FINN BLOOD
In Svartfjord, north of Senje, dwelt a lad called Eilert. His neighbourswere seafaring Finns, and among their children was a pale little girl,remarkable for her long black hair and her large eyes. They dwelt behindthe crag on the other side of the promontory, and fished for alivelihood, as also did Eilert's parents; wherefore there was noparticular goodwill between the families, for the nearest fishing groundwas but a small one, and each would have liked to have rowed therealone.
Nevertheless, though his parents didn't like it at all, and even forbadeit, Eilert used to sneak regularly down to the Finns. There they hadalways strange tales to tell, and he heard wondrous things about therecesses of the mountains, where the original home of the Finns was, andwhere, in the olden time, dwelt the Finn Kings, who were masters amongthe magicians. There, too, he heard tell of all that was beneath thesea, where the Mermen and the Draugs hold sway. The latter are gloomyevil powers, and many a time his blood stood still in his veins as hesat and listened. They told him that the Draug usually showed himself onthe strand in the moonlight on those spots which were covered withsea-wrack; that he had a bunch of seaweed instead of a head, but shapedso peculiarly that whoever came across him absolutely couldn't helpgazing into his pale and horrible face. They themselves had seen himmany a time, and once they had driven him, thwart by thwart, out of theboat where he had sat one morning, and turned the oars upside down. WhenEilert hastened homewards in the darkness round the headland, along thestrand, over heaps of seaweed, he dare scarcely look around him, andmany a time the sweat absolutely streamed from his forehead.
In proportion as hostility increased among the old people, they had agood deal of fault to find with one another, and Eilert heard no end ofevil things spoken about the Finns at home. Now it was this, and now itwas that. They didn't even row like honest folk, for, after the Finnishfashion, they took high and swift strokes, as if they were womenkind,and they all talked together, and made a noise while they rowed, insteadof being "silent in the boat." But what impressed Eilert most of all wasthe fact that, in the Finnwoman's family, they practised sorcery andidolatry, or so folks said. He also heard tell of something beyond allquestion, 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 honestfolk, so that the magistrates gave them their own distinct burial-groundin the churchyard, and their own separate "Finn-pens" in church. Eilerthad seen this with his own eyes in the church at Berg.
All this made him very angry, for he could not help liking the Finnfolks down yonder, and especially little Zilla. They two were alwaystogether: she knew such a lot about the Merman. Henceforth hisconscience always plagued him when he played with her; and whenever shestared at him with her large black eyes while she told him tales, heused to begin to feel a little bit afraid, for at such times hereflected that she and her people belonged to the Damned, and that waswhy they knew so much about such things. But, on the other hand, thethought of it made him so bitterly angry, especially on her account.She, too, was frequently taken aback by his odd behaviour towards her,which she couldn't understand at all; and then, as was her wont, shewould begin laughing at and teasing him by making him run after her,while she went and hid herself.
One day he found her sitting on a boulder by the sea-shore. She had inher lap an eider duck which had been shot, and could only have diedquite recently, for it was still warm, and she wept bitterly over it. Itwas, she sobbed, the same bird which made its nest every year beneaththe shelter of their outhouse--she knew it quite well, and she showedhim a red-coloured feather in its white breast. It had been struck deadby a single shot, and only a single red drop had come out of it; it hadtried to reach its nest, but had died on its way on the strand. She weptas if her heart would break, and dried her face with her hair inimpetuous Finnish fashion. Eilert laughed at her as boys will, but heoverdid it, and was very pale the whole time. He dared not tell her thatthat very day he had taken a random shot with his father's gun frombehind the headland at a bird a long way off which was swimming ashore.
One autumn Eilert's father was downright desperate. Day after day on thefishing grounds his lines caught next to nothing, while he was forced tolook on and see the Finn pull up one rich catch after another. He wassure, too, that he had noticed malicious gestures over in the Finn'sboat. After that his whole house nourished a double bitterness againstthem; and when they talked it over in the evening, it was agreed, as athing beyond all question, that Finnish sorcery had something to do withit. Against this there was only one remedy, and that was to rubcorpse-mould on the lines; but one must beware of doing so, lest oneshould thereby offend the dead, and expose oneself to their vengeance,while the sea-folk would gain power over one at the same time.
Eilert bothered his head a good deal over all this; it almost seemed tohim as if he had had a share in the deed, because he was on such a goodfooting with the Finn folks.
On the following Sunday both he and the Finn folks were at Berg church,and he secretly abstracted a handful of mould from one of the Finngraves, and put it in his pocket. The same evening, when they came home,he strewed the mould over his father's lines unobserved. And, oddlyenough, the very next time his father cast his lines, as many fish werecaught as in the good old times. But after this Eilert's anxiety becameindescribable. He was especially cautions while they were working of anevening round the fireside, and it was dark in the distant corners ofthe room. He sat there with a piece of steel in his pocket. To beg"forgiveness" of the dead is the only helpful means against theconsequences of such deeds as his, otherwise one will be dragged off atnight, by an invisible hand, to the churchyard, though one were lashedfast to the bed by a ship's hawser.
When Eilert, on the following "Preaching Sunday," went to church, hetook very good care to go to the grave, and beg forgiveness of the dead.
As Eilert grew older, he got to understand that the Finn folks must,after all, be pretty much the same sort of people as his own folks athome; but, on the other hand, another thought was now uppermost in hismind, the thought, namely, that the Finns must be of an inferior stock,with a taint of disgrace about them. Nevertheless, he could not verywell do without Zilla's society, and they were very much together asbefore, especially at the time of their confirmation.
But when Eilert became a man, and mixed more with the people of theparish, he began to fancy that this old companionship lowered himsomewhat in the eyes of his neighbours. There was nobody who did notbelieve as a matter of course that there was something shameful aboutFinn blood, and he, therefore, always tried to avoid her in company.
The girl understood it all well enough, for latterly she took care tokeep out of his way. Nevertheless, one day she came, as had been herwont from childhood, down to their house, and begged for leave to go intheir boat when they rowed to church next day. There were lots ofstrangers present from the village, and so Eilert, lest folks shouldthink that he and she were engaged, answered mockingly, so that everyone could hear him, "that church-cleansing was perhaps a very good thingfor Finnish sorcery," but she must find some one else to ferry heracross.
After that she never spoke to him at all, but Eilert was anything buthappy in consequence.
Now it happened one winter that Eilert was out all alone fishing forGreenland shark. A shark suddenly bit. The boat was small, and the fishwas very big; but Eilert would not give in, and the end of the businesswas that his boat capsized.
All night long he lay on the top of it in the mist and a cruel sea. Asnow he sat there almost fainting for drowsiness, and dimly consciousthat the end was not far off, and the sooner it came the better, hesuddenly saw a man in seaman's clothes sitting astride the other end ofthe boat's bottom, and glaring savagely at him with a pair of dullreddish eyes. He was so heavy that the boat's bottom began to slowlysink down at end where he sat. Then he suddenly vanished, but it seemedto Eilert as if the sea-fog lifted a bit; the sea had all at once grownquite calm (at least, there was now only a gentle swell); an
d right infront of him lay a little low grey island, towards which the boat wasslowly drifting.
The skerry was wet, as if the sea had only recently been flowing overit, and on it he saw a pale girl with such lovely eyes. She wore a greenkirtle, and round her body a broad silver girdle with figures upon it,such as the Finns use. Her bodice was of tar-brown skin, and beneath herstay-laces, which seemed to be of green sea-grass, was a foam-whitechemise, like the feathery breast of a sea-bird.
When the boat came drifting on to the island, she came down to him andsaid, as if she knew him quite well, "So you're come at last, Eilert;I've been waiting for you so long!"
It seemed to Eilert as if an icy cold shudder ran through his body whenhe took the hand which helped him ashore; but it was only for themoment, and he forgot it instantly.
In the midst of the island there was an opening with a brazen flight ofsteps leading down to a splendid cabin. Whilst he stood there thinkingthings over a bit, he saw two heavy dog-fish swimming close by--theywere, at least, twelve to fourteen ells long.
As they descended, the dog-fish sank down too, each on one side of thebrazen steps. Oddly enough, it looked as if the island was transparent.When the girl perceived that he was frightened, she told him that theywere only two of her father's bodyguard, and shortly afterwards theydisappeared. She then said that she wanted to take him to her father,who was waiting for them. She added that, if he didn't find the oldgentleman precisely as handsome as he might expect, he had,nevertheless, no need to be frightened, nor was he to be astonished toomuch at what he saw.
He now perceived that he was under water, but, for all that, there wasno sign of moisture. He was on a white sandy bottom, covered withchalk-white, red, blue, and silvery-bright shells. He saw meadows ofsea-grass, mountains thick with woods of bushy seaweed and sea-wrack,and the fishes darted about on every side just as the birds swarm aboutthe rocks that sea-fowl haunt.
As they two were thus walking along together she explained many thingsto him. High up he saw something which looked like a black cloud with awhite lining, and beneath it moved backwards and forwards a shaperesembling one of the dog-fish.
"What you see there is a vessel," said she; "there's nasty weather upthere now, and beneath the boat goes he who was sitting along with youon the bottom of the boat just now. If it is wrecked, it will belong tous, and then you will not be able to speak to father to-day." As shesaid this there was a wild rapacious gleam in her eyes, but it was goneagain immediately.
And, in point of fact, it was no easy matter to make out the meaning ofher eyes. As a rule, they were unfathomably dark with the lustre of anight-billow through which the sea-fire sparkles; but, occasionally,when she laughed, they took a bright sea-green glitter, as when the sunshines deep down into the sea.
Now and again they passed by a boat or a vessel half buried in the sand,out and in of the cabin doors and windows of which fishes swam to andfro. Close by the wrecks wandered human shapes which seemed to consistof nothing but blue smoke. His conductress explained to him that thesewere the spirits of drowned men who had not had Christian burial--onemust beware of them, for dead ones of this sort are malignant. Theyalways know when one of their own race is about to be wrecked, and atsuch times they howl the death-warning of the Draug through the wintrynights.
Then they went further on their way right across a deep dark valley. Inthe rocky walls above him he saw a row of four-cornered white doors,from which a sort of glimmer, as from the northern lights, shotdownwards through the darkness. This valley stretched in anorth-eastwardly direction right under Finmark, she said, and inside thewhite doors dwelt the old Finn Kings who had perished on the sea. Thenshe went and opened the nearest of these doors--here, down in the saltocean, was the last of the kings, who had capsized in the very breezethat he himself had conjured forth, but could not afterwards quell.There, on a block of stone, sat a wrinkled yellow Finn with running eyesand a polished dark-red crown. His large head rocked backwards andforwards on his withered neck, as if it were in the swirl of an oceancurrent. Beside him, on the same block, sat a still more shrivelled andyellow little woman, who also had a crown on, and her garments werecovered with all sorts of coloured stones; she was stirring up a brewwith a stick. If she only had fire beneath it, the girl told Eilert, sheand her husband would very soon have dominion again over the salt sea,for the thing she was stirring about was magic stuff.
In the middle of a plain, which opened right before them at a turn ofthe road, stood a few houses together like a little town, and, a littlefurther on, Eilert saw a church turned upside down, looking, with itslong pointed tower, as if it were mirrored in the water. The girlexplained to him that her father dwelt in these houses, and the churchwas one of the seven that stood in his realm, which extended all overHelgoland and Finmark. No service was held in them yet, but it would beheld when the drowned bishop, who sat outside in a brown study, couldonly hit upon the name of the Lord that was to be served, and then allthe Draugs would go to church. The bishop, she said, had been sittingand pondering the matter over these eight hundred years, so he would nodoubt very soon get to the bottom of it. A hundred years ago the bishophad advised them to send up one of the Draugs to Roedoe church to find outall about it; but every time the word he wanted was mentioned hecouldn't catch the sound of it. In the mountain "Kunnan" King Olaf hadhung a church-bell of pure gold, and it is guarded by the first priestwho ever came to Nordland, who stands there in a white chasuble.
On the day the priest rings the bell, Kunnan will become a big stonechurch, to which all Nordland, both above and below the sea, willresort. But time flies, and therefore all who come down here below areasked by the bishop if they can tell him that name.
At this Eilert felt very queer indeed, and he felt queerer still when hebegan reflecting and found, to his horror, that he also had forgottenthat name.
While he stood there in thought, the girl looked at him so anxiously. Itwas almost as if she wanted to help him to find it and couldn't, andwith that she all at once grew deadly pale.
The Draug's house, to which they now came, was built of boat's keels andlarge pieces of wreckage, in the interstices of which grew all sorts ofsea-grass and slimy green stuff. Three monstrously heavy green posts,covered with shell-fish, formed the entrance, and the door consisted ofplanks which had sunk to the bottom and were full of clincher-nails. Inthe middle of it, like a knocker, was a heavy rusty iron mooring-ring,with the worn-away stump of a ship's hawser hanging to it. When theycame up to it, a large black arm stretched out and opened the door.
They were now in a vaulted chamber, with fine shell-sand on the floor.In the corners lay all sorts of ropes, yarn, and boating-gear, and amongthem casks and barrels and various ship's inventories. On a heap ofyarn, covered by an old red-patched sail, Eilert saw the Draug, abroad-shouldered, strongly built fellow, with a glazed hat shoved backon to the top of his head, with dark-red tangled hair and beard, smalltearful dog-fish eyes, and a broad mouth, round which there lay for themoment a good-natured seaman's grin. The shape of his head reminded onesomewhat of the big sort of seal which is called Klakkekal--his skinabout the neck looked dark and shaggy, and the tops of his fingers grewtogether. He sat there with turned-down sea-boots on, and his thick greywoollen stockings reached right up to his thigh. He wore besides, plainfreize clothes with bright glass buttons on his waistcoat. His spaciousskin jacket was open, and round his neck he had a cheap red woollenscarf.
When Eilert came up, he made as if he would rise, and said goodnaturedly, "Good day, Eilert--you've certainly had a hard time of itto-day! Now you can sit down, if you like, and take a little grub. Youwant it, I'm sure;" and with that he squirted out a jet of tobacco juicelike the spouting of a whale. With one foot, which for that specialpurpose all at once grew extraordinarily long, he fished out of acorner, in true Nordland style, the skull of a whale to serve as a chairfor Eilert, and shoved forward with his hand a long ship's drawer fullof first-rate fare. There was boiled groats with sirup, cured fis
h,oatcakes with butter, a large stack of flatcakes, and a multitude of thebest hotel dishes besides.
The Merman bade him fall to and eat his fill, and ordered his daughterto bring out the last keg of Thronhjem _aqua vitae_. "Of that sort thelast is always the best," said he. When she came with it, Eilert thoughthe knew it again: it was his father's, and he himself, only a couple ofdays before, had bought the brandy from the wholesale dealer at Kvaeford;but he didn't say anything about that now. The quid of tobacco, too,which the Draug turned somewhat impatiently in his mouth before hedrank, also seemed to him wonderfully like the lead on his own line. Atfirst it seemed to him as if he didn't quite know how to manage with thekeg--his mouth was so sore; but afterwards things went along smoothlyenough.
So they sat for some time pretty silently, and drank glass after glass,till Eilert began to think that they had had quite enough. So, when itcame to his turn again, he said no, he would rather not; whereupon theMerman put the keg to his own mouth and drained it to the very dregs.Then he stretched his long arm up to the shelf, and took down another.He was now in a better humour, and began to talk of all sorts of things.But every time he laughed, Eilert felt queer, for the Draug's mouthgaped ominously wide, and showed a greenish pointed row of teeth, with along interval between each tooth, so that they resembled a row of boatstakes.
The Merman drained keg after keg, and with every keg he grew morecommunicative. With an air as if he were thinking in his own mind ofsomething very funny, he looked at Eilert for a while and blinked hiseyes. Eilert didn't like his expression at all, for it seemed to him tosay: "Now, my lad, whom I have fished up so nicely, look out for achange!" But instead of that he said, "You had a rough time of it lastnight, Eilert, my boy, but it wouldn't have gone so hard with you if youhadn't streaked the lines with corpse-mould, and refused to take mydaughter to church"--here he suddenly broke off, as if he had said toomuch, and to prevent himself from completing the sentence, he put thebrandy-keg to his mouth once more. But the same instant Eilert caughthis glance, and it was so full of deadly hatred that it sent a shiverright down his back.
When, after a long, long draught, he again took the keg from his mouth,the Merman was again in a good humour, and told tale after tale. Hestretched himself more and more heavily out on the sail, and laughed andgrinned complacently at his own narrations, the humour of which wasalways a wreck or a drowning. From time to time Eilert felt the breathof his laughter, and it was like a cold blast. If folks would only giveup their boats, he said, he had no very great desire for the crews. Itwas driftwood and ship-timber that he was after, and he really couldn'tget on without them. When his stock ran out, boat or ship he _must_have, and surely nobody could blame him for it either.
With that he put the keg down empty, and became somewhat more gloomyagain. He began to talk about what bad times they were for him and her.It was not as it used to be, he said. He stared blankly before him for atime, as if buried in deep thought. Then he stretched himself outbackwards at full length, with feet extending right across the floor,and gasped so dreadfully that his upper and lower jaws resembled twoboats' keels facing each other. Then he dozed right off with his neckturned towards the sail.
Then the girl again stood by Eilert's side, and bade him follow her.
They now went the same way back, and again ascended up to the skerry.Then she confided to him that the reason why her father had been sobitter against him was because he had mocked her with the taunt aboutchurch-cleansing when she had wanted to go to church--the name the folksdown below wanted to know might, the Merman thought, be treasured up inEilert's memory; but during their conversation on their way down to herfather, she had perceived that he also had forgotten it. And now he mustlook to his life.
It would be a good deal later on in the day before the old fellow wouldbegin inquiring about him. Till then he, Eilert, must sleep so as tohave sufficient strength for his flight--she would watch over him.
The girl flung her long dark hair about him like a curtain, and itseemed to him that he knew those eyes so well. He felt as if his cheekwere resting against the breast of a white sea-bird, it was so warm andsleep-giving--a single reddish feather in the middle of it recalled adark memory. Gradually he sank off into a doze, and heard her singing alullaby, which reminded him of the swell of the billows when it ripplesup and down along the beach on a fine sunny day. It was all about howthey had once been playmates together, and how later on he would havenothing to say to her. Of all she sang, however, he could only recollectthe last words, which were these--
"Oh, thousands of times have we played on the shore, And caught little fishes--dost mind it no more? We raced with the surf as it rolled at our feet, And the lurking old Merman we always did cheat.
"Yes, much shalt thou think of at my lullaby, Whilst the billows do rock and the breezes do sigh. Who sits now and weeps o'er thy cheeks? It is she Who gave thee her soul, and whose soul lived in thee.
"But once as an eider-duck homeward I came Thou didst lie 'neath a rock, with thy rifle didst aim; In my breast thou didst strike me; the blood thou dost see Is the mark that I bear, oh! beloved one, of thee."
Then it seemed to Eilert as if she sat and wept over him, and that, fromtime to time, a drop like a splash of sea-water fell upon his cheek. Hefelt now that he loved her so dearly.
The next moment he again became uneasy. He fancied that right up to theskerry came a whale, which said that he, Eilert, must now make haste;and when he stood on its back he stuck the shaft of an oar down itsnostril, to prevent it from shooting beneath the sea again. He perceivedthat in this way the whale could be steered accordingly as he turned theoar to the right or left; and now they coasted the whole land of Finmarkat such a rate that the huge mountain islands shot by them like littlerocks. Behind him he saw the Draug in his half-boat, and he was going soswiftly that the foam stood mid-mast high. Shortly afterwards he wasagain lying on the skerry, and the lass smiled so blithely; she bentover him and said, "It is I, Eilert."
With that he awoke, and saw that the sunbeams were running over the wetskerry, and the Mermaid was still sitting by his side. But presently thewhole thing changed before his eyes. It was the sun shining through thewindow-panes, on a bed in the Finn's hut, and by his side sat the Finngirl supporting his back, for they thought he was about to die. He hadlain there delirious for six weeks, ever since the Finn had rescued himafter capsizing, and this was his first moment of consciousness.
After that it seemed to him that he had never heard anything so absurdand presumptuous as the twaddle that would fix a stigma of shame orcontempt on Finn blood, and the same spring he and the Finn girl Zillawere betrothed, and in the autumn they were married.
There were Finns in the bridal procession, and perhaps many said alittle more about that than they need have done; but every one at thewedding agreed that the fiddler, who was also a Finn, was the bestfiddler in the whole parish, and the bride the prettiest girl.
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_THE HOMESTEAD WESTWARD IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS_
HOMESTEAD WESTWARD IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.]