Just picked up another link, from qB. This is clearly a story that appeals to mothers.
She thought this was a wonderful idea, and said she'd love it. "Get ready as quick as you can!" said her husband. "We'll have to walk, because the horses are out at pasture. But if we take the track over the hill we'll get there soon enough."A little while later, she stood on the threshhold, wearing her finest costume. She felt happier than she had done for years, and she had completely forgotten the changeling. Suddenly she thought of something: "Perhaps my husband is just trying to lure me away, so the servants can kill the changeling while I am out of the way." She hurried into the farmhouse and came back with the sturdy troll child in her arms.
"Can't you leave that thing at home?" asked her husband, but he didn't sound irritated, only kindly. "No, I don't dare leave him", she replied. "Oh well; that's your problem", said her husband, "But you'll find he's too heavy to carry over the hill."
They started on their journey. It was heavy going, for the path ran steeply uphill. They had to climb right to the top before the path set course for the village.
At last the wife had grown so tired that she could hardly move. Again and again she tried to persuade the boy to walk by himself, but he would not.
Her husband was bubbling with good humour and friendlier than he had been since their own child was lost. "Do let me carry the changeling" he said, "for a while,"
"Oh no; I can manage", she replied. "I don't want you to have trouble with the little beast."
"Why should you always be the one to do it?" he asked, and took the child from her.He did this just at the point where their path was hardest. Slippery and slidy, it ran along the side of ravine, so narrow you could not put both feet side by side. The wife walked behind him, and suddenly found she was frightened that somethng would happen to her husband while he hauled the child along. "Careful here!" she called, for he looked as if he were moving far too fast and carelessly. Sure enough, he tripped soon afterwards, and almost dropped the child into the abyss.
"If the child really had fallen, we would have finally been rid of it," she thought. But just at that moment she understood that this was what her husband planned. He wanted to throw the child into the ravine and pretend afterwards that it had been an accident. "Oh well," she thought, "That's it, then. He has arranged all this to rid the world of the changeling without my seeing that it was deliberate. Yes, the best thing would really be to let him do what he wants."
That, I'm afraid, is it for the next ten days. I'm going fishing in the Norwegian forests, more or less where this story was set in fact. I hadn't planned to leave on such a cliffhanger, but there really isn't time for more.
I have been away from the blog for a fortnight, which is why this page appears blank. I will finish translating the story soon, but for the moment am snowed under. While I was in Norway, I read a lot more from the book of short stories where the Changeling is found,. There's clearly a project to translate others: "The water from Church Bay", for example, about a fisherman who has a deal with the water spirits, and the priest who tries to cure him of his superstition. But for the moment, there is a brief hiatus. Once that's done. I'll fix the layout, too, so things are easier to read when posted over a long period. That is harder than simple translation. In the mean time I have cleaned up the archive for July, which had all the work I've done so far.
Her husband stumbled over another stone: once more the baby nearly slipped from his arms. "Give me the child! You'll fall with it." she called. "No: I'll be careful enough."Just then, he stumbled for the third time. He grabbed for a branch with both hands and the child fell. His wife was walking right behind him, and even though she had just told herself that it would be best to lose the changeling, she stuck out her hand, caught a patch of the troll child's clothes, and pulled him back onto the path.
Her husband turned to her then. His face was hideous now, completely changed. "You weren't so agile when you let our own child drop in the forest", he said angrily.
She could not speak. She was so crushed by the discovery that his kindliness had all been assumed that she started to cry. "Why are you snivelling?" he asked. "It wouldn't have been a catastrophe if I had let the changeling fall. Come on. We'll be late otherwise."
"I don't want to go to the market any more."
"No. Me neither", said the man, and they turned back, in silent agreement.Walking home, he asked himself how much longer he could stand his wife. If he were now to use his greater strength and rip the child away from her, everything might start to get better, he thought. He was just ready to take the stride that would bring him close enough when he saw how she was looking at him, troubled and fearful. He mastered himself once more, for her sake, and the moment passed.
Two more years passed: then, on a summer's night the farmstead burst into flames. The main room and the sleeping quarters were full of smoke, and the attic was a sea of flame before everyone was fully awake. There was no time to think of fighting the fire; no time to rescue anything. There was only a moment to rush outside before being burned to death.
One of the first out was the farmer, who stood in the yard, watching his house burn. "There's just one thing I'd like to know", he said: "I'd love to know who has brought this disaster on my head".
"If only he's burned alive inside there," said the farmer, "It would be worth it to see my farm go up in flames." Just as he said this, his wife ran from the flames, dragging the child behind her. At this, he ran up to them, snatched the changeling away, held him high up for a moment, and then pitched him back into the burning building.
"Who else but the changeling?" asked a farmhand. "He's been playing with sticks and straw and lighting little fires, inside and outside now, for months."
"Yesterday he built a pyre of dry twigs in the attic" said a maid, "and he was just about to set light to them when I caught him at it."
"He'll have lit it this evening instead" said the farmhand. "you can be sure that he is the man to thank for all this."
At that moment the fire burst through the windows and the roof. The heat was terrible. For a moment the wife was pale as a corpse with horror, staring at her husband; then she turned and ran into the flames after the child."Burn up yourself! Why don't you?" Her husband shouted after her. But she returned, and she had the changeling with her. Her hands were dreadfully burnt and her hair had almost all been singed away. No one said anything to her at all. She walked away to the well, quenched a couple of embers that were glowing on her skirt, and sat with her back to the dry stone rim of the well. The troll child lay in her lap and soon fell asleep, but she stayed sitting, upright, awake, looking sorrowfully ahead. All sorts of people hurried past her, towards the burning house or away from it. None spoke with her. All seemed to find her so terrible and frightening that they could not bear to be close to her.
When dawn at last came, the farmhouse had burned to the ground; her husband came up to her. "I can't stand any more." he said. "You know that I don't want to leave you, but I can't bear living with a troll a moment longer. I'm going now. I'm never coming back."
When she heard these words and saw him turn away from her and start walking heavily, she felt something tug and then tear inside her. She wanted to run after him, but the troll child lay heavy on her lap. She hadn't the strength to shake it off. She sat still as she was.
The farmer set off straight up the hillside into the forest, thinking as he did so that this was the last time he would walk that path. But he had not gone very far when a young lad came running towards him. He was fine and graceful as a sapling. His hair was soft as silk and his eyes were bright as steel. "Oh, that's how my son would have looked, if only I had been allowed to keep him", said the farmer. "That's what my heir should have been: not that black monster which my wife brought back to the farm.""Well met in the forest!" he greeted him. "Where are you going?"
The farmer felt his eyes grow heavy with tears of delight. "Yes, stay, " he cried. "Stay with me" ? and he picked up his son and lifted him high i the air. He was so frightened of losing him once more that he would not put him down again, but walked on, holding him close to his chest.
"Well met indeed" said the child. "If you can guess who I am, you will learn where I'm going."
But when the farmer heard the voice, it was his turn to grow pale. "You speak as the men of my clan do", he said, "And if my son were not away with the trolls, I would say that you were --"
"Yes, yes. You've guessed right!" said the boy, and laughed out loud. "And since you've guessed right who I am, I will tell you where I'm going. I'm going to my mother."
"Oh, don't go to your mother!" said the farmer: "She doesn't care for you or me. She has no heart for anyone but the great black troll child."
"Do you really mean that, father?" asked the boy. He looked his father deep in the eye. "Then perhaps I should stay with you now."
After a few steps, the boy started to talk to him. "It's a good thing you don't carry me as badly as you carried the changeling" he said. "What do you mean?"
"Well, the troll woman was walking on the other side of the ravine with me in her arms; every time you stumbled and almost dropped the changeling, she stumbled and she almost fell with me."
"What are you saying?" Were you walking on the other side of the ravine?" asked the farmer, and grew thoughtful.
"I've never been so frightened in my life" said the boy. "When you threw the changeling into the ravine, the troll woman wanted to throw me after. If mother hadn't ..."The farmer began to walk more slowly, while he questioned the boy. "Tell me how you were treated with the trolls."
"Sometimes it was hard." said the little boy. "But so long as mother was kind to the troll child, the troll woman was gentle with me.""Did she beat you?" asked the farmer.
"She never beat me more than you beat her child."
"What were you given to eat?"
"Each time that mother gave the troll child frogs and mice, I was fed with butter and bread. But every time you offered the troll child bread and meat, the troll woman offered me snakes and thistles. The first week, I almost starved to death. If mother hadn't — "When the child said this, the farmer turned on his heel and started to walk briskly back to the valley. "I don't know how it's happened, but you smell of smoke and fire."
The farmer now was almost running back down the hill, but a thought pulled him up short. "Now you must tell me why the trolls have freed you", he said.
"Well, that's not surprising", said the child. "I was thrown into the fire last night, as you threw the troll child into the burning farmhouse. If mother hadn't — "
"At the moment when mother offered something worth more than her own life, they lost their power over me, and must release me" said the boy.
"What did she sacrifice, that she loved more than life itself?" asked the farmer. "She did that when she let you go, so that she could save the troll child." answered the boy.
The farmer's wife still sat in her place by the well. She had not slept; she felt she had been turned to stone. She could not move, and she took as little notice of all that happened round her as if she really had been dead. Then she heard her husband's voice calling her name from very far away. Her heart began to move once more. Life returned. She opened her eyes, and looked around her, as if she were drunk with sleep. It was full day. The sun shone; the lark sang: it seemed impossible that even this wonderful day must drag along its burden of unhappiness. But all around her lay the charred timbers of her home, and a crowd of people with blackened hands and sweaty faces. Then she knew that she had woken to a life even worse than the old one had been; yet somehow she felt that all her suffering had ended. She looked around for the changeling. He wasn't on her lap, nor was he anywhere close by. In the old days, she would have rushed to her feet and looked for him but now she felt, somehow, this didn't matter.Again, she heard her husband calling her from the direction of the woods. He came down the narrow path to the farm and all the neighbours who had come to help fight the fire ran towards him and surrounded him, so she couldn't see him at all. She could only hear him calling her name, over and over again, as if he wanted her to rush to meet him with the others.
The voice that called her was filled with a huge joy, but she stayed sitting, quite still. She did not dare to move. Finally the crowd was all around her, and her husband appeared from among them. He walked forward and laid a fine child in her arms.
"Here is our son, who has returned to us," he said, "and it is you, and you alone, who rescued him."
who, in an act of heroic pedantry, sent me a three page email full of typos that had crept -- in some cases, bounded, barking and wagging their tails -- into the translation. All fixed now, I think.