so till through
impose her- f0r



Deyond the boundaries of
at once clear and distinct

Dods ou the shores of the

that horrid deed, he was

lose master he had become

only prince, who, having

young man, had already,

dlow- kings.

ig employed at my loom,

e the fearful apprehension

L II roda desired his guest,

ssaults. To this request I

and my spirits to roll- the

mutable rampart for you,

m my servants can reach

I by perpetrating with i

iise themselves. How*«
ust first make ov.o.e

exclusively; forth»
lence, that the*«**

dful oaths to the A**

23

No sooner had this dreadful covenant been concluded, than Wredmar hurried out into the darkness of night.—
Ingiald silently kept his seat by the hearth, on which whole trunks of fir - trees were burning, supporting his elbows
by the table of porphyry, which still was covered with empty drinking horns, which the flackering light of the fire
made appear to me like golden flames, surrounding my father. Trembling with apprehension, I did not distinctly
know of what, I retreated to my solitary closet, unperceived hj the musing king; but the anxious dread of portentous
events so agitated my senses, that I could not close my eyes.

My mind was haunted by the recollection of horrid tradition, which my women used to whisper to one another,
as they were turning the spindle, and which my listening ears had caught, relating to one another shocking tales of
Ingiald's earlier years; how he one day, as he was playing with his cousin Alfwar, had been conquered by him in
wrestling, and in his childish passion had begun to weep most piteously. When his foster- father Swipdag, the blind,
had been informed of it, he had resolved to harden him by a rash and violent means. He ordered immediately the
heart of a living wolf to be torn out, and roasted on a spit; then he dished up the loathsome meal to his royal pupil
Ingiald, who, when he had eaten it, became more savagely minded, than ever any one born of a woman; whence his
later inhumane designs, being the offsprings of a sanguinary root, threatened to bear farther bloody fruits to his whole
race. Thus my mother's last cry of despair, which had fastened in my bosom the barb of dark, mysterious apprehensions,
became at once intelligible to me.

As I was lying on my couch, haunted by ill-boding dreams, I heard something rolling up the eminence from the
valley below, like distant thunder, drawing nearer and nearer towards the top of the acclivity. The moon, just rising
behind the woods, showed to my terrified looks the motionless stones, impelled upwards by an invisible power.

All those mossy blocks of granite, covering in the most grotesque forms, like the scattered limbs of giants, the deep
valley and the dreary heath, were rolling across the spacious plain, like light pebbles, hurled by a playful boy into
the brook, through the cracking forest of pines, and towering upon one another in the shape of a wall all around
Ronningsbourgh. The tall pine-trees fell into the valley, as if cut down with sharp (axes. The melancholy birch-tree
fell groaning, like a tender reed on the shore of the lake, cut down with the shepherds knife; and the new day
discovered to us-nothing but walls all around, which, with dreadful obedience, had formed themselves under the hands
of Spirits. "We could not discover one of the paths, by which I had been wont to stroll through bushes of hazle and
white-thorn, over blossoming mosses and strawberries, into the shadowy valley.

Around the royal palace, built of neatly squared oak-trees, a broad stone-wall was raised, upon which two battle-
cars could pass each other in full speed, defying both the climbing enemy and his missile weapons.

Ingiald exulted, when he beheld these fortifications, pressing Wredmar with loud thanksgivings to his steel-clad