When I was eight years old my father worked...

When I was eight years old my father worked at a mill in Gästrikland. One Saturday evening my father and a smith, named Gode, went with their bundles to a farming village to barter for something wet – the old men were keen on schnapps. That same evening a farmer was to take a smith, named Tapper, to jail. This Tapper had been up to some mischief, with some creatures in the woods, and had gotten a hard sentence. Before they set off, Tapper asked to go to the outhouse. He was allowed, but he didn’t come back, and when they went to look for him, he had cut his head off himself. Then they took him and brought him to an old barn – they used that barn as a sprayer house, and there they put him in. In the meantime, my father and Gode walked along the road and came to the farmer, and got schnapps as was customary for their bundles. They tasted some of it, and Gode became quite drunk. 'Listen,' he says to old man father, 'now let's go and hear how Tapper is doing.' But my father said no, and told him sharply three times that he should leave Tapper in peace. But Gode was stubborn and finally went off alone behind the sprayer house and peeked in, for there was a little peephole on one of the gables. However it was, he stayed there – he didn't come back even though old father waited long and well. Finally my father went there and looked – and can you imagine: Gode was standing there in the hole, but his head was turned so he had his neck facing forward and his nose backward… My father went off again, used a sled, and brought him home, but the next day he was dead. It was probably some higher power that let him show the power he had. Tapper they buried at the edge of a charcoal-burning site.