Nordland Night: Matgrass

There was a lightly dressed girl down on the wharf when the trawler chugged into Sørviken, and Mekkel Johanna immediately recognised her.

But with all her faculties, she could not understand what was the matter was with Beret; she was standing, passively staring at the low tide mark in the early morning, when scores of the day’s chores were waiting for her attention.

There was no smoke from the chimney, so she hadn’t taken the time to light the fire in the stove and put on the coffee pot, even though she had asked her to set the coffee table and make it cozy in the parlour when they returned from their trip.

And Gurine? Of course that sloth lay asleep.

But when the dory had landed, and Mekkel Johanna as well as the others heard what Beret had to say, their agitation cooled.

Yesterday evening, after the trawler disappeared behind Klubbenesset, Gurine took her knitting and wandered on her way to receive the cattle when they came from the mark. The cows and goats had gone into the summer barn by themselves and each stood in its own stall, licking salt, when Beret came to help with the milking. But Gurine was not there. She put down the buckets and took the animals and tethered them. Then she walked up the cattle road until she could see the whole area. The crowberries were beginning to ripen in the sun up there, and Gurine was obsessed with berries.

But there was no Gurine to see. And no one answered her calling.

She went back to the barn and did the milking by herself.

But when the milk was strained, and all the evening grooming was finished, and Gurine had not yet arrived, she began to be afraid that she might have had an accident. She closed the doors and left, to look for her.

And she tramped the mark until about three before she found her.

But perhaps it would have been better if she had never found her, Beret lamented, utterly exhausted by fatigue and fear.

“Where did you find her?” Marius asked, before any of the others managed to find their voices.

“I found her on the other side of Oxhaugen mound. She was wandering in a circle and didn’t even sense I was talking to her. Oh God! Come and help her. I think she’s walking on matgrass.”¹

“Come with me, fellows!” cried Rubert Rubertsa, running up the sea road.

The others ran after him.

At the bridge of the barn the fellow stopped and stared uncertainly.

“If its our chickens you want, I’ll go and fetch you a black hen,” said Mekkel Aronsa, who had grown breathless from running up the hill.

The fellow nodded.

“Don’t take the chicken hen, take the other one!” Mekkel Johanna called after him, and Mekkel Aronste did as he was told; he came out with a charcoal-black hen under his tunic.

“Make sure she doesn’t fly away from you,” Rubert Rubertsa admonished him, and went by foot past the summer barn, up the cattle road to Okshaugen with the whole company after him.

The shoulder of the mountain shaded from the morning sun, so the mound lay in the shadow, and the ground was gray with dew. Gurine trotted around in circles, in a spot no bigger than Mekkel Aronsa’s turnip patch. The heather was trodden down and black from all her trotting. She was bare-headed, and her face was as pale as death, and her hair hung loose down her back.

“Gurine, don’t be afraid, I’m coming to you right now this moment, to carry you home!” cried Marius.

But Rubert Rubertsa grabbed his arm.

“You stay where you are; I think I can get her out of the matgrass,” he said sternly.

But Marius was like a horse ready to gallop, and he jerked his arm free.

“I can’t stand here and watch she I care for wander into death,” he sobbed.

“It may be death, if you do not do as I say,” hissed the fellow. He took and cut off a small rowan, and whittled an arrow from the stump. Then he scratched some aspects into the wood.

“Come now with the hen.” He looked at Mekkel Aronsa. And with his back to the others he cut off its head and turned the arrow in the stream of blood. As if on command, each man stood next to his woman, ready to hold on, if any of them lost control.

But that wasn’t necessary. Quietly, they stood and stared, first at old Rubert and then at she who trotted endlessly, not realizing that folk were standing right next to her.

Mekkel Aronste took and put the dead hen well under his tunic, and buttoned up, while Rubert Rubertsa went with the bloody arrow to the trampled ring that Gurine had made. Suddenly the sun rose above the shoulder of rock and shone on the girl. She had bloody foam around her mouth and her legs were trembling.

But then Marius forgot everything except she for whom he had a heart. With a leap he was inside the ring, taking her by the arm as if she were a small child. He carried her to the others, and stood holding her.

“The child! The poor innocent child!” comforted Ellen Lorentse, wiping away the bloody foam from around Gurine’s mouth, who was hiding her face in Marius’s neck.

But Mekkel Johanna took Kari Aronste in one arm and Rebekah from Sneisa in the other. “Come on, let’s go home,” she said. I asked Beret to set the coffee table in the parlour, and make it cozy, and now we all need something to strengthen us. And no one refused her.

Down by the summer barn were a few peat tarns. There Rubert Rubertsa and Mekkel Aronsa stopped, to wash the blood off their hands and clothes; and there they buried the dead hen, while the others went on.

“Am I not getting heavy for you, Marius?” whispered Gurine.

“How you talk! Don’t you know that I shall carry you in my arms all my life?” Marius whisprered back, stroking her hair with his mouth.

---

1. Matgrass, Nardus stricta is called villstrå (wild straw) or finnskjegg (Finn-beard) in Norwegian. An old superstition says that it can bewitch you. This superstition became a metaphor; someone acting strangely was figuratively walking on matgrass. ↩

Nordland Night: The Light in the Jekt Cabin

“Father and uncle Jens came walking from Nyke, to go home for the weekend. The fjord was impassable by boat, so they had to go by foot. And so late in the year, there was ice beneath the new snow.

“As they were about to climb the ridge between Gustad and Kobbvågen, uncle Jens missed the path, and fell down the steep edge. And he should surely have lost his health, had he not been so lucky that he ended up on a mountain ledge, close to the jekt-store in Kobbvågen.

“Lars Ellingsa’s jekt had been brought up into storage for the winter season, and uncle Jens could clearly see a burning light in the cabin. He leaned out from the ledge as best he could, so that he could manage to look through the window in the cabin; and then he saw four handsomely bedecked menfolk sat around the table, drinking hot toddys, and smoking long pipes.

“In the midst of the table stood a lit tallow candle in a brass candle stick, and the red heat glowed from the crack in the stove door.

“Uncle Jens didn’t recognise any of those sitting at the table, and he wondered about what manner of fellows they might be, who had sought refuge in the jekt cabin so late in the day. He doubted they were folk from the village. But he couldn’t remember hearing that Lars Ellingsa’s jekt was haunted, so they were probably Christian folk, even if he didn’t recognise them.

“Just like that, one of the fellows got up and went to the cabinet, and pulled out a rolled up map, and spread it out on the table.

“They were busy, the four of them, pointing at the map with the tips of their pipes, and talking and gesticulating, and uncle Jens thought it clear they were pointing at the sea around Stad; but he was not entirely sure in this matter, for even though it was not so far, even so, there was a distance between the ledge and the jekt. Three of the fellows were completely bald, with long grey beards, uncle Jens said, and the fourth appeared to be years younger, and he had both his hair and a beard. And he acted as host, filling the glasses from punch jug, and making them drink while the toddy was still warm.

“As soon as father had come down from the ridge, he stopped, listening for cries of pain from uncle Jens. But when he heard nothing, and could see nothing, for it was dark, he put both hands to his mouth and cried:

“‘Brother Jens, where are you?’

“‘I lie here on the ledge on the mountain, close above the jekt,’ answered uncle Jens. And immediately he said it, the light went out, and the jekt stood dark and extinct of people.

—•—

“When father had got uncle Jens down from the ledge, and heard what he had seen, they took the long plank father had used to reach the ledge, pushed it up against the jekt, and clambered aboard. They lighted matches, looking for signs of footprints, but the deck lay white with snow, with trace of neither bird nor folk.

“Then they went astern to the cabin. The door was locked, but father had a key that went into the lock. Inside the cabin it was dark and cold, and the stove was ice cold to the touch.

“So they went out of the cabin and locked up behind them. And they put the plank on the ground next to the jekt, where father had taken it from.

“When they came home and had taken some food and changed to dry footwear, they went into grandfather’s tennant’s cabin, and mentioned to him what uncle Jens had experienced.

“‘You’ve seen the jekt-tofte,’ said grandfather. ‘They have a habit of visiting one another while the jekt is in storage. And if I had seen them, then perhaps I would have been able to tell you which jekt they belonged to.

“‘I have seen the light myself, in the jekt-store in Kobbvågen, one late evening I came walking past on my way to Gustad. But I didn’t stare through the glass like you did. And you mustn’t forget to thank Our Lord, that you came from it without harm or marks on your body.’

“That’s what grandfather said. But when father and uncle Jens were should trade their fish in June, grandfather advised them not to send the fish to Bergen with Lars Ellingsa. They should rather sell it to one of the traders, he said.

“And well it was; for Lars Ellingsa’s jekt turned over on its way to Bergen, and if I am not mistaken, the accident happened in the sea close to Stad.

“And now it’s your turn, Marius, and then we’ve all told something.”

—•—

“No, I don’t know anything to tell,” said Marius, “except that father said that the subterraneans used jekts and sailed to Bergen just like we do. They had their merchants, as we had ours. And the same had those who dwelt in the mountains; but now all the trolls were turned to stone.

“But one thing that’s true is that west of our boathouse at home on the farm I’m from, the subterraneans had their boat place. And we heard clearly, both father and I, that they set the boats out and pulled them ashore.

“There was a steep rock wall beyond the other folk’s boat places, and there I heard it playing inside the mountain. It was still mid-August, and it was twilight at night, and there was so much seafire in the sea. I sat on the rocks by our boathouse, and I remember my thoughts being so sad. I was like a stranger upon the earth, and I admit that I longed to go back to where I belonged.

“Then it began to play inside the steep mountain. It was a melody, and everything I felt within my own bosom, was brought out in the melody by he who played.

“Father had also heard it playing in the mountain, when he was young. But it wasn’t the same melody they played for me. For you understand that you can never get a melody that comes to you in that way out of your memory while you live.

“But now I want to ask all of you who are sitting here about something I have gone and reflected on for myself. Do you think the subterraneans are giving up fembørings and jekts, and going over to motorised vessels, just like we have? I ask; for once in the West Fjord, when we came from Synnatur with Johanne Marianne, I thought I clearly glimpsed a trawler alongside ours. It was not quite visible to the eye, but there it was, and I thought I heard the stroke of the engine.

“I was just as awake as I am now, and the trawler followed us until we were in the middle of the fjord. Then it took another course and I lost touch with it.

“The other time I saw something I couldn’t understand was this year, when we came from Finnmark. We went through the sound at Risøy, and it was sunny and completely still, and you, Mekkel Aronsa, lay napping after dinner; and so did the others aboard. But I was standing at the wheel.

“Suddenly, I see three trawlers to port, in a row; and it was as if they were made of air and not of wood and steel, so unreasonably fine and light they were.

“There were folk aboard all three of them, and their load and tackle were on deck, and I was about to go and wake you, Mekkel Aronsa, and ask you to come and see the fine craft, but then they disappeared right before my sight, and three black cormorants flew there where the trawlers had been.

“And now I ask again: Do you think they were the subterraneans’ trawlers I saw? Because if they were, then those folk have come far ahead of us in making their boats pretty. For I can never tell with words, how damned beautifully they behaved in the water.”

“There you ask more than we can answer,” said old Rubert Rubertsa. But if you want to know my opinion, Marius, then I have no doubt but that the subterraneans can do anything they want to. And I believe that in many ways they are ahead of us. And who knows if they weren’t the first to go over to the new way of fishing, and that it is rather we who have learned from them? For knowledge, Marius, it comes from so many places.

“But have you considered that it’ll soon be time to get up? And here we sit at the top of the mountain, just like the reindeer, when it seeks the cooling wind to rid itself of horseflies and flies!”

—•—

Then everyone realized that the day’s many chores awaited, and then they hurried to gather their baggage together and agree on who should carry what.

The menfolk went before, as the fern forest, which covered most of the scree beneath Skarvasstind peak, was gray with the night’s dew, and it was only reasonable that they took the worst of it.

The grassy meadows away from the screes lay against the morning sun; the path they followed was nice and firm. Birds twittered for the new day, all over the meadows, and brass bells jangled angrily when the sheep, frightened awake by the treading of the path, jumped up from their slumber and ran.

Far below them, the bay and the trawler lay in deep shadow, and the path made many turns before they reached it.

But old Rubert Rubertsa couldn’t be bothered with all the turns. He sat down on his trouser bottom and let himself slide down the incline, reaching the bay long before the others.

—•—

When they were well aboard, Marius started the engine, and took hold of the steering wheel.

But Mekkel Aronsa and his friends lit their cigarettes and were proper fellows on the dewy deck, which quickly dried, as the trawler came out from from the shade of the enclosed bay and on to the open fjord, which glittered blue in the sun and the fresh morning breeze.

The women moved close together on the edge of the main hatch, amusing themselves by looking at the farms they passed by, and the smoke that began to bubble up from the chimneys, signalling that people were up.

But when the trawler approached Sørviken, old Rubert came away from the menfolk and made faces to Kari Aronste that he wanted to talk to her; and she came to hear what the matter was.

“It’s just what I want for you,” he said, pushing his cigarette to the other side of his mouth, “that if you’re thinking of changing, Kari Aronste, then you mustn’t forget, that I am a handy fellow at my most mature age, so to say. You won’t be in want of help with me, in any kind of way. And so you’ll certainly be better served by me than by some city vagrant, who wants your dowry with no sense of how attractive you are yourself.”

But Kari Aronste had turned every thought of marriage out of her mind from the very hour and moment the subterranean’s silver spoons had warned her of danger. She begged Rubert Rubertsa’s pardon; but now she had determined to die unmarried, and meet the sweetheart of her youth, as pure and as innocent as she was when he left her and went in to the blessing of Our Lord.

Nordland Night: Fay Warning

“While we’re talking of warnings… Do you remember, Sivert Jakobsa, the year we rowed fishing that winter for Hovden. It was only a year after I redeemed the fembøringen I owned with Erik, Finn Jonetta’s son at Kråkhaugen.

“It was such grim, uncanny fishing during advent that year, and I expect you well remember Sivert, we left to go to the fishing grounds three weeks before Christmas.

“When we sailed around Berget, a cormorant came flying straight towards our prow, but I was quick enough to steer the boat free of the shadow of its wing. And when we had come as far as the boathouse point and entered the harbor, three crows came straight towards us.

“Had it now been one of the old fellows who sat at the helm, then he would have turned and steered into the harbor from the other approach. — Or what would you say, Rubert Rubertsa?

“But I was so foully angry with Finn Jonetta and all the trollish pranks she had played since we had fallen out about the boat, her son and I, that I was indifferent to whatsoever that met me of spooks and warnings she had sent against us.. And I steered the fembøring towards the boathouse that had been lent to us, while the fishing lasted.

—•—

“At first, everything went as it ought—the weather was good, and we fished; it was a release to be at sea.

“But during the last week before Christmas, the grey seals began to come ashore in our boatshed, obsessively so.

“Yes, you remember it, Sivert Jakobsa, how afraid you were the morning we came down to the shore early, to row aboard the fembøring, and your foot slid, and you sat down with your backside right on a grey seal. You cursed until you gleamed, and he jumped up and rolled into the sea.

“But what you don’t know is that I went down to the boathouse when everyone in the house had fallen asleep in the evening. I went with a lighted lantern in my hand, and when I arrived, it was so dense with grey seals that to my eyes it was as if they were floating as close together as herring in a barrel. I thought straight away that Finn Jonetta was out with her arts, trying to disturb my vision and discourage me. For it is an old belief that fay folk row out from the shed the grey seals gather in.

“But what Finn Jonetta didn’t have any idea of was that I knew the words and aspects that would force the fay grey seals away from my marks, and when I had recited and scratched in the sand the necessary signs, they were gone.

—•—

“We, like all the others who rowed for Hovden, hauled our fembøring up on to land over Christmas. And in our case, we got a lift by boat for part of the way.

“The rest of the way we went on foot, and were home again in good time, the morning of Christmas Eve.

“But on the third day of the new year we were back. And when I had laid my bundle down in the boathouse, I strolled down to the fembøring, while Sivert Jakobsa made sure the stove was made up, and boiled coffee for us.

“The fembøring was as we had left it. But when I looked inboard, I saw that both rear oars lay turned the wrong way, and so was the bailer amidships.

“‘Oh ho!’ I thought. ‘Is it the draug himself that she has conjured upon us now, that damned troll witch?’

“And I took and turned the oars and the bailer around the way they should lie in a Christian man’s boat. But I mentioned it neither to you Sivert Jakobsa nor to the rest of the boat’s crew; I first wanted to try the power of the fellow who had been loosed on us.

“Then you certainly remember well, Sivert Jakobsa, that the Lord’s enrapturing storm blew up, the night after we had come to Hovden. It lasted more than thirteen days, and it was impossible to go to sea. The fish rack, with all the coalie we had fished and hung during advent blew down, and the storm tore the roof off two fishing huts; but our hut was spared.

“And every single morning I went to look over the fembøring, I found the rear oars and the bailer lay draug-turned.

“I didn’t say anything then either, Sivert Jakobsa. But if you think about it, you will probably remember that when Saturday came, I took a quick turn home. The fjord was accessible by boat, and I had to cleave both scree and mount, but I got there.

“I was back on Sunday evening. And by then the weather had calmed enough to give us hope that we would get the fembøring on the water when day came again.

“But do you know Sivert Jakobsa what it was I had been home to fetch?

“Well, when they tore down the old church on the bar, there was one who was so thoughtful that he cleaved a piece off the altar; and for good words and payment I got a splinter big enough to make me some wooden pegs from the consecrated wood.

“Those were what I went to get, the weekend I went home. And the same evening, I knocked one of those pegs into the stem of the fembøring.

“And not enough with that; I knocked one into the keel under the middle of the boat, and one in the stern, and beneath the rear cabin bulkhead, I cut the mark of a cross with my sheath knife.

“The oars and the bailer lay as they were supposed to, and I thought it was your hands Sivert, that had turned them around, without your mentioning it to me.

“Enough about that. I went and sat at the top of the tidemark and hid the lantern beneath my outer garment. And I hadn’t sat there for a minute before I heard something come splashing ashore, dragging itself up the rollers towards the boathouse.

“It was pitch dark, with a glimpse of clear sky between the storm clouds.

“When what had come reached the fembøring, it raised itself up.

“And enough light reached down to the ground from the clear patches of sky that I saw it was a draug. He was as tall as a fembøring mast, and he gleamed, as if he had been smeared top to bottom with glowing embers of fire.

“I didn’t shudder where I was sitting; and I wasn’t appalled, either, just so boiling tense concerning what would now happen.

“He groped his way along the boat. But when he was about to round the prow, he remained standing, sniffing, and then he bent himself and glared at the peg I had knocked in.

“Then he lay down flat on the ground and tried to press himself under the boat’s keel, but he soon came out again, got up and began to grope inboard.

“But when he came to the rear cabin bulkhead, he began to wail, and waved something that I supposed to be his arms; to my eyes they resembled the foreflippers of a walrus. Then he set off down along the rollers such that sparks hissed in his wake, and gone was he.

“And afterwards it never happened that the rear oars and the bailer lay draug-turned in my fembøring.

—•—

“Since then I heard that Finn Jonetta had an accident, on the same evening that what I have now told you happened. She fell on the ice and hurt her back so badly that she lay there moaning and crying.

“They got her inside the house, and her son’s wife offered to fetch the parson. He was very good with both the spiritual and the physical. But Finn Jonetta said no. And when her strength to hold out was exhausted, he came, whom she had sworn herself to, and fetched what was his.”

“God mind your mouth, my Mekkel, how you talk! Finn Jonetta died as any other human being, and was placed in a coffin and buried in the Christian manner.

“Perhaps the only remarkable thing was that she turned black–blue in her face and down her left side, after her death. But that came about because she had suffered such a hard death, and from the knock she took on the ice,” said Mekkel Johanna, who was a right-thinking person, and would not allow the resentment she harboured to speak, since her enemy had been brought before her God and judge.

But then Mekkel Aronsa laughed until he hiccupped, and put his arm around his wife’s neck.

“Yes, yes, my sugar ball,” he said. “Your words to honour and my words to filth.”

“But now it’s your turn, mother Johanne; tell us now what your uncle saw when he was stuck on the mountain in Kobbvågen, close to the jekt-warehouse.”

“If you think I should tell you, then I shall do so,“ said Mekkel Johanna, slipping her head out from beneath his arm.

Nordland Night: The Gift the Subterraneans Gave Madam Berg

“I remember from the time we were small—and I expect you do, too, brother Mekkel—that father bought two silver spoons at the auction after the old sheriff, Cornelius Berg.

“There were rumours about those two silver spoons, that old Madam Berg, the sherrif’s mother, had received them from the subterraneans. And it came about such with the gift, that one day, when the madam came to tend to a hen she had lying on its eggs in the fire house, that there lay a small child on the threshold, crying so sorely.

“The lady had a reputation for being a tender-hearted person, and she took the little moppet and laid it to her breast and let it sate itself.

“When it didn’t want any more, she wiped away the tears from its small wrinkled cheeks, and wrapped the moppet in her silk apron and laid it back on the threshold, sure it would be fetched by the one who had laid it there. And then she went in to her cabin, without tending to the hen.

“When she came to the firehouse, later the same day, the silk apron lay rolled up on the threshold, and when she took it to tie it around herself, two silver spoons tumbled out.

“There was such a gleam in the silver and such a pretty pattern on the spoons, that she had never seen the like. And she held them dear, while she was in charge.

“But what the old mother at Nordsand had gathered together in her house, they spread, those who took over after her. And there was not much left of Nordsand’s possessions, when the old sherrif died.

“My father bought two silver spoons at the addition, and they were both tarnished and dented.

“But mother took them and boiled them in soft-soapy water and brushed them with chalk, and then their gleam came out. And it was wonderfully beautiful.

“When she and father were satisfied with the spoons, she put them in the top drawer of the dresser, where she used to keep the silverware.

“But then something happened, which I shall now tell, and it is true, whether you believe it or not, because mother told me with her own mouth, and she never said a false word before she fell silent.

“The first night the spoons were in our house, the door to the parlour slid open, and a black-clad wife with a white scarf on her head came in, in her stockings, and went straight to the dresser, and stood fiddling with the lock of the top drawer.

“Father was asleep, but mother lay awake. And I will say this about our blessed late mother, Mekkel, God bless her soul, where she is now: if anyone was born fearless into the world, then she was.

“And mother could see what others couldn’t see, Mekkel my brother and I have untold evidence of this.

“‘Don’t you desire me to have the spoons?’ mother asked the stranger wife. But she said it quietly so that father shouldn’t wake up.

“‘I have come a long way, to see if they are the right ones; will you not show me them?’ said the wife.

“Mother got out of bed, unlocked the dresser drawer, and took out the spoons; and the wife took them in both hands and felt them, before giving them back to her mother.

“‘Hold them dear,’ she said, and then she twisted away, right before mother’s eyes.

“And mother always said, when she afterwards told what had happened that night, that she was never certain whether she was awake or dreaming.

“Mother decided that I should have the spoons after her, and I have them lying in a box in the drawer in the sideboard.

“But if anything happens to me, that I should beware of, the the spoons warn me. It’s a nice, quiet little melody, almost like when it sounds in a tuning fork you accidentally touch, but the melody is there.

“The first time I noticed it was one St. John’s Eve, a couple of years after I had started my milk shop.

“Now, there is custom in the capital, just as there is here in the north, that St. John’s Eve everything that can crawl will go out to have fun. But I was utterly depressed, yearning for Nordland and for the fjord where I was born and grew up, and so I decided to sit down and read in Nordland’s Trumpet.¹

“Yes, you remember, brother Mekkel, that our blessed late father loved that book and that he knew it by heart, from cover to cover. Just remember all those times you and mother tried to catch him out! You got the book he left behind, but I bought myself one with pictures in, and that was what I sat reading that night I am telling about. And I had to laugh to myself, even though the yearning for home stung in my breast.

“As I sat, I heard the silver ringing in the sideboard drawer. I laid the book aside on the sewing table and went to see if a mouse had got into the drawer, and was scurrying about upon the silverware. But everything lay peacefully side by side, as I had laid it there, and there was no mouse at all.

“Then it rang again, and the ringing fell into a fine tone, as when one accidentally touches a tuning fork.

“It came from the box with the two silver spoons I had brought from home; and when I opened the box, the spoons gleamed just as if they were alive and had something to tell me.

“And as I stood there, with the box in my hand, it came to my mind that I should go straight away and look in through the door of my shop.

“I didn’t think about what I was doing, but went with the box in my hand, first out into the kitchen, and as the door to the shop was a little open, I pushed it open all the way. Bending over the drawer in the counter stood the new woamn I had employed to help while the usual one was on holiday.

“She immediately confessed that she had slipped in through the entrance to get some money, for her and her sweetheart to enjoy themselves with. It was he who had tricked her into doing so, and he was standing, waiting outside.

“She was just a child, really, and I let her go free. But she lost her place, of course.

“It’s not very often I hear the ringing. But when I hear it, I know from experience that I have to keep my senses awake.

“The last time I heard the warning was after Easter, last year. A new manager had come to the tenement I lived in. He began to hang around with me and, true to say, I liked the man. He looked good, was unmarried, and was of my own age, as well.

“Well, it was one Sunday afternoon, and he brought brandy for our coffee. When he had drunk one and had begun on a second, he grew talkative, and began to ask me about how much such a milk business as mine made in ready cash in a year.

“I willingly gave him the information he asked for, and he understood I had to have money in the bank, and asked to see my bank book.

“We had become friends, and I understood him such that he wouldn’t mind living his life with me. And as I said, I liked the man very much.

“I got off the sofa we were sitting on, to get the book. But just then it rang from the warning spoons in the sideboard drawer, and I stopped and remained standing where I stood. He also heard the ringing and asked what the melody was.

“‘Oh, it’s just mother telling me to be awake, and think about what I do before it’s too late,’ I said.

“Then he looked so strangely at me, drank his coffee in one gulp, and left without saying goodbye.

“Since then I’ve heard that he had left his wife and children and was counted a fraudster, as well. He lost his position as manager in the tenement, and I have no idea whatsoever what has become of him.

“But I’ve never been as close to plunging into unhappiness as that. And God bless both mother and the subterraneans’ silver spoons!”

“If you finished now, Kari, then I shall ask to be allowed to tell a bit,” said Mekkel Aronsa.

“Please do, brother Mekkel! You cannot make me happier than by telling us something from all you have experienced in your days of living. For it is you, not I, who has inherited our mother’s clear sight.

---

1. Petter Dass’s Nordlands Trompet (1739) is a topographical poem that praises Nordland, the long province to which both Dass’s home and Vesterålen, the setting of Nordland Night, belong. ↩

Nordland Night: The Girl Who Promised Her Sweetheart Her Faithfulness in Life and in Death

“There was once a boy called Lars; he was a stout and handsome fellow, but he had determined that he would not marry unless he found a girl who was willing to promise him faithfulness in life and in death.

“Now it happened that in the village Lars came from, the menfolk had to fetch food for them and theirs from the depths of the sea, and few of them grew especially old in years. But the womenfolk, who remained ashore, were well-off, and had ample time to wear out both two and three husbands before they received their marching orders. So it was not to be wondered at, that the boy who demanded such an unreasonable promise from the girls was never accepted when he went a-courting.

“But then luck would have it that there a girl from the south came to serve as maid at the merchant’s. She was amiable and very beautiful to look at, and went with scarlet-red stockings and open shoes. And all the boys ran crazy after her.

“Lars was no better than the others. He followed the stranger girl about, and asked if she would be his sweetheart and promise him faithfulness in life and in death. And she answered yes. For as mentioned, Lars was a stout fellow. And he also owned a farm and a fembøring and had money in the bank.

“They agreed to marry as soon as the winter fishing season was over; however, the heart of man may plot his path, but the Lord confirms his course. Lars was lost at sea that autumn, about a month after the betrothal.

“When word of his death came, the stranger girl wept and bewailed him so that it was almost unbearable for those who lived in the same house. And she constantly wanted to go thither Lars lay.

“The merchant admonished her for the inappropriate wish she bore on her tongue, and exhorted her to let the dead rest in peace until the Lord called him forth from the depths of the sea on the day of resurrection. And so did the parson. But she didn't even hear. And they agreed to give her over to time, which heals so many a wound.

“As mentioned, she wept and she carried on for the sweetheart she had lost, and she rolled the scarlet-red stockings together, and placed them beneath the draw in her chest, for it was inappropriate for a mourning girl to wear red on her legs. And she dressed in black, from top to toe.

 

“But however things did or didn’t go, time is merciful, and little by little her grief stilled. When the winter was over, and the spring came with birdsong and sunshine and daylight nights, the girl betrothed herself again. It was to a rich old man who didn’t have many days to lose, and a wedding was prepared at quite a pace, and half the fjord was invited along.

“When the wedding day came, it was beautiful weather, both at sea and ashore. The bride had a veil and a garland, and scarlet-red stockings, and she was like a newly-opened rosebud to see beside the aged bridegroom.

“The company came safe and sound to the church and back, and the guests sat at the table. Uppermost sat the bridal couple, then the elders and those who should be especially honoured. Thereafter sat all the adults, couple by couple, as many as could be seated around the tables in the parlour.

“But the children and the youngest of the youths, for whom there was no place at the first table setting, played on the grassy hill outside the house.

“Just as they played, they saw a fellow come walking up the sea road. He was dressed in his work clothes, and he carried his hat in his left fist, with the crown downwards and the brim up. One or another of the playmates thought they recognised the fellow, and stared in fear. But he didn’t appear to look their way, and walked past without greeting them. Up the steps he went, and into the wedding house, just as the guests, refreshed with a dram and good sodd, sat enjoying the roast veal.

“Everyone around the tables saw that it was the late Lars who came, and true to tell, they had expected something like this. And they dreaded terribly to have to witness what would happen now.

“Straight to the bride he went, taking her by her right wrist.

“She rose, her face as pale as death, left the table and stood straight as a post, with the grip of her dead sweetheart around her wrist.

“‘If there is any one of you sitting here, who will do so well by me as to take the garland off the bride, then they shall have a hat full of silver dollars,’ said Lars, showing forth the filled hat he carried upside down. For the revenant had no power to take her with him while she still wore the garland with the blessing of the altar.

“But no one moved.

“And he went with the bride right across the parlour floor and out of the house, and stopped by the children and the youngest of the youths, who had stopped playing, and stood close together, staring in fear.

“‘If anyone here will take the garland off the bride, then they shall have a hat full of silver dollars,’ said Lars, showing forth the hat he was carrying in his hand.

“But there was not one in the company who reached out their hand to do such a deed, you may know.

“And Lars dragged the bride down the sea road, and she wept and begged so beautifully that they might save her, and called his name, whose bride she had been.

“But no one, no one had the power to free her from the grip of the one she had promised herself to, when she had promised him faithfulness in life and in death.

“Down in the mooring place lay a boat on land. There was a vagrant in the boat, and when Lars had promised him a hat full of silver dollars to take the garland off the bride, he didn’t hesitate to grasp the hat and pull the garland off.

“Up at the wedding farm, they heard a terrible scream as the revenant stormed into the sea with the bride, and dragged her with him into the depths of the sea where he himself lay.

“But when the vagrant looked in the hat, it was full of broken shells and sand. This was his pay for not showing mercy to the unfortunate whom no one else could help.

“Here she finished, she who told me this. And here I finish, and give you, Kari Aronste, your turn.”

“Now you thought to dumbfound me, mother Rebekka. But thankfully the mouth works even if the body is worn out, and now you shall hear a truthful story that happened to old Madam Berg at Nordsand. And I shall call the story:

Nordland Night: The Headless Corpse

“It was during the Barents herring season in the autumn, late in September, that the boat crew my uncle was part of felt something heavy stuck in their chain of nets. They hauled and they pulled, but it was only as they approached the end of the chain that they found a headless corpse. It was so entangled in the net that it was impossible to get it out. And they didn’t have the time to bother with it either. They took the net with the corpse in it out of the link, fastened the chain together again, and went about their business. But there was no catch to speak of that night. And so they rowed ashore.

“When they had untangled the corpse from the net, they saw it was a well-dressed fellow in clothes of blue duffel, and tall boots on his feet. As I say, his head was gone but judging by his clothes, he had to be a Russian. And so many boats to and from Archangel passed by at this time of the year, that it was not unthinkable that the dead fellow came from one of them.

“The dead man had no money, nor anything of value on him, except a signet ring on his little finger. And there was nothing, neither written nor printed, in his pockets that could guide those who had fished him up. But they had a duty to put him into Christian soil, no matter what the cost, and that ring wasn’t coming off unless they took the finger. But he was was disfigured enough already, as he lay there, unknown and headless, and so none of them would do him any more harm.

“They took and carried the dead man up to Lars Hansa’s boathouse and put it the empty coffin for Pernille Sellback, Lars Hansa’s mother-in-law. Lars Hansa himself gave them leave, for there was no time to provide another coffin, so busy they were with the herring. And since Pernille Sellback was yet alive and kicking, he didn’t think she would need to use her vessel for a long time yet.

“They bared their heads, as was the custom, before they laid the lid on the coffin and went back to their own business, and there was a tacit agreement between them not to mention anything about the sea dead. And when the weekend came, they would take the corpse, row across the sound with him, and put him into consecrated ground.

 

“Late in the afternoon, when the menfolk had rowed out after the herring, the womenfolk of the farm at Nakling saw a dark-clad man walking and wandering about up above Lars Hansa’s boathouse. He was bent over forwards, and if they glanced quickly at him, it appeared to them as if he were missing his head. And they wondered greatly about who for a fellow it might be; he lacked the manners to go up to the farm, so that proper folk could understand what manner of fellow he was, and what he was about.

“The sheep and the goats went about, gnawing on the grassy mound above the sea houses, but as soon as they got wind of the stranger, they sprang, as if a wolf were after them, and they curled up in a flock, tight by the wall of the house, trembling and shivering, and pawing angrily at the ground with their forefeet.

“But then the stranger was gone, and none of those who had seen him could tell where he had gone, and the flocks fell quiet immediately, and trotted willingly to the barn.

“The next day was worse rather than better. The cattle played up, bellowing and kicking up the soil, and gathering themselves around Lars Hansa’s boathouse; they could not be moved. And the children cried, and the dogs howled, and there was a commotion and a song so one might easily lose one’s mind by listening to it.

“And from the windows, everyone who wanted to could see it—the strange, dark-clad man, walking and stealing about between the sea houses. But if one of the women dared go down the sea road, then he was as if sunken into the earth.

“None of them had experienced such a grim day before, and when the menfolk realized they could not keep it hidden, they told of the corpse lying Pernille Sellback’s coffin.

“But then the women grew furious, and demanded that the men should take the corpse away from the farm. They had seen him walking around headless in the middle of the bright day, and he should be taken away, no matter whether they were in a hurry or not.

“So four men took the coffin with them, and sailed together with it on Lars Hansa’s firroring.¹ But they had never known a boat as heavy to row as the firroring was that day. And when they reached midway across the sound, they were not able to move it from the spot, no matter how they struggled and toiled with the oars.

“Three of them wanted to take the coffin and heave it into the sea, but the fourth said they should behave properly as folk. He who lay in the coffin had no head and lacked the light of reason, he said.

“But he did have a heart, said the other three, and could thus make sense of how heavily they struggled to get him into his grave.

“Now, they knew that the human heart is a malleable thing, in which Satan as much as our Lord can make his dwelling, said he who would look after the coffin. And as soon as he said it, the boat grew as light as a feather.

“They reported the find of the corpse to the sheriff and ordered his grave from the gravedigger, and they put the coffin in Job Jonsa’s northern boathouse at Vinje. It would stay there until they came to pick it up on the sermon Sunday, to bring it to the churchyard.

“Then they sailed back to Nakling, sincerely pleased to be rid of the corpse for the time being.

 

“Late on Saturday night, after all the people had settled, Job Jonsa’s two lads came sailing home from Eidsfjord, and laid to at the northern boathouse.

“They took all their tackle out of the boat and carried it up to the boathouse, and the oldest of the lads, he was called Petter Johan, and was the one who had command and had all the responsibility, bade the other one to go to the farm for the boathouse key.

“He came back quickly with a lit lantern and told him that there was a corpse in the boathouse, so they had to go quietly forth.

“They let themselves in through the upper door and took away the spar from the main doors while they carried in everything that was to go in, closed up, and laid the spar in place.

“Then they stowed all their tackle and hung up what was to hang, and filled their bucket with the herring that they were to take to the farm.

“The coffin stood upon two wooden trestles along one of the long walls, and the charcoal dust that had been scattered around it glittered in the light from the lantern as they went about, arranging things.

“At last, the sail was the only thing rmaining that they had to look after. But it was wet, so they took it and stretched it over the beams. And to get a better hold, Petter Johan stepped up on to one of the wooden trestles, and rested his right foot lightly on the coffin lid.

“But as he was about to step down again on to the floor, he inadvertently knocked the coffin. It fell down from the trestles, and they both heard that the corpse fell heavily against the coffin lid.

“It was not a pleasant sound, and they took and lifted the coffin onto its scaffold, and lighted around it with the lantern before they went to the upper door.

“The youngest lad went first, with the bucket of herring and the lantern, and Petter Johan went behind. And he had the sensation that something evil was after him. Closer and closer it came, and as soon as he stepped across the tall doorstep, he received a blow across his left shoulder so that he collapsed.

“‘God comfort and help me, now the corpse has taken my health,’ moaned Petter Johan, trying to get up.

“The other lad supported him, and together they stumbled up to the farm, and got him into bed. But in the morning it seemed as if the whole of Petter Johan’s shoulder had been shattered into small pieces. And the pain spread to his arm and down his left side to his heart. Job Jonsa sat wake with the boy himself and changed his dressing every ten minutes. But there was no noticeable relief for the haunted unfortunate before Sunday morning at eleven o’clock. Then the pain left him. And he commended his soul God and was extinguished like a light at the same time that the folk at Nakling drove past Job Jonsa’s cabin with the headless corpse.

“Here, my story ends, and if we‘re going to do things the way we did when we were young, taking turns to tell, then it‘s your turn, Rebekah; don’t try to get out of it.“

“No, you may trust me that I won’t. And now you shall hear about the girl who promised her sweetheart fidelity in life and in death. I heard it told last winter, when I was visiting my aunt, who was married in Strandlandet.“

---

1. A Nordland boat of about 25 foot, and four rowing stations. ↩

Nordland Night: Grave Rest

“There were three boats that accompanied one another as they rowed the winter fishing season off Molla in east Lofoten. The skippers were Bernt Berntsa, Sørn Pettersa and Abraham Enochsa, and all three of them came from the fjord here. They had not exactly chosen one of the most prestigious fjords, but their fathers before them had rowed out there for many years without whining about the profits. And the harbor was good, and rowing out easy, since those who rowed off Molla could benefit from the wind in nearly every kind of weather, no matter from which direction it came, and this had not a little to say.

“But there came a year, that around eight days after they had come to the fishing grounds, that there was such a dense sea fog that it was simply inadvisable to be out at sea, no matter how familiar one was with it and the landmarks. The lads had nothing to do, bouncing around their huts, and getting into all sorts of trouble with their lusty ideas and monkey games.

“But when the evening came, each skipper demanded peace and quiet in his own hut. And Bernt Berntsa, who could not get a wink of sleep unless everything about him was quiet, sat mending nets, praying that his crew would fall asleep. Now, Bernt Berntsa was such that he found it difficult to quit when he had first started to work. And he remained sitting there, mending the cod net for longer than he had thought to—yes, who knows if he would have stopped before the net had been tied up, had not the outer hut door flown open with a noisy bang, so that the walls of the hut began to come apart, floor to ceiling.

“Bernt Berntsa had not heard people go by, and the wind was a quiet, so he wondered what they were up to, those who were now outside. He put down his work, unhooked the train-oil lamp from the nail on the wall, and went out into the porch to find out what was going on.

“The outer door was wide open, but there was not a living thing to be seen. He closed the door, hooked the latch on to the catch, and went back in.

“But he hadn’t come to rest on his stool, before the outer door flew open with the same bang and the same shock, and in the fury that the Lord’s hand had granted Bernt Berntsa, he threw down his work and went out in his socks to grab the rascals red-handed. For it had to be a scamp that was out playing, and not a fright and a warning, as he had originally thought. There was no one to see; and again he pulled the door closed, secured the latch on to the catch and rattled the lock to make sure it was closed.

“Then he went into the hut, hung the net on the hook next to the window, and put the needles and the ball of string in the table drawer, for now he wanted to take hos clothes off and lie down to sleep.

“Then the front door flew open for the third time, and Bernt Berntsa let go of what he had between his hands, took God’s name in his mouth and padded quietly out into the porch. But there was no one to see, and he hadn’t expected there to be.

“He did not close the door immediately, but remained standing on the stairs, looking out over the huts. The fog had gone and the moon and stars were reflected in the bay.

“But what was that for a turn? Were his own eyes deceiving him, or was Abraham Enochsa’s fembøring really lying there, with its keel in the air?

“In God’s name! He had to go to Abraham Enochsa’s doorstep, and warn him, so that they could right the boat, and gather together the thwarts and bottom boards and everything that lay floating, before it was time to go out and haul the nets.

“He groped within the doorstep for his footwear, and when he straightened up, ready to go, Abraham Enoksa’s fembøring lay with it mast in the air, between Sørn Pettersa’s fembøring and his own. And the seafire shone around the boat, as it did around the others, when the surge splashed against it.

“Yes, well, said Bernt Berntsa to himself, and what he thought shall remain unsaid by my mouth.

“Then he closed the door for the third and last time and went in to bed.

“There was grim fishing that winter, but every man drove himself as hard as he could, and more, getting the fish ready and hung on the racks. But then came the accident.

“Early in the morning of the third of March, the boats rowed out in the best weather they could want.

“But before they were half-finished pulling up their nets, a strong storm of shoreward wind and great seas blew up. There was nothing to do other than to race ashore, giving the boats all the sail they could carry, and leave things in God’s hands.

“The three skippers on the accompanying boats remained alongside one another for as long as possible.

“But halfway to land, Abraham Enoch pulled ahead of the other two; and the distance between them increased, so that Bernt Berntsa’s fembøring fell a long way behind. And the Sørn Pettersa’s fembøringen came last.

“Then a sudden breaker came across Abraham Enoksa’s fembøring. It dipped, then rolled around.

“The folk got up on to the keel, and sat waiting for their accompanying boats to come to and rescue them.

“But the weather was absolutely terrible. And when Bernt Berntsa intended to come about and lay to the hull, his crew rebelled and threatened to wrest the tiller out of his fist, and the moment was lost.

“But Sørn Pettersa’s boat, which came after, laid to the hull, and first saved three men, then drifted off, crossed over again, and saved two more.

“But Abraham Enochsa himself, and the boy he sat with one arm about, were washed away by a sea, and they did not see them any more, even though Sørn Pettersa, in spite of all human reason, for the second time came about to the scene of the accident. But then, besides his own crew, he had the five he had saved to bale the sea out, as soon as he sailed the boat full.

“They found Abraham Enochsa’s fembøring in an inlet west of Brettesness, and it was no worse than that it was possible to put it in a suitable condition to continue fishing.

“Each of them added one to his own crew for those who had disappeared during the storm, and relinquished a man each, so the fishing continued with all three boats.

“But Bernt Berntsa went around with dark thoughts. It was not just the grief of his companion that gnawed and tormented him; the shame and contempt that he had to endure, when the crew took his command from him on his own boat was worse than both grief and death. And had he still had the energy it required, then he would have chased every last one of them ashore again.

“The fishing season ended the week before Easter, and the three boats each had a fine winter lot. It was just so bitterly grevious that Abraham Enochsa and the lad were no longer alive. And Bernt Berntsa felt like a debtor to God, even though his own understanding acquitted him.

“A stiff easterly wind blew on the day the companion boats crossed out of Raftsundet and began up Hadselfjord, and the boats remained alongside one another up the fjord. Then Sørn Pettersa called over to the Bernt Berntsa’s fembøring:

“‘Well, Abraham Enoksa, you don’t feel the cold much, changing your shirt in this freezing easterly gale!’

“Bernt Berntsa turned his face after the cry, and on the thwart close beside him, sat Abraham Enochsa, undressed to the waist, pulling his wool shirt over his head.

“The vision was only momentary. But it was enough to convince Bernt Berntsa of the certainty that his worst fear bore the truth: the revenant was after him, by God it was true!

“The spring and summer were not dangerous to redeem, when daylight and the sun reigned, and the power of the dead counted for nothing. But when the darkness came in the autumn, Bernt Berntsa took care not to linger late down by the boathouse or in the outhouses. Not, you understand, that he had seen anything of the revenant since that day on Hadselfjord. But Bernt Berntsa was not a man to willingly hasten the meeting.

“In the evening on Christmas Eve, after everyone had smartened themselves up for the holiday, the wife in the house discovered that they had forgotten to tap some brandy, and so Bernt Berntsa took a tin pail, lit the barn lantern, and went out to the stabbur, where the barrel lay, for as long as they had some about the house, they had to have brandy on the table on Christmas Eve.

“He left the stabbur door open, and put the lantern beside the barrel while he tapped it into the pail.

“When he had tapped what he thought they needed over the weekend, he took the lantern to go. But there sat Abraham Enochsa across the stabbur doorstep, blocking his way.

“At first Bernt Berntsa was frightened, as may be expected.

“But then his anger got to him, and he found the courage to speak the words of reason that he had wanted to say to his dead companion for so long.

“‘If it it you, Abraham Enoksa, who has found it good to follow after me, even though you are dead, and if is it you who sits there on the doorstep and hinders me from going in to mine, then I must tell you, that you are not the man after your death that I held you to be whilst you yet lived.

“‘You know how I wanted to save you, but that my men took the power to do so from me, and made me impotent aboard my own boat. And if you do not know, then you hear it now.

“‘And never can I tell you with words how it hurt me that you fell away, and I was prevented from saving you.

“‘But now I ask, Abraham Enochsa, that you come to me in dreams when I have come to Molla, and then tell me where you lie, so that I may put you in Christian soil.

“‘Yes, even if you are so broken up and stuck so that I have to pick you out with my sheath knife and pick you up bone by bone and put you in a sack, then you shall have the grave rest you now resist so much.’

“No more was said. But it was enough for the revenant to float away, and Bernt Berntsa let himself out unhindered, with the Christmas brandy for himself and for those who sat waiting inside.

“On the Monday after the holiday, two of the accompanying boats arrived in Molla. The third had a new skipper and had stepped out of the team. That night Bernt Berntsa dreamed that Abraham Enoksa came to him and told him where to find him. It was in a narrow, deep rift in a steep rocky knoll a little north of the harbor.

“As soon as the light was so bright that he could see where to put his feet, Bernt Berntsa took an empty, clean bag and went where the revenant had said he was to be found. The rack of bones was stuck at the bottom of the rift, between two huge stones, and it was with great toil and difficulty he pulled it loose, and put all the stumps into the sack.

“He paid for the coffin, and he paid for one that the same as for an unharmed corpse. And then he sailed it to church and buried the coffin and what was in it, with all the honor and dignity that Abraham Enochsa’s body could claim. And Bernt Berntsa had good reason to believe that Abraham Enochsa appreciated his grave rest. He neither saw nor sensed the revenant after the parson had thrown earth on to the coffin.

“And now I have told mine. And now Albert, you may, if you please, tell about the headless corpse your uncle helped to haul up out of the sea, when they lay drifting for herring, out off Nakling.”

“As you have told yours, then I suppose I have to, but I’m so bad at telling that it will just become a nuisance for you to listen to,” said Albert from Sneisa, and harked to clear his throat.