‘Can you read the one about the lady who was friends with the big deer?’

‘Yes of course,’ Aurelia says, swiping to the beginning of the PDF.

‘Here it is,’ she says. ‘Grete and the Elk.’

Once upon a time there was a woman called Grete who had two daughters. All day long Grete did the work of women, but at night she would stand by the door and dream about sailing across the ocean, or diving to its depths, or even soaring to the moon.

One night, whilst she was standing by her door eating a bowl of riskrem (‘riskrem’ is a kind of porridge,’ she tells Gaia), she heard a noise in the woods, the sound of shaking branches and twigs snapping underfoot. Her dog began to growl, and fear seized her so that she shut the door with trembling hands. But when she peered through the window she saw an enormous elk sniffing at the latch. The next night the same thing happened, and the night after, but on the fourth night she decided to hold her nerve and see what the elk wanted.

The elk was a magnificent creature with a majestic crown of antlers that glinted in the moonlight. Grete was afraid of being run through by them, but as the elk stopped a little way away from her she sensed that it did not mean her harm. Her dog rushed towards the elk, barking and warning it off, but the elk merely looked down at it, and eventually the dog quietened and seemed to accept the elk.

‘What do you want?’ Grete asked the elk. It took one step closer, then another, and she noticed its eyes peering at the remains of the riskrem she had just been eating a moment before. Gently she held up the bowl and the elk ate from it.

The next night Grete made two bowls of riskrem and the elk visited and ate. This visit became a regular habit, and Grete found that she spent her days doing the work of women anticipating its visits with happiness. The elk listened to her more than her husband or children, and she’d noticed it would often seem to respond with little grunts or huffs that sounded as though it understood every word she spoke.

But then Grete became ill. Her oldest girl fetched the doctor who told her nothing more could be done – she would have to stay in bed where she would eventually die.