He had managed to avoid doing so, though it had not been easy. It was hard not to moisten himself with so much as a drop of water when he was out on the lake on hot summer days. When he went visiting, he hardly dared set a glass to his lips. There were people who laughed at everything like this, and they tried to fool him into drinking lake water, just for the fun of it. They couldn't really believe it meant anything to him. Even the lake trolls had sometimes tried to tempt him into breaking the ban. But so far he had been able to control himself, and everything had gone well for him, as prophesied. And many times -- innumerable times -- he had seen that the little mermaids, no larger than perch, who were lovely down to the waist, where their fish tails started, were swimming in whole schools round his boat where he lay at rest, bait fishing on warm summer evenings, and they would put one fish after another onto his hooks. And in the same way he had been helped by them in autumn, when gales has tangled his nets.
When the priest heard this story from Gille's own mouth it hadn't upset him as much as it did now, when he looked back on it. While Gille talked, he had clearly seen the lovely small V�rmland lakes with their bathing beaches and fishing grounds, where he himself had had his happiest hours as a boy. He thought that the water glittered and reflected all the way into the room in his own house: it rose gently and caressingly around him. He had felt as if Gille and his troll and the fishing and the easy life out on the lake all belonged together: he couldn't see anything shocking in it. He had almost been dowsy with the slapping of small waves. Nor had he really known whether Gille was serious or whether he would announce any moment that he had just been joking. Therefore the priest had said, in a matter of fact way, that it could be dangerous to accept help from creatures who don't belong to our world.
Gille had answered as before, that there was no danger for him so long as he didn't insult the water people by drinking water from the lake where he fished, for in that case he would pass into their hands. As things now were, he had had nothing but help and profit from them.
To illustrate this, he told the priest a story from his wedding.
On the day of his marriage, Gille had almost come late to the ceremony. He had arranged to borrow a horse from one of his neighbours, but the horse had fallen ill that very day, and Gille had stood there with no idea of what to do. Just then he had caught sight of a horse that was cropping the grass in the meadow on the shore. It was a fine beast, grey white and dappled, with a mane so long that it touched the ground as soon as the horse lowered its head, and a tail thick as a sheaf of rye. Gille had never seen the horse before, and didn't know who owned it, but desperate times call for desperate measures. He had to get hold of a horse; otherwise he would never get to his wedding on time. He tried to catch the strange horse, and that went easily enough. It condescended to be harnessed to the cart and pulled him all the way without fuss. Gill thought he noticed it had a curious gait and was badly trained, so that it didn't understand his signals and orders, but he sat in his bridegroom's thoughts and didn't take much notice of the horse: he was just happy if it kept walking forwards.
But when he had reached the wedding ground, people came running out of the house, and forgot both bride and bridegroom to look at the horse, and praise it and discuss it. No one could understand how Gille had got hold of such a creature. It must have grown up in a King's stable at the very least. Gille hurried to unharness it and placed it with the other horses. He laid out good hay for him,, thanked him for the lift, and fastened him with nothing more than an overhand knot. When the wedding was over, people had gone out for another look at the horse, but it had gone. Gille blamed himself because he hadn't tied him up securely, and said that the horse had probably run home. There in the wedding place he hadn't wanted to reveal that there was anything strange with the horse, but he himself had decided that is was none other than the Kelpie, which had done him the favour of being his horse on his wedding day.
He had told other stories as well, but it was that one more than any other which had persuaded him that he had friends under water, and did not need to fear them.
The priest liked the young man, and his stories had, as I said, reminded him of his own childhood in the forests and on the lakes; this was what had lulled him and stopped him from warning Gille to watch himself and not to speak about such things in his presence.
There were many who did not believe in the creatures which people claimed to have seen in the wild, but the priest was not among them. Still, it was one thing to believe that they existed and another to accept their help and assistance, as this fisherman had done. They were evil by nature, and any venture with them would certainly end badly. That was what the church knew; that was why it forbad all commerce with these spirits. The would bring tragedy to Gille Folkesson, too, if the priest were unable to free him from the shackles of superstition.
The priest had heard a thousand stories of these creatures' ways. They all ended the same way: whoever had once enjoyed their favour and kindnesses would see, when he had come to trust them, that they hurled themselves upon him and destroyed him. Trickery, cunning, and evil were all they knew. They belonged among the subterraneans, and their only goal was to drag humans down into their darkness.
Now the priest could see clearly that this was their aim with the fisherman. He was drowsy with security; he believed in their friendly expressions. No warning had the power to frighten him any longer, and soon he would fall into the net which had been spread for him from the day of his birth. This was inevitable, unless the priest rescued him.
The priest twisted turned the problem in his thoughts. There was one thing that Gille based all his confidence on; and this was that he had never drunk water from the lake where he laid out his lines and nets. But what kind of a refuge was that belief? It was a delusion, which would snare him that very night, for the priest had heard that they were waiting for Gille in the depths. It was a rotten plank, that could not carry him; and if he continued to trust in it, he would be undone.
The priest saw clearly that this plank must be pulled from under Gille Folkesson before it was too late. If only he no longer had that to believe in, he would no longer have faith in the sea trolls and the Kelpie, but in the living God instead. Without his false hopes, he could be saved, body and soul, and come happily home to his young wife.
There was no one in his whole congregation whom he had found as attractive as this Gille Folkesson. He could not condemn him, as he should, for his connection with the unclean spirits; but he felt a great longing to rescue the young man from their power. His heart seared inside him when he looked at the man who sat in front of him, young, beautiful and carefree, and doomed to die that very night.
The priest saw one way to save him. He'd seen it from the very beginning but he did not know whether it was a sin and a desecration. But could there be any greater sin than to leave a human being body and soul in the clutches of the evil power? Perhaps it was permitted in such a case to take this way out? It tempted him, and repelled him. It was truly repulsive. He was in a terrible anguish. He needed a sign from God.
If the man in front of him could be free of his faith in the broken plank, free in a way that would give him new strength, and new hope? If he could be liberated, blessed, assured, without feeling any danger, wouldn't this be the greatest kindness anyone could show him?
The priest was suddenly roused from his thoughts. The fisherman had tired of waiting and rose from his chair. At once the priest found his decision made. He could not let the fisherman walk to his doom. He must prevent it. He must do whatever he could to prevent him.
"I see you want to go, Gille", he said. He rose himself, and Gille moved quickly towards the door as if he was prepared for flight. "Gille, you mustn't think I'm planning to keep you here by force, even though I might want to. You're free to go wherever you want, and that will be across the lake so far as I can see."
"That's how it is, Vicar. I'll get home, in any case."
"But, Gille, you have to understand that when I let you go back across the lake, as you want to, for me that's like sending you to your death. I am just as certain, Gille, that you will never see tomorrow's morning if you go out on the ice tonight, as I would be if there were a gang of murderers in ambush for outside the door. So, Gille, please, I want to prepare you for death just as if you lay on your deathbed. I want to administer communion to you."
At this, Gille grabbed the door handle. He wanted to escape. But the priest called him back.
"You may not go, Gille!" he cried in a powerful voice breaking with emotion. "I have the care of your soul, and I must do my duty towards you, or else I cannot face Him who is Lord of both you and me."
The fisherman seemed to be dragged back against his will by this wave of emotion: he stood where he was, bound by reverence for the priest, who started his preparations as soon as he realised that Gille would obey him. He took out the cup and paten which he used when he was called out to a deathbed, robed himself, and lit another candle.
There was no wine in the bottle which he kept next to the chalice, but he did not send anyone to the cellar to have it filled. "May God have mercy on me!" he thought. "I will fill the chalice with the liquid which is precious enough for His second sacrament."
He had Gille kneel on one knee in front of a chair, forgave him his sins, read the words of consecration, gave him the bread, and touched the chalice to his lips.
The fisherman stumbled to his feet at once, pale with horror. "What have you given me in the chalice, priest?" he roared and gripped the arm that had held it. "I have given you the one thing you never dared taste in your pagan credulity", said the priest. "I have given you the water of Church Bay, but I have blessed it and consecrated it. Now it has crossed your lips, not as water, but as the blood of Christ. May it triumph over the natural power of water! May it free your soul from ...."
He came no further. Gille Folkesson could not hear him. "Water from Church Bay!" he shouted, as if his flesh had been gouged. "Water from Church Bay!"
In a moment he was out of the room, and rushing through the porch into the grounds. The priest hurried after but Gille ran like a lunatic and it was impossible to catch up with him. While he ran, he shouted with a voice as terrible as the one the priest had heard coming from the depths of the lake that afternoon . "The hour has come! Here is the man!".
The vicar had been out on the ice half the night with the farmers and their labourers, looking for Gille Folkesson, who had left the vicarage in anguish of mind. At last they had discovered that there was a hole in the weak ice where the river ran in; one man had very carefully crept towards is and found Gille's hat floating on the water. They needed to search no further; then they could walk back to land.
As they returned, still in the winter dark everyone talked about Gille, of course. They knew him well, and told each other stories of his deal with the water people. "Of course, those down there served him" said one man, stamping on the ice, "but now it's over the way these things always end. He fell into their clutches at last."
"He can't have been careful enough." someone said. "He must have drunk water from the lake."
Just as those words were spoken, another voice was heard, which started to tell a story. It was weak and shaky, the voice of an old, defeated man. At first they didn't realise whose it was: the men stopped still and wondered. No one old or weak had come out onto the ice with them.
Then they realised that it was the vicar speaking, and they clustered around him to hear his story. They couldn't clearly distinguish him in the dark, but they thought they saw a hunched and shivering man who could scarcely keep to his feet.
Never before had they seen a man so crushed. Most of them were young and carefree themselves, but they huddled around the broken man and wept like children as he told his story.
When he had finished the tale of what he had seen and heard that afternoon he walked up to the shore alone. The others followed him silently, at a distance, to be sure he managed to stagger home and did not collapse by the snowy roadside.
"He's finished", they whispered to each other. "He'll never climb into a pulpit again."