The Capture of the Sjörå at Stor-Degersjön
Stor-Degersjön, Sidensjö, Örnsköldsvik
At this deep forest lake they told of a fisherman who one foggy morning pulled a creature with a human body and shining fish-skin from his net. The being promised him endless luck if he set her free, but warned him never to boast of the catch. The man grew rich from his fishing but revealed the secret in a tavern while drunk; that same night his boat capsized on the lake during a sudden storm and he was never found. The water is deep. The net is still down there.
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The Sjörå of Bremön
Bremön, off the Medelpad coast
Emil Löfgren wrote it down in 1918, in his collection of folk belief from Njurunda parish: the sjörå of Bremön, the sea spirit of the island. She was the one the fishermen dealt with — who could be generous or could be otherwise, who decided what came into the nets and what did not, and who had to be spoken about carefully even on land. Offerings were left. Certain words were not said aboard the boat. The men who kept these rules were not, by their own account, superstitious. They were being practical about a thing that was known to exist.
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