‘Well, you see that the lake here is long, and you travelled all the way round it when you were on your way to Anikief; but that was not necessary. We can slip across here, as I will show you, but you must not tell anybody. No one besides me knows about it. Promise me that you won’t tell anything.’ ‘Yes, I promise you.’ ‘You see this narrow strip of water here: it is not more than fifty ells broad, but it is deep. If you watch the slight current attentively as it flows through the channel, you will detect that at several points it is a little irregular. The reason of this is that some large stones lie just under the surface of the water, not half an ell below the surface. They are laid at such a distance apart that it is easy to jump from one to the other, but we must know exactly where they are laid; by this means we can get over to the other side more easily and quickly than even if we could swim like reindeer. I put the stones there myself, and built them up when the lake was almost dry. Many years ago I came, quite alone, tramping here, and suddenly I caught sight of a Stallo, seated on a stone a little in front of me. When I stood still for fear, he beckoned to me that I should go closer to him, but you may be sure I wasn’t such a fool as to go up to him. I jumped back again as quickly as I could, but as I looked I saw him coming after me. I then made various circuits between the barren ridges of ground and the birch copse as a fox would do, and hid myself at one spot, so that he sprang past me. Then I ran quickly back again, got under cover behind the hill, and made my way here without his seeing me. I leaped on the stones across the channel to this place, and then along the shore a little bit lower down, where you see the lake is much broader. There I stood and began to howl and cry so that the Stallo might find where I was. This he did, and he came down to the shore on the opposite side. Then I began to abuse him as a coward, and as an old woman who wouldn’t venture to wade across where a little Finn had waded. At last he was so exasperated that he took the sword in his mouth, leaped into the water, and came swimming across to me. But I had my bow ready, and when he was close enough I shot an arrow with an iron point at the end, and hit him in the forehead, so that he threw up his hands into the air and went to the bottom.’ ‘But possibly it was an ordinary man, a peaceable traveller, whom you killed, Unnas. I don’t believe in Trolls.’ ‘Not a bit of it; it was a Troll—a real Stallo.’ ‘How can you be so sure of that?’ ‘Well, you see, he had a dog with him, a great, brown, smooth-haired dog. They always lead dogs like that with them by strings, and the Stallo had such a dog, and it swam beside him; but as it was getting near the land I gave it an arrow in the eye as well, and it turned round and sank. If the dog can lick the Stallo’s blood he comes to life again; that is why a Stallo always has a dog with him.’