"The island on which I was cast," said Allan Lorburne, recommencing his narrative," appeared a cluster of wild and steep hills, striped on the sides with verdant mosses, and hooded on the summits with perpetual snow. Along their bases winded innumerable valleys, showered all over with a rich and varied abundance of flowers and blossomed shrubs. Small currents of water gushed among the flowers and grass; while from the clefts and fissures of the rocks, the summer had summoned all her tribes of odoriferous herbs-some peeping out in modest and stinted beauty, others streaming down in blossoming strings and garlands, perfuming our feet at every step.

"Now," said Christina Swayne, 'we shall soon see our home, and happy are they whom the sea casts on our coast, for ours is a rocky but a pleasant land. We are a people, plain and frugal, prudent in speech, humane in deeds, and hospitable at our hearths. We go not down, like the

The Ballad of Snorro.

lords of other islands, to the great waters to work men woe, nor descend among the habitations of men with fire and with sword. We seek not the curse of silver, nor the plague of gold, nor the vanity of precious stones. We perfume not our chambers with spice, nor wear embroidered girdles, nor mantles edged with lace, and brought through the peril of plague, and fever, and tempest, from a far land. We are a plain and a simple people-our weapons are the fishhook and the hunting spear, and we sleep on the skins of wild beasts in habitations of stone and turf. Behold our dwelling there, where it stands at the foot of that tall rockit has no floor of cedar, and walls of marble polished by a cunning hand. There is no roof of fretwork and fine imagery-but a clay floor, bedded with moss and leaves-walls lined with wolf and wild-cat skins, and a roof stained by the smoke of many a hospitable feast;-so welcome to our home, young mariner. Whoso

wrecked Saxon, comes from far Rodefiord, and plays on the harp a whole evening beside you, and sings songs which he says he heard in his father-land. But truly, the bard who made them must have seen my sister in a vision; for in every song has he pictured her out, with her curling tresses and her sparkling eyes, and endowed his verses with much that adorns her person and mind. But my poor friend Wilfred loves best the music of the hound and the horn; and my simple opinion in this weighty matter is, that he would find subsistence with his spear and his harpoon, where Edwin would fail to charm the eider-duck or the dolphin with the sweetest song he could sing. Brother,' said the island maiden, the descendant of the Saxon, as ye disdainfully call him, is expert alike in the chase and in the dance-the fleetest elk escapes not his lance the swiftest wild swan soars not beyond his arrow. He knows, too, the tales of our warriors and our sea-kings, sings the legends of our Scalds, and the ballads of our maidens - the productions of those inspired spirits will make our land renowned, when Wilfred Thorold and his three dogs are forgotten. Compare him not, therefore, with the rude in speech and in understanding. Though the love of the daughter of

6

Haco Swayne, the sea-king, was not on him, he would be worthy of being named when my brother is named; for in gentleness, kindness, and enthusiasm, they are similar.'

"Well spoken, my sister,' answered the young islander, with a smile; but ye forget to cheer the stranger and the cast-away at our board, according to the rule of our fathers. Have ye not heard how they ever welcomed the stranger with food-with music and with song that the harp ever rung, and the minstrel ever sung, while men feasted in our halls?' A shealing of turf and unshapen stone, my brother,' answered the maiden, with a look of grave and considerate humour, is a pretty hall for the high feast and the lordly strain. But ye have chosen your minstrel well-the charms of my voice, and the beauty of my song, will harmonize with the outward and inward splendour of the hall of the children of Haco Swayne. Listen, therefore, ye ladies, with your mantles of wadmaal, and your ear ornaments of fish-bones-and listen too, Wilfred Thorold, with thy three comrades, Ringwood, Rover, and Comely, till the daughter of Haco soothes the stranger with her strains in her hall of ruble stone, with its roof of grassy turf.

2.

3.

"As I live, by the net and spear, said young Olave, looking up the narrow glen, in the gorge of which his shealing stood, here comes a moving and breathing illustration of my sister Christina's eulogium on the modesty of woman's nature, and the simplicity of her apparel. Behold, here she comes who may raise common prose speech like mine into the metaphor of a Highland Senaschie. Her mantle is as broad as a displayed banner-she glitters at every step like an armed man-she diffuses frankincense as she walks, and looks from side to side, with the hope that the rocks will stoop their heads and acknowledge her beauty and the bravery of her apparel. Word I it well, my sister? and have I not caught up the distempered language of the bards? Behold, is yon Catrina Snorro, or a pillar of sun-beams, on the heath? She carries the thrift of three generations on her boddice and mantle, and the worth of seven nets on the latchets of her shoes. She strides along with the gait of a swan as it paces the river bank-she has the neck too of the swan, for pride has bent it one way, and vanity has pulled it back the other. Here she comes, and how shall I greet her?' 'Greet her according to Scripture,' said his sister Christina- even welcome her with kisses of thy mouth- dost thou think Catrina Snorro, of Scalholt, comes here to see thy father's daughter, without the wish of meeting thy father's son?' The young hunter stept from the door; I heard the quick

rustling of agitated silks, and something like the half-suppressed utterance of a tongue which knows not how to deny a favour it is anxious to bestow.. That the primitive mode of salutation was followed on this occasion, I have no further assurance than the condescension of female beauty to a handsome youth; and 1 wish it not to be believed, that I state such to be the usual mode of greeting between the sexes in this lonely island.

"Olave entered, leading in a maiden tall and beautiful; the heiress, I afterwards learned, to the wealth of a very opulent islander, and whose personal loveliness was only equalled by the richness and extravagance of her dress. She wore an undress of quilted and flowered silk, bordered with the finest lace, over which a jacket or jupes of damasked satin came midwaist down, ornamented with edgings of lace and gold, the long wide sleeves of which terminated in a golden netting, closing over a wrist very small and white. Her fingers, long and round, were nearly concealed under a profusion of broad rings of gold; a chain collar of the same metal, wrought over a ground of silk, enclosed her neck; while over the whole a loose mantle of many colours, and curiously enriched round the border with the plumage of foreign birds, descended mid-leg down, beneath which, the end of an embroidered garter was seen touching an ankle, and approaching a foot, formed for mirth and dancing. Her head was uncovered-at first I imagined she wore some sort of a fantastic turban, adorned with artificial curls, and sparkling with gold and gems; but I soon discerned that she was indebted for her beautiful headgear

chiefly to the lavish hand of nature. Here and there she had taken and plaited a ringlet; and, gathering the whole of her luxuriant locks together, fastened them with a narrow ornamented fillet, or snood, from beneath which they gushed in a long and thick succession of nutbrown clusters down her back, till they touched her girdle. Vanity and nature strove hand in hand to render this singular head attire graceful and becoming; and the manners of the island beauty were all of that soft and winning kind, which conspired, with a fair face and dark hazel eyes, to make her presence acceptable among men.

"Catrina Snorro,' said Christina, concealing, under the mask of maiden gravity, no small inclination for mirth; are you come to invade us, and discover the humility of our dwelling? You alarm us, arrayed in this splendour; look if my brother be not practising a poetic speech to welcome you from the vale of Scalholt. Come, disarray thee, my old schoolfellow; lay aside that mantle, which bears an island's riches on its hem--the fishy smell of our shealing is not the smell of frankincense; and, instead of setting your jewelled slippers upon carpets of dyed wool, you place them on kneaded clay. Alas! you come not to the painted chamber, and the attiring room, attended by menial maidens; but welcome, nevertheless. I have not seen thee since thy grand uncle died-him with the close hand and the hard heart, and the riches of the Indies at his disposal; and now, like a dutiful relative, thou art giving his treasures to the sun and the wind. Christina,' said her visitant, dropping her embroidered cloak negligently from her neck, and waving back her thick luxuriance of locks, so that the air might circulate about her bosom and shoulders; Christina, you are the same giddy girl still; mirth will be scarce in Oddo when you are mute; but laugh on, my lass-stint not your laughter for me; nay, be as sarcastic as you may choose; put on your cloak of coarse wadmaal as you do now in derision of mine. But I can tell thee, my merry scoffer, that the mantle which Edwin gave thee is more rich and rare than mine; and when shall I, with my inheritance of

an hundred haave-nets-my fields of oxen, and parks of deer, and all my eastern riches, have such sweet and beauteous songs sung in my praise as little lovely Christina Swayne? Ah! my lass, all the hills of Scalholt ring with thy praise; and the riches of my close-handed uncle adorn_me not more than the young Saxon bard has endowed thee with the grace and riches of poesie. Go, now; we are both alike vain-only the fair mantle which the muse has thrown over thee will endure and remain lovely whilst the hill of Hecla stands; and mine will fade as the grass of the summer vale, or perish as the snow of Oddo when the sun brings back the flowers.'

"Ah!' said Olave, I wish we had young Wilfred Thorold here to hearken to this clamour of female wit; to see this encounter between two painted sparrow hawks-to see two young peacocks counting the stars in their trains, and quarrelling over the summary.' In good time was the wish uttered,' said Christina; for hither comes the knight of the harpoon and fishhook-two spears are in his hand-a fox hangs at his back, and before him run his three fourfooted favourites, Ringwood, Rover, and Comely. Room, there, room; and prepare ye all for the natural history of the sea bear, and the cormorant, and the fox, with a crafty head and four mischievous legs.' And the maiden, seating herself as Wilfred entered, extended her distaff like a spear, assumed a huntsman's air, and the tone of one who carries destruction among partridges and pigeons.

See you all this mighty bird?" said the mischievous maiden, imitating the voice of Wilfred, and snatching a wood pigeon from his belt; it is no common creature of the elementsthe egg from whence it sprung was hatched on the hot hill of Hecla; it found its first food in the poke of an English pilgrim, who was drowned in the lava-it drank its first water from the hot spouting spring of Geyser, and then it winged its way, not, like the hook-beaked vulture and cormorant, to prey on the birds of song, but to feast on the staff of human life, on the fatness and fullness of man-I found it preying on a field of corn; I broke its wing with a smooth