CHAPTER I.

It was a village of fountains. They poured from the sides of houses, bubbled up at street corners, sprang from stone troughs by the roadside, and one even gushed from the very walls of the old Church itself, and fell with a monotonous tinkle into a carved stone basin beneath.

The old Church stood on a high plateau overlooking the lake. It jutted out so far, on its great rock, that it seemed to overhang the precipice; and as the neighbours walked upon the terrace on Sundays, and enjoyed the shade of the row of plane trees, they could look down over the low walls of the Churchyard almost into the chimneys of the wooden houses clustering below.

There were wide stone seats on the terrace, grey and worn by the weather, and by the generations of children who had played round them; and here the mothers and grandmothers, with their distaffs in their hands, loved to collect on summer evenings.

Often Terli had seen them from his home by the mountain torrent, for he was so high up, he looked down upon the whole village; and he had often longed to join them and hear what they were saying; but as he was nothing but a River-Troll, he was not able to venture within sight or sound of the water of the holy Church Fountain.

Anywhere else he was free to roam; teazing the children, worrying the women as they washed their clothes at the open stone basins, even putting his lean fingers into the fountain spout to stop the water, while the people remained staring open-mouthed, or ran off to fetch a neighbour to find out what was the matter.

This was all very pleasant to Terli, and at night he would hurry back to his relations in their cave under the stones of the torrent, and enjoy a good laugh at the day’s adventures.

There was only one thing that worried him. Several of the cleverest old women of the village, who had on several occasions seen Terli dancing about the country, agreed to hang a little pot of the Church water in the doors of their houses; and once or twice the Troll, on attempting to enter in order to teaze the inhabitants, had suddenly caught sight of the water, and rushed away with a scream of rage and disappointment.

“Never River-Troll can stand the sight of the Church Fountain!” said the old women, and rubbed their hands gleefully.

In the early summer there was to be a great wedding at the old Church, the Bridegroom the son of a rich farmer, the Bride one of the young girls of the village; and Terli, who had known them both from childhood, determined that for once in his life he would enter the unknown region of the Church Terrace.

“Elena has often annoyed me in the past,” laughed Terli, “so it is only fair I should try and annoy her in the future” and he sat down cross-legged at the bottom of a water trough to arrange his plans quietly in seclusion.

An old horse came by, dragging a creaking waggon, and the driver stopped to allow the animal to drink.

The Troll raised himself leisurely, and as the horse put in his head, Terli seized it in both hands, and hung on so firmly that it was impossible for the poor creature to get away.

“Let go!” said the horse, angrily for he understood the Troll language. “Let me go! What are you doing?”

“I shan’t let you go till you make me a promise. You get the Wood-Troll to cork up the Church Fountain at daybreak on Friday morning, and I’ll let you drink as much as you like now, and go without hindrance afterwards.”

“I shan’t promise,” said the horse, crossly. “I don’t see why I should.”

“Well, I shall hang on till you do,” said the Troll with a disagreeable laugh; and he gripped the old horse more tightly than ever.

“Oh, leave off! I’m being suffocated. I’ll promise anything,” cried the horse.

Terli withdrew his hands immediately, sinking down to the bottom of the trough with a chuckle that made the water bubble furiously; and the old horse, without waiting to drink, trotted off with an activity that surprised his master.

“Remember your promise!” called the Troll, putting his head suddenly over the edge of the trough, and pointing a thin finger. “On Friday at daybreak the Church Fountain stopped, or you don’t drink comfortably for a twelve-month!”

CHAPTER II.

Early on Friday morning the bridal procession started gaily, and all the village folks were so occupied they never noticed that the Church Fountain had ceased to bubble.

The bells rang out; while the Troll, hidden in the branches of a tree close to the entrance door, glanced first at the procession and then at a wedge of wood sticking out of the stone mouth of the Fountain, and he laughed elfishly.

“Ha, ha! The old horse has kept his promise. This is seeing the world,” he whispered triumphantly.

The marriage ceremony was soon over, and as the newly-wedded pair stepped out upon the terrace again, Terli drew from his pocket a little jar of water, and splash! fell some drops from it right in the eyes of the Bride and Bridegroom.

“It is beginning to rain! I saw the clouds gathering! Run, run, for the nearest shelter!” cried everyone confusedly, and off dashed the crowd, panting and breathless.

Now it was an unfortunate thing, that after the wedding everything in the new household seemed to go wrong.

“The young people have had their heads turned,” whispered the old women, and the poor Bride looked pale and disconsolate.

“It is a wretched house to have married into,” she said to her mother. “Nothing but these poor boards for furniture, no good fields or garden all so dull and disagreeable; and then my husband he seems always discontented. I think I was happier at home;” and she tapped her foot impatiently.

Her mother argued and remonstrated, and at last began to weep bitterly.

“You must be bewitched, Elena, to complain like this! You have everything a reasonable girl can wish for.”

“Everything? Why I have nothing!” cried Elena angrily, and ran from the room; leaving Terli, who was hiding in a water-bucket, to stamp his feet with delight.

“Ha! ha! it is going on excellently,” he shouted in his little cracked voice. “Once let them have the water from the Trolls’ well in their eyes, they’ll never be contented again!” and he upset the bucket in which he was standing over the feet of the Bride’s mother, who had to run home hastily to change her wet shoes.

“This is the work of the River-Trolls, I believe,” she said to herself, as she held up her soaked skirts carefully. “I’ll find out all about it on St. John’s Eve, if I can’t do so before” and she nodded angrily towards the mountain torrent.

Days passed, and the sad temper of the newly-married couple did not improve.

They scarcely attempted to speak to each other, and groaned so much over the hardships of their life, that all their friends became tired of trying to comfort them.

“They’re bewitched,” said the Bride’s mother, “bewitched, and nothing else. But wait till St. John’s Eve, and you’ll see I shall cure them.”

She spoke mysteriously, but as she was a sensible woman everyone believed her.

On St. John’s Eve as I daresay you know all animals have the power of talking together like human beings, and punctually as the clock struck twelve the Bride’s mother put on her thick shoes, and taking the stable lantern from its nail, she went off to the stable, refusing to allow either her husband or son to accompany her.

As she entered the door of the outhouse, she heard the oxen already whispering to each other, and the old horse, with his head over the division, addressing friendly remarks to a family of goats close by.

“Do you know anything of Terli or the Wood-Trolls?” enquired the old woman, looking at the oxen severely.

“No, no, no!” and they shook their heads slowly.

The Bride’s mother then repeated her question to the goat family, who denied any knowledge of the Trolls with a series of terrified bleats.

“There is only you, then,” said the Bride’s mother to the old horse. “You have served us faithfully, and we have been kind masters to you. Tell me: do you know anything of Terli or the Wood-Trolls?”

“I do,” said the old horse with dignity. “I can tell you more than anyone else dreams of;” and he stepped from his stall with an air of the greatest importance.

The old woman sat down upon an upturned stable-bucket, and prepared to listen.

“Just before the wedding,” commenced the horse, “I was passing through the village with old master, when we stopped to drink. No sooner had I got my nose into the Fountain than, heuw! Terli had hold of me, and not an inch would he loosen his grip till I promised to let him see the wedding by getting the Wood-Trolls to stop up the Church Fountain. What was I to do? I was forced to agree, and from that promise comes all the misery of the Bride and Bridegroom.”

The old horse then went on to explain what Terli had done on the wedding day, while the Bride’s mother jumped up from the water-bucket with a cry of delight.

“All will be well now. You have done us the greatest possible service, and shall live in leisure for the rest of your life,” she said; and ran out of the stables towards the house, before the astonished animals could recover themselves.

“I’ve found it all out,” she cried to her husband. “Now all we have to do is to catch Terli.”

“Not so easy, wife,” said the Bride’s father, but the old woman smiled in a mysterious manner.

“Leave it to me, husband, I shall manage it. Our children will be happy again to-morrow, you will see.”

CHAPTER III.

The next day at sunrise, the Bride’s mother crept off secretly to the Church Fountain and brought back a large pailful of the water. This she emptied into a wash-tub and covered with some green pine branches, and on the top of all she placed a wooden bowl half filled with butter-milk.

“Terli likes it so much he will do anything for butter-milk,” she said to herself, as she propped open the kitchen door, and went off with a light heart to see her daughter.

She carried with her a jug of the Church water, and when she arrived at the farm house, she gave it to her daughter and son-in-law, and begged them to bathe their eyes with it immediately.

With much grumbling they obeyed her; but what a change occurred directly they had done so!

The day, which had seemed cloudy and threatening rain, now appeared bright and hopeful. The Bride ran over her new house with exclamations of delight at all the comfortable arrangements, and the Bridegroom declared he was a lucky man to have married a good wife, and have a farm that anyone might reasonably be proud of!

“How could we ever have troubled over anything?” said the young Bride, “I can’t understand it! We are young, and we are happy.”

The old woman smiled wisely. “It was only the Troll’s well-water,” she said, and went home as fast as her feet would carry her.

As she neared her own door, she heard sounds of splashing and screaming in a shrill piping voice; and on entering, saw Terli struggling violently in the tub of Church water, the little bowl of butter-milk lying spilt upon the floor.

“Take me out! Take me out! It gives me the toothache!” wailed the Troll, but the Bride’s mother was a wise woman, and determined that now she had caught their tormentor she would keep him safely.

“I’ve got the toothache in every joint!” shouted Terli. “Let me out, and I’ll never tease you any more.”

“It serves you very well right,” said the old woman, and she poured the contents of the tub including Terli into a large bucket, and carried it off in triumph to the Church Fountain.

Here she emptied the bucket into the carved stone basin, and left Terli kicking and screaming, while she went home to the farmhouse to breakfast.

“That’s a good morning’s work, wife; if you never do another:” said the Bride’s father, who had come into the kitchen just as Terli upset the bowl of butter-milk, and fell through the pine branches headlong into the tub beneath. “We shall live in peace and quietness now, for Terli was the most mischievous of the whole of the Troll-folk.”

The words of the Bride’s father proved to be quite true, for after the capture of the Water-Troll the village enjoyed many years of quietness and contentment.

As to Terli, he lived in great unhappiness in the Church Fountain; enduring a terrible series of tooth-aches, but unable to escape from the magic power of the water.

At the end of that time, however, a falling tree split the sides of the carved stone basin into fragments, and the Troll, escaping with the water which flowed out, darted from the Churchyard and safely reached his old home in the bed of the mountain torrent.

“The Church Fountain is broken, and Terli has escaped,” said the good folks the next morning and the old people shook their heads gravely, in alarm but I suppose Terli had had a good lesson, for he never troubled the village any more.