as awakened by something pulling and tugging at him
as if from far away. There was as it were a current of air, and
something threatened and called to him from the midst of the snowflakes
outside--

"Until thou canst swim like the duck or the drake,
The egg[8] thou'dst be hatching no progress shall make;
The Finn shall ne'er let thee go southwards with sail,
For he'll screw off the wind and imprison the gale."

At the end of it the Gan-Finn was standing there, and bending right over
him. The skin of his face hung down long and loose, and full of
wrinkles, like an old reindeer skin, and there was a dizzying smoke in
his eyes. Then Jack began to shiver and stiffen in all his limbs, and he
knew that the Finn was bent upon bewitching him.

Then he set his face rigidly against it, so that the magic spells should
not get at him; and thus they struggled with one another till the
Gan-Finn grew green in the face, and was very near choking.

After that the sorcerers of Jokmok sent magic shots after Jack, and
clouded his wits. He felt so odd; and whenever he was busy with his
boat, and had put something to rights in it, something else would
immediately go wrong, till at last he felt as if his head were full of
pins and needles.

Then deep sorrow fell upon him. Try as he would, he couldn't put his
boat together as he would have it; and it looked very much as if he
would never be able to cross the sea again.

But in the summer time Jack and Seimke sat together on the headland in
the warm evenings, and the gnats buzzed and the fishes spouted close
ashore in the stillness, and the eider-duck swam about.

"If only some one would build me a boat as swift and nimble as a fish,
and able to ride upon the billows like a sea-mew!" sighed and lamented
Jack, "then I could be off."

"Would you like me to guide you to Thjoettoe?" said a voice up from the
sea-shore.

There stood a fellow in a flat turned-down skin cap, whose face they
couldn't see.

And right outside the boulders there, just where they had seen the
eider-duck, lay a long and narrow boat, with high prow and stern; and
the tar-boards were mirrored plainly in the clear water below; there was
not so much as a single knot in the wood.

"I would be thankful for any such guidance," said Jack.

When Seimke heard this, she began to cry and take on terribly. She fell
upon his neck, and wouldn't let go, and raved and shrieked. She promised
him her snow-sh