"What drinks from the brooks and wells, and from the stones on the bank?"
"The rainbow," replied the wise man.
Then the giant told his little daughter to put the strangers back exactly where she had found them. But the wise man asked her to carry them to the ship just for fun. She leaned over the vessel like a vast cloud and shook them out of her white apron upon the deck. Then with one long breath she blew the ship four miles out to sea. The king shouted back his thanks.
But that wind blew northwest instead of north. The cold was intense and they watched from midnight to midnight the combats in the air between the spirits of the Northern Lights. The sailors were frightened, but the king was pleased. He was farther north than ever before.
The helmsman warned them that they were approaching another shore. No birds welcomed them or sang them the name of the country. Men dressed in the skins of dogs and bears met them as they landed, and took them to their homes on sledges of ice drawn by dogs. Their houses were of blocks of ice and snow, and their talk sounded like dogs barking.
The king did not like these people, for their land was cold. The wise man told him again that his search was an idle one. The end of the world was not for mortal eyes to see. At last the king believed him and sailed homeward. No man to this day has been able to find the far north, the end of the world.
[A LEGEND OF THE NORTH WIND]
Norse
North Wind likes a bit of fun as dearly as a boy does, and it is with boys he likes best to romp and play.
One day North Wind saw a brave little fellow eating his lunch under a tree. Just as he went to bite his bread, North Wind blew it out of his hand and swept away everything else that he had brought for his lunch.