ich winter never quits its hold. Farther north both come lower,
till the timber-line is at the level of the sea; and all the land is in
that treeless belt called Tundra in the Old World, and Barrens in the
New, and that everywhere is the Home of the Reindeer--the Realm of the
Reindeer-moss.

I

In and out it flew, in and out, over the water and under, as the
Varsimle', the leader doe of the Reindeer herd, walked past on the
vernal banks, and it sang:--

"Skoal! Skoal! Gamle Norge Skoal!" and more about "a White Reindeer and
Norway's good luck," as though the singer were gifted with special
insight.

When old Sveggum built the Vand-dam on the Lower Hoifjeld, just above
the Utrovand, and set his ribesten a-going, he supposed that he was the
owner of it all. But some one was there before him. And in and out of
the spouting stream this some one dashed, and sang songs that he made
up to fit the place and the time. He skipped from skjaeke to skjaeke of
the wheel, and did many things which Sveggum could set down only to
luck--whatever that is; and some said that Sveggum's luck was a
Wheel-troll, a Water-fairy, with a brown coat and a white beard, one
that lived on land or in water, as he pleased.

But most of Sveggum's neighbors saw only a Fossekal, the little
Waterfall Bird that came each year and danced in the stream, or dived
where the pool is deep. And maybe both were right, for some of the very
oldest peasants will tell you that a Fairy-troll may take the form of a
man or the form of a bird. Only this bird lived a life no bird can
live, and sang songs that men never had sung in Norway. Wonderful
vision had he, and sights he saw that man never saw. For the Fieldfare
would build before him, and the Lemming fed its brood under his very
eyes. Eyes were they to see; for the dark speck on Suletind that man
could barely glimpse was a Reindeer, with half-shed coat, to him and
the green slime on the Vandren was beautiful green pasture with a
banquet spread.

Oh, Man is so blind, and makes himself so hated! But Fossekal harmed
none, so none were afraid of him. Only he sang, and his songs were
sometimes mixed with fun and prophecy, or perhaps a little scorn.

From the top of the tassel-birch he could mark the course of the
Vand-dam stream past the Nystuen hamlet to lose itself in the gloomy
waters of Utrovand or by a higher flight he could see across the barren
upland that rolled to Jotunheim in the north.

The great aw