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200
VOSBORG.
Chap. XLIII.
not only alive, but grown fat and flourishing, their
stalls clean and well swept. The Nisses had taken
care of them during the fortnight the snow lay upon
the ground. But then, as the boers remarked, no wonder
the Nisses looked after them, for the first time the
calves had left the stables the axe had been laid across
the threshold, and that always brings good luck.
The stories about the Nisses resemble those of the
German tales. They answer to our brownies—are
particular about where they take up their abode, and with
whom—never with anybody less than a farmer. The
cottagers and poorer people have only a familiar spirit;
and when a woman churns more butter than her
neighbours, when her hens lay more eggs, it is set down to
her “ familiar.” Query, if this familiar might not be
explained by the two words industry and order ? As
for a Niss, he generally takes up his abode in the loft
or under the bridge which spans the moat; is a good
friend to the household, but quarrels everlastingly with
the watch-dog. If affronted he changes his abode, and
going out after twilight accosts the passers-by—“Will
you take a little boy into your service, who asks no
wages; nothing but a pot of porridge on New-Year’s
Eve ?”
Then, too, there is the White Lady, who marches about
the house, with her Paternoster in hand—no vice in
her, she is only pale and sad ; but Long Margaret, she’s
the person; the very idea of her will make your blood
run cold. It was in the year 1770, or thereabouts, that
Long Margaret, or, as the peasants called her, “ The
Egyptian,” wandered about the moors and heaths in
the neighbourhood of Vosborg; she told fortunes ; was
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