I will have to tell you a story on how the idea came to mind, a fairy tale if you like. Based on this absurd moment, skiing home in the dark from a cabin in the forest.
We were two on our way home after New Year’s Eve. Skiing in the early evening hours, remote from any car roads and other cabins. It was dark and misty so we could not see far ahead of us, the ski track was lit, but it was far between the lampposts. As we were ascending a steep hill we saw this person, all dressed in black, wearing a big black hood covering their face. They were on foot, which did not make much sense in the track, and was dragging a spark, a Norwegian sled chair attached to two long metal skates. It runs well on snow compacted roads, but not on ski tracks.
Norwegians, as a custom, always greet everyone we meet out in nature, in contrast to how awkward we are in the city. So, I naturally tried to make eye contact with this person, just to say good evening. Especially given we were the only ones out, it felt natural to have a little chat. But as I came closer, the person stopped walking, and turned away from us, facing away from the light and into the dark woods. I stopped for a moment, in hope of seeing the person, but they shunned away from me. I figured they wanted to be left alone. As I got a bit further up the hill I turned around, feeling their eyes on me. As I did, they ones more turned, all I got was a short glimpse of a pale white face, with no distinct features that could help me read what kind of person this was.
My friend was further down the hill but experienced the same when passing.
When we got to the top of the long hill and far away from this person, we made a stop to catch our breath. My friend asked me “Did you feel that too?” “Yes’’ I said, ‘’I felt it... I think it must have been a forest spirit. I guess we’re best not to bother it.”
When we got to the top of the long hill and far away from this person, we made a stop to catch our breath. My friend asked me “Did you feel that too?” “Yes’’ I said, ‘’I felt it... I think it must have been a forest spirit. I guess we’re best not to bother it.”
It was one of those feelings you just cannot really explain, but in that moment, this person was not a person, but something else. Be it the moonlight casting long shadows over the dense forest, the gloomy, single lamppost through the thick mist or how alone we were out there. But that person, in that moment, was not a person, they were a spirit.
In Norwegian folklore the spirits and other fairy tale creatures are often not good or evil, they can be both, depending on how they feel about you, or reacting to your treatment of them.
As we got up the hill, we had no more lights to follow. I had to put on my headlights and lead the way in hard terrain through the forest, on icy, narrow tracks with rocks coming up through the snow. The mist was so thick my light did not reach far. But we made it through safe, with our big backpacks and all.
When we got closer to town and the lights again, we knew we had been granted safe passage through the forest and that the spirit wanted us well. Or at least, it did not interfere with our long journey home. Coming out of the forest and once again having lit tracks, a lonely deer was waiting for us under a lamppost, in a way telling us we are out of the woods and the spirits domain.
