There was once a boy named Oeyvind who lived in a hut at the foot of a
steep rocky hill. On the roof of the hut walked a little goat. It was
Oeyvind’s own. Oeyvind kept it there so that it should not go astray, and
he carried up leaves and grass to it.
But one fine day the goat leaped down, and away it went up the hill until
it came where it never had been before. When Oeyvind ran out of the hut
after dinner, he missed his little goat and at once thought of the fox.
He looked all about, calling, “Killy-killy-killy-goat!”
“Bay-ay-ay,” said the goat, from the top of the hill, as it cocked its
head on one side and looked down. And at the side of the goat kneeled a
little girl.
“Is it yours, this goat?” she asked.
Oeyvind stared at her, with eyes and mouth wide open, and asked, “Who are
you?”
“I am Marit, mother’s little one, father’s fiddle, grandfather’s elf,
four years old in the autumn, two days after the frost nights.”
“Are you, though?” he said, as soon as he could get his breath.
“Is it yours, this goat?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“I should like it. You will not give it to me?”
“No, that I won’t.”
Marit lay down, kicking her legs and looking up at him, and then she
said, “Not if I give you a butter cake for him?”
Oeyvind had eaten butter cake only once in his life, when his grandfather
came to visit; anything like it he had never eaten before nor since. “Let
me see the butter cake first,” said he.
It didn’t take Marit long to pull out a large cake. “Here it is,” she
said, and threw it down to him.
“Ow, it went to pieces,” said the boy. He gathered up every crumb, and he
couldn’t help tasting a very small one. That was so good he had to eat
another. Before he knew it he had eaten up the whole cake.
“Now the goat is mine,” said the girl, and she laughed and clapped her
hands. The boy stopped with the last bit in his mouth.
“Wait a little while?” he begged, for he loved his little goat.
The small girl got up quickly. “No, the goat is mine,” she said, and
she threw her arms around its neck. She loosened one of her garters and
fastened it round the goat’s neck and began pulling the goat after her.
The goat would not follow: it stretched its neck down to see Oeyvind.
“Bay-ay-ay,” it said. But the girl took hold of its fleece with one hand
and pulled the string with the other, and said, sweetly, “Come, little
goat, you shall go into my room and eat out of my apron.” And then she
sang,
“Come, boy’s goat,
Come, mother’s calf,
Come, mewing cat
In snow-white shoes;
Come, yellow ducks,
Come out of your hiding-place;
Come little chickens,
Who can hardly go;
Come, my doves
With soft feathers;
See, the grass is wet,
But the sun does you good:
And early, early, is it in summer,
But call for the autumn, and it will come.”
And away she went with the goat, calling on all living things she loved
to follow her.
The boy stood still as a stone. He had taken care of the goat since the
winter before, and he had never thought he would lose it. But now it was
gone in a moment and he would never see it again. He lay down and wept.
His mother came along and saw him crying. “What are you crying about?”
she asked.
“Oh, the goat, the goat!”
“Yes, where is the goat?” asked the mother, looking up at the roof.
“It will never come back,” said the boy.
“Why, how could that happen!”
He could not tell her at once.
“Has the fox taken it?”
“No, oh, no.”
“Are your wits gone,” said his mother; “what has become of the goat?”
“Oh-h-h—I sold it for—for—a cake!”
As soon as he had said it he knew what it was to sell the goat for a cake.
“What can the little goat think of you, to sell him for a cake?” said his
mother.
The boy was so sorry that he said to himself he would never again do
anything wrong. He would never cut the thread on the spinning-wheel, he
would never let the goats out of the fold, he would never go down to the
sea alone. He fell asleep where he lay, and he dreamed that the little
goat had gone to heaven and that he sat alone on the roof and could not
go to it.
Suddenly there came something wet close up to his ear. He started up.
“Bay-ay-ay!” it said. It was the little goat come back.
“What, have you come back?” he cried. He jumped up, took it by the
forelegs, and danced with it as if it were a brother. He tickled it and
pulled its beard, and set off with it to the hut to tell his mother the
good news.
Just then he heard someone behind him; it was the little girl.
“Oh, so it was you brought it back?” said he.
“Grandfather would not let me keep it,” said she; “he is waiting near for
me.”
A sharp voice called out, “Now!” It was her grandfather’s, and she
remembered what she was to do. She put one of her muddy hands into
Oeyvind’s and said, “I beg your pardon for taking the little goat.” Then
she could keep in no longer; she threw her arms around the goat’s neck
and wept aloud.
“You may have the goat,” said Oeyvind.
“Make haste,” cried grandfather. So Marit had to go, and Oeyvind had his
little goat again.
—BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON