Tales from the Fjeld Part 12

When Anders had ended _The Companion_, that strangely wild story, we all admired it, but he too had his call, and, turning to Karin, he said,

"Now do you tell _The s...o...b..y and his Cheese_. I know you know it, for I heard you telling it to the children last winter over the stove."

So Karin began

THE s...o...b..Y AND HIS CHEESE.

"Once on a time there was a s...o...b..y who was so well liked by all who knew him, that they thought him too good to stand behind the counter with a yard measure, and weights and scales. So they made up their minds to send him out with a venture to foreign parts, and they let him choose what he would take out. He chose old cheese, and set off with it to Turkey. There he sold his cheeses very well; but as he was on his way home, he met two who had slain a man, and it was not enough that they had slain him in this life, but they ill-treated his body after he was dead. This the s...o...b..y could not bear to see, how wickedly they behaved; so he bought the body of them and got a grave with his money, and buried it, and then he had spent all he had.

"After a long, long time, he got safe home, and was both illcome and welcome. Some of those who had helped and fitted him out thought he had done a good deed; but others were ill-pleased that he should have so thrown away his money. But for all that they were ready to try if he could not do better another time, so they let him choose his lading again. He chose the same freight, and took the same way, and sold his cheese even better than before. But, as he was on his way home, he met two who had stolen a king's daughter, and they had put harness on her, and had got so far as to drive her; they had stripped off her clothes to the waist, and one went on either side of her and whipped her. The lad's heart melted at this, for she was a lovely la.s.s. So he asked if they would sell her. Yes, if he would pay down her weight in silver he might have her, and there was no long bargaining: he paid all they asked.

"After a long, long time, he got safe home; but those who had fitted him out were one and all so ill-pleased at his dealing, that they banished him the land. So he had to set off to England. There he stayed for four years with his sweetheart, and the way they got their living was by her weaving ribbons, which she wove so well that he sold two s.h.i.+llings'

worth a-day.

"One day he met two who were foes, and one wished to thrash the other because he owed him eighteen-pence. That seemed to the lad wrong, and he paid the debt for him. Another day he met two travellers, who began to talk with him, and asked if he had anything to sell. 'Nothing but ribbons,' he said. Well, they would have three s.h.i.+llings' worth, and asked him where he lived, and fixed a day to come and fetch them; and when the day came, they came too, and lo! when they came, if one of them was not the princess's brother, and the other an emperor's son, to whom she was betrothed. So they got the ribbons for which they had bargained, and wanted to take her home with them. But she wouldn't go unless they would let him go with them, and take care of him; for she would not forsake the man who had freed her, so long as she had breath in her body. So they had to give way to her if they were to take her at all.

But when they were to go on board s.h.i.+p, the brother and sister went first into the boat, and when the emperor's son was to get into her, he shoved her off, and jumped into her himself, and so the lad was left standing on the sh.o.r.e. The s.h.i.+p lay ready for sea, and they sailed as soon as ever they came on board. But then up came the man for whom the lad had paid eighteen-pence, in a boat and put him on board. Then the princess was so glad, and took a gold ring off her finger and gave it to him, and made him go down into the cabin where she lay.

"Well! they sailed many days, till they came to a desert island, where they landed to look for game, and they settled things so that the brother, and the Norseman who had saved the princess's life, were to go each on his side of the island, and the emperor's son in the middle, and when the lad was well gone, so that they could neither see him, nor he them, they got on board, and he was left to walk about the island alone.

Then he saw there was no help for it but to stay there; and there he stayed seven years. He got his food from a fruit-bearing tree which he found, and when the seven years were up, an old, old man came to him and said,--

"'To-day your true-love is to be married. They have not got a kind word out of her these seven years, since you parted; but for all that the emperor's son wants to marry her, for that he knows she is wise and witty, and for that she is so rich.'

"After that, the man asked if he had not a mind to be at the wedding. So he said: well! what he said any one can guess, but he saw no way of getting there. But lo! in a little while there he stood in the palace where the wedding was to be. Then he wanted to know what kind of man that was who had brought him thither. He was no man, he said; but a spirit. He it was whose body he had bought and buried in Turkey.

"After that, he gave him a gla.s.s and a bottle, with wine in it, and told him to send some one in with a message to the cook to come out to him.

"'When he comes, you must first pour out a gla.s.s and drink it yourself; and then another, and give it to the cook; and then you must pour out a third, and send it to the bride; but first of all you must take the ring off your finger, and put it into the gla.s.s which you send her.'

"So when the cook came in with the gla.s.s, they all cried out, 'She mustn't drink.' But the cook said, 'First he drank, and then I drank, so she may very safely drink the wine.'

"And when she drank the gla.s.s out, she saw the ring that lay at the bottom, and ran out, and as soon as she got outside she knew him again, and fell on his neck and kissed him, all s.h.a.ggy as he was, for you may fancy, he had neither lather nor razor on his beard for seven years.

"But now the king came after, and wanted to know the meaning of all this fondling between them. So they were brought into a room, and told the whole story from first to last. Then the king bade them go and fetch a barber, and sc.r.a.pe the bristles off him, and trim him; and a tailor with a new court dress; and then the king went into the bridal hall, and asked the bridegroom, that emperor's son, what doom should be pa.s.sed on one who had robbed a man both of life and honour. He answered,--

"'Such a scoundrel should be first hanged on a gallows and then his body should be burnt quick.'

"So he was taken at his word and suffered the doom that he uttered over himself, and the s...o...b..y was wedded to the king's daughter, and lived both long and luckily.

"After that I was no longer with them, and I don't know how they fared; but this I know, that he who last told this Tale is alive this very day, and he is Ole Olsen, of Hitli, in Roldale."

When _The s...o...b..y and his Cheese_ was over, Anders, who ordered about his cousins like a Turk, called on Christina for _Peik_; but nothing could get the story out of her. There was something in it she did not like. It was not a girl's story. He had better tell it himself.

"Well, I will," said Anders; "I'm sure there's no harm in it; but judge for yourselves."

PEIK.

"Once on a time there was a man, and he had a wife; they had a son and a daughter who were twins, and they were so like, no one could tell the one from the other by anything else than their clothing. The boy they called Peik. He was of little good while his father and mother lived, for he had no mood to do aught else than to befool folk, and he was so full of tricks and pranks that no one could be at peace for him; but when they were dead it got worse and worse, he wouldn't turn his hand to anything; all he would do was to squander what they left behind them, and as for his neighbours he fell out with all of them. His sister toiled and moiled all she could, but it helped little; so at last she said to him how silly this was that he would do naught for her house, and ended by asking him,

"'What shall we have to live on when you have wasted everything?'

"'Oh, I'll go out and befool somebody,' said Peik.

"'Yes, Peik, I'll be bound you'll do that soon enough,' said his sister.

"'Well, I'll try,' said Peik.

"So at last they had nothing more, for there was an end of everything; and Peik trotted off, and walked and walked till he came to the king's grange. There stood the King in the porch, and as soon as he set eyes on the lad, he said,--

"'Whither away to-day, Peik?'

"'Oh, I was going out to see if I could befool anybody,' said Peik.

"'Can't you befool me, now?' said the King.

"'No, I'm sure I can't,' said Peik, 'for I've forgotten my fooling rods at home.'

"'Can't you go and fetch them?' said the King, 'for I should be very glad to see if you are such a trickster as folks say.'

"'I've no strength to walk,' said Peik.

"'I'll lend you a horse and saddle,' said the King.

"'But I can't ride either,' said Peik.

"'Then we'll lift you up,' said the King, 'then you'll be able to stick on.'

"Well, Peik stood and clawed and scratched his head, as though he would pull the hair off, and let them lift him up into the saddle, and there he sat swinging this side and that so long as the King could see him, and the King laughed till the tears came into his eyes, for such a tailor on horseback he had never before seen. But when Peik was come well into the wood behind the hill, so that he was out of the King's sight, he sat as though he were nailed to the horse, and off he rode as though he had stolen both steed and bridle, and when he got to the town, he sold both horse and saddle.

"All the while the King walked up and down, and loitered and waited for Peik to come tottering back again with his fooling rods; and every now and then he laughed when he called to mind how wretched he looked as he sat swinging about on the horse like a sack of corn, not knowing on which side to fall off; but this lasted for seven lengths and seven breadths, and no Peik came, and so at last the King saw that he was fooled and cheated out of his horse and saddle, even though Peik had not his fooling rods with him. And so there was another story, for the King got wroth, and was all for setting off to kill Peik.

"But Peik had found out the day he was coming, and told his sister she must put on the big boiler with a drop of water in it. But just as the King came in Peik dragged the boiler off the fire and ran off with it to the chopping-block, and so boiled the porridge on the block.

"The King wondered at that, and wondered on and on so much that he clean forgot what brought him there.

"'What do you want for that pot?' said he.

"'I can't spare it,' said Peik.

"'Why not?' said the King, 'I'll pay what you ask.'

"'No, no!' said Peik. 'It saves me time and money, woodhire and choppinghire, carting and carrying.'

"'Never mind,' said the King, 'I'll give you a hundred dollars. It's true you've fooled me out of a horse and saddle, and bridle besides, but all that shall go for nothing if I can only get the pot.'

"'Well! if you must have it you must,' said Peik.