Safe Tonight

reposted from December 2021

ACHIM FELT AROUND IN THE DARKNESS. He had dropped his waterskin at the first blaze of light in the heavens, and now, eyes blinded by the glory of it, he couldn’t see a thing.

He heard the footsteps of his companions pattering away downhill. He heard scuffling hoofsteps from the sheep nearby. And he thought he still heard echoes of that incredible music that had washed over the slopes in interweaving peals of joy and beauty.

painting of startled sheep, by author Joyce Holt — *Holt – detail from “Suddenly,” 2016*

The air smelled of lightning after a storm, though nothing but breezes wafted across the land. Calm. Peaceful. Silent.

Achim’s fingers scrabbled through scrub, pebbles and dust, at last finding the cool, pliable waterskin. He swept it up and turned after his fellows.

The landscape shimmered back to view under the touch of starlight as Achim’s eyes adjusted. He saw his last companion vanish around a turn of the path far below.

And he saw a movement close at hand.

On a shelf of rock above the encampment, a tawny head turned from staring at the heavens to meet Achim’s gaze. A lioness crouched there, regal as a sphinx. Her pupils, still widening from the slits that served in bright surroundings, took in his presence but she showed neither fear nor fury.

19th century painting of a lioness — *Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) – detail from “Lioness Reclining,” 1855*

The tip of her tail twitched. She let out a breathy sigh. Still holding Achim’s gaze, she gave a long slow blink that for some reason filled him with warmth.

The lioness glanced at the sheep still clustered and milling below the path. She sniffed, rose, turned away, vanished uphill like a shadow among the scrub.

Achim clutched his waterskin tight to his chest and let out a breathy sigh of his own. The flock would be safe without its guardians this wondrous silent night. He set out, like his companions, for Bethlehem.

19th century sketch of an angel — *John H. Vanderpoel (1857-1911) – (angel sketch)*

artwork: 17th and 19th century paintings. Public domain info here.

Also in the video:

Antonio de Pereda (1611-1678) – detail from Study of Angels

Music track by: Fesliyan Studios – “Beautiful Village”

Coming: a new Nativity tale on Christmas Eve!

Wholly Alone

Reposted from December 2021

NAIUM STAMMERED. He couldn’t remember the password.

Azor gave Naium a vexed look. He hooked his eyebrow as if that could fish the word from Naium’s muddied mind.

An older boy snorted and shoved Naium against the alley wall. “Go back to begging,” he hissed. “You’ll never get into the thieves’ guild. Freeze up like that at the wrong moment, and you’ll get us all caught.”

“But I stole a wh-wh-whole–” Naium started, in protest.

“Stole a hole!” The boys jeered and trotted off into the darkness.

Azor shrugged and followed his new friends into the night.

“A whole skin of wine,” Naium whispered, patting the bulge under his ragged cloak. The other new boys had filched smaller items: rope, apples, nails.

Naium could slink like a shadow. He could sweet-talk guard dogs. He had the sharpest eyes and the sharpest ears.

But he couldn’t remember a stupid word. As if words had power. As if words had magic.

His fingers had magic enough for him. “Who needs a guild,” Naium asked the night. He’d work wholly alone. Some day he’d be wealthy from all his clever toil, and then he’d be the one jeering at scruffy guild-thieves.

19th century painting of a village scene in Judea — *“He Went Through the Villages…” by James Tissot (1836-1902)*

Naium pattered down the alley, hunting a corner out of the wind to spend the night. Maybe he’d have a taste of the wine, then sell it in the morning. So many travelers in town, he could pretend to be a merchant’s apprentice. No one would know the wine was stolen.

Naium halted outside the town wall and listened. His keen ears picked up the faintest echo on the breeze — a haunting melody, chords weaving, trembling, tickling his eardrums, filling him with an unearthly joy.

The wind changed. The music faded.

Naium shook his head and went on, listening for bleats. He climbed a stack of barrels outside a caravansary, scaled the wall, and slid down to the stable courtyard inside. He was in luck. Sheep mingled with travelers’ donkeys. No finer a bed for a cold night than nestled with woolly ewes.

The boy slept until midnight. He didn’t stir for a drunken argument, nor for a spate of coughing. But the woman’s cry woke him. She panted. She moaned. She shrieked, and not far away.

Naium burrowed deeper into the straw, hugging his wine skin, trying to stave off memories. His mother, crying out. Her travail, her agony, her death. The baby she had labored to bring into the world — it had died, too. His family had fallen apart. Naium blinked with the ache of it.

The woman muffled another scream.

At last there came the cry of a baby. And murmuring. Two low, glad voices.

The air trembled again with that distant melody, melting Naium’s heartache. Wondering, he rose, edged toward the lamplight.

A young woman laid a swaddled newborn into a pile of hay. Her voice sounded dry, scratchy from her toil.

His heart swelling with a sudden, inexplicable gladness, Naium held out the wineskin. No words needed.

She smiled.

artwork: 19th century painting. Public domain info here.

Do You Hear?

Reposted from December 2021

ANNA LEANED CLOSER to the young mother, straining to hear her replies.

The week-old baby wailed. The lamb brought for sacrifice kept bleating. On the steps leading up from the Women’s Court, Levites sang the Psalms of Ascent, strumming psalteries and harps. “The Lord hath done great things with us,” they sang. “We are rejoiced!”

Anna’s heart swelled at the familiar hymn. Eighty-four years could not dim the surge of devotion it aroused. And how appropriate the next psalm–

“As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them!”

People crowded, noisier than usual. Close behind Anna, a voice rose above the hubbub. “My cousin, a shepherd… singing in the night… yes, just a week ago… angels, he said, can you believe it… born king of the Jews, the angels said… went to see for themselves… in a stable, no, really… simple folk from the country… nothing like a king… lying in a manger, of all places!”

The woman Anna was instructing gave a disdainful sniff. She wore fine-twined linen, dyed in brilliant shades, embroidered at the edges. Her elegant veil wafted in breezes stirred up by the shifting crowd, breezes scented by perfumes, incense and sweat.

“I wait for the Lord,” sang the Levites. “My soul waits, and in His word do I hope.”

Angels, speaking of a king of the Jews? The very hope Anna herself had been waiting for, all her life. Her temple duty interrupted, she stammered, astounded at what she’d overheard. She drew breath, resumed her instructions for making the sacrifice to redeem a first-born son. Close by, a priest spoke with the husband.

The priests’ trumpets blared. The baby, swaddled in sumptuous linen, bawled counterpoint with the lamb.

Then the noise scattered like chaff on the wind. Not gone. Still there. But Anna could hear through the tumult a soft voice several steps away.

“Two turtledoves for the sacrifice, all we could afford.”

Anna broke off, gazed at another young mother, dressed in simple homespun wool. Her husband stood beside her as they spoke with a priest.

Another figure shouldered through the crowd. Anna recognized Simeon, nearly as old as she was. He reached for the new couple’s baby, gently took the infant in his arms. Through the clamor, his voice quavered clearly in Anna’s ears.

“Lord, now let me depart in peace, for my eyes have seen thy salvation! A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.”

17th century painting by Rembrandt of Anna and Simeon in the temple — *“Simeon and Anna in the Temple…,” 1627, by Rembrandt (1606-1669)*

Anna’s feet, all on their own, swept her to that small gathering, an island of stillness. “Praise God!” she cried, filled with a sudden deep joy.

A hush fell, expanding like rings from a stone dropped in water, broken only by awed whispers. “The prophetess speaks!”

“This child,” Anna proclaimed, “come now to be redeemed according to the law — ere long he will bring about the redemption of all who seek after the Lord!”

Psalms of Ascent: Psalms 120-133

artwork: 17th century painting. Public domain info here.

Beacon

Reposted from December 2021

NASRIN LURCHED UP, BLANKETS SPILLING from her shoulders, and listened.

Silence filled the night. The sound of a woman weeping must have been no more than a dream, brought on by the monument they had passed just two days ago. Rachel’s Tomb, an ancient burial site.

Her brother-in-law knew the writings of the prophet Jeremiah, and had quoted one passage as they rode past. “A voice was heard, weeping and much wailing. It was Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they are no more.”

Rachel had not lived to see her descendants fall into bondage. It was, rather, Rachel’s husband and first son who wept at her death, in childbirth with the second. What had Jeremiah meant?

Beside Nasrin on the caravansary pallet, her husband stirred and muttered in his sleep. “Perfect,” he mumbled. “Perfect.”

Nasrin’s troubled thoughts melted away. She smiled. Yesterday had indeed been perfect. Beyond perfect. Divine!

But her husband thrashed and moaned. She stroked his shoulder, whispered in his ear. He stilled, then rubbed his forehead. His hand found hers.

On the other pallet, his brother broke from sleep. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Nasrin said. “Just bad dreams.”

“Ah, dreams,” he muttered. “I dreamed of a snake charmer who turned into a snake. A deadly viper. With Herod’s face.”

Their cousin grunted and sat up. “Herod? I dreamed of a Herod, too, but the younger one. Archelaus. His hands dripped with blood, and his halls echoed with screams of fear.”

Nasrin heard again the wailing in her dream, and shuddered. “I’m glad that you at least, husband, were spared the night terrors. What was it you dreamed that had you calling out ‘perfect’?”

She felt him turn to her. “Perfect? No, nothing of the sort. I too dreamed of Herod the tyrant and his son Herod the tormentor. I saw the countryside erupt against their atrocities until the Romans swept them aside and set up a governor. A prefect.”

Silence filled the small room. Deep, weighty, pondering silence. The magi and their wives huddled close together.

“I think,” said one of the other women, “this is a message from God.”

“A great danger is growing,” said another.

The cousin spoke up. “King Herod gave clear instructions to return and tell him where the young child is to be found, but—” His voice trailed off.

Nasrin’s husband said, “Perhaps we should slip quietly away.”

“And go home,” his brother said, “by a different route.”

Several breaths drew in with gasps.

“Did you feel that?” one of the women whispered.

“Pierced my soul,” the other wife said.

Nasrin couldn’t speak for the thrumming of her heart.

Her husband rummaged in the dark. Struck a spark. Lit the oil lamp.

They rolled up bedding, packed bags, filed out of the chamber. They woke their servants, sent them to ready the beasts of burden.

As the menfolk bade farewell to the keeper of the caravansary, Nasrin stepped beyond the gates, out into the lane. Stars shone overhead, pale and ordinary, nothing like the brilliant beacon that had led them here, no longer to be seen.

She glanced at the house just up the road. Whatever dire fate the future held, it also held hope. So she had seen yesterday in that humble home. That perfect day. That perfect hope. Her heart swelled with gladness as she turned to join the caravan slipping away in the dark of night, taking a different route to their homeland in the east.

17th century painting: Adoration of the Magi — *“Adoration of the Magi,” 1639-1640, by Francisco de Zurbaran (1598-1664)*

(written to the prompt word “perfect” for a challenge that happened near Christmas)

artwork: 17th century painting. Public domain info here.

Tromp of Doom

Reposted from December 2021

MICHA HURRIED BACK TO THE PALACE with the linen-wrapped pair of sandals clutched to his chest. His master would notice the slightest speck of dust if dropped along the way.

Crowds thronged the main entrance. He’d never reach Ahijah before court began. The priest would be mortified to approach the king wearing footwear with a flapping, broken strap.

Micha darted to the court of the guard, and staggered to a stop. Another crowd — of soldiers, honing and whetting their blades, muttering to one another, casting glances at their captain.

Micha sidled along and slipped into a back corridor. No one paid heed to a messenger lad. He raced to the priests’ chamber.

Ahijah grumbled, “At last!” and kicked off his flawed sandals.

While Micha knelt and fitted the new pair to his master’s feet, he heard the gossip running among the priests nearby.

The dignitaries from the east had not returned, as bidden by the king. They’d slipped away on herders’ paths into the eastern desert. They hadn’t brought word of the wondrous, star-spoken child they’d come seeking.

19th century painting — *“The Flight Into Egypt,” by Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904)*

Foreigners they might be, but the strangers had not been fooled by the king’s honey-sweet words. “Bring tidings, so we too can go worship him!” Now the king was in a rage. A murderous rage.

“How soon?” Ahijah asked a fellow.

“Without delay,” the other priest said.

“Two years and under,” another added. “Every male child.”

“Abomination!”

“Don’t say that to his face, if you value your own life!”

Micha backed off and made his way again to the court of the guard. Now the soldiers stood in ranks, armed, stone-faced. Ready to march. One captain paced at the head of the line. His underling waited for orders at the very door Micha had emerged through.

The lad stared at the soldiers with their grim faces, and remembered what the silk-clad dignitary had said. “Sixteen months ago we saw his sign in the stars, the sign of his birth.”

Micha’s throat clutched so tight he could hardly draw breath. His cousin, little Azzur, only fourteen months old. He must warn his kin!

He took the side ways out of Jerusalem. Was that the tramp of footsteps he heard over the clamor of the city?

The chief priests and scribes had dithered under the king’s withering glare. They didn’t know the answer to the foreigners’ questions. They spent their time in politicking, not in studying the words of the prophets.

The common people knew. They had been yearning for his coming for generations. “The ruler in Israel whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

It was the tromp of footsteps, marching like doom on the road, not far behind. Micha ran until his breath came ragged. He staggered into the lanes of Beth-Lehem. He paused, gasping at the door into one house’s courtyard. It was deserted. The Nazarites had left nothing behind.

Micha dashed on toward his uncle’s house.

Not far behind came a clatter, and shouts, and a scream of utter anguish.

artwork: 19th century painting. Public domain info here.

Twelfth Night

EVENING FELL AS ARNI WALKED DOWN from Mikladalur village to the rocky shore. He found a hiding spot behind an outcropping where he could keep watch on the great flat rocks by the water’s edge.

Winter storms had swept the stage clean just in time for magical Twelfth Night, the last day of the Christmas celebrations. Now gentle waves lapped at the brink of the seal breeding grounds as light faded from the sky.

Arni squinted in the twilight. Seals came swimming from all directions and swarmed up onto the shelving rocks. Just as fable had said, they shed their skins and stepped out, now wearing the shape of everyday people.

He watched in awe. Only on Twelfth Night, legend said, did the seal-folk take human form. He clapped a hand over his mouth to stay silent. One seal-woman, now rising to stand on two legs, radiated such beauty as Arni had never seen before. Lovely as a Valkyrie!

The seal-folk danced and frolicked on the beach under the stars. In the dark, Arni crept toward the spot where that last lovely figure had laid down her sealskin. He took it, and sidled back into hiding.

When dawn’s first glimmer appeared, the seal-folk returned to their skins, slipped into them and waddled back into the water.

The loveliest of all couldn’t find hers. She wrung her hands and wailed as day brightened. Then she spotted Arni, the skin rolled up under his arm. “Give it back, please give it back!” she pleaded.

He stood and walked back up the trail to Mikladalur.

The seal-woman followed. What choice did she have?

Arni married the beautiful woman. He treated her with kindness and love in all ways but one. He kept her seal-skin locked away in a chest. The key always hung from his belt, never out of his grasp.

In time she warmed to him, and forgave him for taking her from the sea. She bore him three children. It was a good life for the little family.

One day while Arni was out fishing with several other men from the village, he was helping haul in a net loaded with fish when his hand brushed his belt. The key wasn’t there.

He cried out in alarm. “This evening I’ll be without a wife!*”

The other fishermen pulled in their lines and rowed home as fast as they could.* When Arni ran in the door of his cottage, he found his three small children huddling on the bed in the cold room, wrapped in quilts. Their mother had put out the fire to keep them safe, and locked up all the knives.

The chest stood open. The seal-skin was gone. And so was she.

Arni moaned and wept. He had cherished her so, and she had grown to love him, too. But with the skin in reach, she couldn’t stop herself from leaving. After all, as the old saying goes, “He couldn’t control himself any more than a seal that finds its skin.*”

As the children grew, they often felt drawn to the rocky beach. Sometimes at dusk, a seal could be seen just offshore watching them.

Arni knew it was their mother.

* dialogue and lines taken straight from the folktale

Nose Bone

ARNI DREAMED OF HIS WIFE, THE SEAL-WOMAN who had fled back to the sea when she found her seal-skin. Oh how he missed her lovely face, her sweet voice. She had loved him truly, and their three children as well.

Years had passed, dulling his grief. So he paid no heed to the warning she brought him in the dream. Just a fond memory, he thought, twisted by the foolish workings of the sleeping mind.

Next morning he joined the other villagers from Mikladalur. They trooped down to the beach with clubs and spears in hand. It was seal-pup season, and the rocky shore teemed with young seals.

Arni and the other villagers clubbed the baby seals to death. An easy harvest in a life otherwise filled with hardship.

He faltered as he approached the cave at the far end of the breeding ground. Just as he’d seen in the dream, a large male seal blocked the entrance, rocking back and forth on his flippers, baring his teeth. “My mate,” his wife had whispered in the night. “Don’t kill him!”

Arni laughed at such folly. He speared the seal, dragged it out of the way. Back inside the cave he found two seal pups, their big eyes staring up in fear. Her sons, she had hissed in the night.

He clubbed them to death.

As his share of the catch, Arni got the whole carcass of the male seal, and the flippers of the pups. For dinner he had boiled seal’s head and flippers. Just as he was sitting down to the table, there came a loud noise and crashing.

The door burst open. In stepped an ugly troll, hideous as scabby driftwood. “You,” she growled at Arni – in the voice of his seal-woman wife. “You!” she howled. “What have you done?”

She sniffed in the serving bowls, then roared like storm waves crashing upon the rocks. “Here is the nose bone of the old man, and here, Haredur’s hands and Fridrikur’s foot! Avenged it is and avenged it will be on the men of Mikladalur! Some will be lost at sea, and some will fall from mountain cliffs and ledges! And this will go on until so many have died that they can hold hands and reach all the way around Kalsoy!” *

With a great crashing, she disappeared, never to return in life or by dream. And her curse came true. Men of Mikladalur often perish at sea or fall from cliffs.

There is still a foolish farmer on the south-most farm, where Arni once dwelt, so it must be that the number of men that have fallen to the seal-wife’s curse is not yet enough to reach around the island.

* the wife’s whole rant taken straight from the folktale

artwork: 19th century century paintings. Public domain info here.

Last Task

WEIGHTED DOWN BY WATER BUCKETS, Vardi tromped into the barn. The homey, pungent odor of horses and cows warmed the log building as he filled the troughs. He clambered up the ladder to the loft – and jolted to a stop, dismayed.

The hay was nearly all gone. Only now he remembered Old Lavrans ordering him, just this morning, to take the sledge up the ridge and cut birch trees for winter fodder. Already loaded with other farmwork, Vardi had put it off, then forgotten.

He scurried down, darted to the door, looked out into the dusk, his breath gusting on the chill air. Laughter and cheer rang from the big house. All the farm servants, invited in for Christmas Eve festivities. He’d meant to join them after this one last chore in the barn.

Vardi gulped. No celebrating for him, not until he fulfilled that greater task. At least no one was around to see him scrambling to make amends.

He led a shaggy-coated gelding from its stall out to the sledge shed, hitched it up, fetched an axe, strapped on snowshoes, and set off up the hillside under the steely light of a full moon and myriad winking stars.

Old Lavrans would launch into a rage if he knew what Vardi was doing. Working outdoors after dark on the eve of any holy day broke the age-old custom here at Uvaas farm. The turning of the year, supposed to be more haunted than any other day. And twilight, the turning of the day, brought added peril.

What folly, Vardi thought, scornful of such childish superstitions. Who still believed in tusse-folk?

Above the spruce-cloaked lower slopes, Vardi came to a birch woods. “This won’t take long,” he muttered, and quickly chopped down three birch saplings. He hauled them to the sledge.

No sooner had he piled the third sapling than all three whirled off the sledge and tumbled across the snowfields as if blown by a snowstorm. But the night air hung still, crackling with cold. Not even a breeze.

Astonished and annoyed, Vardi scuffled after the birches and lugged them back.

Once again they flew off and skidded across the snow in three directions.

Vardi gritted his teeth and went after them. Time and time again.

He couldn’t go home with an empty sledge. How embarrassing. Furiously he chopped down new saplings and heaved them aboard.

And the unseen power cast them away.

At last, exhausted, Vardi gave up. A scolding or even a beating would be better than this frantic, useless, perplexing dance. He took up the reins, clucked at the horse, and turned downhill.

High up the ridge above him, a roar of laughter broke the tingling silence of the night. Cackles of glee pealed from the mountain slopes all around.

Vardi shook with terror. He bounded onto the empty sledge and whipped up the gelding. The snow hissed and cracked as they pelted downhill, racing for home and disgrace, fleeing the Yuletide mischief-making of the tusse-folk.

folktale from Uvaas farm, Telemark, Norway

artwork: 19th century painting. Public domain info here.

Glad Yule

EARLY DUSK SETTLED OVER THE SLOPING FIELDS of Hugserdalen. The sky stretched clear as a summer brook. Gunnar’s breath wafted clouds on the spruce-tanged evening air.

Laughter rang inside the cabin where his family hung paper hearts on the Yule tree. The Yule log sat on the hearth, nestled up to the charred remnant of last year’s log, ready to bring in Christmas Eve.

They’d need more firewood for the long night ahead. Gunnar’s stomach knotted to see how low the woodpile stood. Soon he’d need to take the sledge high into the forest and hunt for deadfalls of seasoned wood.

He swept new-fallen snow from one end of the pile, selected several rounds of spruce trunk, and set to work at the chopping block. Each thud of the axe cracked like a gunshot, echoing from the mountain slopes.

Gunnar gritted his teeth as he worked. Hearts may be merry, but bellies growled at the meager fare they’d had for months. There’d be no Yule feast. The barley crop had blackened in the fields after a summer of freezing nights. There’d even been snow in July. 1816, the worst year in memory.

Gunnar’s neck prickled. He let the axe hang a moment and gazed all around the farmyard.

No one was there, but still he felt the thrum of oncoming threat.

A thrum far too familiar. “I’ll be done soon,” he called into the twilight. “You’ll have peace and quiet again.” Gunnar wished he could promise the tusse-folk their yearly bowl of porridge swimming with butter and cream, but his children needed every morsel.

He set back to work. What had he done to offend the tusse-folk? All through haying season they’d plagued him out in the fields, tripping him, flinging stones, even yanking him backwards off his feet time and again.

Closer, he could feel it. Elven mischief hemming in his circle of outbuildings.

Gunnar hauled armloads to the cabin, dumped them into the entryway. Not enough. He went back to work, chopping in a frenzy.

His skin crawled, his back itched, his scalp tingled under his heavy knit cap. Menace drew nigh, unseen peril.

One last log, that should do it—

Something thumped Gunnar in the back. He whirled.

Another snowball whacked him in the shoulder. He spun.

Packed snow came whizzing from all directions. He ducked and twisted but could not escape. Worse and worse, the snowballs flew – harder and harder.

Early 20th century painting — *“Laplanders in Snowstorm,” 1905, by John Bauer (1882-1918)*

“I’ll quit, so ease off!” Gunnar cried, scooping up kindling. He dashed to the cabin, grunting at each impact.

Wild laughter winged up and down the dale, echoing from ridges and haunted mounds.

“How about you bring us some Christmas porridge this year?” he called into the racket.

A storm of snowballs came sailing out of the gloom. Gunnar slammed the door.

“Glad Yule!” his children chorused, mobbing around.

“Glad Yule,” his wife whispered in his ear as she helped him off with coat and cap.

Such joyful faces. Worry melted from Gunnar’s heart. “Glad Yule!”

folktale from Hugserdalen, an outfarm at Garvik farm, Telemark, Norway

artwork: early 20th century painting. Public domain info here.

Pussycat

BY THE LAST LIGHT OF DUSK, Reidar snowshoed across the courtyard. A husky farmer opened to his knock. “Merry Christmas Eve,” the fellow boomed, taking in Reidar’s frost-rimmed hood, then glancing beyond.

“No one else, just me,” the wanderer said. “Seeking lodging for one night.”

“Come in!” piped up the farmer’s wife. “Welcome to share our simple meal, though you may want to seek elsewhere for lodging.”

As Reidar unlashed his snowshoes, the farmer said, “Big dog you have there.”

Reidar tugged on the leash, and his companion waddled into the light.

“A bear!” the farmer’s wife shrieked.

“A show bear,” Reidar said. “Tame and trained and no threat to anyone, unless I give the word.”

The small brown bear sat down on the rug, feet out like a toddler, and scratched its round belly.

19th or early 20th century painting — *“She Kissed the Bear on the Nose,” by John Bauer (1882-1918)*

“So cute!” chirped the farmer’s children. “Like a big pussycat! Can we pet it?”

“What does it eat?” the farmer’s wife asked, a hitch to her voice.

“Scraps after meals, whatever you’d feed to the hogs. He won’t beg or cause any trouble, and tomorrow we’ll give you a fine show for Christmas Day, if you’ll let us stay the night.”

“Well—” The farmer scratched his beard. “No guests ever sleep here on Christmas eve, for at midnight the trolls of Brace Hill storm the house. They dance and feast and revel till dawn.”

“Last year,” the smallest child said, with a woeful look, “they ate my hobby horse.”

“We sit up all night, up in the loft,” the wife said, wringing her hands. “Clutching our crosses and hymnbooks and praying. We don’t get a wink of sleep.”

“I’m not afraid of trolls,” Reidar said. All through the meal he persisted. “Let me stay, please. I’ll deal with whatever comes.”

At last the farmer relented. The bear waved goodnight at Reidar’s command as the family climbed one by one up the ladder to the sleeping loft.

Reidar looked around the ground floor room. The fire had been banked, but the stovetop was cozily warm. Reidar made his bed on top at the back, and called the bear up to share the warmth.

After a short while, the door opened. A troll hag entered and looked around, then waved all her kin to come in. She set the table for a troll feast, and soon the farmhouse shook with bellows and howling laughter and the stomp of heavy feet.

Reidar watched with wide eyes, one hand on the bear’s head, words of command whispered in its twitching ear.

The troll hag at last noticed the bear’s snuffling and stomped over to investigate. “Hey, look at the pussycat!*” she shouted. “The cat shall eat. We will give the pussy some food.*”

Reidar nudged the bear and whispered a sharp order – and the bear leaped up with a snarl. Growling and snapping, it charged after the trolls, driving them all out the door.

A year later, at Christmastime, the folks at the farm heard the troll hag at the window.* She asked whether they still had that angry cat.*

“We sure do,” the farmer answered, “and now she has seven kittens!*”

“Then we won’t dare come to you again,*” she shouted, and fled never to return.

* dialogue and lines taken straight from the folktale, coming from Lycke farm, Hemsjö, Västergötland, Sweden

artwork: 19th century paintings. Public domain info here.

Outgunned

SONDRE SKIED UP TROLL-BOTTOM ROAD, hunting musket slung at his back. Hazy green curtains shimmered above the mountains, Northern Lights drowning the pale evening stars.

The spruce forest opened onto Napen farm and a view of Quarrel Peak, looming 150 meters above the slanting fields to the northwest. Sondre Hasleviki bellowed greetings, and grinned at echoes ringing back from mountainsides. He wasn’t a quiet man, except while on the hunt.

The cabin door opened to spill golden light over the snow-packed courtyard. Sondre’s brother Andres held arms out. “Glad Jul! Did you remember to bring your bear gun?”

“Ja, and plenty of powder. But only three balls. Thought I had more than that.”

“Three will be plenty. Come in.”

Sondre greeted the family, and sat down to a merry Christmas Eve feast.

At meal’s end, Andres brought out a jug. “Let us drink to the turning of the year. The darkest day is past.”

Andres’ oldest son pushed back from the table. “But first, Father, let Uncle shoot in Jul for us!”

“Ja, ja!” the other children clamored.

Sondre made a show out of priming the pan of his musket, pouring powder down the barrel followed by wadding and a lead ball. He tamped with the ramrod, then cocked the flint.

Nieces, nephews and servants flocked out the door. Sondre tromped after them, aimed his musket high over the fields, and pulled the trigger.

The flint struck. The bear-gun thundered, spitting sparks and a tang of sulfur. The bang echoed from the hillsides like a return volley.

Youngsters whooped and clapped, then hurried inside to warm themselves while Sondre reloaded.

Halfway through, there came a boom that shook the cabin.

Sondre paused a moment while everyone else huddled, clinging in fear. He took a swig of ale from the cup Andres had just poured, and went on loading. He stalked outdoors, cocked and fired.

Again the crash of powder in the musket, the answering barrage of echoes. He stood there, silent, listening.

Once more came a horrendous boom but twice as loud as the first. Ashes fountained from the chimney, and snow avalanched over the cabin’s eaves. Everyone still inside shrieked.

“Ja, ja, boys!*” Sondre yelled into the night. “I have one shot more to answer that!*” He tromped indoors to find the folk of Napen dusting themselves off and gazing at the ceiling where the boards gaped and let chaff sift down.

“It came from Quarrel Peak,” he told them. “Tusse-folk, sparring in light-hearted quarrel.” He primed the firing pan, loaded the barrel.

“No,” Andres said, clapping a hand on Sondre’s arm. “Don’t rile them.”

“My turn to salute. All in good humor. Jul greetings, nothing more.”

“Twice is enough.”

“Thrice is better.”

“Do you want to bring down the roof?”

Sondre saw how the children quaked with fear. Chuckling, he set the bear-gun aside. “I’ll admit, they outgun me. Must have cannons up there.”

Throughout the rest of Jul, peace reigned over Napen farm in the shadow of brooding Quarrel Peak.

* dialogue straight from the folktale, coming from Napen, Telemark, Norway

Quarrel Peak is my renaming of Napanuten; “nappe” means quarrel; “nute” means peak.

artwork: 19th century century paintings. Public domain info here.