第75章 LETTER XII(1)

THRONDHJEM--HARALD HAARFAGER--KING HACON'S LAST BATTLE--OLAF TRYGGVESSON--THE "LONG SERPENT"--ST.OLAVE--THORMODTHE SCALD--THE JARL OF LADE--THE CATHEDRAL--HARALDHARDRADA--THE BATTLE OF STANFORD BRIDGE--A NORSE BALI--ODIN--AND HIS PALADINS.

Off Munkholm,Aug.27,1856.

Throndhjem (pronounced Tronyem)looked very pretty and picturesque,with its red-roofed wooden houses sparkling in the sunshine,its many windows filled with flowers,its bright fiord covered with vessels gaily dressed in flags,in honour of the Crown Prince's first visit to the ancient capital of the Norwegian realm.Tall,pretentious warehouses crowded down to the water's edge,like bullies at a public show elbowing to the foremost rank,orderly streets stretched in quiet rows at right angles with each other,and pretty villas with green cinctures sloped away towards the hills.In the midst rose the king's palace,the largest wooden edifice in Europe,while the old grey cathedral--stately and grand,in spite of the slow destruction of the elements,the mutilations of man's hands,or his yet more degrading rough-cast and stucco reparations--still towered above the perishable wooden buildings at his feet,with the solemn pride which befits the shrine of a royal saint.

I cannot tell you with what eagerness I drank in all the features of this lovely scene;at least,such features as Time can hardly alter--the glancing river,from whence the city's ancient name of Nidaros,or "mouth of the Nid,"is derived,--the rocky island of Munkholm,the bluff of Lade,--the land-locked fiord and its pleasant hills,beyond whose grey stony ridges I knew must lie the fatal battle-field of Sticklestad.Every spot to me was full of interest,--but an interest noways connected with the neat green villas,the rectangular streets,and the obtrusive warehouses.These signs of a modern humdrum prosperity seemed to melt away before my eyes as I gazed from the schooner's deck,and the accessories of an elder time came to furnish the landscape,--the clumsy merchantmen lazily swaying with the tide,darkened into armed galleys with their rows of glittering shields,--the snug,bourgeois-looking town shrank into the quaint proportions of the huddled ancient Nidaros,--and the old marauding days,with their shadowy line of grand old pirate kings,rose up with welcome vividness before my mind.

What picture shall I try to conjure from the past,to live in your fancy,as it does in mine?

Let the setting be these very hills,--flooded by this same cold,steely sunshine.In the midst stands a stalwart form,in quaint but regal attire.Hot blood deepens the colour of his sun-bronzed cheek;an iron purpose gleams in his earnest eyes,like the flash of a drawn sword;a circlet of gold binds the massive brow,and from beneath it stream to below his waist thick masses of hair,of that dusky red which glows like the heart of a furnace in the sunlight,but deepens earth-brown in the shadow.

By his side stands a fair woman;her demure and heavy-lidded eyes are seldom lifted from the earth,which yet they seem to scorn,but the king's eyes rest on her,and many looks are turned towards him.A multitude is present,moved by one great event,swayed by a thousand passions,--some with garrulous throats full of base adulation and an unworthy joy,--some pale,self-scorning,with averted looks,and hands that twitch instinctively at their idle daggers,then drop hopeless,harmless at their sides.

The king is Harald Haarfager,"of the fair hair,"the woman is proud and beautiful Gyda,whose former scorn for him,in the days when he was nothing but the petty chief of a few barren mountains,provoked that strange wild vow of his,"That he would never clip or comb his locks till he could woo her as sole king of Norway."Among the crowd are those who have bartered,for ease,and wealth,and empty titles born of the king's breath--their ancient Udal rights,their Bonder privileges;others have sunk their proud hearts to bear the yoke of the stronger hand,yet gaze with yearning looks on the misty horizon that opens between the hills.A dark speck mars that shadowy line.Thought follows across the space.

It is a ship.Its sides are long,and black,and low;but high in front rises the prow,fashioned into the semblance of a gigantic golden dragon,against whose gleaming breast the divided waters angrily flash and gurgle.Along the top sides of the deck are hung a row of shining shields,in alternate breadths of red and white,like the variegated scales of a sea-monster,whilst its gilded tail curls aft over the head of the steersman.

From either flank projects a bank of some thirty oars,that look,as they smite the ocean with even beat,like the legs on which the reptile crawls over its surface.

One stately mast of pine serves to carry a square sail made of cloth,brilliant with stripes of red,white,and blue.

And who are they who navigate this strange,barbaric vessel?--why leave they the sheltering fiords of their beloved Norway?They are the noblest hearts of that noble land--freemen,who value freedom,--who have abandoned all rather than call Harald master,and now seek a new home even among the desolate crags of Iceland,rather than submit to the tyranny of a usurper.

"Rorb--ober Gud!wenn nur bie Geelen gluben!"Another picture,and a sadder story;but the scene is now a wide dun moor,on the slope of a seaward hill;the autumn evening is closing in,but a shadow darker than that of evening broods over the desolate plain,--the shadow of DEATH.Groups of armed men,with stern sorrow in their looks,are standing round a rude couch,hastily formed of fir branches.An old man lies there--dying.

His ear is dulled even to the shout of victory;the mists of an endless night are gathering in his eyes;but there is passion yet in the quivering lip,and triumph on the high-resolved brow;and the gesture of his hand has kingly power still.Let me tell his saga,like the bards of that old time.