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.

Nordland Night: When the Baby Jesus Came to the Tusse-folk in Stormyrhammeren

“One day when the baby Jesus was a small boy, he was playing down by the brook that ran past the house where he lived. He was wading out to catch young char with his bare hands, and releasing them in a small pond he had dug in the river gravel close by the bank.

“Just as he was wading like this, a beautiful ladybird came and lighted on his chest. But when he tried to take it in his hand, it flapped across the river and lighted on a tall straw and hung there, swaying. The baby Jesus released the young char he had in his hand, and waded across the river after the ladybird, to catch it. It was so beautiful, he thought, and it would be fun to stroke its pretty wings. But straightway he reached out for it, it flapped away from him, but no farther than that he thought he might be able to reach it with his fingertips.

“Farther and farther away it flapped, and before the baby Jesus took to his senses, he had come into the midst of the densest mowing meadow, and the tall grass reached far above his head. The flowers in the meadow smelt so sweet that he had never experienced such a good fragrance before; and by the roots of the flower stems gleaming small creatures crept busily, each in its own way.

“The ladybird flapped before and the baby Jesus strode afterwards, and eventually the meadow began to thin out. He came to a deep ditch with a rotten plank across it for a bridge, and he stepped carefully across the plank.

“On the other side of the ditch there was a bone dry mossy patch of land close to an overhang in the mountain.

“And then the baby Jesus recognised where he was. He was by Stormyrhammaren, where all the tusse-folk lived; he was not allowed to go thither without a grown-up with him, his mother had said.

“He was afraid and he was sorry. The ladybird had gone, and he dared not walk back down through the mowing meadow.

“Up from the moss on the dry patch of earth he stood on, a small flower grew, bluer than the blue sky above him, and he fell to his knees and began to look, to see if there weren’t some more. He knelt with his face turned towards the mountain wall; and when he raised his head to push away a lock of hair from his eyes, the mountain was open, and he could see into a very large parlour. Inside it gleamed with gold and silver and of glittering stones everywhere. And he had never seen such glitter and such finery anywhere but in the sky, when the sun was about to go down in the evening.

“Two boys his own age sat in a golden trough with a grey billy-goat harnessed before as a horse. The buck skipped some steps, then raised itself in the shafts, pawed with its forefeet, then let itself down, and skipped a little more.

“When the buck reached the opening in the mountain, the baby Jesus saw that the faces of the two boys in the golden trough were wrinkled and withered, just like old folk. They waved to him that he should jump up into the trough with them, and they did not have to wave twice. For the baby Jesus had never had such fun before as driving a golden trough with a billy-goat as horse! When the game was the most fun, a small grey-clad woman came wandering in. She stopped down by the door step and glared at the little stranger boy her sons were playing with.

“There came such a bright light from him that it was as if the very eye of the sun had moved into the mountain with her. And the strangest thing of all was that both her boys, who had come into the world old and wrinkled of face and body, as the tusses usually are, now sat there in the light cast from the little stranger boy, pretty and smooth to look at, and resembled human children. Quietly she crept along the wall and closed the mountain again.

“And from nooks and crannies there crowded forth a flock of tusses, who stood there, glaring at the little stranger boy. And the more they glared, the happier they grew, and then they began to jump and leap about the buck and the golden trough.

“But as they went there leaping so lustily, one of the tusses approached the baby Jesus, to touch him; and straightway his hand became smooth and white and young to look at.

“Then the little grey woman sprang forth and stopped the buck.

“‘Oh my dear, kind strange boy, stroke your hand over us all,’ she bade.

“And the baby Jesus stepped out of the golden trough, and the tusses encircled him and he stroked and patted one after the other with his blessed little hands.

“But at home the Virgin Mary was readying dinner for her boy, and if I am not mistaken, it was soup and herring, for he was so fond of it.

“Then came a little bird and pecked at the window, and she opened the window and asked what it was he wanted.

“‘I come merely to ask you where you have the boy Our Lord has given you to take care of for him,’ said the bird.

“‘He is down by the river, building a pond for his char,’ said the Virgin Mary, and she went out on to the steps to call the boy in for dinner.

“But no one answered the call. And she sprang down to the river and found the pond with all the char close by the bank. The gravel was full of tracks from his feet. But he was nowhere to be seen.

“‘Have you seen anything of my boy?’ she asked the char.

“‘If it is God’s little boy you mean, then he waded over the river quite recently, to catch the pretty ladybird,’ they replied together.

“The Virgin Mary lifted her skirts and waded across, too. And in the dense meadow on the other side of the river she soon found fresh tracks of a child’s foot.

“‘Has a little boy recently come through the meadow?’ she asked the grass.

“‘If it is God’s little boy you mean, then he walked here but newly,’ replied the blades of grass.

“The Virgin Many followed the footprints. And she trod so carefully and lightly that neither flower nor leaf—no, not even the finest blade of grass—suffered from her walking over them.

“When she had walked a while, the meadow began to thin out. She came to the deep ditch with the rotten plank as a bridge, and she walked across and came to the mossy patch before Stormyrhammaren and stopped and looked around for the baby Jesus.

“But he was nowhere to be seen. And full of grief and heartache she sat down on the patch of earth before the mountain wall. As she sat there, not knowing where she should look, she saw a small blue flower in the forest of moss.

“‘Oh, you dear, beautiful little flower, you book just like the blue eyes of the blessed little boy of mine. Has he been here and looked at you?’

“‘If it is God’s little boy you mean, then he is in the mountain with the tusse-folk,’ said the flower.

“‘In thanks for telling me where I shall find him, you shall hereafter be called Jesus’ blue eyes,’ said the Virgin Mary; she ran up and stroked her hand over the mountain wall.¹ Straightway the mountain slid open, and through the opening she looked in to the beautiful big parlour. Her boy stood with an outstretched arm in a ring of grey, wrinkled tusses, much smaller than himself, stroking them with a gentle hand over cheek and hair. And as he touched them, they grew beautiful and fair to look at, and resembled human children.

“She stood still until he had touched all of them in the ring. Then she went into the mountain, took him by the hand and led him home to his dinner which stood ready for him.

“And the next morning when the baby Jesus came out to play, a grey billy-goat stood tied to one of the stair railings. It had a golden harness and a silver bell and it was so beautiful that you never have seen the like. The tusse-folk had come with it in the night, in thanks that the baby Jesus had been in the mountain with them.”

“Can you tell me, Ellen Lorentse, where you have it from, what you’ve just told us?” said Kari Aronste.

“I have it from my grandmother at home in Tronesbygda, where I was born and raised. She knew so many bits from the time Jesus was a small boy and walked about down here on the earth, together with his mother; and this bit she told to us one St. Olav’s Wake. I and my brother Jabbe were tramping the grass in the mowing meadow. The farm boy came with a withy and struck us across our legs so that we ran up to grandmother, crying and complaining. But we were no older than that we were told well that Saint Olav would bear no crying children on his day.”

“Now let’s take a cup of warm coffee and something to eat, for what we ate a while ago was so little satisfying that I for my part am ravinously hungry,” said Mekkel Johanna. It was she who, with Marius’s help, looked after the coffee kettle, and gave us sugar and cream. And Rebekka from Sneisa opened the hamper she had brought on the trip, and laid out cream waffles, newly buttered lefse, and cured meats, and all that tasted best. Her twin brother Albert took out his pocket flask and sent it wandering around the company, while the coffee was still warm. For even though it was summer, with the sun at night and all kinds of wonder out in the wild, a quick one beneath our vests did us so well, and increased our enjoyment.

The night was as clear as the day, and so full of pale golden sunlight that it was simply a miracle. And the distant mountains far out on the edge of their vision came closer and lay as if they floated upon the bluish surface of the sea. from the moor behind Skarvasstinden they heard snippets of awakening birds; the skua screamed, the golden plover whistled, and the ptarmigan cackledm calling for its flock of young. And in the heather close by where they sat, enjoying themselves, small birds tweeted, busying themselves picking up the bread Kari Aronste crumbled up for them.

“Now, Sivert Jakobsa, I think you ought to tell us of the time the coxswain who went missing from the boat that accompanied your grandfather’s came to him and demanded a restful grave,” said Albert.

“You’ve all heard it before; but if it is so that you ask me, Albert, then I should like to tell it once again.”

“Yes, Sivert Jakobsa, please do so,” said Kari Aronste. “I openly confess that I never grow tired of hearing ghost stories and all our old legends and tales again and again. To me they grow into broad branching roots that hold me fast to the folk and the scenery here in the north, and they enrich my life and warmth of heart.”

“Yes, Kari Aronste, you know how to put it,” said Ellen Lorenste. “I am from a different quarter, myself, but each time I begin to tell again what I heard from the old folk during my upbringing, it is as if I am at home with my own kin.”

“Well, in that case, I shall tell mine, since you want me to,” said Sivert Jakobsa. He bit himself a new wad of tobacco and sat as comfortably as he could on the mossy stone he had chosen for a seat. And Marius put a bundle of heather on the fire, for now the mosquitos had found their way to them.

---

1. Jesu blå øyne is one of the Norwegian folk names for veronica chamaedrys (pictured above). ↩

Nordland Night: Bjønn Jørn’s Funeral

“Bjønn Jørn fell off a mountain the same year Our Lord took the mad milkmaid at Raen. A message came home to father, that he had to go to the funeral. Mother didn’t want him to take that long journey alone, and so it turned out that I should go with him. I was twelve years old and a big boy and father didn’t think I would take any harm from being with strangers, and so he obeyed my mother and took me with him.

“I remember it was in the autumn with bare ground and a new moon. The bog at Blautmyren had frozen so much that we could walk across dry-footed; but the ice on Skarvatnet would not yet carry us. We went across the smooth shoulder of the mountain as you see over there, and across the bog here below Skarvasstind, and along the water, and came to Raen in the evening, just before folk should retire.

“The next day, we took a boat from there, in good time, together with some others from Reen, who had been invited to the funeral.

“When we made land, there were boats all along the shore, and it was black with folk up towards the house-gamme. The table was set beneath the open sky since so many had been invited. And you must believe that the spread didn’t suggest that it was some pauper we had come to put into the ground. Such a heavenly abundance of boiled reindeer meat and dried reindeer meat and reindeer tongue and marrowbone and cured salmon and butter and bread and cheese and Bergen kringles and all sorts of treats that I saw that day will I never see again in this life and probably not afterwards.

“And he who was host went around with the brandy butt in one hand and silver drinking bowls in the other and offered a dram to all who would drink. I remember that most of the party were Finns dressed in tunics, but there were also many settlers, and none of them toasted by banging their bowl on the bench, when the host came with the butt and offered them a dram.

“The one I noticed above the others was a dry, greying little fellow. His face was wrinkled like a dry buckskin that had been nailed to a wall. And the eyes in his head glittered like two living embers. He was scary for me to look at, I who was merely a young lad compared with all the adults.

“The corpse was in the boathouse. And when everyone had eaten their fill, the funeral party went down there. I remember the coffin stood on two wooden blocks, and that the daylight fell in through the lower door; the narrow door on the upper boathouse wall was closed on account of the draught. The party stood in a ring, as many as could fit into boathouse, and he who was married to the eldest daughter in the house and another took the lid off the coffin.

“That was the first and the last time I saw Bjønn Jørn. He did not lie in a corpse shroud around him, like Christian folk usually wear to the grave, but wore a deep blue tunic, decorated with stripes of red and yellow fabric, and in trousers similar to the tunic. Around his waist he had a figured silver belt, with a huge knife in a curved bone sheath, and on his feet he had brand new reindeerskin boots decorated with the same kind of fabric as the tunic. The tunic was open at the neck so we could see in to his skin and his sinewed neck. He lay with his head on a pillow with a white woollen cover, and a copper two-shilling piece had been laid on each of his eyes.

“I remember they said he’d broken his back and dashed a hole in the back of his head when he fell off the mountain, but no one could see this where he lay, fully dressed. His face had no mark from any strike, and he had his otterskin hat pulled well down over his ears, on his broken head. My father led the singing, for he had an inexplicably loud voice. The Evangelical Christian Hymn Book was in use at that time, and the hymn they sang was number 403. I will never forget that hymn, even if Our Lord lets me live a double measure of years down here on earth; if you want, then I should like to sing the verse that was used in the boathouse, when Bjønn Jørn should be laid to rest in the earth.”

He did not wait for an answer, but began with his broken old-man’s voice.

“Like shadow passes life away,
Heavy is the road we tread,
The fair spring of our youth is short,
Uncertain all our joy.
Everything sprouts, ripens, and dies,
Seven times ten are the years of dust
And seldom, seldom more.¹

“They came so far in this hymn, but just as father should begin to sing the second verse, then Bjønn Jørn moved in the coffin. The copper two-shilling pieces rolled to each side, and he sat up, glaring at us from beneath half-open eyelids.

“Some of the women were so distressed that they had to be carried out of the boathouse.

“But Bjønn Jørn’s wife—Pekka Siri, they called her—came forth to the coffin and asked if there was someone in the funeral party who could lay the corpse to rest. I am certain there were several present who knew that art, or had in the least heard the formula, but no one offered their help.

“And the corpse sat there, glaring at us.

“But then the old Finn fellow I had noticed when I and my father first arrived at the funeral came shuffling forth and stood at the headboard of the coffin.

“‘If it is so, Pekka Siri, that you want me to lay him down, then I shall do so,’ he said, looking around at us all.

“‘Yes, that is what I want!’ replied Pekka Siri, both loudly and clearly.

“The fellow moved from the headboard to the right side of the coffin. Then he put his left hand under the neck of the corpse and his right hand on its chest, and then, with a voice so soft that it was a wonder to listen to for those of us who stood around, he said: ‘Look here, Bjønn Jørn, child; now you must lie down to rest, in Jesus’ name.’ And the corpse lay down on its bed of hay again, and its eyes slid shut. But no more verses were sung in the boathouse—you may be sure of that.

“They took the lid and put it on the coffin, and nailed it fast with three-inch nails. And without any more hymn-singing he was borne aboard the funeral boat that lay ready to take him to where he should be laid in the bosom of the earth and rest in the peace of his grave. That is if he had peace to remain there, and not go a-haunting, even though he was dead.

“I will never forget how the uncanny fright coursed throughout my body when the corpse arose and sat staring at me through extinguished eyeballs.”

“Huff! You are scaring me with your tale,” Rebekka from Sneisa complained, moving closer to Kari Aronste and threading her hand through her arm.

“I have heard tell of this before tonight,” said Sivert Jakobsa. “It was my grandfather himself who brought it up, once when a relative was visiting us. But when they noticed that I was inside, they chased me out of the parlour; it was nothing for children to hear.”

“Can one of the rest of us not tell something pleasant while we sit here enjoying the sunshine, looking towards the ends of the earth?” said Ellen Lorentse.

“It must be you, then; don’t you know something of the tusse-folk?”

“I know of when the baby Jesus came to the tusse-folk in Stormyrhammeren, and if you want to hear it, then I would like to tell.”

All the others said they wanted to hear it. Marius laid more wood and heather on the fire, and filled the empty coffee pot with water, and pushed it close to the warmth. And then Ellen Lorentse began to tell.

---

1. This is supposed to rhyme.
   

   Som Skyggen svinder Livet bort,
   Tung er den Vei vi træde.
   Vor Ungdoms favre Vaar er kort,
   Ustadig al vor Glæde.
   Alt spirer, modnes og forgaaer,
   Syvgange Ti er Støvets Aar
   Og sjelden, sjelden flere.

    ↩

Nordland Night: The Milkmaid Who Was Taken by the Subterraneans

“It was at the blessed late Joen Rask’s at Raen it happened—and everyone who had been there and seen it with their own eyes said it was really true. Then, more than now, it was the custom that the men got hold of fresh halibut for Christmas Eve, and the women on the farm had to provide veal for dinner on Christmas day. But in the days before Christmas one year, the weather closed in such that it was impossible to go out to sea in a boat; and old Joen Rask was gruff and unapproachable.

“In the barn the bell cow was ready to calve; and the milkmaid stayed with her both night and day, so that the men wouldn’t be able steal the calve when it came, and shame the women. They used to do so in those days, just to have something to laugh about.

“But Our Lord arranged things so well that two days before Christmas Eve Bjønn Jørn went out to buy himself some Christmas brandy. Joen Rask asked him in to his office and poured him a large dram of the right sort. He would be allowed to buy all the Christmas brandy he liked, said Joen Rash, but then he had to arrange it so that the bell cow the milkmaid watched over didn’t calf until after dinnertime on Christmas Day.

“‘I shall help you with this. And you shall have a fat halibut, too,’ said Bjønn Jørn to Joen Rask. And so they drank together and sat in glee at the spectacle they would make of the women.

“After a little while, at Bjønn Jørn’s recommendation, Joen Rask sought out his line and halibut lures, and then they wandered down to the Rodbrygga warehouse and locked the door behind them. It was twlight inside, and around all the walls lay heaps of all manner of wares which Joen Rask had brought home from Bergen on his jekt. But Bjønn Jørn appeared not to see them. He went straight to the winch hatch and pushed them aside on every side so there was a decent opening for him to stand fishing from.

“Joen Rask had some cured herring with him, and Bjønn Jørn baited the hook and cast out through the hatchway. The waves broke on land and the storm wrested his otterskin hat off his head, and threw it far in across the warehouse floor. Just like that the line twitched. Old Joen Rask took a boathook and stood beside the Finn fellow, ready to hook it when the catch came up.

“It was a halibut of around half a barrel that hung from the hook, and it was good that the sea was rough, or they would not have been able to bring it securely on to the warehouse floor. So that was a grief of Joen Rask’s that was snuffed out.

“I can see from your face, Kari, that you want to hear how things went in the barn, now.

“The time before the creature should deliver was, as I said, delicate, and the animal had lain down ready, but had come no further. The milkmaid was very worried; she paced and scolded the cow, which would not do her duty. And she was worried, too, for the spectacle, the pranks that the fellows would loose upon her. They had dragged the previous milkmaid up the ladder and sat her astride the ridge of the barn roof. And they had tied a cow bell on another and taken her and led her in to the farmers in the main cabin on Christmas day itself, as punishment for her not managing to provide them with fresh veal for Christmas.

“As the milkmaid skipped and tripped around the cow, the barn door slid open and a small, darkly-dressed woman came creeping up to her. ‘If you come with us, when I and my son come to fetch you, then I shall break Bjønn Jørn’s enchantment, and arrange it so that you shall have veal for dinner on Christmas day,’ said the woman.

“‘Yes, you may be certain I will!’ replied the milkmaid. And as soon as she said it, the woman twisted away.

“Now, it was the custom in those days that the milkmaid should be the one to carry the roast in on Christmas day, after everyone had sat themselves at the table. And so it went on this Christmas Day I am telling you of; the milkmaid came in, carrying the platter, and the farm boy stood in the passage with his loaded gun, ready to shoot away all the invisible sneaks who would help themselves from the roast-platter before it reached the farmer folk.

“But that shot was never fired; one of the invisibles struck the gun so that it fell out of the hands of he who should shoot. And the milkmaid, who was halfway there, put the roast-platter down on a chair and stood, waving both arms, as if she were defending herself.

“Then she retreated, foot by foot, backwards across the parlour floor, right through the kitchen, and out the outer door.

“When she did not come in again, one of her fellow servants got up and went out to see where she had gone.

“Then all of them searched—but she was as if sunken into the ground until they found her on New Year’s Day, asleep among the roving. But she had gone mad in her head, and made night into day and day into night. She refused to eat together with the others, but took the food they brought to her to the darkest corner, and sat there and gulped it down.

“And if they refused her what she wanted she howled like an animal.

“And so she remained, until Our Lord, in his grace, had mercy on her, and took her away from both the visible and the invisible, and hid her in heaven with him.

“Here I sit, talking myself completely away from what I really had thought to tell you of—Bjønn Jørn’s funeral. But perhaps you’re weary of listening to me now.”

But they weren’t, and old Rubert got a new wad from Albert from Sneisa, so he had something to moisten his mouth with as he told.

Nordland Night: Bjønn Jørn

“He who lives there now is called Rein Jørn. He is the son of Petruska, the eldest daughter of Bjønn Jørn, as they called him. I remember I heard in passing, when I was a small lad, that Bjønn Jørn was a Swedish Lapp. But whatever the truth of the matter, he owned a great number of reindeer and was said to be the richest Lapp in these parts of the county. But he was a wild-minded beast of a man, and God’s grace on the one who had unsettled business with him! And then he had a reputation as an enchanter—yes, there were rumours that he could conjure the draug from the depths of the sea and the grey seal within range of his rifle. The fish could not come close to his line without being hooked, and the birds fell, if he merely pointed his gun at them. The wolf and wolverine didn’t touch Bjønn Jørn’s reindeer, and he was as good friends with the bear as with a brother. But this was because he had a brown bear as a spirit guide.

“Once, Bjønn Jørn had promised the blessed late Joen Rask, the merchant from Raen, a reindeer for slaughtering before the autumn thing.¹ But when Joen Rask sent for the reindeer, Bjønn Tom was so involved with his reindeer flock that it was simply impossible to reach him in time with the message. Joen Rask was both angry and frustrated, and his wife was even moreso; last time the thing was held, she had promised the magistrates, that next time they came, they would be served roast reindeer, but there she stood now, ashamed of her promise.

“But now you shall hear what happened next! Early in the morning, the day before the magistrates were expected, a chubby reindeer buck came strutting in to Joen Rask’s farmyard and lay down by the stabbur door. And there was no living soul on the farm who doubted that it was Bjønn Jørn who had fulfilled his promise. So now you can see for yourselves what manner of fellow he was.

“What is it you sit there begging me to tell you, Kari Aronste? Do you want me to tell you more of Bjønn Jørn? Well, as it is your sweet mouth that asks, then I will satisfy you. Let me see … Yes, now I have it …”

---

1. A thing is a law-giving assembly. In Norway, local things (bygdeting) were abolished as late as 1927. ↩

Nordland Night: On the Wild-angelica Trip

They were no church fellowship, the few who went together on the wild-angelica trip to Skarvasstinden. Mekkel Aronsa himself was there, and his wife Mekkel Johanna and his sister Kari Aronste. And then there was Sivert Jakobsa and his wife Ellen Lorentse, and Albert from Sneisa and his twin sister Rebekka. The twins had been confirmed before the parson together with Kari Aronson and had many memories from their youth in common with her, so it was only reasonable that they came along on the trip, as she had invited them. Old Rubert Rubertsa from Storset came too; he had come all the way to Sorviken to ask if he might come along to the peak. He was of advanced years and had but little means, and so he used to cut his tobacco with dried garden-angelica root throughout the whole of the long, unyielding winter when there was not a man he could ask for a little tobacco. And then there was no forgetting the boy, Marius Hesselberg Hansen.

But though they were not many, they filled the deck so that the trawler appeared black with folk, just like on a preaching Sunday, to those on land who watched the Sørvik trawler puff its way up the fjord to the innermost inlet one Tuesday at around eight-o’clock.

Their way from the inlet was short, but very steep, up to the ridge where the wild-angelica stood, an enticing beautiful light green. Garden-angelica grew farther down the lea, and thus old Rubert had not come on the trip for nothing.

Marius, who was as strong as a bear, took the heavy rucksack, and the other fellows divided the rest between them so that the women would not need to drag bundles up the hills. Old Rubert went in front with his woollen hat pulled firmly down over his ears and a well-worn sealskin bag hanging from a strap across his left shoulder. He had passed his eighty-second birthday, but even so, he was the nimblest afoot. And it was an effort for the others to keep up with him.

The slope they were climbing was overgrown with grass from its top to the shore. And even though flocks of sheep grazed it, the grass was beautiful with its abundance of flowers. If they needed to cross a scree or dry river bed, the forest of flowers reached their shoulders, or even higher, so that the last one in their party just wandered through the feather-light leaves, only guessing where those at the front made their way.

It made little difference if the company grew warm and uncomfortable from the unhabitual activity up the bank, and asked to rest a little. Old Rubert was resilient up the slopes, and he didn’t stop until they reached the shoulder of the mountain, south of the ridge.

There the fellow decided that the lads should go with him to climb the slope to the arm where the wild angelica grew. But the womenfolk should take all the luggage and continue along the short path to the top, cook coffee, and rest their poor legs while they waited. But they must be pleased to act like proper folk, and not eat up all the good food before the others arrived, the fellow joked. Marius stayed with the womenfolk, helping them to carry, and he picked up wood and heather for the fire along the way.

But Kari Aronste wanted to go to the ridge, and she climbed the scree in a race against the men, even though at times it was difficult to find a secure foothold.

Both wild and garden varieties of angelica grew lusciously in the stream from the ridge. It was crunchy to chew and of a delicate taste, and the fellows took their fill before they began to collect it into bundles.

But old Rubert didn’t take any time to taste it. With a knife he had fashioned from the narrow-ground blade of a scythe, he cut garden-angelica and put it into his sealskin bag without making a sound during the work.

Kari Aronste kept close to the ridge. The glacier buttercup was in bloom, and she carefully stroked her hand over the flowers she could reach, and breathed in their fragrance. The glacier buttercup had been just as beautifully in bloom some twenty years before, when she was here together with he whom she should marry. There by the grey stone they had stood, and he had bowed himself and picked a handful of flowers and scattered them in her hair. He didn’t say it, but she knew without words that it was her wedding bouquet that played in his thoughts, for it was their firm decision that they should be married when the hay-making was done.

But Our Lord’s will was different. He who should have been bridegroom was lost in the fine weather one Sunday, when they were sailing races on the fjord. She had been lonely in the world since. And lonely would she remain until they met with God.

“You must come, now, Kari, and cut yourself some wild-angelica before we have made an end of it all,” called her brother; he was down on the arm, peering up at her, wishing he could take from her the memory of he whom she had lost in the most beautiful spring of her youth.

“I am coming now, Mikkel, my brother,” she answered, cheerfully enough. But she tarried anyway, standing bent, looking at some light-green flower buds. They were growing beneath the glass-clear edge of ice before the ridge, and nodded when the drip from the melting ice hit them—nodded, straightened up, and nodded again. “Such is the life of a human,” she thought. “And then it happens that the ice melts away, and the sun reaches the bud and gives it colour and power to open up.” With a shudder, she wrenched herself away from the sight, and walked along the wet stream that ran from the ridge and down the arm where the men were busy cutting the wild-angelica.

Afterwards, they went together over the ridge to the top where the fire was burning, and those who had gone before were waiting with freshly cooked coffee and an abundance of cakes and buttered food.

Skarvasstinden was shaped by the hands of Our Lord such that the side that faced the fjord was sheer and inaccessible by foot. But the backside sloped evenly towards a large cloudberry heath that reached all the way to the water Skarvatnet. It lay long and narrow between two hills. And the water was separated from the great sea by a low drift dam.

Folk lived in Raen, on the drift dam. And from the heights of Skarvasstinden one could see the ridges of the roofs, and the white-painted gable wall of the merchants shed. Off shore lay a couple of holms which took some of the breaking of the sea, and so there was a unable harbour for some boats. And fishing huts—rorbuer—and fish racks had been built on the largest of the holms.

There wasn't much more to see on that side except the sea, and more sea, until sea and sky merged into one. But a reasonable distance west of Raen, the sea cut in between mire and mountain and formed a bay. And on the farthest coast lay a house-gamme and a barn-gamme and, down by the shore, a boathouse-gamme. Karen [sic] Lorentse stared for a long time at the desolate dwelling far away from folk and settlement. “Can anyone tell me who it is who lives there?” she asked, pointing her hand in the direction of the gammes.

“I can tell you that,” old Rubert replied. He sat, sated and satisfied, by the fire, gumming a huge wad that Albert from Sneisa had cut off his roll of tobacco for him.

Nordland Night: A Spectre in the Kitchen Loft

Marius, Mekkel Aronsa’s farmhand, sat on the grass bank below the summer barn in Sørviken, the second Saturday evening after that the Johanne Marianne had come home from Finnmark. He was newly-bathed and -shaven, and sat playing the brand-new concertina he had bought himself in Tromsø, loudly singing one of Gjest Bårdsen’s sorrowful ballads.

Terrible fate, how have I transgressed,
That you will constantly persecute me so?
Shall I then be only disappointed,
Shall I in life no more peasures enjoy?
I am bored of all the world and all its misery,
Unsteady I walk, pessamistic thoughts
Unnerve my mind and disturb my peace.¹

Again and again he sang the verse, adding a number of ornaments, and with more and more genuine sorrow, for it was precisely the whims of fate that he reflected over, at night and in the light of day.

When he had travelled for the Finnmark fishing, both of the maidservants were as angels of God towards him, as good as gold, and they satisfied him in anything he might reasonably demand of them. But in the short time he had been north, an itinerant with a new kind of fear of God had visited the fjord, and had carried on and laid waste to everything that was fun. And neither Gurine, who was as blindingly beautiful as a rose in the spring, nor Beret, who was darker a little chubby, and a bit older, was recognisable. And when he, the very night he returned home on the trawler, began to laugh at their new songs, they walked around bare-footed, and in their slips and complained; they were offended, and refused to receive the small gifts he had brought them, even though it was an old custom that fellows gave a gift when they returned from the fishing.

Well, they could leave the gifts; there were enough girls who would be grateful to receive them. But that he was not let into the kitchen loft, to his fellow servants, to sit on the edge of their bed when they retired, and flirt with them—that was simply horrible. He had spoiled them since he came home, showering them with the finest chocolate. Did it do any good? Oh no, indeed! He was soon to understand that, as he, in the innocence of his heart, came padding in the socks and barely touched the latch to their door. They cried out in unison and bade him turn from them, as if he were a leper, and not an honest fellow whom they ought to trust, even if he said so himself. And it was so unfortunate that this lady from Oslo had also heard their squealing; after all, she lay in the chamber just two doors down from the kitchen loft.

Angry, Marius laid aside the concertina on the grass bank, stretched himself as long as he was on the ground, and put his hands behind his head. His kind face turned grey and aged at the thought of all their opposition that he fought against to no avail. Had he had but that itinerant devil here on the bank, now at this very moment, then he would have beaten him, in the full sight of the girls. That scoundrel, who travelled around, pretending to be a messenger from God, though he was worse than a hair from the devil! He ruined the pleasures of youth, and made the world an ugly, black place to live, that’s what he did!

Beret and Gurine came out from the summer barn with their buckets brimming with milk. They passed where he lay, but they said nothing, and he said nothing. Then, when they had come a distance away, they began to whisper to one another, and glance back; he appeared not to notice; he just lay, staring right up into the sky.

Just as they went through the cabin door, with their milk buckets, he had a flash of inspiration, and got up quickly. Had they kept him awake, evening after evening with the new spiritual songs that they whined out before they lay down to sleep, then he would certainly spice their sleep one night, too. And chuckling, he picked up his concertina, and began to play a sweeping foxtrot.

When it was finished, he played “A Summer’s Night in Tromsø” and the Danube waltz, and his discouragement was as if washed away.

—·—

Later in the evening, he wandered over to the smithy, took a drill from the toolchest and went, with his concertina under his arm, up to the boy’s quarters. It lay wall to wall with the kitchen loft, and it did not take many minutes to drill a couple of holes in the thin panelling that divided the rooms, and thread some string through the holes. Then he crept into the kitchen loft, but soon came out, whistling, and wandered down the loft stairs and out into the farmyard.

There stood Kari Aronste, staring up at a mountain peak farther up the fjord. He had no beef with that stranger woman, and he tried to slip past her to the smithy. But she stopped him halfway, and said: “I am standing here, looking to see whether the angelica is ripe, up beneath Skarvasstind. Just look at all the light green beneath the ridge, from where the snow has gone! Marius, you're such a strapping lad; won’t you help me arrange an angelica trip? For I have such a desire to take a couple of jars of pickled angelica with me, when I travel back to Oslo.”

She pointed at the ridge, and he forgot to be shy. It would have to be one of the nearest days, he said, for later in the week the trawler was to be brought up on to the slip.

So they agreed to arrange the trip for Tuesday evening. She asked him to show her good will, and help her as best he could, for she had not been on an angelica trip on Skarvasstind since she was a young girl. And now it was uncertain whether she would ever visit the fjord again in her summer holidays.

—·—

As usual, the farmer folk retired at nine-o’clock. Then it had to be quiet in the house, and Beret and Gurine, in their socks, climbed the stairs, with their washing basin full of warm water. It was Saturday evening, and they needed to wash their hair and change the bed before the weekend. Mikkel Aronsa had offered to take them to church on the trawler, and even though they were indfferent to listen to the parson, as he did not belong to their sect, it would be fun to have a trip on the sea, and to see folk. And here in the fjord, there were not too many people to stare at.

Marius lay fully clothed in his bed, listening to the sloshing of the washing water, and his earnest wish was that he could go into them when they were finished, and see them in their lightly-flowered night dresses, with their hair hanging damp down their backs.

Then came the humming of their spiritual songs. They dared not sing too loudly, for it was late and the farmer folk and aunt Kari (as they called her) were asleep.

But whether it was because it was Saturday evening, or because of their newly-washed hair and -bedclothes, they lay awake confessing their thoughts to one another, not considering that their chamber was wall to wall with the servant boy’s chamber, or that Marius, if he was lying awake, could hear every word they said.

And he did lie awake, and he had good reason to be content with what he heard! Both girls carried him in their thoughts; Gurine admitted openly that she wished he could sit with them on the edge of their bed, just like before they had repented to God. But Beret grew angry, and began to expound for Gurine about the wiles and tricks of Satan, how he would lead a person into temptation and trick them into losing their soul. Her voice was hard, and the words flooded out of her mouth so that it became difficult for Marius to separate one from another. But Gurine’s voice sounded thin and full of grief and trepidation.

“Something moved, over by the chest, Beret!”

Both girls sat up in bed and stared stiffly at the rosemalt chest under the window in the dormer. But it remained unmoving.²

It must have been the roaming livestock scraping against the wall of the house they had heard. Or perhaps it was just the fluttering of the small birds outside the window. And with their arms around each other’s necks, they lay down on the pillows and closed their eyes, ready for their night of sleep.

It scraped again, and in short jerks, Beret’s chest moved across the loft floor, towards the bed they lay in.

“It’s Satan!” screamed Beret, taking her arms from around the naked neck she lay holding, and darting beneath the reindeer skin. Gurine wanted to join her, but Beret held it down and hissed. “It’s you he wants to fetch, not me! You had ungodly thoughts of Marius tonight, not I, wishing he was in the kitchen loft with us.”

“I have not, I have not!” sobbed Gurine, and she tugged at the reindeer skin in terror, to find some shelter to crawl beneath, before it was too late and the chest reached the bed.

But Beret held on tight.

Then a more terrible thing happened; the reindeer skin, with a jerk out of their hands, flew up to the ceiling, and hung there, swinging.

Beret lay in a ring in the middle of the bed, glaring without a sound at the hovering bedspread, which Satan had riven from her hands.

But Gurine crowed a cramped sob, so that it resounded throughout the house, and Kari Aronste and the houseowners came running to discover what in all the world it might be that troubled the girls, since they behaved in such a manner in the night, scaring folk from their sleep.

But from the other side of the panelling, Marius gave up his teasing. “Don’t cry, Gurine—oh dear, blesséd thing, don’t cry! It’s not Satan who moved the reindeer skin; it was I who scared you.”

Mikkel Aronste unfastened the reindeer skin from the hooks and line it was attached to, and spread it over the girls, and Mekkel Johanna fetched the drops and Cognac, and there was peace in the house.

---

1. It rhymes in the original; perhaps one day it will rhyme in English, too. ↩

2. Rosemaling (literally “rose-painting”) is a traditional Norwegian mode of decorative interior painting. ↩