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One party went regularly every morning to fish in the ice-holes; another party roamed the woods, and returned with grouse, or rabbits, and sometimes with deer; while some remained, part of the day at least, in the hut, mending snow-shoes and moccasins, and making other preparations. In the midst of all this busy labour, the shoosking was not forgotten.
On the 19th and 20th heavy snow had fallen. All these facts seem to show that the warmth which had caused the chimneys in the snow over the ice-holes, and the heated vapours on the higher parts of the mountains, proceeded from within, and not from without.
The net, which is sunk to the bottom with lead weights, while its top edge is held up by ropes over the ice, forms an absolute prison for all the fish within the square, which usually swarm at this season. The fogasch and sheath fish leave their miry bed and come up to breathe at the ice-holes; they have their family festivals in the winter, when cold-blooded animals make love.
They were unable to continue their conversation, for the boisterous snowstorm was increasing in force. "Quite a devil's marriage," said the Bohemian. Zbyszko, however, told him to keep quiet, and not to conjure up the evil name. "Dost thou not know," he said, "that on such a Holy Day, the devil's power is subdued, and the devils hide themselves in the ice-holes?
Storms never ceased, and in the New Year the land lay in the stricture of a black frost which froze the beasts in the byres and made Biorn shiver all the night through, though in ordinary winter weather he was hardy enough to dive in the ice-holes. The stock of meal fell low, and when spring tarried famine drew very near. Such a spring no man living remembered.
Fish were scarce in the ice-holes, the stock of meal in the meal-ark grew low, and the deep snow made poor hunting in wood or on fell-side. Belts were tightened, and there were hollow cheeks among the thralls. And then one morning the wind would blow from the south, and a strange smell come into the air.
Behrens describes two ice-caves near Questenberg, in the county of Stollberg, on the Harz mountains. They both occur in limestone, and are known as the Great and Little Ice-holes. The one is close to the village of Questenberg, and consists of a chasm several fathoms deep, so cold that in summer the water trickling down its edges is frozen into long icicles.
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