Gave he me gladness.
Let Hell keep her prey!’
and Hell will keep her prey, as the Norna revealed to Odin, till the day of restitution of all things; and then, when the new sun shall enlighten the new earth, Baldur, restored from Hell, and Hodur, no longer blind, shall reign for ever and ever.[42]
“But in the mean time it was necessary to prepare the funeral pyre of the god: his body was placed in his ship, the Hringhorn, and the pile was built round it, and his wife, Nanna, and his dwarf, Litur, and his father’s magic ring, Dropsnir, and his horse, and all his accoutrements, were placed on it, and amid a weeping concourse of gods and men, and Hrimthursar, and dwarfs, and witches, the fire was placed to it, and all nature mourned the departure of innocence.
“And in memory of this, so soon as the days cease to lengthen, and nature feels the loss of its original innocence, and darkness begins to threaten the earth, men kindle their fires in memory of the death of Baldur.”[43]
“Hallo! the Thousand take you! look where you are steering,” shouted out Hjelmar, in Swedish, to the helmsman, “are you going to run down the island?” And in truth it did seem something like it, for the branches of the overhanging trees rattled against the fore-topsail-yard, bringing down a shower of leaves and twigs; and a projecting ash so nearly brushed the paddle-box on which they were sitting, that the Parson broke off a branch as they passed.
“Confound those fellows! they know the water is deep here, and think they cannot shave the point too closely, I suspect they wanted to astonish the passengers, and did not see me among them.”
The point which they had rounded was just to the east, from off Osterisö, at which place they had just touched; and immediately afterwards they plunged into a deep, dark chasm of a passage between the two islands, which looked as if they had been split asunder by some sudden convulsion of nature, so evidently the projections and indentations of the opposite walls of rock seemed to fit into each other; while far overhead the trees looked as if they were overarching the chasm, and shutting out the light of day from its recesses. The churning sound of the paddles, and the hissing of the sea beneath their stroke sounded unnaturally loud, and the two little pop-guns which the Gefjon carried on her forecastle and took that opportunity for discharging, rolled and echoed like a peal of thunder.
“There!” said Captain Hjelmar, as the steamer pushed her way into daylight, and opened out a wide expanse no less beautiful than those they had been passing through all the morning; “there lies the strength of our coast; the Norwegian navy consists principally of gun-boats, and these dodge in and out among these islets, just as difficult to catch as rabbits in a warren; the great lumbering cruiser of the enemy watches in vain on the outside, like a terrier at the rabbit’s hole, while the rabbit, meanwhile, has passed out by a back door, and is taking his pleasure elsewhere.[44]