This story is hard to make sense of. It has a bit of shape-shifting in it, a phenomenon mentioned in Norse myth. The Sami had a broad understanding of Norse myth in the eighteenth century, as evidenced by the journal of Isaac Olsen, Lutheran missionary to Sapmi in the early 1700’s. I’ve listed one source for that journal below. This is my summary:
The Three Fishers.
Three men fished in a misty fjord. When the mist cleared, they found a farmhouse with beautifully painted walls. An old man came out of the house. He told the most handsome of the three that he could have his daughter’s hand in marriage. The daughter was beautiful, and the young man asked how he could find his way back. The old man said to come back when there was again a thick mist in the fjord.
They came back to the fjord several times, and the old man told the most handsome of the three to watch for a white ship that would sail by his house. One night, the white ship appeared, and the young man went aboard. It took him to the farm, where he married the old man’s daughter. They lived happily and had three sons, but when he asked to attend his old church, the old man told him to leave before the end of the sermon.
He attended the church several times, but his old friends noticed him. They grabbed him one day and his clothing “went out like candles.” His body was so soft he didn’t feel human.
He told his friends what had happened to him. He stayed with them, but never stopped trying to reclaim his sons who stayed behind.
I only took one French translation course in college, and I feel like I’m missing something in the translation. Perhaps the story is a warning about not being led astray by a beautiful girl, like the sirens and mermaids common in Scandinavian folklore. The change in the young man’s body to something soft and not human isn’t exactly shape-shifting, but similar. The French phrase “ses habits s’éteignirent telles des bougies,” translated literally “his clothing went out like candles,” is meaningless in English. Perhaps it crumpled? Idioms are difficult to translate, and my internet searching hasn’t come up with anything so far.
Source: J.K. Qvigstad, Contes de Laponie, adaptation en français par Jacques Privat, Editions Esprit Ouvert, 2008, pp. 55-56.