Atven was the son of a fisherman, and lived with his father on a flat sandy coast far away in the North-land.
Great rocks strewed the shore about their hut, and the child had often been told how, long, long ago, the giant Thor fought single-handed against a shipload of wild men who attempted to land in the little bay; and drove them off—killing some, and changing others into the wonderful stones that remained there to that day.
The country people called them "Thor's balls;" and Atven often wandered about amongst them, trying to find likenesses to the old warriors in their weather-worn surfaces; and peering into every hole and cranny—half dreading, half hoping to see a stone hand stretched out to him from the misty shadows of the past.
Here and there, a row of smaller boulders lay half sunk in the sand, with only their rounded tops, covered with long brown seaweed, appearing above the surface.
These, Atven decided, must be the heads of the ancient Norsemen, and further on stood their huge mis-shapen bodies, twisted into every imaginable form, and covered by myriads of shell-fish, that clung to their grey sides like suits of shining armour.
Atven was often lonely; for he had no brothers or sisters, and his mother had died many years before. He was a shy, wild boy—more at home with the sea birds that flew about the lonely shore, than with the children he met sometimes as he wandered about the country; but in spite of his shyness he had friends who loved him everywhere he went. The house dogs on every farm knew his step, and ran out to greet him; the horses rubbed their noses softly upon his homespun tunic; the birds clustered on his shoulders; the cats came purring up, and the oxen lowed and shook their bells as soon as they caught sight of him. The very hens cackled loudly for joy—and Atven would caress them all with his brown hand, and had a kind word for every one of them.
All the short Northern summer, Atven spent his evenings in searching about amongst "Thor's balls" for traces of the warriors of the old legend; and one night, in the soft clearness of the twilight, he came upon something that rewarded him for all his patient perseverance.
Lifting a mass of seaweed that had completely covered one of the larger rocks, he saw before him the graceful form of a little Stone-maiden!
There she lay, as though quietly sleeping, her long dress falling in straight folds to her feet, her rippled hair spreading about her. One small hand grasped a chain upon her neck, the other was embedded in the rock on which she was lying.