Classic Myths Part 6

At the helm of the ship was a wise pilot who knew all languages and the speech of birds and beasts. The winds of Finland were angry because he slighted their country, and a great storm arose and blew the ship out of her course. The birds sang to the helmsman and told him by their song that his ship was being driven on the bleak and desolate coast of Lapland.

The king and his bold comrades succeeded in landing in Lapland, but could find no people. At last a sailor discovered a house. In it dwelt a wise man and his daughter. The king asked the wise man the way to the end of the world. The wise man answered that he had asked a vain question.

"The sea has no end, and those who go westward have found their death in the Fire Island. Turn homeward and live," said the wise man.

The king only answered by asking the wise Lapp if he would be their guide to the Fire Island. He consented and went aboard the ship. His name was Varrak.

He steered the boat due north for thirty days and thirty nights. The first danger they met was a great whirlpool, whose center was a vast hole into which had been drawn many a brave ship. Varrak threw overboard a small barrel wrapped in red cloth and trimmed with many red streamers, but with a rope attached to it. A whale swallowed this bait and then tried to escape as he felt the rope pulling him. In his flight he towed the ship to a safe place in the open sea.

This brought them far westward and at last they came within sight of the Island of Fire. Iceland, men call it now, but surely it has as much fire as ice. From the middle of this Iceland they could see great pillars of flame and vast clouds of smoke ascending into the air.

Varrak warned the king of his danger, but was commanded to run the boat ash.o.r.e. Those who explored the land found a vast mountain casting up flames and another mountain pouring out smoke. Soon the party came across great spouting fountains of boiling water, and they found the ground beneath their feet to be burning lava.

The son of Sulev, who was leading this exploring party, wandered through snow-fields covered with ashes. A shower of red-hot stones warned him that he was near the volcano. Going too close to this burning mountain, his hair and eyebrows were singed and his clothing took fire. He rolled in the snow and saved himself.

Then the son of Sulev thought it best to go back to the ship. Calling his party together, he found that the youngest, the yellow-haired boy who was cupbearer to the king, was gone. The birds told the helmsman, the wise Lapp, that the lad had made friends with the water-sprites beyond the snow mountains and would never return.

The winds drove the ship about for many days till she grounded again on a strange sh.o.r.e.

Another party of n.o.bles and sailors went to search this country. Being tired, they lay down under an ash tree and fell asleep. The people in this land were giants, and a giant's daughter found them. They were so very small to the giant child that she picked them up and put them in her ap.r.o.n, and carried them home to her father.

"Look at these strange creatures, father," she said. "I found them asleep under a head of cabbage in our garden. What are they?"

The giant knew them to be men from the east. Now the east has always been noted for its wisdom, so he questioned these men with riddles.

"What walks along the gra.s.s, steps on the edge of the fence, and walks along the sides of the reeds?" he asked.

"The bee," answered the wise man of the party.

"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 ap.r.o.n 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 sh.o.r.e. 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.

A LEGEND OF THE NORTH WIND

_Norse_

North Wind likes a bit of fun as dearly as a boy does, and it is with boys he likes best to romp and play.

One day North Wind saw a brave little fellow eating his lunch under a tree. Just as he went to bite his bread, North Wind blew it out of his hand and swept away everything else that he had brought for his lunch.

"You hateful North Wind!" cried the little fellow. "Give me back my supper. I'm so hungry."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOREAS, THE G.o.d OF THE NORTH WIND]

Now North Wind, like all brave beings, is n.o.ble, and so he tried to make up for the mischief he had done.

"Here, take this tablecloth," said North Wind, "and, in whatever house you stay, spread it on the table; then wish, and you shall have everything you wish for to eat."

"All right!" said the boy, and he took the tablecloth and ran as fast as he could to the first house, which proved to be an inn.

"I have enough to pay for lodging, so I'll stay all night," he said to himself.

"Bring me a table," he ordered the innkeeper, as he went to his room.

"Ha! ha!" laughed the innkeeper. "You mean bring me a supper."

"No, I don't. I want only a table and that right quick. I'm hungry."

The innkeeper brought the table, but, after the door was shut, he watched through the keyhole to see what would happen.

"Beans, bread, and bacon," ordered the boy, as he spread out his tablecloth. On came beans, bread, and bacon through the open window, whirled in by North Wind. Smoking hot they all were, too, for the dishes were tightly covered. After supper was over, the boy went sound asleep.

North Wind did not waken him as the innkeeper took the table and the table-cloth and carried them down-stairs. Next morning the boy was hungry again, but there was no tablecloth and so no breakfast.

"You are a cheat, North Wind; you have taken back your tablecloth."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOWER OF THE WINDS AT ATHENS]

"No," said North Wind, "that is not the way I do." But the boy did not get his tablecloth.

After a time North Wind met him again out under the trees.

"This time I will give you a sheep," he said. "Each time that you rub his wool, out will drop a gold piece. Take care of him."

The boy ran back and found the sheep at the door of the stable, behind the inn. He caught the sheep by a strap which was around its neck, and led it slowly up the stairs of the inn, to the room from which the tablecloth had disappeared the night before.

As the boy was hungry for his breakfast, he obeyed North Wind's command and patted the sheep upon its back. A gold piece fell out of its fleece upon the floor.

"Good old North Wind!" said the boy. "Here's my breakfast and some hay for my sheep. Come breakfast, come hay," and through the open window came first a bundle of hay, and then a fine breakfast for the hungry boy. After breakfast the boy paid for a week's lodging with the gold piece.

He slept soundly that night with his sheep for his pillow, and the next night also, but the third morning when the boy awoke, his head lay upon the floor and the sheep was gone.

Perhaps too many gold pieces had been seen in the boy's hand, for he had patted his sheep very often.

He accused North Wind again. "You have taken back your sheep. I don't like you. You are as cold-hearted as you can be."