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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 assembled at the Helgafds1 This was the import, —
‘A thousand winters dark have flown,
Since o’er the threshold of ray Stone
A votaress pass’d, my power to own. Visitor bold
Of the mansion of Trolld,
Maiden haughty of heart,
Who hast hither presumed, —
Ungifted, undoom’d,
Thou shalt not depart;
The power thou dost covet
O’er tempest and wave,
Shall be thine, thou proud maiden,
By beach and by cave, —
By stack and by skerry, by noup and by voe,
By air and by wick, and by helyer and gio,
And by every wild shore which the northern winds know,
And the northern tides lave,
But though this shall be given thee, thou desperately brave,
I doom thee that never the gift thou shalt have,
Till thou reave thy life’s giver
Of the gift which he gave.’
“I answered him in nearly the same strain; for the spirit of the ancient Scalds of our race was upon me, and, far from fearing the phantom, with whom I sat cooped within so narrow a space, I felt the impulse of that high courage which thrust the ancient Champions and Druidesses upon contests with the invisible world, when they thought that the earth no longer contained enemies worthy to be subdued by them. Therefore did I answer him thus: —
‘Dark are thy words, and severe,
Thou dweller in the stone;
But trembling and fear
To her are unknown,
Who hath sought thee here,
In thy dwelling lone.
Come what comes soever,
The worst I can endure;
Life is but a short fever,
And Death is the cure.’
1 Or consecrated mountain, used by the Scandinavian priests for the purposes of their idol-worship.
“The Demon scowled at me, as if at once incensed and overawed; and then coiling himself up in a thick and sulphureous vapour, he disappeared from his place. I did not, till that moment, feel the influence of fright, but then it seized me. I rushed into the open air, where the tempest had passed away, and all was pure and serene. After a moment’s breathless pause, I hasted home, musing by the way on the words of the phantom, which I could not, as often happens, recall so distinctly to memory at the time, as I have been able to do since.
“It may seem strange that such an apparition should, in time, have glided from my mind, like a vision of the night — but so it was. I brought myself to believe it the work of fancy — I thought I had lived too much in solitude, and had given way too much to the feelings inspired by my favourite studies. I abandoned them for a time, and I mixed with the youth of my age. I was upon a visit at Kirkwall when I learned to know your father, whom business had brought thither. He easily found access to the relation with whom I lived, who was anxious to compose, if possible, the feud which divided our families. Your father, maidens, has been rather hardened than changed by years — he had the same manly form, the same old Norse frankness of manner and of heart, the same upright courage and honesty of disposition, with more of the gentle ingenuousness of youth, an eager desire to please, a willingness to be pleased, and a vivacity of spirits which survives not our early years. But though he was thus worthy of love, and though Erland wrote to me, authorising his attachment, there was another — a stranger, Minna, a fatal stranger — full of arts unknown to us, and graces which to the plain manners of your father were unknown. Yes, he walked, indeed, among us like a being of another and of a superior race. — Ye look on me as if it were strange that I should have had attractions for such a lover; but I present nothing that can remind you that Norna of the Fitful Head was once admired and loved as Ulla Troil — the change betwixt the animated body and the corpse after decease, is scarce more awful and absolute than I have sustained, while I yet linger on earth. Look on me, maidens — look on me by this glimmering light — Can ye believe that these haggard and weather-wasted features — these eyes, which have been almost converted to stone, by looking upon sights of terror — these locks, that, mingled with grey, now stream out, the shattered pennons of a sinking vessel — that these, and she to whom they belong, could once be the objects of fond affection? — But the waning lamp sinks fast, and let it sink while I tell my infamy. — We loved in secret, we met in secret, till I gave the last proof of fatal and of guilty passion! — And now beam out, thou magic glimmer — shine out a little space, thou flame so powerful even in thy jeebleness — bid him who hovers near us, keep his dark pinions aloof from the circle thou dost illuminate — live but a little till the worst be told, and then sink when thou wilt into darkness, as black as my guilt and sorrow!”
While she spoke thus, she drew together the remaining nutriment of the lamp, and trimmed its decaying flame; then again, with a hollow voice, and in broken sentences, pursued her narrative.
“I must waste little time in words. My love was discovered, but not my guilt. Erland came to Pomona in anger, and transported me to our solitary dwelling in Hoy. “He commanded me to see my lover no more, and to receive Magnus, in whom he was willing to forgive the offences of his father, as my future husband. Alas, I no longer deserved his attachment — my only wish was to escape from my father’s dwelling, to conceal my shame in my lover’s arms. Let me do him justice — he was faithful — too, too faithful — his perfidy would have bereft me of my senses; but the fatal consequences of his fidelity have done me a tenfold injury.”
She paused, and then resumed, with the wild tone of insanity, “ It has made me the powerful and the despairing Sovereign of the Seas and Winds!”
She paused a second time after this wild exclamation, and resumed her narrative in a more composed manner.
“My lover came in secret to Hoy, to concert measures for my flight, and I agreed to meet him, that we might fix the time when his vessel should come into the Sound. I left the house at midnight.”
Here she appeared to gasp with agony, and went on with her tale by broken and interrupted sentences. “ I left the house at midnight — I had to pass my father’s door, and I perceived it was open — I thought he watched us; and, that the sound of my steps might not break his slumbers, I closed the fatal door — a light and trivial action — but, God in Heaven! what were the consequences! — At morn, the room was full of suffocating vapour — my father was dead — dead through my act — dead through my disobedience — dead through my infamy! All that follows is mist and darkness — a choking, suffocating, stifling mist envelopes all that I said and did, all that was said and done, until I became assured that my doom was accomplished, and walked forth the calm and terrible being you now behold me — the Queen of the Elements — the sharer in the power of those beings to whom man and his passions give such sport as the tortures of the dog-fish afford the fisherman, when he pierces his eyes with thorns, and turns him once more into his native element, to traverse the waves in blindness and agony.1 No, maidens, she whom you see before you is impassive to the follies of which your minds are the sport. I am she that have made the offering — I am she that bereaved the giver of the gift of life which he gave me — the dark saying has been interpreted by my deed, and I am taken from humanity, to be something preeminently powerful, preeminently wretched!”
As she spoke thus, the light, which had been long quivering, leaped high for an instant, and seemed about to expire, when Norna, interrupting