tusse – Hindsight

Nightfall

EVEN THOUGH LARS SET A GOOD PACE down the mountainside, he couldn’t outrun dusk. Night fell as he approached the most treacherous stretch of the trail. He slowed his gait, peering ahead in the gloom.

It didn’t help that the melke-ringe he carried was so heavy and cumbersome. The wide, shallow, wooden vat unbalanced him. The sour odor of fermenting milk still clung to the slats, twanging against the sweet scents of spruce and pine.

Lars set the melke-ringe down at the foot of a cliff, and sank down on a boulder to rest. The moon would rise in an hour or two and light his way home to Veslestoul.

19th century painting — *“The Giant’s Cave...” 1873, by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)*

He shook his head at his folly, lingering so long at the high mountain summer farm of Staalstoul. But his sweet tongue had talked down the price of the vat by several copper coins. And before long he’d save even more by making his own clabbered milk rather than buying from a neighbor.

Other wanderers might have stayed wide awake and alert in this haunted forest, but Lars had grown up here, no stranger to the wild tusse-folk who roamed the fjells. He yawned, leaned against the cliff, and dozed off.

Voices nearby. Close, crisp, laughing.

Lars snapped awake, and found himself inside a warm and cozy dwelling – filled with tusse-folk. An old man, an old woman, a whole flock of youngsters. They greeted Lars with good cheer and offered him food and drink. Others might have feared to partake, but not Lars. He drank the ale and spooned up the buttery porridge, sweetened with wild honey.

“Thousand thanks!” he told his hosts as he wiped his lips. “Delicious fare you so generously offer to a weary traveler. I’ve never tasted better. But now I must be on my way. Must haul this old melke-ringe home in time for the morning milking.”

The old fellow clapped Lars on the back. “One of my strapping big sons will follow you home. He’ll carry the tub, and spare you the bother.”

Next thing Lars knew, he was waking with the dawn, inside his log cabin at Veslestoul, and the melke-ringe sat upon the table.

folktale from Veslestoul, Lidfjøll, Telemark

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

Pinch of Magic

OLAV STACKED TWO MORE TWIGS atop his pile, log-cabin style. Almost up to shoulder-level, the highest teetering tower he’d built yet.

“Whatcha doing?” someone asked.

Olav jumped, knocking over the flimsy tower as he whirled, and stared at the skinny boy who leaned against a birch tree at the forest edge. “I’m watching my family’s herd.” He waved at the cattle grazing down the mountain slope in soft evening light.

“Watching really good,” the boy laughed. “What if I’d been a wolf? You wouldn’t have seen me!”

“Wolves not hungry this time of year,” Olav said.

“Whatcha doing there?” The boy point at the tumble of sticks.

“Building a tower.”

“Why?”

“For fun.” Olav shrugged. “Watching cows graze don’t even take half a mind. What’re you doing?”

“Sneaking up on lazy herders. Seeing how close I can come without them hearing me.”

“You gave yourself away this time. Some sneak!”

“Bored with sneaking. And you’re bored with herding. Right?” The boy bounded to Olav’s tower ruins, knelt and started stacking.

“I had it almost to my chin before you came along and made it fall,” Olav said. He plopped down and watched the boy’s hands twist and twine. The twigs soon formed a jagged spiral, rising with the grace of a smoke plume. “Where did you come from anyway?” he asked the boy.

“Up and down and over and around.”

“Where?” Olav insisted.

“You believe me if I say I live under the mountain?” The boy grinned.

“Yah, sure,” Olav said in scorn. “Dwarves and giants live underground. Which are you? Too big for one, too small for the other.”

“Maybe I’m one of the tusse-folk.”

“Right. Lovely and rich and magical and full of mischief. Well, you’re as ugly and poor as me, it looks. And I can be full of mischief, too, so says my father’s belt.” Olav blew hard.

The graceful construction toppled.

Laughing, the boy sprang to his feet. “Lovely and rich,” he cackled, spinning in a circle, “and mischievous and magical! And very very fast.” He took off running downhill.

Olav leaped up and chased after, calling, “I’m not so slow myself!” Whenever it seemed he would catch up, the other boy put on a burst of speed and flew out of reach. The two laughed and crowed, darting in and out among the cows, which shook heads at them like bothersome flies.

“Come on,” Olav shouted. “Tell me what farm you’re from.”

“Why?”

“I’ll come to your place when it’s my brother’s turn to herd.”

“My place is really hard to find. Especially for someone like you.”

“Like me?”

“Clumsy and slow, and not a pinch of magic to you.”

“Magic, magic, yah sure.”

They came to the bottom of the sloping pasture, ringed by birch and spruce and one hollow ash stump. The boy stopped beside the stubby ash. “Up and down and over and around,” he sang out, “and through!” He leaped into the hollow, and vanished from the world of mankind.

folktale from Sønnstveiten, Telemark, Norway

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

My Foot

AS SVÅNAUG FOLLOWED THE OTHER LABORERS up to the hayfields, she glanced over her shoulder at the farm owner, old Andres Gravalid, who was turning back to the house. She shook her head at his warning. “If rain threatens, run for cover!” she echoed with a laugh.

Just ahead, a slender young woman glanced back at Svånaug. “You’re new to the mountains, I see.”

“Ah yes, everybody plays pranks on the new girl.”

“Not a prank,” said a scruffy youth coming along behind. “Better heed his words.”

Svånaug grinned. “You believe in tusse-folk, do you?”

“The tusse-folk here aren’t so helpful as back home at Svartufs,” the fellow said with a straight face. “My uncle had scythed a field up on Bjørgefjølle one sunny day, and the next morning didn’t worry about gathering it in. A fair sky and all. He was inside the cabin boiling porridge for second breakfast when he hears someone call his name. ‘Tarkjel!’ they call. ‘Come in,’ he answers. ‘Tarkjel!’ they cry. He yells back, “Who is it? Come in, if you want to chat.’ Then, ‘Tarkjel!’ so loud it shakes the cabin. So he dashes out. What does he see but a heavy black raincloud crawling over the peak! So off he runs to the field with a rake. Just as he hauls the last load under cover the storm hits.”

“My foot,” Svånaug said in derision as she started scything hay.

“My grandfather Harall got called like that,” said a man reaping nearby. “But didn’t turn out so well for him. ‘Harall!’ cries this voice in the forest. Harall was boiling tar, you see. He’d just bedded down by his tar-kiln. He springs up, looks around, asks who’s calling, hears nothing, lays back down again. ‘Harall!’ it cries. He jumps up, again asks who is it. Nothing. He beds down. Of course it happens once more. ‘Harall!’ This time he doesn’t get up. ‘If you’d bother to answer me,’ he yells, ‘I’d bother to rise!*’ Silence. He sleeps all night. But when he wakes up in the morning, his head was twisted to one side, and stayed twisted all his life.*”

“My foot,” said Svånaug, finishing a row.

“Here at Gravalid,” said a girl, “the tusse-folk are even worse. We have to stay quiet after dusk, even indoors, or they’ll bang the walls and slam the doors. Once I’d fetched water after dark, feeling my way with a stick. When I came back in, I forgot, and tossed the stick out onto the porch. It came flying back in so fast it whacked against the opposite wall!”

“My foot,” said Svånaug in response to every mountain story.

Clouds unfurled over the evening sky as the laborers returned to Gravalid.

“Hurry!” cried the other workers, dashing for cover as thunder rumbled and the first raindrops fell.

“My foot,” laughed Svånaug.

It wasn’t thunder. The mountain bellowed and belched. Boulders whined through the air and smashed craters in the farmyard, one so close it pelted Svånaug with shrapnel. She hobbled to the nearest outbuilding and sank to the floor. While the rain of stones clamored on the roof, she cradled one throbbing extremity and whimpered, “My foot!”

* dialogue straight from the folktales, from the farms of Gravalid, Svartufs, and Bø, Telemark, Norway

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

Waste Away

TALLEIV OLAVSSON SCRATCHED HIS NOSE, trying not to sneeze. Trying not to shift the bedstraw pile he had burrowed into. Trying not to collapse the tunnel he’d left through the mound for spying on the room.

Voices sounded again, closer now. Lilting, musical voices. Could all the old tales be true? Did the tusse-folk truly take over the summer pasture huts after human folk vacated in the autumn?

Talleiv had helped herd the cattle down to winter housing in the lower dales, then ran back up in his quest to learn the truth.

The hut door swung open. Two tusse-women came in, each carrying a milkvat and leading a cow. They set right to milking. The frothy streams gushed like music in the vats.

Talleiv’s heart hammered at the sight. It was true! Otherworldly folk, otherworldly cattle— He gulped. Now what should he do? They’d settled in to stay.

Talleiv gathered his courage. Leaped to his feet with a shout. Drew his sheath knife. Threw it in an arc over the backs of both cows. Dashed out the door.

Iron breaks the spells of tusse-folk. He’d broken their hold on the cattle. The two red-sided cows thundered out the door after him.

The tusse-women came shrieking. One threw her milkvat at Talleiv, striking a boulder just outside the door and splitting in two.

He fled, the cows right on his heels.

“Ja, you have the cows,” one tusse-woman yelled after him, “but you don’t have their names!*”

Talleiv penned the tusse-cattle in the byre at Haugann along with the other cows, but the two lovely beasts did not thrive. They gave little milk. Their eyes looked haunted, sad. As the months went by, they wasted away to skin and bones, no matter how Talleiv nursed them with the best fodder and grain.

The tusse-cows did no better in spring when all the cattle went back to pasture.

Talleiv went hunting higher in the mountains. At sunset one day, he heard a tusse-girl somewhere nearby who coaxed her cattle. He could clearly make out their names as she called:

“Dear Ringrei, Rangrei,
Kjimbrei and Kambrei,
Hugaros, Hougros,
Lettfokk and Louvros,
Ingebot, Vibot,
Husbrei and Fribot,
Rosalin and Drølin,
Drøkla and Drengla!
Dear Silkjedokka and Gjæverei!
Come, Ringaliten, bull of mine!
Now all my cows come in line,
But not Honnfokk and Heimalin,
Gone back to Haugann-pasture.*”

“Aha!” murmured Talleiv. “Now I’ve learned the names of my two tusse-cows.*”

When he came home, the first thing Talleiv did was to visit the cows. “Dear Honnfokk! Sweet Heimalin!” he greeted them.

Their heads came up. They burst into a run, coming on, lowing until it rang in the fells. They slowed, circled, nuzzled at Talleiv from both sides.

“It was your names you missed, isn’t that right?” he said with a grin, leaning into their warmth, breathing the fragrant meadow-grass smell of them.

Into Talleiv’s eyes gazed great dark eyes brimming with gladness.

“Honnfokk,” he whispered into one silken ear, then another, “Heimalin.”

* dialogue straight from the folktale

Folktale from Haugann, Kviteseid, Telemark, Norway. According to a book that extracted genealogical details straight from Kviteseid parish records, Talleiv Olavsson was one of my ancestors, eight generations back!

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

Flinch

HALLVOR WOKE TO FIND MOONLIGHT flooding the hut. One shutter hung askew, the other was missing entirely.

Hallvor shifted position on the hard bed-planks. He’d thrown out the old mattress, rank with mouse pee. Now he couldn’t get back to sleep. Used to be he could doze off anywhere, even on bare ground if need be. But he wasn’t that limber any more, at the age now when sight of a hunter’s shack at dusk lifted a traveler’s spirits.

The door opened. In walked the loveliest maiden Hallvor had ever seen. With a wide smile she walked straight to the bed, plopped onto the corner, and in a lilting voice said, “Good evening, Hallvor!*” She asked him about his hike up the mountainside, which summer farm he aimed for, the labor he’d been hired to do – as chatty as an old acquaintance. She asked, but left no time for answers.

Hallvor’s limbs felt as frozen as his tongue. He drank in the sight of her, aglow in the night. He swam in the scent of wildflowers. He thrilled at the bell-like sound of her voice. “Well, Hallvor, since you’re getting on in years, no longer so young, oughtn’t you think about getting married?”

He blinked at the insult. Not so young? Hold on, he wasn’t nearly middle-aged yet!

“If you take me to wife, you won’t regret it.* I shall bring you fame and fortune, and you’ll become the most distinguished man in the parish!*”

Hallvor felt his cheeks flushing. “I don’t think–” he began.

Another woman barged through the door — a hideous hag with jutting teeth and a long crooked nose. The crone marched straight to the bedside and screeched at Hallvor. “You don’t think, do you? What goes on in that empty head? Any fool would leap at the chance to marry my darling grandchild. Look at all she offers you. And what can you give in return? Undying devotion is what she deserves. But look at you, just lying there like a lump!”

Hallvor shrank back as the hag lunged forward and dug stubby fingers into his ribs. He yelped and batted at her gnarled hands.

The crone cackled and tore at his shirt, while the lovely maiden hooted with laughter. “Does dear old Grandmother make you flinch? Poor man! Say you’ll marry me! Pledge me your troth!”

Hallvor frantically felt around, found his sheath knife, drew the iron blade, whirled it over his head. Now it was the hag’s turn to flinch, for Otherworldly creatures cannot abide the cold, dampening power of iron.

Both tusse-women backed off, wary gazes fixed upon the knife Hallvor brandished. As he rose, they fled across the room, out the door, into the moonlit yard.

Early 20th century painting — *“She is Making Her Way Through the Country,” 1900, by Theodor Severin Kittelsen (1857-1914)*

The hag’s voice tore once more through the silence of the sleeping mountains. “You will come to regret this night, Hallvor! * “

The two of them vanished.

Hallvor sheathed the knife, his hands shaking. “No,” he said, “I do not believe I will.”

* dialogue straight from the folktale; folktale from Torslid, Selgjord, Telemark, Norway, about Hallvor Sveinsson Utgarden who lived in the first half of the 1800’s

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

Rafters

OLD TORGON PATTERED UP THE FOREST PATH, her grandchildren trailing behind. Birdsong rang into the early dawn, twining with the youngsters’ piping voices.

“Hush!” Torgon hissed as they broke into a clearing. “The tusse-folk hereabouts no longer put up with idle chatter.”

“Did they once?” her granddaughter asked. A basket of cloudberries swung from her arm.

The old woman nodded. “My good friend Maren would jest with them all day long, but then, she also showed them the proper respect. As shall we. Come along.”

“But everyone else is going up the other trail,” the grandson said. He climbed a stump to watch the procession of men with axes.

“We’ll go there next. Do you still have cream, or have you jostled it into butter?”

The boy slid back to the path with the crock held high. “It’s still sloshing.”

Torgon led the way to a hulking, gnarled oak. She set down a bowl on a smooth granite slab between the roots.

The boy filled the bowl with the traditional offering to otherworldly folk.

Then the three hurried along and caught up with the work party. In a clearing higher up the mountain, the men stopped to gaze at yesterday’s work, all torn down and strewn around.

Søren Oleson, the new owner of Uvaas lands, had laid stone slabs for good footing. Next he’d affixed massive timbers as a base for the cabin. He’d built the walls with finely set logs and started on rafters. Started more times than he cared to count. But every night the angry tusse-folk had thrown down the timbers and uprooted the flagstones.

Torgon and the children settled on a log to watch.

Søren ordered the men to task. “If we can build it to the rafters in one day,” he declared, “and hang a cross, surely it will stand against mischief.”

“That’s the man,” Torgon told the youngsters, “who didn’t believe in tusse-folk at all when he moved here. Now he challenges them outright. Hiring an army of helpers!” She tut-tutted as she spread a blanket, set out her stack of flatbread and a tub of butter.

The granddaughter placed her basket of cloudberries. “Hungry helpers!” she giggled.

Torgon sniffed. “I warned him it was a useless endeavor, but he insisted. At least he paid in advance.” She jingled her money pouch.

Through the long day the old woman fed hungry lumbermen. The cabin grew before their eyes. Chest-high. Head-high. Loft-high. Rafters went up, then the roof structure – slats, thick layers of bark, strips of sod.

As daylight faded, Søren went to nail a cross under the roof’s peak.

The ladder broke, tumbling him to the ground. The cross shattered. The head flew off the hammer.

Twilight turned eerie, threatening. Men backed off, muttering and making countersigns against evil.

“Time to go,” Torgon chirped, leading the children home.

That night, once again, the mountainsides echoed with the clamor of timber and stones flung around.

Søren gave up at last and moved away.

folktale from Uvaas farm, Hjartdal, Telemark

artwork: 19th and early 20th century paintings. Public domain info here.

Tusse-bride

ASLAK SANK ONTO A BOULDER at the foot of the cliff, head clenched between hands. Three days searching. Three days shouting until the steep slopes rang.

How much longer could he go on?

“Until my feet wear out,” he vowed, hoarse as a raven. “Sigrid, oh Sigrid, where have you gone?”

As if in answer came a muffled sound from the depths of the berg, from within the cliff wall. Weeping, wailing. Sigrid’s voice, he’d know it anywhere!

Beyond the rock wall, within the mountain. Sigrid had been berg-taken! The tusse-folk, the elves who dwell in the wilds, had stolen his lovely Sigrid.

Aslak leapt up and raced down the mountainside. He passed his younger daughter, herding sheep. He passed his sons, chopping firewood. He passed his wife, hoeing in the barley. He dashed into the cabin, fetched his hunting gun, grabbed his grandfather’s ancient tin and ran out the door.

Across the upper fields he pounded, through the heavy forest, through the high pastures, up to the same cliff wall. With weary legs a-tremble he halted, panting, listening.

There it came again. Sigrid’s voice, sobbing in despair. “Nothing left,” she moaned, “nothing left for me to do but cry! * “

Aslak loaded the gun with rusty iron pellets. He cocked, aimed, and fired the round over the looming cliff. The gunshot echoed like the crack of a giant’s whip.

“In the old days,” his grandfather had told him when presenting the tin of ammunition, “if you came across a herd of tusse-cattle, you could take them for your own by throwing an iron knife over the cows. Iron breaks the spells of witches and ghosts and trolls, you know. I wouldn’t be surprised if iron pellets do the same.”

They did. In the blink of an eye, Sigrid stood before Aslak, dressed in a gown of flowing silk, her flaxen hair combed long and free, crowned with a wreath of twined silver. Silver ornaments dangled from its rim. Silver glinted around her neck. “Father, oh Father!” Sigrid cried, and leapt into his embrace.

Aslak wrapped her tight, rocked her back-and-forth, crooning in her ear, “I found you, I found you!” Arm in arm they set off for home. Sigrid told of the old tusse-fellow who meant to take her as his bride. She told how helpless she had felt, trapped within the mountain.

As they passed through the darkest stretch of forest, a musical voice called out from the shadows. “You’ve taken the bride. Give back the silver, for we only had it on loan.”

Aslak made no answer, just hurried their way back out into the bright sunlight.

The tusse cried after them, “Keep the silver then, but you’ll get no joy of it! * “

Aslak hid that wealth of silver in a storage loft built on a rocky outcropping. Next year, a fire burned out of control and demolished the loft. The silver melted and ran down the rock face. You can still see the mark it left behind.

* dialogue taken straight from the folktale; from Dølor in Lunneherad, Telemark, Norway

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

Who Rules

AT SUNSET, HALLVOR LID RODE INTO THE YARD at Gjuve farm, glad to be back from making his rounds as sheriff. He yearned to spend a week or so hunting and fishing, a welcome change from dealing with boundary disputes and other minor offenses.

After stabling his horse, Hallvor hauled his duffel bag up to the storage shed loft that was his room for the summer. One rung in the ladder groaned and sagged under his weight. Time to tackle some odd jobs, too, to help pay for his lodging.

Loud voices sounded from the farmyard as Hallvor came back down again. He recognized the brusque tone of Bjønn Gjuve, owner of the place, and the shrill notes of his wife, Marte.

“You didn’t bury it deep enough,” she snapped.

“We ran out of time,” Bjønn replied.

“Should have kept working. It won’t be full dark for another couple hours.”

“Who dares stay out during tus-mørk, during twilight, with the tusse-folk ready to roam?”

Hallvor strode out into the long summer twilight. Laborers were leaning shovels against the barn wall, rubbing sore backs, inspecting blistered hands. The tall landowner and his plump wife were scraping dirt from their boots near the main house.

“Don’t tell me you’re still wrangling over that boulder in the new barley field!” Hallvor said.

“It’s right smack in the way,” Bjønn said.

Marte sniffed. “We’ll clear that ground if it’s the last thing we do.”

“But you’ve been at it since spring!” Hallvor said. “If the tusse-folk don’t want you to bury that boulder, no amount of digging will do. You’ll just make them angry.”

The farm workers grimaced and slunk away into the dusk.

Bjønn threw his arms out. “What else can I do? It’s in the way!”

Hallvor put hands on hips. “If you want, I’ll try a curse on it. Next time you bury it.”

“Ja, do that!” Marte cried. “We’ll show those tusse-folk who rules at Gjuve!” She shook her fist toward the upper fields.

“Tomorrow,” Bjønn said.

Hallvor joined the laborers early the next morning. A massive boulder sat in the middle of the new barley field. A wide furrow led to it from the edge of a pit, with dirt mounding on all sides.

“Ja, the tusse-folk heaved it out again in the night,” Bjønn grumbled.

Reluctant farmhands set to digging the pit even deeper. Marte circled the site, whipping the men with her words, shooting glares into the forest that ringed the clearing.

In late afternoon they all pushed and shoved and rolled the boulder to the brink. It thundered into the hole, sending up a cloud of dust. Everyone set to shoveling dirt back in. They tromped the mound flat, finishing just as the sun neared the horizon.

Hallvor stood over the boulder, and everyone drew back in silence. He muttered a spell to bind the stone in its resting place.

The boulder never rose again, but the very next day Marte went mad. She was never right in the head again.

folktale from Gjuve, Seljord, Telemark

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

Ash Branch

GUNHILD SNAPPED AWAKE, mortified that she’d drowsed off. She was supposed to be keeping watch! As she lurched to her feet, Gunhild berated herself. Newborn baby in the house, not yet christened, at such peril from those shifty tusse-folk–

A wail came from the cradle, but it didn’t calm the watch-woman’s fears. Gunhild stepped quickly, bent over the cradle. “Lovely little one!” she crooned in relief. Not a groteque changeling after all.

She scooped up the squirming bundle. “Gro,” she called to the babe’s mother in the corner bed. “Time to nurse.”

Gro didn’t answer.

Gunhild’s dread returned. At times like this, dire fate stalked not only the baby. She laid the newborn back in the cradle, scurried to the bedside – and screamed.

Folk hurried from all parts of Nordgarden farmstead. Someone ran to fetch Gro’s husband, Tor Gunleikson. They gathered around the bed, weeping, for the new mother lay dead, gray as an ash tree.

Numbly, Tor watched two laborers build a coffin. They laid his wife in the pine box, closed and latched it, set it out in the courtyard.

Lads ran to neighboring farmsteads to invite everyone to the funeral.

“Shall we send for Svein?” one tenant farmer asked.

Tor nodded. Svein had conducted many a funeral. He knew what to say, what to do, how to organize everyone into a procession to the graveyard. Once a year at the local assembly, Svein acted as law-speaker, or chief judge, but the rest of the year labored for his living like everyone else. Lately he’d been down at the millhouse, grinding barley meal.

Riddled by guilt, Gunhild fled to an outfarm. Heart-broken, Tor wandered aimlessly around Nordgarden. The rest of the farm-folk toiled in silent teamwork, preparing the feast of mourning. Brewing, roasting, baking.

The day of the funeral came. Relatives and neighbors arrived, thronging the courtyard. While waiting for Svein to come and take charge, they ate breakfast. They ate second breakfast. They ate lunch, milling around, murmuring about Svein’s unexplained absence.

Finally someone spotted the law-speaker, tromping down across the fields. Relief hummed through the gathering, until they noticed the woman walking with Svein.

Silence fell. Who was this? The very image of Gro!

Svein led the woman past the coffin, came to stand before Tor, who wrapped arms around himself, all upset, staring in disbelief. “What—? Who–?”

“Someone didn’t keep close watch at bedside,” Svein said, clucking his tongue. “Coming back from the millhouse, I spotted two women leading poor Gro away in her nightgown. Tusse-women, meaning to whisk her under the mountain. I threw my sheath knife over her, broke the spell.”

“But—” Tor looked over at the coffin.

“Come.” Svein unlatched the top and lifted it. Inside lay a gray ash-tree branch. “They left that in her bed. Enchanted to look like her.”

Tor reached for Gro at last with tears of gladness.

The joyous assemblage followed Svein not to the graveyard but to the church itself. For a christening.

folktale from Nordgarden farm, Seljord, Telemark, Norway

The folktale included a side story about Svein and Gro deciding to play a prank on her folk and delay her return until the day of the funeral. But what new mother would put off reuniting with her baby?

dugurd: second breakfast (hobbits aren’t the only ones!)

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

Two Hours

NIDIR SØNNSTVEITEN PACED ON DECK while waves slapped the schooner’s sides. Five days since they’d offloaded cargo, and he still hadn’t been paid. Five days anchored in the harbor. He yearned to hurry to the next port where a load of silks and spices waited for his return voyage.

The ship’s boat sidled up to the schooner, and Nidir’s first mate climbed aboard. “Tomorrow, they say,” he told the captain.

One of the sailors swabbing the deck spat over the rail. “I’ll wager they’re not saying ‘tomorrow.’ I’ll wager you’re misunderstanding the word ‘never.'”

His fellows laughed.

“If you’ve time for jesting,” Nidir growled, “there are bilges need cleaning.” He turned and stared morosely at the lush coast of China.

“Halfway around the world,” the first mate said.

“Gone nearly a year. God knows how the folks at home are doing,” Nidir said. “Is my wife still alive? Did she survive the birthing? Am I a father? Or a widower?”

A young sailor looked up from his mending. “For five quarts of brandy,” he said, “I’ll fly home and call on your folks.”

Nidir stared at the boy. A Finn, from the mystical north where wizards and soothsayers abounded. A clever lad, with a knowing depth to his gaze. “I’d gladly give you fifteen quarts of brandy,” the captain said at last, “if I thought you could truly manage such an impossible feat.”

“Not impossible. I can do it. In a trance. In just two hours.”

“A trance? Hah! You take me for a fool? You’d spin a fable for the sake of brandy!”

“I would bring proof back with me,” the Finn-boy said.

Nidir snorted. “Very well. Bring back the silver spoon that once belonged to tussar-folk. My name is etched on it, and my father’s, and his.”

“Agreed.” The youth put mending aside, found a piece of chalk, drew a circle on the deck. “For two hours, no one must cross this line.” He placed a stool in the middle of the circle, settled himself, closed his eyes, and appeared to doze off.

A large black bird sailed down the wind and perched on the Finn-boy’s shoulder. The lad didn’t stir.

The bird pecked at the corner of the youth’s mouth. He slept on.

The bird flew away.

Nidir paced the deck nearby, glaring at the coast of China, a land of haughty officials who toyed with foreign merchants.

Five days waiting.

Five days and one hour.

Five days and two hours.

The black bird wheeled down from the sky with something in its beak. As soon as it touched the Finn-boy’s shoulder, he woke and stood. In his hand glinted a silver spoon. He handed it to the captain.

Stunned, Nidir cradled the old heirloom in his palm. There was his name, scratched below his father’s.

“Your wife and new baby boy are both in good health,” the Finn-boy said. “I saw your father chopping wood. Your mother sat spinning with a spindle. She looked sickly and sorrowing, I’m afraid. Five quarts?”

Tongue tied in amazement, Nirid nodded, waved at the first mate to fetch the brandy, and went to make an unusual note in his log.

Months later, when he returned home, Nidir asked the folks if anything odd had happened on that particular day.

Yes, there had been a terrible bang and boom, and they thought the house was crashing down. And the strangest thing was that the old silver tusse-spoon had vanished and hadn’t been seen since.

Most of the wording comes straight from the folktale! Folktale from Telemark, Norway

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