THE ELF OF LIGHT.
A NORSE TALE.
In the strange island of Iceland, thrown up, by fire, from the depths of the sea, there once lived a lad who worshipped the god Odin, and was taught from two absurd books called the Eddas. He wished to fight and die on a battle-field, so that his soul might cross a rainbow-bridge, and dwell in the beautiful halls of Valhalla. There—so the Eddas say—are the chosen heroes, who are forever fighting all day, and feasting all night.
Thus, instead of a Bible, young Thule studied wild fairy-tales; yet, for all his heathenish training, he had some noble traits, which a Christian lad might imitate.
He lived with his widowed mother at the edge of a forest. The snow piled itself in drifts, and the wind howled through the trees, and crept in at the windows; for the cottage was old, and a blind hurricane might almost have mistaken it for a heap of brushwood. But Thule was quite as happy as if the hut had been a palace. He loved the winter-beauty of his mother’s face, and the silvery hair half hidden under her black cap. All the fire they burned was made of the dry sticks he gathered in the forest, and more than half the money they used was earned by his small hands.
In one of the ice-months of the year, when the weather was sharper than a serpent’s tooth, Thule came home from a hard day’s work; and, the chillier he grew, the more he whistled to keep up a brave heart. Looking at the horizon before him, he saw the cold glare which we call Northern Lights, but which he knew to be the flickering of helmets and shields and spears.
“The warlike maidens are out to-night,” thought the boy: “they are going to the battle-fields to decide who is worthy to be slain. How I love to see the sky lighted up with the flash of their armor! Odin, grant I may one day be a hero, and walk over the bridge of a rainbow!”
Then Thule went to his whistling again; but, just as he struck into the forest where the deep shadows lay, he heard a faint moan, which sounded like a human voice, or might have been a sudden gust of wind in a hollow tree.