The silver-gray stallion with the unshodden hoofs and trailing mane she had often heard tell of. He was none other than the Neckan—the River-god—himself.
When the girl came home to Mårbacka and told the serving-folk of her adventure, they all thought as she did—that she had seen the Neckan and that herself and all on her place had best be careful, or before very long one among them would surely be drowned.
But there is no lake near Mårbacka and the old bottom lands to the west of the estate were by then so well dried out that not a trace of swamp or quagmire remained. Even the river, which had once been broad and treacherous, was now so diminished that in summertime, at least, it was scarcely more than a shallow creek.
However, in the month of August, when the days grew shorter and the mists hovered over river and meadow, it happened that an old man from Mårbacka was walking homeward one evening across the western meadows; what he may have seen or encountered down among the mists no one ever knew—but he did not return that night. The next morning his body was found in the little river, which was so shallow the water scarcely covered him. He had been a crabbed old man and there was perhaps no great mourning for him; but they were all very certain now it was the Neckan Lisa Maja had seen that time; had she followed him into the lake he surely would have drawn her down to his Blue Mansions in the deep.
