JSLL #39 - Yuki Onna, part 4

 Will our hero lumberjacks make it home? Find out next.

Let's chew on our sentence, which has some new words and kanji.

しかし、川へ来ると、渡し舟の船頭はもう帰ってしまい、舟は向こう岸へつないでありました。

しかし、かわへくると、わたしぶねのせんどうはもうかえってしまい、ふねはむこうぎしへつないでありました。

Parsing the sentence, it has a と- (or when-) clause at the start, a clause ending in masu-stem next, and a polite past tense next.

The when-clause is straightforward: However, when they came to the river,...

The masu-stem clause has some new words: 船頭 means "boatman, ferryman" and もう means "already."　Armed with this knowledge, you should be able to figure out that this clause translates to:

..., the boatman of the ferry had regrettably already gone home, and... 

The new word 船頭 has a familiar kanji 船 on its left, which is an alternative way to write 舟, "boat," a word occurring multiple times in this sentence. The second kanji is 頭 which means "head" as a standalone word. 頭 is an N3 kanji occurring in 37 common words.

Turning now the last clause, let's first check the ending: it's a te-form つないで followed by ありました。The use of a te-form + ある signifies that someone did something for a purpose, and that purpose has been achieved. The te-form つないで comes from つなぐ, which means "to connect, to link; to tie, to fasten, to restrain." My translation of this part would be:

..., and the boat had been fastened to the bank across.

(I don't exactly know why the へ particle is being used here.)

Together, we get:

However, when they came to the river,  the boatman of the ferry had regrettably already gone home, and the boat had been fastened to the bank across.