The story was as follows: On Kvalholmen, in Helgeland, there lived a poor fisherman named Elias, with his wife Karen, who had formerly been servant at the minister's over at Alstadhaug.

They had put up a cottage at Kvalholmen, and Elias was now in the Lofoten fishing-trade, working for daily wages.
It was pretty evident that lonely Kvalholmen was haunted.

When the husband was away, the wife heard many dismal noises and cries, which could not come from anything good.

One day when she was up on the mountain, cutting grass for winter fodder for the two or three sheep they owned, she distinctly heard the sound of talking on the beach below, but dared not look to see who was there.
Every year there came a child, but the parents were both industrious.
When seven years had passed there were six children in the cottage; and that same autumn the man had scraped together so much that he thought he could afford to buy a six-oared boat, and henceforward sail to the fishing in his own boat.
One day as he was walking along with a halibut pike [A long wooden pole with a barbed iron point to spear halibut with.] in his hand, meditating over his intention, he stumbled unexpectedly, upon an immense seal, which lay sunning itself behind a rock down on the shore.

The seal was quite as little prepared for the man as the man for it.