The Visionary: Pictures From Nordland

in one of those small vessels which are sent from that city to Lofoten, to trade during the fishing season. In his youth he had gone through a great deal, and had

rn, and not very accessible; it was said, too, that he was rather a hard man-for which the severe school of life through which he had passed was perhaps to blame. If this manner, on the one hand, made him few friends, on the other,

y mind just such a picture of my poor unhappy mother. I know her better from that than from all I have heard about her since; from what I have been

t a subordinate in Erlandsen's service, and it was said that it was the old man

sed by them, knitting. Outside the fence lay a half-bare rocky hill, behind which my mother had a bench. Above this on a stony heap grew raspberry

ady, who seemed older than mother, dressed in black, with a stand-up, white, frilled collar;

if she were a stranger. Then she nodded sadly to me

nd, strange lady had been there, but she must

ite as a sheet, looking at me with anguish in her eyes, as if we were both going

e she lay stretched insensible on the grass by the ben

tood in his shirt-sleeves over in the meadow, mowing wit

own room, and my father must have had many a sad hour. Afterwards she was taken to a lunatic asylum

a rule a short, black clay pipe in her mouth. She had been my mother's nurse, and was attached to her with her whole soul. When my mother went out of her mind, she begged earnestly to become her guardian in the

ergen, just as my father did his, visibly, in the world. Old Anne had certainly filled my poor mother's head with her mystic superstition, to no less an extent than she did mine. There were all kinds of marks and signs to be made from morning till night, and she always wore an uneasy look, as though she were keeping watch. When a boat came in, you ought to tur

of performances outside the door. I remember once standing on the stairs, and seeing her bowing and curtseyi

and who to this day has perhaps some sacrificial stone or other on the wide mountain wastes of Finland. Against Lap witchcraft-and a suspicion of it was fastened on almost every Lap

mental impressions

a short way from us, down by the sea, on the right-hand side of t

was a year younger than I, namely twelve, and his sister Susanna, of exactly the same age as myself, a blue-eyed wild child, with a quantity of yellow hair, which was alw

up at one another for fear our laughter should break out, was really anything but pleasant; for every time it exploded we fared very badly;

f fever, so that we would sit with cheeks as red as apples, and our eyes fastened on our books, until we could contain ourselves no longer. She tried espec

ith more animation than ch

he blue room, often came noises and cries from my poor insane mother, and where Anne Kv?n was always going about, like a wand