SKETCHES FROM STERSDAL. 229 
them, and where there are to be found those who have 
shot ‘scores of bears, and but few who have not at least 
twice in their lives obtained head-money. It is quite 
remarkable with what indifference the peasants speak 
about the dangers encountered in this sort of chase. 
One would think that they looked upon it almost as 
a common hare-hunt, as some of them have indeed said. 
The bear, they say, is not dangerous; for it only attacks 
when it has been wounded, or as one of them signi- 
ficantly remarked, ‘‘ when he is insulted.” The object, 
therefore, is to insult him effectually with the first shot ; 
for the peasants always use single-barrelled rifles. One 
very seldom hears of mishaps, although instances are 
not wanting. When an accident does occur, they often 
manage to escape in a most wonderful manner. A story 
is told of a man who had wounded a bear, but not 
mortally. The enraged animal immediately attacked 
him, and dashed him to the ground, falling on him; 
fortunately, he was scarcely injured. The man, who 
thus was lying underneath the bear with his face 
against its stomach, carefully watched his opportunity 
to move just as the bear moved, so that it could not 
seize him with its fearful paws. Meanwhile he suc- 
ceeded in getting hold of his knife, and while thus 
crawling about under the bear, accompanied this sort of 
“backward galop” with repeated enlivening stabs in 
the shaggy stomach of Mr. Bruin, who at last becoming 
