"What drinks from the brooks and wells, and from the stones on
the bank?"

"The rainbow," replied the wise man.

Then the giant told his little daughter to put the strangers back
exactly where she had found them. But the wise man asked her to carry
them to the ship just for fun. She leaned over the vessel like a vast
cloud and shook them out of her white apron upon the deck. Then with one
long breath she blew the ship four miles out to sea. The king shouted
back his thanks.

But that wind blew northwest instead of north. The cold was intense and
they watched from midnight to midnight the combats in the air between
the spirits of the Northern Lights. The sailors were frightened, but the
king was pleased. He was farther north than ever before.

The helmsman warned them that they were approaching another shore. No
birds welcomed them or sang them the name of the country. Men dressed in
the skins of dogs and bears met them as they landed, and took them to
their homes on sledges of ice drawn by dogs. Their houses were of blocks
of ice and snow, and their talk sounded like dogs barking.

The king did not like these people, for their land was cold. The wise
man told him again that his search was an idle one. The end of the world
was not for mortal eyes to see. At last the king believed him and sailed
homeward. No man to this day has been able to find the far north, the
end of the world.