128 SPORT IN NORWAY. 
and Sweden; there is scarcely a village that has not 
its shooting club. Little wonder if the number of 
native hunters increase ! 
Some of the old hunters will tell marvellous tales. 
Up in the country the peasants are extremely super- 
stitious, and would, I verily believe, sooner give cre- 
dence to anything very unlikely than to a plain matter- 
of-fact history. For instance, Mr. Asbjornsen relates : 
‘“‘T have been told that it is worse than useless to aim 
at an elk’s forehead unless at very close quarters; and 
in exemplification of this interesting assertion was in- 
formed that a man once shot seven times at an elk. 
All seven balls struck the animal in the forehead, and 
all seven glanced off in different directions. The sug- 
gestion that it was not owing to any extraordinary 
thickness of skull, but to weak powder, was, I need 
scarcely add, pooh-poohed.” 
According to an old saying, the elk-hunter must 
not only have a firm and steady hand, a sure eye, and 
a trusty rifle, but he must also be possessed of a hard 
heart. A dying elk, they say, looks at his murderer 
in a most reproachful and pitiful manner. I have read 
of a man who had killed several elks in his time. One 
day, when out hunting, he came upon a couple, and 
took aim at the largest one. ‘The ball struck the 
animal ina mortal part, but it did not immediately fall 
to the ground. Meanwhile, it kept getting weaker and 
