Weird Tales from Northern Seas Part 6

Then it grew dark, and she lay on his bosom, so that he could feel her warm breath. Her black hair lay right over him, and she was as soft and warm to the touch as a ptarmigan when it is frightened and its blood throbs.

Jack put the reindeer-skin over Seimke, and the boat rocked them to and fro on the heavy sea as if it were a cradle.

They sailed on and on till night-fall; they sailed on and on till they saw neither headland nor island nor sea-bird in the outer skerries more.

[1] This untranslatable word is a derivative of the Icelandic _Gandr_, and means magic of the black or malefic sort.

[2] The northernmost province of Norway, right within the Arctic circle.

[3] The huts peculiar to the Norwegian Finns.

[4] To sing songs (here magic songs), as the Finns do. Possibly derived from the Finnish verb _joikun_, which means monotonous chanting.

[5] The Norse _Kverva Syni_ is to delude the sight by magic spells.

[6] I.e., the boat he (Jack) wanted to build.

[7] A mountain between Sweden and Norway.

[8] I.e., the boat he would be building.

[9] Meaning that he would never have a chance of building the new sort of boat that his mind was bent on.

[10] The Finn's hut.

[11] _Tvinde Knuder_. When the Finn tied _one_ magic knot, he raised a gale, so two knots would give a tempest.

[12] I.e., where the Gan-Finn let out the wind.

[13] An eight-oared boat.

[14] A place where sea-birds' eggs abound.

[15] A contraction of _s.e.xaering_, i.e., a boat with six oars.

[16] Eng. dialect word (the Norse is _staur_) meaning impediments of any kind.

[17] _Daudvatn_ (Dan. _Dodvand_), water in which there is no motion.

TUG OF WAR.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TUG OF WAR.]

TUG OF WAR

For the last two or three days the weather had been terrific; but on the third day it so far cleared up that one of the men who belonged to the fis.h.i.+ng station thought that they might manage to drag the nets a bit that day. The others, however, were not inclined to venture out. Now it is the custom for the various crews to lend each other a hand in pus.h.i.+ng off the boats, and so it happened now. When, however, they came to the _Femboring_, which was drawn up a good distance ash.o.r.e, they found the oars and the thwarts turned upside down in the boat, and, more than that, despite all their exertions, it was impossible to move the boat from the spot. They tried once, twice, thrice; but it was of no use. But then one of them, who was known to have second sight, said that, from what he saw, it would be best not to touch the boat at all that day; it was too heavy for the might of man to move. One of the crew, however, who belonged to the fis.h.i.+ng-station (he was a smart lad of fourteen), was amusing them all the time with all manner of pranks and tomfoolery.

He now caught up a heavy stone, and pitched it with all his might right into the stern of the boat. Then, suddenly and plainly visible to them all, out of the boat rushed a Draug in seaman's clothes, but with a heavy crop of seaweed instead of a head. It had been weighing down the boat by sitting in the stern, and now dashed into the sea, so that the foam spirted all over them. After that the _Femboring_ glided quite smoothly into the water. Then the man with second sight looked at the boy, and said that he should not have done so. But the lad went on laughing as before, and said he didn't believe in such stuff. When they had come home in the evening, and the folks lay sleeping in the fis.h.i.+ng-station, they heard, about twelve o'clock at night, the lad yelling for help; it even seemed to one of them, by the light of the train-oil lamp, as if a heavy hand were stretching forward from the door right up to the bench on which the lad lay. The lad, yelling and struggling, had already been dragged as far as the door before the others had so far come to their senses as to think of grasping him round the body to prevent him from being dragged right out. And now, in mid doorway, a hard fight began, the Draug dragging him by the legs, while the whole crew tugged against him with the boy's arms and upper limbs.

Thus, amidst yelling and groaning, they swayed to and fro all through the midnight hour, backwards and forwards, in the half-open door; and now the Draug, and now the men, had the most of the boy on their side of the doorway. All at once the Draug let go, so that the whole crew fell higgledy-piggledy backwards on to the floor. Then they found that the boy was dead; it was only then that the Draug had let him go.

"THE EARTH DRAWS"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE EARTH DRAWS."]

"THE EARTH DRAWS"

There was once a young salesman at the storekeeper's at Sorvaag.

He was fair, with curly hair, shrewd blue eyes, and so smart, and obliging, and handsome, that all the girls in the town got themselves sent on errands, and made pilgrimages to the shop on purpose to see him.

Moreover, he was so smart and skilful in everything he put his hand to, that the storekeeper never would part with him.

Now it happened one day that he went out to a fis.h.i.+ng station for his princ.i.p.al.

The current was dead against him, so he rode close in sh.o.r.e.

All at once he saw a little ring in the rocky wall a little above high-water mark. He thought it was the sort of ring which is used for fastening boats to, so he fancied it wouldn't do any harm to rest a bit and lay to ash.o.r.e, and have a snack of something, for he had been pulling at the oars from early morn.

But when he took hold of the ring to run his boatline through it, it fitted round his finger so tightly that he had to tug at it. He tugged, and out of the mountain side with a rush came a large drawer. It was brimful of silk neckerchiefs and women's frippery.

He was amazed, and began pondering the matter over.

Then he saw what looked like rusty flakes of iron in rows right over the whole mountain side, exactly resembling the slit of his own drawer.

He had now got the ring on his finger, and must needs try if it would open the other slits also. And out he drew drawer after drawer full of gold bracelets and silver bracelets, gla.s.s pearls, brooches and rings, bracelets and laced caps, yarn, night-caps and woollen drawers, coffee, sugar, groats, tobacco pipes, b.u.t.tons, hooks and eyes, knives, axes, and scythes.

He drew out drawer after drawer; there was no end to the display they made.

But all round about him he heard, as it were, the humming of a crowd and the tramp of sea-boots. There was a hubbub, as if they were rolling hogsheads over a bridge and hoisting sails against the wind, and out from the sea sounded the stroke of oars and the b.u.mping of boats putting ash.o.r.e.

Then he began to have an inkling that he had laid to his boat at a mooring-ring belonging to the underground folk, and had lit right upon their landing-place where they deposited their wares.

He stood there looking into a drawer of meerschaum pipes. They were finer than any he had thought it possible to find in the whole world.

Then he felt, as it were, the blow of a heavy hand which tried to thrust him aside; but, at the same time, some one laughed so merrily close by.

The same instant he saw a young woman in the fore-part of his boat. She was leaning, with broad shoulders and hairy arms, over a meal-sack. Her eyes laughed and shot forth sparks as from a smithy in the dark, but her face was oddly pale.