THE LAPLANDER’S HUT
Before them, where the road led up the northern river-bank, already
clear of snow, there was apparently a forest of dry gray branches. A
forest that moved slowly forward.
Lapp-Mattes gave an echoing cry: a strange, penetrating shriek as if
from the throat and the palate together. One who had never heard such
a sound before would have thought that Mattes yelled forth sounds and
words without meaning.
But the Barren Moor children knew so much of the Lapps’ ways as to
understand that Mattes now, in a song made up on the spur of the
moment, greeted his wife, children, and helpers. Then he told about the
children so that those in the tent knew of their fate long before they
had reached the herd.
‘Deer ran all day,’ sang Mattes. ‘Find little Swedish children beside
frozen water; afraid of Lapp; glad when they see it is Mattes from Bear
Mountain. They share Lapp’s food, lie in Lapp’s tent. They are alone,
no father, no mother.’
Little Nerlja strapped on his skiis as soon as he saw the forest of
horns. Swift as an arrow, like a hunted sea-fowl, he flew over the ice.
Those following soon heard the barking of the watchdogs, as they ran
about the herd, composed of nearly a thousand deer, to gather them
together for the night.
The Lapps were going to put up their tents beside the river, on this
side of the big village the children had seen from the other bank. It
was hard work for both dogs and Lapps to get the often unruly animals
up through the narrow pass from the river to the plain.
Mattes bore off on his skiis to help.
Magnus, Maglena, yes, even Andy, walked as if asleep, dragging their
feet after them. They scarcely rallied when a little one-year-old
Mattes met them on the road, tumbling about in the snow as naked as
when he was born.
Sigri, his little sister, had much difficulty in capturing him and
getting him into the tent.
The Lapp mother, Cecilia, was more sure of herself. She took the
kicking boy, stuffed him into the ‘klubb’ (a long cradle of skin which
can be carried on the back), into the fine deerskin bed which lined it,
and bound the soft cover of skin fast about his waist and little body,
wriggling with life and mischief.
The mother hung up the cradle by means of leather bands to a slender
tree-trunk which was fastened to the ceiling. Sigri rocked the cradle
and sang the Lapps’ wild, deafening cradle-song to little Mattes, who
became quiet, listened, and fell asleep.
The poor, tired little wanderers threw themselves down on the
deerskins that lay like a carpet around the fire in the middle of the
tent. They were awakened to drink the strong coffee which was given
them.
Neither coffee nor anything else could open Magnus’s eyes. But it was
remarkable how wide awake Andy and Maglena became after the coffee.
They suddenly felt hunger, and how unbelievably good the reindeer meat
tasted with the coarse bread. Even the strong black soup of deer’s
blood tasted good. But the reindeer milk which was offered them in a
beautiful carved bowl, made of one single piece of wood, they refused
with thanks. It is strong and bitter for those who are not used to it.
To them, goats’ milk tasted much better.
Golden Horn, whose rich supply of milk was offered to the Lapp
household, climbed neatly over the skins and lay down comfortably on
the farthest tent-skin. Magnus still slept like a boy of stone. And
yet there was the worst kind of clamor outside of the tent. The Lapps
yelled and hallooed when they threw the lasso over the horns of the
reindeer cows that were to be milked. The cows resisted with all four
feet braced in the snow slush and bare tussocks, but were pulled out in
spite of themselves and held by the Lapps while the girls milked into
small wooden bowls.
The cows and calves stared wonderingly at Andy and Maglena, who, hand
in hand with Sigri, wandered about in the huge herd.
The Lapps walked safely among the reindeer bulls, who fought and
charged each other with horns which finally became entangled, and among
the lassoes which flew about their ears.
The ever-watchful Lapp dogs would suddenly see a deer who, unnoticed,
wanted to get away to better pasture, and would dart after him straight
through the herd. Then one had to keep out of the way if one did not
want to be knocked down.
The strange, soft, yet wild, language sounded on all sides. The Lapps
chattered, they pointed at the herd with vehement gestures, they yelled
in order to make themselves heard. The reindeer bulls were to be
captured and tamed for draught oxen. Little calves on wobbly legs must
be looked after. Animals must be selected for slaughter.
The women talked caressingly, half singing, to the cows they milked; or
they sat on their heels with a new little calf, soft as silk, on their
knees. They fondled and caressed it, while the reindeer mother stood
beside them and looked on with tenderness in the big moist black eyes.
Andy and Maglena became dizzy. They became part of the life, the funny
sounds, the somehow gay bustle.
The forest of horns thinned. One pair of branches after the other sank
down in the standing herd. More and more disappeared. Soon the whole
herd was at rest for the night.
The Lapp dogs, who had been fed in the tent, slept there in the
warmth, as Lapp dogs always sleep, with closed eyes, but with ears
alert for the least sign of a wolf.
Mattes came into the tent with his elder sons and a servant. Cecilia
had food and coffee ready for them. The women-folk of the family and
the maids followed soon after, hungry and tired; but not so tired that
they could not keep up a jolly clamor in the tent.
The men smoked short clay pipes; the older women too. They drank strong
black coffee and told stories of their adventures: about the old wolf
that no one could shoot; that was enchanted and that therefore neither
shot nor spear could wound.
And they talked in whispers about what Mattes had ‘seen’ when he stood
at the sacrificial stone on midsummer night. He had seen everything
that was to happen in the country in the next year. He could foretell
peace, war, or pestilence, a good year or a poor. He had followed the
angel of death in his Vision. If he ‘wished,’ Mattes could say whether
the angel of death would take more old or more young people during the
next year.
All this talk in the Lapp language Sigri translated for Andy and
Maglena. She probably added a little too, and saw to it that it all
became a little more uncanny.
Here among the Lapps one heard nothing of brownies and fairies. But
about goblins and bewitched Swedes who had to obey and follow a Lapp
because they had been insolent to him; and about goblin drums and
‘sacrifice’ and dangers up in the deserted mountain country, with
‘death’ who shrieked and wailed out on the marshes all night long.
Strange that a person can grow sleepy during such talk. But they who
were sleepy were Andy and Maglena. They had thrown off wet shoes and
outer clothes, and now they curled up on the skin beside Sigri and
little Lisa.
Outside slept the herd of deer. Thousands of lives and yet a soundless
quiet. Over it all shone spring’s gently smiling heaven of stars, just
as it had shone over the homeless children’s green cottage in the woods
the night before.