[42] We may suppose the beads to have been of the potent adderstone, to which so many virtues were ascribed.
[43] Like those anciently borne by porters at the gates of distinguished persons, as a badge of office.
[44] See the Eyrbiggia Saga.
[45] See Torfæi Orcadus, p. 131.
EDITOR’S NOTES.
[(a)] p. 17. Norna’s soothsaying. The passage quoted by Scott from the Saga of Eric the Red may be read in its context in “Vinland the Good,” edited by Mr. Reeves, and published by the Clarendon Press. Eric was the discoverer of Greenland, and father of Leif the Lucky, who found Vinland (New England, or Nova Scotia?) about the year 1002. Leif has a statue in Boston, Massachusetts.
[(b)] p. 35. Islands “supposed to be haunted.” In De Quincey’s autobiographical essay his sailor brother, Pink, describes the terrors of those isles. One of them, the noise of a Midnight Axe, is also found in Ceylon, in Mexico, and elsewhere. The Editor may be permitted to refer to the legends collected in his “Custom and Myth.”