LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. I. ALLEGORICAL FIGURE OF ICELAND. 2. CATHEDRAL OF TRONDHJEM, NORWAY, EXTERIOR 3. CHART OF STARS 4. VIEW OF SOGNI FJORD . 5. View of URLAND, SOGNI FJORD. 6. CATHEDRAL OF TRONDHJEM, INTERIOR 7. TRONDHJEMS DOMKIRKE, SONDRE SIDEGANG I HOICHORET . "Far in the Northern land,' O revive after considerable time the has to be careful in developing with truthfulness that which is remembered only in outline and may soon fade altogether from the mind. For the particulars I have in writing are so short, the task is like having to supply material to fill out, as it were, a skeleton; or, saving B whatever may be stated here is true, to put a dream on paper. The foreign country here spoken of, which comparatively so few travellers have visited as yet, has been accidentally called Iceland owing to the ice which an old seacaptain, a hardy Norseman, saw floating once upon the coast; but merely saw it in one quarter, and upon no other side. This country also has been variously called Isafold, Froni, Gardarsey, Ingolfsey, Kjartansey, Fjallkonanfrid (the Pretty Woman of the Mountains, i.e., to whom the mountains belong), and Thule, Ultima Thule, which last was the name given to Iceland in particular, and Thule to Norway, Shetland, Orkney and the Feroe Islands in former times. The frontispiece represents this "Lady of the Mountains" with her brow encircled by a coronet of icicles, and surmounted by a crest of different volcanoes rising in the midst. On her shoulder is the Raven-mythical bird of history, typical of the country, emblematical of Memory and Intelligence-whispering in Iceland's ear news from the other countries of the world. In her left hand is the scroll of genealogy, telling her descent; in her right, the ancient kind of sword, to signify the warlike character of the Icelandic people in past days. Overhead is a sea-mew, to indicate not only the surrounding sea, but war also, because her battles were in olden time always at sea. At her feet we have two rolls of parchment, with manuscript in Runic character, in which the Scandinavian lore that once made this people famous has been transmitted, and transported to us over the sea. A log of wood is also at her feet, in memory of that old custom whereby the emigrant from Norway used to claim the soil and build his house wherever it might come to land. like a brooch, is the Fastened on her bosom, celebrated star with five points that from time immemorial has been emblematical of wisdom, both in ancient Greece, and previously (as Urim on the breast-plate) |