D. L. Ashliman
© 2000
folktales of Aarne-Thompson type 1161
(also categorized as migratory legends of Christiansen type 6015)
translated and/or edited by
D. L. Ashliman
© 2000
Once upon a time there was a man up in Finnmark who had caught a large white bear, which he was going to take to the King of Denmark. It so happened that he came to the Dovrefjell on Christmas Eve. He went to a cottage where a man lived whose name was Halvor, and he asked the man for lodging for himself and his white bear.
"God bless us!" said the man, "but we can't give anyone lodging just now, for every Christmas Eve the house is so full of trolls that we are forced to move out, and we'll have no shelter over our own heads, to say nothing of providing for anyone else."
"Oh?" said the man, "If that's all, you can very well let me use your house. My bear can sleep under the stove here, and I can sleep in the storeroom."
Well, he begged so hard, that at last he got permission to stay there. The people of the house moved out, but before they went, everything was made ready for the trolls. The table was set with cream porridge and fish and sausages and everything else that was good, just as for any other grand feast.
When everything was ready, in came the trolls. Some were large, and some were small. Some had long tails, and some had no tails at all. And some had long, long noses. They ate and drank and tasted everything.
Then one of the troll youngsters saw the white bear lying under the stove, so he took a piece of sausage, stuck it onto a fork, and went and poked it against the white bear's nose, burning it. Then he shrieked, "Kitty, do you want some sausage?"
The white bear rose up and growled, and then chased the whole pack of them out, both large and small.
A year later Halvor was out in the woods at midday of Christmas Eve, gathering wood for the holidays, for he expected the trolls again. As he was chopping, he heard a voice shouting from the woods, "Halvor! Halvor!"
"Yes?" said Halvor.
"Do you still have that big cat?"
"Yes," said Halvor. "She's lying at home under the stove, and what's more, she now has seven kittens, far bigger and fiercer than she is herself."
"Then, we'll never come to your place again," shouted the troll in the woods, and since that time the trolls have never eaten their Yule porridge with Halvor on the Dovrefjell."
On the estate of Norrhult, in the parish of Rumskulla, the people in olden times were very much troubled by trolls and ghosts. The disturbances finally became so unbearable that they were compelled to desert house and home, and seek an asylum with their neighbors. One old man was left behind, and he, because he was so feeble that he could not move with the rest.
Some time thereafter, there came one evening a man having with him a bear, and asked for lodgings for himself and companion. The old man consented, but expressed doubts about his guest being able to endure the disturbances that were likely to occur during the night.
The stranger replied that he was not afraid of noises, and laid himself down, with his bear, near the old man's bed.
Only a few hours had passed, when a multitude of trolls came into the hut and began their usual clatter. Some of them built the fire in the fireplace, others set the kettle upon the fire, and others again put into the kettle a mess of filth, such as lizards, frogs, worms, etc. When the mess was cooked, the table was laid, and the trolls sat down to the repast. One of them threw a worm to the bear, and said, "Will you have a fish, kitty?"
Another went to the bear-keeper and asked him if he would not have some of their food. At this the latter let loose the bear, which struck about him so lustily that soon the whole swarm was flying through the door.
Some time after, the door was again opened, and a troll with mouth so large that it filled the whole opening peeked in.
"Sic him!" said the bear-keeper, and the bear soon hunted him away also.
In the morning the stranger gathered the people of the village around him and directed them to raise a cross upon the estate, and to engrave a prayer on Cross Mountain, where the trolls dwelt, and they would be freed from their troublesome visitors.
Seven years later a resident of Norrhult went to Norrköping. On his way home he met a man who asked him where he came from, and, upon being informed, claimed to be a neighbor, and invited the peasant to ride with him on his black horse Away they went at a lively trot along the road, the peasant supposed, but in fact high up in the air. When it became quite dark the horse stumbled so that the peasant came near falling off.
"It is well you were able to hold on," said the horseman. "That was the point of the steeple of Linköping's cathedral that the horse stumbled against. Listen!" continued he. "Seven years ago I visited Norrhult. You then had a vicious cat there. Is it still alive?"
"Yes, truly, and many more," said the peasant.
After a time the rider checked his horse and bade the peasant dismount. When the latter looked around him he found himself at Cross Mountain, near his home.
Some time later another troll came to the peasant's cottage and asked if that great savage cat still lived.
"Look out!" said the peasant. "She is lying there by the oven, and has seven young ones, all worse than she."
"Oh!" cried the troll, and rushed for the door.
From that time no trolls have ever visited Norrhult.
Ages ago a water nix would bring fish to the so-called Oil Mill located at Frauendorf Manor on a channel of the River Spree near Cottbus. The nix would ask the miller to cook the fish, after which the nix would eat them right at the mill. With time these uncanny visits came to annoy the miller, but he never dared to turn down his uninvited visitor's requests.
However, the time came when fate freed him from the nix.
One evening a bear trainer came to Frauendorf with his tamed bear and asked the miller for a night's lodging. The latter, a good-hearted man, did not refuse him. To keep it from harming anyone, the bear was chained up behind the table in the main room.
Not long afterward the nix entered the mill with a catch of fish. With the miller's permission he cooked them, and then sat down next to the bear behind the table and began to eat them. The hungry bear could not resist the tempting smell of the tasty meal, and wasted no time in helping himself from the nix's plate. This angered the nix, who struck at the bear's paws with his spoon. The bear let this happen a few times, but when the blows became more painful, he became furious. He grabbed the nix and crushed him terribly, until the bear trainer jumped up and rescued the nearly dead nix from the beast's claws.
The nix ran quickly out the door, jumped into the water, and was not seen again for a whole year. At the end of this time, the miller was one day working near his waterway, when the nix, wearing his red cap, suddenly emerged from the water, greeted the miller, then asked with a whining voice, "Master miller, do you still have that large cat?"
The miller, fearing that the nix wanted to take up his regular visits again, quickly answered, "Yes, she is lying behind the stove, and she has ninety-nine young ones!"
To this the nix replied, "I'll never again come to your place!" Then he disappeared beneath the water and was never seen there again.
A bear trainer with his dancing bear once came to an isolated mill and asked the miller to take them in for the night, as there was no village far and wide, and night was already falling.
"I would be glad to take you in," said the miller, "if you are not afraid, for a water-man comes into the mill every night and plays pranks on anyone sleeping or even just passing time in the grinding room, and I don't have room for you anywhere else."
"What sort of pranks?" asked the bear trainer.
"Just practical jokes," replied the miller, "but they make the people who come to the mill angry, and they won't come back. I've lost a lot of customers because of this. Once he smeared pitch on someone's boot soles, so that he stuck to the floor when he stood up. He poured water into someone else's boots, or sprinkled bran in their hair. He sewed another person's pockets shut. Once he even put someone who was sleeping in the mill into a sack and hung it on a beam, and more such pranks."
"If that's all there is, it won' bother me," said the bear trainer. "I'll stay."
So the miller put a bundle of straw on the floor for him, and the man lay down with the bear at his side, and they slept until twelve o'clock. The trainer was awakened by the bear's roaring. He jumped up and saw the bear wrestling with the water-man. The latter had never seen a bear before, and when he took hold of the bear's fur, the bear held him tightly with his paws.
The trainer quickly went to the mill and started it running. Then he grabbed the water-man by his feet. The bear held him up, and thus they set him on the millstone and held him there, in spite of his cries, until half of his behind had been ground away. Then they let him go, and went back to sleep.
Early the next morning the miller came out and was amazed that both of them were sleeping so soundly. When the trainer woke up he told the miller about their last night's adventure, at which the miller had to laugh until he held his belly.
As they parted, the miller gave presents to the bear trainer, and invited him to stay with him the next time he came that way. Then he lit his pipe and lay down contentedly near the window.
A little dwarf came up to him. He was wearing yellow trousers, a bright-red vest, a green jacket, and a blue cap. He said to the smoker, "Miller, do you still have that big cat?"
"Yes," said the latter, "I still have her."
"Farewell then. You'll never see me again," he said, and trotted away.
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Revised June 11, 2000.