If she stood on the banks of a rapid stream, at the foot of a cascade, she said that the sounds she heard came from Stromkarl. The Stromkarl has a silver harp, on which he plays wild melodies. If his favor be gained, by any present, he teaches the listener his songs. Wo, however, to the man who hears him for the ninth time. He cannot shake off the supernatural charm, and becomes a victim to his imprudent temerity.
One evening all the family was collected around the earthen stove. Eric was there. Suddenly the sky, which in the morning had been dark and cloudy, was lit up as if by the blaze of a immense conflagration. The aurora-borealis, that wonderful phenomenon of the north, glittered in the horizon, and gradually extended its evolutions from the east to the west. Sometimes all the colors of the rainbow were visible, and again it glittered like a mass of fusees, or transformed itself into a vast white cloud, sparkling like the milky-way. Again it would assume the most splendid blaze, and appear like a mantle of purple and gold. For one moment the rays would be alligned, and gradually disappear in the distance; then they would cross each other like network. Again they would arrange themselves in bows, dart out with arrowing points, shoot into towers and form crowns. It might have been fancied the creation of a kaleidescope, into which the hand of a magician had cast jets of life, oscillating and floating under every form. At the same time, there was heard in the air a sound like that accompanying the discharge of fireworks.
Eric, who had been asked to give an explanation of this phenomenon, analyzed the various theories of philosophers on the subject. He especially referred to those of the Society of Copenhagen. He said this was one of the phenomena which no philosopher had as yet explained; that of all the hypotheses on the matter, the most specious was that which ascribes the aurora-borealis to the reflection of the northern ices.
"My wise daughter, what do you think of it?" said M. Vermondans, speaking to Ebba, who, with her hands crossed over her chest with religious silence, sat looking at a phenomenon she had witnessed every winter, and which on every occasion awakened a new emotion.
Ebba said, "I do not know the dissertations of academies, like Eric. Since, however, they do not explain the cause and motion of the aurora borealis, I had rather rely on the simple and religious traditions of an ignorant people, to that of the Greenlanders, who say that the rays of the aurora come from the glare of souls which wander over the skies."
"On my soul," said M. Vermondans, "that idea pleases me. Like the problems of the natural philosophers, it does not explain the problem of the aurora-borealis, but it is much more poetical. This tradition contributes to the assistance of an idea I advanced the other day, on the vanity of scientific speculations, especially when we compare them with the delicious conceptions of the ignorant."
"True," replied Eric, "in the infancy of nations, as in the childhood of the individual, there is a graceful poetry, an ideal and intellectual understanding of nature, which does not resist grave impressions or the reason of mature age. Thus, amid the wild nations of North America, the poor mother who has lost a child, fancies that she scents the perfume of its breath in the flowers, and hears its sigh in the voices of the birds. Thus is it that our Lapland neighbors attach a touching faith to many physical incidents.
"When one of them becomes ill, they say that his soul has been called to a better world by the loving beings he has lost; and that his soul is about to depart to yield to their prayers, and seek its final home with them. Then they send for a sorcerer, who casts himself on his face on the ground, and in mysterious words beseeches the wandering soul to return. If it yields to the supplications, if it returns to the tabernacle it has inhabited, the invalid recovers breath and strength; if not, he dies. Such, and a variety of other examples, we find in every direction, in the wonderful tales of the east, in the popular traditions of the north, and they prove clearly enough that there are flowers of poetry and spring-like perfumes full of inimitable grace in all primitive societies, even where gross ignorance and coarse usages distress us.
"Think you though that science also is without poetry? If you understand by poetry, what I think you do, every ennobling of thought, every exaltation of mind, do you think there is no lofty and grand poetry in that geology which searches into the bowels of the earth, and exhibits to you the different layers of which it is composed, and the revolutions it has undergone; in the researches of the naturalist, who exhibits the creations of an antediluvian world; in the observations of the astronomer, who explains the configuration and harmonious movements of those luminous orbs removed millions of miles from that on which we dwell? Do you think there is no poetry in the material development of civilized societies, in the industrious activity which digs canals, pierces mountains, subdues the elements, and moves all to man's will?"
"Ah, certainly I experience a very agreeable emotion, when in an old custom I find the traces of the religious spirit of our fathers, and listen to their legends and songs. This emotion, however, does not prevent me from thinking of that which should be created by the imposing spectacle of the progress of civilization, more than the pleasure I would enjoy if I reposed by the side of a fresh spring, mysteriously concealed amid a forest, would prevent me from loving to look on a majestic river, down which floated the canvas of some ship, or the boilers of a steamer. The perfection of matters would be to kindle our soul with the lights of science, and at the same time preserve the innocent candor of our hearts. Thus will we obey the Bible-text which says, 'You shall not enter the Kingdom of heaven, unless you be as little children.' To be a child in simple-heartedness, a man in toil and labor, is the end we should propose to ourselves."