"There was a grown-up youth who tended cattle, and he was in the habit of driving his herds upward, along the banks of a broad stream. High up on his way, there was a crag which hung out so far over the stream, that when he stood on it he could call out to any one on the other side. For on the other side of the stream there was a herd-girl whom he could see all day long, but he could not come over 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 again, for many days, until at last one day there came the answer,-- 'My name floats about like a duck in wet weather;-- Come over, thou boy in the cap of brown leather.' "But this made the youth no wiser than before, and he thought he would pay no further heed to the girl. This was not so easy, though, for, let him drive the cattle where he would, he was always drawn back to the crag. Then the youth grew alarmed, and called over:-- 'Well, who is your father, and where are you biding? On the road to the church I have ne'er seen you riding.' "The youth more than half believed her, in fact, to be a hulder.[19] 'My house is burned down, and my father is drowned, And the road to the church-hill I never have found.' "Now this also made the youth no wiser than before. By day he lingered on the crag, and by night he dreamed that she was dancing around him, and gave him a lash with a great cow's-tail each time he tried to take hold of her. Soon he could not sleep at all, neither could he work, and the poor youth was in a wretched state. Again he called aloud,-- 'If thou art a hulder, then pray do not spell me,-- If thou art a maiden, then hasten to tell me?' "But there came no answer, and then he was sure that this was a hulder. He gave up tending cattle, but it was just as bad, for wherever he went, or whatever he did, he thought of the fair hulder who blew on the horn. "Then one day, as he stood chopping wood, there came a girl through the yard who actually looked like the hulder. But when she came nearer, it was not she. He thought much about this; then the girl came back, and in the distance it was the hulder, and he ran directly toward her. But the moment he came near her it was not she. "After this, let the youth be at church, at a dance, at other social gatherings, or where he would, the girl was there too; when he was far from her, she seemed to be the hulder; near to her, she seemed to be another; he asked her then whether it were she or not; but she laughed at him. It is just as well to spring into it as to creep into it, thought the youth, and so he married the girl. "No sooner was this done than the youth ceased to like the girl. Away from her, he longed for her; but when with her, he longed for one he did not see; therefore he was harsh toward his wife; she bore this and was silent.