Part 3

THE CHILDREN IN THE MOON.

Harken, child, unto a story! For the moon is in the sky, And across her shield of silver, See! two tiny cloudlets fly.

Watch them closely, mark them sharply, As across the light they pass,-- Seem they not to have the figures Of a little lad and lass?

See, my child, across their shoulders Lies a little pole! and lo! Yonder speck is just the bucket, Swinging softly to and fro.

It is said, these little children, Many and many a Summer night, To a little well far northward Wandered in the still moonlight.

To the wayside well they trotted, Filled their little buckets there, And the Moon-man looking downwards, Saw how beautiful they were.

Quoth the man, "How vexed and sulky Looks the little rosy boy! But the little handsome maiden, Trips behind him full of joy.

To the well behind the hedgerow Trot the little lad and maiden; From the well behind the hedgerow Now the little pail is laden.

How they please me! how they tempt me! Shall I snatch them up to-night? Snatch them, set them here forever, In the middle of my light?

Children, ay, and children's children Should behold my babes on high, And my babes should smile forever, Calling others to the sky?"

Thus the philosophic Moon-man Muttered many years ago, Set the babes with pole and bucket, To delight the folks below.

Never is the bucket empty, Never are the children old; Ever when the moon is shining We the children may behold.

Ever young, and ever little, Ever sweet and ever fair! When thou art a man, my darling, Still the children will be there!

Ever young, and ever little, They will smile when thou art old! When thy locks are thin and silver, Theirs will still be shining gold.

They will haunt you from their heaven, Softly beckoning down the gloom,-- Smiling in eternal sweetness On thy cradle, on thy tomb!

A NIGHT IN A NORWEGIAN FOREST.

PETER CHRISTIAN ASBJORNSEN.

The evening shadows now unfold Their curtain o'er the lonely wold; The night wind sighs with dreary moan, And whispers over stock and stone. Tramp, Tramp! the trolls come trooping, hark! Across the moor to the deep woods dark.

GEIJER.

When I was a boy about fourteen years old, I came one Saturday afternoon in the middle of the summer to Upper Lyse, the last farm in Sorkerdale. I had frequently walked or driven over the main road between Christiania and Ringerike, and I had now, after having been at home on a short visit, taken the road past Bokstad to Lyse for a change, with the intention of making a short cut through the north part of the Krog-wood.

I found all the doors of the farm-house wide open, but I looked in vain in the parlor, in the kitchen, and in the barn, for a human being whom I could ask for a drink and who could give me some direction about the road.

There was no one at home but a black cat, who was sitting quite content and purring on the hearth, and a dazzling white cock, who was walking up and down the passage breasting himself and crowing incessantly, as much as to say: "Now I am the cock of the walk!"

Tired with the heat and my walk, I threw myself down on the grass in the shadow of the house, where I lay half-asleep enjoying a quiet rest, when I was startled by an unpleasant clamour,--the jarring voice of a woman, who was trying by alternately scolding and using pet names to pacify a litter of grunting pigs on the farm. By following the sound I came upon a bare-footed old woman with a yellow dried-up countenance, who was bending down over the pigs' trough, busy filling it with food, for which the noisy little creatures were fighting, tearing, pushing, and yelling, with expectation and delight.

On my questioning her about the road, she answered me by asking me another question, while she, without raising herself up, turned her head half away from her pets to stare at me.

"Where might you come from?"

When she had got a satisfactory answer to this, she continued, while she repeatedly addressed herself to the young pigs:

"Ah, so!--you are at school at the parson's, eh!--hush, hush! little piggies, then!----The road to Stubdale, do you say?----Just look at that one now! Will you let the others get something as well, you rascal! Hush, hush! Be quiet, will you! Oh, poor fellow, did I kick you then?----Yes, yes, I'll tell you the road directly,--its--its straight on through the wood till you come to the big water-wheel!"

As this direction seemed to me to be rather vague for a road of about fourteen miles length through a forest, I asked her if I could not hire a lad who knew the road, to go with me.

"No, bless you! Is it likely?" she said, as she left the piggery and came out on the slope before the farm. "They are so busy now with the hay-making, that they've scarcely time to eat. But it's straight through the wood, and I'll explain it to you right enough, as if you saw the road before you. First you go up the crag and all the hills over yonder, and when you have got up on the heights, you have the straight road right before you to Heggelie. You have the river on your left hand all the way, and if you don't see it you'll hear it. But just about Heggelie there is a lot of twistings and turnings, and now and then the road is lost altogether for some distance--if one is a stranger there, it's not an easy thing to find one's way, but you are sure to find it as far as Heggelie, for that's close to the lake. Afterwards you go along the lake, till you come to the dam across a small tarn, just like a bridge, as they call it; bear away to the left there, and then turn off to the right, and you have the road straight before you to Stubdale, in Aasa."

Although this direction was not quite satisfactory, particularly as it was the first time I had started on an excursion off the main road, I set out confidently and soon all hesitation vanished. From the heights a view was now and then obtained between the lofty pine and fir trees of the valley below, with its smiling fields and variegated woods of birch and alder trees, between which the river wound like a narrow silvery streak. The red-painted farm-houses, peculiar to Norway, lay picturesquely scattered on the higher points of the undulating valley where men and women were busy hay-making. From some chimneys rose columns of blue smoke, which appeared quite light against the dark back-ground of thickly studded pine forests on the mountain slopes.

Over the whole landscape lay a repose and a peace so perfect that no one could have suspected the close proximity of the capital. When I had advanced some distance into the forest, I heard the notes of the bugle and the distant baying of hounds in full cry, which gradually ceased, till nothing but a faint echo of the bugle reached my ear. I now heard the roar of the river, which rushed wildly past at some distance on my left, but as I advanced the road seemed gradually to approach it, and soon the valley in some parts grew narrower and narrower, till I at last found myself at the bottom of a deep, gloomy gorge, the greatest part of which was taken up by the river. But the road left the river again; there were certainly twistings and turnings, as the old woman had said, for at one moment it wound hither and the next thither, and at some places it was almost imperceptible. Now it went up a steep incline, and when I had passed the brow of the hill, I saw between the fir trees a couple of twinkling tarns before me, and on the margin of one of these a dairy on a verdant slope, bathed in the golden light of the evening sun.

In the shady retreat under the hill grew clusters of luxuriant ferns; the wild French willow stood proudly with its lofty crest of red and gorgeous flowers between the pebbles, but the sedate monk's hood lifted its head still higher and looked gloomily and wickedly down on it, while it nodded and kept time to the cuckoo's song, as if it were counting how many days it had to live.

On the verdant slope and down by the edge of the water, the bird-cherry and the mountain ash displayed their flowery garb of summer. They sent a pleasant and refreshing fragrance far around, and shook sorrowfully the leaves of their white flowers over the reflected picture of the landscape in the mirror of the lake, which on all sides was surrounded by pine trees and mossy cliffs.

There was no one at home in the dairy. All doors were locked,--I knocked everywhere, but no answer,--no information as to the road. I sat down on a rock and waited awhile, but no one appeared. The evening was setting in; I thought I could not stay there any longer, and started again. It was still darker in the forest, but shortly I came to a timber-dam across a bit of river between two lakes.

I supposed this was the place where I "should bear off first to the left, and then to the right." I went across, but on the other side of the dam there were only--as it appeared to me--flat, smooth, damp rocks and no trace of a road; on the opposite side, the right side of the dam, there was a well-trodden path. I examined both sides several times, and although it appeared to be contrary to the direction I had received, I decided on choosing the broader road or path, which was continued on the right hand side of the water. As long as it followed the course of the dark lake, the road was good and passable, but suddenly it turned off in a direction which, according to my ideas, was the very opposite of the one I should take, and lost itself in a confused net of paths and cattle-tracks amid the darkness of the forest.

Inexpressibly tired of this anxious intricate search, I threw myself down on the soft moss to rest for a while, but the fatigue conquered the fears of the lonely forest, and I cannot now tell how long I dozed. On hearing a wild cry, the echo of which still resounded in my ears when I awoke, I jumped to my feet. I felt comforted by the song of the red-breast, and I thought I felt less lonely and deserted as long as I heard the merry notes of the thrush.

The sky was overcast and the darkness of the forest had increased considerably. A fine rain was falling, which imparted renewed life to the plants and trees, and filled the air with a fresh, aromatic fragrance; it also seemed to call to life all the nocturnal sounds and notes of the forest. Among the tops of the fir trees above me, I heard a hollow, metallic sound, like the croaking of the frog and a penetrating whistling and piping. Round about me was a buzzing sound, as if from a hundred spinning-wheels, but the most terrible of all these sounds was, that they at one time seemed close to your ear, and in another moment far away; now they were interrupted by frolicsome, wild cries, and a flapping of wings,--now by distant cries of distress, on which a sudden silence followed again.

I was seized by an indescribable fear; these sounds sent a chill through me, and my terror was increased by the darkness between the trees, where all objects appeared distorted, moving and alive, stretching forth thousands of hands and arms after the stray wanderer. All the fairy tales of my childhood were conjured up before my startled imagination, and appeared to be realized in the forms which surrounded me; I saw the whole forest filled with trolls, elves, and sporting dwarfs. In thoughtless and breathless fear I rushed forward to avoid this host of demons, but while flying thus still more frightful and distorted shapes appeared,--and I fancied I felt their hands clutching me. Suddenly I heard the heavy tread of some one, who moved over the crackling branches of the underwood. I saw, or fancied I saw, a dark shape, which approached me with a pair of eyes shining like glowing stars. My hair stood on an end; I believed my fate was inevitably sealed, and shouted almost unconsciously as if to give myself new courage:

"If there's anybody there, tell me the way to Stubdale!" A deep growl was the answer I received, and the bear, for such it was, walked quickly away in the same direction whence he had come. I stood for some time and listened to his heavy steps and the crackling of the branches under his feet. I mumbled to myself: "I wish it was daylight and that I had a gun with me, and you should have had a bullet, Master Bruin, for frightening me thus!"

With this wish and childish threat all fear and thoughts of danger vanished, and I walked on again quite composed, on the soft mossy ground.

When after considerable trouble I had forced my way through the chaos of fallen trees, which the wind had torn up in this exposed wild region, and had ascended the other steep hillside, I had still a good distance to walk across an open wooded heath.

On the outskirt of this wood trickled a small brook, where the alder and the pine trees again sought to maintain their place, and on a small plot on the slope on the other side of a brook burned a great log-fire, which threw its red light far in between the trees. In front of the fire sat a dark figure, which, on account of its position between me and the blazing fire, appeared to me to be of supernatural proportions. The old stories about robbers and thieves in this forest came suddenly back to me, and I was on the point of running away when my eyes caught sight of a hut, made out of fir branches, close to the fire, and two other men, who sat outside it, and the many axes, which were fixed into the stump of a felled tree, and it became evident to me that they were wood-cutters.

The dark figure, an old man, was speaking,--I saw him move his lips; he held a short pipe in his hand, which he only put to his mouth now and then to keep it alight by these occasional puffs. When I approached the group, the story had either come to an end or he had been interrupted; he stooped forward, put some glowing embers in his pipe, smoked incessantly and appeared to be attentively listening to what a fourth person, who had just arrived, had to say. This person, who apparently also belonged to the party, was carrying a bucket of water from the brook. His hair was red, and he was dressed in a long jersey jacket, and had more the appearance of a tramp than a wood-cutter. He looked as if he had been frightened by something or other.

The old man had now turned round towards him, and as I had crossed the brook and was approaching the party from the side, I could now see the old man plainly in the full glare of the fire. He was a short man with a long hooked nose. A blue skull-cap with a red border scarcely covered his head of bristly grey hair, and a short-bodied but long Ringerike coat of dark grey frieze with worn velvet borders, served to make the roundness and crookedness of his back still more conspicuous.

The new-comer appeared to be speaking about a bear.

"Well, who would believe it?" said the old man, "what did he want there? It must have been some other noise you heard, for there doesn't grow anything on the dry heath hereabout which he would be after. No, not Bruin, not he" he added; "I almost think you are telling lies, Peter! There's an old saying that red hair and firs don't thrive in good soil," he continued half aloud. "If it had been down in the bear's den or in Stygdale, where Knut and I both heard him and saw him the other day--but here?--No, no! he doesn't come so near the fire, he doesn't! You have been frightening yourself!"

"Frightening myself? Oh, dear no! Didn't I hear him moving and crushing through the underwood, my canny Thor Lerberg?" answered the other, somewhat offended and chagrined at the old man's doubts and taunts.

"Well, well, my boy," continued Thor in his former tone, "I suppose it was something bigger than a squirrel, anyhow!"

I now stepped forward, and said it must have been me that he had heard, and told them how I had lost my way, and the fright I had undergone, and how hungry and tired I was. I asked whereabouts I was now, and if one of them would show me the way to Stubdale.

My appearance created considerable surprise to the party, which however was not so much apparent in their words, as in the attention with which they regarded me and heard my story. The old man, whose name I had heard was Thor Lerberg, seemed particularly interested in it; and as it appeared that he was accustomed to thinking aloud, I could on hearing some of the remarks which he now and then mumbled to himself, participate in his reflections thus:

"No, no that was the wrong way!--He should have gone over the dam there--Stubdale way--he went wrong altogether--he is too young--he isn't used to the woods--ah, that was the woodcock--and the goatsucker--yes, yes! it sounds strange to him, that hasn't heard him--oh, yes! the loon does shriek dreadfully--particularly when there's fine rain--ah, ah! yes, that must have been the bear he met--he is a brave boy after all!"

"Yes!" I said boldly, and gave vent to my awakening youthful courage in about the same words as the man who once came across a bear asleep on a sunny hillside: "If it had been daylight, and if I had been a hunter and had a loaded gun with me, and if I could have made it go off, why, by my faith, the bear should have lain dead on the spot, he should."

"Yes, of course, ha, ha, ha!" laughed old Thor, and chuckled till the others joined in the laughter; "of course he would have lain dead on the spot,--that's plain! ha, ha, ha!"

"But you are now by Storflaaten, the biggest lake in the forest here," he said, addressing himself to me, when I had finished my story; "towards morning we'll help you on your way, for we have got a boat, and when you have got across the water you haven't far to go to Stubdale then. But I suppose you would like to rest yourself a little now, and get something to eat! I have nothing but some peas-pudding and rancid bacon, and may be you are not used to that kind of food; but if you are hungry, perhaps you would like some fish? I have been out fishing, and fine fish I got too,--yes, in the lake, I mean!"

I thanked him for his offer, and he told one of his companions to take a "regular good 'un" off the string and roast it in the glowing embers of the fire.

In the meantime the old man asked a number of questions about myself, and by the time I had answered all these the fish was ready, and I began my meal with great appetite. He now asked one of his companions to tell us something about what he once said had happened to his father, when he was out cutting timber.

"That was in the spring, just before Easter 1815, when father lived at Oppen-Eie--the snow wasn't gone yet, but he had to set out for the forest to cut and drag home some wood. He went up in the Helling hill, where he found a withered fir which he commenced cutting down at once. While cutting away at it, he thought he saw withered firs all around him, but while he was staring and wondering at this, up came a procession of eleven horses,--all of a mouse-gray color; it appeared to him to be a wedding-party.

"What people are these, who are coming this way over the hill?" he asked.

"Oh, we are from Osthalla," says one of them, "we are going to the Veien dairy to keep the wedding; the one who drives in front is the parson, next are the bride and bridegroom, and I am his father-in-law. You had better stand behind on my sledge and come along."

"When they had traveled some distance, the father-in-law said: 'Will you take these two bags with you and go to the Veien farm and get two barrels of potatoes in them by the time we go home?'

"My father promised to do this. They came soon to a place which he thought he knew, and so it was. It was just north of the Kill hill, where the old dairy stood; but there was no dairy there then, but a great fine building, and here they all entered. Some one met them on the steps to give the guests a glass of welcome, and they gave father a glass also, but he said, 'No, thanks!' he would not have anything he said, for he had only his old clothes on, and would not intrude on such fine folks. 'Never mind this man,' said one of them, 'take a horse and see him on his way home,' which they did; they put him in a sledge with a mouse-gray horse before it, and one of them sat up and drove the horse.

When they got as far as the little valley north of Oppenhagen--where the land-slip took place--he thought he sat between the ears of a bucket; but shortly this vanished also, and it was only then he really came to himself again. He began looking for his axe, and found it sticking in the same withered fir-tree he had begun to cut down. When he came home, he was so confused and queer, that he could not tell how many days he had been away; but he was only away from the morning to the evening,--and for some time afterwards he was not himself----"

"Yes, many a queer thing happens hereabout," said old Thor; "and I for my part have also seen a little--well, witchcraft I mean,--and if you like to sit up a little longer, I'll tell you what has happened to me,--in this here forest I mean."

"Yes, they would all like to hear it;--to-morrow was Sunday, and it didn't much matter if they went to bed late.

"Well, it might be about ten or twelve years ago," he answered, "I was burning charcoal over in the Kampenhaug forest. In the winter I had two horses there to cart the coals to the Bærum works. One day I happened to stop too long at the works, for I met some old friends from Ringerike there, and we had a good talk about one thing or another, and a little drop to drink, too,--yes, brandy I mean--and so I did not come back to the kiln before ten o'clock in the evening.

I made a fire, so I could see loading the sledges, for it was terribly dark, and I had to get the carts loaded in the evening, for I had to be off at three o'clock next morning, if I was to get to the works and back again the same day while it was light,--back to the kiln I mean. When I had got the fire to burn up, I began loading the sledges. But just as I was turning round to the fire again a drift of snow came sweeping down upon it and put it out entirely,--the fire I mean. So I thought to myself: 'Why, bless me, the old witch in the hill here is vexed to-night, because I come home so late and disturb her.' I struck a light and made a new fire. But, strange to say, the shovel would not drop all the coals into the basket,--more than half went over the sides. At last I got the sledges loaded, and I was going to put the ropes round them, but will you believe me, every one of them broke, the one after the other,--the ropes I mean. So I had to get new ropes, and at last got the sledges ready, gave the horses their fodder, and went to bed. But do you think I awoke at three? No, not till long after the sun had risen, and still I felt heavy and queer, both in my head and my body.