An Evening in the Squire's Kitchen. 253 w He should have looked down over the horse's head between the ears, shouldn't he, Bertha ? " asked one of the boys.
- Yes, that he should," answered Bertha ; " for then he would
have seen who held the horse, and then they would have had to let his horse go. I have heard that from one who knew more about such things than anybody ; they called him 'Hans Cheerful ' at home in Halland. In other parishes they called him, ' Hans Decency,' for he always used the expression, ' everything with decency.' He was tåken into the mountain by the fairies, and had been with them for many years, and at last they wanted him to marry their daughter, who was always hanging about after him. But this he wouldn't, and when he had been rung for from several churches,1 the fairies took him at last and threw him from a high knoll far out into the parish. He thought himself he would have gone right out into the fjord. From that time he became half-witted. He was then put out on the parish, and went from farm to farm and told all sorts of wonderful stories, but all of a sudden he would laugh and say : " ' Hee, hee, hee ! Kari, Karina, I see you ! ' for the huldre girl was always after him. — While he was with the fairies, he told us, he had always to go with them when they were out to provide themselves with food and milk, for everything which the sign of the cross had been made over they had no power to touch, and then they said to Hans : ' You'll have to take this, for this has been crossed,' and so he filled their bags with tremendous loads of all sorts of food ; but if it ever began to thunder, they used to run away as fast as they could, so Hans could scarcely follow them. He was generally in company with one called Vaatt, and he was so strong, that he took both Hans and his load and carried them under his arms when such weather came upon them suddenly. Once they met the sheriff of Ringerike in a deep valley up in Halland, and Vaatt took hold of the horse and stopped him, and the sheriff shouted and whipped and pulled the poor horse about till he was pitiful to look at. But the sherifTs boy got off the sledge and looked over the horse's head between the ears, and then Vaatt 1 It was an old custom to ring the bells of the parish church if any one was supposed to have been carried off into the mountains by the fairies.
