... Myriads of birds are surging
through the air, like white breakers about the cliffs, and like a
screaming snow-storm about their brooding-places...."
But "as a contrast there is a night of darkness and terror which lasts
nine months."
In this arctic gloom, during which the yellow candle-light struggled all
day long through the frost-covered window-panes, the Finn grew big in
Jonas Lie, and the Norseman shrank and was almost dwarfed. The air was
teeming with superstitions which he could not help imbibing. His fancy
fed eagerly on stories of Draugen, the terrible sea-bogie who yells
heartrendingly in the storm, and the sight of whom means death; on
blood-curdling tales of Finnish sorcery and all sorts of uncanny
mysteries; on folk-legends of trolds, nixies, and foul-weather sprites.
He had his full share of that craving for horrors which is common to
boyhood; and he had also the most exceptional facilities for satisfying
it. Truth to tell, if it had not been for the Norse Jekyll in his nature
the Finnish Hyde might have run away with him altogether.
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