第43章 LETTER VIII.(6)

"As soon as it was light the next morning,up rose Thor and his companions,dressed themselves,and prepared to set out.Then came Utgard Loke,and ordered the table to be set,where there wanted no good provisions,either meat or drink.When they had breakfasted,they set out on their way.Utgard Loke accompanied them out of the castle,but at parting he asked Thor how the journey had gone off,whether he had found any man more mighty than himself?Thor answered,that the enterprise had brought him much dishonour,it was not to be denied,and that he must esteem himself a man of no account,which much mortified him.

"Utgard Loke replied:'Now will I tell thee the truth,since thou art out of my castle,where,so long as I live and reign,thou shalt never re-enter;and whither,believe me,thou hadst never come if I had known before what might thou possessest,and that thou wouldst so nearly plunge us into great trouble.False appearances have Icreated for thee,so that the first time when thou mettest the man in the wood it was I;and when thou wouldst open the provision-sack,I had laced it together with an iron band,so that thou couldst not find the means to undo it.After that thou struckest at me three times with the hammer.The first stroke was the weakest,and it had been my death had it hit me.Thou sawest by my castle a rock,with three deep square holes,of which one was very deep:those were the marks of thy hammer.The rock I placed in the way of the blow,without thy perceiving it.

"'So also in the games,when thou contendedst with my courtiers.When Lopt made his essay,the fact was this:he was very hungry,and ate voraciously;but he who was called Loge,was FIRE,which consumed the trough as well as the meat.And Huge (mind)was my THOUGHT with which Thjalfe ran a race,and it was impossible for him to match it in speed.When thou drankest from the horn,and thoughtest that its contents grew no less,it was,notwithstanding,a great marvel,such as I never believed could have taken place.The one end of the horn stood in the sea,which thou didst not perceive;and when thou comest to the shore thou wilt see how much the ocean has diminished by what thou hast drunk.MEN WILL CALL IT THEEBB.

"'Further,'said he,'most remarkable did it seem to me that thou liftedst the cat,and in truth all became terrified when they saw that thou liftedst one of its feet from the ground.For it was no cat,as it seemed unto thee,but the great serpent that lies coiled round the world.Scarcely had he length that his tail and head might reach the earth,and thou liftedst him so high up that it was but a little way to heaven.That was a marvellous wrestling that thou wrestledst with Ella (old age),for never has there been any one,nor shall there ever be,let him approach what great age he will,that Ella shall not overcome.

"'Now we must part,and it is best for us on both sides that you do not often come to me;but if it should so happen,I shall defend my castle with such other arts that you shall not be able to effect anything against me.'

"When Thor heard this discourse he grasped his hammer and lifted it into the air,but as he was about to strike he saw Utgard Loke nowhere.Then he turned back to the castle to destroy it,and he saw only a beautiful and wide plain,but no castle."So ends the story of Thor's journey to Jotunheim.

It was now just upon the stroke of midnight.Ever since leaving England,as each four-and-twenty hours we climbed up nearer to the pole,the belt of dusk dividing day from day had been growing narrower and narrower,until having nearly reached the Arctic circle,this,--the last night we were to traverse,--had dwindled to a thread of shadow.

Only another half-dozen leagues more,and we would stand on the threshold of a four months'day!For the few preceding hours clouds had completely covered the heavens,except where a clear interval of sky,that lay along the northern horizon,promised a glowing stage for the sun's last obsequies.But like the heroes of old he had veiled his face to die,and it was not until he dropped down to the sea that the whole hemisphere overflowed with glory and the gilded pageant concerted for his funeral gathered in slow procession round his grave;reminding one of those tardy honours paid to some great prince of song,who--left during life to languish in a garret--is buried by nobles in Westminster Abbey.A few minutes more the last fiery segment had disappeared beneath the purple horizon,and all was over.

"The king is dead--the king is dead--the king is dead!

Long live the king!"And up from the sea that had just entombed his sire,rose the young monarch of a new day;while the courtier clouds,in their ruby robes,turned faces still aglow with the favours of their dead lord,to borrow brighter blazonry from the smile of a new master.

A fairer or a stranger spectacle than the last Arctic sunset cannot well be conceived:Evening and Morning--like kinsmen whose hearts some baseless feud has kept asunder --clasping hands across the shadow of the vanished night.