Then the whole party seated themselves on a large hill; the girls in a circle, and Godfather in the middle. The sun was scorching hot, but they did not care the least for it, but sat cracking nuts, giving Godfather the kernels, and throwing the shells and husks at each other. Godfather 'sh 'shed at them, and, as far as he could reach, beat them with his stick; for he wanted to make them be quiet and tell tales. But to stop their noise seemed just about as easy as to stop a carriage running down a hill. Godfather began to tell a tale, however. At first many of them would not listen; they knew his stories already; but soon they all listened attentively; and before they thought of it, they set off tale-telling themselves at full gallop. Though they had just been so noisy, their tales, to Arne's great surprise, were very earnest: they ran principally upon love.
"You, Aasa, know a good tale, I remember from last year," said Godfather, turning to a plump girl with a round, good-natured face, who sat plaiting the hair of a younger sister, whose head lay in her lap.
"But perhaps several know it already," answered Aasa.
"Very well, I'll tell it without any more persuading," she answered; and then, plaiting her sister's hair all the while, she told and sang:--
"There was once a grown-up lad who tended cattle, and who often drove them upwards near a broad stream. On one side was a high steep cliff, jutting out so far over the stream that when he was upon it he could talk to any one on the opposite side; and all day he could see a girl over there tending cattle, but he couldn't go to her.
'Now, tell me thy name, thou girl that art sitting Up there with thy sheep, so busily knitting,'
he asked over and over for many days, till one day at last there came an answer:--
'My name floats about like a duck in wet weather; Come over, thou boy in the cap of brown leather.'
"This left the lad no wiser than he was before; and he thought he wouldn't mind her any further. This, however, was much more easily thought than done, for drive his cattle whichever way he would, it always, somehow or other, led to that same high steep cliff. Then the lad grew frightened; and he called over to her--
'Well, who is your father, and where are you biding? On the road to the church I have ne'er seen you riding.'