TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY THE REV. OLAF PÁLSSON, DEAN AND RECTOR OF REYKJAVIK CATHEDRAL. REVISED AND EDITED BY DAVID MACKINLAY AND ANDREW JAMES SYMINGTON.
STORIES OF SÆMUNDUR FRODI, CALLED THE LEARNED.[[42]]
I. THE DARK SCHOOL.
Long, long ago, when Trolls and Giants lived among men, there was a famous school where curious youths were taught the mysteries of witchcraft. France and Germany both claim the honour of it, but no one knows where it really was.
It was kept in a dismal cavern, deep underground, into which no ray of sunlight ever entered. Here, the scholars had to stay no less than seven winters; for it took them all that time to complete their studies. They never saw their teacher from one year’s end to another. Every morning a grey grizzly hand, all covered with hair, pushed itself through the cavern wall and gave to each one his lesson book. These books were written all over with letters of fire, and could be read with ease, even in the dark. The lessons over, the same grizzly hand again appeared to take away the books and bring in the scholars’ dinner.
At the close of winter, the scholars who had then got through their seven years apprenticeship were dismissed. The great iron door was opened, and the master stood watching those who went out; for he had stipulated that the scholar who walked hindmost, in passing through, was to be seized by him and kept as a thrall. But who was this strange school-master? Why, Old Nick himself. No wonder, then, that each of the scholars struggled hard to be first in passing the fatal threshold.
Once on a time, there were three Icelanders at the dark school; Sæmund Frodi, afterwards parish priest at Oddi, Kalfur Arnason, and Halfdan Eldjarnsson, afterwards parish priest at Fell, in Slettuhlid. They were all dismissed at the same time. Sæmund, to the great delight of his companions, offered to walk hindmost in going out of school, so he dressed himself in a long loose cloak, which he took care to leave unbuttoned, and bidding good bye to school-fellows left behind, prepared to follow his countrymen. Just as he was putting his feet on the first step of the stair which led up from the school door, Old Nick, who was watching hard by, made a clutch at the cloak and called out,
“Sæmund Frodi, pass not the door,
Thou art my thrall for evermore.”