Now we have slain the mammoths, and we have driven the ghosts away,
And we read the saga of Vinland in the light of a new-born day.
We have harnessed the deadly lightnings; we have ridden the restless
wave.
We have chased the brood of the werewolf back to their noisome cave.
But far in the icy Northland, with weird witch-lights aglow,
Locked in the Greenland glaciers, is a tale we do not know.
Out of Brattahlid's portal, southward from Herjulfsness,
They came to their new-found kingdom, their Vinland to possess.
Armored with careless laughter, strong with a stubborn will,
The Vikings found it and lost it--it is undiscovered still!
Where did they beach their galleys? How were their cabins planned?
Who were the fearful Skroelings? What was the Fuerduerstrand?
What were the grapes of Tyrker? For all that is written or said,
The Rune Stones hold the secret of the days of Eric the Red!
II
THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE
Salt and scarred from the northern seas, the _Taernan_, deep-laden with
herring, nosed in at the Hanse quay in Bergen. Thorolf Erlandsson looked
grimly up at the huge warehouses. Since the Hanseatic League secured a
foothold in Norway, in 1343, most Norwegian ports had been losing trade,
and Bergen, or rather the Hanse merchants in Bergen, had been getting
it.
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