Part 25 (2/2)
”Patience, fool!” said their uninvited guest. ”Not by daylight should Norna tell a tale that might blot the sun out of heaven, and blight the hopes of the hundred boats that will leave this sh.o.r.e ere noon, to commence their deep-sea fis.h.i.+ng,--ay, and of the hundred families that will await their return. The demon, whom the sounds will not fail to awaken, must shake his dark wings over a s.h.i.+pless and a boatless sea, as he rushes from his mountain to drink the accents of horror he loves so well to listen to.”
”Have pity on Brenda's fears, good Norna,” said the elder sister, ”and at least postpone this frightful communication to another place and hour.”
”Maiden, no!” replied Norna, sternly; ”it must be told while that lamp yet burns. Mine is no daylight tale--by that lamp it must be told, which is framed out of the gibbet-irons of the cruel Lord of Wodensvoe, who murdered his brother; and has for its nourishment--but be that nameless--enough that its food never came either from the fish or from the fruit!--See, it waxes dim and dimmer, nor must my tale last longer than its flame endureth. Sit ye down there, while I sit here opposite to you, and place the lamp betwixt us; for within the sphere of its light the demon dares not venture.”
The sisters obeyed, Minna casting a slow awestruck, yet determined look all around, as if to see the Being, who, according to the doubtful words of Norna, hovered in their neighbourhood; while Brenda's fears were mingled with some share both of anger and of impatience. Norna paid no attention to either, but began her story in the following words:--
”Ye know, my daughters, that your blood is allied to mine, but in what degree ye know not; for there was early hostility betwixt your grandsire and him who had the misfortune to call me daughter.--Let me term him by his Christian name of Erland, for that which marks our relation I dare not bestow. Your grandsire Olave, was the brother of Erland. But when the wide Udal possessions of their father Rolfe Troil, the most rich and well estated of any who descended from the old Norse stock, were divided betwixt the brothers, the Fowd gave to Erland his father's lands in Orkney, and reserved for Olave those of Hialtland. Discord arose between the brethren; for Erland held that he was wronged; and when the Lawting,[47] with the Raddmen and Lawright-men, confirmed the division, he went in wrath to Orkney, cursing Hialtland and its inhabitants--cursing his brother and his blood.
”But the love of the rock and of the mountain still wrought on Erland's mind, and he fixed his dwelling not on the soft hills of Ophir, or the green plains of Gramesey, but in the wild and mountainous Isle of Hoy, whose summit rises to the sky like the cliffs of Foulah and of Feroe.[48] He knew,--that unhappy Erland,--whatever of legendary lore Scald and Bard had left behind them; and to teach me that knowledge, which was to cost us both so dear, was the chief occupation of his old age. I learned to visit each lonely barrow--each lofty cairn--to tell its appropriate tale, and to soothe with rhymes in his praise the spirit of the stern warrior who dwelt within. I knew where the sacrifices were made of yore to Thor and to Odin, on what stones the blood of the victims flowed--where stood the dark-browed priest--where the crested chiefs, who consulted the will of the idol--where the more distant crowd of inferior wors.h.i.+ppers, who looked on in awe or in terror. The places most shunned by the timid peasants had no terrors for me; I dared walk in the fairy circle, and sleep by the magic spring.
”But, for my misfortune, I was chiefly fond to linger about the Dwarfie Stone, as it is called, a relic of antiquity, which strangers look on with curiosity, and the natives with awe. It is a huge fragment of rock, which lies in a broken and rude valley, full of stones and precipices, in the recesses of the Ward-hill of Hoy. The inside of the rock has two couches, hewn by no earthly hand, and having a small pa.s.sage between them. The doorway is now open to the weather; but beside it lies a large stone, which, adapted to grooves still visible in the entrance, once had served to open and to close this extraordinary dwelling, which Trolld, a dwarf famous in the northern Sagas, is said to have framed for his own favourite residence. The lonely shepherd avoids the place; for at sunrise, high noon, or sunset, the misshapen form of the necromantic owner may sometimes still be seen sitting by the Dwarfie Stone.[49] I feared not the apparition, for, Minna, my heart was as bold, and my hand was as innocent, as yours. In my childish courage, I was even but too presumptuous, and the thirst after things unattainable led me, like our primitive mother, to desire increase of knowledge, even by prohibited means. I longed to possess the power of the Voluspae and divining women of our ancient race; to wield, like them, command over the elements; and to summon the ghosts of deceased heroes from their caverns, that they might recite their daring deeds, and impart to me their hidden treasures. Often when watching by the Dwarfie Stone, with mine eyes fixed on the Ward-hill, which rises above that gloomy valley, I have distinguished, among the dark rocks, that wonderful carbuncle,[50](_p_) which gleams ruddy as a furnace to them who view it from beneath, but has ever become invisible to him whose daring foot has scaled the precipices from which it darts its splendour. My vain and youthful bosom burned to investigate these and an hundred other mysteries, which the Sagas that I perused, or learned from Erland, rather indicated than explained; and in my daring mood, I called on the Lord of the Dwarfie Stone to aid me in attaining knowledge inaccessible to mere mortals.”
”And the evil spirit heard your summons?” said Minna, her blood curdling as she listened.
”Hush,” said Norna, lowering her voice, ”vex him not with reproach--he is with us--he hears us even now.”
Brenda started from her seat.--”I will to Euphane Fea's chamber,” she said, ”and leave you, Minna and Norna, to finish your stories of hobgoblins and of dwarfs at your own leisure; I care not for them at any time, but I will not endure them at midnight, and by this pale lamplight.”
She was accordingly in the act of leaving the room, when her sister detained her.
”Is this the courage,” she said, ”of her, that disbelieves whatever the history of our fathers tells us of supernatural prodigy? What Norna has to tell concerns the fate, perhaps, of our father and his house;--if I can listen to it, trusting that G.o.d and my innocence will protect me from all that is malignant, you, Brenda, who believe not in such influence, have surely no cause to tremble. Credit me, that for the guiltless there is no fear.”
”There may be no danger,” said Brenda, unable to suppress her natural turn for humour, ”but, as the old jest book says, there is much fear.
However, Minna, I will stay with you;--the rather,” she added, in a whisper, ”that I am loath to leave you alone with this frightful woman, and that I have a dark staircase and long pa.s.sage betwixt and Euphane Fea, else I would have her here ere I were five minutes older.”
”Call no one hither, maiden, upon peril of thy life,” said Norna, ”and interrupt not my tale again; for it cannot and must not be told after that charmed light has ceased to burn.”
”And I thank heaven,” said Brenda to herself, ”that the oil burns low in the cruize! I am sorely tempted to lend it a puff, but then Norna would be alone with us in the dark, and that would be worse.”
So saying, she submitted to her fate, and sat down, determined to listen with all the equanimity which she could command to the remaining part of Norna's tale, which went on as follows:--
”It happened on a hot summer day, and just about the hour of noon,”
continued Norna, ”as I sat by the Dwarfie Stone, with my eyes fixed on the Ward-hill, whence the mysterious and ever-burning carbuncle shed its rays more brightly than usual, and repined in my heart at the restricted bounds of human knowledge, that at length I could not help exclaiming, in the words of an ancient Saga,
'Dwellers of the mountain, rise, Trolld the powerful, Haims the wise!
Ye who taught weak woman's tongue Words that sway the wise and strong,-- Ye who taught weak woman's hand How to wield the magic wand, And wake the gales on Foulah's steep, Or lull wild Sumburgh's waves to sleep!-- Still are ye yet?--Not yours the power Ye knew in Odin's mightier hour.
What are ye now but empty names, Powerful Trolld, sagacious Haims, That, lightly spoken, lightly heard, Float on the air like thistle's beard?'
”I had scarce uttered these words,” proceeded Norna, ”ere the sky, which had been till then unusually clear, grew so suddenly dark around me, that it seemed more like midnight than noon. A single flash of lightning showed me at once the desolate landscape of heath, mora.s.s, mountain, and precipice, which lay around; a single clap of thunder wakened all the echoes of the Ward-hill, which continued so long to repeat the sound, that it seemed some rock, rent by the thunderbolt from the summit, was rolling over cliff and precipice into the valley.
Immediately after, fell a burst of rain so violent, that I was fain to shun its pelting, by creeping into the interior of the mysterious stone.
”I seated myself on the larger stone couch, which is cut at the farther end of the cavity, and, with my eyes fixed on the smaller bed, wearied myself with conjectures respecting the origin and purpose of my singular place of refuge. Had it been really the work of that powerful Trolld, to whom the poetry of the Scalds referred it? Or was it the tomb of some Scandinavian chief, interred with his arms and his wealth, perhaps also with his immolated wife, that what he loved best in life might not in death be divided from him? Or was it the abode of penance, chosen by some devoted anchorite of later days? Or the idle work of some wandering mechanic, whom chance, and whim, and leisure, had thrust upon such an undertaking? I tell you the thoughts that then floated through my brain, that ye may know that what ensued was not the vision of a prejudiced or prepossessed imagination, but an apparition, as certain as it was awful.
”Sleep had gradually crept on me, amidst my lucubrations, when I was startled from my slumbers by a second clap of thunder; and, when I awoke, I saw, through the dim light which the upper aperture admitted, the unshapely and indistinct form of Trolld the dwarf, seated opposite to me on the lesser couch, which his square and misshapen bulk seemed absolutely to fill up. I was startled, but not affrighted; for the blood of the ancient race of Lochlin was warm in my veins. He spoke; and his words were of Norse, so old, that few, save my father, or I myself, could have comprehended their import,--such language as was spoken in these islands ere Olave planted the cross on the ruins of heathenism.
His meaning was dark also and obscure, like that which the Pagan priests were wont to deliver, in the name of their idols, to the tribes that a.s.sembled at the _Helgafels_.[51] This was the import,--
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