1893 illustration for "Elias and the Draug".
"Elias and the Draug" (Norwegian: "Elias og Draugen"), originally published in English in 1893 under the title "The Fisherman and the Draug" as part of the collection Weird Tales from Northern Seas, is a short ghost story by the Norwegian author Jonas Lie. A 1902 translation of the tale is included in the 1983 anthology Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories. It is the only one of the fourteen stories included in that book not to have been originally written in English.
The plot is set in motion when a fisherman named Elias tries and fails to kill a very large seal. The seal is really a powerful and dangerous supernatural creature in disguise that wants to take revenge on Elias for the harm done to it.
In Scandinavian folklore, a draug is a reanimated corpse. A footnote to the version of the story included in Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories states, "The Draug is a sea monster who sails a half-boat with a crew of men lost at sea who have not received a Christian burial. He who sees the Draug, according to Nordland superstition, will soon die."
Plot[]
Elias is a Norwegian fisherman. At first, he is very poor. By the time he and his wife Karen have had seven children, Elias has saved up enough money to buy a boat of his own.
Shortly after buying the boat, Elias walks along the beach with a harpoon in his hand. He sees a large seal and tries to kill it by sticking the harpoon in its neck. The harpoon breaks. The seal rises up to its full height and looks at Elias with an almost human-like and very angry face before it gets away. At night, Elias goes to check on his new boat. He briefly sees a human figure with a face exactly like that of the seal and a harpoon stuck in its neck. Months later, Elias hears a voice warning him to be careful when he gets a bigger boat.
It is not until many years later, by the time that his oldest son Bernt is seventeen, that Elias is able to afford a bigger boat. Not long before Christmas, Elias, Karen and all of their children go off together to collect the new boat. A Saami girl, whom Elias has recently taken into his house, stays at home to guard it. Elias and his family begin to sail home in the new boat. They stop to pick up food and brandy for the upcoming holiday.
Elias sees another boat that looks exactly like his. The other boat appears to want to race and, although the weather is getting worse, Elias is happy to oblige. Elias can only see the backs of the crew members on the other boat and none of them say a word. The storm worsens. Two of Elias' children fall overboard and he is powerless to save them. Elias notices that the captain of the other ship has a harpoon sticking out of his neck. He realizes that the seal he once harmed is the captain of the ship. He also realizes that the captain of the ship is the terrible Draug, seeking revenge. Karen is lost to sea. Apart from Bernt, all of Elias' other children are either drowned or die of exhaustion. As Elias' family members die, their ghosts pass on board the Draug's ship. Elias comments that the Draug has already taken from him everything that he held dear. The Draug, however, keeps on pursuing Elias. It is only when Elias gives up and falls into the sea himself that the pursuit stops, leaving the new boat destroyed and Bernt as the only one of the family still alive.
Bernt is washed up on shore near his home. He is found by the Saami girl, who slowly nurses him back to health throughout the winter. Bernt cannot face going back to sea after that. He marries the Saami girl, they move away and he becomes a farmer.