Ola Nordbotten was not an evil man. Just ignorant of tradition, perhaps, or stubborn in his ways. Regardless, when his father died, he did become the keeper of Granli, husmannsplassen clinging to the slope where the spruces stood tall and the earth was just un-barren enough to provide.

He’d married four years earlier to the then sixteen-year-old Mathilda of Bakli, as was custom in eighteenth-century Norway. And now, with three failed harvests behind him, another one ahead, and a wife who stayed mockingly unpregnant, Ola found himself wondering if his wife was as barren as the land he cropped. Or tried to.

Granli was owned by Skogstad gaard, a prosperous farm and well-known in the Numedal district. Anders Christian Skogstad was the reigning landowner, following a line of his father and his fathers before him.

But wait. You might not be familiar with the Norwegian husmannsplass. No farm of its own, not really. It belonged to the main gaard, carved out just far enough from the fields that mattered. The man who lived there, and his family, worked their own patch when they could, but owed their hands and backs to the landowner. It was a life of borrowing, both soil and standing. A cotter’s homestead. A crofter’s holding. Granli was such a place. Modest, slanted, half-forgotten, except when labor was needed.

Ola was eight years older than his wife and had learned all he could of labor and farming from his father, who had passed away too soon at forty-four, respectable enough for 1748. But neither the Danish king nor the local landowners took much notice of such things.

So Ola’s siblings moved out to make room for the new family that would take shape at Granli, once Mathilda began doing what wives were expected to do. Some of them moved all the way across the sea, and others took work at nearby farms. His mother had the decency to die only a year separated from her husbond.

But Ola saw himself as an enlightened man, and such arrogance could be mistaken for ill-willed. He scoffed at his mother’s warnings and old folklore. And he’d never seen any real reward in blessing the spirits, or the nisse.

Not when the first harvest came in short, and his wife stayed barren and childless. Not with the second sparse fall, and no baby’s cry. Not with the third starving høsttakkefest and no child at her breast.

No matter how many times he plowed the fields or lay with his wife as a husbond should—this year’s harvest looked no better than Mathilda’s flat belly.

But Tosten had noticed the new ruler of Granli, and not with pleasure or gratitude. Was he supposed to look after Dagros and Lille Gull, and make sure their milk didn’t go sour still in their udders; take care of Petter the goat, and Henrietta’s little chicken with no gratitude? Or respect? That stung the most. The complete lack of respect from the new human.

Katten, simply named from what she was, brushed past him, arching with such practiced arrogance it only made feline sense, and letting out a sly purr, “Should have known, little man, the first time he left butter out of the bowl.”

She drew a lazy paw over her whiskers, as if they somehow had fallen the wrong way.

“And you expect him to change?”

Then she slipped through the hole in the wall, only to turn and stare back at him with glowing eyes in the dark.

“Because you’re so quick to adapt, non? Tosten?”

Tosten rubbed his fist in his palm, let a curse die between his teeth. “You’d think,” he said, “that three harvests of bad luck would have him change his ways.”

“You’re adorable,” Katten teased, stretching so her paws stuck out of the hole. “Leaving his soil barren.”

She rolled onto her back, stretching again until her spine clicked. The spider caught her eye—descending slow as a thought, suspended on a single strand of silk from the rafters above. She tried not to, but a lazy purr escaped her as she tracked it without moving, green glowing eyes fixed, tail flicking once. And just then, at the precise moment, she flicked her paw at it, chasing it into the shadows.

“Almost as adorable as denying his wife pregnancy, mon chéri.”

Tosten snarled, kicked dust at the hole in the wall, but Katten was already gone. Of course he wasn’t allowed to interfere directly with the world of humans. Not that way. He was supposed to make them trip over a stool that hadn’t been there a minute ago. Frighten the livestock. Sure, mess with the harvest if they misbehaved badly enough.

But interfere with…

He spat. Just once, before peeking into the cows’ end of the barn.

“Boo!” he yelled, and ran away laughing his silly little laugh.

Dagros and Lille Gull answered by stomping and mooing, which in turn had Petter bleating, stomping, and ramming his own enclosure so hard that Henrietta startled her chicks out of sleep.

The racket was delightful.

To husmannen Ola, stirring in his sleep, it was an unwanted delight, that rackety barn. Torn once more from needed rest, he sighed, “Again?”

Mathilda, still awake, contemplating wife-thoughts of the kind husbonds never notice, turned and smiled, “I’ll come with you, husbond.”

And that’s why, on that still-warm August night, the farmer couple strode across the patch of grass that separated house from barn, never once noticing the green-glow of eyes watching them from the narrow window tucked beneath the ridge of the roof.

Katten smiled, watching them. The man, in his sleep clothes, the woman in a sheer nightgown the moon, in its own teasing game, chose to light just enough to find the shape of the young woman underneath. The cat licked her paw, then jumped down onto the roof beam below, laughing at the cows, grinning at the goat, and thinking that if just one of Henrietta’s flufflings went astray, it’d make just enough of a dinner to make her forget Ola’s butter neglect.

Tosten sat there under the roof, squatting in shadow, watching his mischief unfold below. Katten nuzzled her face against his chest, “You only do this to watch her, don’t you?” she purred.

Tosten didn’t answer, but pushed her off him. It wasn’t that the damned cat was a constant pest — it was that she was always so smugly right. That’s what bothered him.

But why not feast his eyes on her curves? He could live with them letting the cat live in his house. He could live with his efforts going unnoticed. He could live with being unappreciated on a daily basis — for such was the life of a fjøsnisse.

But no Yule porridge? Three straight years?

No, the racket below was justified. And Ola’s frustration over lost sleep and unsettled livestock warmed his pitiful heart in a way only a fjøsnisse would appreciate.

But she, the woman, didn’t share her husbond’s frustration or angered voice. She whispered softly to Dagros, and the cow settled. She calmed Lille Gull with the touch of her palm.

She sat in the hay and sang to Petter until he calmed himself, and not once threatened her with his horns.

And the little chickens? They nestled in her lap and fell asleep.

Ola watched his young wife in the moonlight, and despite the sleepless nights, he ached for her. But when he crouched before her, he saw she was crying.

“You need to respect the Spirits,” she pleaded. “This can only be the Nisse!”

Rage took ache’s place in Ola’s heart.

Folklore! Spirits! Ancient beliefs!

“Do not start with this again, woman!” he yelled, and Mathilda cowered and protected the chickens on her lap. “We are not talking about this again, Mathilda!”

She saw he was tired. Wiped the tear from her cheek and forced a smile.

“Go,” she told him. “I’ll follow shortly.”

And Tosten watched her beauty — the way her bosom swelled beneath the sheer fabric, the way she lifted Henrietta’s little ones and sat them softly in their cradle. Then he watched as her bare feet whispered over the floorboards, and he wished he’d swept the barn like he should have, to spare her soft feet the burden of dust.

Katten yawned and nudged Tosten’s arm. “You’re a dirty little nisse, aren’t you?” she purred.

“Hush,” Tosten hissed. “I’m just—”

The cat placed her paw on his lap, feeling the unaware bulge beneath his wool pants.

“You’re just a dirty, horny little nisse,” she said, her eyes gleaming.

For the first time, maybe in all time, a fjøsnisse felt what a blush was. But Katten didn’t allow him to blush for too long, pushing the little pebble with her paw. A little more, until it fell to the boards below — a sound that cracked like a whip through the otherwise still barn.

Enough to draw Mathilda’s attention to the rafters.

“Oh, Katten,” she smiled. “You startled me.”

For the most important duty of a fjøsnisse is to never be seen.

So instead, he watched from the shadows how the wretched cat jump down and followed the woman outside. He crouched beneath the window and pressed his face against the glass to catch the two of them walking up to the little cottage the human couple called home, and stared with both jealousy and longing as the woman lifted the cat, nestled her against her chest, and cuddled the foul feline with touches no fjøsnisse should desire.

August turned September, and Tosten cursed the crops for the fourth year running, forcing Ola to give up Petter and send Lille Gull away. If not for the invitation to the Skogstad harvest feast, the young couple would have entered the long winter starving.

You might not think it, but when deciding to grow grass or grains, potatoes or cabbage, to a husmann it’s choosing whether to survive the winter or starve the livestock. Especially in a place like Granli.

But Tosten noticed a change. Ola’s brooding and foul mood left Mathilda lonelier with each passing day, and she found herself less youthful and more solemn, especially with the absence of Petter and Lille Gull. And she spent more time in the barn, keeping Dagros from falling into depression, pining too hard over her daughter. The chickens were grown now, and Mathilda would steal the sparse grain that was supposed to feed her and her husbond through the winter, and feed the hens instead. In turn, they gave her eggs. Most of which, she kept from her husbond.

She sighed as Henrietta cocked her head and gave her that stare.

“I see it,” Mathilda whispered. “You miss a man too, don’t you?”

And she watched the hens find sleep, perched and nestled in their pens. Dagros had stilled, and Tosten watched all of it from the silence and shadows of the rafters. He expected Mathilda to sigh, dim the flame, and retreat to her home, but the young woman lay down in the fresh hay of Petter’s old den and breathed, but not quite a sigh.

Katten’s purr almost startled him, deep and rumbling, and he expected her to ruin this moment with her foul voice. But when she spoke, there was an unusual quiet to her voice.

“Oh, this should be good, mon chéri,” she said, her words still wrapped in that deep purr.

Tosten didn’t dare ask, afraid that any motion or word would shatter the moment—or worse, that the wretched cat would trick him into unawareness, only to tear the night open with her mischief.

But Katten stayed still, the purr steady in her chest.

“Watch, you silly old man,” she whispered, pointing her white-flecked paw down below, then catching an invisible spot she had to lick, because above all things, she was still a cat. Still, she had to voice it, “Ever seen solitude take form, nisse? Solitude turn ache? Ache turned—”

But nothing more escaped her but a deep, rooted purr.

And below, Mathilda lay back. She tugged at the hem of her woolen skirt, lifting it just high enough to reveal the paleness of her calves—skin that only the moon could match. The rough weave of her shift rode higher as the fabric slid, baring the softness of her thighs, and underneath, she was bare.

Tosten wanted to look away, because he was a mere fjøsnisse, and had no business in Mathilda’s private moment. But Katten’s purr—deep, rumbling, insistent—kept him rooted. The sounds escaping Mathilda as her fingers slid between her thighs…

The stubborn thumping of his cock.

It was all too much to ignore.

“You should take yours out, mon chéri,” Katten whispered, her tongue flicking the corner of her paw. “C'est magnifique, n'est-ce pas?”

And Tosten, still watching the woman below pleasuring herself in ways so forbidden to his eyes, felt his clothes shrink—as if, of course—of course—he needed to let himself out. Only for comfort. Of course.

Katten stopped purring. Her eyes shot wide, her back arched, and she spun toward him.

“That thing is a monssstrossssité!” she hissed.

Tosten didn’t hear her. But Mathilda did. Her eyes were cloudy from sensation, her breath unsteady from almost—almost—release. She clenched her thighs around her hand, gaze searching the dark beneath the roof.

Shameful, yes—but it was only the cat, staring green and silent from the rafters. And shame could come later. Not now.

Not while her cunt throbbed wet around her fingers, begging her to finish what weeks—months—of longing had begun.

Mathilda let herself fall back into the soft hay, chased the interruption away, and gave herself over to sensation.

Her hips arched once, then again—slow and quiet, desperate for release but fearful of sound. A moan caught in her throat, then slipped back into breath, until at last a soft cry escaped her lips—so faint it might’ve been mistaken for the settling of beams, or the sigh of a cow in sleep.

Tosten froze, heart pounding, the back of his neck damp. And his cock—stubbornly caught in his hand—moved to his rhythm, stroking as if... no. Not with her. Not her. But still, he refused shame, and replaced it with awe. The kind that made him throb and pulse and wonder, for the first time, if what he witnessed was not mischief—but prayer.

Katten watched her arch, and him ache. Both stares resembled something close to respect.

“Faster,” she purred, and he could not stop himself. “Rrrrrrrapide…”

Below, through sensation, through waves, Mathilda uttered only two high-pitched words: “Why, Ola?” Then only: “Ola.”

Tosten could not hold it any longer. His head spun through the ancient rulebook:

Never be seen.
Do not interfere with the desire of humans.
Do not envy what is not yours.
Accept no thanks, ask no praise.

But nowhere did it say: Do not please yourself at the sight of a female human.

Below, Mathilda lay still in the hay, her hand resting over her belly, her breath shallow but steady. And with her eyes closed, she whispered to no one—or perhaps to the rafters above:

“I just want something to grow.”

And when Tosten could no longer hold it, she wasn’t surprised or startled by the spot of wet hitting her cheek. A leaky roof, perhaps. Sap from the old beams. But the sensation made her feel younger.

Fertile.

As if touched by magic.

And only then did she hear the deep rumble of Katten’s purr, still perched beneath the roof.

“Oh, Katten,” she whispered. “You saw that, didn’t you?”

Katten stretched and meowed contentedly. Arched her back, then turned and slipped into the dark. But Mathilda caught her green eyes, still staring back, watching. The low purr lingered, filling the barn like smoke. Or premonition.

And autumn turned to winter. Ola’s misery turned foul, and Mathilda spent most of her time avoiding her husbond. She wished they’d kept more animals. Wished the barn were fuller of life. Wished she were fuller of life. But now, Ola hardly touched her at all.

Her nights grew longer, and she pleased herself more often. So often, even Katten began to pity her. She stared at Tosten—not at the cock, the monstrous cock on his smallish body—but at the cruel, stubborn creature who owned it.

She wasn’t purring.

“You must lift this curse,” she said. “It has turned... la cruauté.”

Tosten was prideful. A little petty. And by now, so consumed with the woman that he no longer functioned at all. Dagros had taken ill because he’d neglected his duties. It had taken more magic than his body was meant for to heal her, and it left him drained.

But the sight of Mathilda? That still stirred him.

“One Yule porridge,” he grunted. “Is that really too much to ask?”

Katten hissed now.

“Ask no praise!”

Tosten sighed.

“Is it praise?” he whispered, “To long for love?”

Katten didn’t know what else to say, but she was a cat, after all, so cold rejection came naturally for her.

“Pitiful,” she snarled. “Complètement pathétique.”

She flicked her tail. Once. Then turned and found her shadow. But she didn’t look back at him this time. Not at Mathilda, either, sleeping in the hay below, her tears not yet dry.

And the eve of Yule did arrive—but not inside the Granli house. They dined, as was custom, and only because Skogstad had provided enough gratitude to call it a meal. But there was no Yule warmth inside their four walls. No tatter of children’s feet, no carols of joy. Not even a blaze in the fireplace, but only the cold heat of the kitchen stove.

Mathilda met her husbond’s eyes across the table. A little sunken. A little less there with each passing day. Resigned.

But worst of all—resentful.

“I want to respect the Spirits,” she whispered. “What else is there to try, husbond?”

Ola, tired of everything, sighed his thousandth sigh of winter.

“I care not, Mathilda. We’ve no food to last us the season—but by all means, if you feel feeding the mice and rats is more important than giving me a child…”

He said no more.

He drank his Yule ale and went to bed.

Mathilda sighed. She’d be twenty-one come January. Perhaps barren—Granli being the only childless husmannsplass under Skogstad, perhaps even in all of Numedal. But Ola hadn’t spilled his seed in her for almost a year now. She was as much a disappointment to him as the sparse harvest had been.

She’d loved him at sixteen. Such a handsome man, all to herself. But love now felt more like pity.

She sighed again and cleared the plates. Cleaned pots and pans, as a good wife was supposed to. Then wiped the counters and swept the floors. Put another log in the stove. And her third sigh came at the sight of the untouched porridge. But beneath that sigh, something stirred. Excitement.

An act of kindness to rectify all wrongdoings.

There was a drizzle of sugar left, just enough to sweeten. And miraculously, Dagros had returned to health, giving rich, nutritious milk. Enough, even, to steal a dab of butter without Ola noticing.

She even found a little bowl for Katten, who indeed kept the barn free of rats and mice. Something Ola would have known, if not for his bitterness.

As she gazed out the window, where fresh snow pressed against the glass and the barn glowed dim through the flurries of Yule tenderness, a warmth rose within her.

Maybe she was meant to be barren. Maybe she was supposed to stay at Granli—a dwindling gray mouse. Maybe Ola would take another wife, one who’d give him children’s laughter.

But she was still a woman with needs.

And above all, she needed to feel her body as wanted, even if only through her own fingers.

She hurriedly planted her feet in her worn boots and lit the kerosene lamp hanging on the hook by the door. When she opened it, a not-so-small drift of snow had packed against the threshold, and it took quite some force to push it open. No small feat for a slender young woman holding a hot plate of porridge, a glass and bowl of milk, and the desire to be pregnant all in the same breath.

The wind stilled, as if nature respected her presence, and the flurries grew bigger and softer, landing like glitter in her braided brown hair. And why not smile, when nature greeted her like that?

Katten watched from her window, now frosted with ice roses and the stubborn prints of soft paws. Somehow, the young woman looked more vibrant tonight. More alive.

Less burdened.

As Mathilda pushed the barn doors open, she was surprised at the warmth of the old timbered building. Not because of the light of the lamps she must have forgotten to dim. Not because she must have been so tired she didn’t remember sweeping the floors.

But warm, like a dwelling for humans and not for animals.

She put the bowl of milk down and set the porridge and the glass on top of Dagros’ enclosure, thinking at first the cow had fallen ill again.

“Hey,” she said in her softest voice. “You’re not warm with sick. Only love.”

Dagros—if she could have—would have smiled. But she could nuzzle her nozzle against the young woman’s arm in understood affection.

Henrietta, Gudrun, Tuppeline, and Signe didn’t startle or racket, but watched the human patiently as she gathered grain. No squibble, no squabble, when she handed each of them a small palmful.

Henrietta offered her a cluck in gratitude, then proudly showed her the eight eggs they’d prepared for her.

Mathilda, overjoyed, kissed Henrietta’s beak. And the hen—if she could have—would have blushed.

Then finally, Mathilda’s attention returned to the porridge and milk—not once forgotten, but placed lastly because it was the most important.

“Where,” she whispered, “would a nisse dine?”

She looked around the barn but found no spot worthy of such a blessed creature. So she took the old milking stool, sat it next to their last barrel of grain tucked in the corner under the hayloft, then hung a lamp there to make it cozy. But something was amiss. It looked uninviting. Cold.

A naughty thought passed through her mind—and when no better ideas came to her, it returned.

A little flushed, she freed herself of her petticoat. It was meant to keep her warm and decent, but she had no need for its warmth here. And decency? She had to smile. She’d left her decency at the door a long time ago.

And the petticoat did make a fine tablecloth. Yes. It all seemed inviting now. All worthy of a fjøsnisse.

Mathilda sighed. It felt like it was all she could do these days. Sigh for mornings, sigh for days. Sigh for longing.

Yet she could not feel sad. Not on Yule night.

She knew she was supposed to leave. But she felt more welcome here, more loved. More cared for than in that cold house of Ola’s. So she made excuses to stay. Like petting Dagros one more time. Ensuring there was fresh water aplenty. That the hens slept peaceful.

Tosten watched from the hole in the wall. He had just managed to jump out of sight—for fjøsnisser can’t snap their fingers and disappear like other spirits. And now his tummy growled for that porridge. And milk! She had brought him milk! And a dab of butter that would melt into his meal.

His heart felt too warm, and another burst of heat escaped him—just like it had all day. All evening. All night.

And Mathilda felt surprised at the wave of warmth that seemed to fill the barn anew. Such was the heat that her coat was no longer needed.

She had prettied herself for Ola, her finest dress passed down from her mother, but like her warm approaches between the sheets, like her kitchen teases, like her spirited advances—

Like her pleas for him to lie with her.

—the dress had gone unnoticed and unwanted.

And now, she didn’t want it herself anymore.

So she let it shed off her body, and underneath she was as bare as the day she’d been born. It felt pointless then, to wear boots and woolen socks. She expected her skin to perk, for the cold of the barn to stir her nipples against the chill. But the barn held no such chill. And still, they perked.

Her dress became linen on the pile of hay in Petter’s old den. And her bed looked inviting.

I am woman, foremost, she thought. Not wife. Not property. And if husbond won’t lie with me, I won’t be denied my womanhood.

She was pale, Tosten thought. Pale, but perfect. So gentle were her curves, she had to be formed under magic. Not carved by lust between humans, not carved like wood or shaped like clay, but called into being—like morning fog, or the hush of first snowfall. The first sprinkle of summer rain. The first flutter of newborn butterfly wings.

Her breasts were soft as promises, her hips quiet as sleep. And she moved like someone who still believed in being touched.

Then Katten, her usual arrogance intact, purred deep as she squeezed past him through the hole. She had been eyeing the bowl of milk for too long, and now lapped her tongue in the delight.

She stared back at the hole.

“Buttered milk,” she smirked.

She licked a drop of milk from her whiskers and gave him a look that stretched beyond the darkness.

“Buttered milk,” she said again, slower this time. Then her smile deepened. “Oh, mon chéri... you want her petite chatte brûlante, don’t you?”

She flicked her tail once. “Trop tard. She’s already wet.”

Tosten closed his eyes, furrowed his brow, and tried to will the thought into her smug little skull.

I came for the porridge, you foul creature, he willed into the cat’s mind.

“Foul?” she hissed. “I’m not the one throbbing with lust. Aching with lust! L’avidité! Le désir!”

Mathilda, so far gone into her own fantasy of wanting fingers, hardened manhood, and hjertets begjær, barely registered the cat.

But barely was enough.

“Oh, Katten,” she pleaded, a little flustered and short of breath. “Was the milk not to your liking?”

Katten, shocked by the question, thought better of herself—and let out a deep purr before returning to her delight. Her tail wagged slow.

Had Mathilda let herself stay present, she might have caught the shadow against the far wall—sneaking past the barn door, crouching under the handlebars of the plow.

But she was consumed with her ache, falling back onto her bed once again, thighs spread wider, fingers working ever more furiously at her wanton need.

But for all her wetness, for all her heat, she could not bring herself over the edge.

Desperate, tears streaked her face as she took herself more violently, thinking not of charming princes or loving lads, but of being taken.

Used.

By men fouler than her husbond. Fouler than the wretched owners of Frydenborg gaard, who, rumor had it, not only took advantage of their husmannsplass hand, but also their wives. To punish herself, Mathilda pushed a slick digit into the place she’d only cursed, then another, thinking she should let them take her like that as well.

What other purpose would she have in life, with her barren womb?

Tosten, still a spoonful of Yule delight in his mouth, stopped. Because he could hear her voice even in utter silence. Silence only broken by the sounds of her—the wet sounds of—but no moans.

And then he did the unthinkable.

You are not barren! he yelled into her mind. It’s your useless husbond’s seed! I cursed it, fair lady! I cursed him!

For a nisse to speak into the heart of a human—to name the truth she feared most—that had not been done since the old stones still remembered their first frost. But then, Tosten was not like the others. Not anymore.

And as if intruding her mind wasn’t already a violation of countless sacred rules,
surely stepping from the shadows—falling to his knees, pleading—was a violation of them all.

“Forgive me, fair lady!” he cried, tears streaking his face. “I did not understand! That his curse would become your suffering!”

Mathilda, caught somewhere between shame and whoredom, couldn’t quite be startled, but she could attempt shyness, curling her limbs inward, trying to cover herself with arms and legs alone.

“What…” she gasped. “Who are you?”

“Nobody,” Tosten answered, realizing his mistake and wishing he could snap his fingers into invisibility.

Rumor had it his great-grandfather—Tosten, too, of course—had once mastered such magic. But those were different times, when humans still respected their nisse enough to grant such powers in them.

“Tosten,” he corrected himself. “And you’re so fair I dare not look upon you.”

Katten, now seated by the barn door, stopped licking her paw.

“Dare not look upon her?” she frowned. “Sérieusement?”

But Mathilda heard no purr or hiss, only the quiet of breath and straw—her own beating heart—as she leaned forward to take him in. Small in stature, yes, but so stubbornly handsome.

“You’re the nisse?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes, fair lady,” he admitted. “Although, now that you’ve seen me, I don’t know for how long.”

The thought filled her with sadness, because she knew of the ancient rules.

“I won’t tell,” she whispered.

He dared glance, then, removing his hat, because she felt like royalty.

“A nisse,” she whispered. “And how long has the nisse’s eyes watched me?”

“I never meant to,” he pleaded.

Katten wished she could laugh, but settled for a taunting meow.

“And upon watching me, Tosten,” Mathilda whispered, letting her legs fall open, “What did you desire?”

Tosten swallowed. He could not tell her his thoughts, yet he could not lie, either.

“I desired you to be happy,” he whispered above the lump in his throat.

She studied him. Called him closer.

“And the nisse is a man?” she asked, her voice so soft even Katten fell under her spell, and a purr escaped her. “With the desire of all men?”

“I have no such desires,” he whispered.

Lied.

“Then. What does my heart desire?” she asked.

“To bear child,” he said.

He could smell her now. All of her. Her need, her warmth, her intoxicating presence.

“Yet,” she whispered, “it need not be my husbond’s child.”

Tosten swallowed.

Katten wagged her tail. Once.

“What are you suggesting, fair lady?” he asked, the words catching in his throat.

“Mate with me, nisse. Make me brim full of babies.”

She unbraided her hair and let it fall behind her in the most wonderful cascade the poor nisse had ever witnessed—like the waterfalls his mother had once told him about when he was a youngling on the mountain sæter.

“Don’t make me plead,” she whispered, letting herself fall back against the softness of her mother’s dress.

And Tosten was frozen. A mere nisse, sworn to secrecy and to protect the farm from harm—or curse it as he saw fit—now caught in the snare of temptation so deep, no redemption seemed possible. Her swelling breasts, the curve of her neck as she lay back, no longer pinning or pining him with her eyes. Her thighs parted, and her moist invitation begged him in ways her voice refused to.

He wasn’t meant to have earthly lusts. But now he felt more man than creature, more human than magical. His groin thumped, sick and heavy, bursting against wool that—

He closed his eyes. But he could not will anything forth other than desire. And if it truly were her desire to bear child, wasn’t it his sworn oath to grant her harvest?

“World’s longest foreplay,” Katten purred. “August through Yule? Take her, mon chéri!”

Ever heard a cat call a catcall?

It did what she intended it to do—pulled Tosten out of doubt and let him be gripped with the kind of lust reserved for men. Suspenders and wool gave way to something more primal than his being. More primal than the spirits who would surely curse him forever, perhaps banishing him to a mere skogsnisse. No home. A retribution stripped from salvage for his betrayal.

And still, he could not take her as he desired—though he knew not exactly how that was. He tried, exploring her heat, her impossible wetness, her soft folds opening for him as if asking—no, praying—for him.

“You feel so warm against me,” she gasped. “And you feel nothing like your stature would suggest!”

And for as hard as Tosten tried to hold back, he felt drawn toward her, as if her womb called for him. And as he pushed past those soft, swelling lips, her legs curled around him, pulling him in.

He thought he hurt her, for such were her cries.

“Madame,” he begged.

“Hush, Tosten,” she breathed back, eyes now fixed on him. “Push. Fill me. Take me.”

Her voice sounded haunted—bewitched, somehow. But Tosten could no longer deny himself. She felt sacred around him. As if his length had been swallowed by ancient magic—not that of a nisse, but of elf. Older than flesh. Older than oaths he no longer remembered. Into warmth spun from spells no one recalled anymore. Into a wetness that welcomed not his body, but his being.

The violence of her arc startled him, the way her knuckles turned white clutching the ropes that once were meant to keep Petter safe, the ragged voice behind one uttered command.

“Breed me, Tosten!”

If the spirits watched—

And they always did.

—not one of them dared whisper a word. For this was not sin. This was mercy.

Besides, they feared Katten. For cats knew witches. And witches?

Witches could control spirits.

And when her pit clenched around him, when her hips stilled against him, and her legs held him pinned inside her, he could no longer hold back.

“My lady…” he gasped.

He had never felt such sensation.

She, in turn, felt as if life itself returned within her, as if the seed of a magic being held unfathomable healing powers. As if she could drift to sleep and never wake as long as she could keep that feeling inside her.

At long last, she released him, her legs falling wide beside him. And still, he was lodged inside her, not knowing precisely what to do.

And he felt shameful for his doing.

She must have sensed it, somehow.

She grinned, as if amused. “There’s a much more fun way to do that,” she breathed.

She slid off him, still grinning and almost as feline as Katten, drew closer.

“My lady?” he asked, but she didn’t answer with voice.

Her hands on his resting virility felt soft as first snow, but warm as embers on Yule Morning. But when her tongue reached for him, he gasped again.

“My lady!”

And as she licked and sucked their fornication off him, Mathilda introduced him to human magic, and it felt more divine than any tales of his kind.

Mathilda spent the night showing Tosten all the ways mating could be fun, until he fell back, exhausted and spent, and soon fast asleep.

Katten was nowhere to be seen, but there were rumors that night of a cat so lovesick, all of Numedal felt haunted by her.

Mathilda dressed, kissed Tosten’s head, and went inside.

Her husbond lay snoring in their wedding bed. She cared not if he was tired, or if she was spent beyond the stretches of imagination. It was his duty as a man to breed her—or at the very least, to attempt to please her. And when he stirred, she was already riding him, and his hands found her hips before his voice could. All in awe at how wet and open she was for, just him.

She took from him what she saw fit. And good thing, too, for she had indeed fallen pregnant.

And somehow, winter turned a mild cheek, and Mathilda’s pleas with Skogstad lent them enough food to last until spring.

And Ola’s land grew as lush as his wife’s belly.

And perhaps it was a turn of fortune. Or perhaps it was the very content nisse, no longer dreaming of Yule porridge, but waiting for the fair woman to sneak into his barn at night and lay with him as if she were his.

She had a beautiful son, and the harvest provided so graciously that Dagros got her Lille Gull back, and Henrietta was bewedded to the most handsome of cocks.

Well, in Mathilda’s mind, the second most handsome of cocks—but she never said that out loud.

Goats in the pen, even promise of sheep in the spring.

And Granli prospered, a new child arriving around harvest each year. A little short, the kids of Granli, but so skilled with animals and nature alike, no one questioned their belonging.

The most prosperous of husmannsplasser in all of Numedal.

And while her many younglings grew into fine young men, and Ola dwindled with age, no such fate beckoned Mathilda. Youth blessed her, even as time progressed, and there are still tales, even to this day, about the witch in the Granli forest.

In the ruins of that old husmannsplass, should you venture to such a now desolate place on the Eve of Christmas and sit and listen, they say you can still hear her voice on the wind. Maybe she’s calling Tosten. Maybe it’s you she’s after. Or perhaps, it’s just the cat with the freckled paws sitting on the rock where the barn entrance used to sit.

The morality of this tale? Folklore and myth are born not from fantasy, but from the spirits who lived in the rock before man was an invention. Still, to this day, prosperous farms all across Norway respect the tradition of a single serving of Yule porridge on the eve of Christmas.

The not so prosperous?

They don’t even have a cat.

Og snipp, snapp, snute. Så er da også eventyret ute.