charcoal burner was out in the woods working his kilns. This was in
Hartzberg Forest.One evening a handsome woman appeared and talked to him. She said that she had just arrived in the area and wanted to go to Stripa but did not know the way. She was easygoing and nice. He thought that she could stay with him and help him with the kilns. So she stayed with him for three years, and they had three children. The youngest was a girl, and the woman named her Snorvipa.
But she made the charcoal burner promise that whenever he had been away someplace, he would first knock on a certain tree, which she pointed out to him, before coming home. He should knock three times.
One day, however, he forgot. When he got to the kilns, he saw her the way she really was. She stood there stoking the kiln with her nose and claws and damping the fire with her tail, which she dipped in a bucket of water.
He got very frightened because he now understood that he was living with a wood sprite. He did not say anything to her but turned around and went to an old Finn and asked him for advice. The Finn said:
"Take her and the children with you on a sleigh out on Lake Rasvaln. You must sit on the horse yourself, but put the harness pins in loosely so that you can kick them out with your heel. Don't tie any tight knots in the harness, everything must be loose. When you come to the middle of the lake, ride away from them and don't turn around until you get to the goldsmith's hut."Now the charcoal burner went back and knocked on the tree as he usuaully did, and the she was was a handsome woman once more. He brought the horse and sleigh. He said that they were going for a drive. He put her and the children in the sleigh, and he mounted the horse. When they got to the middle of the lake, seven white wolves appeared on the ice. When she saw them, and it dawned on her what he was going to do, she begged for mercy for herself and the children:
"If you don't have pity on me and the older two, at least have pity on little Snorvipa. If you are going to do what you are thinking of, I am going to call my brother in Hartzberg, my sister in Ringkalla, and my cousin in Stripa!"But he rode away.
Then she called for help, and shots rained down from all three mountains, and thundered like cannonballs, hitting the ice behind him. It was blue ice. But he rode away unscathed because he had tied all the knots loosely. The woman and her children, however, were devoured by the wolves.
