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WEIRD TALES FROM NORTHERN SEAS FROM THE DANISH OF JONAS LIE
BY R. NISBET BAIN
WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY LAURENCE HOUSMAN
Translation 1893
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_THE GAN-FINN._]
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PREFACE
Jonas Lie is sufficiently famous to need but a very few words ofintroduction. Ever since 1870, when he made his reputation by his firstnovel, "_Den Fremsynte_," he has been a prime favourite with theScandinavian public, and of late years his principal romances have gonethe round of Europe. He has written novels of all kinds, but he excelswhen he describes the wild seas of Northern Norway, and the stern andhardy race of sailors and fishers who seek their fortunes, and so oftenfind 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 picturesof Norwegian life and character in the rough than anything that can befound elsewhere in the literature. Indeed, Lie's skippers and mates areas superior to Kjelland's, for instance, as the peasants of Jens Tvedt(a writer, by the way, still unknown beyond his native land) aresuperior to the much-vaunted peasants of Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson.
But it is when Lie tells us some of the wild legends of his nativeprovince, Nordland, some of the grim tales on which he himself wasbrought 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 thesavagery of nature. We rarely, if ever, hear of friendly elves orcompanionable gnomes there. The supernatural beings that haunt thoseshores and seas are, for the most part, malignant and malefic. They seemto hate man. They love to mock his toils, and sport with his despair. Inhis very first romance, "_Den Fremsynte_," Lie relates two of theseweird tales (Nos. 1 and 3 of the present selection). Another tale, inwhich many of the superstitious beliefs and wild imaginings of theNordland fishermen are skilfully grouped together to form the backgroundof a charming love-story, entitled "Finn Blood," I have borrowed fromthe volume of "_Fortaellinger og Skildringer_," published in 1872. Theremaining eight stories are selected from the book "_Trold_," which wasthe event of the Christmas publishing season at Christiania in 1891.Last Christmas a second series of "_Trold_" came out, but it isdistinctly inferior to the former one.
R.N.B.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG
II. JACK OF SJOEHOELM AND THE GAN-FINN
III. TUG OF WAR
IV. "THE EARTH DRAWS"
V. THE CORMORANTS OF ANDVAER
VI. ISAAC AND THE PARSON OF BROENOE
VII. THE WIND-GNOME
VIII. THE HULDREFISH
IX. FINN BLOOD
X. THE HOMESTEAD WESTWARD IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS
XI. "IT'S ME!"
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_THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG_
_THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG._]
THE FISHERMAN AND THE DRAUG
On Kvalholm, down in Helgeland,[1] dwelt a poor fisherman, Elias byname, with his wife Karen, who had been in service at the parson's overat Alstad. They had built them a hut here, and he used to go out fishingby 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 shrieksand noises, which could mean no good. One day, when she was up on thehillside, mowing grass to serve as winter fodder for their couple ofsheep, she heard, quite plainly, a chattering on the strand beneath thehill, but look over she durst not.
They had a child every year, but that was no burden, for they were boththrifty, hard-working folks. When seven years had gone by, there weresix children in the house; but that same autumn Elias had scrapedtogether so much that he thought he might now venture to buy a_Sexaering_,[2] and henceforward go fishing in his own boat.
One day, as he was walking along with a _Kvejtepig_[3] in his hand, andthinking the matter over, he unexpectedly came upon a monstrous seal,which lay sunning itself right behind a rock on the strand, and was asmuch surprised to see the man as the man was to see the seal. But Eliaswas not slack; from the top of the rock on which he stood, he hurled thelong 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 aboat's mast, and looked so evilly and viciously at him with itsbloodshot eyes, at the same time showing its grinning teeth, that Eliasthought he should have died on the spot for sheer fright. Then itplunged 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 intothe 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 hebought his _Sexaering_, for which he had been building a little boat-shedthe whole summer.
One night as he lay awake, thinking of his new _Sexaering_, it occurredto him that his boat would balance better, perhaps, if he stuck an extralog of wood on each side of it. He was so absurdly fond of the boat thatit was a mere pastime for him to light a lantern and go down to have alook at it.
Now as he stood looking at it there by the light of the lantern, hesuddenly caught a glimpse in the corner opposite, on a coil of nets, ofa face which exactly resembled the seal's. For an instant it grinnedsavagely at him and the light, its mouth all the time growing larger andlarger; 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 thelantern, of a long iron hooked spike sticking out of his back. And nowhe began to put one and two together. Still he was less anxious abouthis life than about his boat; so he there and then sat him down in itwith the lantern, and kept watch. When his wife came in the morning, shefound him sleeping there, with the burnt-out lantern by his side.
One morning in January, while he was out fishing in his boat with twoother men, he heard, in the dark, a voice from a skerry at the veryentrance of the creek. It laughed scornfully, and said, "When it _comesto a Femboering_,[4] Elias, look to thyself!"
But there was many a long year yet before it _did_ come to that; but oneautumn, 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] toexchange his _Sexaering_ for a _Femboering_. The only person left at homewas a little Finn girl, whom they had taken into service some few yearsbefore, and who had only lately been confirmed.
Now there was a boat, a little _Femboering_, for four men and a boy, thatElias just then had his eye upon--a boat which the best boat-builder inthe place had finished and tarred over that very autumn. Elias had avery good notion of what a boat should be, and it seemed to him that hehad never seen a _Femboering_ so well built _below_ the water-line._Above_ the water-line, indeed, it looked only middling, so that, to oneof less experience than himself, the boat would have seemed rather aheavy goer than otherwise, and anything but a smart craft.
Now the boat-master knew all this just as well as Elias. He said hethought it would be the swiftest sailer in Ranen, but that Elias shouldhave it cheap, all the same, if only he would promise one thing, andthat was, to make no alteration whatever in the boat, nay, not so muchas adding a fresh coat of tar. Only when Elias had expressly given hisword upon it did he get the boat.
But "yon laddie"[6] who had taught the boat-master how to build hisboats so
cunningly _below_ the water-line--_above_ the water-line he hadhad to use his native wits, and they were scant enough--must surely havebeen there beforehand, and bidden him both sell it cheaply, so thatElias might get it, and stipulate besides that the boat should not belooked at too closely. In this way it escaped the usual tarring fore andaft.
Elias now thought about sailing home, but went first into the town,provided himself and family with provisions against Christmas, andindulged in a little nip of brandy besides. Glad as he was over theday'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 noother ballast in the boat but himself, his old woman, the children, andthe 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 atthe rudder, while the two younger brothers of twelve and fourteen wereto take it in turns to bail out.
They had eight miles of sea to sail over, and when they got into theopen, it was plain that the boat would be tested pretty stiffly on itsfirst voyage. A gale was gradually blowing up, and crests of foam beganto break upon the heavy sea.
And now Elias saw what sort of a boat he really had. She skipped overthe 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 allhis clews[7] against the wind, which an ordinary _Femboering_ would havebeen forced to do in such weather.
Out on the sea, not very far away from him, he saw another _Femboering_,with a full crew, and four clews in the sail, just like his own. It layon the same course, and he thought it rather odd that he had not noticedit before. It made as if it would race him, and when Elias perceivedthat, 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 androcks, till it seemed to Elias as if he had never had such a splendidsail before. Now, too, the boat showed itself what it really was, thebest boat in Ranen.
The weather, meantime, had become worse, and they had already got acouple of dangerous seas right upon them. They broke in over themain-sheet in the forepart of the boat where Bernt sat, and sailed outagain 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 pitchedthe baling-can from one to the other.
So they raced on, side by side, in constantly stiffer seas, tillnight-fall, and beyond it. The fourth clew ought now to have been takenin again, but Elias didn't want to give in, and thought he might bide abit 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 passedround, 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 ifa fire-shovel was ploughing up and turning over the water. In the brightphosphorescence he could plainly make out the rope-ends on board her. Hecould also see distinctly the folks on board, with their sou'westers ontheir heads; but as their larboard side lay nearest, of course they allhad their backs towards him, and were well-nigh hidden by the highheeling hull.
Suddenly a tremendous roller burst upon them. Elias had long caught aglimpse of its white crest through the darkness, right over the prowwhere Bernt sat. It filled the whole boat for a moment, the planks shookand trembled beneath the weight of it, and then, as the boat, which hadlain half on her beam-ends, righted herself and sped on again, itstreamed off behind to leeward.
While it was still upon him, he fancied he heard a hideous yell from theother 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! thesea has carried off Martha and Nils!"--their two youngest children, thefirst nine, the second seven years old, who had been sitting in the holdnear Bernt. Elias merely answered: "Don't let go the lines, Karen, oryou'll lose yet more!"
They had now to take in the fourth clew, and, when this was done, Eliasfound that it would be well to take in the fifth and last clew too, forthe gale was ever on the increase; but, on the other hand, in order tokeep the boat free of the constantly heavier seas, he dare not lessenthe sail a bit more than he was absolutely obliged to do; but they foundthat 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 andhis next eldest brother Anthony, who had hitherto helped his mother withthe sail-lines, had, at last, to hold in the yards, an expedient oneonly resorts to when the boat cannot bear even the last clew--here thefifth.
The companion boat, which had disappeared in the meantime, now suddenlyducked up alongside again, with precisely the same amount of sail asElias's boat; but he now began to feel that he didn't quite like thelook 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 corpsesthan men, nor did they speak a single word.
A little way off to larboard he again caught sight of the high whiteback of a fresh roller coming through the dark, and he got ready betimesto receive it. The boat was laid to with its prow turned aslant towardsthe on-rushing wave, while the sail was made as large as possible, so asto 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 longersat by the sail ropes, nor did Anthony stand there any longer holdingthe 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 himby name. All that he said when he grasped the fact that she was washedoverboard, was, "In Jesus' Name!" His first and dearest wish was tofollow after her, but he felt at the same time that it became him tosave the rest of the freight he had on board, that is to say, Bernt andhis other two sons, one twelve, the other fourteen years old, who hadbeen baling out for a time, but had afterwards taken their places in thestern behind him.
Bernt had now to look to the yards all alone, and the other two helpedas best they could. The rudder Elias durst not let slip, and he held itfast with a hand of iron, which continuous exertion had long since madeinsensible to feeling.
A moment afterwards the comrade boat ducked up again: it had vanishedfor an instant as before. Now, too, he saw more of the heavy man who satin the stern there in the same place as himself. Out of his back, justbelow his sou'wester (as he turned round it showed quite plainly),projected an iron spike six inches long, which Elias had no difficultyin recognising again. And now, as he calmly thought it all over, he wasquite clear about two things: one was that it was the _Draug_[8] itselfwhich was steering its half-boat close beside him, and leading him todestruction; the other was that it was written in heaven that he was tosail his last course that night. For he who sees the Draug on the sea isa doomed man. He said nothing to the others, lest they should loseheart, but in secret he commended his soul to God.
During the last hour or so he had been forced out of his proper courseby the storm; the air also had become dense with snow; and Elias knewthat he must wait till dawn before land could be sighted. Meanwhile hesailed along much the same as before. Now and then the boys in the sterncomplained that they were freezing; but, in the plight they were now in,that couldn't be helped, and, besides, Elias had something else to thinkabout. A terrible longing for vengeance had come over him, and, but forthe necessity of saving the lives of his three lads, he would have triedby a sudden turn to sink the accursed boat which kept alongside of himthe whole time as if to mock him; he now understood its evil errand onlytoo well. If the _Kvejtepig_[9] could reach the Draug before, a knife ora gaff might surely do the same thing now, and he felt that he wouldgladly have given his life for one good grip of the being who
had somercilessly torn from him his dearest in this world and would fain havestill more.
At three or four o'clock in the morning they saw coming upon themthrough the darkness a breaker of such a height that at first Eliasthought they must be quite close ashore near the surf swell.Nevertheless, he soon recognised it for what it really was--a hugebillow. Then it seemed to him as if there was a laugh over in the otherboat, and something said, "There goes thy boat, Elias!" He, foreseeingthe calamity, now cried aloud: "In Jesus' Name!" and then bade his sonshold on with all their might to the withy-bands by the rowlocks when theboat went under, and not let go till it was above the water again. Hemade the elder of them go forward to Bernt; and himself held theyoungest close by his side, stroked him once or twice furtively down thecheeks, and made sure that he had a good grip. The boat, literallyburied beneath the foaming roller, was lifted gradually up by the bowsand then went under. When it rose again out of the water, with the keelin 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, sothat the mast might come to the surface alongside instead of disturbingthe balance of the boat below; and then they must climb up on theswaying bottom of the boat and stave in the key-holes, to let out theair which kept the boat too high in the water, and so ease her. Aftergreat exertions they succeeded, and Elias, who had got up on the topfirst, now helped the other two up after him.
There they sat through the long dark winter night, clinging convulsivelyon by their hands and knees to the boat's bottom, which was drenched bythe billows again and again.
After the lapse of a couple of hours died Martin, whom his father hadheld up the whole time as far as he was able, of sheer exhaustion, andglided 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 saidto 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 allabout the _Draug_, whom he had struck below the neck with the_Kvejtepig_, and how it had now revenged itself upon him, and certainlywould not forbear till it was "quits with him."
It was towards nine o'clock in the morning when the grey dawn began toappear. Then Elias gave to Bernt, who sat alongside him, his silverwatch with the brass chain, which he had snapped in two in order to dragit from beneath his closely buttoned jacket. He held on for a littletime longer, but, as it got lighter, Bernt saw that his father's facewas deadly pale, his hair too had parted here and there, as oftenhappens when death is at hand, and his skin was chafed off his handsfrom holding on to the keel. The son understood now that his father wasnearly at the last gasp, and tried, so far as the pitching and tossingwould 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 theboat.
Every one who has sat on the keel of a boat long enough knows that whenthe 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 himwith the brightening day. The storm abated, and, when it got quitelight, it seemed to him that he knew where he was, and that it wasoutside his own homestead, Kvalholm, that he lay driving.
He now began again to cry for help, but his chief hope was in a currentwhich he knew bore landwards at a place where a headland broke in uponthe surge, and there the water was calmer. And he did, in fact, drivecloser and closer in, and came at last so near to one of the rocks thatthe 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 henow was in all his limbs from sitting and holding on, he neverthelesssucceeded, after a great effort, in clambering up the cliff, where hehauled the mast ashore, and made the _Femboering_ fast.
The Finn girl, who was alone in the house, had been thinking, for thelast two hours, that she had heard cries for help from time to time, andas they kept on she mounted the hill to see what it was. There she sawBernt up on the cliff, and the overturned _Femboering_ bobbing up anddown against it. She immediately dashed down to the boat-place, got outthe old rowing-boat, and rowed along the shore and round the islandright out to him.
Bernt lay sick under her care the whole winter through, and didn't go afishing all that year. Ever after this, too, it seemed to folks as ifthe 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 aclearing in the forest, and he lives there now, and is doing well, theysay.
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[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 spearingKvejte or hallibut with.
[4] A large boat with five oars on each side, used for winter fishing innorthern Norway.
[5] The chief port in those parts.
[6] _Hin Karen_ = "the devil." _Karen_ is the Danish _Karl_.
[7] The _Kloer_, or clews, were rings in the corner of the sail to fastenit down by in a strong wind. _Setja ei Klo_ = "take in the sail a clew."_Setja tvo_, or _tri Kloer_ = "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 ina half-boat. Compare Icelandic _draugr_.
[9] See note 3 above.
[10] _Vaere med hu, Mor. Hu_ is the Danish _Hun_.
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_JACK OF SJOEHOLM AND THE GAN-FINN_
_THE GAN-FINN._]