Suddenly it occurred to Kristin that they might have slept a whole night and that it was now the next day. Then she grew so alarmed that she shook her father, but he merely grunted and kept on sleeping. Kristin felt heavy-headed herself, but she didn’t dare lie down to sleep. So she crept over to the fire and poked at it with a stick—there were still some embers glowing. She added some heather and small twigs, which she found close at hand, but she didn’t want to venture outside the circle of sleepers to find bigger branches.
Suddenly there was a thundering and crashing from the field nearby; Kristin’s heart sank and she grew cold with fear. Then she saw a red body through the trees, and Guldsvein emerged from the alpine birches and stood there, looking at her with his clear, bright eyes. She was so relieved that she jumped up and ran toward the stallion. The brown horse that Arne had ridden was there too, along with the pack horse. Then Kristin felt quite safe; she went over and patted all three of them on the flank, but Guldsvein bowed his head so she could reach up to stroke his cheeks and tug on his golden-white forelock. He snuffled his soft muzzle in her hands.
The horses ambled down the birch-covered slope, grazing, and Kristin walked along with them, for she didn’t think there was any danger if she kept close to Guldsvein—he had chased off bears before, after all. The blueberries grew so thick there, and the child was thirsty and had a bad taste in her mouth. She had no desire for any ale just then, but the sweet, juicy berries were as good as wine. Over in the scree she saw raspberries too; then she took Guldsvein by the mane and asked him nicely to come with her, and the stallion obediently followed the little girl. As she moved farther and farther down the slope, he would come to her whenever she called him, and the other horses followed Guldsvein.
Kristin heard a stream trickling and gurgling somewhere nearby. She walked toward the sound until she found it, and then she lay down on a slab of rock and washed her sweaty, mosquito-bitten face and hands. Beneath the rock slab the water stood motionless in a deep black pool; on the other side a sheer rock face rose up behind several slender birch trees and willow thickets. It made the finest mirror, and Kristin leaned over and looked at herself in the water. She wanted to see if what Isrid had said was true, that she resembled her father.
She smiled and nodded and bent forward until her hair met the blond hair framing the round young face with the big eyes that she saw in the water.
All around grew such a profusion of the finest pink tufts of flowers called valerian; they were much redder and more beautiful here next to the mountain stream than back home near the river. Then Kristin picked some blossoms and carefully bound them together with blades of grass until she had the loveliest, pinkest, and most tightly woven wreath. The child pressed it down on her hair and ran over to the pool to see how she looked, now that she was adorned like a grown-up maiden about to go off to a dance.
She bent over the water and saw her own dark image rise up from the depths and become clearer as it came closer. Then she saw in the mirror of the stream that someone was standing among the birches on the other side and leaning toward her. Abruptly she straightened up into a kneeling position and looked across the water. At first she thought she saw only the rock face and the trees clustered at its base. But suddenly she discerned a face among the leaves—there was a woman over there, with a pale face and flowing, flaxen hair. Her big light-gray eyes and her flaring, pale-pink nostrils reminded Kristin of Guldsvein’s. She was wearing something shiny and leaf-green, and branches and twigs hid her figure up to her full breasts, which were covered with brooches and gleaming necklaces.
Kristin stared at the vision. Then the woman raised her hand and showed her a wreath of golden flowers and beckoned to her with it.
Behind her, Kristin heard Guldsvein whinny loudly with fear. She turned her head. The stallion reared up, gave a resounding shriek, and then whirled around and set off up the hillside, making the ground thunder. The other horses followed. They rushed straight up the scree, so that rocks plummeted down with a crash, and branches and roots snapped and cracked.
Then Kristin screamed as loud as she could. “Father!” she shrieked. “Father!” She sprang to her feet and ran up the slope after the horses, not daring to look back over her shoulder. She clambered up the scree, tripped on the hem of her dress, and slid down, then climbed up again, scrabbling onward with bleeding hands, crawling on scraped and bruised knees, calling to Guldsvein in between her shouts to her father—while the sweat poured out of her whole body, running like water into her eyes, and her heart pounded as if it would hammer a hole through her chest; sobs of terror rose in her throat.