One day, however, he was out fishing, when he remembered that he had left the key at home. He called out sorrowfully to the other men: ‘This day I shall lose my wife.’ They pulled up their lines and rowed home quickly; but when they came to the house, his wife had disappeared, and only the children were at home. That no harm might come to them when she left them, their mother had extinguished the fire on the hearth and put the knives out of sight. In the meantime, she had run down to the beach, attired herself in her seal-skin, and directed her course to the sea, where another seal, who had formerly been her lover, came at once to her side. This animal had been lying outside the village all these years waiting for her.
And now, when the children of the Mygledahl-man used to come down to the beach, they often saw a seal lift its head above the water and look towards the land. The seal was supposed to be the mother of the children.
A long time passed away, and again it chanced that the Mygledahl-man was about to hunt the seals in a big rock-hole. The night before this was to happen, the Mygledahl-man dreamed that his lost wife came to him and said that if he went seal-hunting in that cave he must take care not to kill a large seal which stood in front of the cave, because that was her mate; and the two young seals in the heart of the cave, because they were her two little sons; and she informed him of the colour of their skins. But the man took no heed of his dream, went away after the seals, and killed all he could lay hands upon. The spoil was divided when they got home, and the man received for his share the whole of the large male seal and the hands and feet of the two young seals.
That same evening, they had cooked the head and paws of the large seal for supper, and the meat was put up in a trough, when a loud crash was heard in the kitchen. The man returned thither and saw a frightful witch, who sniffed at the trough, and cried: ‘Here lies the head, with the upstanding nose of a man, the hand of Haarek, and the foot of Frederick. Revenged they are, and revenged they shall be on the men of Mygledahl, some of whom shall perish by sea, and others fall down from the rocks, until the number of the slain shall be so great that by holding each other’s hands they may gird all Kalsoe.’ When she had uttered this communication, the witch vanished from the room and was seen no more.
Many Mygledahl-men soon afterwards came to a violent end. Some were drowned in the sea by Kalsoe while fishing; others fell from the rocks while catching the seafowl: so that the witch’s curse might be said to have taken partial effect. The number of the dead, however, is not yet so large that they can encircle the whole of the island hand in hand.[2]
II. HOW TO BECOME RICH.
If you would be rich, you must go out on Twelfth-night to a cross-road where five ways meet, one of which leads to a church; and you must take with you in your hands a gray calfskin and an axe. When you reach the cross-road, you must sit down on the calfskin, the tail of which must be extended in the direction of the road which leads to the churchyard. Then you must look fixedly at the axe, which must be made as sharp as possible. Towards midnight, the goblins will come in multitudes and put gold in great heaps round you, to try and make you look up, and they will chatter, grimace, and grin at you. But when at length they have failed in causing you to look aside, they will begin to take hold of the tail of the calfskin and drag it away, with you upon it. Then you will be fortunate if you can succeed in cutting off the tail with the axe without looking about you and without damaging the axe. If you succeed, the goblins will vanish, and all the gold will remain by you. Otherwise, if you look about you or damage the axe, it will be all up with you.
III. THE LUCKY-STONE.
The ‘lucky-stone’ is a good thing to possess, because the man who has it is always fortunate and victorious in every struggle; nor can any man or evil spirit harm him. Success follows him wherever he goes; everything happens according to his wishes; he is every one’s favourite. It is not wonderful, therefore, that men are eager to bargain for a stone that can work so much good for its owner. Unfortunately, however, no man knows where to find it; only the raven knows this; and now you shall hear how the raven may be induced to discover it. It is a common saying that this bird mates in February, lays its eggs in March, and hatches its young in April. Now, when the raven has laid its eggs, the man who determines to have the lucky-stone must climb the rock wherein the raven has its nest. There he must sit still without letting the raven see him, until the bird flies away from its nest. Immediately afterwards the man must hasten to the nest, take the eggs therefrom, go away and boil them hard, and then lay them in the nest again, so that the raven when it comes back may not notice anything amiss. The bird then resumes its attempt to hatch the eggs. When, however, it has sat past the ordinary hatching-time without young ones coming out of the eggs, it gets impatient and tired of sitting any longer. Away it flies after the lucky-stone, to place this in the nest between the eggs, so that by its help the young may get out of the shell; and, in readiness for its return, the man must station himself by the nest and shoot the bird when it reappears. Then he may take the lucky-stone out of the raven’s beak and go home with it.[3]