WEIRD TALES FROM NORTHERN SEAS FROM THE DANISH OF JONAS LIE
BY R. NISBET BAIN
WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY LAURENCE HOUSMAN
Translation 1893
* * * * *
[Illustration: _THE GAN-FINN._]
* * * * *
PREFACE
Jonas Lie is sufficiently famous to need but a very few words of
introduction. Ever since 1870, when he made his reputation by his first
novel, "_Den Fremsynte_," he has been a prime favourite with the
Scandinavian public, and of late years his principal romances have gone
the round of Europe. He has written novels of all kinds, but he excels
when he describes the wild seas of Northern Norway, and the stern and
hardy race of sailors and fishers who seek their fortunes, and so often
find their graves, on those dangerous waters. Such tales, for instance,
as _"Tremasteren Fremtid," "Lodsen og hans Hustru," "Gaa Paa!"_ and
"_Den Fremsynte_" are unique of their kind, and give far truer pictures
of Norwegian life and character in the rough than anything that can be
found elsewhere in the literature. Indeed, Lie's skippers and mates are
as superior to Kjelland's, for instance, as the peasants of Jens Tvedt
(a writer, by the way, still unknown beyond his native land) are
superior to the much-vaunted peasants of Björnstjerne Björnson.
But it is when Lie tells us some of the wild legends of his native
province, Nordland, some of the grim tales on which he himself was
brought up, so to speak, that he is perhaps most vivid and enthralling.
The folk-lore of those lonely sub-arctic tracts is in keeping with the
savagery of nature. We rarely, if ever, hear of friendly elves or
companionable gnomes there. The supernatural beings that haunt those
shores and seas are, for the most part, malignant and malefic. They seem
to hate man. They love to mock his toils, and sport with his despair. In
his very first romance, "_Den Fremsynte_," Lie relates two of these
weird tales (Nos. 1 and 3 of the present selection). Another tale, in
which many of the superstitious beliefs and wild imaginings of the
Nordland fishermen are skilfully grouped together to form the background
of a charming love-story, entitled "Finn Blood," I have borrowed from
the volume of "_Fortællinger og Skildringer_," published in 1872. The
remaining eight stories are selected from the book "_Trold_," which was
the event of the Christmas publishing season at Christiania in 1891.
Last Christmas a second series of "_Trold_" came out, but it is
distinctly inferior to the former one.
R.N.B.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG
II. JACK OF SJÖHÖLM AND THE GAN-FINN
III. TUG OF WAR
IV. "THE EARTH DRAWS"
V. THE CORMORANTS OF ANDVÆR
VI. ISAAC AND THE PARSON OF BRÖNÖ
VII. THE WIND-GNOME
VIII. THE HULDREFISH
IX. FINN BLOOD
X. THE HOMESTEAD WESTWARD IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS
XI. "IT'S ME!"
* * * * *
_THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG_
[Illustration: _THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG._]
THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG
On Kvalholm, down in Helgeland,[1] dwelt a poor fisherman, Elias by
name, with his wife Karen, who had been in service at the parson's over
at Alstad. They had built them a hut here, and he used to go out fishing
by the day about the Lofotens.
There could be very little doubt that the lonely Kvalholm was haunted.
Whenever her husband was away, Karen heard all manner of uncanny shrieks
and noises, which could mean no good. One day, when she was up on the
hillside, mowing grass to serve as winter fodder for their couple of
sheep, she heard, quite plainly, a chattering on the strand beneath the
hill, but look over she durst not.
They had a child every year, but that was no burden, for they were both
thrifty, hard-working folks. When seven years had gone by, there were
six children in the house; but that same autumn Elias had scraped
together so much that he thought he might now venture to buy a
_Sexæring_,[2] and henceforward go fishing in his own boat.
One day, as he was walking along with a _Kvejtepig_[3] in his hand, and
thinking the matter over, he unexpectedly came upon a monstrous seal,
which lay sunning itself right behind a rock on the strand, and was as
much surprised to see the man as the man was to see the seal. But Elias
was not slack; from the top of the rock on which he stood, he hurled the
long heavy Kvejtepig right into the monster's back, just below the neck.
The seal immediately rose up on its tail right into the air as high as a
boat's mast, and looked so evilly and viciously at him with its
bloodshot eyes, at the same time showing its grinning teeth, that Elias
thought he should have died on the spot for sheer fright. Then it
plunged into the sea, and lashed the water into bloody foam behind it.
Elias didn't stop to see more, but that same evening there drifted into
the boat place on Kvalcreek, on which his house stood, a Kvejtepole,
with the hooked iron head snapped off.
Elias thought no more about it, but in the course of the autumn he
bought his _Sexæring_, for which he had been building a little boat-shed
the whole summer.
One night as he lay awake, thinking of his new _Sexæring_, it occurred
to him that his boat would balance better, perhaps, if he stuck an extra
log of wood on each side of it. He was so absurdly fond of the boat that
it was a mere pastime for him to light a lantern and go down to have a
look at it.
Now as he stood looking at it there by the light of the lantern, he
suddenly caught a glimpse in the corner opposite, on a coil of nets, of
a face which exactly resembled the seal's. For an instant it grinned
savagely at him and the light, its mouth all the time growing larger and
larger; and then a big man whisked out of the door, not so quickly,
however, but that Elias could catch a glimpse, by the light of the
lantern, of a long iron hooked spike sticking out of his back. And now
he began to put one and two together. Still he was less anxious about
his life than about his boat; so he there and then sat him down in it
with the lantern, and kept watch. When his wife came in the morning, she
found him sleeping there, with the burnt-out lantern by his side.
One morning in January, while he was out fishing in his boat with two
other men, he heard, in the dark, a voice from a skerry at the very
entrance of the creek. It laughed scornfully, and said, "When it _comes
to a Femböring_,[4] Elias, look to thyself!"
But there was many a long year yet before it _did_ come to that; but one
autumn, when his son Bernt was sixteen, Elias knew he could manage it,
so he took his whole family with him in his boat to Ranen,[5] to
exchange his _Sexæring_ for a _Femböring_. The only person left at home
was a little Finn girl, whom they had taken into service some few years
before, and who had only lately been confirmed.
Now there was a boat, a little _Femböring_, for four men and a boy, that
Elias just then had his eye upon--a boat which the best boat-builder in
the place had finished and tarred over that very autumn. Elias had a
very good notion of what a boat should be, and it seemed to him that he
had never seen a _Femböring_ so well built _below_ the water-line.
_Above_ the water-line, indeed, it looked only middling, so that, to one
of less experience than himself, the boat would have seemed rather a
heavy goer than otherwise, and anything but a smart craft.
Now the boat-master knew all this just as well as Elias. He said he
thought it would be the swiftest sailer in Ranen, but that Elias should
have it cheap, all the same, if only he would promise one thing, and
that was, to make no alteration whatever in the boat, nay, not so much
as adding a fresh coat of tar. Only when Elias had expressly given his
word upon it did he get the boat.
But "yon laddie"[6] who had taught the boat-master how to build his
boats so cunningly _below_ the water-line--_above_ the water-line he had
had to use his native wits, and they were scant enough--must surely have
been there beforehand, and bidden him both sell it cheaply, so that
Elias might get it, and stipulate besides that the boat should not be
looked at too closely. In this way it escaped the usual tarring fore and
aft.
Elias now thought about sailing home, but went first into the town,
provided himself and family with provisions against Christmas, and
indulged in a little nip of brandy besides. Glad as he was over the
day's bargain, he, and his wife too, took an extra drop in their e'en,
and their son Bernt had a taste of it too.
After that they sailed off homewards in their new boat. There was no
other ballast in the boat but himself, his old woman, the children, and
the Christmas provisions. His son Bernt sat by the main-sheet; his wife,
helped by her next eldest son, held the sail-ropes; Elias himself sat at
the rudder, while the two younger brothers of twelve and fourteen were
to take it in turns to bail out.
They had eight miles of sea to sail over, and when they got into the
open, it was plain that the boat would be tested pretty stiffly on its
first voyage. A gale was gradually blowing up, and crests of foam began
to break upon the heavy sea.
And now Elias saw what sort of a boat he really had. She skipped over
the waves like a sea-mew; not so much as a splash came into the boat,
and he therefore calculated that he would have no need to take in all
his clews[7] against the wind, which an ordinary _Femböring_ would have
been forced to do in such weather.
Out on the sea, not very far away from him, he saw another _Femböring_,
with a full crew, and four clews in the sail, just like his own. It lay
on the same course, and he thought it rather odd that he had not noticed
it before. It made as if it would race him, and when Elias perceived
that, he could not for the life of him help letting out a clew again.
And now he went racing along like a dart, past capes and islands and
rocks, till it seemed to Elias as if he had never had such a splendid
sail before. Now, too, the boat showed itself what it really was, the
best boat in Ranen.
The weather, meantime, had become worse, and they had already got a
couple of dangerous seas right upon them. They broke in over the
main-sheet in the forepart of the boat where Bernt sat, and sailed out
again to leeward near the stern.
Since the gloom had deepened, the other boat had kept almost alongside,
and they were now so close together that they could easily have pitched
the baling-can from one to the other.
So they raced on, side by side, in constantly stiffer seas, till
night-fall, and beyond it. The fourth clew ought now to have been taken
in again, but Elias didn't want to give in, and thought he might bide a
bit till they took it in in the other boat also, which they needs _must_
do soon. Ever and anon the brandy-flask was brought out and passed
round, for they had now both cold and wet to hold out against.
The sea-fire, which played on the dark billows near Elias's own boat,
shone with an odd vividness in the foam round the other boat, just as if
a fire-shovel was ploughing up and turning over the water. In the bright
phosphorescence he could plainly make out the rope-ends on board her. He
could also see distinctly the folks on board, with their sou'westers on
their heads; but as their larboard side lay nearest, of course they all
had their backs towards him, and were well-nigh hidden by the high
heeling hull.
Suddenly a tremendous roller burst upon them. Elias had long caught a
glimpse of its white crest through the darkness, right over the prow
where Bernt sat. It filled the whole boat for a moment, the planks shook
and trembled beneath the weight of it, and then, as the boat, which had
lain half on her beam-ends, righted herself and sped on again, it
streamed off behind to leeward.
While it was still upon him, he fancied he heard a hideous yell from the
other boat; but when it was over, his wife, who sat by the shrouds,
said, with a voice which pierced his very soul: "Good God, Elias! the
sea has carried off Martha and Nils!"--their two youngest children, the
first nine, the second seven years old, who had been sitting in the hold
near Bernt. Elias merely answered: "Don't let go the lines, Karen, or
you'll lose yet more!"
They had now to take in the fourth clew, and, when this was done, Elias
found that it would be well to take in the fifth and last clew too, for
the gale was ever on the increase; but, on the other hand, in order to
keep the boat free of the constantly heavier seas, he dare not lessen
the sail a bit more than he was absolutely obliged to do; but they found
that the scrap of sail they could carry gradually grew less and less.
The sea seethed so that it drove right into their faces, and Bernt and
his next eldest brother Anthony, who had hitherto helped his mother with
the sail-lines, had, at last, to hold in the yards, an expedient one
only resorts to when the boat cannot bear even the last clew--here the
fifth.
The companion boat, which had disappeared in the meantime, now suddenly
ducked up alongside again, with precisely the same amount of sail as
Elias's boat; but he now began to feel that he didn't quite like the
look of the crew on board there. The two who stood and held in the yards
(he caught a glimpse of their pale faces beneath their sou'westers)
seemed to him, by the odd light of the shining foam, more like corpses
than men, nor did they speak a single word.
A little way off to larboard he again caught sight of the high white
back of a fresh roller coming through the dark, and he got ready betimes
to receive it. The boat was laid to with its prow turned aslant towards
the on-rushing wave, while the sail was made as large as possible, so as
to get up speed enough to cleave the heavy sea and sail out of it again.
In rushed the roller with a roar like a foss; again, for an instant,
they lay on their beam ends; but, when it was over, the wife no longer
sat by the sail ropes, nor did Anthony stand there any longer holding
the yards--they had both gone overboard.
This time also Elias fancied he heard the same hideous yell in the air;
but in the midst of it he plainly heard his wife anxiously calling him
by name. All that he said when he grasped the fact that she was washed
overboard, was, "In Jesus' Name!" His first and dearest wish was to
follow after her, but he felt at the same time that it became him to
save the rest of the freight he had on board, that is to say, Bernt and
his other two sons, one twelve, the other fourteen years old, who had
been baling out for a time, but had afterwards taken their places in the
stern behind him.
Bernt had now to look to the yards all alone, and the other two helped
as best they could. The rudder Elias durst not let slip, and he held it
fast with a hand of iron, which continuous exertion had long since made
insensible to feeling.
A moment afterwards the comrade boat ducked up again: it had vanished
for an instant as before. Now, too, he saw more of the heavy man who sat
in the stern there in the same place as himself. Out of his back, just
below his sou'wester (as he turned round it showed quite plainly),
projected an iron spike six inches long, which Elias had no difficulty
in recognising again. And now, as he calmly thought it all over, he was
quite clear about two things: one was that it was the _Draug_[8] itself
which was steering its half-boat close beside him, and leading him to
destruction; the other was that it was written in heaven that he was to
sail his last course that night. For he who sees the Draug on the sea is
a doomed man. He said nothing to the others, lest they should lose
heart, but in secret he commended his soul to God.
During the last hour or so he had been forced out of his proper course
by the storm; the air also had become dense with snow; and Elias knew
that he must wait till dawn before land could be sighted. Meanwhile he
sailed along much the same as before. Now and then the boys in the stern
complained that they were freezing; but, in the plight they were now in,
that couldn't be helped, and, besides, Elias had something else to think
about. A terrible longing for vengeance had come over him, and, but for
the necessity of saving the lives of his three lads, he would have tried
by a sudden turn to sink the accursed boat which kept alongside of him
the whole time as if to mock him; he now understood its evil errand only
too well. If the _Kvejtepig_[9] could reach the Draug before, a knife or
a gaff might surely do the same thing now, and he felt that he would
gladly have given his life for one good grip of the being who had so
mercilessly torn from him his dearest in this world and would fain have
still more.
At three or four o'clock in the morning they saw coming upon them
through the darkness a breaker of such a height that at first Elias
thought they must be quite close ashore near the surf swell.
Nevertheless, he soon recognised it for what it really was--a huge
billow. Then it seemed to him as if there was a laugh over in the other
boat, and something said, "There goes thy boat, Elias!" He, foreseeing
the calamity, now cried aloud: "In Jesus' Name!" and then bade his sons
hold on with all their might to the withy-bands by the rowlocks when the
boat went under, and not let go till it was above the water again. He
made the elder of them go forward to Bernt; and himself held the
youngest close by his side, stroked him once or twice furtively down the
cheeks, and made sure that he had a good grip. The boat, literally
buried beneath the foaming roller, was lifted gradually up by the bows
and then went under. When it rose again out of the water, with the keel
in the air, Elias, Bernt, and the twelve-year-old Martin lay alongside,
holding on by the withy-bands; but the third of the brothers was gone.
They had now first of all to get the shrouds on one side cut through, so
that the mast might come to the surface alongside instead of disturbing
the balance of the boat below; and then they must climb up on the
swaying bottom of the boat and stave in the key-holes, to let out the
air which kept the boat too high in the water, and so ease her. After
great exertions they succeeded, and Elias, who had got up on the top
first, now helped the other two up after him.
There they sat through the long dark winter night, clinging convulsively
on by their hands and knees to the boat's bottom, which was drenched by
the billows again and again.
After the lapse of a couple of hours died Martin, whom his father had
held up the whole time as far as he was able, of sheer exhaustion, and
glided down into the sea. They had tried to cry for help several times,
but gave it up at last as a bad job.
Whilst they two thus sat all alone on the bottom of the boat, Elias said
to Bernt he must now needs believe that he too was about to be "along o'
mother!"[10] but that he had a strong hope that Bernt, at any rate,
would be saved, if he only held out like a man. Then he told him all
about the _Draug_, whom he had struck below the neck with the
_Kvejtepig_, and how it had now revenged itself upon him, and certainly
would not forbear till it was "quits with him."
It was towards nine o'clock in the morning when the grey dawn began to
appear. Then Elias gave to Bernt, who sat alongside him, his silver
watch with the brass chain, which he had snapped in two in order to drag
it from beneath his closely buttoned jacket. He held on for a little
time longer, but, as it got lighter, Bernt saw that his father's face
was deadly pale, his hair too had parted here and there, as often
happens when death is at hand, and his skin was chafed off his hands
from holding on to the keel. The son understood now that his father was
nearly at the last gasp, and tried, so far as the pitching and tossing
would allow it, to hold him up; but when Elias marked it, he said, "Nay,
look to thyself, Bernt, and hold on fast. I go to mother--in Jesus'
Name!" and with that he cast himself down headlong from the top of the
boat.
Every one who has sat on the keel of a boat long enough knows that when
the sea has got its own it grows much calmer, though not immediately.
Bernt now found it easier to hold on, and still more of hope came to him
with the brightening day. The storm abated, and, when it got quite
light, it seemed to him that he knew where he was, and that it was
outside his own homestead, Kvalholm, that he lay driving.
He now began again to cry for help, but his chief hope was in a current
which he knew bore landwards at a place where a headland broke in upon
the surge, and there the water was calmer. And he did, in fact, drive
closer and closer in, and came at last so near to one of the rocks that
the mast, which was floating by the side of the boat all the time,
surged up and down in the swell against the sloping cliff. Stiff as he
now was in all his limbs from sitting and holding on, he nevertheless
succeeded, after a great effort, in clambering up the cliff, where he
hauled the mast ashore, and made the _Femböring_ fast.
The Finn girl, who was alone in the house, had been thinking, for the
last two hours, that she had heard cries for help from time to time, and
as they kept on she mounted the hill to see what it was. There she saw
Bernt up on the cliff, and the overturned _Femböring_ bobbing up and
down against it. She immediately dashed down to the boat-place, got out
the old rowing-boat, and rowed along the shore and round the island
right out to him.
Bernt lay sick under her care the whole winter through, and didn't go a
fishing all that year. Ever after this, too, it seemed to folks as if
the lad were a little bit daft.
On the open sea he never would go again, for he had got the sea-scare.
He wedded the Finn girl, and moved over to Malang, where he got him a
clearing in the forest, and he lives there now, and is doing well, they
say.
* * * * *
[1] A district in northern Norway.
[2] A boat with three oars on each side.
[3] A long pole, with a hooked iron spike at the end of it, for spearing
Kvejte or hallibut with.
[4] A large boat with five oars on each side, used for winter fishing in
northern Norway.
[5] The chief port in those parts.
[6] _Hin Karen_ = "the devil." _Karen_ is the Danish _Karl_.
[7] The _Klör_, or clews, were rings in the corner of the sail to fasten
it down by in a strong wind. _Setja ei Klo_ = "take in the sail a clew."
_Setja tvo_, or _tri Klör_ = "take it in two or three clews," _i.e._,
diminish it still further as the wind grew stronger.
[8] A demon peculiar to the north Norwegian coast. It rides the seas in
a half-boat. Compare Icelandic _draugr_.
[9] See note 3 above.
[10] _Være med hu, Mor. Hu_ is the Danish _Hun_.
* * * * *
_JACK OF SJÖHOLM AND THE GAN-FINN_
[Illustration: _THE GAN-FINN._]
JACK OF SJÖHOLM AND THE GAN[1]-FINN
In the days of our forefathers, when there was nothing but wretched
boats up in Nordland, and folks must needs buy fair winds by the sackful
from the Gan-Finn, it was not safe to tack about in the open sea in
wintry weather. In those days a fisherman never grew old. It was mostly
womenfolk and children, and the lame and halt, who were buried ashore.
Now there was once a boat's crew from Thjöttö in Helgeland, which had
put to sea, and worked its way right up to the East Lofotens.
But that winter the fish would not bite.
They lay to and waited week after week, till the month was out, and
there was nothing for it but to turn home again with their fishing gear
and empty boats.
But Jack of Sjöholm, who was with them, only laughed aloud, and said
that, if there were no fish there, fish would certainly be found higher
northwards. Surely they hadn't rowed out all this distance only to eat
up all their victuals, said he.
He was quite a young chap, who had never been out fishing before. But
there was some sense in what he said for all that, thought the
head-fisherman.
And so they set their sails northwards.
On the next fishing-ground they fared no better than before, but they
toiled away so long as their food held out.
And now they all insisted on giving it up and turning back.
"If there's none here, there's sure to be some still higher up towards
the north," opined Jack; "and if they had gone so far, they might surely
go a little further still," quoth he.
So they tempted fortune from fishing-ground to fishing-ground, till they
had ventured right up to Finmark.[2] But there a storm met them, and,
try as they might to find shelter under the headlands, they were obliged
at last to put out into the open sea again.
There they fared worse than ever. They had a hard time of it. Again and
again the prow of the boat went under the heavy rollers, instead of over
them, and later on in the day the boat foundered.
There they all sat helplessly on the keel in the midst of the raging
sea, and they all complained bitterly against that fellow Jack, who had
tempted them on, and led them into destruction. What would now become of
their wives and children? They would starve now that they had none to
care for them.
When it grew dark, their hands began to stiffen, and they were carried
off by the sea one by one.
And Jack heard and saw everything, down to the last shriek and the last
clutch; and to the very end they never ceased reproaching him for
bringing them into such misery, and bewailing their sad lot.
"I must hold on tight now," said Jack to himself, for he was better even
where he was than in the sea.
And so he tightened his knees on the keel, and held on fast till he had
no feeling left in either hand or foot.
In the coal-black gusty night he fancied he heard yells from one or
other of the remaining boats' crews.
"They, too, have wives and children," thought he. "I wonder whether they
have also a Jack to lay the blame upon!"
Now while he thus lay there and drifted and drifted, and it seemed to
him to be drawing towards dawn, he suddenly felt that the boat was in
the grip of a strong shoreward current; and, sure enough, Jack got at
last ashore. But whichever way he looked, he saw nothing but black sea
and white snow.
Now as he stood there, speering and spying about him, he saw, far away,
the smoke of a Finn Gamme,[3] which stood beneath a cliff, and he
managed to scramble right up to it.
The Finn was so old that he could scarcely move. He was sitting in the
midst of the warm ashes, and mumbling into a big sack, and neither spoke
nor answered. Large yellow humble-bees were humming about all over the
snow, as if it were Midsummer; and there was only a young lass there to
keep the fire alight, and give the old man his food. His grandsons and
grand-daughters were with the reindeer, far far away on the _Fjeld_.
Here Jack got his clothes well dried, and the rest he so much wanted.
The Finn girl, Seimke, couldn't make too much of him; she fed him with
reindeer milk and marrow-bones, and he lay down to sleep on silver
fox-skins.
Cosy and comfortable it was in the smoke there. But as he thus lay
there, 'twixt sleep and wake, it seemed to him as if many odd things
were going on round about him.
There stood the Finn in the doorway talking to his reindeer, although
they were far away in the mountains. He barred the wolf's way, and
threatened the bear with spells; and then he opened his skin sack, so
that the storm howled and piped, and there was a swirl of ashes into the
hut. And when all grew quiet again, the air was thick with yellow
humble-bees, which settled inside his furs, whilst he gabbled and
mumbled and wagged his skull-like head.
But Jack had something else to think about besides marvelling at the old
Finn. No sooner did the heaviness of slumber quit his eyes than he
strolled down to his boat.
There it lay stuck fast on the beach and tilted right over like a
trough, while the sea rubbed and rippled against its keel. He drew it
far enough ashore to be beyond the reach of the sea-wash.
But the longer he walked around and examined it, the more it seemed to
him as if folks built boats rather for the sake of letting the sea in
than for the sake of keeping the sea out. The prow was little better
than a hog's snout for burrowing under the water, and the planking by
the keel-piece was as flat as the bottom of a chest. Everything, he
thought, must be arranged very differently if boats were to be really
seaworthy. The prow must be raised one or two planks higher at the very
least, and made both sharp and supple, so as to bend before and cut
through the waves at the same time, and then a fellow would have a
chance of steering a boat smartly.
He thought of this day and night. The only relaxation he had was a chat
with the Finn girl of an evening.
He couldn't help remarking that this Seimke had fallen in love with him.
She strolled after him wherever he went, and her eyes always became so
mournful when he went down towards the sea; she understood well enough
that all his thoughts were bent upon going away.
And the Finn sat and mumbled among the ashes till his fur jacket
regularly steamed and smoked.
But Seimke coaxed and wheedled Jack with her brown eyes, and gave him
honeyed words as fast as her tongue could wag, till she drew him right
into the smoke where the old Finn couldn't hear them.
The Gan-Finn turned his head right round.
"My eyes are stupid, and the smoke makes 'em run," said he; "what has
Jack got hold of there?"
"Say it is the white ptarmigan you caught in the snare," whispered she.
And Jack felt that she was huddling up against him and trembling all
over.
Then she told him so softly that he thought it was his own thoughts
speaking to him, that the Finn was angry and muttering mischief, and
_jöjking_,[4] against the boat which Jack wanted to build. If Jack were
to complete it, said she, the Gan-Finn would no longer have any sale for
his fair-winds in all Nordland. And then she warned him to look to
himself and never get between the Finn and the Gan-flies.
Then Jack felt that his boat might be the undoing of him. But the worse
things looked, the more he tried to make the best of them.
In the grey dawn, before the Finn was up, he made his way towards the
sea-shore.
But there was something very odd about the snow-hills. They were so many
and so long that there was really no end to them, and he kept on
trampling in deep and deeper snow and never got to the sea-shore at all.
Never before had he seen the northern lights last so long into the day.
They blazed and sparkled, and long tongues of fire licked and hissed
after him. He was unable to find either the beach or the boat, nor had
he the least idea in the world where he really was.
At last he discovered that he had gone quite astray inland instead of
down to the sea. But now, when he turned round, the sea-fog came close
up against him, so dense and grey that he could see neither hand nor
foot before him.
By the evening he was well-nigh worn out with weariness, and was at his
wits' end what to do.
Night fell, and the snowdrifts increased.
As now he sat him down on a stone and fell a brooding and pondering how
he should escape with his life, a pair of snow-shoes came gliding so
smoothly towards him out of the sea-fog and stood still just in front of
his feet.
"As you have found me, you may as well find the way back also," said he.
So he put them on, and let the snow-shoes go their own way over hillside
and steep cliff. He let not his own eyes guide him or his own feet carry
him, and the swifter he went the denser the snowflakes and the driving
sea-spray came up against him, and the blast very nearly blew him off
the snow-shoes.
Up hill and down dale he went over all the places where he had fared
during the daytime, and it sometimes seemed as if he had nothing solid
beneath him at all, but was flying in the air.
Suddenly the snow-shoes stood stock still, and he was standing just
outside the entrance of the Gan-Finn's hut.
There stood Seimke. She was looking for him.
"I sent my snow-shoes after thee," said she, "for I marked that the Finn
had bewitched the land so that thou should'st not find the boat. Thy
_life_ is safe, for he has given thee shelter in his house, but it were
not well for thee to see him this evening."
Then she smuggled him in, so that the Finn did not perceive it in the
thick smoke, and she gave him meat and a place to rest upon.
But when he awoke in the night, he heard an odd sound, and there was a
buzzing and a singing far away in the air:
"The Finn the boat can never bind,
The Fly the boatman cannot find,
But round in aimless whirls doth wind."
The Finn was sitting among the ashes and _jöjking_, and muttering till
the ground quite shook, while Seimke lay with her forehead to the floor
and her hands clasped tightly round the back of her neck, praying
against him to the Finn God. Then Jack understood that the Gan-Finn was
still seeking after him amidst the snowflakes and sea-fog, and that his
life was in danger from magic spells.
So he dressed himself before it was light, went out, and came tramping
in again all covered with snow, and said he had been after bears in
their winter retreats. But never had he been in such a sea-fog before;
he had groped about far and wide before he found his way back into the
hut again, though he stood just outside it.
The Finn sat there with his skin-wrappings as full of yellow flies as a
beehive. He had sent them out searching in every direction, but back
they had all come, and were humming and buzzing about him.
When he saw Jack in the doorway, and perceived that the flies had
pointed truly, he grew somewhat milder, and laughed till he regularly
shook within his skin-wrappings, and mumbled, "The bear we'll bind fast
beneath the scullery-sink, and his eyes I've turned all awry,[5] so that
he can't see his boat,[6] and I'll stick a sleeping-peg in front of him
till springtime."
But the same day the Finn stood in the doorway, and was busy making
magic signs and strange strokes in the air.
Then he sent forth two hideous Gan-flies, which flitted off on their
errands, and scorched black patches beneath them in the snow wherever
they went. They were to bring pain and sickness to a cottage down in the
swamps, and spread abroad the Finn disease, which was to strike down a
young bride at Bodö with consumption.
But Jack thought of nothing else night and day but how he could get the
better of the Gan-Finn.
The lass Seimke wheedled him and wept and begged him, as he valued his
life, not to try to get down to his boat again. At last, however, she
saw it was no use--he had made up his mind to be off.
Then she kissed his hands and wept bitterly. At least he must promise to
wait till the Gan-Finn had gone right away to Jokmok[7] in Sweden.
On the day of his departure, the Finn went all round his hut with a
torch and took stock.
Far away as they were, there stood the mountain pastures, with the
reindeer and the dogs, and the Finn's people all drew near. The Finn
took the tale of the beasts, and bade his grandsons not let the reindeer
stray too far while he was away, and could not guard them from wolves
and bears. Then he took a sleeping potion and began to dance and turn
round and round till his breath quite failed him, and he sank moaning to
the ground. His furs were all that remained behind of him. His spirit
had gone--gone all the way over to Jokmok.
There the magicians were all sitting together in the dark sea-fog
beneath the shelter of the high mountain, and whispering about all
manner of secret and hidden things, and blowing spirits into the novices
of the black art.
But the Gan-flies, humming and buzzing, went round and round the empty
furs of the Gan-Finn like a yellow ring and kept watch.
In the night Jack was awakened by something pulling and tugging at him
as if from far away. There was as it were a current of air, and
something threatened and called to him from the midst of the snowflakes
outside--
"Until thou canst swim like the duck or the drake,
The egg[8] thou'dst be hatching no progress shall make;
The Finn shall ne'er let thee go southwards with sail,
For he'll screw off the wind and imprison the gale."
At the end of it the Gan-Finn was standing there, and bending right over
him. The skin of his face hung down long and loose, and full of
wrinkles, like an old reindeer skin, and there was a dizzying smoke in
his eyes. Then Jack began to shiver and stiffen in all his limbs, and he
knew that the Finn was bent upon bewitching him.
Then he set his face rigidly against it, so that the magic spells should
not get at him; and thus they struggled with one another till the
Gan-Finn grew green in the face, and was very near choking.
After that the sorcerers of Jokmok sent magic shots after Jack, and
clouded his wits. He felt so odd; and whenever he was busy with his
boat, and had put something to rights in it, something else would
immediately go wrong, till at last he felt as if his head were full of
pins and needles.
Then deep sorrow fell upon him. Try as he would, he couldn't put his
boat together as he would have it; and it looked very much as if he
would never be able to cross the sea again.
But in the summer time Jack and Seimke sat together on the headland in
the warm evenings, and the gnats buzzed and the fishes spouted close
ashore in the stillness, and the eider-duck swam about.
"If only some one would build me a boat as swift and nimble as a fish,
and able to ride upon the billows like a sea-mew!" sighed and lamented
Jack, "then I could be off."
"Would you like me to guide you to Thjöttö?" said a voice up from the
sea-shore.
There stood a fellow in a flat turned-down skin cap, whose face they
couldn't see.
And right outside the boulders there, just where they had seen the
eider-duck, lay a long and narrow boat, with high prow and stern; and
the tar-boards were mirrored plainly in the clear water below; there was
not so much as a single knot in the wood.
"I would be thankful for any such guidance," said Jack.
When Seimke heard this, she began to cry and take on terribly. She fell
upon his neck, and wouldn't let go, and raved and shrieked. She promised
him her snow-shoes, which would carry him through everything, and said
she would steal for him the bone-stick from the Gan-Finn, so that he
might find all the old lucky dollars that ever were buried, and would
teach him how to make salmon-catching knots in the fishing lines, and
how to entice the reindeer from afar. He should become as rich as the
Gan-Finn, if only he wouldn't forsake her.
But Jack had only eyes for the boat down there. Then she sprang up, and
tore down her black locks, and bound them round his feet, so that he had
to wrench them off before he could get quit of her.
"If I stay here and play with you and the young reindeer, many a poor
fellow will have to cling with broken nails to the keel of a boat,"[9]
said he. "If you like to make it up, give me a kiss and a parting hug,
or shall I go without them?"
Then she threw herself into his arms like a young wild cat, and looked
straight into his eyes through her tears, and shivered and laughed, and
was quite beside herself.
But when she saw she could do nothing with him, she rushed away, and
waved her hands above her head in the direction of the Gamme.[10]
Then Jack understood that she was going to take counsel of the Gan-Finn,
and that he had better take refuge in his boat before the way was closed
to him. And, in fact, the boat had come so close up to the boulders,
that he had only to step down upon the thwarts. The rudder glided into
his hand, and aslant behind the mast sat some one at the prow, and
hoisted and stretched the sail: but his face Jack could not see.
Away they went.
And such a boat for running before the wind Jack had never seen before.
The sea stood up round about them like a deep snow-drift, although it
was almost calm. But they hadn't gone very far before a nasty piping
began in the air. The birds shrieked and made for land, and the sea rose
like a black wall behind them.
It was the Gan-Finn who had opened his wind-sack, and sent a storm after
them.
"One needs a full sail in the Finn-cauldron here," said something from
behind the mast.
The fellow who had the boat in hand took such little heed of the weather
that he did not so much as take in a single clew.
Then the Gan-Finn sent double knots[11] after them.
They sped along in a wild dance right over the firth, and the sea
whirled up in white columns of foam, reaching to the very clouds.
Unless the boat could fly as quick and quicker than a bird, it was lost.
Then a hideous laugh was heard to larboard--
"Anfinn Ganfinn gives mouth,
And blows us right south;
There's a crack[12] in the sack,
With three clews we must tack."
And heeling right over, with three clews in the sail, and the heavy
foremost fellow astride on the sheer-strake, with his huge sea-boots
dangling in the sea-foam, away they scudded through the blinding spray
right into the open sea, amidst the howling and roaring of the wind.
The billowy walls were so vast and heavy that Jack couldn't even see the
light of day across the yards, nor could he exactly make out whether
they were going under or over the sea-trough.
The boat shook the sea aside as lightly and easily as if its prow were
the slippery fin of a fish, and its planking was as smooth and fine as
the shell of a tern's egg; but, look as he would, Jack couldn't see
where these planks ended; it was just as if there was only half a boat
and no more; and at last it seemed to him as if the whole of the front
part came off in the sea-foam, and they were scudding along under sail
in half a boat.
When night fell, they went through the sea-fire, which glowed like hot
embers, and there was a prolonged and hideous howling up in the air to
windward.
And cries of distress and howls of mortal agony answered the wind from
all the upturned boat keels they sped by, and many hideously
pale-looking folks clutched hold of their thwarts. The gleam of the
sea-fire cast a blue glare on their faces, and they sat, and gaped, and
glared, and yelled at the blast.
Suddenly he awoke, and something cried, "Now thou art at home at
Thjöttö, Jack!"
And when he had come to himself a bit, he recognised where he was. He
was lying over against the boulders near his boathouse at home. The tide
had come so far inland that a border of foam gleamed right up in the
potato-field, and he could scarcely keep his feet for the blast. He sat
him down in the boathouse, and began scratching and marking out the
shape of the Draugboat in the black darkness till sleep overtook him.
When it was light in the morning, his sister came down to him with a
meat-basket. She didn't greet him as if he were a stranger, but behaved
as if it were the usual thing for her to come thus every morning. But
when he began telling her all about his voyage to Finmark, and the
Gan-Finn, and the Draugboat he had come home in at night, he perceived
that she only grinned and let him chatter. And all that day he talked
about it to his sister and his brothers and his mother, until he arrived
at the conclusion that they thought him a little out of his wits. When
he mentioned the Draugboat they smiled amongst themselves, and evidently
went out of their way to humour him. But they might believe what they
liked, if only he could carry out what he wanted to do, and be left to
himself in the out-of-the-way old boathouse.
"One should go with the stream," thought Jack; and if they thought him
crazy and out of his wits, he ought to behave so that they might beware
of interfering with him, and disturbing him in his work.
So he took a bed of skins with him down to the boathouse, and slept
there at night; but in the daytime he perched himself on a pole on the
roof, and bellowed out that now he was sailing. Sometimes he rode
astraddle on the roof ridge, and dug his sheath-knife deep into the
rafters, so that people might think he fancied himself at sea, holding
fast on to the keel of a boat.
Whenever folks passed by, he stood in the doorway, and turned up the
whites of his eyes so hideously, that every one who saw him was quite
scared. As for the people at home, it was as much as they dared to stick
his meat-basket into the boathouse for him. So they sent it to him by
his youngest sister, merry little Malfri, who would sit and talk with
him, and thought it such fun when he made toys and playthings for her,
and talked about the boat which should go like a bird, and sail as no
other boat had ever sailed.
If any one chanced to come upon him unexpectedly, and tried to peep and
see what he was about in the boathouse there, he would creep up into the
timber-loft and bang and pitch the boards and planks about, so that they
didn't know exactly where to find him, and were glad enough to be off.
But one and all made haste to climb over the hill again when they heard
him fling himself down at full length and send peal after peal of
laughter after them.
So that was how Jack got folks to leave him at peace.
He worked best at night when the storm tore and tugged at the stones and
birchbark of the turf roof, and the sea-wrack came right up to the
boathouse door.
When it piped and whined through the fissured walls, and the fine
snowflakes flitted through the cracks, the model of the Draugboat stood
plainest before him. The winter days were short, and the wick of the
train-oil lamp, which hung over him as he worked, cast deep shadows, so
that the darkness came soon and lasted a long way into the morning, when
he sought sleep in his bed of skins with a heap of shavings for his
pillow.
He spared no pains or trouble. If there was a board which would not run
into the right groove with the others, though never so little, he would
take out a whole row of them and plane them all round again and again.
Now, one night, just before Christmas, he had finished all but the
uppermost planking and the gabs. He was working so hard to finish up
that he took no count of time.
The plane was sending the shavings flying their briskest when he came to
a dead stop at something black which was moving along the plank.
It was a large and hideous fly which was crawling about and feeling and
poking all the planks in the boat. When it reached the lowest keel-board
it whirred with its wings and buzzed. Then it rose and swept above it in
the air till, all at once, it swerved away into the darkness.
Jack's heart sank within him. Such doubt and anguish came upon him. He
knew well enough that no good errand had brought the Gan-fly buzzing
over the boat like that.
So he took the train-oil lamp and a wooden club, and began to test the
prow and light up the boarding, and thump it well, and go over the
planks one by one. And in this way he went over every bit of the boat
from stem to stern, both above and below. There was not a nail or a
rivet that he really believed in now.
But now neither the shape nor the proportions of the boat pleased him
any more. The prow was too big, and the whole cut of the boat all the
way down the gunwale had something of a twist and a bend and a swerve
about it, so that it looked like the halves of two different boats put
together, and the half in front didn't fit in with the half behind. As
he was about to look into the matter still further (and he felt the cold
sweat bursting out of the roots of his hair), the train-oil lamp went
out and left him in blank darkness.
Then he could contain himself no longer. He lifted his club and burst
open the boathouse door, and, snatching up a big cow-bell, he began to
swing it about him and ring and ring with it through the black night.
"Art chiming for me, Jack?" something asked. There was a sound behind
him like the surf sucking at the shore, and a cold blast blew into the
boathouse.
There on the keel-stick sat some one in a sloppy grey sea-jacket, and
with a print cap drawn down over its ears, so that its skull looked like
a low tassel.
Jack gave a great start. This was the very being he had been thinking of
in his wild rage. Then he took the large baling can and flung it at the
Draug.
But right through the Draug it went, and rattled against the wall
behind, and back again it came whizzing about Jack's ears, and if it had
struck him he would never have got up again.
The old fellow, however, only blinked his eyes a little savagely.
"Fie!" cried Jack, and spat at the uncanny thing--and back into his face
again he got as good as he gave.
"There you have your wet clout back again!" cried a laughing voice.
But the same instant Jack's eyes were opened and he saw a whole
boat-building establishment on the sea-shore.
And, there, ready and rigged out on the bright water, lay an
_Ottring_,[13] so long and shapely and shining that his eyes could not
feast on it enough.
The old 'un blinked with satisfaction. His eyes became more and more
glowing.
"If I could guide you back to Helgeland," said he, "I could put you in
the way of gaining your bread too. But you must pay me a little tax for
it. In every seventh boat you build 'tis _I_ who must put in the
keel-board."
Jack felt as if he were choking. He felt that the boat was dragging him
into the very jaws of an abomination.
"Or do you fancy you'll worm the trick out of me for nothing?" said the
gaping grinning Draug.
Then there was a whirring sound, as if something heavy was hovering
about the boathouse, and there was a laugh: "If you want the _seaman's_
boat you must take the _dead man's_ boat along with it. If you knock
three times to-night on the keel-piece with the club, you shall have
such help in building boats that the like of them will not be found in
all Nordland."
Twice did Jack raise his club that night, and twice he laid it aside
again.