It was late one evening when this man was riding home from Ringsted, and his way lay by the hill. When he came there he saw a great crowd of Hill-folk who were dancing round it, and had great merriment among them. But on looking a little closer, what should he recognise but all his three wives among them! Now as Kirsten, the second of them, had been his favourite, and dearer to him than either of the others, he called out to her, and named her name. Troll Skynd then came up to the man, and asked him why he presumed to call Kirsten. The man told him briefly how she had been his favourite and best beloved wife, and entreated of him, with many tears and much lamentation, to let him have her home with him again. The Troll consented at last to grant the husband's request, with, however, the condition, that he should never hurry (_skynde_) her. For a long time the husband strictly kept the condition; but one day, when the woman was above in the loft, getting something, and it happened that she delayed a long time, he called out, Make haste, Kirsten, make haste, (_Skynde dig Kirsten_); and scarcely had he spoken the words, when the woman was gone, compelled to return to the hill, which has ever since been called Kirsten's Bjerg.[187] _The Troll-Labour._ "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