In the year 1660, when I and
my wife had gone to my farm (fäboderne), which is three quarters of a mile
from Ragunda parsonage, and we were sitting there and talking a while, late
in the evening, there came a little man in at the door, who begged of my wife
to go and aid his wife, who was just then in the pains of labour. The fellow
was of small size, of a dark complexion, and dressed in old grey clothes.
My wife and I sat a while, and wondered at the man; for we were aware that
he was a troll, and we had heard tell that such like, called by the peasantry
Vettar (spirits), always used to keep in the farmhouses, when people left
them in harvest time. But when he had urged his request four or five times,
and we thought on what evil the country folk say that they have at times suffered
from the Vettar, when they have chanced to swear at them, or with uncivil
words bid them go to hell, I took the resolution to read some prayers over
my wife, and to bless her, and bid her in God's name go with him. She took
in haste some old linen with her, and went along with him, and I remained
sitting there. When she returned, she told me, that when she went with the
man out at the gate, it seemed to her as if she was carried for a time along
in the wind, and so she came to a room, on one side of which was a little
dark chamber, in which his wife lay in bed in great agony. My wife went up
to her, and, after a little while, aided her till she brought forth the child
after the same manner as other human beings. The man then offered her food,
and when she refused it, he thanked her, and accompanied her out, and then
she was carried along, in the same way in the wind, and after a while came
again to the gate, just at ten o'clock. Meanwhile, a quantity of old pieces
and clippings of silver were laid on a shelf, in the sitting room, and my
wife found them next day, when she was putting the room in order. It is to
be supposed that they were laid there by the Vettar.
That it in truth so happened,
I witness, by inscribing my name. Ragunda, the 12th of April, 1671. Pet. Rahm.
Source: Thomas Keightley, The
Fairy Mythology, Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries
(London: H. G. Bohn, 1850), pp. 122-123.