RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 473 



they pattered thick and heavy a-top, or slanted through the 

 broken hatchway to the vacant bed on the opposite side of 

 the excavation, I called up the wild narrative of Norna, and 

 felt all its poetry. The opening passage of the story is, how- 

 ever, not poetry, but good prose, in which the curious visitor 

 might give expression to his own conjectures, if ingenious 

 enough either to form or to express them so well " "With 

 my eyes fixed on the smaller bed," the sorceress is made to 

 say, " I wearied myself with conjectures regarding the origin 

 and purpose of my singular place of refuge. Had it been 

 really the work of that powerful Trolld to whom the poetry 

 of the Scalds referred it ? or was it the tomb of some Scan- 

 dinavian chief, interred with his arms and his wealth, perhaps 

 also with his immolated wife, that what he loved best in life 

 might not in death be divided from him? or was it the abode 

 of penance, chosen by some devoted anchorite of later days ? 

 or the idle work of some wandering mechanic, whom chance, 

 and whim, and leisure, had thrust upon such an undertak- 

 ing T What follows this sober passage is the work of the 

 poet " Sleep," continues Norna, " had gradually crept upon 

 me among my lucubrations, when I was startled from my 

 slumbers by a second clap of thunder ; and when I awoke, I 

 saw through the dim light which the upper aperture admit- 

 ted, the unshapely and indistinct form of Trolld the dwarf, 

 seated opposite to me on the lesser couch, which his square 

 and misshapen bulk seemed absolutely to fill up. I was 

 startled, but not affrighted ; for the blood of the ancient 

 race of Lochlin was warm in my veins. He spoke, and his 

 words were of Norse, so old, that few save my father, or I 

 myself, could have comprehended their import, such lan- 

 guage as was spoken in these islands ere Olave planted his 

 cross on the ruins of heathenism. His meaning was dark 

 also, and obscure, like that which the pagan priests were wont 

 to deliver, in the name of their idols, to the tribes that as- 



