"Mother, what are runes?"
What was there in this simple question to startle Mrs. Breakspear, for startled she certainly was?
"Why do you wish to know? Who has been talking to you about runes?"
"This book says that the Vikings used to carve runes on the prows of their galleys. What are runes?"
The mother's face lost its look of alarm, yet it was with some hesitancy that she replied, "They were letters used in olden times by the nations of the north."
"But how could letters carved on the prow protect the vessel?"
What a pair of earnest dark eyes were those fixed that moment upon the mother's face!
"Well, as a matter of fact, they couldn't. But men fancied that they could. They were very superstitious in those days."
As Idris showed a desire for further knowledge, his mother continued:—"The old Norsemen believed that these letters when pronounced in a certain order would have a magical effect. Some runes would stop the course of the wind: others would cause an enemy's sword to break. Some would make the captive's chains fall off: and others again would cause the dead to come forth from the tomb and speak. But you know, dear Idie, all this is not true. The runic letters have no such power. But the old Norse people believed so much in the virtue of these characters that they engraved them on the walls of their dwellings, on their armour, on their ships, on anything, in fact, which they wished to protect."