Afraja; or, Life and love in Norway
Theodor Mügge
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, May 10, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 Excerpt: ...rascal; his plumed hat on his left ear, and grinning as maliciously as a blue fox when he has scrambled upon the fish-scaffolds. His herds lay around the springs; four tents were pitched within an enclosure; and a whole bimd of men and women hovered over the fire in the stones, each uglier than the other." "And was there no trace of Gula there?" asked Marstrand. "Not that I could learn. The foolish fellow obliged me to enter his gamma and rest; but if he had not been so polite, and if this whole tribe of thieves had risen against me, I could not have left the spot, because I was completely exhausted, and hungry enough to have eaten a reindeer cheese." "Did you not make any inquiries after Gula, dear Olaf?" "Certainly I did; for Ilda is always making a bustle about her; and Bjornarne, also, cannot forget the yellow, black-eyed witch. I asked after her; but Mortuno grinned, like a monkey, from ear to ear, spoke and screamed in his miserable tongue, which nobody understands, bent himself double, shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head in denial." "He lied," said Marstrand; "Gula lives." "He certainly lied; for immediately afterwards, he laughed; looking, for all the world, like a skarfe on the rocks dressing its feathers, and said that as soon as Gula was found, he intended to buy her of Afraja." "Buy her! Is he mad?" "Ha, ha!" roared Olaf; "you do not understand it. To buy, in good Lappish, means to marry. The maiden's father receives a number of reindeer, or some other kind of present, for which he leads his daughter into a holy cirele of stones--a Saita, as they call it--where he delivers her to her husband, who conducts her into his gammr. This is all the...