THE MONK AMBROSE AND THE PIRATE ANIKA.
The Chief Monk or Abbot of the Monastery of Petschenga in the most
prosperous period of its existence, about the close of the sixteenth
century, was named Gurij. He must have been an old man of about eighty
years of age when he was elected Primicier, or President, in 1540, not
very long after the founding of the monastery. There were fifty monks
under him. The most prominent man among these monks was known as
Ambrose. He was either dumb, or so abnormally silent that sometimes
during an entire month he neither spoke to anyone, nor replied if
anyone spoke to him. According to their rule the monks were required to
be silent, even during meals. When they assembled, one of them was
employed in reading aloud from a book, in order to help the company to
keep their rule of silence. Nobody knew why Ambrose had imposed this
unusual silence on himself, but it was supposed that something had
happened in his earlier life which had left a deep wound in his heart,
and that this had made him so reserved. He arrived at the monastery all
alone one day, having travelled on foot over the mountains from Kola.
He brought with him letters of commendation from a monastery in Russia,
and also from Solowetski. From these letters, it appeared that he
belonged to an ancient Russian boyar family. He was received as a
novice, and, after a year’s probation, obtained his own cell in the
monastery, but silent he was from the first, and silent he remained
unto the end. He was a tall and unusually handsome man, with delicate,
pale features, and with a scar on the right temple, as if from a
sword-cut. When he exerted himself unduly, or became unusually excited,
the scar assumed the appearance of a red gash, and the monks learned by
degrees that he was not a man to be trifled with, though, as a rule,
his disposition was amiable and gentle. It was easy to see from his
broad shoulders and his general build that he was a man of great
physical strength. This was fully shown when he began to take part in
the different kinds of daily manual labour. Both among the Brothers of
the monastery and among the work-people, he came to be known as Ambrose
the Strong. There was also something in his bearing which suggested
that he must at one time have been a soldier. He took a great deal of
physical exercise, and he was often present to supervise the
shipbuilding that was carried on at the Warehouse Inlet, the work of
the salt-pans on the Fiskerö, and also the sea-fishery. In this latter
industry he showed himself both courageous and skilful.
He frequently made excursions into the country, and it was asserted
that he returned with gold-dust. In these excursions he was invariably
accompanied by a Finn, a diminutive creature, who was called Unnas,
whose appearance corresponded to the meaning of his name. Ambrose had,
on one of his wanderings over the mountains, come upon something which
looked like a bundle of clothes; on closer inspection he observed that
something moved within the bundle. It was the little creature Unnas,
who had squeezed himself together in his coat, and had laid himself
down there to die. He had broken his leg, and for two days had
painfully tried to creep towards some human habitation; but at last, in
pain and helplessness, he had abandoned all hope of getting help.
Ambrose lifted him with ease on his strong shoulders, and carried him
home to the monastery. Here he allowed him to have a berth in his own
cell, set and bandaged his leg, and attended to him for some six weeks,
until he had recovered. From that time forward the little creature
Unnas followed Ambrose about like a faithful dog. Ambrose could not get
quit of him, although he did not always want him. His efforts were of
no avail, even when he endeavoured to escape from him. Unnas would
track him wherever he went, and follow him at a distance, until the
good-natured Ambrose would make him a sign to come closer, and allow
him to accompany him.
When Ambrose came to the monastery, there was a pirate who had for
years made descents on the shores of the Fishers’ Isle, and his visits
were the terror and temporary ruin of the inhabitants. The pirate was
named Anika, and every year he came, late in the summer, with a big
ship, and anchored beside a small island, which took its name, Anikief,
from him. Whence he came nobody knew, nor where he went with his fish
when he had laden his ship. In the winter time no one ever saw anything
of him. But in the spring, when the first fleet of boats arrived for
the fishing season, either from Kola or from Pomorien, Anika’s ship
would be lying off Anikief. And as soon as the fishermen came in from
the sea with their take of fish, they might be sure of seeing Anika
walking along the shore, ready to receive them. They were then obliged,
whether they liked it or not, to give him the tenth part of their
catch. If they did not at once give it to him willingly, he and his men
took it by main force, and the fishermen were more than likely to get a
good beating into the bargain.
The pirate, however, behaved in some respects in a chivalrous manner.
If, for instance, all the fleet of boats which were accustomed to lie
in the harbour of Anikief had come in (and frequently there would be
more than a hundred of them), he would have all the men called
together, and inquire of them whether there was any one of them who
would risk himself in a duel with him. He declared himself willing to
fight with anyone, and with any kind of weapon. If he were beaten, they
should be free from any claim to pay him tribute; but if he proved to
be the strongest, they would have to pay the blackmail. Anika was
bigger-framed and physically stronger than most men, and none of the
fishermen were willing to take the risk of an encounter with him. They
had, therefore, no choice but to pay him the blackmail. For many years
this torment is said to have continued, and the name of the pirate
Anika was a terror to all the fishermen at Fiskerö. He did what he
liked. He recognised neither law nor justice. Nobody was in a position
to punish him or to withstand his demands.
To the monks in the monastery at Petschenga there came intelligence
respecting this pirate, but they had no power to help the fishermen to
resist his demands. The spring after Ambrose entered the monastery,
there came fresh news of the pirate, and of his violent conduct towards
the fishermen. They themselves, indeed, came, and complained to the
monks; and the head of the monastery, Gurij, suggested, in a conference
with the senior Brethren (at which Ambrose was present, and at which he
sat, as usual, a silent listener), that a message should be sent to
Ostrogen, in Kola, or to Solowets, for a ship with cannons and an armed
crew, which could chase the pirate away.
The following day Ambrose approached the head of the monastery, and
asked for leave of absence for a few days.
‘Where are you going, Brother?’ asked Gurij.
‘To Fiskerö.’
‘To Anikief?’
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps you want to pay your respects to Anika?’
‘I want to fight him.’
‘To fight him?—you, a Brother, and a man of peace!’ exclaimed Gurij.
‘Yes; for the sake of making peace,’ replied Ambrose.
‘But can you wield a sword? You will never drive him away with
spiritual weapons,’ said Gurij.
‘Yes, I know how to wield a sword. I was once a soldier, and I still
know how to give a blow with a sword better than most men.’
‘Will you not take some of our men with you?’
‘No; I will go quite alone.’
‘But you have neither sword nor armour.’
‘You can let me have the sacred sword hanging in the church, and the
coat of mail belonging to it,’ said Ambrose. ‘Let me have the sword and
coat of mail, Father Gurij, and bless me, and let me go. I am ready for
the fight—for a fight for life or death. If you hear no more of me,
then I have been killed; but if I return, I shall bring you news of my
victory.’
Early next morning Ambrose set off on foot, with the sword and coat of
mail under a loose overcoat. From Petschenga there is a way across two
isthmuses, and across Fiskerö itself, to the harbour of Anikief. Unnas
was not about early enough in the morning to see Ambrose start; but
when he came somewhat later to the monastery grounds, and heard that
his benefactor had started for Fiskerö, he at once hurried full speed
after him, and it was not long before he came upon the footprints of
Ambrose. However, he did not catch him up until he had reached Anikief,
and there he met such a number of strange and odd-looking people that
he would not venture among them, but kept at a distance, for Unnas was
not stout-hearted.
So it happened that one day, according to the legend, when a fleet of
Russian boats was to put out to sea in order to cast their lines, a
stranger came unexpectedly to them. The stranger saluted the chief
officer very politely, and said:
‘Take me with you to-day, comrades; I shall be of use to you in baiting
your hooks.’
The chief officer looked at the stranger, but neither he nor any of his
men could call to mind that they had ever seen him before.
‘We have men to bait our lines, men to pull the lines, and oarsmen,’
said the chief officer. ‘There are four of us as usual, and it will
only cause trouble if we take more with us.’
‘Anyhow, take me just this once,’ said the stranger; ‘I particularly
want to be with you, and perhaps I may bring you good luck.’
‘Very well, then; as you have such a great desire to be with us, I will
let you,’ said the chief officer. ‘Cross yourself, say your prayer, and
get into the boat.’
The stranger crossed himself in the Greek manner, bowed towards the
east, and prayed, ‘Gospodi pomilui nas!’ ‘Lord have mercy upon us!’
Then he got into the boat with the rest, and they put off to the place
where the lines were to be cast.
They were specially fortunate that day. There were fish, so to speak,
on every hook, and the boat was quite laden with them. So they rowed
back again to the harbour; but, as usual, the chief officer did not
venture to omit taking the course by the island of Anikief, in order to
deliver a portion of the fish to the pirate who lay off there with his
big ship. The stranger was decidedly of opinion that there was no need
to hurry; they might just as well first row back to their own place and
wait for Anika to come in person and demand the fish, if he dared.
‘Dares!’ said the chief officer. ‘He will kill us if we do not
voluntarily give what he demands, and take it to him on board his
ship.’
‘Let’s see,’ suggested the stranger.
They then made for the island to land there, and the stranger was the
first to jump on shore. While the others were still in the boat he took
hold of it by the bow, and pulled it so far up on the beach that four
men together could not have done it better.
‘That fellow doesn’t want for strength,’ thought the chief officer to
himself.
They then threw the fish ashore to clean them. This last work was
entrusted to the stranger, while they themselves disentangled and
baited the lines.
The stranger did as the fishermen were in the habit of doing. He cut
off the head, took out the entrails, collected the livers in a jug, and
split open the fish. But he did all this so expertly and so quickly
that the boatmen stood watching him with astonishment. When he had
finished cleaning the fish, he took his thick fishing-gloves off his
hands and told the man who rowed to clean them in the sea. He did as he
was bidden, and gave them back to Ambrose again. But the stranger did
not think that he had wrung the water thoroughly from them. He folded
them together, therefore, and wrung them himself; but as he did this
they came to pieces in his hands.
The crew, when they witnessed this fresh evidence of his extraordinary
strength, began to feel some misgivings. They feared that the stranger
could not be a real man, and they wondered what would happen when Anika
came, whom they were expecting every minute, and who, perhaps, was not
a little exasperated that they had failed to bring him their tribute.
Anika did not keep them long waiting, but came at once, striding along
the beach towards them. He was a giant of a fellow, with a fierce
appearance and with a long brown beard hanging down over his breast.
‘Hi! you men there!’ he shouted at once from a distance in a voice of
thunder. ‘Why haven’t you brought me my tribute of fish to-day?’
The four men did not dare to utter a word. They stood silent with fear,
and with their uncovered heads bowed down, and crossed themselves.
Their strange companion did not take his hat off, but went a few paces
towards Anika, and then demanded:
‘Who are you, and what do you want?’
‘Who am I, and what do I want?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘Don’t you know me?’
‘No, I don’t know you, and I have no wish to make your acquaintance. So
you need not come any nearer. The best thing you can do is to take
yourself off again, or you shall see——’
‘See what? Ha, ha!’ laughed Anika; ‘I can see you don’t know who I am;
but look out for yourself, and be gone, or you shall feel Anika’s fists
fall like blows from a hammer on your wicked skull!’
The stranger, however, did not allow himself to be disconcerted, but
stood bolt upright before Anika.
‘Just so, my little friend,’ said Anika. ‘I see you are not wanting in
courage.’
‘No; I am not much afraid of you.’
‘Perhaps you have even come here on purpose to fight me?’
‘You are quite right.’
‘Very well. I am glad of that,’ said Anika. ‘You shall have your wish
fulfilled, and you shall choose the weapons. What will you fight with?’
‘With a sword, and in armour,’ said Ambrose; and he cast off his
overcoat and stood transformed into a soldier, with a sword in his
belt, and clad in a shining coat of mail.
The island was now full of life. The news flew like lightning from one
boat’s crew to another that a strange soldier had arrived, who was
going to fight a duel with the much-dreaded Anika. All work stopped,
and the people crowded together from all parts to see the stranger. The
crew of Anika’s ship also came ashore to be present at the fight. A
place was chosen on Fiskerö where the fight was to take place. At last
they made their way thither, each with his own company: Anika with his
sailors, and Ambrose followed by the fishermen. The place was cleared
and enclosed by a circle of stones, and it is still shown to visitors,
even after a lapse of more than three hundred years.
The two combatants placed themselves inside the ring, while the
fishermen crowded together, and in silence formed a living wall around
them.
It was close upon midnight, and all was ready. The sun lay low down to
the north, red as molten gold, tingeing with a marvellously beautiful
purple glow the clouds and sky, and glittering like diamonds and rubies
over the foaming waves, which the Arctic Ocean dashed, with a sullen
roar, upon the rocky coast.
The fight began. Sword clashed with sword, and the golden red of the
sun shimmered on the crossing sword-blades. Ambrose soon recognised,
after the first thrust had been made and parried, that he had a
practised foe before him. He was obliged even to give way in parrying
the furious blows which Anika showered upon him, and he had to retreat
to the edge of the circle.
According to the story as it is told, the one who was driven outside
the circle was accounted as conquered. As Ambrose was in the act of
retreating in parrying the blows, Anika sought with one desperate blow
to finish him. The blow was so tremendous that only an adept could
withstand it. It was parried about an inch from the top of Ambrose’s
head, but his hat, which he had on, was knocked off by it, so that the
whole of his noble face and his beautiful priestly hair, which fell on
his shoulders, could be seen. A shout of astonishment and of contempt
broke forth from Anika’s men. ‘It’s a monk, it’s a priest, who has come
here to fight our unvanquished chief!’
But now the scar in Ambrose’s forehead turned a brilliant red, and it
seemed as if, all at once, his limbs had become steeled. His strokes
fell so rapidly and so furiously that it was Anika’s turn to retreat
nearer and nearer towards the ring, on the opposite side. The fishermen
cheered on the stranger with shouts of encouragement, Anika defended
himself with desperation, but it was as if a panic had seized him on
the discovery that he was fighting with a monk, and without resistance
he was driven backwards to the ring. ‘Pirate,’ shouted the stranger at
the last, ‘you shall die!’ and at the same moment he levelled such a
fearful blow at Anika in the forehead that he fell backwards, ‘three
ells outside the ring,’ as the legend has it.
Anika’s men took to immediate flight. They ran straight back to the
ship, weighed anchor, and made off. They were seen no more. The
Russians dug a grave inside the ring. In it they laid the warrior
Anika, and a stone barrow was raised over him. Then the fishermen
accompanied the mysterious stranger back to the shore. There he called
them together before him, and said: ‘See, the sun is now rising again
over the world, and is casting his glorious light over man’s path! Fall
each one of you upon his knees this newborn day, and give thanks to
God. Your foe is no more, and henceforth no one will hinder you in your
peaceful labours. God be with you all. Farewell.’ With these words the
stranger vanished, and no one knew whence he came or whither he had
gone.
So the legend runs, and it is not possible to say how much of it is
history and how much romance.
A few years ago, however, a traveller visited the place, and long years
after Anika’s death the barrow was opened. Some mouldering human bones
were found, and among them a couple of leg-bones of an unusual size. We
may therefore reasonably assume that Anika once lived, that he fought,
and was conquered, and found his grave at this spot; but up to this
time very few persons have known anything of the legend which
associates Ambrose, a monk from the monastery of Petschenga, with his
conqueror.
Ambrose made his way back again over the waste swamps, and Unnas was
ever at a little interval behind him. Presently he drew nearer. Ambrose
heard something moving behind him, and turned round and saw him.
‘Well, are you there, my little friend? Come nearer, then,’ he said.
Unnas sprang forward to him, and fell on his knees and kissed his hand.
Then he took out of his bosom some bread and dried fish.
‘You have had nothing to eat to-day, Father. Won’t you have a little?
You must want some food.’
‘Thank you, my little Unnas. You are right; I do want some food. Did
you see the fight?’
‘Yes, but I did not venture to go close up.’
‘No. Courageous you are not, Unnas, but you are a very faithful
friend.’
‘Yes, I am to you.’
‘Not to others, aren’t you? Not even to my friend Jussi?’
‘No; he beats me.’
‘Well, but you don’t behave well to him, either. You enticed him once
upon a time on to an island in the river, and left him there for a
couple of days.’
‘Yes, because he struck me, but perhaps some day I shall take him in as
I took in Stallo.’
‘What Stallo?’
‘Oh, indeed, you see that, little as I am, I once killed a big Stallo,
a goblin, or monster, such as one sometimes encounters here in the
mountains, and which is so dangerous that one must either kill it, or
be killed by it.’
‘Was it here?’
‘Yes, it was just here, by this very lake where we now are.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘Well, you see that the lake here is long, and you travelled all the
way round it when you were on your way to Anikief; but that was not
necessary. We can slip across here, as I will show you, but you must
not tell anybody. No one besides me knows about it. Promise me that you
won’t tell anything.’
‘Yes, I promise you.’
‘You see this narrow strip of water here: it is not more than fifty
ells broad, but it is deep. If you watch the slight current attentively
as it flows through the channel, you will detect that at several points
it is a little irregular. The reason of this is that some large stones
lie just under the surface of the water, not half an ell below the
surface. They are laid at such a distance apart that it is easy to jump
from one to the other, but we must know exactly where they are laid; by
this means we can get over to the other side more easily and quickly
than even if we could swim like reindeer. I put the stones there
myself, and built them up when the lake was almost dry. Many years ago
I came, quite alone, tramping here, and suddenly I caught sight of a
Stallo, seated on a stone a little in front of me. When I stood still
for fear, he beckoned to me that I should go closer to him, but you may
be sure I wasn’t such a fool as to go up to him. I jumped back again as
quickly as I could, but as I looked I saw him coming after me. I then
made various circuits between the barren ridges of ground and the birch
copse as a fox would do, and hid myself at one spot, so that he sprang
past me. Then I ran quickly back again, got under cover behind the
hill, and made my way here without his seeing me. I leaped on the
stones across the channel to this place, and then along the shore a
little bit lower down, where you see the lake is much broader. There I
stood and began to howl and cry so that the Stallo might find where I
was. This he did, and he came down to the shore on the opposite side.
Then I began to abuse him as a coward, and as an old woman who wouldn’t
venture to wade across where a little Finn had waded. At last he was so
exasperated that he took the sword in his mouth, leaped into the water,
and came swimming across to me. But I had my bow ready, and when he was
close enough I shot an arrow with an iron point at the end, and hit him
in the forehead, so that he threw up his hands into the air and went to
the bottom.’
‘But possibly it was an ordinary man, a peaceable traveller, whom you
killed, Unnas. I don’t believe in Trolls.’
‘Not a bit of it; it was a Troll—a real Stallo.’
‘How can you be so sure of that?’
‘Well, you see, he had a dog with him, a great, brown, smooth-haired
dog. They always lead dogs like that with them by strings, and the
Stallo had such a dog, and it swam beside him; but as it was getting
near the land I gave it an arrow in the eye as well, and it turned
round and sank. If the dog can lick the Stallo’s blood he comes to life
again; that is why a Stallo always has a dog with him.’
There was great rejoicing in Petschenga Monastery when Ambrose
returned, victorious over the pirate, and the next day a thanksgiving
service was held in the church. The sword and coat of mail were hung up
again in their place, and Ambrose relapsed once more into his usual
silence.
But Unnas related, and was never tired of relating, to the work-people,
or to anybody who would listen to him, how it all happened, and so it
has been again and again repeated by others for three hundred years,
just as it was told to me by Nilas the Finn that night beside
Petschenga River.