Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 edition. Excerpt:... VAULUNDUR. A LEGEND OF WAYLAND SMITH. The country of Finmark is situated far to the north; the climate is excessively cold, for it is only in summer that the sun appears above the horizon; the dawn of morning and the hues of evening follow each other in quick succession; not, as in the south, skirting the warm day with a fringe of gold, but with a weak and mournful glimmer scarcely sufficient to prevent the entire extinction of life. In these deserts vegetation languishes; a few thin fir-trees rise like petrifactions round the bare mountains which are covered for the greater part of the year with ice and snow; even the inhabitants of these regions appear small and shrivelled, and the reindeer is almost the only animal that enlivens the melancholy face of nature. The sun is quite invisible during six B months of the year, and occasional streaks of light are then seen in the north like the veins of metal that intersect the rocks below; for whatever may be wanting on the surface of the country is fully compensated by the riches contained in the depths of the mountains. It seems too as if external nature intended to point out the treasures hidden in her bosom by the close similitude her stony trees and the metallic streaks of her meteors bear to them. The men of this country are of unusual frame; their countenances are unpleasing, but their limbs are strong and well knit; they are generally intelligent and ingenious; so that, like their mountains, they possess internally more than their exterior promises; their thoughts and labours are exclusively employed in bringing to light those riches that the reserve of nature seeks to conceal from the inhabitants of more southern countries; they are good miners and excellent smiths, and living...