The Jonas Lie MEGAPACK ® - Jonas Lie

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the same time, and then a fellow would have a chance of steering a boat smartly.

      He thought of this day and night. The only relaxation he had was a chat with the Finn girl of an evening.

      He couldn’t help remarking that this Seimke had fallen in love with him. She strolled after him wherever he went, and her eyes always became so mournful when he went down towards the sea; she understood well enough that all his thoughts were bent upon going away.

      And the Finn sat and mumbled among the ashes till his fur jacket regularly steamed and smoked.

      But Seimke coaxed and wheedled Jack with her brown eyes, and gave him honeyed words as fast as her tongue could wag, till she drew him right into the smoke where the old Finn couldn’t hear them.

      The Gan-Finn turned his head right round.

      “My eyes are stupid, and the smoke makes ’em run,” said he; “what has Jack got hold of there?”

      “Say it is the white ptarmigan you caught in the snare,” whispered she.

      And Jack felt that she was huddling up against him and trembling all over.

      Then Jack felt that his boat might be the undoing of him. But the worse things looked, the more he tried to make the best of them.

      In the grey dawn, before the Finn was up, he made his way towards the sea-shore.

      But there was something very odd about the snow-hills. They were so many and so long that there was really no end to them, and he kept on trampling in deep and deeper snow and never got to the sea-shore at all. Never before had he seen the northern lights last so long into the day. They blazed and sparkled, and long tongues of fire licked and hissed after him. He was unable to find either the beach or the boat, nor had he the least idea in the world where he really was.

      At last he discovered that he had gone quite astray inland instead of down to the sea. But now, when he turned round, the sea-fog came close up against him, so dense and grey that he could see neither hand nor foot before him.

      By the evening he was well-nigh worn out with weariness, and was at his wits’ end what to do.

      Night fell, and the snowdrifts increased.

      As now he sat him down on a stone and fell a brooding and pondering how he should escape with his life, a pair of snow-shoes came gliding so smoothly towards him out of the sea-fog and stood still just in front of his feet.

      “As you have found me, you may as well find the way back also,” said he.

      So he put them on, and let the snow-shoes go their own way over hillside and steep cliff. He let not his own eyes guide him or his own feet carry him, and the swifter he went the denser the snowflakes and the driving sea-spray came up against him, and the blast very nearly blew him off the snow-shoes.

      Up hill and down dale he went over all the places where he had fared during the daytime, and it sometimes seemed as if he had nothing solid beneath him at all, but was flying in the air.

      Suddenly the snow-shoes stood stock still, and he was standing just outside the entrance of the Gan-Finn’s hut.

      There stood Seimke. She was looking for him.

      “I sent my snow-shoes after thee,” said she, “for I marked that the Finn had bewitched the land so that thou should’st not find the boat. Thy life is safe, for he has given thee shelter in his house, but it were not well for thee to see him this evening.”

      Then she smuggled him in, so that the Finn did not perceive it in the thick smoke, and she gave him meat and a place to rest upon.

      But when he awoke in the night, he heard an odd sound, and there was a buzzing and a singing far away in the air:

      “The Finn the boat can never bind,

      The Fly the boatman cannot find,

      But round in aimless whirls doth wind.”

      The Finn was sitting among the ashes and jöjking, and muttering till the ground quite shook, while Seimke lay with her forehead to the floor and her hands clasped tightly round the back of her neck, praying against him to the Finn God. Then Jack understood that the Gan-Finn was still seeking after him amidst the snowflakes and sea-fog, and that his life was in danger from magic spells.

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

      The Finn sat there with his skin-wrappings as full of yellow flies as a beehive. He had sent them out searching in every direction, but back they had all come, and were humming and buzzing about him.

      But the same day the Finn stood in the doorway, and was busy making magic signs and strange strokes in the air.

      Then he sent forth two hideous Gan-flies, which flitted off on their errands, and scorched black patches beneath them in the snow wherever they went. They were to bring pain and sickness to a cottage down in the swamps, and spread abroad the Finn disease, which was to strike down a young bride at Bodö with consumption.

      But Jack thought of nothing else night and day but how he could get the better of the Gan-Finn.

      The lass Seimke wheedled him and wept and begged him, as he valued his life, not to try to get down to his boat again. At last, however, she saw it was no use—he had made up his mind to be off.

      On the day of his departure, the Finn went all round his hut with a torch and took stock.

      Far away as they were, there stood the mountain pastures, with the reindeer and the dogs, and the Finn’s people all drew near. The Finn took the tale of the beasts, and bade his grandsons not let the reindeer stray too far while he was away, and could not guard them from wolves and bears. Then he took a sleeping potion and began to dance and turn round and round till his breath quite failed him, and he sank moaning to the ground. His furs were all that remained behind of him. His spirit had gone—gone all the way over to Jokmok.

      There the magicians were all sitting together in the dark sea-fog beneath the shelter of the high mountain, and whispering about all manner of secret and hidden things, and blowing spirits into the novices of the black art.

      But the Gan-flies, humming and buzzing, went round and round the empty furs of the Gan-Finn like a yellow ring and kept watch.

      In the night Jack was awakened by something pulling and tugging at him as if from far away. There was as it were a current of air, and something threatened and called to him from the midst of the snowflakes outside—

      “Until thou canst swim like the duck or the drake,