A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden / 2nd edition

by William A. Ross

"Mad!—why mad?" repeated R——.

"The pilot says, my Lord, that she is so, and looking for her husband," the cockswain answered.

"Where's her husband? Is he drowned, eh?" continued R——.

"No, my Lord," the sailor said, twitching up his trowsers, and walking aft towards the quarter-deck; "her husband was a fisherman, and lived hard by, my Lord,—up there. About fifteen years ago the man was bathing hereabouts, and he was eaten up by mackerel; but the old woman thinks, my Lord, he has only dived, and soon will rise again."

And so indeed the legend goes. One morning, fifteen summers past, the poor fisherman plunged into the element, that had been his sole sustaining friend from youth, to bathe, and before scarce fifteen minutes had elapsed, surrounded by a shoal of mackerel, and in sight of home and her who made it home, was devoured by these ravenous fish. When he raised his arms from out the water to show the dreadful fate that threatened him, and to rouse the alarm of his unconscious wife, a hundred mackerel hung, like plummets, from the flesh. The fisherman sank, and was never seen or heard of more. From that morning until to-day his widow, having lost her reason, ever rows her husband's pram about the spot where he perished, in the full persuasion, which she certifies in her song, that he has gone to seek a sunken net, and in a little while will emerge again; and, so, she prays the crew of every vessel sailing by to stay and see the truth of what she speaks.

We arrived at Sand the same afternoon, and after ransacking the little place from house to house, found the proprietor of the salmon river there. With the good nature and extreme courtesy of his countrymen, the Norwegian gave assent that we might angle, and not only favoured my two indefatigable friends with a prolonged dissertation on the peculiarities of the Sand salmon, but offered to undertake any duty that might lessen the difficulties and increase the chances of taking a few of these extraordinary fish.

It seems that the time when a salmon has been caught with a fly in the Sand river is completely beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant of the village; nor is the task less difficult to snare this crafty species in a net. On our arrival on the banks, or more properly rocks, of the river, the salmon were thrusting their heads, like the bubbles of a boiling pot, above the water; and leaping from one ledge of rock to a higher, they were striving to make their way, in battalions, up a foss, that was of no great height, but poured down its waters in a compact flood with the din of a larger cataract. Persuaded as we had been of the improbability that success would attend our sport, our spirits became more buoyant as our attendant, by his despairing tone, made our prosperity less likely.

All the most famous fishermen have visited this little river of Sand, and after adopting every mode, all of them have failed to take the fish. Although the salmon float within sight and reach in the most transparent stream, they will not touch the fly, be it thrown even on their noses. The only reason that can be given for this notorious fact is, that the salmon, when they leave the sea, are generally gorged, and do not desire, or seek for food until they have travelled some distance up the rivers; for it is equally well ascertained that the farther the first foss is removed from the mouth of a salmon river, the more voracious are the fish. Now, the foss, or fall of the Sand river, is scarcely five hundred feet from the shore of the Fiord, and the water is salt, or, at least, brackish; and salmon are not caught in salt water.

It was certainly most annoying to my two companions, to see thousands of the finest fish gamboling in the crystal water, not far from their feet, and to throw their flies with the accumulated nicety of four Waltons, absolutely in the teeth of these obstinate creatures, without the semblance of success. I, myself, took R——'s rod, which with weariness of hope he had laid on the ground, and seeing a splendid salmon two feet below the surface of the stream, moving his fins slowly to resist the current and remain stationary, I placed the fly above his head, allowing the bait to sink gradually till it touched the top of his snout. The fish did not, verily, alter the motion of its fins, either more slothfully or quicker; but with perfect indifference permitted me to keep the fly dangling before its eyes as long as I pleased.

To fish, therefore, at Sand was an absurdity; but having heard that the Fiord abounded with seals, and wild fowl of every denomination, we hoisted a square sail on the gig, and turned privateers.