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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of 'Round the yule-log: Christmas in Norway, by 
+Peter Christen Asbjörnsen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: 'Round the yule-log: Christmas in Norway
+
+Author: Peter Christen Asbjörnsen
+
+Translator: H. L. Broekstad
+
+Release Date: April 15, 2010 [EBook #31993]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'ROUND THE YULE-LOG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bryan Ness, Anne Grieve and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |                                                             |
+ | Transcriber's note:                                         |
+ |                                                             |
+ | Throughout this text, oe has been substituted for both the  |
+ | oe ligature and the letter o with an umlaut. The ae ligature|
+ | has been replaced by ae.                                    |
+ |                                                             |
+ | This book contains illustrations, several of which are      |
+ | printed in mid-paragraph, either on a separate page or      |
+ | alongside the text itself. To avoid disrupting the flow of  |
+ | the text, the markers for these illustrations have been     |
+ | moved to paragraph breaks. The original illustrations have  |
+ | no captions, but descriptions have been added to them for   |
+ | the enhancement of this text version.                       |
+ |                                                             |
+ | Punctuation surrounding reported speech has been            |
+ | regularised, all other punctuation and spelling has been    |
+ | left as in the original text.                               |
+ |                                                             |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: Picture of a troll pulling girl by the arm]
+
+
+[Illustration: Picture of a laughing troll]
+
+
+'Round the Yule-Log
+
+Christmas in Norway
+
+
+BY
+
+P. CHR. ASBJOERNSEN
+
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+H. L. BROEKSTAD.
+
+
+BOSTON
+
+DANA ESTES AND CO.
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+_Copyright, 1895,_
+
+BY ESTES AND LAURIAT
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+
+Colonial Press
+
+Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
+
+Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+'ROUND THE YULE-LOG.
+
+
+The wind was whistling through the old lime and maple trees opposite my
+windows, the snow was sweeping down the street, and the sky was black as
+a December sky can possibly be here in Christiania. I was in just as
+black a mood. It was Christmas Eve,--the first I was to spend away from
+the cosey fireside of my home. I had lately received my officer's
+commission, and had hoped that I should have gladdened my aged parents
+with my presence during the holidays, and had also hoped that I should
+be able to show myself in all my glory and splendour to the ladies of
+our parish. But a fever had brought me to the hospital, which I had left
+only a week before, and now I found myself in the much-extolled state of
+convalescence. I had written home for a horse and sledge and my father's
+fur coat, but my letter could scarcely reach our valley before the day
+after Christmas, and the horse could not be in town before New Year's
+Eve.
+
+My comrades had all left town, and I knew no family with whom I could
+make myself at home during the holidays. The two old maids I lodged with
+were certainly very kind and friendly people, and they had taken great
+care of me in the commencement of my illness, but the peculiar ways and
+habits of these ladies were too much of the old school to prove
+attractive to the fancies of youth. Their thoughts dwelt mostly on the
+past; and when they, as often might occur, related to me some stories of
+the town, its people and its customs, these stories reminded me, not
+only by their contents, but also by the simple, unaffected way in which
+they were rendered, of a past age.
+
+[Illustration: Picture of two old maids]
+
+The antiquated appearance of these ladies was also in the strictest
+harmony with the house in which they lived. It was one of those old
+houses in Custom House Street, with deep windows, long dark passages and
+staircases, gloomy rooms and garrets, where one could not help thinking
+of ghosts and brownies; in short, just such a house, and perhaps it was
+the very one, which Mauritz Hansen has described in his story, "The Old
+Dame with the Hood." Their circle of acquaintances was very limited;
+besides a married sister and her children, no other visitors came there
+but a couple of tiresome old ladies. The only relief to this kind of
+life was a pretty niece and some merry little cousins of hers, who
+always made me tell them fairy tales and stories.
+
+I tried to divert myself in my loneliness and melancholy mood by looking
+out at all the people who passed up and down the street in the snow and
+wind, with blue noses and half-shut eyes. It amused me to see the bustle
+and the life in the apothecary's shop across the street. The door was
+scarcely shut for a moment. Servants and peasants streamed in and out,
+and commenced to study the labels and directions when they came out in
+the street. Some appeared to be able to make them out, but sometimes a
+lengthy study and a dubious shake of the head showed that the solution
+was too difficult. It was growing dusk. I could not distinguish the
+countenances any longer, but gazed across at the old building. The
+apothecary's house, "The Swan," as it is still called, stood there,
+with its dark, reddish-brown walls, its pointed gables and towers, with
+weather-cocks and latticed windows, as a monument of the architecture of
+the time of King Christian the Fourth. The Swan looked then, as now, a
+most respectable and sedate bird, with its gold ring round its neck, its
+spur-boots, and its wings stretched out as if to fly. I was about to
+plunge myself into reflection on imprisoned birds when I was disturbed
+by noise and laughter proceeding from some children in the adjoining
+room, and by a gentle, old-maidish knock at my door.
+
+[Illustration: Picture of an old maid knocking at the door]
+
+On my requesting the visitor to come in, the elder of my landladies,
+Miss Mette, entered the room with a courtesy in the good old style; she
+inquired after my health, and invited me, without further ceremony, to
+come and make myself at home with them for the evening. "It isn't good
+for you, dear Lieutenant, to sit thus alone here in the dark," she
+added. "Will you not come in to us now at once? Old Mother Skau and my
+brother's little girls have come; they will perhaps amuse you a little.
+You are so fond of the dear children."
+
+[Illustration: Picture of an old woman wearing a cap]
+
+I accepted the friendly invitation. As I entered the room, the fire from
+the large square stove, where the logs were burning lustily, threw a
+red, flickering light through the wide-open door over the room, which
+was very deep, and furnished in the old style, with high-back, Russia
+leather chairs, and one of those settees which were intended for
+farthingales and straight up-and-down positions. The walls were adorned
+with oil paintings, portraits of stiff ladies with powdered coiffures,
+of bewigged Oldenborgians, and other redoubtable persons in mail and
+armour or red coats.
+
+[Illustration: Picture of the narrator looking at the paintings]
+
+"You must really excuse us, Lieutenant, for not having lighted the
+candles yet," said Miss Cicely, the younger sister, who was generally
+called "Cilly," and who came towards me and dropped a courtesy, exactly
+like her sister's; "but the children do so like to tumble about here
+before the fire in the dusk of the evening, and Madam Skau does also
+enjoy a quiet little chat in the chimney corner."
+
+"Oh, chat me here and chat me there! there is nothing you like yourself
+better than a little bit of gossip in the dusk of the evening, Cilly,
+and then we are to get the blame of it," answered the old asthmatic lady
+whom they called Mother Skau.
+
+"Eh! good evening, sir," she said to me, as she drew herself up to make
+the best of her own inflated, bulky appearance. "Come and sit down here
+and tell me how it fares with you; but, by my troth, you are nothing but
+skin and bones!"
+
+I had to tell her all about my illness, and in return I had to endure a
+very long and circumstantial account of her rheumatism and her
+asthmatical ailments, which, fortunately, was interrupted by the noisy
+arrival of the children from the kitchen, where they had paid a visit to
+old Stine, a fixture in the house.
+
+"Oh, auntie, do you know what Stine says?" cried a little brown-eyed
+beauty. "She says I shall go with her into the hay-loft to-night and
+give the brownie his Christmas porridge. But I won't go; I am afraid of
+the brownies!"
+
+"Never mind, my dear, Stine says it only to get rid of you; she dare not
+go into the hay-loft herself--the foolish old thing--in the dark, for
+she knows well enough she was frightened once by the brownies herself,"
+said Miss Mette. "But are you not going to say good evening to the
+Lieutenant, children?"
+
+"Oh, is that you, Lieutenant? I did not know you. How pale you are! It
+is such a long time since I saw you!" shouted the children all at once,
+as they flocked round me.
+
+"Now you must tell us something awfully jolly! It is such a long time
+since you told us anything. Oh, tell us about Buttercup, dear Mr.
+Lieutenant, do tell us about Buttercup and Goldentooth!"
+
+I had to tell them about Buttercup and the dog Goldentooth, but they
+would not let me off until I gave them a couple of stories into the
+bargain about the brownies at Vager and at Bure, who stole hay from each
+other, and who met at last with a load of hay on their backs, and how
+they fought till they vanished in a cloud of hay-dust. I had also to
+tell them the story of the brownie at Hesselberg, who teased the
+house-dog till the farmer came out and threw him over the barn bridge.
+The children clapped their hands in great joy and laughed heartily.
+
+[Illustration: Picture of two brownies fighting]
+
+"It served him right, the naughty brownie!" they shouted, and asked for
+another story.
+
+"Well," said I, "I will tell you the story of Peter Gynt and the trolls.
+
+"In the olden days there lived in Kvam a hunter whose name was Peter
+Gynt, and who was always roaming about in the mountains after bears and
+elks, for in those days there were more forests on the mountains than
+there are now, and consequently plenty of wild beasts.
+
+"One day, shortly before Christmas, Peter set out on an expedition. He
+had heard of a farm on Doorefell which was invaded by such a number of
+trolls every Christmas Eve that the people on the farm had to move out,
+and get shelter at some of their neighbours'. He was anxious to go
+there, for he had a great fancy to come across the trolls, and see if he
+could not overcome them. He dressed himself in some old ragged clothes,
+and took a tame white bear which he had with him, as well as an awl,
+some pitch and twine. When he came to the farm he went in and asked for
+lodgings.
+
+[Illustration: Picture of Peter Gynt and his tame white bear]
+
+"'God help us!' said the farmer; 'we can't give you any lodgings. We
+have to clear out of the house ourselves soon and look for lodgings, for
+every Christmas Eve we have the trolls here.'
+
+"But Peter thought he should be able to clear the trolls out,--he had
+done such a thing before; and then he got leave to stay, and a pig's
+skin into the bargain. The bear lay down behind the fireplace, and
+Peter took out his awl and pitch and twine, and began making a big, big
+shoe, which it took the whole pig's skin to make. He put a strong rope
+in for lacings, that he might pull the shoe tightly together, and,
+finally, he armed himself with a couple of handspikes.
+
+"Shortly he heard the trolls coming. They had a fiddler with them, and
+some began dancing, while others fell to eating the Christmas fare on
+the table,--some fried bacon, and some fried frogs and toads, and other
+nasty things which they had brought with them. During this some of the
+trolls found the shoe Peter had made. They thought it must belong to a
+very big foot. They all wanted to try it on at once, so they put a foot
+each into it; but Peter made haste and tightened the rope, took one of
+the handspikes and fastened the rope around it, and got them at last
+securely tied up in the shoe.
+
+"Just then the bear put his nose out from behind the fireplace, where he
+was lying, and smelt they were frying something.
+
+"'Will you have a sausage, pussy?' said one of the trolls, and threw a
+hot frog right into the bear's jaws.
+
+"'Scratch them, pussy!' said Peter.
+
+"The bear got so angry that he rushed at the trolls and scratched them
+all over, while Peter took the other handspike and hammered away at them
+as if he wanted to beat their brains out. The trolls had to clear out at
+last, but Peter stayed and enjoyed himself with all the Christmas fare
+the whole week. After that the trolls were not heard of there for many
+years.
+
+"Some years afterwards, about Christmas time, Peter was out in the
+forest cutting wood for the holidays, when a troll came up to him and
+shouted,--
+
+[Illustration: Picture of a troll shouting at Peter Gynt]
+
+"'Have you got that big pussy of yours, yet?'
+
+"'Oh, yes! she is at home behind the fireplace,' said he; 'and she has
+got seven kittens, all bigger and larger than herself.'
+
+"'We'll never come to you any more, then,' said the troll, and they
+never did."
+
+The children were all delighted with this story.
+
+"Tell us another, dear Lieutenant," they all shouted in chorus.
+
+"No, no, children! you bother the Lieutenant too much," said Miss
+Cicely. "Aunt Mette will tell you a story now."
+
+"Yes, do, auntie, do!" was the general cry.
+
+"I don't know exactly what I shall tell you," said Aunt Mette, "but
+since we have commenced telling about the brownies, I think I will tell
+you something about them, too. You remember, of course, old Kari
+Gausdal, who came here and baked bread, and who always had so many tales
+to tell you."
+
+"Oh, yes, yes!" shouted the children.
+
+"Well, old Kari told me that she was in service at the orphan asylum
+some years ago, and at that time it was still more dreary and lonely in
+that part of the town than it is now. That asylum is a dark and dismal
+place, I can tell you. Well, when Kari came there she was cook, and a
+very smart and clever girl she was. She had, one day, to get up very
+early in the morning to brew, when the other servants said to her,--
+
+"'You had better mind you don't get up too early, and you mustn't put
+any fire under the copper before two o'clock.'
+
+"'Why?' she asked.
+
+"'Don't you know there is a brownie here? And you ought to know that
+those people don't like to be disturbed so early,' they said; 'and
+before two o'clock you mustn't light the fire by any means.'
+
+"'Is that all?' said Kari. She was anything but chicken-hearted. 'I have
+nothing to do with that brownie of yours, but if he comes in my way,
+why, by my faith, I will send him head over heels through the door.'
+
+"The others warned her, but she did not care a bit, and next morning,
+just as the clock struck one, she got up and lighted the fire under the
+copper in the brewhouse; but the fire went out in a moment. Somebody
+appeared to be throwing the logs about on the hearth, but she could not
+see who it was. She gathered the logs together, one at a time, but it
+was of no use, and the chimney would not draw, either. She got tired of
+this at last, took a burning log and ran around the room with it,
+swinging it high and low while she shouted, 'Be gone, be gone whence you
+came! If you think you can frighten me you are mistaken.' 'Curse you!'
+somebody hissed in one of the darkest corners. 'I have had seven souls
+in this house; I thought I should have got eight in all!' 'But from that
+time nobody saw or heard the brownie in the asylum,' said Kari Gausdal."
+
+[Illustration: Picture of Kari swinging the burning log]
+
+"I am getting so frightened!" said one of the children. "No, you must
+tell us some more stories, Lieutenant; I never feel afraid when you tell
+us anything, because you tell us such jolly tales." Another proposed
+that I should tell them about the brownie who danced the Halling dance
+with the lassie. That was a tale I didn't care much about, as there was
+some singing in it. But they would on no account let me off, and I was
+going to clear my throat and prepare my exceedingly inharmonious voice
+to sing the Halling dance, which belongs to the story, when the pretty
+niece, whom I have already referred to, entered the room, to the great
+joy of the children and to my rescue.
+
+"Well, my dear children, I will tell you the story, if you can get
+cousin Lizzie to sing the Halling for you," said I, as she sat down,
+"and then you'll dance to it yourselves, won't you?"
+
+Cousin Lizzie was besieged by the children, and had to promise to do the
+singing, so I commenced my story.
+
+"There was, once upon a time,--I almost think it was in Hallingdal,--a
+lassie who was sent up into the hay-loft with the cream porridge for the
+brownie,--I cannot recollect if it was on a Thursday or on a Christmas
+Eve, but I think it was a Christmas Eve. Well, she thought it was a
+great pity to give the brownie such a dainty dish, so she ate the
+porridge herself, and the melted butter in the bargain, and went up into
+the hay-loft with the plain oatmeal porridge and sour milk, in a pig's
+trough instead. 'There, that's good enough for you, Master Brownie,' she
+said. But no sooner had she spoken the words than the brownie stood
+right before her, seized her round the waist, and danced about with her,
+which he kept up till she lay gasping for breath, and when the people
+came up into the hay-loft in the morning, she was more dead than alive.
+But as long as they danced, the brownie sang," (and here Cousin Lizzie
+undertook his part, and sang to the tune of the Halling)--
+
+[Illustration: Picture of the girl lying in the hay-loft]
+
+    "And you have eaten the porridge for the brownie,
+    And you shall dance with the little brownie!
+
+    "And have you eaten the porridge for the brownie?
+    Then you shall dance with the little brownie!"
+
+I assisted in keeping time by stamping on the floor with my feet, while
+the children romped about the room in uproarious joy.
+
+"I think you are turning the house upside down, children!" said old
+Mother Skau; "if you'll be quiet, I'll give you a story."
+
+The children were soon quiet, and Mother Skau commenced as follows:
+
+[Illustration: Picture of a Brownie hurling dishes on the floor]
+
+"You hear a great deal about brownies and fairies and such like beings,
+but I don't believe there is much in it. I have neither seen one nor the
+other. Of course I have not been so very much about in my lifetime, but
+I believe it is all nonsense. But old Stine out in the kitchen there,
+she says she has seen the brownie. About the time when I was confirmed
+she was in service with my parents. She came to us from a captain's, who
+had given up the sea. It was a very quiet place. The captain only took a
+walk as far as the quay every day. They always went to bed early. People
+said there was a brownie in the house. Well, it so happened that Stine
+and the cook were sitting in their room one evening, mending and darning
+their things; it was near bedtime, for the watchman had already sung out
+'Ten o'clock!' but somehow the darning and the sewing went on very
+slowly indeed; every moment 'Jack Nap' came and played his tricks upon
+them. At one moment Stine was nodding and nodding, and then came the
+cook's turn,--they could not keep their eyes open; they had been up
+early that morning to wash clothes. But just as they were sitting thus,
+they heard a terrible crash down stairs in the kitchen, and Stine
+shouted, 'Lor' bless and preserve us! it must be the brownie.' She was
+so frightened she dared scarcely move a foot, but at last the cook
+plucked up courage and went down into the kitchen, closely followed by
+Stine. When they opened the kitchen door they found all the crockery on
+the floor, but none of it broken, while the brownie was standing on the
+big kitchen table with his red cap on, and hurling one dish after the
+other on to the floor, and laughing in great glee. The cook had heard
+that the brownies could sometimes be tricked into moving into another
+house when anybody would tell them of a very quiet place, and as she
+long had been wishing for an opportunity to play a trick upon this
+brownie, she took courage and spoke to him,--her voice was a little
+shaky at the time,--that he ought to remove to the tinman's over the
+way, where it was so very quiet and pleasant, because they always went
+to bed at nine o'clock every evening; which was true enough, as the cook
+told Stine later, but then the master and all his apprentices and
+journeymen were up every morning at three o'clock and hammered away and
+made a terrible noise all day. Since that day they have not seen the
+brownie any more at the captain's. He seemed to feel quite at home at
+the tinman's, although they were hammering and tapping away there all
+day; but people said that the gude-wife put a dish of porridge up in the
+garret for him every Thursday evening, and it's no wonder that they got
+on well and became rich when they had a brownie in the house. Stine
+believed he brought things to them. Whether it was the brownie or not
+who really helped them, I cannot say," said Mother Skau, in conclusion,
+and got a fit of coughing and choking after the exertion of telling
+this, for her, unusually long story.
+
+[Illustration: Picture of the gude-wife putting porridge in the garret]
+
+When she had taken a pinch of snuff she felt better, and became quite
+cheerful again, and began:--
+
+"My mother, who, by the way, was a truthful woman, told a story which
+happened here in the town one Christmas Eve. I know it is true, for an
+untrue word never passed her lips."
+
+"Let us hear it, Madame Skau," said I.
+
+"Yes, tell, tell, Mother Skau!" cried the children.
+
+She coughed a little, took another pinch of snuff, and proceeded:--
+
+"When my mother still was in her teens, she used sometimes to visit a
+widow whom she knew, and whose name was,--dear me, what was her
+name?--Madame,--yes, Madame Evensen, of course. She was a woman who had
+seen the best part of her life, but whether she lived up in Mill Street
+or down in the corner by the Little Church Hill, I cannot say for
+certain. Well, one Christmas Eve, just like to-night, she thought she
+would go to the morning service on the Christmas Day, for she was a
+great church-goer, and so she left out some coffee with the girl before
+she went to bed, that she might get a cup next morning,--she was sure a
+cup of warm coffee would do her a great deal of good at that early hour.
+When she woke, the moon was shining into the room; but when she got up
+to look at the clock she found it had stopped and that the fingers
+pointed to half-past eleven. She had no idea what time it could be, so
+she went to the window and looked across to the church. The light was
+streaming out through all the windows. She must have overslept herself!
+She called the girl and told her to get the coffee ready, while she
+dressed herself. So she took her hymn-book and started for church. The
+street was very quiet; she did not meet a single person on her way to
+church. When she went inside, she sat down in her customary seat in one
+of the pews, but when she looked around her she thought that the people
+were so pale and so strange,--exactly as if they were all dead. She did
+not know any of them, but there were several of them she seemed to
+recollect having seen before; but when and where she had seen them she
+could not call to mind. When the minister came into the pulpit, she saw
+that he was not one of the ministers in the town, but a tall, pale man,
+whose face, however, she thought she could recollect. He preached very
+nicely indeed, and there was not the usual noisy coughing and hawking
+which you always hear at the morning services on a Christmas Day; it was
+so quiet, you could have heard a needle drop on the floor,--in fact, it
+was so quiet she began to feel quite uneasy and uncomfortable. When the
+singing commenced again, a female who sat next to her leant towards her
+and whispered in her ear, 'Throw the cloak loosely around you and go,
+because if you wait here till the service is over they will make short
+work of you. It is the dead who are keeping service.'"
+
+[Illustration: Picture of a Church with light streaming from the windows]
+
+"Oh, Mother Skau, I feel so frightened, I feel so frightened!" whimpered
+one of the children, and climbed up on a chair.
+
+"Hush, hush, child!" said Mother Skau. "She got away from them safe
+enough; only listen! When the widow heard the voice of the person next
+to her, she turned round to look at her,--but what a start she got! She
+recognized her; it was her neighbour who died many years ago; and when
+she looked around the church, she remembered well that she had seen both
+the minister and several of the congregation before, and that they had
+died long ago. This sent quite a cold shiver through her, she became
+that frightened. She threw the cloak loosely round her, as the female
+next to her had said, and went out of the pew; but she thought they all
+turned round and stretched out their hands after her. Her legs shook
+under her, till she thought she would sink down on the church floor.
+When she came out on the steps, she felt that they had got hold of her
+cloak; she let it go and left it in their clutches, while she hurried
+home as quickly as she could. When she came to the door the clock struck
+one, and by the time she got inside she was nearly half dead,--she was
+that frightened. In the morning when the people went to church, they
+found the cloak lying on the steps, but it was torn into a thousand
+pieces. My mother had often seen the cloak before, and I think she saw
+one of the pieces, also; but that doesn't matter,--it was a short, pink,
+woollen cloak, with fur lining and borders, such as was still in use in
+my childhood. They are very rarely seen nowadays, but there are some old
+ladies in the town and down at the 'Home' whom I see with such cloaks in
+church at Christmas time."
+
+[Illustration: Picture of a girl running from the church]
+
+The children, who had expressed considerable fear and uneasiness during
+the latter part of the story, declared they would not hear any more such
+terrible stories. They had crept up into the sofa and on the chairs, but
+still they thought they felt somebody plucking at them from underneath
+the table. Suddenly the lights were brought in, and we discovered then,
+to our great amusement, that the children had put their legs on to the
+table. The lights, the Christmas cake, the jellies, the tarts and the
+wine soon chased away the horrible ghost story and all fear from their
+minds, revived everybody's spirits, and brought the conversation on to
+their neighbours and the topics of the day. Finally, our thoughts took a
+flight towards something more substantial, on the appearance of the
+Christmas porridge and the roast ribs of pork. We broke up early, and
+parted with the best wishes for a Merry Christmas. I passed, however, a
+very uneasy night. I do not know whether it was the stories, the
+substantial supper, my weak condition, or all these combined, which was
+the cause of it; I tossed myself hither and thither in my bed, and got
+mixed up with brownies, fairies and ghosts the whole night. Finally, I
+sailed through the air towards the church, while some merry sledge-bells
+were ringing in my ears. The church was lighted up, and when I came
+inside I saw it was our own church up in the valley. There were nobody
+there but peasants in their red caps, soldiers in full uniform, country
+lasses with their white head-dresses and red cheeks. The minister was in
+the pulpit; it was my grandfather, who died when I was a little boy. But
+just as he was in the middle of the sermon, he made a somersault--he was
+known as one of the smartest men in the parish--right into the middle of
+the church; the surplice flew one way and the collar another. "There
+lies the parson, and here am I," he said, with one of his well-known
+airs, "and now let us have a spring dance!" In an instant the whole of
+the congregation was in the midst of a wild dance. A big tall peasant
+came towards me and took me by the shoulder and said, "You'll have to
+join us, my lad!"
+
+[Illustration: Picture of a young woman holding a bible]
+
+At this moment I awoke, and felt some one pulling at my shoulder. I
+could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw the same peasant whom I had
+seen in my dream leaning over me. There he was, with the red cap down
+over his ears, a big fur coat over his arm, and a pair of big eyes
+looking fixedly at me.
+
+"You must be dreaming," he said, "the perspiration is standing in big
+drops on your forehead, and you were sleeping as heavily as a bear in
+his lair! God's peace and a merry Christmas to you, I say! and
+greetings to you from your father and all yours up in the valley. Here's
+a letter from your father, and the horse is waiting for you out in the
+yard."
+
+"But, good heavens! is that you, Thor?" I shouted in great joy. It was
+indeed my father's man, a splendid specimen of a Norwegian peasant. "How
+in the world have you come here already?"
+
+[Illustration: Picture of Thor leaning over the bed]
+
+"Ah! that I can soon tell you," answered Thor. "I came with your
+favourite, the bay mare. I had to take your father down to Naes, and then
+he says to me, 'Thor,' says he, 'it isn't very far to town from here.
+Just take the bay mare and run down and see how the Lieutenant is, and
+if he is well and can come back with you, you must bring him back along
+with you,' says he."
+
+When we left the town it was daylight. The roads were in splendid
+condition. The bay mare stretched out her old smart legs, and we
+arrived at length in sight of the dear old house. Thor jumped off the
+sledge to undo the gate, and as we merrily drove up to the door we were
+met by the boisterous welcome of old Rover, who, in his frantic joy at
+hearing my voice, almost broke his chains in trying to rush at me.
+
+Such a Christmas as I spent that year I cannot recollect before or
+since.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of 'Round the yule-log: Christmas in
+Norway, by Peter Christen Asbjörnsen
+
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