daughter — we who are the best people in the place!” That was what she said. Her husband did his best to stop her tongue. “No one knew,” he said, “how children would turn out in life, or what might befall his own: th boy was a clever, handy land, adn often and often a great tree sprang from a slender plant.”

But no! it was all the same, whatever he said and whichever way he put it. The Lady Mayoress held her own, and said beggars on horseback always rode their cattle to death, and that no one had ever heard of a silk purse being made out of a sow's ear; adding, that a penny would never turn into a shilling, even though it glittered like a guinea. The end of it all was that the poor lad was turned out of the house, and had to pack up his rags and be off.

When the Lord Mayor saw there was no help for it, he sent him away with a trader who had come thither 139 with a ship, and he was to be cabin-boy on board her. He told his wife he had sold the boy for a roll of tobacco.

But before he went the Lord Mayor's daughter broke her ring into two bits, and gave the boy one bit, that it might be a token to know him by if they ever met again; and so the ship sailed away, and the lad came to a town, far, far off in the world, and to that town a priest had just come who was so good a preacher that every one went to church to hear him, and the crew of the ship went with the rest the Sunday after to hear the sermon. As for the lad, he was left behind to mind the ship and to cook the dinner. So while he was hard at work he heard some one calling out across the water on an island. So he took the boat and rowed across, and there he saw an old hag, who called and roared.

“Aye,” she said, “you have come at last! Here have I stood a hundred years calling and bawling, and thinking how I should ever get over this water; but no one has ever heard or heeded but you, and you shall be well paid if you will put me over to the other side.”

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