On a small farm in Våga, in Gudbrandsdalen, there once lived, in the old days, a poor couple. They had many children, and two of the sons, who were half-grown, always had to wander about the countryside begging. So they were familiar with all the roads and trails and they also knew the short cut to Hedal. One day they wanted to go there, but they heard that some falconers had built a hut at Mæla, and they wanted to stop there too, to see the birds and how the men caught them, so they took the footpath over Longmoss. But it was already late in the fall and the dairymaids had gone home from the summer pastures, and there was nowhere the boys could find shelter, nor food either. So they had to keep to the road to Hedal, but that was only an overgrown cowpath, and when darkness came they lost the path, nor did they find the falconers' hut either, and before they knew it, they were right in the midst of the thickest part of the Bjølstad forest. When they realized that they couldn't find their way out, they started cutting branches, made up a fire, and built themselves a shelter of pine branches, for they had a hatchet with them. And then they gathered heather and moss, of which they made a bed. A while after they had lain down, they heard something snuffing and snorting very hard. The boys were ears, and listened well to hear whether it might be an animal or a Forest Troll, which they heard. But then it started snorting even harder and said:" I smell the smell of Christian blood here!" Then they heard it tread so heavily that the earth shook under it, and they could tell that the Trolls were out. "God help us! What'll we do now?»said the younger boy to his brother. "Oh, you'll just have to stay under the fir tree where you're standing, and be ready to take the bags and run for your life when you see them coming. I'll take the hatchet," said the other. Just when they saw the Trolls come rushing, and they were so big and tall that their heads were level with the tops of the firtrees. But they had only one eye among the three of them, and they took turns using it. Each had a hole in his forehead to put it in, and guided it with his hands. The one who went ahead had to have it, and the others went behind him and held onto him. "Take to your heels!" said the elder of the boys. "But don't run too far before you see how it goes. Since they have the eye so high up, it'll be hard for them to see when I came behind them." Well, the brother ran ahead, with the Trolls at his heels. In the meantime, the elder brother went behind them and chopped the hindmost Troll in the ankle, so that he let out a horrible shriek. Then the first Troll became so frightened that he jumped, and dropped the eye, and the boy wasn't slow in grabbing it up. It was bigger than two lids put together, and it was so clear, that even though it was pitch black, the night became as light as day when he looked trough it. When the Trolls discovered that he had taken the eye from them, and that he had wounded one of them, they started threatening him with all the evil there was, if he didn't give them back the eye that very minute. I'm not afraid of Trolls or threats," said the boy, "Now I have three eyes to myself, and you don't have any. And still two of you have to carry the third." "If we don't get our eye back this very minute, you'll be turned into sticks and stones!" shrieked the Trolls. But the boy felt there wasn't any hurry; he was afraid of neither boasting nor magic, he said. If they didn't leave him alone, he would chop at all three of them so they would have to crawl along the hill creeping, crawling worms. When the Trolls heard this, they became frightened and started to sing another tune. They pleaded quite nicely that, it he gave them back the eye he would get both gold and silver, and everything he wanted. Well, the boy thought that was all very fine, but he wanted the gold and silver first. So he said that if one of them would go home and fetch so much gold and silver that he and his brother could fill their bags, and give him and his brother two good steel bows besides, they should get the eye. But until then he would keep it. The Trolls carried on and said that none of them could walk as long as he didn't have an eye to see with. But then one of them started yelling for the old woman, for they had one old woman among the three of them. After a while there was an answer in the mountain for to the north. So the Trolls said that she wasn't long before she was there. When she saw what had happened, she started threatening with magic. But the Trolls became still more frightened and bade her be careful of that little wasp. She couldn't be certain that he wouldn't take her eye, too. So she flung the buckets, and the gold and silver, and the bows at them, and strode home to the mountain with the Trolls. And since then, no one has ever heard that the Trolls have been about in the Hedal Woods sniffing after Christian blood.