The Good Neighbours: Tales From Times Past, #1

By L. B. Heuschkel

When the Lord cast out Lucifer and the rebellious angels, some of the angels fell to Earth rather than Hell, and their bodies shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. From these angelic shards rose the little people: The trolls, the alderfolk, the river-dwelling nøkke and all the other supernatural entities of farm, forest, and moor.

Or so the story goes in Denmark, anyhow.

The Good Neighbours comprises fifteen tales of the supernatural as perceived by the people who lived the tales. Good or evil, benevolent or malicious, our forebears knew that the vætter live everywhere around us. Their reality is interwoven with our own and their interactions with humans spawned stories. Whether amusing or tragic, these stories depict our ancestors' time and how they viewed life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L. B. Heuschkel
• Release date: May 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223655077

L. B. Heuschkel

L. B. Heuschkel lives in Denmark with too many cats and a couple of horses.

Book preview

Hillman’s Lusse

‘H e kicked me out.’

The small woman sobs and wipes her large nose on a grubby hand with leathery brown skin hardened by hard toil and labour.

‘He slammed the door behind me and said I shouldn’t bother to come back at all.’

The words are hard to make out through her tears and sobs. Her voice is hoarse and rough, reminding Maren of the sound of mud sliding down into a ditch on a rainy autumn day.

Maren is the farm’s lillepige — the little girl: The youngest hired girl on the farmstead. She helps the farmer’s wife take care of animals and children even younger than herself; Maren is eight years old and she hopes that once she turns fourteen and becomes an adult she may find better work. If she doesn’t and she doesn’t marry, she might remain the little girl well into old age. ‘Little girl’ does not denote her age but her function as the farm wife's extra pair of hands.

Maren’s heart bleeds for the small, ugly vætte woman standing there, wringing her hands, appealing to the farmer’s kind heart.

‘Please let me stay in the cowshed, just for tonight. The cows will not mind my company. I don’t take up a lot of space. I’ve always been a good neighbour to you and yours.’

‘That’s out of the question, little Lusse.’

The farmer’s voice is kind.

‘You are not a cow. You will stay the night and you will sleep in the house with the rest of us.’

The small, bark-faced woman wipes her considerable nose on her sleeve. Tears well up in her water-blue eyes once again.

‘He called me a cow too.’

The farmer reaches down to pat her squat little shoulder. He is tall and Lusse is very short — much shorter than human women tend to be.

‘You’ll stay here tonight. The old man will come around.’

Lusse looks up at him with gratitude plain to see on her rough features. She follows him into the common room of the farmhouse.

Maren hides behind the kitchen door until the farmer’s wife calls on her to come to help chop the turnips. She sits on the bench and begins to cut up the root vegetables. The farm kitchen is large and feels safe and warm and it has a modern cast-iron stove rather than an open hearth, too. When she grows old enough to marry, Maren hopes that she too will get to live in a house with a cast-iron stove; it’s so much more convenient.

‘Penny for your thoughts, Maren.’

Karoline is the farmer’s oldest daughter; she has beautiful auburn hair and she likes to sing while she works. She always has a kind word for anyone in need and Maren likes her. Karoline is almost an older sister to her.

Maren stumbles over the words.

‘It’s the — woman.’

‘Lusse?’

At the stove, the farmer’s wife chuckles.

‘There’s no reason to be afraid of Lusse, Maren. She’s harmless. She has been our neighbour since my grandmother was a little girl. She’s very old now.’

‘Yes, but.’

Maren struggles. She doesn’t want to speak poorly of others but seeing a vætte out in the open scares her a little. They’re fairytale creatures — shouldn’t they stay in the fairytales?

‘Lusse’s people have always been around.’

The farmer’s wife hands Maren a bowl of peas to be shelled and washed. She resumes stirring the pot on the stove while talking.

‘Lusse and her old husband mind their own business. We mind our business and no one is worse off for having that kind of neighbour. The old hillman is not bad, but he doesn’t know when to put the bottle down. When he gets drunk he yells at Lusse. Just like many other men, he takes his temper out on his wife.’

‘But she looks so strange,’ Maren mumbles.

Karoline laughs though there is no malice in her laughter.

‘How do you know? How many hillmen and hillwomen have you met? Lusse looks just like she’s supposed to look. Her kind may think that she is beautiful and we are the ugly ones.’

‘The people in the hill were here long before our kind.’

The farmer’s wife nods determinedly.

‘We show them proper respect. We always have, and we always will. And that’s all there is to say about that.’

Maren minds her peas. Sometimes, the farmhands like to spin fantastic yarns for children like her. Stories of America — how there are trees that grow fruit all year round over there, and farms so large that you cannot walk around their land in one day. Are they making it up? Maybe. They mean no harm but Maren is just eight years old and she is proud. She doesn’t like them making fun of her.

Stories belong in their space and this is not a story space.

The cabbage for dinner boils in its pot on the cast-iron stove. The striped pieces of pork belly roast on the pan and they smell heavenly. Hard labour requires good, rich food.

Finally, the dinner bell is rung and the farmer and his family and their hired workers bench themselves around the table. The farmer sits at the end, like a king surveying his kingdom. He might as well be a king; he makes all decisions that matter though usually, he consults with his wife first.

Maren sits at the far end of the table because she is the youngest. Lusse sits across from her and the girl tries to not stare. She does not want to be rude and besides, Lusse may be strange-looking but she is not very intimidating; different but not monstrous. And besides, it’s rude to stare.

The vætte woman is grimy but no more so than the men who worked out in the fields all day. Her clothes are worn and patched in places — but so are Maren’s. There are stains on her apron, just like there are stains on Maren’s apron.

Outside, the dog barks. His name is Faithful and he’s a big black monster of a dog chained in the yard. Maren is afraid of him. His sole purpose in this life is to alert the farmer and the men in case of unwanted guests.

The dog did not raise a fuss when Lusse walked into the courtyard earlier, with snot and tears running from her crooked nose and water-blue eyes. The big dog just watched and thumped his tail against the dirt.

‘Go see what that ruckus is all about,’ says the farmer to one of the farmhands.

Then everyone hears the sound of a horse’s iron-shod hooves clattering against the hard ground outside.

‘More guests for dinner, it seems.’

The farmer’s wife sighs. Guests arriving this late in the evening are rarely bearers of good news.

The door opens to admit a tall, fair-haired stranger wearing a velvet frock coat the colour of cherry pulp. He wears fine breeches and carries a riding crop in one hand and his hat in the other. This is no mere farmer labouring in the fields year after year until his hair turns white and his back turns crooked. This is a gentleman from the city — and he is the most elegant man that Maren has ever seen. The white silk cravat at his throat in particular is splendid, she thinks.

‘I’m heading to town,’ the gentleman informs the farmer in a cheerful tone. ‘My horse needs food, water, and a spot of rest before I ride on. I’ll pay for the inconvenience, of course.’

The farmer nods and then glances at one of the farmhands.

‘Right, you are. You go and take care of the horse, Mikkel.’

The farmhand heads out to lead the stranger’s horse into the stable where it may acquaint itself with straw, water, and the farm’s own two dun-coloured draft horses. They are small, coarse-haired, and look shaggy beside the fine riding horse.

In the common room, Maren stares at the young gentleman.

He is so handsome. He has fine white gloves on and his frock coat has silver buttons — or maybe they are pewter, it’s not as if Maren can tell. The way he talks is so fine and he moves with confident elegance — the walk of a man who knows that any obstacle in his path will somehow make itself disappear, rather than dare to inconvenience him.

The gentleman takes his seat on the bench as if he always belonged at the table. Somebody hands him Mikkel’s spoon to eat with and he makes a little grimace of disgust as he accepts it. Men like him are accustomed to a much better life. He is probably accustomed to having his spoon made from silver, one that has never been licked clean by anyone else.

Maren tries to smile at him through her shyness. He returns a smile of his own — a lopsided, even friendly one.

Then his gaze strays to Lusse down there at the end of the table and his eyes turn dark and hard as flint.

‘That’s one ugly old skivvy. What rock did that hag crawl out from under?’

Suddenly, the room is silent. You could have heard a pin drop if anyone had the presence of mind to drop one in the first place.

‘Lusse is from the hill nearby.’

Karoline breaks the heavy silence and her voice carries a warning — the kind of silent warning that suggests that you may want to think very carefully about what you’re going to say next.

‘She should have stayed there, then. What’s a hag like her doing among good people, anyhow?’

The gentleman stranger laughs and does not at all heed Karoline’s subtle admonition.

Is he trying to be funny? His voice is warm and friendly. It’s the kind of laugh that makes you want to laugh right along. And Lusse is a vætte — a stranger among human people, an outsider.

She may not be a real human being but she has done no wrong. Maren feels anger welling up inside but she keeps quiet all the same. She is just the farm’s little girl. Her opinion is of no consequence to anyone so she keeps her head down and listens and hopes that the gentleman will shut up.

‘The hillman threw her out.’

Anders is the youngest farmhand, a hired boy working as a shepherd and all-around helper. He is sixteen years old and gangly, all knees and elbows, and he should know better than to try to pretend he is one of the men. He has managed to grow a few hairs on his chin, though, and they make him feel very grown up.

The handsome gentleman shoots Lusse a disgusted glance.

‘She’s one of those women who can’t stop themselves from nagging their man, is that it? I’ve known women like that. Getting rid of them is good for a man’s sanity, hah.’

Lusse says nothing. She keeps her red-rimmed eyes on the table and sits in silence as none of this has anything to do with her.

‘I’ve heard say that the hill people can turn shit into gold.’

The gentleman’s eyes sparkle with amusement as he looks at Lusse again and then at the farmer at the other end of the table.

‘Give her a sack of cow dung, my good man, and see if she pays good gold for the food you give her!’

Anders laughs out loud. Everyone else exchanges silent looks.

Lusse does not rise to the bait.

Maren is impressed. If that was her, she would have begun to cry. She dislikes this gentleman rider immensely even if he has silver buttons on his fine frock coat.

‘You’re all much too serious,’ the man announces with another short laugh. ‘The old biddy doesn’t mind me teasing her a little. At least she’s getting some attention! Maybe she remembers what that was like when she was young and pretty — that’s assuming she ever was! Just banter!’

‘Enough talk about that.’

The farmer wants peace at his dinner table and he knows better than to make fun of the good neighbours on the hill. The last thing any man needs is trouble with the hill people.

Spoons clatter against the large porridge bowl at the centre of the table. The farmer inquires about news and the farmhands discuss the impending harvest. The girls talk about the cows, work, and farmhands from other farmsteads in the area. When the meal is finished the gentleman rider drops a few coins into the farmer’s hand as payment for his food and what little hay his horse has eaten meanwhile.

Maren lets out a breath of relief when the door closes behind the man. She looks back at Lusse whose eyes are still fixed on the table, red from her tears. The hillman’s wife looks like she never even noticed the man in the first place; she has far more personal, important things to worry about than some stranger with silver buttons on his coat.

The womenfolk settle to their evening work. Wool is spun and clothes are repaired and no hour of daylight must go to waste. The menfolk settle as well; wood is carved and brooms are made from the heather gathered by the shepherd boy. Stockings are knit from coarse, grey yarn. As long as there is enough light to see by, idle hands are the Devil’s playthings — and the daylight can be extended by burning sheep’s fat in oil lamps.

Only Lusse sits silently, unmoving. Almost unmoving, anyhow — now and then, her coarse lip twitches as she bites back a sob.

Maren watches her for a while. Then she walks over and sits on the bench next to the hillman’s wife. She doesn’t have anything to say so she keeps quiet. She just doesn’t want Lusse to sit there all by herself; not everyone here thinks like that windbag and she didn’t think his jokes were funny at all.

After a while, Lusse looks up. She turns her head to look at the farmer, across the room.

‘Somebody might go check on the road outside,’ the vætte woman mumbles.

‘The road is fine where it is. ‘Besides, no honest folk travel this late at night, Lusse.’

The farmer is whittling on a new spoon. His sharp knife chips away at the wood in his hands.

Maren agrees. The little girl is certain that the traveller with the silver buttons cannot have been an honest man; the preacher never said anything about the rich being allowed to mock the poor without consequences for their soul. She likes the way the farmer just subtly called the man an ungodly heathen without actually calling him an ungodly heathen.

‘That fine cockerel is not travelling anywhere. He’s gone and broken his leg up the road.’

The farmer frowns and puts down his knife before turning to the boy, Anders.

‘Take a lantern and go look all the same. Better be certain everything is as it should be out there. People like Lusse see and hear things that the rest of us do not. She might be right.’

The boy grumbles but he goes. It’s very dark outside.

It doesn’t take long before the sound of ironshod hooves clatters against the cobblestones of the courtyard once more. The door opens and Anders pokes his face in, looking a little scared. He gestures out at the darkness behind himself.

‘The gentleman is lying up by the willows with a broken leg. The horse spooked and threw him. I rode it back to get help faster. He howls like a pig, too.’

‘I’ll be damned,’ the farmer mutters. ‘I guess we better go pick him up, then. Hitch the horses before the cart, Anders. They won’t like the dark but at least we’re not going far.’

Maren looks at Lusse. Did the vætte woman do this, somehow?

Lusse looks at her hands. Is she smiling a little? Maybe. It’s hard to tell with a mouth as crooked as hers. One corner of the small woman’s mouth points up and the other points down and Maren cannot tell if that’s always the case or if she is smirking now.

The men pull on their coats and head out into the night.

The farmer’s wife makes the girl prepare clean sheets and put water on the stove to boil. A broken leg can mean all kinds of things. Maybe somebody will need to fetch the doctor in the morning to set the bone and stitch the man up like a torn shirt. Maybe the bone just needs to be splinted and the menfolk can handle it themselves.

The gentleman with the silver buttons will not be riding any horses for quite some time, though. He may end up with a limp for life. Pride took a fall, Maren thinks and doesn’t feel sorry for the man at all.

She checks the temperature of the water on the stove and then looks back at Lusse — who is gone. She made no sound leaving and Maren did not notice.

The girl tells the farmer’s wife who smiles.

‘I thought she might be leaving soon.’

The woman shrugs and starts to rip up an old sheet.

Maren is confused.

‘But where has she gone off to?’

‘Back where she belongs.’

The farmer’s wife has strong hands and the cloth goes rrrrrrip as she tears strips from it.

‘It’s not easy for a young girl like you to understand, Maren. I know that. Love is like that, though. The old man in the hill and Lusse love each other very much. The old man had too much to drink and he said some things he should not have said. Men do that — they talk before they think. But he loves her and those people have very good hearing.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Maren agrees.

‘Lusse went home to the hill because she knows her man was outside, listening and trying to work out how to convince her to come home. He heard that fine gentleman talks about his wife like that. Now that fine gentleman has a broken leg and a ruined coat. Lusse knows that her man will not let anyone insult her like that. She knows that he loves her very much, even if he’s a mean drunk.’

‘So the hillman broke the man’s leg?’

Maren is not sure whether she should be outraged or impressed. Maybe both.

‘Probably.’

The farmer’s wife shrugs. Some things are common sense to plain folks — if not to the gentry.

‘It’s not wise to speak ill of the little people. Besides, they mind their business and we mind ours. Those aren’t