Days of the Discoverers

the boy who now stood in the doorway. This boy was gray-eyed and flaxen-haired, and might have been eleven or twelve years old. He was looking for the good ol

ergen with the plague on board, and it spread through Norway like a grass-fire. Only last week Thorolf Erlandsson[1] had had a father and mother, a grandmother, two younger sisters and a brother. Now he was alon

the mountain. At the lane leading to his home he did not s

he cattle and goats home from the summer pasture. All the other farmers were doing the same, and the clear notes of the lure, the long curving horn, used for calling the cattle and signaling across valleys, s

ared for? What if he were to drive the cows himself to the saeter and tend them

-Slayer, with a sack of grain and a pair of saddlebags on a sedate brown pony. Nils was lame of one foot and no taller than a boy of nine, although he was thirteen this m

Nils, "where a

nd take them to the saeter. Ther

ther interestedly, "She

id Thorol

as Nikolina Sven's daughter Larsson, and Olof and Anders Amundson, and half a score of younger ones from different villages. She says that if it is God's will for the plague to come to the saeter it will come, but it is

miles from a farm near sea level to the high grassy pastures three or four thousand feet above it where the cattle are pastured in summer. The saeter maidens live there in their cottages from June to S

the height at which evergreens cease to grow. The birches were shorter and sparser, and through the thinning woodland appeared glimpses of a treeless pasture dotted with scrubby low bushes a

new soft grass, reindeer moss and cupped lichens. Here sat seven or eight children eagerly listening to a story told by an older

Asgard in her chari

er would not have it cut or braided or even covered save by such a little embroidered cap as she wore now. Her scarlet bodice, and blue-black skirt bordered with bright woven bands, were of the finest wool; the full-sleeved white linen under-dress had be

strat

sgard in her chariot dr

is Mother Elle? See what

all hungry teeth munching their morsels of hard bread. Nikolina plucked

ave their supper now, while she and Olof and Anders went on to the saeter. This is wonder

nded in range above range of blue and silver peaks. The clear invigorating air was like some unearthly wine. The cows at the scent of fresh pasture moved more briskly; the pony tossed his head and whinnied. Not far from the cottages there came to meet them a little old woman, dark and wiry, with bright searching eyes.

d, just as if she had been expecting him. "Wi

he saeter. It is strange but true that the most exquisite delights are those that money cannot buy. No man can taste co

tened Munin, after Odin's bird. The little ones had all the new milk they could drink from their wooden bowls, and were put to bed in the movable wooden bed-places, on beds of hay covered with sheep

ive in Asgard f

he Norse paradise. The youngest had never before been outside the narrow valley where they were born. Ellida

the base of this mountain lay Midgard, the abode of mankind. Beyond the great seas, in Utgard, the giants lived. Hel was the under-world, the home of evil ghosts and spirits. Tales were told in the long winter evenings, of Baldu

Children heard over and over again the family records telling in rude rhyme the story of centuries. In distant Iceland, Greenland, the Shetlan

t responsibility. Mother Elle always managed to solve her own problems and expected them to attend to their

nted, was mostly used in soups, pudding or gr?t (porridge). A net or weir stretched across the outlet of the lake would fill with fish overnight. The streams were full of trout. Mother Elle knew how to make fish-hooks of bone, bows and arrows, ropes, and baskets of bark, how to weave osiers, how to cure bruises and cuts, how to trap the wild hares, grouse and plover and cook them over an open fire. The children foun

infinite succession of still, sunshiny, fragrant hours, filled with the songs of birds, the chirr of insects and the distant l

oing after berries would beg Nils or Nikolina to tell a story, or Karen would lead them in some old song with a familiar refrain.

But one day, when he and Nikolina were hunting wild raspberries, he asked her if she thou

be wise but

to-morrow is hi

d-looking for

ard her say that it is colder

been in G

mewhere on the coast. The Skroelings found her and took her to live in their country. That is

casi

llida. And she made a little boa

reason, Thorolf held Greenland to be

peak their

songs that she sings to the little ones are some that the Skroeling woman who adopted h

Klooskap

swi me

does i

ests in Greenland told her he was a devil and wouldn't let her talk about him, but the Skroelings h

she ever

saw that she was not really a Skroeling they bought her for an iron

ings' language. Some day

lle will teach yo

ntains and great forests, lakes and streams, but far colder. There were no fiords, and no cities. The people lived in tents made of poles covered with bark, or hides. They dressed in the hides of wild animals and lived by

ho was married to the Spirit of the Mountain and had a son beautiful and straight and like any other boy except that he had stone eyebrows. Then there was the tale about Klooskap tying up the White Eagle of the Wind so that he

dragon-grass. Then had come brilliant spots and splashes of color on the summer slopes-purple butterwort, golden ragweed, aconite, buttercup, deep crimson mossy patches of saxifrage, rosy heather, catchfly, wild geranium, cinnamon

to sit about the fire with the shutters all closed, and the smoke now and then driven d

a voyage the Vikings made to a country where the people had never seen cattle. When the

e up the rest," suggested Kare

ever do that

trangers dwelt there and told him that his father was gone to Greenland, and he set sail for that land. Soon was the ship swallowed up in a gray mist in which were neither sun nor stars. They sailed many days they knew not where, but suddenly the fog lifted and

ns about the land he had seen. There grew no trees in Iceland or Greenland, fit for house-timber, and Leif was minded to find out this place of

vered with wooded hills, and there he landed, calling it Markland, the land of woods. Then southward again they bore and came to a place where a river flowed out of a l

d what ailed him he said that he had found vines loaded with grapes, and having seen none since he left his own country, which was a land of vineyards, he was out of his senses with delight. Therefore

he booths that Leif built, until he was slain in a fight with the men of th

th Gudrid his wife, to get the body of Thorvald but he

tle, grain and all things fit for a settlement. This was seven years after Leif Ericsson found Vinland. Among the stores for trading was scarlet cloth, which the Skroelings greatly covet, insomuch that one small strip of scarlet would buy many rich furs. But when they came to trade, hearing a bull bellow, with a great squalling they all ran aw

r behind that it lost sight of the others. The men then discovered that shipworms[4] had bored the hull so tha

i's companion made outcry dolefully saying, 'Bjarni, Bjarni, do you leave me here to die in the sea? It was not so you promised me when I left my father's house.' Then said Bjarni, for the lot was fairly cast, 'What else can be done?' Then said the Icelander, 'I think that you should come up into the ship and let me go down into the boat.' And i

the time of that Thorolf Erlandsson who sailed with Bjarni Grimulfsson and went

th more than half her crew, three hundred and forty years before. In the little silence which followed the fire crackled and whistl

die, Ki

die, we

ng neve

ame of the

prised them just then. But it was only a tall man in a traveler's cloak and hat, and they made qui

e said, looking about, "but in this tempest I nearl

op, who was ready to see that all the children who had no relatives should be taken care of in Bergen. Within three days Asgard the Beautiful was left to t

hip is a rock to stand on; hatred is a rock to split on

o

after his own father, and the boy would be known as Erland Thorolfsson. A daughter was known by her given name and her father's, as Sigrid E

lors regard the

rom an unfermented dough of barley and oatmeal rolled out

the days before the sheathing of ships. Even tar s

nte

KING'S

and hersir, while ye

nd heroes the grim-

open galley in the su

lantic the Norse

play with,-oh, the

and mammoth, and a

mammoths, and we have

of Vinland in the lig

adly lightnings; we have

od of the werewolf bac

orthland, with weird

land glaciers, is a

s portal, southwar

w-found kingdom, thei

s laughter, strong w

t and lost it-it is

heir galleys? How were

l Skroelings? What

of Tyrker? For all th

the secret of the d

nte