“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.
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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. ↩
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