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Updated: May 23, 2025
Hence, he says, "Bjarki was told that it had killed the herdsmen's dogs; it was not much used to contending with men." This statement must, therefore, mean, if it means anything, that the bear was not really dangerous to men or, at any rate, not as dangerous as one would naturally suppose.
Here and there amid these vast solitudes is seen a white glittering thread breaking the dark masses of shelving rock, mountain torrent falling into the river from a height of several hundred feet. Few and far between are the herdsmen's chalets and scattered cornfields and meadows, and we have the excellent carriage road to ourselves.
From day to day he led his herd deeper into the forests, and further a-field; for he wished to escape the observation of every eye. Sometimes, indeed, he did not bring them back to the herdsmen's enclosure above once in a week.
As flies that swarm in the spring when the herdsmen's milk-pails are full, so did the Greeks throng to battle, unnumbered as the leaves and the flowers upon which they trod in the flowery plain by the banks of the river Scamander. To meet the great Greek host came the men of Troy.
There seems to be hardly a village in the plain; and the only buildings we see for miles are the herdsmen's houses of stone, flat-roofed, dark inside, and uninviting in their appearance, and the great cattle-pens, the corrals, which seem absurdly too large for the herds that we have yet seen; but in two or three months there will be rain, the ground will be covered with rank grass, the corrals will be crowded with cattle every evening; the mirage will depart when real water comes, dust and sand-pillars will be no longer to be seen, and all the nine horses and mules of the diligence-team, floundering, splashing, and kicking, will hardly keep the heavy coach from settling down inextricably in the mire.
On both sides we see many-tinted foliage in abundance: the shimmering white satin-leaved aspen, the dark rich alder, the glossy walnut, yellowing chestnut, and many others. Few and far between are herdsmen's cottages, now perched on the rock, now built close to the water's edge.
Every detail connected with the astonishing episode, from beginning to end, was romantic even when it was most productive of realistic results. When it is related, it always begins with the story of the tall and kingly Samavian youth who walked out of the palace in the early morning sunshine singing the herdsmen's song of beauty of old days.
"What! in the midst of the forest?" "Yes, in the midst of the forest, where, for weeks at a stretch, the herdsman hears no other human voice than his own thrown back to him by the echoes. The seducer in this case is Fatia Negra." "Then he must dwell hard by." "None knows his abiding dwelling, but his temporary resting places among the high Alps are these herdsmen's lonely huts.
If you meet a peasant on the road he says, "God greet you!" if you give a child a couple of kreuzers he folds his hands and says, "God reward you!" and the maid who lights you to bed says, "Goodnight, I hope you will sleep well!" Two hours more of walking brought us through Ausser-gschloss and Inner-gschloss, two groups of herdsmen's huts, tenanted only in summer, at the head of the Tauernthal.
This is still another harking back to the Hrólfssaga, and confirms what has been said on pp. 29 ff., that the monster in the saga is a cattle-attacking monster, not a hall-attacking monster. "The folds were attacked," "it had killed the herdsmen's dogs," "it was not much used to contending with men." The fact that dogs are here said to be killed, but not in the saga, need hardly be mentioned.
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