On the other hand, the Danes had by no means a contemptuous idea of
their Icelandic enemies, as the following narrative from Heimskringla
proves. 'King Harald told a warlock to hie to Iceland in some altered
shape, and to try what he could learn there to tell him: and he set
out in the shape of a whale. And when he came near to the land he
went to the west side of Iceland, north around the land, when he
saw all the mountains and hills full of land-serpents, some great,
some small. When he came to Vapnafiord he went in towards the land,
intending to go on shore; but a huge dragon rushed down the dale
against him, with a train of serpents, paddocks, and toads, that blew
poison towards him. Then he turned to go westward around the land as
far as Eyafiord, and he went into the fiord. Then a bird flew against
him, which was so great that its wings stretched over the mountains
on either side of the fiord, and many birds, great and small, with
it. Then he swam further west, and then south into Breidafiord. When
he came into the fiord a large grey bull ran against him, wading into
the sea, and bellowing fearfully, and he was followed by a crowd of
land-serpents. From thence he went round by Reikaness and wanted to
land at Vikarsted, but there came down a hill-giant against him with
an iron staff in his hands. He was a head higher than the mountains,
and many other giants followed him.' The most seductive Hesperian
gardens of the South and East do not appear to have been so thoroughly
guarded or defended as Iceland, and one can hardly call it cowardice
when (after the wizard-whale brought back the log of its voyage)
it is recorded: 'Then the Danish king turned about with his fleet
and sailed back to Denmark.'
It is a sufficiently curious fact that the Mimacs, aborigines of
Nova Scotia, [124] were found with a whale-story, already referred to
(p. 46), so much like this. They also have the legend of an ancient
warrior named Booin, who possessed the præternatural powers especially
ascribed to Odin, those of raising storms, causing excessive cold,
increasing or diminishing his size, and assuming any shape. Besides
the fearful race of gigantic ice-demons dreaded by this tribe, as
elsewhere stated (p. 84), they dread also a yellow-horned dragon called
Cheepichealm, (whose form the great Booin sometimes assumes). They
make offerings to the new moon. They believe in pixies, calling them
Wigguladum-moochkik, 'very little people.' They anciently believed in
two great spirits, good and evil, both called Manitoos; since their
contact with christians only the evil one has been so called.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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