&6 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 



for it. Yes j there is a deep clift, a great chasm, more 

 than a thousand feet (some say two thousand) feet in depth. 

 Ages had passed away, and nobody had dreamed of any 

 other way to reach the lower valley than that over the 

 mountain ; but Marie, whose lover lived below, had heard 

 of a plot by his rival to waylay him as he came by a track 

 over the ridge to visit her, so she tried the dreadful preci- 

 pice, and found that by clinging with fingers and toes to 

 the little ledges of the rock she could pass in a direct line 

 along the face of it. She thus warned her lover of his 

 danger, and enabled him to meet her secretly and safely 

 by traversing the giddy path she had discovered ; and the 

 lovers evaded as lovers always do both the cruel father 

 and his accomplice, the wealthy rival. By this path they 

 met as usual, until at last detected ; and then Ejotein 

 Halfoordsen, the lover, was prevailed upon to fly in order 

 to escape new plots upon his life. In the course of years 

 the father died, the rival ceased to persecute, and Ejotein 

 returned with fame and wealth. He came by the shortest 

 way. Marie saw him coming, and called his name aloud ; 

 he raised his arms and waved his hands as a signal of 

 recognition, and by doing so was overbalanced and fell. 

 She watched his falling body till it disappeared in the 

 foam of the Rinkan Foss ; when the dark veil of madness 

 fell over her mind, and fulfilled its beneficent intent by 

 shutting out a knowledge too horrible for endurance ! ' 



Williams having come to the farm, got a little girl to 

 guide them to the edge of the precipice, whence a distant 

 view of the Foss is obtained, and to show him the begin- 

 ning of the track leading to the descent to the Stege 

 itself which, however, she had been forbidden to go near. 

 ' I then,' says Williams, ' proceeded along what I supposed 

 to be the Marie Stege, a ledge of rock trodden with foot- 

 slips, varying from six inches to a foot in width, with a 

 sloping wall of rock above and the chasm below ; this 

 continued until I came to a part where there are two tracks, 

 one apparently leading over the hill, the other direct to the 



