Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/385

 Collectanea. 331

things which she was to inherit might be set out in the way, behind the outer door of her home, and she herself would then fetch them. Finally, she bade her mother come on to the hill below the house, the next Wednesday, so that she might get a sight of her bridal procession. The mother did accordingly, and never before had she seen such a fair-looking procession. It consisted of a long row of blue men, riding on blue, fiery horses and adorned in every way with silver belts and chains. At the head rode the bridegroom and bride, and, besides many silver ornaments, they had crowns on their heads. She greeted her mother as she went by, and that was the last time folk saw or heard anything of the " hidden one."

11. One evening, when the owner of Lillefale went out at the door, he saw that the whole farmyard was filled with blue-clothed folk, and he heard all kinds of music being played in the barn. At that time a sickly brother dwelt with him, who leased some land at Faleoien, but when he changed his dwelling the music went with him, and he was at the last attacked with epilepsy.

12. The farm Snova, which lies above the river, was haunted a great deal by huldre4o\k. Once a three-year-old boy, named John, was taken by the underground folk. One day he was playing with some other children in the farmyard, when all of a sudden he was gone. Folk understood that the child must have been taken away to the mountains, and they tried to exorcise it forth by reading from the Gospels, singing psalms, and ringing the church bells — but all in vain. When all this proved of no avail, they tried to call upon the "Evil One" to help them, by oaths and evil speaking. This way was the most effectual, for straightway the child appeared, in the same place and position as when it vanished. Rain had now come, and it was muddy in the farmyard, but the child was absolutely clean and dry. He told how he had been to the abode of the underground folk, and that there he was treated with herring bones and eyes. John grew up afterwardsj and he became an influential man.

13. On the same farm there lay, close to the house, a big stone slide, probably formed by a landslip. Inside this mound there was said to be a secret cavern called Julgjelthaale, which opened out down by the river. Formerly it had belonged to the underground folk, and no one had been able