United States or Moldova ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
So speaks the spirit of our fathers, and we must show ourselves their true sons. Send round the war-arrow, and death to the man who does not pass it on! Better die bravely together than falter and part company, to be hunted down one by one by men who will never forgive us as long as we have an acre of land for them to seize. Perry, son of Surturbrand, you are the lawman. Put it to the vote!"
It is in these Neptunian beds that the famous surturbrand is found, a species of bituminous timber, black and shining like pitch coal; but whether belonging to the common carboniferous system, or formed from ancient drift-wood, is still a point of dispute among the learned.
Beside the Bovey Tracey lignitic beds to which we have above referred, other tertiary clays are found to contain this early promise of coal. The eocene beds of Brighton are an important instance of a tertiary lignite, the seam of surturbrand, as it is locally called, being a somewhat extensive deposit.
"Then all our men murmured, and I as loud as any. But old Surturbrand the housecarle did more; for out he stepped to your father's side, and spoke right up before the King. "'Bonny times, he said, 'I have lived to see, when a lad of Earl Oslac's blood is sent out of the land, a beggar and a wolf's head, for playing a boy's trick or two, and upsetting a shaveling priest!
Hoi! Swend's men! Hoi! Canute's men! Vikings' sons, sea-cocks' sons, Berserkers' sons all! Split up the war-arrow, and send it round, and the curse of Odin on every man that will not pass it on! A war-king to-morrow, and Hildur's game next day, that the old Surturbrand may fall like a freeholder, axe in hand, and not die like a cow, in the straw which the Frenchman has spared him."
"Hereward is come home!" cried a feeble voice behind. "Let me come to him. Let me feel him." And through the crowd, supported by two ladies, tottered the mighty form of Surturbrand, the blind Viking. "Hereward is come!" cried he, as he folded his master's son in his arms. "Hoi! he is wet with blood! Hoi! he smells of blood! Hoi! the ravens will grow fat now, for Hereward is come home!"
"'By , Earl! says Surturbrand, 'I have fought knee to knee beside a braver king than that there, and nobler earls than ever a one here; and was never afraid, like a free Dane, to speak my mind to them, by sea or land. And if the King, with his French ways, does not understand a plain man's talk, the two earls yonder do right well, and I say, Deal by this lad in the good old fashion.
With a bitter growl he rode on, trying to recollect a house where he could safely lodge. Martin pointed one out. "Old Viking Surturbrand, the housecarle, did live there, and maybe lives there still." "We will try." And Martin knocked at the door. The wicket was opened, but not the door; and through the wicket window a surly voice asked who was there. "Who lives here?" "Perry, son of Surturbrand.
Such was his only reply. It was no use for me to entreat, supplicate, get angry, or do anything else in the way of opposition; it would only have been opposing a will harder than the granite rock. Hans was finishing the repairs of the raft. One would have thought that this strange being was guessing at my uncle's intentions. With a few more pieces of surturbrand he had refitted our vessel.
We managed such wild young colts better, we Vikings who conquered the Danelagh. "'What does the man say? asked the King, for old Surturbrand was talking broad Danish. "'He is a housecarle of mine, Lord King, a good man and true; but old age and rough Danish blood has made him forget that he stands before kings and earls.
Word Of The Day