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Idunn, the wife of Bragi, and a purely Norse creation, seems to be a double of Freyja; she, too, according to Snorri, is carried away by the giants and rescued by Loki. The golden apples which she is to keep till Ragnarök remind us of those which Frey offered to Gerd; and the gift of eternal youth, of which they are the symbols, would be appropriate enough to Freyja as an agricultural deity.
Rich and poor alike brought her their good-will offerings, and many old Norse awmries were ransacked in the search for jewels or ornaments of the jade stone, which all held as "luck beyond breaking." The present which pleased Thora most of all was a new wedding-dress, the gift of her mother.
And nobly did the descendant of the Norse sea-kings maintain the credit of his warlike ancestors that day. With a sword that might have matched that of Goliath of Gath, he swept the way before him wherever he went, and more than once by a furious onset turned the tide of war in favor of his party when it seemed about to overwhelm them.
So important was this collection that it has been called "the Bible of the Romantic Reformation." In 1770 appeared Percy's translation of Mallet's Northern Antiquities. For the first time the English world was given an easily accessible volume which disclosed the Norse mythology in all its strength and weirdness.
He got none in Dublin, for they were all gone to the Welsh marches to help Earl Alfgar and King Griffin. So he went on through the Hebrides, intending, of course, to plunder as he went: but there he got but little booty, and lost several men. So he went on again to the Orkneys, to try for fresh hands from the Norse Earl Hereof; but there befell a fresh mishap.
Norse or Irish, they would help us, if we could reach them!" Bertric said never a word, but ran to the place whence he could look out to sea, and came back with a brighter face. "They are not Danish," he said. "I am sure thereof. And it is just a chance that we might reach them. If they see we are in need, there is another hope for us, for they will meet us, or heave to for us."
Once the mutual distrust was overcome the two races gradually united, and out of this union of Saxons and Normans came the new English life and literature. The old Norse strength and grandeur, the magnificent sagas telling of the tragic struggles of men and gods, which still stir us profoundly, these have all disappeared.
Our old faith falls from us, and we are ready for the new. Let it be soon." There I think that the hand of Nona wrought, for the Norse folk fairly worshipped her.
Thenceforward he and Robert kept up a lively antiquarian talk on the traces of Norse settlement in the Cumbrian valleys, which lasted till the ladies left the dining-room. As Catherine Leyburn went out Elsmere stood holding the door open. She could not help raising her eyes upon him, eyes full of a half-timid half-grateful friendliness. His own returned her look with interest.
In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the plank, and a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab.
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