Short Fiction quotes

one was that it was the Draug itself which was steering its half-boat close beside him, and leading him to destruction; the other was that it was written in heaven that he was to sail his last course that night.

For he who sees the Draug on the sea is a doomed man.

He said nothing to the others, lest they should lose heart, but in secret he commended his soul to God.

In the days of our forefathers, when there was nothing but wretched boats up in Nordland, and folks must needs buy fair winds by the sackful from the Gan-Finn, it was not safe to tack about in the open sea in wintry weather.

In those days a fisherman never grew old.

It was mostly womenfolk and children, and the lame and halt, who were buried ashore.

“They, too, have wives and children,” thought he.

“I wonder whether they have also a Jack to lay the blame upon!”

Now while he thus lay there and drifted and drifted, and it seemed to him to be drawing towards dawn, he suddenly felt that the boat was in the grip of a strong shoreward current; and, sure enough, Jack got at last ashore.

But the man saw no ring.

“I see it there⁠—the earth draws,” he sighed heavily.

On Little Christmas Eve he was nowhere to be found, nor on the day after, though they searched for him high and low, and made inquiries about him everywhere amidst the Yuletide bustle and merriment.

Then she told him of the ring that he must fetch for her from among the skerries.

“If thou hast taken me off the keel of a boat, thou mayest cast me forth yonder again,” said the lad. “Live without thee I cannot.”

But as he laid hold of the oars in order to row out, she stepped into the boat with him and sat in the stern. Wondrous fair was she!

But when night drew nigh, and the sun began to dance out into the sea, she kissed him and shed tears.

“Beauteous is the summer day,” said she, “and still more beauteous is the summer evening; but now the dusk cometh.”

And all at once it seemed to him as if she were becoming older and older and fading right away.

Then Isaac looked straight into the parson’s face.

“The sea-boot has been heavy enough on my conscience,” said he; “and I’m sure I don’t want to be saddled with the leather jacket as well.”

“I tell you I don’t mean to cast consecrated earth to the winds,” said the parson; he was getting wroth.

He could tell exactly where the fish were to be found thick together by the sea-banks, and where they were not; and whenever they asked him about such things, he would say—

“If I don’t know it, my brother does.”

Now one day it chanced that the parson of Brönö had to go out along the coast on a pious errand, and Isaac was one of them who had to row him thither.

Row upon row of girls would be waiting for him there, and he spanked the floor with every one of them in turn, and left their gallants to cool their heels as best they might.

Cock-of-the-walk he always must be.

He would go shark-fishing too, and would venture with his fishing gaff into seas where only large vessels were wont to go.

When it began to dawn again, and the morning breeze rose up from the sea, he all at once heard something right over his head say—

“It blows away, it blows away!”

He looked up, and there he saw a big woman holding the rope away from the cliff side.

Next, the magistrates sent him a warning.

“But the right to rule lies in my rudder,” thought Bardun to himself.

Then the magistrates summoned him before the tribunal.

He never diminished his sail one bit, and worse and worse grew the storm, and higher and higher rose the sea.

For now he was steering right into the sun.

He hastened to go in that they might not see that he was weeping.

“Mother does not know how kindly the wench has meant it all,” he sobbed.

Good heavens! what if she had used butter for his boots, if she had only meant well. Never would he turn such a lass out of the house.