The Project Gutenberg EBook of Weird Tales from Northern Seas
by Jonas Lie
Translated by R. Nisbet Bain and Illustrated by Laurence Housman

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Title: Weird Tales from Northern Seas

Author: Jonas Lie
Translated by R. Nisbet Bain
Illustrated by Laurence Housman

Release Date: September 21, 2004 [EBook #13508]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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WEIRD TALES FROM NORTHERN SEAS FROM THE DANISH OF JONAS LIE

BY R. NISBET BAIN

WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS

BY LAURENCE HOUSMAN

Translation 1893

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[Illustration: _THE GAN-FINN._]

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PREFACE

Jonas Lie is sufficiently famous to need but a very few words of
introduction. Ever since 1870, when he made his reputation by his first
novel, "_Den Fremsynte_," he has been a prime favourite with the
Scandinavian public, and of late years his principal romances have gone
the round of Europe. He has written novels of all kinds, but he excels
when he describes the wild seas of Northern Norway, and the stern and
hardy race of sailors and fishers who seek their fortunes, and so often
find their graves, on those dangerous waters. Such tales, for instance,
as _"Tremasteren Fremtid," "Lodsen og hans Hustru," "Gaa Paa!"_ and
"_Den Fremsynte_" are unique of their kind, and give far truer pictures
of Norwegian life and character in the rough than anything that can be
found elsewhere in the literature. Indeed, Lie's skippers and mates are
as superior to Kjelland's, for instance, as the peasants of Jens Tvedt
(a writer, by the way, still unknown beyond his native land) are
superior to the much-vaunted peasants of Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson.

But it is when Lie tells us some of the wild legends of his native
province, Nordland, some of the grim tales on which he himself was
brought up, so to speak, that he is perhaps most vivid and enthralling.
The folk-lore of those lonely sub-arctic tracts is in keeping with the
savagery of nature. We rarely