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The written history of Iceland begins about the year 860, when a viking living on the Faroe Islands who was on his way home from Norway, being driven far northward of his course, came to an unknown coast. Climbing a high rock and looking around, he beheld no signs of life; before he could return to his ship, however, a sudden storm came on, covering the ground with a mantle of snow.
And without waiting for a reply, he ran off with great swiftness. At the appointed time Demdike sought the church, and as he drew near it there issued from the porch a female, who hastily placing the child, wrapped in a mantle, in his arms, tarried for no speech from him, but instantly disappeared. Demdike, however, recognised in her the miller's daughter, Dorothy Croft.
At first the Princess would not promise, but the nurse showed her so many good reasons for it that in the end she agreed to be amiable to her step-mother. Then the nurse dressed her in a robe of pale green and gold brocade, and combed out her long fair hair till it floated round her like a golden mantle, and put on her head a crown of roses and jasmine with emerald leaves.
He didn't hesitate. "Zuleika!" he cried in a loud voice. Then he took a deep breath, and, burying his face in his mantle, plunged. Full on the river lay the mantle outspread. Then it, too, went under. A great roll of water marked the spot. The plumed hat floated. There was a confusion of shouts from the raft, of screams from the roof.
She laid it down when we came in, and got up and received us most graciously. Her companion, who was arranging cockle-shells on his black mantle, did not stir; he seemed to say, by glancing at his wife, that we must confine our attentions to her. He seemed a man of twenty-four or twenty-five years of age.
The lady is dressed in a tight-sleeved loose robe, which falls in folds to the feet, but is girt about the waist with band and buckle; the right hand holds a fold of the robe; the left hand, lying on the bosom, is in the position seen in so many of the figures on the west front of the Cathedral Church at Wells, grasping the cord that holds up the mantle to the shoulders; the head rests on a cushion; beneath the head-dress the wimple may be seen passing beneath the chin.
May we not put a dis before it? "Silly Women!" "Noble Creature!" Did the Native mean that woman then was silly and man then noble? Well for him is it that our "Mrs. Ward Howes" and "Mrs. Lillie Blakes" cannot make rhymes upon his name; well for him that he went his way holding his mantle before his face. But he himself did not hold himself lightly.
Laughing joyously in the clear, silvery tones which are usually heard only in youth, he clasped her in his strong arms, raised her slender figure in its floating royal mantle from the ground, kissed her lips and eyes, held her aloft in the soaring attitude of the Goddess of Victory, as if to display his happiness to the eyes of all, and at last placed her carefully on her feet again like some treasured jewel.
And then he said unto the damosel that came from his sister, Damosel, this mantle that ye have brought me, I will see it upon you. Sir, she said, It will not beseem me to wear a king's garment. By my head, said Arthur, ye shall wear it or it come on my back, or any man's that here is.
Down on the sands they laid him. To the stilled heart Stern laid his ear. Tears were in his eyes, too, and in the girl's, as Stern shook his head, silently. Up over the time-worn, the venerable, the kindly face they drew the mantle, but not before each had reverently kissed the wrinkled forehead. "Better thus," whispered the engineer. "Far better, every way.
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