So we struck sparks on to the tinder, and from them lit the two lamps
of seal oil. Then I crept into the hole, Freydisa following me, to find
myself in a narrow passage built of rough stones and roofed with flat
slabs of water-worn rock. This tunnel, save for a little dry soil that
had sifted into it through the cracks between the stones, was quite
clear. We crawled along it without difficulty till we came to the tomb
chamber, which was in the centre of the mound, but at a higher level
than the entrance. For the passage sloped upwards, doubtless to allow
for drainage. The huge stones with which it was lined and roofed over,
were not less than ten feet high and set on end side by side. One of
these upright stones was that designed for the door. Had it been in
place, we could not have entered the chamber without great labour and
the help of many men; but, as it chanced, either it had never been set
up after the burial, or this was done so hastily that it had fallen.
“We are in luck’s way,” said Freydisa, when she noticed this. “No,
I will go first, who know more of ghosts than you do, Olaf. If the
Wanderer strikes, let him strike me,” and she clambered over the fallen
slab.
Presently she called back, saying:
“Come; all is quiet here, as it should be in such a place.”
I followed her, and sliding down the end of the stone--which I remember
scratched my elbow and made it bleed--found myself in a little room
about twelve feet square. In this place there was but one thing to be
seen: what appeared to be the trunk of a great oak tree, some nine feet
in length, and, standing on it, side by side, two figures of bronze
under a foot in height.
“The coffin in which the Wanderer lies and the gods he worshipped,” said
Freydisa.
Then she took up first one and next the other of the bronze figures and
we examined them in the light of the lamps, although I feared to touch
them. They were statues of a man and a woman.
The man, who wore a long and formal beard, was wrapped in what seemed
to be a shroud, through an opening in which appeared his hands. In the
right hand was a scourge with a handle, and in the left a crook such as
a shepherd might use, only shorter. On his head was what I took to be a
helmet, a tall peaked cap ending in a knob, having on either side of it
a stiff feather of bronze, and in front, above the forehead, a snake,
also of bronze.
The woman was clad in a straight and narrow robe, cut low beneath her
breast. Her face was mild and beautiful, and in her right hand she
held a looped sceptre. Her hair descended in many long plaits on to her
shoulders. For head-dress she wore two horns, supporting between them a
burnished disc of gold like to that of the moon when it is full.
“Strange gods!” I muttered.
“Aye,” answered Freydisa, “yet maybe true ones to those who worship
them. But we will talk of these later; now for their servant.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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