I took my eyes from him for a moment, and he too was gone.
There was not so much as a bustard on the heath, which a moment before had been full of fleeting figures.
"They are trolls, thane!" cried Erling from beside me.
He, too, had seen the moorland and the men who had gone.

Then Werbode rode up to me, and he looked and gasped.
"They went over this hill! I would swear it!" he said.

"Where are they ?" "I do not know," I answered blankly, and, to tell the truth, with a bit of a chill down my back.

"I should be better pleased if I did." "See," said Erling, pointing, "there are the mounds wherein they live.

They are trolls;" and with that he began to mutter I know not what heathen spells against them.
There were little low mounds everywhere, as I saw now.
"Trolls!" said Werbode, with a laugh.