Paul B. Du Chaillu

Sail on the Arctic Ocean.—The Brig Ragnild.—Ægir and Ran, the God and Goddess of the Sea.—The Nine Daughters of Ægir and Ran.—Great Storms.—Compelled to Heave to.

AS I stepped on board I said farewell to my dear skees and sleigh, as they were put into the hold. "I shall miss you very much," I said, "for we have had happy times together." Then we sailed away. Now I have laid aside my Lapp costume, and I am clad in the garb of a fisherman. I am clothed in a suit of oilskin garments, over my woollens, to protect me from the wet. I wear a big sou'wester, instead of a cap, to keep the rain and the spray from running down my neck, and huge sea-boots to keep my legs and feet dry. In these I am ready to brave the storms of the Arctic Ocean. Now a boat will be my sleigh, its sail my reindeer: these will carry me onward on the sea, as the others have done on the snow.

As I stood quietly on deck looking at the sea, the captain said to me, "For a wonder we have pleasant weather. This winter we have had nothing but a succession of gales or terrific squalls, and what is worse, blinding snowstorms, when we could not even see each other on deck."

The Ragnild—such was the name of our vessel—was a staunch Norwegian brig that had weathered many a gale on the stormy coast of Norway and the Arctic Sea. She was bound for the coast of Finmarken, on the east side of North Cape, to buy codfish. On board were provisions and clothing, boots, etc., for sale to the fishermen we were to meet in the coast settlements.

Our crew was composed of most sturdy seafaring men. The name of the captain was Ole Petersen, a real old salt who had been at sea for nearly fifty years and was part owner of the craft.

John Andersen was the first mate; the sailors were Lars, Evert, Ivor, Hakon, Pehr, and Harald. All of these men had encountered many a gale, and two had been wrecked.

Towards nine o'clock that evening, the captain and I went to our bunks, the captain leaving the first mate and three men on the watch.

When I awoke in the morning the Ragnild was rolling heavily; we were in the midst of an angry sea and of a great gale, and while I was dressing I was thrown from one side of my little stateroom to the other, and it was no fun. I came on deck, and as I looked at the big waves I said, "The wind and the waves are in their ugly mood." The wind howled and shrieked through the rigging, and waves were like big hills. I thought of the many wrecks of ships and boats, and of the multitude of passengers and seafaring men that have been drowned since people have sailed on the seas.

The captain murmured to me, "This is ugly weather indeed. We must employ all the skill we have to fight against the storm. Our sails are new, our rigging is strong, and our vessel is staunch, and we are all valiant men on board who have gone through many such a storm before."

That morning as I watched the coast, I remembered that the Vikings believed and worshipped Ægir as the god of the sea. Ægir ruled over the sea and the wind. Ran was his wife, and she had a net in which she caught all those who were lost at sea; her Hall was at the bottom of the ocean, and there she welcomed all the shipwrecked people.

Ægir and Ran had nine daughters, and their names were emblematic of the waves. They were called Hefring the Hurling, HrÖnn the Towering, Bylgja the Upheaving, Bara the Lashing.

The five other daughters were called HiminglÆfa the Heaven Glittering, BlÖdughadda the Bloody Haired, Kolga the Cooling, Unn the Loving, Dufa the Dove.

The Vikings dreaded Hefring, HrÖnn, and Bylgja when far out at sea, and Bara when they were approaching the shore. These four waves are those the mariners dread to-day.

They believed that these daughters of Ægir and Ran were seldom partial to men, that the wind awakened them and made them angry and fierce. They called them "The white-hooded daughters of Ægir and Ran." They called the spray their hair. They believed that in calm weather they walked on the reefs and wandered gently along the shores, and that their beds were rocks, stone-heaps, pebbles, and sands.

I had not been long on the sea before I found that I had exchanged the terrific winds of Arctic "Snow Land" for the gales of the Arctic Ocean. The weather was fearful! Snow, sleet, hurricanes, treacherous heavy squalls, followed each other in succession.

"This is the winter weather we have here," said the captain; "we do not expect any better at this time of the year. When there is a lull, it is only to deceive us; then it blows harder than ever, and the snow or the sleet falls thicker than before."

My fancy recalled again to me the words of the "Long Night": "I send terrific gales and mighty snowstorms over oceans and lands."

As I looked at the ocean I saw a big towering wave rolling up towards the stern of the ship and apparently gaining upon us. It was transparent and of a deep green color. I imagined I could see Hefring with glittering eyes, one of her arms directing the wave against us.

The men looked anxiously towards the wave, which was steadily advancing, but our ship rode over it as if she were a gull resting on the ocean. Then the ugly wave formed a crest, curled upon itself, and with a heavy boom broke into fragments of snowy foam.

I said to the men: "This wave has missed us." They answered in serious voices, "And we must watch, for a more towering one will follow, as there are always three of them going together, and this second one may come and break over us."

These words were hardly uttered when I saw far off another mountainous wave rolling up. I imagined it was HrÖnn. It was so high as it neared us that we could not see the horizon beyond; it looked fierce and dangerous. Its crest gradually rose higher and higher, as if getting ready to strike. Steadily HrÖnn advanced. We are lost, and our ship is sure to founder if her wave breaks over our stern. The faces of the captain and men were serious. I said to myself: "If we get into the whirlpool of its crest there will be no escape; we are sure to founder."

The wave broke about fifty yards before reaching us. It had become harmless, but the foaming, scattered billows enveloped the ship in their thick spray. It was a narrow escape; but we were saved thus far! Then in the wake of the imaginary HrÖnn rose another wave. I imagined Bylgja was coming. It advanced slowly and angrily towards us, ready to sweep our deck and to do the work the two others had tried to do and missed—demolish our ship. It broke before reaching us with a loud boom, making the sea a surging sheet of foam as white as snow for a long distance. This was a beautiful sight. We gave a great shout of joy; we had had a narrow escape.

After these three heavy seas came a lull. The captain said thoughtfully, "Those are the waves that disable or founder ships and send them to the bottom of the sea!"

We were indeed still in the midst of a great gale. But the captain and our crew had thus far fought against the storm successfully. I thought of the great Viking Half, and of his champions. It was their custom always to lie before capes, never to put up a tent on board, and never to reef a sail in a storm. Half had never more than sixty men on board of his ship, nor could any one go with him who was not so hardy that he never was afraid or changed countenance on account of his wounds. I wondered if Half and his men had ever encountered such a storm as we were having. If so his ship must have been a staunch vessel indeed.

As the hours passed the storm continued, the Daughters of Ægir and Ran rose again and again, trying to strike our ship; when their hoods were rent asunder, their long hair streamed on the gale.

In the afternoon the dark clouds were lower than usual and moved rapidly over our heads. The wind howled and hissed through the rigging. Wave after wave struck against the ship's side and deluged the deck with water. One of them took me off my feet and pitched me to the other side against the bulwarks, almost washing me overboard.

"You had better go into the cabin," said the captain; "this is no weather for you." But I replied, "Yes, captain, it is; I want to see this big storm with its mighty sea." I had hardly said these words when another wave came aboard of us. Two men were nearly washed overboard; fortunately they held fast to the rigging.

Soon after another big wave struck our port side, and carried away a part of our bulwarks, swamping our decks with a huge mass of water; this time nearly washing overboard all of us who were on deck. Looking at the havoc the wave had wrought, I remembered the saga which tells of the storm the celebrated Viking Fridthjof encountered at sea, and which says:

"Then came a wave breaking so strongly that it carried away the gunwales and part of the bow, and flung four men overboard, who were lost.

"'Now it is likely,' said Fridthjof, 'that some of our men will visit Ran. We shall not be thought fit to go there unless we prepare ourselves well. I think it is right that every man should carry some gold with him!' He cut asunder the arm ring of his sweetheart IngibjÖrg, and divided it among his men."

We had been running before the wind with all the sails we could carry safely, so that the ship might not be overtaken and swamped. As long as the ship can sail faster or quite as fast as the waves, it is all right; but if the waves go faster then there is great danger that the ship will be pooped by the sea,—that is, that the seas may come over the stern, and sweep over the deck, carrying everything away. In such a case it happens sometimes that all those who are on deck are swept overboard.

The sea finally became so high and so threatening that the captain ordered that we should heave to and wait for the storm to abate. To heave a ship to before the wind is a dangerous manoeuvre. We waited until three big seas had passed. There is generally a lull after that, and then is the time to bring the ship's head to the wind. During the evolution the ship is liable to get in the trough of the sea, when she rolls heavily, and has her deck swept by the waves. The dangerous operation in our case proved successful.

While our ship lay to we had just sail enough to keep her head to the wind, and she rode like a big albatross on the water, drifting a little to leeward. When she was in the hollow of two waves, these seemed like mountains ready to engulf us, but we rode safely over every one. As we lay to we felt perfectly secure. Our ship did not roll as if broadside to the seas, but pitched, rising slowly, over every wave.

After lying to for over six hours, the storm having somewhat moderated, we sailed east towards the shore; but before the day was over we encountered a cross-sea, the waves coming in every direction and striking against each other. The man at the helm had to watch them. Evidently there had been two or three heavy storms blowing in different directions. A cross-sea is very dangerous, for the man at the helm never knows where the wave will strike. After a while the wind shifted and was ahead, and now we had to beat against it and we sailed under close reefed sails. The wind seemed ten times stronger than before, for when a ship runs before the wind, the wind is not felt so much, as it goes with the ship.

As we came to a barren island, running parallel with the main land, we saw the angry sea lashing itself with a tremendous force against the solid base of mountain walls, filling the air each time it struck with a deep booming sound which seemed like the roar of cannon heard far off; the waves, as they struck the immovable wall of rocks which stopped their advance, breaking into a tumultuous mass of seething billows, which recoiled from the barrier that opposed them and fell back into a surging, boiling mass of white which soon after was hurled forward again by another advancing wave rushing on to meet the same fate. The whole coast was fringed as far as the eye could see with a mass of angry white billows. It was an awful sight.

Seamen dread the coast in a storm more than they do the waves in the middle of the ocean. We steered for the leeward of the island, and when we reached the sound separating it from the main land we came into smooth water where we cast anchor. We were to remain there until the storm abated, to give a good rest to the crew.