On a point which shoots out into the northwest corner of Lake Råsvalen,
in the region of Linde, lived, in days past, a coal burner named Nils.
His little garden patch was left to a servant boy to care for, while he
dwelt always in the forest, chopping coal-wood during the summer and
burning it in the winter. However he toiled, nothing but bad luck was
returned to him, and, leading all other subjects, poor Nils was the
talk of the village where his home was.
One day when he was constructing a stack of wood for burning, on the
other side of the lake near the dark Harg Mountain, a strange woman
came to him and asked him if he needed help in his work.
“Yes, indeed; it would be good to have some assistance,” answered Nils,
whereupon the woman began to carry logs and wood much faster than Nils
could draw with his horse, so that by noon the material was on the
ground for a new stack. When evening came she asked Nils what he
thought of her day’s work, and if she might come again next day.
The coal burner could not well say no, so she returned the following
day, and daily thereafter. When the stack was burned she assisted him
with the drawing, and never before had Nils had so much nor so good
coal as that time.
Thus the woman remained with him in the forest three years, during
which time she became the mother of three children, but this did not
bother the coal burner, for she took care of them so that he had no
trouble from them.
When the fourth year had been entered upon she began to be more
presuming, and demanded that he take her home with him and make her his
wife. This Nils did not like, but, as she was very useful to him in the
coal forest, he was careful not to betray his thoughts, and said he
would think over the matter.
One day he went to church, where he had not been for many years, and
what he heard there set him to thinking as he had not thought since he
was an innocent child. He began to reflect whether he had not made a
misstep, and if it might not be a Troll woman who had so willingly lent
him her company and help.
Involved in these and similar thoughts, returning to his forest home,
he forgot that he had made an agreement with the strange woman when she
first entered his service, that always upon his arrival, and before
approaching the stack, he would strike three times with an ax against
an old pine tree standing a little way from the coal kiln. On he went,
when suddenly there burst upon his sight a scene that nearly took his
wits from him. As he neared the stack he discovered it in bright
flames, and around it stood the mother and her three children drawing
the coal. They drew and slacked so that fire, smoke and sparks filled
the air high toward the heavens, but instead of pine branches,
ordinarily used for slacking, they had bushy tails, with which, after
dipping them in the snow, they beat the fire.
When Nils had contemplated this awhile, he crept stealthily back to the
pine whose trunk he made echo by three blows from his ax, so that it
was heard far away at Harg Mountain. Thereupon he went forward to the
stack as if he had seen nothing, and now every thing was as he was
accustomed to see it. The stack burned steadily and well, and the woman
went about her duties as usual.
When the woman saw Nils again, she renewed her appeals to be allowed to
go to his home with him and become his wife.
“Yes, the matter shall be settled now,” said Nils, consolingly, and
departed for home, ostensibly to fetch his horse, but he went instead
to Kallernäs, on the east shores of the lake, where lived a wise old
man, whom he asked what course to pursue to free himself from the
dilemma. The old man advised him to go home and hitch his horse to the
coal cart, but so harness that no loops should be found in the reins or
harness. Then he should ride over the ice on the back of the horse;
turn at the coal-kiln without pausing; shout to the Troll woman and
children to get into the cart; and drive briskly to the ice again.
The coal burner, following the instructions, harnessed his horse and
saw to it carefully that there was no loop upon the reins or harness,
rode over the ice, up into the woods to the kiln and called to the
woman and her children to jump in, at the same time heading for the ice
and putting his horse to the best possible speed. When he reached the
middle of the lake, he saw, running toward him from the wilderness, a
large pack of wolves, whereupon he let slip the harness from the
shafts, so that the cart and its contents were left standing on the
slippery ice, and rode as fast as the horse could carry him straight to
the other shore. When the Troll saw the wolves she began to call and
beg. “Come back! come back!” she shrieked. “If you will not do it for
my sake, do it for your youngest daughter, Vipa!” But Nils continued
his way toward the shore. Then he heard the Trolls calling one to the
other, “Brother in Harsberg, sister in Stripa, and cousin in
Ringshällen, catch hold of the loops and pull!” “He has no loop,” came
a reply from the depths of Harsberg.
“Catch him at Härkällarn, then.”
“He does not ride in that direction,” came from Ringshällen, and Nils
did not go that way, but over fields, stones and roads straight to his
home, where he had only arrived when the horse fell dead, and a Troll
shot came and tore away the corner of the stable.
Nils, himself, fell ill shortly after, and was confined to his bed many
weeks. When he recovered his health he sold his cabin in the forest,
and cultivated the few acres around his cottage until the end of his
days. Thus the Trolls were once caught napping.