Page:Round the Yule Log.djvu/106

82 must tell us what you know. My friend here is mad after such stories."

"Ah, indeed! Well, I don't mind; but for my part I don't believe a word of them," Peter assured us, and commenced:

"South of Holleia, there are two mountains — they call them the 'Big-peak' and the 'Little-peak' — there where you are sitting you can still see a little of the same range of mountains! There are a great many old workings over there, and there is any amount of gold and silver in those mountains, in fact, they say there's no end to the riches there. But it is not an easy job to get at them, for an old witch lives in those peaks. She owns it all, and she broods on it like a dragon — that's what they say, anyhow. She is much richer than the king of Kongsberg, for once, when the miners had dug out such a fearful lot of silver ore, the king went into the mine and said to the people:

"'Well, I cannot stand this much longer! If you go on at this rate I shall be a poor man. You will ruin me entirely. Why don't you go over to my sister, Guri, in the Holleia-peaks? She is ten times richer than I.'"

"Guri must be a sister to the Egeberg king, then?" I remarked

"The Egeberg king! Who's he?" asked Peter. "He is from Christiania, perhaps?"

I told him the legend of the Egeberg king, and how he in 1814 had to move to his brother in Kongsberg, as he could not stand all the noise and mining going on in his mountain.

"Ah well, he must be a brother to the witch I am speaking about," added Peter in good faith. "I also have heard tell of one who had to move because he couldn't stand the noise. But he lived in these parts. Whether he was the husband of this Guri, or somebody else, I don't know, but he was one of those who lived in the mountain here and had a lot of riches. But this is how it happened! Just about the time they were beginning to mine in the Skaugs moors, there lived a woman called Rönnau Skaugen, over by the brook between Sognedale and Tyristrand. One morning early, when she was standing by the brook rinsing some clothes, she saw such a lot of silver things in the water —