Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 4).djvu/320

 GUDBRAND GLESNË.

"There was a hunter in the West-Hills," said Thor Ulvsvolden, "called Gudbrand Glesnë. He was married to the grandmother of the lad you saw at the sæter yesterday evening, and a first-rate hunter they say he was. One autumn he came across a huge buck. He shot at it, and from the way it fell he couldn't tell but that it was stone dead. So he went up to it, and, as one often does, seated himself astride on its back, and was just drawing his knife to cleave the neck-bone from the skull. But no sooner had he sat down than up it jumped, threw its horns back, and jammed him down between them, so that he was fixed as in an arm-chair. Then it rushed away; for the bullet had only grazed the beast's head, so that it had fallen in a swoon. Never any man had such a ride as that Gudbrand had. Away they went in the teeth of the wind, over the ugliest glaciers and moraines. Then the beast dashed along the Gjende-edge; and now Gudbrand prayed to the Lord, for he thought he would never see sun or moon again. But at last the reindeer took to the water and swam straight across with the hunter on its back. By this time he had got his knife drawn, and the moment the buck set foot on shore, he plunged it into its neck, and it dropped dead. But you may be sure Gudbrand Glesnë wouldn't have taken that ride again, not for all the riches in the world.

"I have heard a story like that in England, about a deer-stalker that became a deer-rider," said Sir Tottenbroom.