Ye, deep waters, bore the Vikings’ ships, and when the strong in battle lifted the iron anchor and cast it against the enemy’s vessel, so that the planks were rent asunder, ye poured your dark heavy seas into the hold, so that the bark sank.  The wild Berserk who with naked breast stood against his enemy’s blows, mad as a dog, howling like a bear, tearing his shield asunder, rushing to the bottom of the sea here, and fetching up stones, which ordinary men could not raise—­history peoples these waters, these cliffs for us!  A future poet will conjure them to this Scandinavian Archipelago, chisel the true forms out of the old Sagas, the bold, the rude, the greatness and imperfections of the time, in their habits as they lived.

They rise again for us on yonder island, where the wind is whistling through the young fir wood.  The house is of beams, roofed with bark; the smoke from the fire on the broad stone in the hall, whirls through the air-hole, near which stands the cask of mead; the cushions lie on the bench before the closed bedsteads; deer-skins hang over the balk walls, ornamented with shields, helmets, and armour.  Effigies of gods, carved, on wooden poles, stand before the high seat where the noble Viking sits, a high-born father’s youngest son, great in fame, but still greater in deeds; the skjalds (bards) and foster-brothers sit nearest to him.  They defended the coasts of their countrymen, and the pious women; they fetched wheat and honey from England, they went to the White Sea for sables and furs—­their adventures are related in song.  We see the old man ride in rich clothing, with gloves sewn with golden thread, and with a hat brought from Garderige; we see the youth with a golden fillet around his brow; we see him at the Thing; we see him in battle and in play, where the best is he that can cut off the other’s eyebrows without scratching the skin, or causing a wink with the eyes, on pain of losing his station.  The woman sits in the log-house at her loom, and in the late moonlight nights the spirits of the fallen come and sit down around the fire, where they shake the wet, dripping clothes; but the serf sleeps in the ashes, and on the kitchen bench, and dreams that he dips his bread in the fat soup, and licks his fingers.

Thou future poet, thou wilt call forth the vanished forms from the Sagas, thou wilt people these islands, and let us glide past these reminiscences of the olden time with the mind full of them; clearly and truly wilt thou let us glide, as we now with the power of steam fly past that firmly standing scenery, the swelling sea, rocks and reefs, the main land, and wood-grown islands.