Can You Dig It
Welcome to another adventure from the Thousand Acre Woods deep within Trollheim of the NJ Pine Belt! Tales Chronicled by Jonathan Hulton... That’s me! Today’s tale, Karl is acting weirder than usual (which is saying something); a corpse gets up and takes a walk, Angrboda gets tricked, and a dwarf loses his kingdom. Let’s see if you can dig this story more than me, because it lost me...and Happy Easter!! There is a good thief in the tale too.
I was walking past Gramps' and Karl's garden when I saw Karl pulling up all the Jimsonweed.
"Karl, why are you doing that?"
"I heard a Panic was forming on Wall Street."
"So, what does that have to do with your garden?"
"I didn't want to leave the plants anywhere that someone could rob them, so I bringing them inside."
"OK…" I said, shaking my head.
"I think I found something under my bed."
"Dust bunnies; I hear they love to raid vegetable patches."
"No, the garden—you know what I mean."
"Well, I heard that sometimes when you fall asleep, you are no more than a vegetable patch on a quilt."
"Oh quit it, help me dig; it could be treasure."
We dug up a coffin.
"I could use this!"
"Why?"
"It's a really old coffin and I am sure the Angel of Death came here already."
"So?"
"With the life I led, I would never take a chance on being judged. This way I can just walk into Vingolf."
"Are you going to take the coffin out so you can get the dirt off of Gramp's vegetables?"
"No, I'm going to dig a new hole to put it in."
"Um—never mind."
"I once went to the doctor for a cure."
"Yes."
"I found out the funeral would be cheaper."
"The Paschal moon is up; what are you doing for Sunday?"
"I'm heading to Sooy Road past Clevenger's and steal a boar from the Sooys."
"So an Easter ham, you're going to steal."
"You can't ignore the good thief on Easter, now can we?" Karl said with a shrug and a grin. "Plus, pig is the gift that keeps giving."
Pig in traditional societies, like Celtic and Norse, is the resurrection animal. Thor prefers goats, though.
"Have you ever wondered what happens to the old moons?" I asked.
"They get cut up to make the stars."
I knew that old joke from Gramps, but I still like hearing it. Especially when Karl lights up the sky telling it.
All of a sudden, Karl jumps in the hole he was digging.
"Huh."
"I bought a shipment of bottled remedies from Clevenger's apothecary and that Nisse was supposed of followed me home to deliver them."
"OK." At this point, I was feeling like the straight man in a vaudeville show opening for the Booth's rendition of Hamlet.
"I lost him as I snuck into the Pine Tavern," Karl said, peeking over the hole in a hush.
"Why hide if you bought them already?"
"I lost him a week ago and I don't want to pay the extra shipping cost."
"Bjorn," Karl had stopped mid-sentence when he saw him passing, "Can you tell Angrboda she can stop sitting down by the pond?" Bjorn was getting ready to celebrate the day of Mani's third birth and the day he began traveling the world with him. He never cared for what day Odin hung from his tree to learn to read…
"Why?"
"She bragged I could never trick her, again."
"OK."
"I told her to wait there until I came up with something."
"OK, how long has she been waiting?"
"Since last night," answered Karl, laughing.
"I'll yell down the hill that she lost." Bjorn knew his daughter well enough not to be around when she gets mad…
Then the man in the coffin lifted his lid and stepped out.
"What are you doing?" asked Karl. Norse are not too happy to see people come back from the dead. They bring bodies out of the house through holes in the wall so they can't find the door if they come back.
"I thought I would come back for a visit," said the draugr that walked away in fine silks lined with silver thread from under Half Moon Hill.
A Dwarf dressed like a king walked by and said, "There goes the kingdom…" Then he turned back into Angrboda's favorite cat. The dwarf was hiding in their cat hole in the wainscoting, because he was flirting with the man in the coffin's wife and had been living with her in the open after he died.
Angrboda just came up the hill and picked up the cat, scratched its ears, and threw him, claws out at Karl.
If you like this tale, hit the share button below or just even tell your friend the old fashion way, with your mouth. Come back next week for our next tale.
We just released our first collection of Trollheim stories in print. It is available on this website at www.salemhousepress.com and Barnes & Noble. Pick up your copy today, pretty please with sugar on top...
Fiction/ Illustrated Fantasy/ Mythology / Scandinavian Myth/ Norse Sagas / Scandinavian Folk Lore / Coffee Table Book
Paperback: $45 | Hardcover: $65 | PDF eBook $5
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Following the Harry N. Abrams, Inc. tradition of the series that created Brian Froud's and Alan Lee's Faeries and Gnomes by Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet, we present you with what would have been the next book in the series: Trolls: A Compendium. Trolls—do you think you know what they are? Could you be wrong?
Trolls within Scandinavian lore, myth, saga, fantasy, and folktales are actually anything magical within our northern neighbor's culture. Richly illustrated in this volume are the tales of faeries, dwarves, nissen, huldras, gods, Jotuns, draugar, ghosts, and more. Also, this book introduces our readers to the world of Trollheim, populated by Nattrolls that escaped the 17th-century Swedish colony within the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Narrated by Christopher Jonathan Hulton, who lives in the Thousand Acre Woods just after the Civil War, their tales are filled with Native American lore and tales of their neighbor, the Jersey Devil.
Preview: Google Books
Hardcover: $65.00
PDF (non-flowable, best on tablet, desktop, or laptop) eBook: Download a copy onto your device today! Only $5.00
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