The Legend of the White Reindeer 
Around its cheerless shore is a belt of stunted 
trees, that sends a long tail up the high valley, 
till it dwindles away to sticks and moss, as it 
also does some half-way up the granite hills that 
rise a thousand feet, encompassing the lake. 
This is the limit of trees, the end of the growth 
of wood. The birch and willow are the last to 
drop out of the long fight with frost. Their min- 
iature thickets are noisy with the cries of Field- 
fare, Pipit, and Ptarmigan, but these are left be- 
hind on nearing the upper plateau, where shade 
of rock and sough of wind are all that take their 
place. The chilly Hoifjeld rolls away, a rugged, 
rocky plain, with great patches of snow in all 
the deeper hollows, and the distance blocked 
by snowy peaks that rise and roll and whiter 
gleam, till, dim and dazzling in the north, up- 
lifts the J6tunheim, the home of spirits, of gla- 
ciers, and of the lasting snow. 
The treeless stretch is one vast attest to the 
force of heat. Each failure of the sun by one 
degree is marked by a lower realm of life. The 
northern slope of each hollow is less boreal 
than its southern side. The pine and spruce 
have given out long ago; the mountain-ash 
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