Weird Tales from Northern Seas | Page 9

sat there with his skin-wrappings as full of yellow flies as a
beehive. He had sent them out searching in every direction, but back
they had all come, and were humming and buzzing about him.
When he saw Jack in the doorway, and perceived that the flies had
pointed truly, he grew somewhat milder, and laughed till he regularly
shook within his skin-wrappings, and mumbled, "The bear we'll bind
fast beneath the scullery-sink, and his eyes I've turned all awry,[5] so
that he can't see his boat,[6] and I'll stick a sleeping-peg in front of him
till springtime."
But the same day the Finn stood in the doorway, and was busy making
magic signs and strange strokes in the air.
Then he sent forth two hideous Gan-flies, which flitted off on their
errands, and scorched black patches beneath them in the snow wherever
they went. They were to bring pain and sickness to a cottage down in
the swamps, and spread abroad the Finn disease, which was to strike
down a young bride at Bodö with consumption.
But Jack thought of nothing else night and day but how he could get the
better of the Gan-Finn.
The lass Seimke wheedled him and wept and begged him, as he valued
his life, not to try to get down to his boat again. At last, however, she
saw it was no use--he had made up his mind to be off.
Then she kissed his hands and wept bitterly. At least he must promise
to wait till the Gan-Finn had gone right away to Jokmok[7] in Sweden.
On the day of his departure, the Finn went all round his hut with a torch
and took stock.
Far away as they were, there stood the mountain pastures, with the
reindeer and the dogs, and the Finn's people all drew near. The Finn
took the tale of the beasts, and bade his grandsons not let the reindeer
stray too far while he was away, and could not guard them from wolves
and bears. Then he took a sleeping potion and began to dance and turn
round and round till his breath quite failed him, and he sank moaning to

the ground. His furs were all that remained behind of him. His spirit
had gone--gone all the way over to Jokmok.
There the magicians were all sitting together in the dark sea-fog
beneath the shelter of the high mountain, and whispering about all
manner of secret and hidden things, and blowing spirits into the novices
of the black art.
But the Gan-flies, humming and buzzing, went round and round the
empty furs of the Gan-Finn like a yellow ring and kept watch.
In the night Jack was awakened by something pulling and tugging at
him as if from far away. There was as it were a current of air, and
something threatened and called to him from the midst of the
snowflakes outside--
"Until thou canst swim like the duck or the drake, The egg[8] thou'dst
be hatching no progress shall make; The Finn shall ne'er let thee go
southwards with sail, For he'll screw off the wind and imprison the
gale."
At the end of it the Gan-Finn was standing there, and bending right
over him. The skin of his face hung down long and loose, and full of
wrinkles, like an old reindeer skin, and there was a dizzying smoke in
his eyes. Then Jack began to shiver and stiffen in all his limbs, and he
knew that the Finn was bent upon bewitching him.
Then he set his face rigidly against it, so that the magic spells should
not get at him; and thus they struggled with one another till the
Gan-Finn grew green in the face, and was very near choking.
After that the sorcerers of Jokmok sent magic shots after Jack, and
clouded his wits. He felt so odd; and whenever he was busy with his
boat, and had put something to rights in it, something else would
immediately go wrong, till at last he felt as if his head were full of pins
and needles.
Then deep sorrow fell upon him. Try as he would, he couldn't put his
boat together as he would have it; and it looked very much as if he
would never be able to cross the sea again.
But in the summer time Jack and Seimke sat together on the headland
in the warm evenings, and the gnats buzzed and the fishes spouted
close ashore in the stillness, and the eider-duck swam about.
"If only some one would build me a boat as swift and nimble as a fish,
and able to ride upon the billows like a sea-mew!" sighed and lamented

Jack, "then I could be off."
"Would you like me to guide you to Thjöttö?"