Peter Christen Asbjornsen

Tales from the Fjeld Peter Christen Asbjornsen

We were up on the Fjeld, Edward and I and Anders our guide, in quest of reindeer. How long ago it was we will not ask; for after all it was not so very long ago. How did we get there? Well; if you must know we went up to the head of the Sogne Fjord in a boat, and then we drove up the valley in carioles till we were tired, and then we took to our legs, and, now, about three P. M., we were on the Fjeld making for the Soeter or Shieling, where we were to pass the night. On this our first day, we did not expect to meet deer, so on we plodded over the stony soil slanting across the Fjeld which showed its long shoulder above us, while far off glared the snowy peaks, and the glaciers stooped down to meet the Fjeld, for as the Norse proverb says, if the dale won't come to the mountain, the mountain must meet the dale. On we went, Anders cheering the way by stories of Huldror and Trolls, and running off hither and thither to fetch us Alpine plants and flowers. All at once, in one of these flights which had brought him up to the very edge of the shoulder above us, we saw his tall form stiffen as it were against the sky, and, in another moment, he had fallen flat, beckoning us to come cautiously to him.