Arne: Early Tales and Sketches Part 9

"She wove him a wreath of all flowers round: 'All I have found.'

She wept, but she gathered and wove on still: 'Take all you will.'

Without a word he took it, and fled across the hill.

'On Midsummer Day,' etc.

"She wove on, bewildered and out of breath: 'My bridal wreath.'

She wove till her fingers aweary had grown: 'Now put it on.'

But when she turned to see him, she found that he had gone.

'On Midsummer Day,' etc.

"She wove on in haste, as for life and death, Her bridal wreath; But the Midsummer sun no longer shone, And the flowers were gone; But though she had no flowers, wild fancy still wove on.

'On Midsummer-Day There is dancing and play; But now I know not whether she weaves her wreath or nay."[18]

It was his own intense melancholy that called forth the first image of love that glided so gloomily through his soul. A twofold longing,--to have some one to love and to become something great,--blended together and became one. At this time he was working again at the song, "Over the lofty mountains," altering it, and all the while singing and thinking quietly to himself, "Surely I will get 'over' some day; I will sing until I gain courage." He did not forget his mother in these his thoughts of roving; indeed, he took comfort in the thought that as soon as he got firm foothold in the strange land, he would come back after her, and offer her conditions which he never could be able to provide for her at home. But in the midst of all these mighty yearnings there played something calm, cheering, refined, that darted away and came again, took hold and fled, and, dreamer that he had become, he was more in the power of these spontaneous thoughts than he himself was aware.

There lived in the parish a jovial man whose name was Ejnar Aasen. When he was twenty years old he had broken his leg; since then he had walked with a cane; but wherever he came hobbling along, there was always mirth afoot. The man was rich. On his property there was a large nut-wood, and there was sure to be a.s.sembled, on one of the brightest, pleasantest days in autumn, a group of merry girls gathering nuts. At these nutting-parties he had plenty of feasting for his guests all day, and dancing in the evening. For most of these girls he had been G.o.dfather; indeed, he was the G.o.dfather of half the parish; all the children called him G.o.dfather, and from them every one else, both old and young, learned to do so.

G.o.dfather and Arne were well acquainted, and he liked the young man because of the verses he made. Now G.o.dfather asked Arne to come to the nutting-party. Arne blushed and declined; he was not used to being with girls, he said.

"Then you must get used to it," replied G.o.dfather.

Arne could not sleep at night because of this; fear and yearning were at war within him; but whatever the result might be, he went along, and was about the only youth among all these girls. He could not deny that he felt disappointed; they were neither those he had sung about, nor those he had feared to meet. There was an excitement and merriment, the like of which he had never known before, and the first thing that struck him was that they could laugh over nothing in the world; and if three laughed, why, then, five laughed, simply because those three laughed.

They all acted as though they were members of the same household; and yet many of them had not met before that day. If they caught the bough they were jumping after, they laughed at that, and if they did not catch it, they laughed at that, too. They fought for the hook to draw it down with; those who got it laughed, and those who did not get it, laughed also. G.o.dfather hobbled after them with his cane, and offered all the hindrance in his power. Those whom he caught laughed because he caught them, and those whom he did not catch laughed because he did not catch them. But they all laughed at Arne for being sober, and when he tried to laugh, they laughed, because he was laughing at last.

They seated themselves finally on a large hill, G.o.dfather in the centre, and all the girls around him. The hill commanded a fine outlook; the sun scorched; but the girls heeded it not, they sat, casting nut-husks and sh.e.l.ls at one another, giving the kernels to G.o.dfather. He tried to quiet them at last, striking at them with his cane, as far as he could reach; for now he wanted them to tell stories, above all, something amusing. But to get them started seemed more difficult than to stop a carriage on a hill-side. G.o.dfather began himself. There were many who did not want to listen; for they knew already everything he had to tell; but they all ended by listening attentively. Before they knew what they were about, they sat in the centre, and each took her turn in following his example as best she could. Now Arne was much astonished to find that just in proportion to the noise the girls had made before was the gravity of the stories they now told. Love was the chief theme of these.

"But you, Aasa, have a good one; I remember that from last year," said G.o.dfather, turning to a plump girl with a round, pleasant face, who sat braiding the hair of a younger sister, whose head was in her lap.

"Several that are here may know that," said she.

"Well, give it to us anyway," they begged.

"I will not have to be urged long," said she, and, still braiding, she told and sang, as follows:--

"There was a grown-up youth who tended cattle, and he was in the habit of driving his herds upward, along the banks of a broad stream. High up on his way, there was a crag which hung out so far over the stream, that when he stood on it he could call out to any one on the other side. For on the other side of the stream there was a herd-girl whom he could see all day long, but he could not come over to her.

'Now, tell me thy name, thou girl that art sitting, Up there with thy sheep, so busily knitting?'

he asked, over and over again, for many days, until at last one day there came the answer,--

'My name floats about like a duck in wet weather;-- Come over, thou boy in the cap of brown leather.'

"But this made the youth no wiser than before, and he thought he would pay no further heed to the girl. This was not so easy, though, for, let him drive the cattle where he would, he was always drawn back to the crag. Then the youth grew alarmed, and called over:--

'Well, who is your father, and where are you biding?

On the road to the church I have ne'er seen you riding.'

"The youth more than half believed her, in fact, to be a hulder.[19]

'My house is burned down, and my father is drowned, And the road to the church-hill I never have found.'

"Now this also made the youth no wiser than before. By day he lingered on the crag, and by night he dreamed that she was dancing around him, and gave him a lash with a great cow's-tail each time he tried to take hold of her. Soon he could not sleep at all, neither could he work, and the poor youth was in a wretched state. Again he called aloud,--

'If thou art a hulder, then pray do not spell me,-- If thou art a maiden, then hasten to tell me?'

"But there came no answer, and then he was sure that this was a hulder.

He gave up tending cattle, but it was just as bad, for wherever he went, or whatever he did, he thought of the fair hulder who blew on the horn.

"Then one day, as he stood chopping wood, there came a girl through the yard who actually looked like the hulder. But when she came nearer, it was not she. He thought much about this; then the girl came back, and in the distance it was the hulder, and he ran directly toward her. But the moment he came near her it was not she.

"After this, let the youth be at church, at a dance, at other social gatherings, or where he would, the girl was there too; when he was far from her, she seemed to be the hulder; near to her, she seemed to be another; he asked her then whether it were she or not; but she laughed at him. It is just as well to spring into it as to creep into it, thought the youth, and so he married the girl.

"No sooner was this done than the youth ceased to like the girl. Away from her, he longed for her; but when with her, he longed for one he did not see; therefore he was harsh toward his wife; she bore this and was silent.

"But one day, when he was searching for the horses, he found his way to the crag, and sitting down, he called out,--

'Like fairy moonlight to me thou seemest, Like midsummer fires from afar thou gleamest.'

"He thought it did him good to sit there, and he fell into the way of going thither whenever anything went amiss at home. The wife wept when she was left alone.

"But one day, while the youth was sitting on the crag, the hulder, her living self, appeared on the opposite side, and blew her horn. He eagerly cried,--

'Ah, dear, art thou come! all around thee is s.h.i.+ning!

Ah, blow now again! I am sitting here pining.'

"Then she answered,--

'Away from thy mind the dreams I am blowing,-- The rye is all rotting for want of mowing.'

"But the youth was frightened, and went home again. Before long, though, he was so tired of his wife that he felt compelled to wander off to the wood and take his seat on the crag. Then a voice sang,--

'I dreamed thou wast here; ho, hasten to bind me!

No, not over there, but behind you will find me.'[20]

"The youth started up, looked about him, and espied a green skirt disappearing through the woods. He pursued. Now there was a chase through the woods. As fleet of foot as the hulder was, no mortal could be; he cast steel[21] over her again and again; she ran on the same as before. By and by she began to grow tired. The youth knew this from her foot-fall, though her form convinced him that it was the hulder herself, and none other. 'You shall surely be mine now,' thought the youth, and suddenly flung his arms about her with such force that both he and she rolled far down the hill before they could stop. Then the hulder laughed until the youth thought the mountains fairly rang; he took her on his knee, and she looked so fair, just as he had once thought his wife would look.

"'Oh, dear, who are you that are so fair?' asked the youth, and as he caressed her, he felt that her cheeks were warm and glowing.

"'Why, good gracious, I am your wife,' said she."

The girls laughed, and thought the youth was very foolish. But G.o.dfather asked Arne if he had been listening.

"Well, now, I will tell you something," said a little girl, with a little round face, and such a very little nose.

"There was a little youth who wanted very much to woo a little maiden; they were both grown up, yet were both very small indeed. But the youth could not muster up courage enough to begin his wooing. He always joined her after church, but they did not then get beyond the weather in their talk; he sought her at the dances, and he danced her almost to death, but talk with her he could not. 'You must learn to write, and then you will not have to,' said he to himself, and so the youth took to writing; but he never thought he could do well enough, and so he wrote a whole year before he dared think of a letter. Then the trouble was how to deliver it so that no one should see, and he waited until once they chanced to meet alone behind the church.

"'I have a letter for you,' said the youth.

"'But I cannot read writing,' answered the maiden.