So he dressed himself before it was light, went out, and came tramping in again all covered with snow, and said he had been after bears in their winter retreats.  But never had he been in such a sea-fog before; he had groped about far and wide before he found his way back into the hut again, though he stood just outside it.

The Finn sat there with his skin-wrappings as full of yellow flies as a beehive.  He had sent them out searching in every direction, but back they had all come, and were humming and buzzing about him.

When he saw Jack in the doorway, and perceived that the flies had pointed truly, he grew somewhat milder, and laughed till he regularly shook within his skin-wrappings, and mumbled, “The bear we’ll bind fast beneath the scullery-sink, and his eyes I’ve turned all awry,[5] so that he can’t see his boat,[6] and I’ll stick a sleeping-peg in front of him till springtime.”

But the same day the Finn stood in the doorway, and was busy making magic signs and strange strokes in the air.

Then he sent forth two hideous Gan-flies, which flitted off on their errands, and scorched black patches beneath them in the snow wherever they went.  They were to bring pain and sickness to a cottage down in the swamps, and spread abroad the Finn disease, which was to strike down a young bride at Bodoe with consumption.

But Jack thought of nothing else night and day but how he could get the better of the Gan-Finn.

The lass Seimke wheedled him and wept and begged him, as he valued his life, not to try to get down to his boat again.  At last, however, she saw it was no use—­he had made up his mind to be off.

Then she kissed his hands and wept bitterly.  At least he must promise to wait till the Gan-Finn had gone right away to Jokmok[7] in Sweden.

On the day of his departure, the Finn went all round his hut with a torch and took stock.

Far away as they were, there stood the mountain pastures, with the reindeer and the dogs, and the Finn’s people all drew near.  The Finn took the tale of the beasts, and bade his grandsons not let the reindeer stray too far while he was away, and could not guard them from wolves and bears.  Then he took a sleeping potion and began to dance and turn round and round till his breath quite failed him, and he sank moaning to the ground.  His furs were all that remained behind of him.  His spirit had gone—­gone all the way over to Jokmok.

There the magicians were all sitting together in the dark sea-fog beneath the shelter of the high mountain, and whispering about all manner of secret and hidden things, and blowing spirits into the novices of the black art.

But the Gan-flies, humming and buzzing, went round and round the empty furs of the Gan-Finn like a yellow ring and kept watch.

In the night Jack was 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—­