Psalms were sung and some tears shed, but only by a few old people; otherwise everything was most amusing. There was plenty of food and drink; lovely fat eels were fried every day, and properly “buried” in schnapps as the eelman had said they should be. Here indeed his advice was followed.
Jurgen was inside, Jurgen was outside, Jurgen was everywhere. By the third day he felt as at home here on the heath as on the dunes by the sea. The heath was richer. Among the heather grew crowberries and blueberries, big and sweet to eat. Jurgen’s feet were blue from their juice.
Viking graves were spread out over the heath, little hills with big stones on top of them. And columns of smoke danced in the air. They came from fires on the heather; during the night you could see their red glow.
On the fourth day the funeral feast was over and they had to leave the inland dunes for the dunes by the sea.
“Ours are the real dunes,” declared Jurgen’s foster father. “These serve no purpose.”
And they talked about how it had happened that there were dunes here, so far inland. The explanation was very logical. Long, long ago down on the beach a body had been found; the fishermen had carried it up to the churchyard and given it a Christian burial. But that very day the wind began to blow and the sand to drift in clouds inland, the sea thundered against the dunes, there was a storm. One man in the district, who was wiser than the rest, suggested that they open the grave to see whether the man they had buried was sucking his thumb, for, if he was, then he was not a human being but a merman, and a merman belonged to the sea and it would try to get him back! The grave was opened and there the buried man lay sucking his thumb. Quickly he was put on an oxcart and driven across the moors as fast as if the oxen had been stung by gadflies. He was thrown into the sea and then the storm was over. But the inland dunes are still there. All this Jurgen heard and later remembered from the happiest days of his childhood, the four days when he had attended a funeral.
It had been lovely to see a different countryside and meet new people. But he was to travel much farther than that. He was not yet fourteen, still a child, when he persuaded his foster parents to let him go to sea. He was to discover what the world is like, try its storms and rough weather, and learn what it means to be everyone’s servant and have to bend to the will of brutal and evil men. He was a cabin boy! Half starved, beaten, and mistreated. His noble Spanish blood rebelled; inside he boiled with rage; hard words and curses came to his lips but not across them. He was like the eel: flayed, cut to pieces, and put in the frying pan.
“I will come back,” a voice said within him. The ship sailed for Spain, the country of his parents, and he was even to see the town where they had lived in wealth and bliss. But he knew nothing about them, and his rich family knew even less about him.
The wretched cabin boy was not even allowed to go ashore except on the last day they lay in the harbor, and that was only because he was needed to carry food and vegetables from the market place to the ship.
There stood Jurgen, dressed in rags that looked as if they had been washed in a ditch and dried in a chimney. This was the first time that the boy from the dunes had seen a real city. How tall the houses were, how narrow the streets, and so filled with people. Everyone pushed and shoved. It was a maelstrom of human beings. There were peasants, monks, soldiers, and just ordinary citizens of the town, and how noisy it was! People screamed and shouted; bells rang—not only in the churches but on the harnesses of the donkeys and mules as well. Someone was singing and someone else was hammering, for the artisans used the sidewalks as their working place. It was terribly hot and the air was heavy. Jurgen felt as though he had been put right into a baker’s oven, and one filled with insects, at that. Flies and bees and dung beetles flew everywhere.
Jurgen had no idea where he was or in which direction he was walking. He looked up. He was standing before a cathedral. He could see into the cool, dark interior, and he smelled the odor of incense. Even the poorest beggars seemed to dare walk in there. The sailor who had taken Jurgen along as a donkey, to carry what was bought, was making his way into the cathedral. Jurgen entered the holy place; he stared at the colorful paintings on the golden background. On an altar, among flowers and candles, stood a statue of the Virgin with the little child Jesus in her arms. The priests, wearing their ceremonial clothes, sang mass, and choir boys in long robes swung silver censers. The glory, the magnificence of what he saw overwhelmed Jurgen; the church, the faith of his parents, touched a chord within his soul and his eyes filled with tears.
From the cathedral they went on to the market place and he was given some baskets of vegetables to take back to the ship. They were heavy and the road back was long; on the way he rested outside a palace, with marble pillars, broad staircases, and statues. He leaned his burdens against its wall, but a uniformed lackey threatened him with a silver-tipped cane. Jurgen got up and went on—he who was the heir, the grandchild of the house; but neither Jurgen nor the servant knew that.
He returned to the ship, there to receive more beatings, more hard words and curses, and too little sleep and too much work. But then he had tried that, too. It is said that it is good for one to suffer in one’s youth. This may be, but only if manhood and old age have better things to offer.
The voyage was over, the ship was back in Denmark, lying in Ringkøbing Harbor. Jurgen packed his clothes and walked back to his home on the dunes. His foster mother had died while he was away.
A hard and cruel winter followed. Snowstorms raged across the land. One could hardly stand upright outside. How strangely the rain, wind, and sun are distributed in this world. Such icy coldness here in the north, and in Spain too much of the burning sunshine. Yet on a clear frosty winter day, when Jurgen saw flocks of swans fly across Nissum Fjord toward Norre Vosborg, he felt that here one breathed more freely; and after all, summer did come here too. He remembered how the landscape had looked when the heather bloomed and the blueberries were ripe; he recalled the time he had seen the tall linden trees and the flowering elderberry at Norre Vosborg. And he thought, “Next summer I will go there again.”
Spring came and the fishing began. Jurgen helped his foster father. The boy had grown a lot during the last year. He did his work well, he was a lively lad, and he could swim better than anyone else. Often when he played in the sea the older men would warn him to be careful of the mackerel, for it was said that if a swimmer met a school of mackerel they would drag him down into the water, drown him, and eat him. But that was not to be Jurgen’s fate.
In a neighboring house on the dunes lived a boy named Morton. He and Jurgen had become friends. They hired themselves out on the same ship; both of them sailed to Norway, and afterward for a voyage to Holland as well. Never had a hard word passed between them, but troubles can arise even between the best of friends, especially if one of them has a temper. It is easy to make a gesture one does not mean, and that is what Jurgen did one day. The two of them had got into an argument while they sat on the cabin roof eating out of the same earthenware dish. Jurgen had an open jackknife in his hand that he had been using to eat with; now he lifted it as if he were going to attack his friend. Jurgen’s face was pale as death and there was fury in his eyes.
“Oh, are you one of those who will use a knife,” was all Morton said.
No sooner were the words spoken than Jurgen lowered his hand with the knife in it. He ate his food in silence, then he went back to his work. When his duties were over he walked up to Morton and said, “Hit me in the face! I deserve it! I have a pot inside me that sometimes boils over.”
“Forget it,” said Morton, and after that they were better friends than they had been before. Yes, when they returned to Jutland and told about all that had happened to them, they even mentioned this incident. “Jurgen can boil over,” said Morton, “but he is a good and honest pot anyway.”
They were both young and strong, but Jurgen was the more agile of the two.
In Norway the farmers, in summer, take thei
r cattle up into the mountains, and young boys and girls, who tend the animals for their parents, live up there in little houses. On the west coast of Jutland the fishermen, in early spring, also live in huts. By the sea, they construct tiny hovels out of driftwood, peat, and heather and stay in them during the weeks when the fishing is best. Each of the men has what is called a “bait girl”; her job is to put the bait on the hooks, make food, and bring a mug of warm beer down to the beach when the men return, wet and cold, from fishing. Since they also carried the catch up to the huts and cleaned the fish, the “bait girls” had lots of work to do.
Jurgen, his father, and a couple of other fishermen and their bait girls lived in one hut; Morton slept in another nearby.
Among the girls there was one called Else, whom Jurgen had known from early childhood. They were good friends and had the same opinions about many things, but in appearance they were opposites. He was brown-skinned, and she was white, had yellow hair, and eyes as blue as the sea in summer.
One day as they were walking along the beach, hand in hand, she said to him, “Jurgen, there is something I want to tell you. Let me be your bait girl, for you are like a brother to me. Morton and I are sweethearts but don’t tell anyone else about it.”
To Jurgen it felt as if the sand were moving beneath his feet, but he said not a word. Finally he nodded, which was the same as saying yes—no more needed to be said.
Suddenly he hated Morton; and the longer he thought and brooded over it, the more certain he felt that Morton had stolen Else away from him, though, in truth, before she told him that she loved Morton, he had never thought that he was in love with her. But now he was convinced that he had lost what was dearest to him: Else.
If the weather is rough when the fishermen return, it is exciting to see the boats pass the sandbanks. One of the men stands in the bow of the ship, while the others all sit with their oars in hand, prepared to row. Just before they reach the first sandbank, they hold the boat still in the water. The man facing the sea is waiting for the biggest wave; when he sees it, he gives a sign, and the rest of the men row with all their might, and the boat rides the wave across the sandbank. Sometimes the wave lifts the boat so high that you can see the keel. Once across, the boat slips down and is hidden by the great wave so completely that an onlooker might fear that it was lost. A moment later, like a sea monster, it climbs a new wave, the oars moving as if they were weird, thin little legs. The other two sandbanks are crossed in the same manner. At last, as the keel touches the sand of the beach the fishermen leap out of the boat and push it, with the help of the waves, as far up on shore as they can.
A wrong judgment, a moment’s hesitation, and the boat does not ride across the bar but is thrown by the wave down upon it, instead; and then all is lost.
“Then everything would be over for me and for Morton as well,” thought Jurgen. They were returning from fishing. His foster father was sick, he was running a fever. Just as they drew near the first of the three sandbanks that they had to cross, Jurgen jumped into the bow of the ship and said, “Let me get us across!” He looked out over the sea and cast a glance, too, at Morton’s face; his friend sat at his oar with the other men, ready to row as hard as he could when Jurgen gave the order.
A big wave was on its way. Jurgen looked at his foster father’s white suffering face and gave the order just at the right moment, and the boat shot over the sandbank and was safe. But the evil thought he had had remained in his mind and poisoned his blood. Every little thread of bitterness that he could recall from the very beginning of their friendship he saved, but there were not enough of them to twine a rope, so he tried to forget about it. But that Morton had “spoiled his life” he was convinced, and that was enough reason for hating him. A few of the other fishermen noticed Jurgen’s ill will, but Morton didn’t, he was as usual, very helpful and very talkative—annoyingly so.
Jurgens’ foster father was put to bed, and a week later it became his deathbed. Jurgen inherited the cottage on the dunes; it was not much, but still it was something and, at least, more than Morton owned.
“Now you won’t have to hire yourself out to strangers but can stay here with us,” said one of the older fishermen.
Jurgen had not even thought about that possibility; he had been thinking about seeing a little more of the world. The eel catcher had an uncle up in the north of Jutland. He was not only a fisherman but a merchant and owned a small schooner. Everyone said that he was such a good and honest old man that it was a pleasure to be in his service. That Skagen was as far away from his home as it is possible to get and still stay in Jutland, did not make it less attractive to Jurgen. He wanted to leave right away, for in two weeks Morton and Else were to be married.
One of the older fishermen tried to stop Jurgen. “Why go away now, when you have a house of your own? After all, that might make Else change her mind.”
Jurgen did not answer; he merely mumbled something that could not be understood. To his surprise, later that day the old man came to his home. Else was with him. She said little, but what she said could not be misunderstood.
“You have a house, and that must be reckoned!”
“Now or on the Day of Reckoning?” Jurgen exclaimed.
Great waves rise and break on the ocean, but sometimes even greater waves exist within the human heart. Many thoughts passed through Jurgen’s mind and, like the waves on the ocean, some were big and some were small. At last he asked Else, “If Morton had a house as good as mine, whom would you marry then?”
“Morton will never get a house of his own,” she replied.
“But imagine that he has,” insisted Jurgen.
“Then I would take Morton, for it is he I love. But you can’t live on love.”
Jurgen thought about it the whole night. Something within him—he did not know himself what it was, only that it was stronger than his love and desire for Else—made him go to Morton the next day. He had carefully thought out every word he was going to say; he offered his friend the house at the lowest possible price, and on the very best and easiest conditions. He explained that he preferred to see a bit of the world. Else kissed Jurgen on the mouth when she heard it, although that was not because she loved him but because she loved Morton.
Jurgen had decided to leave early the next morning. Late in the evening, he suddenly felt a desire to see Morton once more. On his way he met the old fisherman who had warned him against leaving. “Morton must have a duckbill sewn in his pants, the way the girls are crazy about him,” he said. That kind of talk did not please Jurgen; he bade the old man good night. As he approached the house where Morton lived he could hear loud voices coming from inside. Morton was not alone. Jurgen could not make up his mind what to do; he did not want to meet Else, and the more he thought about it the less he desired to have Morton thank him once more for what he had done, so he turned around and walked home.
The next morning before sunrise he made a bundle of his belongings, packed some food, and he was ready. He walked along the beach; that was faster than the sandy roads, and shorter, too, for he wanted to visit the eel catcher who lived near Bovbjerg on his way.
There was no wind, the ocean was deep blue and completely still. Spread out on the damp sand were shells: the toys of his childhood. As he walked he heard them crack and crumble under his feet. Suddenly his nose began to bleed. It wasn’t anything really, but such things can become important. A couple of drops of blood fell on his sleeve. He washed it off and managed to stop his nosebleed. Later he felt that the slight loss of blood had done him good, he felt happy and lighthearted. A solitary flower bloomed on the beach. He picked it and stuck it in his hat. Free and easy, he would face the world. “I am just going outside the door,” he said to himself, remembering the story of the eels. “Beware of the wicked eel catcher, who will flay you and cut you to pieces and fry you,” he repeated, and laughed out loud. He felt confident that he would get through his life with his skin on his back, for courage is a good weapon
.
The sun was already high in the sky when he came to the narrow channel that connects Nissum Fjord with the sea. Far behind him he saw some men on horseback. They were riding fast, but Jurgen did not give them a thought—they did not concern him.
He had reached the place on the shore of the fjord where there was a ferryman who rowed travelers to the other side. Jurgen waved his arm and called, and a few moments later he was on board the little boat. When they reached the middle of the narrow channel the riders had arrived at the landing. They shouted and screamed and shook their fists. Jurgen could not understand what they wanted, but he did hear them shout: “In the name of the law!” He told the ferryman to turn back, and he himself took one of the oars. No sooner had they touched the shore than the men jumped into the boat, grabbed Jurgen, and tied his hands behind him.
“You are going to pay with your life for the evil deed you have done!” they shouted, and congratulated each other on having caught Jurgen.
What he was accused of was nothing less than murder! Morton had been found with a knife wound in his neck. The old fisherman had told of his meeting with Jurgen late the night before, and the story of how he had threatened Morton once before with a knife everyone knew—he had told it himself. No, there was no doubt in the minds of the people who had captured him: Jurgen was the murderer. But now that they had caught him they were in doubt as to what to do with him. They ought to take him to the jail in Ringkøbing but that was far away. They borrowed the ferryman’s boat and rowed across the fjord; the wind was against them and it took them half an hour to reach the point where Skaerum Stream runs into the fjord. From there it was no distance to Norre Vosborg—the castle with its moat and defenses—where one of the men had a brother who worked as an overseer. He suggested that they might get permission to put Jurgen in the dungeon until the young man could be taken to Ringkøbing. It was the same dungeon that the gypsy, Tall Margrethe, had been locked up in before she was executed.
The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories Page 76