The Hulder
(Translator's Note: In norsk mythology,
the hulder belong to those
beings that live under the ground. The hulder is a beautiful
woman but who has a tail
that would disappear if she is baptized and a christian man
married her.)
We had been to a visit to Bjerke. The owner and old mother rode back home Sunday evening; but the young lady, Marie, and the little boys had begged and pleaded so much that they were allowed to stay until Monday and take the way home through the hills “to see the view”, as they called it; and I, the teacher, found many reasons to join the young people. Monday morning came too soon for us. As Bjerke, our kind hostess, and her son had suggested that we go through the Bjerke farm’s groves where the flowers painted the day with many beautiful colors, and the buttercups waved all around between green trees and the grass; and the birds hidden in the branches of tress let their songs stream through the thick crown of leaves. The morning was so quiet, mild and warm; the leaves on the branches were almost motionless, and when we came up the path through the meadows, we saw pearly dew on the clover when the sunglight shone on the green folds of a leaf. Swallows flew low over the horizon, a bush bird sat tremblingly on a thistle and twittered. Here we heard the larks’ song from the blue sky and every corner was striped with the light summer clouds.
When we got to the other side of the king’s road, the landscape had a totally different character. On the hills were fir trees, and spruce were like great vaults that towered over us. The trilling of the larks could still be heard, but the tones here were just little pips from tired singers, the shriek of the red-breasted robins was like intermittent rain, and there was only a light gleam from the sky. Tired after the walk, we rested a moment on the flat mossy stones along the priest’s marsh, drank a farewell toast in our own way, and feasted our eyes at the Øyeren lake’s white surface that we glimpsed through the tops of the fir.
The small boys were everywhere on the marsh to gather cloudberries and were delighted each time they saw a red berry. The young lady and I followed behind. The marsh was crowned with fir and spruce a long way to the west. There were only some groups of vines, rushes and hillocks in the light green field that broke the monotony of the vast plain. Now and then there was a headland, and here and there we saw patches of color, or a yellow bare cottage that stood like a memory of birds playing in the springtime. Towards the north, the way that we should take was hardly a thousand steps away. All around us the heather was in bloom but out in the marshes, the water lilies were quite overwhelming in yellow magnificence, the shaggy goat-bladder leaves and the trim marsh kingbirds before us. The marsh was decorated with nodding marsh cotton, berry flowers and fine stargrass that played incessantly on the ground and trembled beneath our feet, as if they were resting on a wavy sea.We used some time to gather berries. When we came out from the marsh toward the meadow, one of the spruce arcades swung their great drooping ears back and forth over our heads; a sharp wind brushed away our faces and over us stood masses of gray clouds, heavy with rain. It came down in a torrent of rain and we felt each single drop. I comforted my frightened pupils that we shall soon come to the old cotage by the road sign that had stood here since the war. It lay just a couple of stones’ throw away, right above the stooping fir trees along the marsh. When we reached edge, the rain poured, but then there was no need to wrry, we were on firm ground, and the forest was over at, and a couple of minutes later we were up on the field and will take shleter in the cottage at the road sign. Actually it was not really a shelter. The roof had fallen down and there was only a small piece left at one corner of the roof, so that we can see the birds flying in the sky above us. But in this little corner, a kind hunter or a woodcutter had made a bench out of a pair of bricks and logs that was long enough to make room for two. He were took our place and I thought it was a suitable seat. The little boys were climbing up and all over the other corner and stood there looking up at the gray sky and quarelled about whether they could see nine or eleven churches until they could not see the nearest trees because of the rain.
But maybe we should believe that our plight had made us more trusting and friendly. But it was not so, I sat and stared in silence at the Oeyeren lake’s surface as through an open door that showed itself dimly glimmering in the pouring rain; and I looked at the little boys at the hearthstone and also down at my own legs. I stole glances at my pretty companion, only to quickly turn my eyes away. The situation was both ironic and comical; it was the love of a private tutor. We sat there like a par of chickens on a wire."Grab the chance!" I had whispered to myself. But as I walked and waded in the marsh, I had quietly urged myself to make the speech I had long planned to bring up on an appropriate occasion. How it would sound, I really don’t know, but I know that it always stuck in my throat just as I was about to say the words. Now it was a moment of destiny again. The little boys were down by the chimney and tumbled outside in the blueberry bush. I thought it necessary to begin my declaration with some courage, and I actually dared to put my arm around her waist, but it was soon clear that the young lady was much more clever than I. She sprang up and stood threateningly before me, laughing at me.
“What do you want from me? My god! Do you know what you dare?” she said. “You do know my relatives! You very well know that I am descended from hulder and that I carry the blood of trolls in my veins?”
“My dearest girl,” said poor me who had, in the meantime, collected myself and hard brought myself back to my senses again, “I don’t understand you. I don’t know; I agree to say nothing about this suspicious circumstance.”
“Then, it was strange that Mother, who has told you so many folktales and stoires, has not told you about them. By great grandmother or my great-great-grandmother was really a hulder. Now you will hear about I; but if you don’t want me to get soaking wet, then you must let me sit in peace on the bench beside you. Now, then –My great-great-grandmother or my great-great-great- grandmother (I don’t really know) was at the dairy farm one summer. They had a son, and he was with them. When autumn came, they were prepared to leave the dairy and go back home, but the boy said that he wanted to stay there because he had a longing to to see if it was true what they said about the hulder coming here with their livestock. His parents did not like this and said that he could well believe that this was true; it must be true since there were so many who told about it.
The son did not give up; he insisted wanted to stay, anyway, until at last he got their permision. Before the parents left, they gave him a platter of cream pudding for a lunch pack. As soon as he was alone, the dairy came alive with sound. He heard the bells tinkling, the cows mooed and the sheep bleated, and there was a lively stir of work and talk as if ruffians hand come to the dairy. Things quietened a bit and in a little while two strange people came in. The younger was so beautiful beyond description. They began to tidy up and work in the room, and began cooking milk porridge. All the while, the boy pretended that he was sleeping. The hulder did not notice him at first, but the younger one began to cry.
“What is wrong with you? What are you crying about?” said the other.
“Oh, I think that boy is so handsome, Mother, that I cannot bear it if I can’t have him; but that is not the way things are,” said the younger one.
“Hush, hush now, we shall talk with him,” said the mother, trying to soothe her. When they sat down to eat, the boy pretended that he had just wakened up and greeted them. They offered him food but he refused and instead asked if they would like a taste of the cream pudding that he had in his lunch pack.
Of course they would very much like it, because cream pudding is the best thing that a hulder can get. The three ate together, talking of this and that, and it happened that the mother told him: “You are such a handsome boy, and my daughter thinks well of you. If you like her, you can go to the priest and get her baptized; then you can have her. But you must be kind to her, and if you are, you will not lack for anything in your married life. You will get everything that you need in the farm and more besides.”
Certainly, the boy thought he could like her and the offer was nothing to sniff at. So he promised that he would go to the priest and get her baptized, and he would be kind to her too. So they made the journey home and she was baptized before the wedding, and they lived happily and well.
There was one time that he had been quite unkind and behaved badly towards her, and that night he heard a commotion outside the farm. But when he came out to the farmyard in the cold morning, the whole place was full of everything that could be used both for the farm and the house. There were cows and horses, and plows and high sleds, and bells and buckets, and all sorts of things.
When autumn came and it turned very cold, the wife wanted to hoe the ground and see to the butchering, but she did not have the proper hoe nor a butcher’s trough. She asked the husband to take the axe and go up to the mountain and cut down the big fir tree that stood by the marsh in the dairy farm; she wanted it for a butcher’s trough.
“I think you are wrong, wife,” said the husband. “Should I cut down the best tree in the forest to make a butcher’s trough? And how would I get it down from the mountain when it is so big that no horse could manage to pull it?”
Still she asked the man to do it; but when he obstinately refused to go, she took the axe on her shoulder, went up the woods, cut down the fir tree and carried it on her back all the way home. When the husband saw this, he was terrified, and he never dared to disagree with her or do anything other than what she asked him. Since that time, there was never disagreement between them.
“That was the story. Such a strong and naughty man my grandfather was, and you must have heard of this; and my father knows you,” she said half threateningly. “You can get them to do what is waiting for you, if you make me very angry.”
“You might want to stay here, Marie,” said the little boys from the doorway. Their lips had become blue with the color of the blueberries they had plucked. “but he rain has stopped for some time,” they said, “so come on, and let’s get going.”
We went on our way; the rich dandelions and moss and lichen lay like a tablecloth on the the humid woods, and played in the glittering sunset that was freshened by the rain. Outside in the woods there was gladness all about the plants and the birds. Pearlflower and twinflower sent out streams of fragrance, and the spruce sprinkled its scent over us. The woods was full of birdsong and gladness; at each top sat a song thrush and mocked my love, the wrens and the kingbirds competed in song and took delight in their happiness; only one red robin complained through the thick greenery.
While we wandered down the hillside through the woods, the Øvre-Romerike lay before us in the sunlight. Over the west, the rain hung like a gray curtain the hills, but towards the north, it was bright and clear and the misty mountain, draped like a blue cape, was a comfort to the eyes. We saw the fields and the forest, the churches and the farms, and the little boys quickly recognized the red stables at their home in the farm. They walked very fast down the hill; Marie ran, competing with the little boys, and I trudged after them, staring with melancholy at the dry landscape and slaked my thirst with juicy blueberries.We have not been out so long but when we came into the garden at home, the midday sun was burning so hot that it did not feel nice to be outside. Marie sat in the garden under the old oak, and we followed her example. Suddenly, a stream of melodies streamed down towards us. Wondering, Marie listened and stared up at the canopy of the dark shadowy crown of the tree, as if she waited to take hold of all the winged singers of the forest. I recognized the tones, they came form the yellow-breasted singer, an infrequent guest that was giving us the concert. It was in excellent humor, and it shrieked like the falcon and tweetered like the cicada. It trilled and gave us starsong and chirpings; the familiar melodies and all the scales of a singer’s tones. It was truly a potpourri of birdsong with joy and pain.
“Do you hear it?” shouted Marie, while she sprang up and danced around the tree: “When I hear these tones, I become aware of my hulder nature; I feel that this is the home where I belong, just as you belong to the city and books and the theater and the street organ.
