out piloting, she carried on the fishing alone. No one could pass her without turning to take a second look, so self-reliant was she. Her name was Gunlaug, but she was called the fisher maiden, a title she accepted as her rank. In the childish games she always sided with the weak; she had an impulse to defend others, and she now became the protector of this refined, delicate boy.
In her boat he could play his flute, which had been solemnly forbidden at home, as it was thought it would take his mind from his studies. She rowed him out on the fjord, she took him with her on her long fishing expeditions, soon he even made night excursions with her. They used to row out toward the setting sun in the clear, calm summer evenings, he playing his flute, or listening to her while she told him all she knew about mermen, spectres, shipwrecks, foreign lands, and black people, just as she had heard it from the sailors. She shared her food with him as she did her knowledge, and he accepted all, giving nothing in return; for he neither brought food from home nor imagination from school. They would row about until the sun went down behind the snow-clad mountains and then, landing on some rocky island, kindle a fire, that is, she would gather together
