VI. THE MAN AND THE BROWNIES.
The village of Gaasedahl, in Waagoe, has no level beach, but is almost fifteen fathoms straight up from the sea, so that boats could not very well be kept there. Moreover, the inhabitants are too few to man a large boat for sea-fishing. They have, therefore, their boat jointly with the neighbouring village of Boe, with the men whereof they associate in fishing. One night a man from Gaasedahl went by appointment east to Akranes, where the men from Boe wanted to take him in the boat to row with them to the fishing. When he had come to Skardsaa, he observed a boat which lay by the land in the appointed place; and, fearful lest he should delay the others, he hurried down to it. He saw that there were seven in the boat, and that a place was vacant by one of the thwarts. He believed, therefore, that all was as it should be, although he could not recognise any of the men, because of the darkness. Then he jumped briskly into the boat and sat down by his oar; but, to his great terror, he now perceived that he knew none of the men, and he did not fail to understand that he had got among the brownie folk. Still, he would not let them see that he was afraid, but sat down to row as capably as the others. They steered north of Waagoe towards Ravnemulen, a fishing-place to which the men of Waagoe are accustomed to row.
The elves now began to put bait on their hooks and to cast out; but the Gaasedahl-man sat still because he had only a line with him; his hooks were in Boe. Then the leader of the elves gave him both hooks and bait, with which he made a cast, and immediately caught a big cod. When he had pulled up the fish and killed it, the leader took and marked it, and in the same way he marked every other fish caught by the man. They fished until the boat was full, then rowed home, and touched the land by Akranes, where the Gaasedahl-man had come to them. The brownies threw on shore to him all the fish he had caught. When he was going away, the Gaasedahl-man remembered that he had left his knife behind him in the boat, and said to the brownies that ‘the sharp thing by his thigh’ was left in the boat. The brownie thereupon took the knife and threw it at him to hurt him, but it did not hit him. Then he said: ‘You were a doomed man; but you are a lucky man;’ and the other brownies then rowed off, abusing him because he would not thank them for the use of the boat.[5]