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the door against troll-folk, and men, and women.
- Bars I must fix me; bars that can shut out
- all the cantankerous little hobgoblins.-
- They come with the darkness, they knock and they rattle:
- Open, Peer Gynt, we're as nimble as thoughts are!
- 'Neath the bedstead we bustle, we rake in the ashes,
- down the chimney we hustle like fiery-eyed dragons.
- Hee-hee! Peer Gynt; think you staples and planks
- can shut out cantankerous hobgoblin-thoughts?
[SOLVEIG comes on snow-shoes over the heath; she has a shawl over her head, and a bundle in her hand.] SOLVEIG
- God prosper your labour. You must not reject me.
- You sent for me hither, and so you must take me.
PEER
- Solveig! It cannot be-! Ay, but it is!
- And you're not afraid to come near to me!
SOLVEIG
- One message you sent me by little Helga;
- others came after in storm and in stillness.
- All that your mother told bore me a message,
- that brought forth others when dreams sank upon me.
- Nights full of heaviness, blank, empty days,
- brought me the message that now I must come.
- It seemed as though life had been quenched down th
