Edgar Allan Poe 'Tales of Mystery and Imagination'

Of all the short stories in Edgar Allan Poe's "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" one made the biggest impression on me. It was called "The Whirlpool". The story is set in the chain of islands near the Norweagian shore called the Lofotens.
The Lofotens are inhabited mainly by fishers and their families. Although they are far north the climate is mild due to the oceanic stream of water, the Gulf Stream. One thing makes this place very unusual. It is very high tide. This causes particular phisical phenomena in the sea. It is a whirl which sometimes creates when the sea water flows in or out with great velocity.

This happend in the story Allan Edgar Poe described in "The Whirlpool".
A father and two of his sons went fishing in their fishing boat. There was a narrow gap between two islands which were close to each other. The place was dangerous because the stream of water during the tidal wave was very strong. Although they knew it well and were aware of the danger they decided to sail exactly there. The place had a great advantange. It offered a lot of fish and they harvest was promising. They also knew that in order to avoid the dangerous whirl of water they had to go at a specific time of a day, when water stopped for an hour or so before it started to flow in reverse direction.

They thought everything would go well if they were careful enough. However, they couldn't know about a storm coming. They found themselves in the open sea and their heavy net was full of fish. Suddenly they saw first signs of storm. The storm was coming very fast and they had to escape right away. No matter how soon would they go it was too late. The storm began exactly at the time of the high tidal wave which created a big whirl in the sea. The whirl was about two miles in diameter and their small fishing boat started spinning around. At the same time the sea water created a steep slope which made the boat slip towards the centre of the whirl circling around.

They were fighing with the fierce forces of nature. Two of the men were not strong enough to survive. The father and one of his sons were pulled down under the spinning water and drowned. Only one of his sons who had tied himself to the wooden barrel with a strong rope and jumped out of the boat managed to survive. He was unconscious for a few hours. Next day fishers found a man on the beach. He had white hair and looked like an old man. How surprised they were when they found he was one of missing fishers. His hair went white because he saw a hell on the earth. He thanks God he survived but he is no longer the same person. He changed a lot. This was a price for his sruvival.

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