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The next day the Norse chiefs went to York and took the required oath, and were then escorted back to their ships. So terrible had been the slaughter, so complete the destruction of the invading army, that, even including the guard that remained at the fleet, twenty-four ships sufficed to carry away home the survivors of the mighty host.
Tuesday was consecrated to Tyr, a son of Odin; Wednesday, Odin's or Wooden's day, to Odin; Thursday, or Thor's day, to Thor; and Friday, or Freya's day, was sacred to the goddess Freya. THE LANGUAGE. The Scandinavian or Norse languages include the Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian dialects.
They feared it, for they had no chance on it, as their vessels were often merely hides stretched on wattles, resembling enlarged coracles. Yet with such rude ships as they had, they reached Orkney, Shetland, the Faroes and Iceland as hermits or missionaries. In Norse times they never had the mastery of the sea, and the Pictish navy is a myth of earlier days.
It left the world like a Norse king on his fire-ship. But, at the moment, Alec was too busy in the depths of his snow-vault to hear or see the signals. By-and-by a knock came to the kitchen door, Mary went and opened it. "Alec's at hame, I ken," said a rosy boy, almost breathless with past speed and present excitement. "Hoo ken ye that, my man?" asked Mary.
Look on a map at the position of Iceland, and you will see at once that it should not be classed as a European island. It belongs to North America. It was, in fact, unknown to modern Europe until the year 861 A.D., when it was discovered by Nadodd, a Norse rover.
Among the visions which the Norse Sibyl sees and describes in the weird prophecy known as the Voluspa is one of the fatal mistletoe. "I behold," says she, "Fate looming for Balder, Woden's son, the bloody victim. There stands the Mistletoe slender and delicate, blooming high above the ground. Out of this shoot, so slender to look on, there shall grow a harmful fateful shaft.
Nevertheless in the tenth century of the Christian era bold Norse vikings made the passage in the face of storm and wind. In their slender open ships they braved the elements on voyage after voyage. We think of the vikings as pirates, and so they were. But they were also diligent colonists who tilled the ground wherever it would yield even the scantiest living.
When, therefore, well on in the dinner, he hammered upon the table for silence, and said that he must give expression to a sentiment that lay at his heart, everybody instantly felt that something unusual was impending. There fell such a sudden stillness upon the table, that one could hear the lively chatter of the ladies, who, in accordance with Norse custom, were dining in the adjoining rooms.
And is it not one of the strongest proofs of the divine life and power of that Gospel, that, under its influence, the hard and cruel Norse heart has been so softened and humanized that at this moment one of the best illustrations of the peaceful and gentle virtues which it inculcates is afforded by the descendants of the sea-kings and robbers of the middle centuries?
Bertric gave away the bride, as the friend of Hakon, who was her guardian; and after the wedding in the old Norse way, Phelim blessed us after the manner of the new faith which he and his had taught us to love, though he might not do more for us, as yet unbaptized.
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