Over the Border: Acadia, the Home of "Evangeline" by Eliza B. (Eliza Brown) Chase
page 10 of 116 (08%)
page 10 of 116 (08%)
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the estuary of the Petitcodiac, where the river meets the wave of the
tide, the volumes contending cause the Great Bore, as it is called; and as in this region the swine wade out into the mud in search of shell fish, they are sometimes swept away and drowned. The Amazon River also has its Bore; the Indians, trying to imitate the sound of the roaring water, call it "pororoca." In the Hoogly it is shown; and in a river of China, the Teintang, it advances up the stream at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, causing a rise of thirty feet. In some northern countries the Bore is called the Eagre. Octavia says this must be because it screws its way so _eagerly_ into the land, but is immediately suppressed, and informed that the name is a corruption of Oegir, the Scandinavian god of the sea, of whom we learn as follows:-- Odin, the father of the gods, creator of the world, possessing greatest power and wisdom, holds the position in Scandinavian mythology that Zeus does in the Greek. Like the Olympian Jupiter, he held the thunder bolts in his hand; but differed from the more inert divinity of Greece in that, arrayed in robes of cloud, he rode through the universe on his marvelous steed, which had eight feet. This idea was characteristic of a hardy race living a wild outdoor life in a rigorous climate. Oegir, the god of the sea, was a jotun, but friendly to Odin. The jotuns were giants, and generally exerted their powers to the injury of man, but, not being gifted with full intelligence, could be conquered by men. The first jotun, named Ymer, Odin subdued, and of his flesh formed the earth, of his bones the mountains; the ocean was his blood, his brains the clouds, while from his skull the arch of the heavens was made. We resolved to witness the singular spectacle of the Oegir of Fundy; |
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