“You are late in from the woods,” I said instead.

“That’s how it is,” he said. “One must wait for the right time.”

Seeing that the monster was but a man, and that he was in all likelihood a villager here, I was emboldened to try a little mischief.

“You are not afraid of the spirits in the forest?”

“The spirits?” he said after several moments. “Which would they be?”

“The ones we hear of, ones in the old tales. Perhaps you don’t believe in them then?”

“That hardly matters,” he said after a moment. “They are there all the same.”

This silenced me, and to this day, I do not know why his sparing words should have had such an effect. I knew immediately that he was not being mischievous with his words, and it galled me that I had no words to address him further on this, so strange was his pronouncement.

Perhaps it was the air of the mountains, or the long day’s hiking in the woods and over moors and valleys, but the words did not come. He then asked me if I were looking for a place that I might have an evening meal. I was indeed, I told him, and a simple Gasthaus where I could spend the night. He directed me to one, and we then parted.

I retired that evening after a hearty meal, full sure that my sleep that evening would be the soundest sleep possible, and perhaps the only dreams would be those of the skies and trees, and the bright sun that had guided me all day. Instead I passed several hours pondering our meeting, this hunter and I, and I resolved to tell my colleagues of this man who seemed to live a life no different than one of centuries past. How is it possible, I wondered, that a man in the age of telegraphs and trains can believe as he did?

We all have our trove of stories, do we not, of bijou events and ‘characters’ that we collect and later relate, to show the rich variety of our world and society? The retelling so often makes our pleasure keener, we believe, especially if they raise a smile or a laugh, and such tales as we collect and retail serve to make us more sociable and to enhance our own public selves while they make those occasions more entertaining.