18 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [V. 



the land lay, took on board with him, at starting, three con- 

 secrated ravens — as an M.P. would take three well-trained 

 pointers to his moor. Having sailed a certain distance, he 

 let loose one, which flew back : by this he judged he had 

 not got half-way. Proceeding onwards, he loosed the second, 

 which, after circling in the air for some minutes in apparent 

 uncertainty, also made off home, as though it still remained 

 a nice point which were the shorter course toward terra 

 firma. But the third, on obtaining his liberty a few days 

 later, flew forward, and by following the direction in which 

 he had disappeared, Rabna Floki, or Floki of the Ravens, 

 as he came to be called, triumphantly made the land. 



The real colonists did not arrive till some years later, for 

 I do not much believe a story they tell of Christian relics, 

 supposed to have been left by Irish fishermen, found on the 

 Westmann islands. A Scandinavian king, named Harold 

 Haarfager (a contemporary of our own King Alfred's), having 

 murdered, burnt, and otherwise exterminated all his brother 

 kings who at that time grew as thick as blackberries in Nor- 

 way, first consolidated their dominions into one realm, as 

 Edgar did the Heptarchy, and then proceeded to invade the 

 Udal rights of the landholders. Some of them, animated 

 with that love of liberty innate in the race of the noble 

 Northmen, rather than submit to his oppressions, determined 

 to look for a new home amid the desolate regions of the icy 

 sea. Freighting a dragon-shaped galley — the " Mayflower'''' 

 of the period — with their wives and children, and all the 

 household monuments that were dear to them, they saw the 

 blue peaks of their dear Norway hills sink down into the 

 sea behind, and manfully set their faces towards the west, 

 where — some vague report had whispered — a new land 

 might be found. Arrived in sight of Iceland, the leader of 

 the expedition threw the sacred pillars belonging to his 

 former dwelling into the water, in order that the gods might 

 determine the site of his new home : carried by the tide, 

 no one could say in what direction, they were at last dis- 

 covered, at the end of three years, in a sheltered bay on 



