OLAND AND GOTHLAND 123 



runs so overflowingly that they are able to make little 

 fish-ponds in their cellars. 



1 The gigantic bones near the great church, which are 

 held as a marvel, are in fact whale-bones/ Alas for 

 legend when science comes by : it is all swept away. 

 The great church of St. Maria, consecrated in 1225, the 

 only church in Wisby where Divine service is now held, 

 was believed to have been built by a virgin giantess, 

 and these bones are her relics. 



Let us hear Fergusson. c The Island of Gothland 

 deserves to be treated as a little province of itself in 

 an architectural view, inasmuch as it possesses a group 

 of churches within its limits as interesting as any in 

 the north of Europe, and peculiar, if not exceptional, in 

 design. Their existence is owing to the fact that 

 during the eleventh and twelfth centuries a great 

 portion of the Eastern trade, which had previously 

 been carried on through Egypt or Constantinople, was 

 diverted to a Northern line of communications, owing 

 principally to the disturbed state of the East, which 

 preceded, and in fact gave rise to, the Crusades. At this 

 time a very considerable trade passed through Russia, 

 and centred in Novgorod. From that place it passed 

 down the Baltic to Gothland, which was chosen appa- 

 rently for the security of its island position; and its 

 capital, Wisby, became the great emporium of the 

 West. After two centuries of prosperity, it was gradu- 

 ally superseded by the rise of the Hanseatic towns on 

 the mainland, and a final blow was struck by Waldemar 



