sledge – Hindsight

The Stone Chair

WHEN GUNHILD HEARD THE JINGLE OF HARNESS BELLS, she set aside her knitting and limped to the door.

Her son-in-law, Steinar Strond, drove his sledge into the snow-packed farmyard with the last light of the short winter day, coming home from checking the buildings at an unoccupied subfarm further up the mountainside.

Two farm workers jumped off the sledge, laughing and shouting. “Where do you want it?” one asked.

“On the rise next to the house,” Steinar said, “the first thing folks will see when they come visiting.”

Gunhild took one look at the boulder on the sledge and drew herself erect. “That is the Stone Chair itself!” she snapped.

“Ja, sure, it is.” Steinar grinned.

“You’ve stolen it from Stone Chair farm!”

“Stone Chair farm is mine, so it’s hardly stealing to move the stone from one site to another.”

Gunhild crossed her arms. “The Steinstol belongs on its own hillside. It was there before any norseman cleared the forest to make a farm. It belongs to the mountain and the folk in the mountain.”

“No, Mother,” Steinar said with a soothing note. “It belongs to me. I own this whole stretch of mountain.”

Gunhild tapped her toes, glaring at her son-in-law’s smug grin. How it grated, the way he treated her like a child. She could see he wouldn’t back down. “No good will come of it, I tell you,” she said and stomped back indoors.

19th century painting — *“From the Mountains,” 1849, by Hans Fredrik Gude (1825-1903)*

She could hear the young men grunting with effort out in the courtyard, and several thuds, then jesting and laughter. She shook her head over her knitting. “No good,” she muttered.

In the middle of the night, everyone at Strond jarred awake to the sound of thuds and thumps and rumbles out in the courtyard. The clamor went on for hours. No one dared open the door to see the cause.

In the morning, the massive chair-shaped stone stood blocking the cowbarn entry.

The farm workers moved it back where Steinar wanted it.

That night the hulking Stone Chair trundled and shuddered in the courtyard all through the dark hours again.

Come dawn, the great boulder stood amid the ruins of a shed.

This went on night after night.* No one but Gunhild got any sleep. She just grumbled, “I told you so,” turned over, and went back to snoring.

At last Steinar summoned the young men — eyes dark and baggy from lack of sleep — to help him hoist the boulder back onto the sledge.

Gunhild stood in the doorway watching Steinar whip up the horses. “Ja sure,” she murmured in triumph as her not-so-smug son-in-law headed back up to Stone Chair Farm to return the Steinstol to its ancient spot on the hillside.

folktale from Strond, Seljord, Telemark

artwork: 19th century painting. 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.

Good Riddance

Gunleik the traveling cobbler skied along the ridge, scanning his surroundings for smoke plumes. Folk at the last farmstead had told him Old Henning lived up hereabouts.

19th century painting: winter landscape — *“Danish Winter Landscape with Dolmen,” 1838, by Johan Christian Dahl (1788-1857)*

He nearly overshot his mark, for there was no fire to guide him to a dwelling. Instead, a whinny led him to the clearing where waited a fjord horse hitched to a sledge outside a cabin. No plume rose from the smoke hole.

Gunleik could hear sounds from within. He shouted, “Ho! Cobbler come a-calling. Any shoes need mending?”

A greybeard came to the door. “No business for you here. I’ll be gone before you have time to hammer one hobnail.”

The cobbler worked his jaw while he studied the half-loaded sledge, the cabin’s sagging roof, the ruinous barn. “Moving, are you?”

Henning nodded as he lugged a pot to the sledge. “Just sorting through the rubbish before I bid the place a hearty farewell. My wife swears we’re missing a silver spoon and bade me look one last time, but I’ll be darned if it’s still within those walls.”

17th century sketch — *“Fishermen with a Horse-Drawn Sledge...” 1634, by Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634)*

Gunleik shifted the pack on his back, full of lasts and leather and hammer and nails. His back and shoulders ached. “Mind if I stay here the night?”

“You’d soon regret it.” Henning stepped closer and in a low voice added, “The haugbo is a terror! That’s why we’re leaving.”

“The haugbo? You mean the nisse? The mound-dweller? The farm-spirit?”

“Ja. Any work we do by day, he undoes at night. Our cows dry up. Our fields fail. Pinches and bruises while we sleep.” He shook his head in disgust. “We don’t ill-treat our haugbo. No disrespect on our part. He gets his bowl of porridge every evening, swimming with butter. We don’t make merry at night when he wants it quiet. We never give him a bad word– until now! Good riddance!” Henning yelled over his shoulder. “We’d rather start over with practically nothing than endure another season here,” he muttered. “Come along with me. I’ll point you to the next farmstead down the dale. Won’t slow you down. I’ve got a light load and we’ll make good time.”

Gunleik skied alongside as Henning mounted the sledge, took up the reins, and slapped them on the horse’s rump. “Get ye up!”

The fjord horse leaned into its traces and heaved, but the sledge did not move.

Henning rocked the sledge side to side to break it free of the crust, but it still gave the horse a struggle. He got off and pushed while Gunleik tugged at the horse’s head.

At last they got the sledge moving in fits and starts.

“What under the heavens?” Henning cried when they stalled once more. “We’ve only half a load!” He climbed back on the sledge and poked around among the oddities he’d salvaged.

An old weathered chest wouldn’t budge. Henning lifted the lid.

There sat the haugbo. “We’re moving today, old man!” he chuckled. “I’m coming too!”

17th century painting — *“A Winter Landscape with Skaters…” by Isaac van Ostade (1621-1649)*

Tale related in Bøherad, Telemark, Norway.

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