Johan and the Trolls.1

In Ingeltrop, a parish of North Wedbo, there once lived a farmer who had a servant named Johan. [66]

One day a traveler arrived from Myntorp Inn, and the farmer having been notified that it was his turn to furnish a conveyance for him to the next inn, Johan was sent to the pasture to catch a horse. A halter thrown over his shoulder, he set out, whistling the latest love song. Arriving at the pasture, it was soon clear to him that “Bronte” was in no humor to submit to the halter, and though he now and then allowed himself to be approached, no sooner was the attempt made to lay hold on him than he was off, with head and heels in the air, to a safe distance. Johan persevered, perspiration streaming from his forehead, but in vain. Angered at last, he began to swear in a most ungodly manner, still pursuing the horse until his progress was suddenly checked by a high cliff, to the very base of which he had run before discovering it. Naturally casting his glance upward, as he halted, he saw, sitting upon a crag, a beautiful maiden, apparently combing her hair.

“Are you there, my dear boy?” called the maiden.

Johan, not easily frightened, answered her cheerily:

“Yes, my sweetheart.”

“Come here, then,” called the maiden.

“I can’t,” replied Johan.

“Try, Johan.” And he did, to his astonishment finding a foothold on the smooth cliff where before no unevenness was discoverable, and soon he was at the maiden’s side. She looked at him with great, wondering eyes, then, suddenly enveloping him in a mist, clouded his understanding so that he was no longer master of his movements, and was, in fact, transformed completely from the Johan he had been to a being like [67]his companion. He forgot horse, home, relatives and friends. Half unconscious, he was conducted into the mountain, and was gone from the sight and power of those who would seek him.

“Bronte” was in harness many good days thereafter, and the farmer became the driver, for, as his sons were growing up, he did not wish to hire another servant in Johan’s stead.

One day, many years after Johan’s disappearance, it was again the farmer’s turn to furnish a horse to a traveler. Grumbling at the fate of Johan, he went to the pasture.

“It was too bad for the boy,” said he to himself. “I wonder if he has been caught by the Trolls?” At the same time he chanced to look upward at the cliff where the servant had seen the Troll maiden, and there stood Johan, but with lusterless eyes, staring into vacancy.

“Johan, my dear boy, is that you?” shouted the farmer. “Come down.”

“I can not,” answered Johan, with husky, unnatural voice.

Hereupon the farmer threw his cap to Johan, which the latter picked up and put on his head.

“Come down,” cried the farmer, “before the Trolls come. In the name of the saints, come down.”

“I can’t,” said Johan again.

Then the farmer threw his clothes up, garment after garment, and when Johan had clothed himself in them he received power enough that he was able to crawl down the cliff. His master took him by the [68]hand, and without looking back they hastened home, the farmer repeating:

“Pshaw! you cunning black Trolls! As a stone, I’ll quiet your wicked tongues that they may neither evil think nor speak or do ought against me.”

They arrived home, the one dressed the other naked. The traveler was obliged to procure another horse, for in the house of the farmer the joy was so great that none there had a thought of driving him. Johan was never again the same man as before, but remained gloomy and rarely spoke.

His master asked him many times what his occupation was in the mountain, but upon this subject he was silent. It happened that Johan was taken sick and called for a confessor, to whom, when he confessed his sins, he related also his experience in the mountain. His chief employment, he said, had been to steal food for the Trolls. For this purpose the Trolls put a red hat upon him, when he could, in a very short time, fly to Jönköping through locked doors and into the merchants’ stores, where he took corn, salt, fish and whatever he wished. From the Troll cap he received such power that he could take a sack of rye under each arm and a barrel of fish upon his back, and fly as lightly through the air as with no burden whatever.

“It was wrong of me and hard on the merchants,” said Johan, “but it was the fault of the Trolls. If there were no Trolls in the world the merchants would become rich, but now they must pay tribute, and so are kept on the verge of bankruptcy.” And Johan was done. [69]

1 Before the days of railroads and regularly equipped stage lines, it was the duty, established by law, of the farmers and others owning horses to, in their turn, furnish travelers with means of conveyance from the inn of their neighborhood to the next. Upon the arrival of a traveler at an inn a servant was dispatched to the neighbor whose turn it was, and he was expected to promptly furnish horse, wagon and driver. ↑