Those who submitted to him, and did as he would have them do, increased and prospered, and saw good days; but all who stood in his way were wrecked on the sea and perished, for the Wind-Gnome was on his side.

So things quickly went from good to better with him.  What was to him a fair wind was the ruin of all those who were in any way opposed to him.  At last he became so rich and mighty that he owned every blessed trading-place and fishing-station in all Finmark, and sent vessels even as far as Spitzbergen.

Nobody durst sell fish up north without his leave, and his sloops sailed over to Bergen eighteen at a time.

He ruled and gave judgment as it seemed best to him.

But the magistrates thought that such authority was too much for one man to have, and they began to make inquiries, and receive complaints of how he domineered the people.

Next, the magistrates sent him a warning.

“But the right to rule lies in my rudder,” thought Bardun to himself.

Then the magistrates summoned him before the tribunal.

Bardun simply whistled contemptuously.

At last matters came to such a pitch that the magistrates sailed forth to seize him in the midst of a howling tempest, and down they went in the Finmark seas.

Then Bardun was made chief magistrate, till such time as the king should send up another.

But the new man who came had not been very long in office there before it seemed to him as if it was not he but Bardun who held sway.

So the same thing happened over again.

Bardun was summoned in vain before the courts, and the magistrates came forth to seize him and perished at sea.

But when the next governor was sent up to Finmark, it was only the keel of the king’s ship that came drifting in from the sea.  At last nobody would venture thither to certain ruin, and Bardun was left alone, and ruled over all.  Then so mighty was he in all Finmark that he reigned there like the king himself.

Now he had but one child, and that a daughter.

Boel was her name, and she shot up so handsome and comely that her beauty shone like the sun.  No bridegroom was good enough for her, unless, perhaps, it were the king’s son.

Wooers came from afar, and came in vain.  She was to have a dower, they said, such as no girl in the North had ever had before.

One year quite a young officer came up thither with a letter from the king.  His garments were stiff with gold, and shone and sparkled wherever he went.  Bardun received him well, and helped him to carry out the king’s commands.

But since the day when he himself was young, and got the answer, “Yes!” from his bride, he had never been so happy as when Boel came to him one day and said that the young officer had wooed her, and she would throw herself into the sea straightway if she couldn’t have him.

In this way, he argued, his race would always sit in the seat of authority, and hold sway when he was gone.