across the path of the Hafstramb (sea- | pleasure in reposing even in the chilly arms giant). of such a stern forbidding nurse as the Icy Greenland; while their life would be none the happier for those copper-coloured hornets of aboriginals (skraellingjar, as they called them) buzzing about their ears, in high dudgeon at their supremacy in those, latitudes being disputed by these interlopers. 'It is tall and bulky, and stands right up out of the water. From the shoulders upward it is like a man, while over the brows there is, as it were, a pointed helmet. It has no arms, and from the shoulders downwards it seems to get smaller and more slender. Nobody has ever been able to see whether its extremities ended in a tail, like that of a man. fish, or in a point. Its colour was ice-blue (Jökull) colour. Neither could anyone discern whether it had scales, or skin like a When this monster appeared, the sailors knew it to be the presage of a storm. If it looks at a ship and then dives, a loss of life was certain; but if it looked away and then dived, people had a good hope that, though they might encounter a heavy storm, their lives would be saved.** Another horror and we have done. Of this the author speaks with some uncertainty, as he avows. It goes by the name of Hafgjerding (sea-girdle or fence); the picture of it recalls that sea mounting up to the welkin's cheek,' which so appalled Trinculo. 'It is as if all the storms and waves of those scas had gathered together on three sides in three billows and put a girdle round the whole ocean; higher than the mountains and as steep as a cliff, with no outlet. Few instances of escape are known, when a ship has been thus ingirt. But God must clearly have saved somebody alive to tell the tale; whether the above account exactly tallies with theirs, or whether it be somewhat magnified or diminished.' And he goes on to state how he has met with some who had recently escaped. The whole mystery seems effectually solved by Professor Steenstrup, who has recently shown that it was caused by an earthquake' of great magnitude. Nay, he fixes the very date of these phenomena from a passage in the Landnama,' where a Hebrides man, who accompanied Eric the Red's expedition to colonise Greenland, 986, composed a poem called Hafgerdinga Drápa.t Now follows an interesting description of Arctic navigation in days long before Martens, or Willoughby, or Frobisher were heard or thought of. The Vikings did not content themselves with sweeping the seas for galleons, or less profitable prizes, or making descents on the shores of Great Britain and France and elsewhere. Some of them took *Bishop Eggede bears witness to the truth of these statements. He believes that the author wrote after most accurate inquiry. Cf. Rafn's Greenland Annals.' Cf. Hvad er Kongespeilets Hafgjerdinger: af J. Steenstrup, Copenhagen, 1871. * The author's account of Arctic navigation might have been penned by Sir George Nares. The ice-floes on the Greenland coast, he says, are from four to five ells thick, and reach out to sea as much as four days' journey. 'They lie to the north-east and north, then to the south and south-west, and therefore, in making the land, one ought to steer westwards along the coast, till one has overlapped the ice, and then sail for the land. It has often happened that navigators have sailed for the land too soon, and got among the ice. Some of them perished in consequence, while others escaped; and I have heard the story when they were beset by the ice, was to take from their own lips. The plan they pursued, to their boats and drag them over, and so endeavour to reach land, leaving their ship and all their goods behind. Some have been out four or five days before they got to This ice is of a marvelshore, some longer. lous nature. Sometimes it lies as still as possible, with great gaps or firths cut into it. At other times it moves as quickly as a ship with a good breeze. And, when once in motion, it There is another kind of ice in these seas of goes as often against the wind as with it. quite a different nature, which the Greenlanders call iceberg. It is just like a tall cliff standing out of the sea, and never blends with the other ice.' The whales, he says, of Greenland, are the same as those of Iceland. Of seals, he enumerates four principal sorts. The open seal is so called, because it swims, not on its belly, but its back or side. It never exceeds four ells in length. Another seal is the 'skemming' or 'short' seal, which is never larger than two ells. They are said to swim under ice-floes four or five feet thick, and blow great air-holes right through them whenever they please; a marvellous feat!' not a warm one, and that very tender.* | globe. And learned men say that a sound These holes are in fact caused by seals, cuts into Greenland by which the great worldwith a wonderful instinct, always rising up ocean ramifies into fiords and bays all over in precisely the same place to breathe while the earth. In lat. 75°, the ship Germania' the ice is forming, and thus they prevent entered a spacious fiord, and found there congelation, and, as Sheridan would say, beautiful alpine scenery, with cascades and puff to some purpose. Our author in waterfalls, which they were prevented from stating that there were four principal species exploring further; but they conjectured it of seals, was not far out; indeed the pierced through the country westward to Greenland seals are just that number. the ocean. For about it they found musk oxen in abundance, an animal which has never been seen before, except on the west coast, and which must have arrived thither either by tracking all round the coast southwards, or by valleys across the interior, hitherto unknown. 6 The walrus (Rostung) is classed by the Greenlanders among the whales, but he is of opinion that it belongs to the seal tribe. His hide is thick and good for ropes. From it are cut thongs so tough that sixty men or more may tug at them without breaking.' Of this same tenacious material were the ropes with which the Old Norsemen played their favourite game of pullyhauly against one another, the vanquished side often being hauled into an intervening pit or pool. Ohthere of Halgoland, the very district where our author dwelt, informed King Alfred that among paid by the Fins to Norway were hides of seal and whale (? whale-horse, walrus). And yet tough as it is, it has served before now to stay starving stomachs. When the sons of Saemund Odde were returning from their visit to King Hacon, they were wrecked on the coast of Iceland, and floated for thirteen days on the wreck. The only comestible saved was butter, with which they smeared the walrus-hide cable and bolted morsels of it, by which means they managed to exist. the tribute All these creatures of the seal kind,' concludes the author,' are called fish; but their flesh nevertheless is not reckoned as such, for it may not be eaten on fast days, whereas the whale may.' 'What on earth,' puts in the son, makes people risk their lives in going thither? Cui bono? How do the inhabitants of those regions exist? Can they grow corn, or are land and water alike frozen? Is it an island or a continent? Are the beasts there like those of other lands? Questions which would have done credit to an intelligent member of the Zoological or Royal Geographical Society in the nineteenth century. We have not space for the interesting reply. In answer to his son's further question, whether Greenland lies on the outside of the earth, or where? the father conjectures, upon good authority, that Greenland has no land beyond it northward, but that it borders on that great wild ocean that surrounds the The following is interesting: 'This is the nature of the Northern Light (Nordur Liös) that it is always the more brilliant the darker the night, and it always appears by night and never by day; oftenest in pitch darkness, and not by moonshine. The appearance of it is as if one saw at a distance a great glow shooting up sharp points of flame while these gleams of light are at their highof unequal height, and very unsteady. And est and brightest, one can very well see to find one's way out of doors, or even to go on the chase. And in-doors, if there be a window* it is so light that folks can plainly see each other. So variable is the light, that at times it seems as if dark smoke or thick fog this dissipates, the light begins to grow were rising up and smothering it. But when brighter and clearer. Nay, at times it seems to emit great sparks, like a mass of iron glowing hot from the furnace. As day nears, it gradually fades, until it vanishes outright. Three guesses have been made as to the cause of the phenomenon. Some affirm that the waters encircling the earth's ball are surrounded by fire. And as Greenland lies on the extreme northern edge of the earth, the Northern Light may be a reflection of this firering. Others, again, conjecture that at night, when the sun's course is beneath the earth, a glint of its rays may strike the heaven above; as from the proximity of Greenland to the outer edge of the globe there is little wards. Another, and not the least likely conof its convexity to intercept their passage upjecture, is that the light in question is generated by the immense mass of ice prevailing in those regions.' This conjecture is partly adopted by Krantz. He suggests that the vast accumulation of ice which blocks up the shores of Greenland the formation of the Northern Lights; and have some connection with may in describing the stupendous ice-blink,' a large elevated sheet of ice on the western | quainted with the fact that in England coast, he says, it casts by reflection a bright- there was in the fifteenth century quite ness over the sky, similar to the Northern a literature on these topics-a literature Lights, and which may be seen at a great perpetuated by such books as 'Coundistance. sellor Manners' Advice to his Son,'* and the more famous Letters of Chesterfield.' But few people would imagine that, early in the thirteenth century, up yonder in that Ultima Thule, Scandinavia, such care was bestowed on external behaviour as is apparent in this work; which, with none of the coarseness of the Book of Courtesy,' is also free from the questionable morality of Chesterfield. Our readers will remember the wonderful Aurora visible all over Europe some years ago. I suppose it was the reflection of the Arctic ice,' observed a Yorkshire yeoman to the writer of these lines. We may, however, remind our readers, that electricity is now generally believed to be at the bottom of the phenomenon. The less philosophically inclined may take refuge in the image of Southey : 'Gleams of the glory, streaks of flowing light, In fitful splendour through the Northern sky.' matter. With one leetle practical speering,' the dialogue winds up, viz., When ought one to be in port in autumn? XVII. Kal. November is the reply. Sea-faring is now unsafe. Days shorten, nights grow darker, the sea is disquieted, billows strengthen, rains are stour, storms increase, breakers* wax, strands refuse to afford safe havens, men are dazed (dazast), freights are cast overboard, and numbers perish from gver much hardihood.' And so concludes the first Part of King's Mirror.' The he At the next interview the son informs his father that to sea he intends to go, and put some of his precepts in practice. But it might happen that on foreign voyages took a fancy to go to Court and see more refined manners than are met with among traders. I wish, therefore, to learn here at home from you, unless you think it a thriftless labour, the etiquette of the Court?' -Thriftless! by no manner of means! It cannot be thriftless; for there is the fountain of all good manners and courtesy (kurteisi); although, let me tell you, at Court, as elsewhere, there are manners and manners.' We now enter upon a most curious disquisition on Court manners. The Early English Text Society, by the publication of Henry Rhodes's Boke of Nurture and School of Good Manners,' John Russel's 'Boke of Nurture,' &c., has made us ac * Is. bodar, properlyboders,' i.e. of hidden rocks; a capital expression for breakers. What a power and a picture in them these old Scandinavian words had! Blámyr,' for instance 'blue moor,' said of the sea! Can Mr. Tenny. son beat that? But it is not to be supposed that the mere going to Court would make one a gentleman. Twelve months' constant residence would be hardly sufficient to give a man the requisite ton, even though he possessed much natural adaptability and tact. Indeed, there are hangers-on at Court a lifelong, your Sir Mungos, who never learn good manners or courtesy, just as men will go to Jerusalem and come back the dullards that they went.' The old Icelandic proverb, ' Betra spurt en óvis vera' ('Better speer than not be sure'), seems to be the motto of our inquiring tiro, for he persists in his queries: Would it not be preferable to be a free country farmer, than be a mere parasite at the nod and beck of the king?' This view of Court life provokes the governor's bile, who seems to have a natural antipathy to the sordid lot of your base mechanical, your rustic (porpari), your clownish ploughboy (plógkarl). The answer is, Everybody throughout the kingdom is at the king's disposal: whether to send on a warlike expedition or what not. foreign mission to pope or monarch, or on a All are bound to do his bidding, whether clerk, abbot, bishop, or farmer. Surely then it is better to be a regular Court'official, and enjoy the king's friendship and protection, and so have precedence everywhere, than be a mere Bezonian and country bumpkin, and play second fiddle and eat humble-pie everywhere! The name of king's house-carle is by no means to be despised; on the contrary, it is a highly honourable title, which many an invalided courtier or officer is only too proud of.' The author gives a very high standard of love of the noble and chivalrous implanted Court-life doubtless; but with that innate The full title of this quaint work is Counsellor Manners' last legacy to his son, enriched and embellished with grave avisos, excellent histories, and ingenious proverbs and apothegms,' by J. D. (John Dore), printed and to be sold by T. Shelmerdine at the Rose Tree, Little Britain. 2nd ed. 1673. 3rd, 1698. in these Northerners, it is not impossible, not less so his practical acquaintance with that some might have reached in act what the old proverb, It is ill talking between a another had been able to conceive and pre- full man and a fasting.' scribe. In short, the way in which Scandinavia, with very little acquaintance, comparatively, with southern politeness, letters, and religion, marked out for herself an original line in each of these, betokens an abundance of native genius. The following is practical: 'Consider that foreign envoys of high breeding may visit the Court; who will look very sharply at the manners of the King and his entourage, and criticise them all the more keenly the more polished they are themselves. And when they return home they will report all that they have seen and heard. These reports of foreign Courts are sure to be strongly featured-full of scorn, or full of approbation. Only think, if, at some grand levée, where archbishops, and earls, and bishops, and prefects, and knights, and hirdmen were present, one of these great dignitaries made a hole in his manners! What a butt he would be for ridicule! Or if one of the hirdmen were to be guilty of a breach of politeness, straightway the King would get the blame; for folks would say that it was from him the manners of the Court took their colour. What are life and limb worth when a man, by his vulgarity has disgraced his sovereign!' The bare possibility of such a catastrophe at once sharpens the youth's curiosity. It is quite probable that I may visit the King and enter his service, as my father and kinsmen have done before me, winning for themselves thereby much honour and royal favour. I pray thee, therefore, tell me how I should address the King. Inform me distinctly of my demeanour and dress, and everything, in short, that will comport with the royal presence.' Answer: 'I will suppose that you have arrived at Court, and your errand thither is to enter the King's service. First, you will diligently inquire who the persons are that are wont to usher in strangers. These you will conciliate, and disclose to them your business, begging them to forward it. Those who are most with the King know the best time for approaching him. If you have to make known your petition to him when he is at table, be sure and get accurate intelligence whether he is in good humour. And if you learn that he is not so blithe (ublídur) as usual, or put out about something, or so occupied in affairs of weight that he cannot attend to your matter, then let it rest that day, and try if you can find him more at leisure, or in better humour, another day; but mind and wait till he is nearly full.' Some important precepts on dress follow." He must don his best suit, be well hosed and shod, have both doublet and cloak. His breeches must be brown or scarlet; or they may be of black leather. His doublet brown, green, or red, according to his taste. His linen of good material, but cut scant and close fitting. 'Your beard must be dressed in the prevailing fashion.† When I was at Court it was the fashion to have the hair cut shorter than the ear-lobes, and combed smooth all round, with a short forelock over the brows. They wore the whiskers and moustache cut short, and chin-beard dressed in the German fashion. And I doubt whether any fashion can come into vogue that will look neater or be better suited to a man-at-arms.' We see that the question of beards or no beards was as much an affair of moment then as now. The fashion had altered since the days of Hacon Jarl, when the Jomsburg Vikings are described as wearing their hair long and flowing. At length, all things being propitious, at a sign from the doorkeeper, our juvenile aspirant enters the royal presence, leaving his cloak in the hands of his attendant; his hair combed smooth, his beard well stroked: no hat, cap, or coif (kveif) on his head, his hands bare: his countenance suave, and his whole person thoroughly cleansed. His head and figure must be erect, his gait stately, but not too slow. The next instructions must be given verbatim : 'When you come to the King, bow humbly, and salute him thus: "God give thee good day, my lord the King." If his Majesty is at table on your entrance, do not do what 46. For an acount of the changes in England in This judicious choice of the mollia tempora fandi for approaching his Majesty with the style of wearing the hair, see Hewett's theSifflication, is highly amusing, and 'Ancient Armour,' i. 150, and Strickland's 'Queens of England,' i. 312. many a blundering lout has done, lean let the King have to explain his words too against the table, much less sprawl over it often.' like an uncouth idiot. But take up a position so far from it, that all the domestics can easily get between you and the board. But if the King is not at table, approach only so near that the servants have room to pass between you and the King's footstool. Your hands ought to be so disposed that the right clasps the left wrist. And let them sink before you as you find most convenient.' The proper officer will then represent the matter to the King, and if he requires a little time for inquiry, our youngster must hang about the Court, living at his own. charges, unless perchance he is bidden to the royal table. He must be sure and not get the reputation of sponging upon others for a dinner; a piece of advice, by-the-by, to be found in that very ancient repertory of Icelandic saws, the 'Hávarmál,' and well worthy the study of those social parasites who, though quite able to entertain' themselves, regard all hospitality as a one-sided affair, and to them not appertaining. One thing puzzles our ingenious youth, viz., why a man should wear no cloak in the royal presence, when, if such a thing were done in the country, it would raise a horselaugh among the bystanders; and a man would be written down zany, for turning out just like a gipsy. The explanation for the fashion is, first, that it betokens a readiness to serve, as it were, with girt loins; and secondly, as a precaution against the concealed dagger of the cloaked assassin. Here follows a little picture which might have been taken from the Fortunes of Nigel.' 'When you are in the King's presence be sure not to converse with those around, but attend carefully to what the King says, so that you may not have to ask him to repeat his words. It often happens when a man is standing in the royal presence that people keep crowding about him, and speering all manner of questions. In some this is due to gaucherie; others do it because they would not be sorry if they could mar the cause of the petitioner. Now if anybody plays you this trick, have a fair word in your mouth for him, thus: "Bide a bit, good man, while I list to the King; syne I will gladly have speech with thee!" And if, after this, he goes on speaking, don't answer a word till the King has stopped speaking. Be careful to use the plural in addressing the King. Above all, mind you don't do what some fools do, speak of yourself in the plural, and of the King in the singular. Should it so befall that the King says aught which you do not catch, don't reply, "Ha! How? What?" Merely say, "Let it not displease your Majesty that I speer what you said to me, for I did not quite comprehend." Don't A similar piece of advice is given by the contemporary author of the German poem, 'The Italian Guest,' already mentioned :A younker must be ever quick To catch what people say: So need they not repeat their words, Nor must he stand upon the bench supposed to enter fairly on his duties. Early in the morning he must repair to the King's lodgings neat and clean. He must then accompany his Majesty to church and listen devoutly to the service, and when he leaves the church keep within call, but not so near as to inconvenience him in case he wishes to converse with anybody. Suppose the King goes out for a walk, the courtiers will accompany him, not in a round mass pressing upon him, but in two little equal columns, on either side, and at such a distance that he can converse without being overheard. At table they will speak low, so that their neighbours on either side will not hear all they say. Excess in drinking they will avoid, confining themselves to a moderate enjoyment of the good things. One thing they will specially attend to; whenever the King has got his head in his tankard, they will refrain from taking a pull at theirs. Even though it is raised to their lips, they must set it down again. The same respect must be shown to the Queen. Again, suppose chieftains of note, whom the King delights to honour, enter the apartment, all the courtiers must rise at once and greet them. Indeed, the same attention must be shown to any of the courtiers on his entrance. The two who sit next him will rise and bid him welcome. Wherever they are, they will never forget their position; their tone will be subdued and their gestures dignified; and all ribaldry will be carefully eschewed. The Military exercise and equipments follow; and by-and-by the author gets the bit, so to say, in his teeth, and dashes at full career through a complete catalogue of the armour, offensive and defensive, then in use. King, in Hamlet,' if we remember, talks admiringly of a gentleman of Normandy, lately a visitor at the Danish Court, who had served against the French. He— 'Grew into his seat, And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, As he had been incorpsed and deminatured With the brave beast.' The Centaur he had in his eye was, likely enough, a pure Norwegian. Then follow |