e authority of
this declaration we are called on to believe that the event recorded
actually happened in the year 1660. Peter Rahm alleges that he and his
wife were at their farm one evening late when there came a little man,
swart of face and clad in grey, who begged the declarant's wife to come
and help his wife then in labour. The declarant, seeing that they had to
do with a Troll, prayed over his wife, blessed her, and bade her in
God's name go with the stranger. She seemed to be borne along by the
wind. After her task was accomplished she, like the clergyman's wife
just mentioned, refused the food offered her, and was borne home in the
same manner as she had come. The next day she found on a shelf in the
sitting-room a heap of old silver pieces and clippings, which it is to
be supposed the Troll had brought her.[16]

Apart from the need of human aid, common to all the legends with which
we are dealing, the two points emphasized by these Swedish tales are the
midwife's refusal of food and the gratitude of the Troll. In a Swabian
story the Earthman, as he is called, apologizes for omitting to offer
food. In this case the midwife was afraid to go alone with her summoner,
and begged that her husband might accompany her. This was permitted; and
the Earthman showed them the way through the forest with his lantern,
for it was of course night. They came first to a moss door, then to a
wooden door, and lastly to a door of shining metal, whence a staircase
went down into the earth, and led them into a large and splendid chamber
where the Earthwife lay. When the object of their visit was accomplished
the Earthman thanked the woman much, and said: "You do not relish our
meat and drink, wherefore I will bestow something else upon thee." With
these words he gave her a whole apronful of black coals, and taking his
lantern again he lighted the midwife and her husband home. On the way
home she slily threw away one coal after another. The Earthman said
nothing until he was about to take his leave, when he observed merely:
"The less you scattered the more you might have." After he had gone the
woman's husband remonstrated with her, bidding her keep the coals, for
the Earthman appeared in earnest with his gift. When they reached home,
however, she shook out her apron on the hearth, and behold! instead of
coals, glittering true gold pieces. The woman now sought eagerly enough
after the coals she had thrown away, but she found them not.[