another little bit in our line. But for the main banquet the guests are very select. We are only inviting the absolutely most distinguished. I have argued with the elf king about this because I’m of the opinion that we can’t even let ghosts attend. The merman and his daughters have to be invited first. They aren’t crazy about coming onto dry land, but each of them will have a wet rock or better to sit on, so I don’t think they’ll refuse this time. We must have all the old trolls of the highest rank with tails, the river sprite, and the pixies. And I don’t think we can exclude the grave-hog, the hell-horse, or the church-shadow. Strictly speaking they belong to the clergy, not our people, but it’s just their jobs after all, and they are close relatives and visit us often.”
“Suuuper!” croaked the nightjar and flew away to issue invitations.
The elf maidens were already dancing on the elf hill, and they danced in long shawls woven from mist and moonlight, which is lovely for those who enjoy this type of thing. Way inside the middle of the elf hill the big hall had been fixed up. The floor had been washed with moonlight, and the walls were polished with witches’ wax, so they shone like tulip petals in the light. The kitchen was full of frogs on the spit, little children’s fingers rolled in grass snake skins, and salads of mushroom seeds, wet snouts of mouse, and hemlock. There was beer from the bog woman’s brewery, and saltpeter wine from the tomb cellar. It was hearty fare. Desert was rusted-nail hard candy, and church window glass tidbits.
The old elf king had his golden crown polished in slate pencil powder. It was deluxe powder, from the smartest boy’s pencil, and it’s very hard for the elf king to get hold of that. They hung up curtains in the bedroom and fastened them up with snake spit. Yes, there was quite a hustle and bustle!
“Now we’ll fumigate with curled horsehair and pig bristles, and then I think my share of the work will be done,” said the old elf maid.
“Dear daddy,” said the smallest daughter, “Won’t you tell who the distinguished guests are?”
“Well,” he said, “I guess I must tell you. Two of you daughters must prepare to get married—because two of you are going to get married. The troll king from Norway—the one who lives in the Dovre mountain and has many granite mountain castles and a gold mine that’s worth more than people think1—is coming with his two boys. Each of them is looking for a wife. The troll king is one of those down-to-earth, honest old Norwegian fellows, cheerful and straightforward. I know him from the old days when we were on familiar terms with each other. He had come down here for a wife. She is dead now. She was the daughter of the chalk cliff king from Moen.2 You could say she was chalked up to be his wife. Oh, how I’m looking forward to seeing him! They say that his boys are a couple of bratty conceited fellows, but that may not be true, and the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. They’ll straighten out when they get older. You girls will whip them into shape!”
“When are they coming?” one daughter asked.
“It depends on the wind and weather,” the elf king said. “They are traveling by the cheapest method and will come when they can obtain passage on a ship. I wanted them to come by way of Sweden, but the old fellow wouldn’t think of it! He doesn’t keep up with the times, and I don’t like that!”3
Just then two will-o’-the-wisps came hopping, one faster than the other, and so one came first.
“They’re coming! They’re coming!” they shouted.
“Give me my crown, and I’ll go stand in the moonlight!” said the elf king.
His daughters lifted their long shawls and curtsied right down to the ground.
There was the troll king from Dovre with a crown of stiff icicles and polished pinecones. In addition he was wearing a bearskin coat and sleigh boots. In contrast his sons were bare-necked and weren’t wearing suspenders because they were strapping fellows.
“Is that a hill?” the smallest of the boys asked and pointed at the elf hill. “We’d call it a hole up in Norway.”
“Boys!” said their father. “Holes go inward, hills go upward. Don’t you have eyes in your heads?”
The only thing that surprised them here, they said, was that they could understand the language right away!
“Don’t carry on now!” said the old king, “one would think you’re still wet behind the ears.”
Then they went into the elf hill, where there really was a fine company assembled. They had been gathered in such haste that you would think they had been blown together. It was just lovely and neatly arranged for everyone. The sea folks sat at the table in big vats of water and said that they felt right at home. All of them had good table manners except the two young Norwegian trolls. They put their feet up on the table, but then they thought that everything they did was becoming.
“Feet out of the food!” said the old troll, and they obeyed him but not right away. They tickled the elf maidens next to them with pinecones that they had in their pockets, and then they took their boots off to be comfortable and gave them to the elf maidens to hold. But their father, the old Dovre troll, was completely different. He told lovely stories about the glorious Norwegian mountains, and about the waterfalls that rushed down in white foam with a roar like thunder and organ music. He told about the salmon that jumped up the rushing waters when the water sprite played its gold harp. He told about the glistening winter nights when the sleigh bells rang out, and the lads ran with burning torches over the shiny ice that was so transparent that they could see the fish swim away in fright underneath their feet. He could tell stories so that you could see and hear what he talked about: it was as if the sawmills were going, as if the boys and girls sang folksongs and danced the hailing. Suddenly the old troll gave the old elf maiden a hearty familial smack—it was a real kiss—and they weren’t even related!
Then the elf maidens had to dance, and they danced both slowly and the tramping dance, and it suited them very well. Then they did the hardest dance, the one that’s called “stepping out of the dance.” Oh my! How they kicked up their legs. You couldn’t tell what was the beginning or what was the end. You couldn’t tell arms from legs. They swirled around each other like sawdust, and then they twirled around so that the hell-horse got sick and had to leave the table.
“Prrrr ... they can surely shake a leg,” said the troll king, “but what else can they do besides dance, do high kicks, and make whirlwinds?”
“You’ll see,” said the elf king, and he called his youngest daughter forward. She was very slender and as clear as moonlight. She was the most delicate of all the sisters. She put a white twig in her mouth, and then she
