ter a carouse, beheld a strange sight. A
number of women and children were gathered round a bright fire, and some
were sitting on the ground while others danced. An old woman held a
broad iron shovel in her hand, and every now and then scattered the red
hot cinders over the grass, when the children flew up into the air,
fluttering about like owls in the rising smoke, and then sinking down
again. Then a little old man with a long beard came out of the wood,
carrying a sack longer than himself. The women and children shouted out,
and ran to meet him, dancing round him, and trying to pull the sack off
his back; but the old man shook himself free. After this, a black cat as
large as a foal, which had been sitting on the doorstep glaring with
fiery eyes, leaped upon the old man's sack, and then disappeared in the
cottage. But as the spectator's head ached and everything swam before
his eyes, his report was not clear, and people could not quite
distinguish between the false and the true. It was remarkable that such
stories were repeated about the Wood of Tontla from generation to
generation, without anybody being able to give a more definite account
of it. The King of Sweden more than once ordered the wood to be felled,
but the people did not venture to execute his command. One day a rash
man struck his axe into a tree, when blood flowed, and a cry was heard
as of a man in pain.[136] The terrified woodcutter fled, shaking all
over with fear; and after this, no command was so stringent and no
reward great enough, to induce a woodcutter to touch the wood of Tontla.
It was also very strange that no paths led either into or out of the
wood, and that throughout the year no smoke was seen to rise which might
indicate the presence of human dwellings. The wood was not large, and it
was surrounded by open fields, so that it lay exposed to the view of
all. If living creatures had actually dwelt there from olden times, they
could only get in and out of the wood by secret subterranean passages;
or else they must fly through the air by night, like witches, when all
around were asleep. According to tradition, the latter alternative
seemed the most probable. Perhaps we shall learn more about these
strange birds if we drive on the carriage of the story a little farther,
and rest at the next village.

There was a large village a few versts from the Wood of Tontla, where a
peasant who had lately been left a widower had married a young wife,
an