"Yes, that's what the cat said when she caught a mouse," laughed the maiden.

"Come here, and I will teach you 'The Blue Melody'!" said he. So they came to him, and watched while he played. After a time the younger one put her hand in his waistcoat pocket.

"And what is that, is it liquorice?" she asked, as she pulled out a roll of tobacco.

"Yes, try it!" the young fellow answered. She bit off a little piece, but spat it right out on the floor again.

"Yes, it is liquorice that bites," said she, and she wiped her tongue on her sleeve.

"Is it really so biting?" asked the other one, and also wanted to try it. So the young fellow gave her some as well, and she had the same experience. They never wanted to taste such liquorice again in their lives, so they a.s.sured him.

"Well, I can tell you how to get good liquorice," said the one. "You must boil the root of a plant called merilian, and you must pour the water into juniper-berry juice, and then you will have a liquorice that is so sweet and good that it will even cure a toothache." The young fellow said he would try it, some time, when he had found the plant.

Toward evening the girls wanted to leave. Yet that drove him to despair, and he begged them to stay for a little while. But the girls simply would not. Their mother would not allow it, said they. When the young fellow saw that they were really going, he went quite out of his mind.

He had grown so very fond of the younger _huldra_ maiden, and now he was never to see her again. Without knowing what he did, he threw the jew's-harp at her, and hit her on the head, just as she was pa.s.sing through the door. And with that she came in again.

"Mother, mother! A Christian has won sister Sireld!" cried the other, out in front of the hut. Soon after a very ancient woman came hobbling and shuffling into the hut. Her face was so wrinkled and dark that her yellow teeth shone out from it, for teeth she had, in spite of her age.

"Now you may keep her, since you have won her, for now she is no longer bewitched," said the old woman to the young fellow. "And if you are kind to her, you shall never lack food or clothing, and you shall have all that you need, both Sundays and workdays. But if you treat her unkindly, you shall pay for it!" said the old woman, and raised her cane as though she were about to use it on the young fellow. Then she hobbled out again.

It seemed to him that he had won a wife very quickly, after all, in this manner, and he asked her how it all came to be.

"The jew's-harp struck my head with such force, that a drop of blood flowed," said the girl, "and it was the best thing you could have done, for I would much rather live with Christians than with the underground folk," said she.

He still thought the world and all of her, and yet it seemed to him as though he could have done nothing worse: all had happened so quickly, and he had nothing on which to marry; but after all, what was done was done. The following morning she went home with him. His family were much surprised to see him come back in such company, and were angry with him, and looked for excuses to find fault with the girl: but there was nothing to object to about her, except that she had yellow teeth, and after all, this was no such great matter. In her dealings with others she was uncommonly amiable, and there was not a girl that went to church who could equal her in beauty.

But after the wedding he gradually began to ill-treat her. For you must know that he could never forget she was not a Christian. He sulked, and was always angry and ill-natured, and never gave her a kind word. And he refused to grant her least request. Though it might be the merest trifle, he never had more than a short "No" for anything she asked. And in spite of this she was kind and friendly, and acted as though she did not hear his angry words, and was always helpful and amiable. But it made no difference, he grew worse from day to day. And they began to go downhill, for strife in the home drives luck away. At last it seemed as though they would have to take the beggar's bowl and staff, and wander from one farm-stead to another like any other beggars.

One day she did not know what to give the people to eat, for there was not even a crust of bread in the house. And then she grew sad, for all might have been different for them had he but treated her better. He was standing in the smithy at the moment, about to shoe a horse, and she went out to him.

"Won't you build me the pen now, the one I have so often, often asked you for?" she begged. "Do it now, and I will shoe the horse!" And she tore the red-hot horse-shoe from the anvil, and bent it in shape with her bare hands. When he saw that she was mistress of such arts, he grew frightened, and actually built her a fine, big pen back of the stable, set in a post, and drove a hook into it, just as she had said. The following morning the pen filled with fire-red cattle, big, fat, handsome beasts, that gave a great deal of milk. Such fine cows had never been seen anywhere. And on the hook hung a copper milk-pail, and a pair of horns of salt, with a silver ring from which to hang them. And now it was not long, as you may imagine, before they were more than prosperous at the farm-stead again.

For a time everything went well. He let her work and command in the house, and she had unfailing luck in all she undertook, so that wealth flowed in to them from every side. But at length he once more began to ill-treat her. Wherever he went he remembered that she was no Christian, no matter how kind, and amiable and obedient she might be, and just like any one else, save that she was far, far handsomer. Once he reached down the poker from the wall, and was about to beat her. She jumped up and begged him insistently not to touch her: "For else both of us will be unhappy!" But he would not listen to her, and beat her about the head, until the blood ran over the poker and fell on his hand. And then she suddenly disappeared from his sight. It seemed as though she had floated through the wall, or sunk into the ground. He saw nothing, but he heard a woman sob and weep, very quietly and softly, and painfully, and with a deadly sadness. After a little while all was silent--and then he heard no more. He searched day in, day out, here and there, hither and yon, and his neighbors, too, went along and helped him search; but to no avail, for he did not find her, and could not even discover a trace of her. When he was in the hill pastures during the summer, and the rest of the folk were up there as well, and even after they had gone, he would sit night after night, and play "The Blue Melody"; yet he never saw her again, nor any of her folk.

In the summer his little girl was old enough to begin going to school.

And one day she said to her father, when he came up to the hills: "I am to bring you a kind greeting from mother!"

"Ah, no, my little girl, is that really the truth? Where did you speak to her?" he asked.

"She and two others came here the day that Guro fetched the sheep, and since then she often comes here," answered the little one, "and they gave me their clasps, too," said she, and showed him three handsome round clasps.

"Won't she come back home to us?" he asked, as well you may imagine.

"She said that she really could not do that, and that she had to protect you continually against folk who wanted to harm you!" said the little one.

Sadness had been his portion before this, and now it did not grow any less. And it was a blessing that before many years had pa.s.sed the earth closed over him.

NOTE

Touching in its simplicity, and characteristically local is this final fairy-tale of "The Player on the Jew's-Harp" (Bergh, p. 38).

In its cheerful beginning, and toward its sad close sounds the magic music of "The Blue Melody," which some one caught from the underground folk in ancient times. From primal days folk-lore has glorified the irresistible power of music as magic of supernatural origin. Horand in the "Hegeling Saga" is credited with having learned this melody on the wild wave, from a water-spirit; and the legend that his compelling art was a gift of the underground folk was even current of the Norwegian fiddler Ole Bull (1880).