don't think it's true, I suppose," she said with a searching look; "but it was my mother's brother, as I told you, and I have heard him tell it and swear to it over a hundred times."
"He lived at Knœ, in Hurdale, and he was often up in the mountain cutting wood and timber, and when he was up there, he used to live there altogether; he built himself a hut of pine branches, and lighted a fire in front of it at night, and there he used to sleep. He and two others were once living thus in the forest. He had just felled a big tree, and sat resting himself on it, when a ball of worsted came rolling down a bare part of the rock right before his feet. He thought it was very strange; he was afraid to pick up the ball. It would have been a good thing for him if he never had touched it. But he looked up the mountain, as he wanted to see where it came from, and on the top of a rock sat a lassie and sewed. She was so fair and so lovely that the air seemed to shine round her.
"Bring me that ball of worsted," she said. He did so, and remained standing near her and looking at her. He thought he never should tire looking at her; she seemed so lovely to him. But he had to take his axe at last and begin cutting trees again. When he had been working away for some time, he looked up, but then she was gone. He could not help thinking of her all day; it seemed very strange to him, and he did not know what to think about it. But when the evening came, and he and his two comrades were going to bed, he wanted to lie between them; but there was not much help in that, I should say, for during the night the huldre came and took him away with her. He had to go, whether he liked or not. So they came into the mountain, where he found everything so splendid that he had never seen anything so grand before, and he never could describe it properly. He was three days with the huldre. The third night he awoke and found himself in bed between his two comrades again. They thought he had been home for provisions, and he told them he had done so. But he was not quite in his right senses afterwards; just as he was sitting down, he would jump up and run away; he was spellbound, I can tell you.
