Translator's notes

I have been meaning for ages to resume these translations. Thanks to the wonderful Runeberg project I have found most of the rest of the book online (I still can't find the story about the house elf who forces his master to suicide in order to keep the house in the family). But this one is also fine. The most obvious difficulty for a translator is the names of the supernatural beings. Everything in English sounds too cute. "Kelpy" is, I think, the exact equivalent of näck. But tomte is harder. I have used "elf", but I don't like it, since it means cute, or, worse, Tolkein to me. Rå is just impossible, unless I can find a dialect word. Enough whinging. Here's the first installment.