“‘Thjassi demanded as the price of his liberty that Iduna should be betrayed into his hands: this Loki agreed to do, and notwithstanding some secret misgivings, contrived to perform his promise; and thus it was that the goddess of youth, seduced beyond the influence of Asgard, was seized upon by the eagle giant and imprisoned in his castle among the rocks of eternal frost.
“‘The gods, who had lost their renovating principle, were growing grey and wrinkled; the might of the Thunderer was paralysed, and the wisdom of Odin himself, the father of gods and men, was waning; the whole world was pining for want of that principle of life which continually restored the inevitable decay of nature; Loki himself felt the universal loss which the world had sustained, and being as yet not entirely lost to shame or callous to rebuke, set himself in earnest to effect the deliverance of Iduna.
“‘This—having borrowed from Freya her falcon plumage—he managed to effect, and was bringing back the goddess to Asgard, under the guise of a swallow, the bird of spring, when the eagle wings of Thjassi, who was rushing in pursuit, darkened the air and blotted out half the sky. The gods lighted fires round all the walls of Asgard to scare away the pursuer, who fell exhausted in the flames and perished under their vengeance.
“‘But Skadi, his daughter, determined to revenge her father’s death, declared war on Asgard, and carried it on with such success that the gods were fain to come to a compromise with her, and she consented to peace on condition that she should take for her husband any one of the gods she should choose, and should be admitted into Asgard as an equal. From that time forward the earth has felt the influence of the Hrimthursar for a portion of the year; but their power is at an end[38] on the anniversary of that day, when Iduna is delivered from her captivity; and men kindle their fires on Walpurgis Night, the 30th of April, in memory of those which, kindled on the walls of Asgard, had baffled and destroyed the chief of the Hrimthursar.’”[39]
“Ah! by the way, I saw them building up a great bonfire as we rounded that point of land, coming out of Hellesund,” said the Captain; “there was a heap a dozen feet high, and they had put a whole boat upon the top of it.”
“Well, but this is not Walpurgis Night,” said the Parson; “this is St. John’s Eve.”
“We do not know much about St. John’s Eve in these parts,” said Birger, laughing. “I am afraid our legends are a good deal more Pagan than Christian. That which you saw was the ‘Bale-Fire,’ by which our people commemorate the death of Baldur, and the boat was his ship, the Hringhorn. You will see plenty more of them when the night draws on;—every town and every village, and almost every hut will have its bale-fire, and many of them its boat too. It is a singular thing that Pagan legends should have so much more hold on the minds of the people than anything derived from their Christian history, but so it is.”
“Not at all singular,” said the Parson; “properly speaking, Norway was never converted; it was conquered by a Christian faction, and again it was conquered by a court party. The people succumbed to force; but in their thoughts and feelings—and therefore in their manners and customs—they were what they had been in the days of the sea-kings; and now their minds naturally revert to the time when their country was most powerful.”
“I will give you a Christian legend, then,” said Captain Hjelmar, the Swedish commander of the steamer, who had been for some time talking with Birger on the bridge, and now came forward with his hat in his hand, after the manner of his country, and told his tale, very fluently, in a queer sort of French. This was also after the manner of his country, for, though that language is abominated in Norway, in Sweden it is much affected by those who would wish it to be supposed that they are habitués of the court; and thus it was that though—as it afterwards turned out—Captain Hjelmar could speak remarkably good English, he preferred addressing Englishmen in remarkably bad French, in order to show his court breeding.
“You see that tall rock,” said he, “that looks so black and distant, in front of that green island?—that rock really is one of the Hrimthursar of whom Lieutenant Birger has been telling you; and when St. Olaf came to convert the Norwegians, the giant, who had been bribed by Hakon the Jarl, at the price of his young son Erling, whom he sacrificed to him, waded into the sea, and put forth his hand to stay the ship, that the saint should not approach the shore: but the saint served a higher Power than the gods of Asgard, and even as he stood, the giant froze into stone; and there he stands to this day, as you see him, with one arm advanced,—and there he will stand till the day of Ragnarök, except that once in a hundred years, on Christmas Eve, he is restored to life, in order to declare to the Hrimthursar that on that day their power was broken for ever.”