Part 15
“The party followed the sandstone ridge till it terminated abruptly in a precipice with ledges. Then they climbed a height, and looked about them. On the east of the glaciers they saw distinctly a desert track, not covered with snow, which they conjectured lay in a straight line north of Biskupstungur sands. East of the glacier were two brown fells; that which was most to the south was not large, and it had a castellated appearance, whilst the other was oblong, stretching from north to south, and full of snowdrifts. From the same height they saw a great valley, long and narrow, running in a semicircle. At the end were heaps of shingle, precipices, and ravines. The valley began about the middle of the glacier, and ran north-east; then bent towards the east, and finally turned south. Towards the east the glacier became lower, and in the same proportion as the mountain ranges fell, did the valley become shallower; but it seemed nowhere to dive to the very bottom of the mountains. Towards the higher end of the valley, the glacier hemmed it in with steep sides. Where the valley was deepest, the mountain slopes were bare and weather-beaten, consisting of swarthy or brown terraces and hollows, having a colour like that of the fell close to the southern extremity of Geitland.[23]
“In some places there were dry watercourses. It was so far to the bottom of the valley that the explorers could not discover exactly whether there was not grass on one of the slopes; but possibly the hue was the peculiar colour of the sandstone. Anyhow, they could not discover green pasturage. At the bottom of the valley were sandy flats, and in some places avalanches had fallen from the glaciers, and strewn the ground with blocks of ice and other débris. The slopes were very uneven. No water or waterfalls were to be seen, except two pools glittering towards the south, where the valley became shallow, and where it spread into gravelly plains, with the glacier sliding almost to the bottom of the vale on both sides. At the north-east bend of the valley were two small bare hills, beneath which the explorers thought they perceived two grassy plains on both sides of a watercourse. Neither hot spring, wood, heather, nor grass, beside these patches, were visible anywhere.” In one point the account of these men differs from that in the _Gretla_, for there it is stated that the valley was narrow, and covered with grass; but possibly the ice has encroached on the turf and destroyed it.
“The clergymen having erected a pile of stones in memorial of their visit, they went towards an immense rifted rock at the higher extremity of the valley, and there discovered a cave, with an opening towards the north, and looking down the valley. There was another opening, like a window, into the cavern, commanding the east. The door was exactly square, and just opposite it was a big square stone. This, as well as the cave, was of sandstone. This was the only block of stone thereabouts. The clergymen found that they were half the height of the cave; so that it must have been from ten to twelve feet high. The window on the east was oblong, and they conjectured that it had been made by the wind and rain, though it had possibly been the work of former inhabitants of the cave. The explorers supposed that the slab opposite the door had been thrown down from above, and that there had originally existed no door, except the rift they first discovered. The rift faces the west, and to enter the cave one must climb several ledges in the rock. This cavern is sufficiently extensive to hold a couple of hundred persons. Its floor is of sand, and it is well lighted through the window. They did not find any antiquities; but they supposed this to have been the cave occupied by Thorir and his daughters.
“The men cut their initials on the rocks; Björn cut B. S. on that opposite the door, and Helgi cut a single H. on the eastern wall of the cave, just below the window. Björn Jónsson cut his opposite, but Helgi’s was the deepest engraved, and will stand longest. When they had finished this, they sat down and took some refreshments, and remarked, as they drank their brandy, that this was in all probability the first time that the smell of brandy had been snuffed in that place.
“It was now getting late; however, they ascended a mountain peak, on the west side of the cave, and separate from it by a sweep of snow, and this peak they believed to be visible from Kaldidalr; it was very steep and difficult to climb, so they rested twice on their way. They went up on different sides as the clink-stone rolled away beneath their feet on those behind. Björn, the priest, was the first to attack the peak, but Helgi reached the summit first, and found it so sharp at the top as to afford hardly enough standing-ground for the three. They heaped a cairn on the top and put in it a flat stone, which they placed in a vertical position, and made fast with other stones. In it is a small rift; and they arranged it so that, by placing the eye at this rift, it looks eastward, through the door of the cave.
“The party then returned the same way that they had come, and parted in the morning in the middle of Kaldidalr, Björn going southward, and Helgi towards the north.”
We think that the clergymen were mistaken in supposing that this clink-stone cone is visible from Kaldidalr, for we saw no appearance of it. From Skjaldbreid a peak is distinguishable, however, but more to the south-west than that described by the priests.
Apparently, three ways of entering the mysterious vale present themselves, that which we ourselves intended being impracticable. One is to follow the route of the bold explorers, Björn and Helgi; a second is to camp the horses at Hlitharvellir, grassy plains between Skjaldbreid and Hlothufell, and to follow the stream that issues from the glacier ravine into the recesses of the Jökull. A third course, and that which we expect would prove the easiest, though the least interesting, would be to encamp on the grass-land round the lake Hvitarvatn, to the east of the Jökull, where the mountains are lower, and the existence of a large sheet of water, from which issues a considerable river--the Hvitá--points to this being a place to which the drainage of a very considerable portion of the glacier converges.
It is not a little remarkable that the huge extent of Lang Jökull feeds scarcely any other rivers. It is true that the Nordlinga fljot, another Hvitá and Asbrandsá, have their sources under the Lang Jökull, but they are only small streams, whereas the Hvitá bursts out of its lake a wide and deep river; and we think that this is accounted for by the presence of a depression towards the interior of the range which gathers the drainage from the surrounding glaciers, and then pours the flood in a sub-glacial torrent into the lake. The opening to this valley we suppose to be blocked above the lake by the glaciers from Hrutafell and Blàfell’s Jökull, which meet and overlap.
KING ROBERT OF SICILY
Next to the Saga of King Olaf, without doubt the most beautiful and successful of the _Tales of a Wayside Inn_, is that of King Robert of Sicily. The legend is of a remote antiquity, has passed through various modifications and recastings, and, after having lain by in forgotten tomes, has been vivified once more by the poetic breath of Longfellow, and popularised again. It is singular to trace the history of certain favourite tales; they seem to be endowed with an inherent vitality, which cannot be stamped out. Born far back in the early history of man, they have asserted at once a sway over the imagination and feelings; have been translated from their original birth-soil to foreign climes, and have undergone changes and adaptations to suit the habits and requirements of the new people amongst whom they have taken root. Political disturbances cannot obliterate them; war sweeps over the land they have adopted, famine devastates it, pestilence decimates its inhabitants, and for a while the ancient tales hide their heads, only to crop up again green and fresh when the springtide of prosperity returns.
Sometimes a venerable myth disappears for an exceptionally long period, and its vitality is, we suppose, extinguished. But though ages roll by, if it have in it the real essential power of development and assimilation, it is only waiting for its time to start a fresh career, full of concentrated vigour. Like the ear of wheat in the hand of the mummy, it has lain by, wrapped in cere-cloths, without giving token of germ, till the moment of its liberation has arrived, when, falling on good ground, it brings forth a hundredfold.
Such was the history of Fouque’s exquisite romance, _Undine_. It was a very ancient tale, but it had been forgotten. The German poet found it in the dead hand of the whimsical pedant, Theophrastus Paracelsus, swathed in barbarous Latin. He writes:--“I ceased not to study an old edition of my speechmonger, which fell to me at an auction, and that carefully. Even his receipts I read through in order, just as they had been showered into the text, still continuing in the firm expectation that from every line something wonderfully magical might float up to me, and strike the understanding. Single sparks, here and there darting up, confirmed my hopes, and drew me deeper into the mines beneath ... then, at last, as a pearl of soft radiance, there sparkled towards me, from out its rough-edged shell--_Undine_.” And he tells us how that his story has been translated into French, Italian, English, Russian, and Polish. The mummy wheat was soon multiplied.
The legend of King Robert of Sicily, which the American poet has rescued from oblivion, is one of those few which can be traced with rare precision through its various changes, and tracked to the country where it originated. It is instructive to note how in one form, it did service in the cause of one religion, and how, in another form, it pointed a striking moral in behalf of an entirely different creed.
Two methods of procedure lie open to us in the examination of this story, analysis and synthesis. We might trace the legend back from the form in which it is known to the modern public, by sure stages, to the ultimate atoms out of which it is developed, or we might take the original germ, and follow it in its expanding and varying forms, till it has assumed its present shape in the pages of the _Tales of a Wayside Inn_.
We shall adopt the latter method, as the most suitable in this peculiar instance.
In the _Pantschatantra_, a Sanscrit collection of popular tales, the date of the compilation of which is uncertain, but that of the tales is unquestionably earlier than the Christian era, is the following story:
“In the town of Liavati, lived a king, called Mukunda. One day he saw a hunchback performing such comical actions that he invited him to become an inmate of his palace, and, as his court fool, to divert him in his hours of idleness and depression. The king was so taken up with this droll rascal, that his prime minister was seriously displeased, and he said, in reproof, to his master--
‘Far flies rumour with three pairs of ears.’
To which the king laughingly replied--
‘The man is an idiot, so have no fears.’
“Grumbling still, the old and prudent minister said--
‘The beggar may rise to royal degree, The monarch descend to beggary.’
“One day a Brahmin came to the palace, and offered to teach the king various magical arts. The monarch agreed with delight, and for a small sum of money acquired power to send his soul from his own body into any disengaged carcass that he wished to vivify. The hunchback was in the room when the king learned his lesson.
“A few days after, Mukunda and his fool were riding in the forest, when they lit on the corpse of a Brahmin who had died of thirst. Here was an opportunity for the king to practise what he had learned. But first he asked the hunchback if he had given attention to the instruction of the Brahmin. The fool replied that he never bothered his head with the pedantry of professors. The king, satisfied with the answer, pronounced the magical words. Down fell his body, senseless, and his soul animating the corpse, the dead Brahmin sat up and opened his eyes. Instantly the crafty hunchback repeated the incantation, and took possession of the carcass of his majesty, mounted the king’s horse, and rode off to Liavati, where he was received by the courtiers, the servants, the ministers, and the queen as if he were the true Mukunda, whilst the real monarch, in the shape of a begging Brahmin, roved the forests and the villages, cursing his folly, half starved on the scanty charity of the faithful.
“Suspicions that all was not right forced their way into the queen’s mind, and she mentioned her doubts to the minister.
‘Far flies rumour with three pairs of ears,’
said he, addressing the false king, who shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. Again the minister tried him with--
‘The beggar may rise to royal degree,’
and received a peremptory order to be silent as he valued his head.
“‘He is not the king,’ said the minister to the queen. ‘We must find the true Mukunda, wherever he may be.’
“In order to effect this, to every one whom the vizier addressed he uttered the two half-verses--
‘Far flies rumour with three pairs of ears,’
and
‘The beggar may rise to royal degree,’
but with no results. One evening, however, as he was walking home, deep in thought, a poor Brahmin clamoured for alms. The minister made no answer; but when the pauper continued his importunities, he said, sharply,--
‘Far flies rumour with three pairs of ears’;
to which the Brahmin promptly answered--
‘The man is an idiot, so have no fears.’
“Hearing this, the old man was arrested by his interest. He hastily continued--
‘The beggar may rise to royal degree’;
and the Brahmin responded without hesitation--
‘The monarch descend to beggary.’
“The minister caught him at once by the hand, and insisted on hearing his story. No sooner was he made aware of what had been done by the hunchback, than he hastened to the palace, where he found the queen bathed in tears over a favourite parrot, which lay dead on her lap. The old man concerted with her a plan for the destruction of the hunchback and the restoration of the true king; then he secretly introduced the transformed Mukunda into the chamber, and summoned the false king.
“‘O sire,’ said the queen, ‘if you love me restore my pretty parrot to life.’
“‘That is easily effected,’ answered the fool.
“In an instant his body fell rigid, and his soul entered the bird, which sat up, plumed its feathers, and began to chatter. At the same moment the true Mukunda pronounced the magic words, dropped his adopted body, and darted into that which had originally been his. At the sight of the reviving monarch, the queen wrung the parrot’s neck, and thus destroyed the impostor.”
This story is based on the great Buddhist doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and was evidently a very popular illustration of that fundamental dogma, for variations of it are common in most ancient Sanscrit collections. Thus in the _Katha Sarit Sagara_, a work of Soma Deva, written between A.D. 1113-1125, the story reappears considerably altered, but still told with the design of insisting on the doctrine of transmigration of souls. Soma Deva’s tale is this in brief:--
Vararutschi, Vyâdi, and Indradatta desired to learn the new lessons of Varscha, but could not pay the stipulated fee--a million pieces of gold. They determined to ask King Nanda--a contemporary of Alexander the Great, by the way--to pay it for them, and they visited his capital. They are too late: Nanda is just dead. However, determined to obtain the requisite sum, Indradatta leaves his body in a wood, guarded by his companions, and sends his soul into the dead king. Then Vararutschi goes to him, asks, and receives the gold, whilst Vyâdi sits beside the deserted body.
But the prime minister suspected that the revived master was not quite identical with the deceased master. Indeed, King Nanda now exhibited an intelligence and vigour which had been sadly deficient before. The minister knew that the heir to the throne was but a child, and that he had powerful enemies. He therefore formed the resolution of keeping the false king on the throne till the heir was of age to govern. To effect his purpose, he issued orders that every corpse in the kingdom should be burnt. Amongst the rest was consumed that of Indradatta, and the Brahmin found himself, with horror, obliged to remain in the body of a Sudra, though that Sudra was a king.
There is another story, similar to that in the _Pantschatantra_, told of Tschandragupta, the founder of the Maurya dynasty, and one of the most renowned of the ancient Indian kings. But, indeed, the variations occurring in the ancient Sanscrit Buddhist tales are very numerous.
From India the story travelled into Persia--when, is not known; but it was probably there long before A.D. 540 when the Persian translation of the _Pantschatantra_ was made. In Persian it occurs in the _Bahar Danush_, and in the version of the _Çukasaptati_. It is in the Turkish _Tûtînâmeh_. It is in the famous _Arabian Nights_, as the story of the Prince Fadl-Allah. It is also in the Mongolian _Vikramacarita_. But, though it was translated with small variations from the Sanscrit in these works, popularly the story had gone through great adaptations and alterations to suit creeds which did not believe in the transmigration of souls.
When it was made known to the Jews is not certain; probably at the captivity. Yet there are passages in the Psalms, and especially in the song of Hannah, which bear a striking resemblance to the verses of the prime minister, and seem almost like an allusion to the fable. Thus, “The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory.” This may be a reference or it may not. The sentiment is not unlikely to have been uttered without knowledge of the Indian fable; but if Hannah had been acquainted with it, no doubt to it allusion was made.
It is certain, however, that the story did popularise itself among the Jews, and when it did so, it was in a form adapted to their belief, which had nothing in common with metempsychosis. And it is exceedingly probable that they derived it from Persia, for one of the actors in the tale, Asmodeus, is the Zoroastrian Aêshma. The story is found in the _Talmud_ and is as follows:--
“King Solomon, having completed the temple and his house, was lifted up with pride of heart, and regarded himself as the greatest of kings. Every day he was wont to bathe, and before entering the water, he entrusted his ring, wherein lay his power, to one of his wives. One day the evil spirit, Asmodeus, stole the ring, and, assuming Solomon’s form, drove the naked king from the bath into the streets of Jerusalem. The wretched man wandered about his city scorned by all; then he fled into distant lands, none recognising in him the great and wise monarch. In the meanwhile the evil spirit reigned in his stead, but unable to bear on his finger the ring graven with the Incommunicable Name, he cast it into the sea. Solomon, returning from his wanderings, became scullion in the palace. One day a fisher brought him a fish for the king. On opening it, he found in its belly the ring he had lost. At once regaining his power, he drove Asmodeus into banishment, and, a humbled and better man, reigned gloriously on the throne of his father David” (_Talmud_, Gittim, fol. 68).
The Arabs have a similar legend, taken from the Jews:--
“One day Solomon asked an indiscreet question of an evil Jinn subject to him. The spirit replied that he could not obtain the information required without the aid of Solomon’s seal. The king thoughtlessly lent it, and immediately found himself supplanted by the Jinn. Reduced to beggary, he wandered through the world repeating, ‘I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.’ The constant repetition of this sentence attracted attention; the disguised demon took alarm and fled, and Solomon regained his throne.”
Finally the Jews or Arabs introduced the story to Western Europe, where it soon became popular. In the _Gesta Romanorum_, a collection of moral tales made by the monks in the fourteenth century, the Emperor Jovinian takes the place of Solomon, and the story is thus told:--
“When Jovinian was emperor, he possessed very great powers; and as he lay in bed reflecting upon the extent of his dominions, his heart was elated to an extraordinary degree. ‘Is there,’ he impiously asked, ‘any other god than me?’ Amid such thoughts he fell asleep.
“In the morning he reviewed his troops, and said, ‘My friends, after breakfast we will hunt.’ Preparations being made accordingly, he set out with a large retinue. During the chase the emperor felt such extreme oppression from the heat, that he believed his very existence depended upon a cold bath. As he anxiously looked round, he discovered a sheet of water at no great distance. ‘Remain here,’ said he to his guard, ‘until I have refreshed myself in yonder stream.’ Then, spurring his steed, he rode hastily to the edge of the water. Alighting, he divested himself of his apparel, and experienced the greatest pleasure from its invigorating freshness and coolness. But whilst he was thus employed a person similar to him in every respect arrayed himself unperceived in the emperor’s dress, and then mounting his horse, rode to the attendants. The resemblance to the sovereign was such, that no doubt was entertained of the reality; and straightway command was issued for their return to the palace.
“Jovinian, however, having quitted the water sought in every possible direction for his clothes, but could find neither them nor the horse. Vexed beyond measure at the circumstance, for he was completely naked, he began to reflect upon what course he should pursue. ‘There is, I remember, a knight residing close by; I will go to him and command his attendance and service. I will then ride to the palace, and strictly investigate the cause of this extraordinary conduct. Some shall smart for it.’
“Jovinian proceeded naked and ashamed to the castle of the aforesaid knight, and beat loudly at the gate. ‘Open the gate,’ shouted the enraged emperor, as the porter inquired leisurely the cause of the knocking, ‘you will soon see who I am.’ The gate was opened, and the porter, struck with the strange appearance of the man before him, exclaimed, ‘In the name of all that is marvellous, what are you?’ ‘I am,’ replied he, ‘Jovinian, your emperor. Go to your lord and command him to supply the wants of his sovereign. I have lost both horse and clothes.’