Coming from the wildest and poorest part of the Norwegian coast, and mixing with the Celtic tribes of these regions, in the early ages; those hardy sons of the sea made extensive and permanent settlements among them. They penetrated into the remotest recesses of the mountains, carrying thither their wild belief in the old northern gods, and their rude ideas of a future life. Their warlike recollections, and their attachment to the scenes of their valorous exploits, fostered the notion which was not uncommon among them, that the spirits of chieftains could sometimes leave the halls of Valhalla, and, seated each on his own sepulchral hill, could look around him on the peaceful land over which in life he had held rule, or on that beloved sea which had borne him so often to war and conquest. It was this thought that induced them to select for their burial places high mountains, or elevated spots in the valleys and plains. As a natural result of their long continued dominion in the North of England, they came to be classed in the imagination of the people with invisible and mystic beings which haunted that district. The shadows of the remote old hills were the abodes of enchantment and superstition. And the spirits of the departed were supposed to be seen visiting the earth, sometimes in the guise of a Celtic warrior careering on the wind, and sometimes in the form of one of the old northern chieftains sitting solitary upon his barrow. It is related of one being permitted to do so for the purpose of comforting his disconsolate widow, and telling her how much her sorrow disquieted him. Hence also the dwellers among the hills, it is said, still fancy they hear on the evening breeze musical tones as of harp strings played upon, and melancholy lays in a foreign tongue; a beautiful concert, to which we owe the exquisite medieval legend of the cattle, in thraldom to the potent spirit of harmony that rings through the air, often when no musical sound is audible to the organ of man, pricking up their ears in astonishment, as they listen to the Danish or Norseland Boy, sadly singing the old bardic lays over the barrows of his once mighty forefathers.