Weird Tales from Northern Seas | Page 8

gave
him honeyed words as fast as her tongue could wag, till she drew him
right into the smoke where the old Finn couldn't hear them.
The Gan-Finn turned his head right round.
"My eyes are stupid, and the smoke makes 'em run," said he; "what has
Jack got hold of there?"
"Say it is the white ptarmigan you caught in the snare," whispered she.
And Jack felt that she was huddling up against him and trembling all
over.
Then she told him so softly that he thought it was his own thoughts
speaking to him, that the Finn was angry and muttering mischief, and
_jöjking_,[4] against the boat which Jack wanted to build. If Jack were
to complete it, said she, the Gan-Finn would no longer have any sale
for his fair-winds in all Nordland. And then she warned him to look to
himself and never get between the Finn and the Gan-flies.
Then Jack felt that his boat might be the undoing of him. But the worse
things looked, the more he tried to make the best of them.
In the grey dawn, before the Finn was up, he made his way towards the
sea-shore.
But there was something very odd about the snow-hills. They were so
many and so long that there was really no end to them, and he kept on
trampling in deep and deeper snow and never got to the sea-shore at all.
Never before had he seen the northern lights last so long into the day.
They blazed and sparkled, and long tongues of fire licked and hissed
after him. He was unable to find either the beach or the boat, nor had he
the least idea in the world where he really was.
At last he discovered that he had gone quite astray inland instead of
down to the sea. But now, when he turned round, the sea-fog came

close up against him, so dense and grey that he could see neither hand
nor foot before him.
By the evening he was well-nigh worn out with weariness, and was at
his wits' end what to do.
Night fell, and the snowdrifts increased.
As now he sat him down on a stone and fell a brooding and pondering
how he should escape with his life, a pair of snow-shoes came gliding
so smoothly towards him out of the sea-fog and stood still just in front
of his feet.
"As you have found me, you may as well find the way back also," said
he.
So he put them on, and let the snow-shoes go their own way over
hillside and steep cliff. He let not his own eyes guide him or his own
feet carry him, and the swifter he went the denser the snowflakes and
the driving sea-spray came up against him, and the blast very nearly
blew him off the snow-shoes.
Up hill and down dale he went over all the places where he had fared
during the daytime, and it sometimes seemed as if he had nothing solid
beneath him at all, but was flying in the air.
Suddenly the snow-shoes stood stock still, and he was standing just
outside the entrance of the Gan-Finn's hut.
There stood Seimke. She was looking for him.
"I sent my snow-shoes after thee," said she, "for I marked that the Finn
had bewitched the land so that thou should'st not find the boat. Thy life
is safe, for he has given thee shelter in his house, but it were not well
for thee to see him this evening."
Then she smuggled him in, so that the Finn did not perceive it in the
thick smoke, and she gave him meat and a place to rest upon.
But when he awoke in the night, he heard an odd sound, and there was
a buzzing and a singing far away in the air:
"The Finn the boat can never bind, The Fly the boatman cannot find,
But round in aimless whirls doth wind."
The Finn was sitting among the ashes and _jöjking_, and muttering till
the ground quite shook, while Seimke lay with her forehead to the floor
and her hands clasped tightly round the back of her neck, praying
against him to the Finn God. Then Jack understood that the Gan-Finn
was still seeking after him amidst the snowflakes and sea-fog, and that

his life was in danger from magic spells.
So he dressed himself before it was light, went out, and came tramping
in again all covered with snow, and said he had been after bears in their
winter retreats. But never had he been in such a sea-fog before; he had
groped about far and wide before he found his way back into the hut
again, though he stood just outside it.
The Finn