Tales from the Fjeld: A Second Series of Popular Tales

TAPER TOM

"Once on a time there was a King, who had a daughter, and she was so lovely, that her good looks were well known far and near; but she was so sad and serious, she could never be got to laugh; and, besides, she was so high and mighty, that she said 'No' to all who wooed her to wife, and she would have none of them, were they ever so grand – lords and princes, it was all the same. The king had long ago got tired of this, for he thought she might just as well marry, she, too, like the rest of the world. There was no good waiting; she was quite old enough, nor would she be any richer, for she was to have half the kingdom, that came to her as her mother's heir.

"So he had it given out at the church door both quick and soon, that any one who could get his daughter to laugh should have her and half the kingdom. But if there were any one who tried and could not, he was to have three red stripes cut out of his back, and salt rubbed in; and sure it was that there were many sore backs in that kingdom, for lovers and wooers came from north and south, and east and west, thinking it nothing at all to make a king's daughter laugh; and brave fellows they were, some of them, too; but for all their tricks and capers, there sat the princess, just as sad and serious as she had been before.

"Now, hard by the Palace lived a man who had three sons, and they too had heard how the king had given it out that the man who could make the princess laugh was to have her to wife and half the kingdom.

"The eldest, he was for setting off first; so he strode off; and when he came to the king's grange, he told the king he would be glad to try to make the princess laugh.

"'All very well, my man,' said the king; 'but it's sure to be no good, for so many have been here and tried. My daughter is so sorrowful, it's no use trying, and I don't at all wish that any one should come to grief.'

"But he thought there was use. It couldn't be such a very hard thing for him to get a princess to laugh, for so many had laughed at him, both gentle and simple, when he listed for a soldier, and learnt his drill under Corporal Jack. So he went off to the courtyard, under the princess's window, and began to go through his drill as Corporal Jack had taught him. But it was no good, the princess was just as sad and serious, and did not so much as smile at him once. So they took him, and cut three broad red stripes out of his back, and sent him home again.

"Well! he had hardly got home before his second brother wanted to set off. He was a schoolmaster, and a wonderful figure of fun besides; he was lop-sided, for he had one leg shorter than the other, and one moment he was as little as a boy, and in another, when he stood on his long leg, he was as tall and long as a Troll. Besides this, he was a powerful preacher.

"So when he came to the king's grange, and said he wished to make the princess laugh, the king thought it might not be so unlikely after all. 'But Heaven help you!' he said, 'if you don't make her laugh. We are for cutting the stripes broader and broader for every one that tries.'

"Then the schoolmaster strode off to the courtyard, and put himself before the princess's window, and read and preached like seven parsons, and sang and chanted like seven clerks, as loud as all the parsons and clerks in the country round. The king laughed loud at him, and was forced to hold the posts in the gallery, and the princess was just going to put a smile on her lips, but all at once she got as sad and serious as ever; and so it fared no better with Paul the schoolmaster than with Peter the soldier – for you must know one was called Peter and the other Paul. So they took him and cut three red stripes out of his back, and rubbed the salt well in, and then they sent him home again.

"Then the youngest was all for setting out, and his name was Taper Tom; but his brothers laughed and jeered at him, and showed him their sore backs, and his father would not give him leave, for he said, how could it be of any use to him, when he had no sense, for, wasn't it true that he neither knew anything or could do anything? There he sat in the ingle by the chimney corner, like a cat, and grubbed in the ashes and split fir tapers. That was why they called him 'Taper Tom.' But Taper Tom wouldn't give in, for he growled and grizzled so long, that they got tired of his growling, and so, at last, he too got leave to go to the king's grange, and try his luck.

"When he got to the king's grange he did not say he wished to try to make the princess laugh, but asked if he could get a place there. 'No,' they had no place for him; but for all that Taper Tom wouldn't take an answer; they must want some one, he said, to carry wood and water for the kitchen-maid, in such a big grange as that – that was what he said; and the king thought it might very well be, for he, too, got tired of his worry, and the end was, Taper Tom got leave to stay there and carry wood and water for the kitchen-maid.

"So, one day, when he was going to fetch water from the beck, he set eyes on a big fish, which lay under an old fir stump, where the water had eaten into the bank, and he put his bucket so softly under the fish, and caught it. But as he was going home to the grange he met an old woman who led a golden goose by a string.

"'Good day, godmother,' said Taper Tom; 'that's a pretty bird you have got; and what fine feathers! – they dazzle one a long way off. If one only had such feathers one might leave off splitting fir tapers.'

"The goody was just as pleased with the fish Tom had in his bucket, and said, if he would give her the fish, he might have the golden goose; and it was such a goose, that when any one touched it, he stuck fast to it, if Tom only said, 'Hang on, if you care to come with us.'

"Yes! that swap Taper Tom was willing enough to make.

"'A bird is as good as a fish, any day,' he said to himself; and if it's such a bird as you say, I can use it as a fish-hook.' That was what he said to the goody, and was so pleased with the goose. Now, he hadn't gone far before he met another old woman, and as soon as she saw the lovely gold goose she was all for running up to it and patting it; and she spoke so prettily, and coaxed him so, and begged him give her leave to stroke his lovely golden goose.

"'With all my heart,' said Taper Tom; 'but, mind you don't pluck out any of its feathers.'

"Just as she stroked the goose, he said,

"'Hang on, if you care to come with us!'

"The goody pulled and tore, but she was forced to hang on, whether she would or no, and Taper Tom went before, as though he alone were with the golden goose. So when he had gone a bit further, he met a man who had a thorn in his side against the goody for a trick she had played him. So, when he saw how hard she struggled and strove to get free, and how fast she stuck, he thought he would be quite safe in giving her one for her nob, to pay off the old grudge, and so he just gave her a kick with his foot.

"'Hang on, if you care to come with us!' called out Tom, and then the man had to limp along on one leg, whether he would or no, and when he jibbed and jibed, and tried to break loose, it was still worse for him, for he was all but falling flat on his back every step he took.

"So they went on a good bit till they had about come to the king's grange. There they met the king's smith, who was going to the smithy, and had a great pair of tongs in his hand. Now you must know this smith was a merry fellow, who was as full of tricks and pranks as an egg is full of meat, and when he saw this string come hobbling and limping along, he laughed so that he was almost bent in two, and then he bawled out, 'Surely this is a new flock of geese the princess is going to have; who can tell which is goose and which gander! Ah! I see, this must be the gander that toddles in front. Goosey! goosey! goosey!' he called out; and with that he coaxed them to him, and threw his hands about as though he were scattering corn for the geese.

"But the flock never stopped – on it went, and all that the goody and the man did was to look daggers at the smith for making game of them. Then the smith went on,

"'It would be fine fun to see if I could hold the whole flock, so many as they are;' for he was a stout strong fellow, and so he took hold, with his big tongs, by the old man's coat tail, and the man all the while bellowed and wriggled; but Taper Tom only said,

"'Hang on, if you care to come with us.'

"So the smith had to go along too. He bent his back and stuck his heels into the hill, and tried to get loose; but it was all no good, he stuck fast, as though he had been screwed tight with his own anvil, and, whether he would or no, he had to dance along with the rest.

"So, when they came near to the king's grange, the mastiff ran out and began to bay and bark as though they were wolves or beggars; and when the princess looked out of the window to see what was the matter, and set eyes on this strange pack, she laughed inwardly. But Taper Tom was not content with that.

"'Bide a bit,' he said, 'she'll soon have to open the door of her mouth wider;' and as he said that he turned off with his band to the back of the grange.

"So, when they passed by the kitchen, the door stood open, and the cook was just beating the porridge; but when she saw Taper Tom and his pack she came running out at the door, with her brush in one hand, and a wooden ladle full of smoking porridge in the other, and she laughed as though her sides would split; and when she saw the smith there too, she slapped her thigh and went off again in a loud peal. But when she had laughed her laugh out, she too thought the golden goose so lovely she must just stroke it.

"'Taper Tom! Taper Tom!' she bawled out, and came running out with the ladle of porridge in her fist, 'may I have leave to stroke that pretty bird of yours?'

"'Better let her stroke me,' said the smith.

"'I daresay,' said Taper Tom.

"But when the cook heard that she got angry.

"'What is that you say!' she cried, and let fly at the smith with the ladle.

"'Hang on, if you care to come with us,' said Taper Tom. So she stuck fast, she, too; and for all her kicks and plunges, and all her scolding and screaming, and all her riving and striving, and all her rage, she too had to limp along with them.

"But when they came outside the window of the princess, there she stood, waiting for them; and when she saw they had taken the cook too, with her ladle and brush, she opened her mouth wide, and laughed loud, so that the king had to hold her upright. So Taper Tom got the princess and half the kingdom; and they had such a merry wedding, it was heard and talked of far and wide."

THE TROLLS IN HEDALE WOOD

"Up at a place in Vaage, in Gudbrandsdale, there lived once on a time in the days of old a poor couple. They had many children, and two of the sons who were about half grown up had to be always roaming about the country begging. So it was that they were well known with all the highways and by-ways, and they also knew the short cut into Hedale.

"It happened once that they wanted to get thither, but at the same time they heard that some falconers had built themselves a hut at Mæla, and so they wished to kill two birds with one stone, and see the birds, and how they are taken, and so they took the cut across Longmoss. But you must know it was far on towards autumn, and so the milkmaids had all gone home from the shielings, and they could neither get shelter nor food. Then they had to keep straight on for Hedale, but the path was a mere track, and when night fell they lost it; and, worse still, they could not find the falconers' hut either, and before they knew where they were, they found themselves in the very depths of the forest. As soon as they saw they could not get on, they began to break boughs, lit a fire, and built themselves a bower of branches, for they had a hand-axe with them; and, after that, they plucked heather and moss and made themselves a bed. So a little while after they had lain down, they heard something which sniffed and snuffed so with its nose; then the boys pricked up their ears and listened sharp to hear whether it were wild beasts or wood trolls, and just then something snuffed up the air louder than ever, and said —

"'There's a smell of Christian blood here!'

"At the same time they heard such a heavy foot-fall that the earth shook under it, and then they knew well enough the trolls must be about.

"'Heaven help us! what shall we do?' said the younger boy to his brother.

"'Oh! you must stand as you are under the fir, and be ready to take our bags and run away when you see them coming; as for me, I will take the hand-axe,' said the other.

"All at once they saw the trolls coming at them like mad, and they were so tall and stout, their heads were just as high as the fir-tops; but it was a good thing they had only one eye between them all three, and that they used turn and turn about. They had a hole in their foreheads into which they put it, and turned and twisted it with their hands. The one that went first, he must have it to see his way, and the others went behind and took hold of the first.

"'Take up the traps,' said the elder of the boys, 'but don't run away too far, but see how things go; as they carry their eye so high aloft they'll find it hard to see me when I get behind them.'

"Yes! the brother ran before and the trolls after him, meanwhile the elder got behind them and chopped the hindmost troll with his axe on the ankle, so that the troll gave an awful shriek, and the foremost troll got so afraid he was all of a shake and dropped the eye. But the boy was not slow to snap it up. It was bigger than two quart pots put together, and so clear and bright, that though it was pitch dark, everything was as clear as day as soon as he looked through it.

"When the trolls saw he had taken their eye and done one of them harm, they began to threaten him with all the evil in the world if he didn't give back the eye at once.

"'I don't care a farthing for trolls and threats,' said the boy, 'now I've got three eyes to myself and you three have got none, and besides two of you have to carry the third.'

"If we don't get our eye back this minute, you shall be both turned to stocks and stones,' screeched the trolls.

"But the boy thought things needn't go so fast; he was not afraid for witchcraft or hard words. If they didn't leave him in peace he'd chop them all three, so that they would have to creep and crawl along the earth like cripples and crabs.

"When the trolls heard that, they got still more afraid and began to use soft words. They begged so prettily that he would give them their eye back, and then he should have both gold and silver and all that he wished to ask. Yes! that seemed all very fine to the lad, but he must have the gold and silver first, and so he said, if one of them would go home and fetch as much gold and silver as would fill his and his brother's bags, and give them two good cross-bows beside, they might have their eye, but he should keep it until they did what he said.

"The trolls were very put out, and said none of them could go when he hadn't his eye to see with, but all at once one of them began to bawl out for their goody, for you must know they had a goody between them all three as well as an eye. After a while an answer came from a knoll a long way off to the north. So the trolls said she must come with two steel cross-bows and two buckets full of gold and silver, and then it was not long, you may fancy, before she was there. And when she heard what had happened, she too began to threaten them with witchcraft. But the trolls got so afraid, and begged her beware of the little wasp, for she couldn't be sure he would not take away her eye too. So she threw them the cross-bows and the buckets and the gold and the silver, and strode off to the knoll with the trolls; and since that time no one has ever heard that the trolls have walked in Hedale wood snuffing after Christian blood."

THE SKIPPER AND OLD NICK

"Once on a time there was a skipper who was so wonderfully lucky in everything he undertook; there was no one who got such freights, and no one who earned so much money, for it rolled in upon him on all sides, and, in a word, there was no one who was good to make such voyages as he, for whithersoever he sailed he took the wind with him; – nay! men did say he had only to turn his hat and the wind turned the way he wished it to blow.

"So he sailed for many years, both in the timber trade and to China, and he had gathered money together like grass. But it so happened that once he was coming home across the North sea with every sail set, as though he had stolen both ship and lading; but he who wanted to lay hold on him went faster still. It was Old Nick, for with him he had made a bargain, as one may well fancy, and that very day the time was up, and he might look any moment that Old Nick would come and fetch him.

"Well! the skipper came up on deck out of the cabin and looked at the weather; then he called for the carpenter and some others of the crew, and said they must go down into the hold and hew two holes in the ship's bottom, and when they had done that they were to lift the pumps out of their beds and drive them down tight into the holes they had made, so that the sea might rise high up into the pumps.

"The crew wondered at all this, and thought it a funny bit of work, but they did as the skipper ordered; they hewed holes in the ship's bottom and drove the pumps in so tight that never a drop of water could come to the cargo, but up in the pump itself the North sea stood seven feet high.

"They had only just thrown the chips overboard after their piece of work when Old Nick came on board in a gust of wind and caught the skipper by the throat.

"'Stop, father!' said the skipper, 'there's no need to be in such a hurry,' and as he said that he began to defend himself and to loose the claws which Old Nick had stuck into him by the help of a marling-spike.

"'Haven't you made a bargain that you would always keep the ship dry and tight?' asked the skipper. 'Yes! you're a pretty fellow; look down the pumps, there's the water standing seven feet high in the pipe. Pump, devil, pump! and pump the ship dry, and then you may take me and have me as soon and as long as you choose.'

"Old Nick was not so clever that he was not taken in; he pumped and strove, and the sweat ran down his back like a brook, so that you might have turned a mill at the end of his backbone, but he only pumped out of the North sea and into the North sea again. At last he got tired of that work, and when he could not pump a stroke more, he set off in a sad temper home to his grandmother to take a rest. As for the skipper, he let him stay a skipper as long as he chose, and if he isn't dead, he is still perhaps sailing on his voyages whithersoever he will, and twisting the wind as he chooses only by turning his hat."

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 with 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 his 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 river, 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; 'shall 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 knowledge,' 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, I too.'

"Then he swam out into the hole and caught his wife by the hair of her head, and so 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 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 him, and they all in a body began to drag the stream and to search for her all along it. But for all their searching they found no goody.

"'Oh!' said the man, '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 the force, and there lay the goody, sure enough! Yes! She was well called Goody gainst-the-Stream."