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A Summer Night in a Norwegian Forest. 291 his father-in-law. You had better stand behind on my sledge and come along.' " When they had travelled some distance, the father-in-law said : 'Will you take these two bags with you and go to the Veien farm and get two barrels of potatoes in them by the time wc go home ? ' "My father promised to do this. They came soon to a place which he thought he kne w, and so it was. It was just north of the Kili hill, where the old dairy stood ; but there was no dairy there then, but a great fine building, and here they all entered. Some one met them on the steps to give the guests a glass of welcome, and they gave father a glass also, but he said, ' No, thanks ! ' he would not have anything he said, for he had only his old clothes on, and would not intrude on such fine folks. ' Never mmd this man/ said one of them, ' take a horse and see him on his way home/ which they did ; they put him in a sledge with a mouse-grey horse before it, and one of them sat up and drove the horse. When they got as far as the little valley north of Oppen hagen—where the land-slip took place—he thought he sat between the ears of a bucket ; but shortly this vanished also, and it was only then he really came to himself again. He began looking for his axe, and found it sticking in the same withered fir-tree he had begun to cut down. "When he came home, he was so confused and queer, that he could not tell now many days he had been away ; but he was only away from the morning to the evening, — and for some time afterwards he was not himself " "Yes, many a queer thing happens hereabout," said old Thor; " and I for my part have also seen a little—well, witchcraft I mean, — and if you like to sit up a little longer, I ll tell you what has happened to me, — in this here forest, I mean." Yes, they would all like to hear it ;—to-morrow was Sunday, and it didn't much matter if they went to bed late. " Well, it might be about ten or twelve years ago/' he answered, " I was burning charcoal over in the Kampenhaug forest. In the winter I had two horses there to cart the coals to the Bærum works. One day I happened to stop too long at the works, for I met some old friends from Ringerike there, and wc had a good talk about one U2