Norway's fate and Norway's luck,
Of the hiding Troll and the riding Buk.

Down the winding highway they came, curving inward as they swung
around the corner. At the voice on the bridge the Deer threw back
his ears and slackened his pace. Borgrevinck, not knowing whence
it came, struck savagely at the Ren. The red light gleamed in
those ox-like eyes. He snorted in anger and shook the great
horns, but he did not stop to avenge the blow. For him was a
vaster vengeance still. He onward sped as before, but from that
time Borgrevinck had lost all control. The one voice that the Ren
would hear had been left behind. They whirled aside, off the
road, before the bridge was reached. The pulk turned over, but
righted itself, and Borgrevinck would have been thrown out and
killed but for the straps. It was not to be so; it seemed rather
as though the every curse of Norway had been gathered into the
sled for a purpose. Bruised and battered, he reappeared. The
Troll from the bridge leaped lightly to the Storbuk's head, and
held on to the horns as he danced and sang his ancient song, and
a new song, too:

Ha! at last! Oh, lucky day,
Norway's curse to wipe away!

Borgrevinck was terrified and furious. He struck harder at the
Storbuk as he bounded over the rougher snow, and vainly tried to
control him. He lost his head in fear. He got out his knife, at
last, to strike at the wild Buk's hamstrings, but a blow from the
hoof sent it flying from his hand. Their speed on the road was
slow to that they now made: no longer striding at the trot, but
bounding madly, great five-stride bounds, the wretched
Borgrevinck strapped in the sled, alone and helpless through his
own contriving, screaming, cursing, and praying. The Storbuk with
bloodshot eyes, madly steaming, careered up the rugged ascent, up
to the broken, stormy Hoifjeld; mounting the hills as a Petrel
mounts the rollers, skimming the flats as a Fulmar skims the
shore, he followed the trail where his mother had first led his
tottering steps, up from the Vand-dam nook. He followed the old
familiar route that he had followed for five years, where the
white-winged Rype flies aside, where the black rock mountains,
shining white, come near and block the sky, "where the Reindeer
find their mysterie."

On like the little snow-wreath that the storm-wind sends dancing
before the storm, on like a whirlwind over the shoulder of
Suletind, over the knees of Torholmenbrae--the Giants that sit at
the gateway. Faster than man or beast could follow,
up--up--up--and on; and no one saw them go, but a Raven that
swooped behind, and flew as Raven never flew, and the Troll, the
same old Troll that sang by the Vand-dam, and now danced and sang
between the antlers:

Good luck, good luck for Norway
With the White Storbuk comes riding.

Over Tvindehoug they faded like flying scud on the moorlands, on
to the gloomy distance, away toward Jotunheim, the home of the
Evil Spirits, the Land of the Lasting Snow. Their every sign and
trail was wiped away by the drifting storm, and the end of them
no man knows.

The Norse folk awoke as from a horrid nightmare. Their national
ruin was averted; there were no deaths, for there were no proofs;
and the talebearer's strife was ended.

The one earthly sign remaining from that drive is the string of
silver bells that Sveggum had taken from the Storbuk's neck--the
victory bells, each the record of a triumph won; and when the old
man came to understand, he sighed, and hung to the string a final
bell, the largest of them all.

Nothing more was ever seen or heard of the creature who so nearly
sold his country, or of the White Storbuk who balked him. Yet
those who live near Jotunheim say that on stormy nights, when the
snow is flying and the wind is raving in the woods, there
sometimes passes, at frightful speed, an enormous White Reindeer
with fiery eyes, drawing a snow-white pulk, in which is a
screaming wretch in white, and on the head of the Deer, balancing
by the horns, is a brown-clad, white-bearded Troll, bowing and
grinning pleasantly at him, and singing

Of Norway's luck
And a White Storbuk--

the same, they say, as the one that with prophetic vision sang by
Sveggum's Vand-dam on a bygone day when the birches wore their
springtime hangers, and a great mild-eyed Varsimle' came alone,
to go away with a little white Renskalv walking slowly, demurely,
by her side.