the sea-banks, and where they were not; and whenever they asked him
about such things, he would say--
"If I don't know it, my brother does."
Now one day it chanced that the parson of Brönö had to go out along the
coast on a pious errand, and Isaac was one of them who had to row him
thither.
Off they went with a rattling good breeze.
The parson got quickly there, and was not very long about his business,
for next day he had to hold divine service in his own parish church.
"The firth seems to me a bit roughish," said he, "and 'tis getting
towards evening; but as we have come hither, I should think we could get
back again also."
They had not got very far on their homeward journey when the rising gale
began to whistle and whine, so that they had to take in four clews[3].
And away they went, with the sea-scud and the snow-flakes flying about
their ears, while the waxing rollers rose big as houses.
The parson of Brönö had never been out in such weather before. They
sailed right into the rollers, and they sailed out again.
Soon it became black night.
The sea shone like mountain snow-fields, and the showers of snow and
spray rather waxed than waned.
Isaac had just taken in the fifth clew also when one of the planks
amidships gave way, so that the sea foamed in, and the parson of Brönö
and the crew leaped upon the upper deck, and bawled out that the boat
was going down.
"I don't think she'll founder this voyage," said Isaac; and he remained
sitting where he was at the rudder.
But as the moon peeped forth from behind a hail-shower, they saw that a
strange foremastman was standing in the scuppers, and baling the water
out of the boat as fast as it poured in.
"I didn't know that I had hired that fellow yonder," said the parson of
Brönö; "he seems to me to be baling with a sea-boot; and it also seems
to me as if he had neither breeches nor skin upon his legs, and the
upper part of him is neither more nor less than an empty fluttering
leather jacket."
"Parson has seen him before, I think," said Isaac.
Then the parson of Brönö grew angry.
"By virtue of my sacred office," said he, "I adjure him to depart from
amidships."
"Na, na!" answered Isaac; "and can parson also answer for the plank that
has burst?"
Then the parson bethought him of the evil case he was in.
"The man seems to me mortally strong, and we have great need of him,"
said he; "nor is it any great sin, methinks, to help a servant of God's
over the sea. But I should like to know what he wants in return."
The billows burst, and the blast howled around him.
"Only some two or three shovels of earth on a rotten sea-boot and a
mouldy skin-jacket," said Isaac.
"If you're able to gad about again here below, I suppose there's nothing
against your being able to enter into bliss again, for all that I know,"
bawled the parson of Brönö; "and you shall have your shovelfuls of earth
into the bargain."
Just as he said this, the water within the skerries all at once became
quite smooth, and the parson's boat drove high and dry upon the
sandbank, so that the mast cracked.
* * * * *
[1] _I.e.,_ at nothing--a house having usually only four walls.
[2] See "The Fisherman and the Draug."
[3] See "The Fisherman and the Draug."
* * * * *
_THE WIND-GNOME_
[Illustration: _THE WIND-GNOME_.]
THE WIND-GNOME
There was once a skipper of Dyrevig called Bardun. He was so headstrong
that there was no doing anything with him. Whatever he set his mind
upon, that should be done, he said, and done it always was.
If he promised to be at a dance, the girls could safely rely upon his
being there, though it blew a tempest and rained cats and dogs.
He would come scudding along on a _Færing_[1] to his father's house
through storm and stress. Row upon row of girls would be waiting for him
there, and he spanked the floor with every one of them in turn, and left
their gallants to cool their heels as best they might.
Cock-of-the-walk he always must be.
He would go shark-fishing too, and would venture with his fishing gaff
into seas where only large vessels were wont to go.
If there was anything nobody else dared do, Bardun was the man to do it.
And, absurd and desperate as the venture might be, he always succeeded,
so that folks were always talking about him.
Now, right out at sea, beyond the skerries, lay a large rock, the lair
of wild-fowl, whither the merchant who owned it came every year to bring
away rich loads of eider-down. A long way down the side of this lofty
rock was a cleft. Nobody could tell how far _into_ the rock it went, and
so inaccessible was it there that its owner had said that whoever liked
might come and take eider-down from thence. It became quite a proverb to
say, when anything couldn't be done, that it was just as impossible as
taking eider-down from Dyrevig rock.
But Bardun passed by the rock, and peeped up at the cleft, and saw all
the hosts of the fowls of the air lighting upon it so many times that he
felt he needs must try his hand at it.
He lost no time about it, and the sun was shining brightly as he set
out.
He took with him a long piece of rope, which he cast two or three times
round a rocky crag, and lowered himself down till he was right opposite
the cleft. There he hung and swung over it backwards and forwards till
he had got a firm footing, and then he set about collecting eider-down
and stuffing his sacks with it.
He went searching about for it so far into the rocky chasm that he saw
no more than a gleam of sunlight outside the opening, and he couldn't
take a hundreth part of the eider-down that was there.
It was quite late in the evening before he gave up trying to gather it
all. But when he came out again, the stone which he had placed on the
top of the rope and tied it to was gone. And now the rope hung loosely
there, and dangled over the side of the rock. The wind blew it in and
out and hither and thither. The currents of air sported madly with it,
so that it always kept sheer away from the rock and far out over the
abyss.
There he stood then, and tried again and again to clutch hold of it till
the sun lay right down in the sea.
When it began to dawn again, and the morning breeze rose up from the
sea, he all at once heard something right over his head say--
"It blows away, it blows away!"
He looked up, and there he saw a big woman holding the rope away from
the cliff side.
Every time he made a grip at it she wrenched and twisted it right away
over the rocky wall, and there was a laughing and a grinning all down
the mountain side--
"It blows away, it blows away!"
And, again and again, the rope drove in and out and hither and thither.
"You had better take a spring at once, and not wait till you're tired,"
thought he.
It was a pretty long leap to take, but he went back a sufficient
distance, and then out he sprang.
Bardun was not the man to fall short of anything. He caught the rope and
held it tight.
And, oddly enough, it seemed now to run up the cliff-side of its own
accord, just as if some one were hoisting it.
But in front of the rocky crag to which he had fastened the rope, he
heard a soughing and a sighing, and something said, "I am the daughter
of the Wind-Gnome, and now thou hast dominion over me! When the blast
blows and whines about thee 'tis I who long for thee. And here thou hast
a rudder which will give thee luck and a fair wind whithersoever thou
farest. He who is with thee shall thrive, and he who is against thee
shall suffer shipwreck and be lost. For 'tis I who am in the windy
gusts."
Then all at once everything was quite still; but down on the sea below
there swept a heavy squall.
There stood Bardun with the rudder in his hand, and he understood that
it was not a thing to be lightly cast away.
Homeward he steered with a racing breeze behind him, and he had not
sailed far before he met a galeas which gave him the Bergen price for
his eider-down.
But Bardun was not content with only going thither once. He went just
the same as before, and he returned from the Dyrevig rock with a pile of
sacks of eider-down on his boat right up to the mast.
He bought houses and ships; mightier and mightier he grew.
And it was not long before he owned whole fishing-grounds, both
northwards and southwards.
Those who submitted to him, and did as he would have them do, increased
and prospered, and saw good days; but all who stood in his way were
wrecked on the sea and perished, for the Wind-Gnome was on his side.
So things quickly went from good to better with him. What was to him a
fair wind was the ruin of all those who were in any way opposed to him.
At last he became so rich and mighty that he owned every blessed
trading-place and fishing-station in all Finmark, and sent vessels even
as far as Spitzbergen.
Nobody durst sell fish up north without his leave, and his sloops sailed
over to Bergen eighteen at a time.
He ruled and gave judgment as it seemed best to him.
But the magistrates thought that such authority was too much for one man
to have, and they began to make inquiries, and receive complaints of how
he domineered the people.
Next, the magistrates sent him a warning.
"But the right to rule lies in my rudder," thought Bardun to himself.
Then the magistrates summoned him before the tribunal.
Bardun simply whistled contemptuously.
At last matters came to such a pitch that the magistrates sailed forth
to seize him in the midst of a howling tempest, and down they went in
the Finmark seas.
Then Bardun was made chief magistrate, till such time as the king should
send up another.
But the new man who came had not been very long in office there before
it seemed to him as if it was not he but Bardun who held sway.
So the same thing happened over again.
Bardun was summoned in vain before the courts, and the magistrates came
forth to seize him and perished at sea.
But when the next governor was sent up to Finmark, it was only the keel
of the king's ship that came drifting in from the sea. At last nobody
would venture thither to certain ruin, and Bardun was left alone, and
ruled over all. Then so mighty was he in all Finmark that he reigned
there like the king himself.
Now he had but one child, and that a daughter.
Boel was her name, and she shot up so handsome and comely that her
beauty shone like the sun. No bridegroom was good enough for her,
unless, perhaps, it were the king's son.
Wooers came from afar, and came in vain. She was to have a dower, they
said, such as no girl in the North had ever had before.
One year quite a young officer came up thither with a letter from the
king. His garments were stiff with gold, and shone and sparkled wherever
he went. Bardun received him well, and helped him to carry out the
king's commands.
But since the day when he himself was young, and got the answer, "Yes!"
from his bride, he had never been so happy as when Boel came to him one
day and said that the young officer had wooed her, and she would throw
herself into the sea straightway if she couldn't have him.
In this way, he argued, his race would always sit in the seat of
authority, and hold sway when he was gone.
While the officer, in the course of the summer, was out on circuit,
Bardun set a hundred men to work to build a house for them.
It was to shine like a castle, and be bright with high halls and large
reception-rooms, and windows in long rooms; and furs and cloth of gold
and bright tiles were fetched from the far South.
And in the autumn there was such a wedding that the whole land heard and
talked about it.
But it was not long before Bardun began to find that to be a fact which
was already a rumour, to wit, that the man who had got his daughter
would fain have his own way also.
He laid down the law, and gave judgment like Bardun himself; and he
over-ruled Bardun, not once nor twice.
Then Bardun went to Boel, and bade her take her husband to task, and
look sharp about it. He had never yet seen the man, said he, who
couldn't be set right by his bride in the days when they did nothing but
eat honey together.
But Boel said that she had wedded a man who, to her mind, was no less a
man than her own father; and it was his office, besides, to uphold the
law and jurisdiction of the king.
Young folks are easy to talk over, thought Bardun. One can do anything
with them when one only makes them fancy they are having their own way.
And it is wonderful how far one can get if one only bides one's time,
and makes the best of things. Whatever was out of gear he could very
easily put right again, when once he got a firm grip of the reins.
So he praised everything his son-in-law did, and talked big about him,
so that there was really no end to it. He was glad, he said, that such a
wise and stately ruler was there, ready to stand in his shoes against
the day when he should grow old.
And so he made himself small, and his voice quivered when he spoke, as
if he were really a sick and broken-down man.
But it didn't escape Boel how he slammed to the doors, and struck the
stones with his stick till the sparks flew.
Next time the court met, Bardun was taxed to a full tenth of the value
of all his property, according to the king's law and justice.
Then only did he begin to foresee that it might fare with the
magistrates now as it had done formerly.
But all women like pomp and show, thought he, and Boel was in this
respect no different to other people. And she was no daughter of his
either, if she couldn't keep the upper hand of her husband.
So he bought her gold and jewels, and other costly things. One day he
came with a bracelet, and another day with a chain; and now it was a
belt, and now a gold embroidered shoe. And every time he told her that
he brought her these gifts, because she was his dearest jewel. He knew
of nothing in the world that was too precious for her.
Then, in his most pleasant, most courtly style, he just hinted that she
might see to it, and talk her husband over to other ways.
But it booted him even less than before.
And so things went on till autumn. The king's law was first, and his
will was only second.
Then he began to dread what would be the end of it all. His eyes
sparkled so fiercely that none dare come near him. But at night he would
pace up and down, and shriek and bellow at his daughter, and give her
all sorts of vile names.
Now one day he came in to Boel with a heavy gold crown full of the most
precious stones. She should be the Queen of Finmark and Spitzbergen,
said he, if her husband would do according to his will.
Then she looked him stiffly in the face, and said she would never seduce
her husband into breaking the king's law.
He grew as pale as the wall behind him, and cast the gold crown on the
floor, so that there was a perfect shower of precious stones about them.
She must know, said he, that her father and none other was king here.
And now the young officer should find out how it fared with them who sat
in his seat.
Then Boel washed her hands of her father altogether, but she advised her
husband to depart forthwith.
And on the third day she had packed up all her bridal finery, and
departed in the vessel with the young officer.
Then Bardun smote his head against the wall, and that night he laughed,
so that it was heard far away, but he wept for his daughter.
And now there arose such a storm that the sea was white for a whole
week. And it was not long before the tidings came that the ship that
Boel and her husband had sailed by had gone down, and the splinters lay
and floated among the skerries.
Then Bardun took the rudder he had got from the Wind-Gnome, and stuck it
into the stern of the largest yacht he had. He was God himself now, said
he, and could always get a fair wind to steer by, and could rule where
he would in the wide world. And southwards he sailed with a rattling
breeze, and the billows rolled after him like mounds and hillocks.
Heavier and heavier grew the sea, till it rolled like white mountains as
high as the rocky walls of Lofoten.
It couldn't well be less when he was to rule the whole world, cried he.
And so he set his rudder dead southwards.
He never diminished his sail one bit, and worse and worse grew the
storm, and higher and higher rose the sea.
For now he was steering right into the sun.
* * * * *
[1] A small two-oared boat.
* * * * *
_THE HULDREFISH_
[Illustration: _THE HULDREFISH_.]
THE HULDREFISH[1]
It was such an odd trout that Nona hauled in at the end of his
fishing-line. Large and fat, red spotted and shiny, it sprawled and
squirmed, with its dirty yellow belly above the water, to wriggle off
the hook. And when he got it into the boat, and took it off the hook, he
saw that it had only two small slits where the eyes should have been.
It must be a huldrefish, thought one of the boatmen, for rumour had it
that that lake was one of those which had a double bottom.
But Nona didn't trouble his head very much about what sort of a fish it
was, so long as it was a big one. He was ravenously hungry, and bawled
to them to row as rapidly as possible ashore so as to get it cooked.
He had been sitting the whole afternoon with empty lines out in the
mountain lake there; but as for the trout, it was only an hour ago since
it had been steering its way through the water with its rudder of a
tail, and allowed itself to be fooled by a hook, and already it lay
cooked red there on the dish.
But now Nona recollected about the strange eyes, and felt for them, and
pricked away at its head with his fork. There was nothing but slits
outside, and yet there was a sort of hard eyeball inside. The head was
strangely shaped, and looked very peculiar in many respects.
He was vexed that he had not examined it more closely before it was
cooked; it was not so easy now to make out what it really was. It had
tasted first-rate, however, and that was something.
But at night there was, as it were, a gleam of bright water before his
eyes, and he lay half asleep, thinking of the odd fish he had pulled up.
He was in his boat again, he thought, and it seemed to him as if his
hands felt the fish wriggling and sprawling for its life, and shooting
its snout backwards and forwards to get off the hook.
All at once it grew so heavy and strong that it drew the boat after it
by the line.
It went along at a frightful speed, while the lake gradually diminished,
as it were, and dried up.
There was an irresistible sucking of the water in the direction the fish
went, which was towards a hole at the bottom of the lake like a funnel,
and right into this hole went the boat.
It glided for a long time in a sort of twilight along a subterranean
river, which dashed and splashed about him. The air that met him was, at
first, chilly and cellar-like; gradually, however, it grew milder and
milder, and warmer and warmer.
The stream now flowed along calmly and quietly, and broadened out
continually till it fell into a large lake.
Beyond the borders of this lake, but only half visible in the gloom,
stretched swamps and morasses, where he heard sounds as of huge beasts
wading and trampling. Serpent like they rose and writhed with a crashing
and splashing and snorting amidst the tepid mud and mire.
By the phosphorescent gleams he saw various fishes close to his boat,
but all of them lacked eyes.
And he caught glimpses of the outlines of gigantic sea-serpents
stretching far away into the darkness. He now understood that it was
from down here that they pop up their heads off the coast in the dog
days when the sea is warm.
The lindworm, with its flat head and duck's beak, darted after fish, and
crept up to the surface of the earth through the slimy ways of mire and
marsh.
Through the warm and choking gloom there came, from time to time, a
cooling chilling blast from the cold curves and winds of the slimy and
slippery greenish lichworm,[2] which bores its way through the earth and
eats away the coffins that are rotting in the churchyards.
Horrible shapeless monsters, with streaming manes, such as are said to
sometimes appear in mountain tarns, writhed and wallowed and seized
their prey in the fens and marshes.
And he caught glimpses of all sorts of humanlike creatures, such as
fishermen and sailors meet and marvel at on the sea, and landsmen see
outside the elfin mounds.
And, besides, that there was a soft whizzing and an endless hovering and
swarming of beings, whose shapes were nevertheless invisible to the eye
of man.
Then the boat glided into miry pulpy water, where her course tended
downwards, and where the earth-vault above darkened as it sank lower and
lower.
All at once a blinding strip of light shot down from a bright blue slit
high, high, above him.
A stuffy vapour stood round about him. The water was as yellow and
turbid as that which comes out of steam boilers.
And he called to mind the peculiar tepid undrinkable water which bubbles
up by the side of artesian wells. It was quite hot. Up there they were
boring down to a world of warm watercourses and liquid strata beneath
the earth's crust.
Heat as from an oven rose up from the huge abysses and dizzying clefts,
whilst mighty steaming waterfalls roared and shook the ground.
All at once he felt as if his body were breaking loose, freeing itself,
and rising in the air. He had a feeling of infinite lightness, of a
wondrous capability for floating in higher atmospheres and recovering
equilibrium.
And, before he knew how it was, he found himself up on the earth again.
* * * * *
[1] _Hulder, huldre_, a name for anything elfin or gnomish. Compare
_Icel. Hulda_, a hiding, covering. It implies the invisibility of the
elfin race.
[2] _Ligorm_, serpent that eats the dead. If we have Lichfield and
lichgate, we may have lichworm too.
* * * * *
_FINN BLOOD_
[Illustration: _FINN BLOOD._]
FINN BLOOD
In Svartfjord, north of Senje, dwelt a lad called Eilert. His neighbours
were seafaring Finns, and among their children was a pale little girl,
remarkable for her long black hair and her large eyes. They dwelt behind
the crag on the other side of the promontory, and fished for a
livelihood, as also did Eilert's parents; wherefore there was no
particular goodwill between the families, for the nearest fishing ground
was but a small one, and each would have liked to have rowed there
alone.
Nevertheless, though his parents didn't like it at all, and even forbade
it, Eilert used to sneak regularly down to the Finns. There they had
always strange tales to tell, and he heard wondrous things about the
recesses of the mountains, where the original home of the Finns was, and
where, in the olden time, dwelt the Finn Kings, who were masters among
the magicians. There, too, he heard tell of all that was beneath the
sea, where the Mermen and the Draugs hold sway. The latter are gloomy
evil powers, and many a time his blood stood still in his veins as he
sat and listened. They told him that the Draug usually showed himself on
the strand in the moonlight on those spots which were covered with
sea-wrack; that he had a bunch of seaweed instead of a head, but shaped
so peculiarly that whoever came across him absolutely couldn't help
gazing into his pale and horrible face. They themselves had seen him
many a time, and once they had driven him, thwart by thwart, out of the
boat where he had sat one morning, and turned the oars upside down. When
Eilert hastened homewards in the darkness round the headland, along the
strand, over heaps of seaweed, he dare scarcely look around him, and
many a time the sweat absolutely streamed from his forehead.
In proportion as hostility increased among the old people, they had a
good deal of fault to find with one another, and Eilert heard no end of
evil things spoken about the Finns at home. Now it was this, and now it
was that. They didn't even row like honest folk, for, after the Finnish
fashion, they took high and swift strokes, as if they were womenkind,
and they all talked together, and made a noise while they rowed, instead
of being "silent in the boat." But what impressed Eilert most of all was
the fact that, in the Finnwoman's family, they practised sorcery and
idolatry, or so folks said. He also heard tell of something beyond all
question, and that was the shame of having Finn blood in one's veins,
which also was the reason why the Finns were not as good as other honest
folk, so that the magistrates gave them their own distinct burial-ground
in the churchyard, and their own separate "Finn-pens" in church. Eilert
had seen this with his own eyes in the church at Berg.