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Somebody has the benefit of them, whether it be the demon or not." "Who else should it be?" asked Stiorna. "There is not a man, woman, or child, on any seater in Sulitelma, who would touch a cheese laid out for the mountain-demon." "Perhaps not. I never watched, to see what happens when the Gammel cheese is left alone. I only say I do not grudge our cheese, as somebody has it.
Presently after, they came in sight of a settlement of Lapps, a cluster of low and dirty tents, round which some tame reindeer were feeding. Erica was not sorry to see these; though no one knew better than she the helpless cowardice of these people; and it was not easy to say what assistance they could afford against the mountain-demon.
Erica will die of terror at you for the mountain-demon, before you can persuade her it is only you."
And in the whirl of the waltz she tried to forget the last words Rolf had spoken; but they rang in her ears; and before her eyes were images of Nipen overhearing this defiance, and the Water-sprite planning vengeance in its palace under the ice, and the Mountain-Demon laughing in scorn, till the echoes shouted again, and the Wood-Demon waiting only for summer to see how he could beguile the rash lover.
Besides what everybody knows who lives in the rural districts of Norway, about Nipen, the spirit that is always so busy after everybody's affairs, about the Water-sprite, an acquaintance of every one who lives beside a river or lake, and about the Mountain-Demon, familiar to all who lived so near Sulitelma; besides these common spirits, the girls used to hear of a multitude of others from old Peder, the blind houseman, and from all the farm-people, down to Oddo, the herd-boy.
I should be freer if I were rooted like a tree, and without superstition, than if I had the wings of an eagle, with a belief in selfish demons." "Let us talk of something else," said Erica, who was at the very moment considering where the mountain-demon would best like to have his Gammel cheese laid. "What is the quality of the cream, Frolich? Is it as good as it ought to be?"
Though wishing to be alone, she had not dreamed of being afraid till now: but now it occurred to her that she was seeing the rarest of sights one not seen twice in a century; no other than the mountain-demon. Sulitelma, as the highest mountain in Norway, was thought to be his favourite haunt; and considering his strange appearance, and his silence, it could hardly be other than himself.
'By good fortune, he says, 'we were at Constance without anything to do, and it occurred to us to go to the monastery about twenty miles off to see the place where the Quintilian was shut up. The Abbey had been founded by the Irish missionaries who destroyed the idols of Suabia, when according to the ancient legend the mountain-demon vainly called on the spirit of the lake to join in resisting the foe.
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