Farewell the luck of Edenhall.”
That goblet was said to have been seized by a Musgrave at an elf-banquet.—See Longfellow.
[23] So the old French proverb:—
“Quatorze Janvier,
L’ours sort de tanière,
Fait trois tours,
Et rentre pour quarante jours.”
[24] Sunniva was an Irish king’s daughter. In order to escape compulsory marriage with a heathen, she took ship, and was driven by tempests on the Isle of Selia, near Stad, in Norway, and, with her attendants, found shelter in a cave. The heathens on the mainland, on the look-out for windfalls, observed that there were people on the desert island, and immediately put off to it. At this juncture, through the prayers of Sunniva and her friends, the rocks split, the cave became blocked up, and the savages drew the island blank. In 1014, when Olaf Trygveson landed here from Northumberland, breathing slaughter against the pagans, he discovered the bones of Sunniva, and she was at once canonized.
[25] The similarity between vetr, the old word for winter, and vöttr, the old word for vante (glove), most likely suggested the use of this symbol.
[26] Much of the above explanations of the Runes has been thrown together by Professor T. A. Munck, in the Norsk Folke Kalender for 1848.