From
early dawn until evening she would roam about
in forests and fields, and when late at night she
stole into the room and slipped away into some
corner, Lage drew a deep sigh and thought of
the old tradition.
Aasa was nineteen years old before she had a
single wooer. But when she was least expecting it,
the wooer came to her.
It was late one summer night; the young
maiden was sitting on the brink of the ravine,
pondering on the old legend and peering down
into the deep below. It was not the first
time she had found her way hither, where but
seldom a human foot had dared to tread. To
her every alder and bramble-bush, that clothed
the naked wall of the rock, were as familiar as
were the knots and veins in the ceiling of the
chamber where from her childhood she had
slept; and as she sat there on the brink of the
precipice, the late summer sun threw its red lustre
upon her and upon the fogs that came drifting
up from the deep. With her eyes she followed
the drifting masses of fog, and wondered, as
they rose higher and higher, when they would
reach her; in her fancy she saw herself dancing
over the wide expanse of heaven, clad in the
sun-gilded evening fogs; and Saint Olaf, the
great and holy king, came riding to meet her,
mounted on a flaming steed made of the glory
of a thousand sunsets; then Saint Olaf took her
hand and lifted her up, and she sat with him on
the flaming steed: but the fog lingered in the
deep below, and as it rose it spread like a thin,
half-invisible gauze over the forests and the
fields, and at last vanished into the infinite
space.
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