From either flank projects a bank of some thirty oars,
that look, as they smite the ocean with even beat, like
the legs on which the reptile crawls over its surface.
One stately mast of pine serves to carry a square sail
made of cloth, brilliant with stripes of red, white, and
blue.

And who are they who navigate this strange, barbaric
vessel?--why leave they the sheltering fiords of their
beloved Norway? They are the noblest hearts of that noble
land--freemen, who value freedom,--who have abandoned
all rather than call Harald master, and now seek a new
home even among the desolate crags of Iceland, rather
than submit to the tyranny of a usurper.

"Rorb--ober Gud! wenn nur bie Geelen gluben!"

Another picture, and a sadder story; but the scene is
now a wide dun moor, on the slope of a seaward hill; the
autumn evening is closing in, but a shadow darker than
that of evening broods over the desolate plain,--the
shadow of DEATH. Groups of armed men, with stern sorrow
in their looks, are standing round a rude couch, hastily
formed of fir branches. An old man lies there--dying.
His ear is dulled even to the shout of victory; the mists
of an endless night are gathering in his eyes; but there
is passion yet in the quivering lip, and triumph on the
high-resolved brow; and the gesture of his hand has kingly
power still. Let me tell his saga, like the bards of that
old time.