The pause was interrupted by the loud manly voice of the Udaller. “Why does the game stand still, my masters? Are you afraid because my kinswoman is to play our voluspa? It is kindly done in her, to do for us what none in the isles can do so well; and we will not baulk our sport for it, but rather go on the merrier.”
There was still a pause in the company, and Magnus Troil added, “It shall never be said that my kinswoman sat in her bower unhalsed, as if she were some of the old mountain-giantesses, and all from faint heart. I will speak first myself; but the rhyme comes worse from my tongue than when I was a score of years younger.—Claud Halcro, you must stand by me.”
Hand in hand they approached the shrine of the supposed sibyl, and after a moment’s consultation together, Halcro thus expressed the query of his friend and patron. Now, the Udaller, like many persons of consequence in Zetland, who, as Sir Robert Sibbald has testified for them, had begun thus early to apply both to commerce and navigation, was concerned to some extent in the whale-fishery of the season, and the bard had been directed to put into his halting verse an enquiry concerning its success.
Claud Halcro.
“Mother darksome, Mother dread—
Dweller on the Fitful-head,
Thou canst see what deeds are done
Under the never-setting sun.
Look through sleet, and look through frost,
Look to Greenland’s caves and coast,—
By the iceberg is a sail
Chasing of the swarthy whale;
Mother doubtful, Mother dread,
Tell us, has the good ship sped?”
The jest seemed to turn to earnest, as all, bending their heads around, listened to the voice of Norna, who, without a moment’s hesitation, answered from the recesses of the tent in which she was enclosed:—
Norna.
“The thought of the aged is ever on gear,—
On his fishing, his furrow, his flock, and his steer;
But thrive may his fishing, flock, furrow, and herd,
While the aged for anguish shall tear his grey beard.”
There was a momentary pause, during which Triptolemus had time to whisper, “If ten witches and as many warlocks were to swear it, I will never believe that a decent man will either fash his beard or himself about any thing, so long as stock and crop goes as it should do.”
But the voice from within the tent resumed its low monotonous tone of recitation, and, interrupting farther commentary, proceeded as follows:—