Weird Tales from Northern Seas | Page 6

at last so near to one of the rocks
that the 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 he
now was in all his limbs from sitting and holding on, he nevertheless
succeeded, after a great effort, in clambering up the cliff, where he
hauled the mast ashore, and made the _Femböring_ fast.
The Finn girl, who was alone in the house, had been thinking, for the
last two hours, that she had heard cries for help from time to time, and
as they kept on she mounted the hill to see what it was. There she saw
Bernt up on the cliff, and the overturned _Femböring_ bobbing up and
down against it. She immediately dashed down to the boat-place, got
out the old rowing-boat, and rowed along the shore and round the
island right out to him.
Bernt lay sick under her care the whole winter through, and didn't go a
fishing all that year. Ever after this, too, it seemed to folks as if the 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
a clearing in the forest, and he lives there now, and is doing well, they
say.
* * * * *
[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 spearing
Kvejte or hallibut with.
[4] A large boat with five oars on each side, used for winter fishing in

northern Norway.
[5] The chief port in those parts.
[6] Hin Karen = "the devil." Karen is the Danish Karl.
[7] The _Klör_, or clews, were rings in the corner of the sail to fasten it
down by in a strong wind. Setja ei Klo = "take in the sail a clew." Setja
tvo, or _tri Klör_ = "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 in
a half-boat. Compare Icelandic draugr.
[9] See note 3 above.
[10] _Være med hu, Mor. Hu_ is the Danish Hun.
* * * * *
_JACK OF SJÖHOLM AND THE GAN-FINN_
[Illustration: _THE GAN-FINN._]

JACK OF SJÖHOLM AND THE GAN[1]-FINN
In the days of our forefathers, when there was nothing but wretched
boats up in Nordland, and folks must needs buy fair winds by the
sackful from the Gan-Finn, it was not safe to tack about in the open sea
in wintry weather. In those days a fisherman never grew old. It was
mostly womenfolk and children, and the lame and halt, who were
buried ashore.
Now there was once a boat's crew from Thjöttö in Helgeland, which
had put to sea, and worked its way right up to the East Lofotens.
But that winter the fish would not bite.
They lay to and waited week after week, till the month was out, and
there was nothing for it but to turn home again with their fishing gear
and empty boats.
But Jack of Sjöholm, who was with them, only laughed aloud, and said
that, if there were no fish there, fish would certainly be found higher
northwards. Surely they hadn't rowed out all this distance only to eat up
all their victuals, said he.
He was quite a young chap, who had never been out fishing before. But
there was some sense in what he said for all that, thought the
head-fisherman.
And so they set their sails northwards.
On the next fishing-ground they fared no better than before, but they

toiled away so long as their food held out.
And now they all insisted on giving it up and turning back.
"If there's none here, there's sure to be some still higher up towards the
north," opined Jack; "and if they had gone so far, they might surely go
a little further still," quoth he.
So they tempted fortune from fishing-ground to fishing-ground, till
they had ventured right up to Finmark.[2] But there a storm met them,
and, try as they might to find shelter under the headlands, they were
obliged at last to put out into the open sea again.
There they fared worse than ever. They had a hard time of it. Again and
again the prow of the boat went under the heavy rollers, instead of over
them, and later on in the day the boat foundered.
There they all sat helplessly on the keel in the midst of the raging sea,
and they all