Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/366

 314 Collectanea.

and Oxendal Records "), written by Pastor Chr. Gliikstad. This little volume of 122 pages was published by P. T. Mailings Bog- handel, Kristiania, about twenty years ago, and Pastor Gliikstad died some years ago. It consists chiefly of a topographical account, and list and history of the homesteads, of the valley of the river Driva, which rises in the Dovrefjeld mountains and enters the sea a little to the north of Molde, but on pp. 91-101 there is a chapter on gam le sktkke or old customs, followed on pp. 103-22 by sagn cm huldrefolket, gjengangere og desl. or sagas of the huldre-io\k, ghosts, etc. As the book, which contains many local dialect words, is mainly of parochial interest, it seems to be unknown to most Scandinavian folklorists, and not to have been previously translated. Some of the customs and incidents are unfamiliar, or at least localized variants of items already recorded from other districts, and are sufficiently interesting, I hope, to justify this translation. The dalesfolk regard the book as a full account of their local practices and stories, as, when I have asked them about such matters, they have generally referred me to it, saying that "the best there is to tell is written in it." With the exception of a few English people who visit the valley for its fishing, the dalesfolk seldom see any strangers, and I am told that their dialect shows signs of the isolation of the valley.

The river Driva rushes first through Opdal, the upper valley, and then through Sundal to the fjord. Oxendal is a valley to the north of the Sundal fjord, and forming with Sundal a single parish. Sundal is about 25 miles long, and very narrow, with a precipitous wall of mountain on each side. Plate XX. gives a view from above Upper Nesja farm, looking down the valley towards the fjord. The high land on the north, or right hand, is known as Troldheim, or the home of the trolls, and a cave is shown in it into which the huldre are said to have entered, coming out afterwards in Opdal. In some places the river nearly fills the valley, but generally there is a narrow strip of fertile soil on each side on which are placed the homesteads. There are 26 homesteads in all (as well as four or five mountain farmsteads), built of logs, and usually with grass roofs. The homestead of Ovre Nesja, in the foreground of the illustration, is that mentioned in the story of The Birkestol Bob, and also in Nos. 9 and 13 in the section