The village of Gaasedahl, in Waagoe, has no level beach, but is almost
fifteen fathoms straight up from the sea, so that boats could not
very well be kept there. Moreover, the inhabitants are too few to
man a large boat for sea-fishing. They have, therefore, their boat
jointly with the neighbouring village of Boe, with the men whereof
they associate in fishing. One night a man from Gaasedahl went by
appointment east to Akranes, where the men from Boe wanted to take
him in the boat to row with them to the fishing. When he had come to
Skardsaa, he observed a boat which lay by the land in the appointed
place; and, fearful lest he should delay the others, he hurried down
to it. He saw that there were seven in the boat, and that a place was
vacant by one of the thwarts. He believed, therefore, that all was as
it should be, although he could not recognise any of the men, because
of the darkness. Then he jumped briskly into the boat and sat down by
his oar; but, to his great terror, he now perceived that he knew none
of the men, and he did not fail to understand that he had got among
the brownie folk. Still, he would not let them see that he was afraid,
but sat down to row as capably as the others. They steered north of
Waagoe towards Ravnemulen, a fishing-place to which the men of Waagoe
are accustomed to row.
The elves now began to put bait on their hooks and to cast out; but the
Gaasedahl-man sat still because he had only a line with him; his hooks
were in Boe. Then the leader of the elves gave him both hooks and bait,
with which he made a cast, and immediately caught a big cod. When he
had pulled up the fish and killed it, the leader took and marked it,
and in the same way he marked every other fish caught by the man. They
fished until the boat was full, then rowed home, and touched the land
by Akranes, where the Gaasedahl-man had come to them. The brownies
threw on shore to him all the fish he had caught. When he was going
away, the Gaasedahl-man remembered that he had left his knife behind
him in the boat, and said to the brownies that ‘the sharp thing by his
thigh’ was left in the boat. The brownie thereupon took the knife and
threw it at him to hurt him, but it did not hit him. Then he said: ‘You
were a doomed man; but you are a lucky man;’ and the other brownies
then rowed off, abusing him because he would not thank them for the use
of the boat.[5]