“He picked his way, with much circumspection, between the prostrate forms of the tiny people.”
T. G. J. Vol. I., p. 233.
THE OXONIAN
IN
THELEMARKEN;
OR,
NOTES OF TRAVEL IN SOUTH-WESTERN NORWAY
IN THE SUMMERS OF 1856 AND 1857.
WITH GLANCES AT THE LEGENDARY LORE
OF THAT DISTRICT.
BY
THE REV. FREDERICK METCALFE, M.A.,
FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD,
AUTHOR OF
“THE OXONIAN IN NORWAY.”
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1858.
[The right of Translation is reserved.]
LONDON:
SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN
PREFACE.
In the neighbourhood of Bayeux, in Normandy, itis said that there still lingers a superstition whichmost probably came there originally in the same shipas Rollo the Walker. The country folks believe inthe existence of a sprite (goubelin) who plaguesmankind in various ways. His most favouritemethod of annoyance is to stand like a horsesaddled and bridled by the roadside, inviting thepassers-by to mount him. But woe to the unluckywight who yields to the temptation, foroff he sets—“Halloo! halloo! and hark away!”galloping fearfully over stock and stone, and notunfrequently ends by leaving his rider in a bog orhorse-pond, at the same time vanishing with aloud peal of mocking laughter. “A heathenish andgross superstition!” exclaims friend Broadbrim.But what if we try to extract a jewel out of this[iv]ugly monster; knock some commonsense out of hishead. Goethe turned the old fancy of Der getreueEckart to good account in that way. What if amoral of various application underlies this grotesquelegend. Suppose, for the nonce, that therider typify the writer of a book. Unable to resista strong temptation to bestride the Pegasus of hisimagination—whether prose or verse—he venturesto mount and go forth into the world, and notseldom he gets a fall for his pains amid a loudchorus of scoffs and jeers. Indeed, this is so commona catastrophe, from the days of Bellerophondownwards (everybody knows that he was theauthor of the Letters[1] that go by his name), soprone is inkshed to lead to disaster, that theancient wish, “Oh that mine adversary had writtena book,” in