Reimer the Ferryman’s Aerial Voyage

[A Christmas Eve tale from Scandinavian Folklore, William Craigie, 1896]

At Ottesund Ferry on Limfjord there was a ferryman whose name was Reimer. He had gone all the way to Copenhagen to get a licence to allow him to ferry over the Sound. It took him a long time to get all the arrangements in place, and it was Christmas Eve by the time he had finished with the Lords of Council. 

As he went off along the street, wishing that he was at home and very upset that he wasn’t, he met a little old man in a grey coat who called him by his name and asked, “Wouldn’t you like very much to get home this evening?” 

“Of course I would, but it’s impossible!”

“O no,” said the little man, “if in return you will do for me a service I shall shortly have need of – and for which I shall also pay you richly – you shall be home this very evening at suppertime, quite unharmed.”

 

“All very well,” said Reimer, “but first I should like to know just what sort of a service you want me to do.”

“Only this,” said the little man, “that you and your ferryman, one night, will carry cargoes for me from the south to the north side of the Sound. And for that you now have a licence, and permission.” 

 “No objection to that,” said Reimer, “but how are we to travel home? What conveyance do you have?”

“We’ll get on my horse together,” said the little man, “you shall sit behind me; the horse is only a little one but I know how to guide it.” The little horse was waiting outside one of the city gates; they both mounted – and then went through the air like a flash of lightning, without meeting anything until two hours after they had begun their journey, when Reimer heard a clink, as if two pieces of iron struck together.  “What was that?” he asked. “O, nothing except that the beast’s hind shoe touched the spire of Viborg Cathedral,” said the little man. Soon after, the horse touched down in Reimer’s own courtyard. He dismounted, and his guide and the horse disappeared in the same moment.

Glad to be home, Reimer soon forgot his promise; but one evening the little man reappeared and reminded him of it. He made haste then to get all his things ready, and his travelling companion came to him as it was growing dark. “Come now, and bring all your men!”

Reimer’s ferryboats came and went all the long night, and many heavy chests and boxes were ferried over, but they saw no people except the one man.  When all the goods had been carried across, the bergman (for so he was) took a basket, opened one of the chests, filled the basket with chinking coin, gave it to Reimer and said, “Take that for your trouble and goodwill towards one that you know not, but don’t thank me for it. I suppose you would like to know what you have ferried over tonight – there! You can see it!” and taking the cap off his own head, he put it on Reimer’s, who at once  saw the whole beach swarming with thousands of little trolls of both sexes. He pulled the cap off his head, quite terrified, and asked the old man, “And where are you going with all this?”

“North,” said the bergman. 

“Why so?” asked Reimer.

“Because Christianity is pushing further and further up from the south,” said the bergman, “but it will hardly get up to the Ice Sea in my time, so we are going there.”

Picture credit:

Troll by Theodore Kittelsen

Folklore Snippets: The Fisherman and the Merman

The Fisher and the Merman
From Scandinavian Folklore, ed William Craigie, 1896

Here’s a nice story about inter-species co-operation and the gratitude that follows a good deed. One good turn deserves another…

One cold winter day a fisherman had gone out to sea.  It began to grow stormy when he was about to return and he had trouble enough to clear himself. He then saw, near his boat, an old man with a long gray beard, riding on a wave.  The fisherman knew well that it was the merman he saw before him, and he knew also what it meant.  “Uh, then, how cold it is!” said the merman as he sat and shivered, for he had lost one of his hose. The fisherman pulled off one of his, and threw it out to him.  The merman disappeared with it, and the fisherman came safe to land.  Some time after this, the fisherman was again out at sea, far from land.  All at once the merman stuck his head over the gunwale, and shouted out to the man in the boat,

“Hear, you man that gave the hose,

Take your boat and make for shore,

It thunders under Norway.”

The fisherman made all the haste he could to get to land, and there came a storm the like of which has never been known, in which many were drowned at sea.



Picture credit:

''Sævarmaður'' (merman) by Anker Eli Petersen: 1998, 55x60cm, Føroya Læraraskúli (Teacher's highschool of the Faroe Island) Wikimedia Commons

Folklore Snippets - "To Catch a Nisse"

From: "Scandinavian Folklore" ed: William Craigie 1896

As every one was eager to have a nisse attached to his farm, the following plan was formerly made use of to catch one. The people went out into the wood to fell a tree. At the sound of its fall the nisses all came running as hard as they could to see how folk did with it, so they sat down beside them and talked with them about one thing and another. When the wedges were driven into the tree, it would often happen that a nisse’s little tail would fall into the cleft, and when the edge was driven out, the tail was fast and nisse was a prisoner.

Down in Bögeskov (Beech Wood) lived two poor people who, as they lay awake one night, talked of how fine it would be if a nisse would come and help them. No sooner had they said this than they heard a noise in the loft, as if someone were grinding corn. “Hallo!” said the man,“there we have him already!” “Lord Jesus, man, what’s that you say?” said the woman; but as soon as she named the Lord’s name, they heard nisse go crash out of the loft, taking the gable along with him.


Picture credit: small troll or nisse by John Bauer (d. 1918)

Folklore Snippets - The Nidagrísur

From: "Scandinavian Folklore" ed. William Craigie, 1896

The Nidagrísur is little, thick and rounded, like a little child in swaddling clothes or a big ball of yarn, and of a dark reddish-brown colour. It is said to appear where new-born illegitimate children have been killed and buried without receiving a name. It lies and rolls about before men’s feet to lead them astray from the road, and if it gets between anyone’s legs, he will not see another year. In the field of the village of Skáli on Österö stands a stone, called Loddasa-stone, and here a nidagrísur often lay before the feet of those who went that way in the dark, until once a man who was passing and was annoyed by it, grew angry and said “Loddasi there,” upon which it buried itself in the earth beside the stone, and was never seen again, for now it had got a name.

No Nidagrisurs available online, so here's a picture by John Bauer of a changeling child reared by trolls, 1913

Folklore Snippets - The Grav-so or Ghoul

THE GRAV-SO or GHOUL

From "Scandinavian Folklore" ed William Craigie

This monster is properly a treasure-watcher, and lies and broods over heaps of gold.  For the most part it has its dwelling in mounds, where a light is seen burning at by night, and it is known then that the treasure lies there.  If anyone digs for it, he may always be certain of meeting a ghoul, and that is hard to deal with.  Its back is as sharp as a knife, and it is seldom that anyone escapes from it alive.  As soon as anyone begins to dig in the mound, it comes out and says, “What are you doing there?”  The treasure hunter must answer, “I want to get a little money, and it’s that I am digging for, if you won’t be angry.”  With this the ghoul must content itself, and they make a bargain.  “If you are finished,” it says, “when I come for the third time, then all you find is yours, but if you are not finished by then, I shall spring upon you and destroy you.”

If the man has courage to make this compact, he must lose no time, for if the ghoul comes for the third time before he has finished, it runs between his legs and splits him in two with its sharp back. Old Peter Smith in Taaderup, who is now dead, had the reputation for having got his wealth in this fashion: he and another young fellow were desirous of digging for treasure, and went one night to a mound where they knew that there was a ghoul.  When they began to dig, it came up and asked what they wanted, and then fixed a certain time within which they were to be finished.  They worked now with all their might, and finally got hold of a big chest which they dragged out as fast as they could, but before they had got quite clear of the mound - Peter Smith still had one of his legs in the hole - the ghoul came for the third time and managed to rub itself against Peter’s legs.  Although it only touched him slightly, he had got enough for all his life, for however wealthy he was, his legs were always so feeble he could neither stand nor walk.  

 

 

 

Picture credit:

 

Troll or ghoul by  Ernst Koie (1872 - 1960)

Folklore Snippets - “Light High, Light Low.”

This is the first of an occasional series of 'Folklore Snippets' - little tales which pleased me and I hope will please you.  In honour of the Nis, the good-hearted but hot-tempered and unpredictable little house spirit in my 'troll trilogy' West of the Moon, here is a traditional Danish tale about one.

"Light High, Light Low"

From "Scandinavian Folklore" ed. William Craigie 1896

In Tylstrup lies a farm which has a nisse on it. Two ploughmen served there, one of whom was very fond of the nisse, while the other found his greatest delight in annoying him. Once he took away his porridge from him. “You’ll pay for that,” said the nisse, and when the man woke next morning he found that the nisse had placed a harrow over the ridge of the barn, and then laid him upon the sharp spikes.

“You’ll pay for that yet,” thought the man. Some time passed and the other man asked the nisse to sew something for him. It was a bright moonlit night, so the nisse took needle and thread, seated himself on top of the haystack and began to sew. Just as he was hard at work, there came a shadow over the moon, at which the little fellow became impatient and cried. ‘Light! Light high!” The man who teased him, however, was standing down below with a flail in his hand, and when he heard the shout he brought this over the nisse’s legs. Nisse thought it was Our Lord who had thus punished him for his imperious shout, and said very humbly, “Light high, light low, light just as you please, Lord!”

Picture credit: wikipedia: A tomte/nisse by Carta Marina,1539