# The Huldrefish explained — Short Fiction > Chapter companion for Short Fiction by Jonas Lie. ## What happens Nona catches a strange, eyeless trout in a mountain lake, which is rumored to be a huldrefish from a double-bottomed lake. After eating it, he dreams of a terrifying subterranean journey through a world of eyeless fish, monstrous serpents, and supernatural beings, culminating in a vision of warm, deep earth and a liberating ascent back to the surface. ## Themes in this chapter ### Supernatural and Folklore The huldrefish and the dream journey into a hidden underworld of eyeless fish, sea serpents, and invisible beings embody supernatural folklore. ### Transformation and Identity Nona's consumption of the huldrefish triggers a transformative dream that blurs the boundary between reality and the supernatural. ## Character check-ins ### Nona Catches and eats the huldrefish, then experiences a vivid dream of an underground realm. ## Key lines > It was such an odd trout that Nona hauled in at the end of his fishing-line. Large and fat, red spotted and shiny, it sprawled and squirmed, with its dirty yellow belly above the water, to wriggle off the hook. Nona caught a very strange trout—big, fat, red-spotted, and shiny—that thrashed about with its yellow belly up, trying to escape the hook. _Describes the initial capture of the huldrefish._ > He had been sitting the whole afternoon with empty lines out in the mountain lake there; but as for the trout, it was only an hour ago since it had been steering its way through the water with its rudder of a tail, and allowed itself to be fooled by a hook, and already it lay cooked red there on the dish. Nona had fished all afternoon without success, but the trout had been caught just an hour earlier and was now cooked and served. _Highlights the swift transition from catch to meal._ > All at once it grew so heavy and strong that it drew the boat after it by the line. It went along at a frightful speed, while the lake gradually diminished, as it were, and dried up. Suddenly the fish became so heavy and powerful that it pulled the boat along, speeding forward as the lake seemed to shrink and dry out. _Describes the dream's surreal acceleration and environmental change._ > He now understood that it was from down here that they pop up their heads off the coast in the dog days when the sea is warm. He realized that the sea serpents seen near the coast during hot summer days come from this underground world. _Connects the dream realm to real-world folklore about sea monsters._ > All at once he felt as if his body were breaking loose, freeing itself, and rising in the air. He had a feeling of infinite lightness, of a wondrous capability for floating in higher atmospheres and recovering equilibrium. And, before he knew how it was, he found himself up on the earth again. Suddenly he felt his body detach and float upward with incredible lightness, and then he was back on the earth's surface. _Describes the dream's end and return to reality._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_32_se/chapters/the-huldrefish - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_32_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_32_se/chapters