The Fisher Girl

Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/fishergirl00bjgoog
Encouraged by the general appreciation with which our former translation Ovind was received last winter, we now offer to the English reader what we believe to be a faithful re-production of Herr Björnson's latest work. The poems are rendered in the metre of the original, and as in Ovind we have taken the liberty of adding headings to the chapters.
North Ormesby,
Middlesbrough,
December, 1870.
When the herring has for a long time frequented a coast, by degrees, if other circumstances admit of it, there springs up a town. Not only of such towns may it be said, that they are cast up out of the sea, but from a distance they look like washed-up timber and wrecks, or like a mass of upturned boats that the fishermen have drawn over for shelter some stormy night; as one draws nearer, one sees how accidentally the whole has been built, mountains rising in the midst of the thoroughfare, or the hamlet separated by water into three, four divisions, while the streets crook and crawl. One condition only is common to them all, there is safety in the harbour for the largest ship; there is shelter and calm, and the ships find these enclosures grateful, when with torn sails and broken bulwarks, they come driving in from the North Sea to seek for breathing space.
Such a little town is quiet; all the noise there is, is directed to the quay, where the boats of the peasants are moored, and the ships are loading and unloading. The only street in our little town lies along the quay, the white and red painted, one and two-storied houses follow this, yet not house to house, but with pretty gardens in between; consequently it is a long broad street, which, when the wind is landward, smells of that which is on the quay.
It is quiet here,--not from fear of the police, for, as a rule, there is none,--but from fear of report, as everybody knows everybody. If you go along the street, you must bow at every window, for there sits an old lady ready to bow again. Besides you must bow to those you meet, for all these quiet people are thinking what is becoming to the inhabitants in general, and to themselves in particular. He who oversteps the bounds where his standing or position is placed, loses his good reputation; for you know not only him, but his father and grandfather and you seek out where there has been a tendency in the family before to that which is unbecoming.