called Elvidnir. Hunger is her table: Starvation her knife; Delay her man; Slowness her maid; Precipice her threshold; Care her bed; and Burning Anguish forms the hanging of her apartments. The one half of her body is livid; the other half the colour of human flesh. She is easily recognized,—her face is dreadfully stern and grim.

The wolf Fenrir was bred up among the gods. Tyr alone had the courage to go and feed him; nevertheless, the gods, warned by the oracles that he would one day become fatal to them, determined to make a strong iron fetter for him. The fetter was useless; Fenrir burst the chain, and set himself at liberty. They then made another, half as strong again, with which they bound him, but which the wolf broke, though not so easily as the other. After this, they despaired of ever being able to bind the wolf, till at length god Allfather sent the messenger of Frey into the country of the Dark Elves, to engage some dwarfs to make the fetter called Gleipnir. It was composed of the six following substances: the noise made by the footfall of a cat, the beards of women, the roots of stones, the sinews of bears, the breath of fish, and the spittle of birds. This fetter was smooth and soft as a silken string, but it was too strong for Fenrir. This was then fastened to a rock, and sunk in the middle of the earth. The wolf made the most violent efforts to break loose, and, opening his tremendous jaws, endeavoured to bite them. The gods, seeing this, thrust a sword into his mouth, which pierced his under jaw up to the hilt. He then began to howl so terribly, and since that time the foam flows continually from his mouth in such abundance that it forms the river called Von. There will he remain until Ragnarok, or the conflagration of the universe, when the wolf Fenrir shall break loose, and the serpent Midgard, turning on one side, shall overwhelm the world, when a general contest ensues, and when die alike the contending parties of good and ill.

"Dimm'd 's now the sun,

In ocean earth sinks;
From the skies are cast
The sparkling stars;

The fire-reek rageth
Around Time's nurse,*
And flickering flames

With heaven itself play."

After this comes a regenerated universe, with another earth,

* The Ash Yggdrasill, the mundane tree which embraces with its three roots the whole universe. Near the fountain under the ash reside, in a very beauteous dwelling, the three maidens or Norns, named Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld, (Present, Past, and Future) who fix the life-time of man. The ash appears to be the symbol of universal nature: but, as Jacob Grimm justly observes, the whole myth, though it bears the stamp of very high antiquity, does not appear to be wholly unfolded.

most lovely and verdant, with pleasant fields, where the grain shall grow unsown. Thither the sons of Thor shall resort, and Baldur and Hodur from the abodes of Hela, and shall talk of the perils they have undergone, how they fought with Fenrir and the serpent Midgard: when a race shall spring up who shall feed on dew, and when the sun shall make way for a daughter more lovely than herself.

"The radiant sun

A daughter bears,
Ere Fenrir takes her.
On her mother's course
Shall ride that maid,

When the gods have perished."

Here wisely closes the Scandinavian book of revelations, and we follow so illustrious a precedent. Time and his Norns bring change. What was once deemed palpable truth is now reckoned a manifest sham; and the schoolboy laughs at the bugbear before which warriors, strong in heart and arm, trembled. Where the sea-rovers sailed, with their booty, now steamers pursue their peaceful way, and the inhabitants of Denmark have learned that though Ullur, with his snow skates, can rapidly skim the ground, yet more rapid still is the morning " express." What with the custom-house at Elsineur, and the revenue-cutters of all sizes that prowl along the Baltic, the sea-horse Vikings have gradually vanished from amongst men. Of northern antiquities, save in this work of M. Mallet's, we have but few remains in our midst. Our coast is now so well watched by night and day that even smugglers find it difficult to effect a landing. If Scandinavians come amongst us now, they must pay their fares, and do at Rome as we. Still, however, not altogether in vain did these brave Norsemen live.

For the Yule log that has warmed many an old and young heart in the glad time when good will and joy hold carnival on earth,—

"for the all

Which, when rightly understood,

Promoteth brotherly neighbourhood-"

for the steak, which, when well cooked, with oyster sauce superadded, is not ungrateful to the inner man of every genuine John Bull, still be the name of Norsemen dear, and his memory sweet.

† We need hardly inform our readers that the steak of modern times is an improvement on that of the ancient Scandinavian. The old original steak consisted of horse-flesh. So wedded were the Icelanders to it, that, before they embraced Christianity, they stipulated for toleration to eat it, which was granted.

PICTURES OF THE AMERICANS BY THEMSELVES.

NO. IV.

MY FIRST HUNTING AND FISHING.

BY GRACE GREENWOOD.

"THAT's what I call a title distinguished for its feminity," says a roguish-eyed friend, peering saucily over my shoulder.

"Ah, never you mind, Fred; it's a harmless little fancy of my own," as the lady said when she led her footman to the altar.

I love to look upon a sportsman. I don't mean one of your moustached amateurs, who sallies out once a year, perhaps, in white gloves and gaiters, and with scarce manly strength sufficient to hold his fowling-piece at arms' length-one whom you might fancy mistaking a hen for a pheasant, and taking aim at her through an eye glass, while it requires no violent exercise of the imaginative faculty to behold her placing her claw upon her bill and performing certain contemptuous gyrations therewith. Bah! not such an one. His has been bad shooting from the very root: he has never known a good aim; his whole existence has missed fire. But a full-chested, strong-limbed, spring-footed, keen-eyed, fearless-hearted, born and predestinated Nimrod. One who has snuffed powder in his cradle; whose first known amusement was peppering the cat with potatoe-balls from a pop-gun; one who from his boyhood has gone forth shooting and to shoot, feeling within himself a divine right to scatter the plumage of the proudest young turkey that ever strutted on a prairie; to call down in the crack of a rifle the circling eagle from the arch of heaven; to bring to a death-halt the bounding career of the finest stag that ever tossed his antlers through the wilds, or snuffed the air on the peaks of the Alleghanies.

Such an one, oh, most courteous reader, allow me to present to you-Harry Grove the younger, son of the colonel, and a citizen of the west. He has been, and is, the very cousin of cousins; was my first tutor in mathematics and mischief, philosophy and November, 1847.-VOL. L.-NO. CXCIX.

BB

play-acting, history and horsemanship, logic and leaping fences: a very jewel of a joyous-spirited fellow, full of fun, frolic, and frankness; with a heart "as large as all out-doors," and as warm as all in-doors; and with just sufficient beauty to save himself from vanity, and susceptible damsels from a too sudden bestowal of their unsolicited affections. Yet I have remarked the dash of the dare-devil in his composition to be peculiarly captivating to young ladies just out, who have been puritanically reared. not intend to intimate that my well-beloved kinsman is that horror of careful mammas, 66 a wild young man. I am inclined to believe that the goodness of people, now-a-days, is in inverse proportion to their pretensions. Harry Grove makes few pretensions : ergo, he is quite good enough to serve as a hero, in these degenerate times, when our mental dishes, to be palatable, must be slightly spiced with wickedness.

I do

But Harry is not my present hero; I am my own heroine : yet he will figure largely, though secondarily, in "this strange, eventful, history."

Though the very embodiment of health, in the main, Harry had once a long and distressing illness. We were near losing him the summer he was fifteen. As soon as the crisis of his fever was passed, I, by special request, was appointed sick-room companion and supernumerary nurse. I never left him for a day. Though a fragile child of ten years, I never wearied of those heartprompted cares; my whole soul was whelmed with joy, gushing heavenward with fervent thanksgiving to the God of life. Ah! is it not a blessed thing to behold eyes beaming upon us, all light and love, we had thought to have seen dim with the eclipse of death: smiles on the lip, a glow on the cheek we had thought to have seen stiff with the rigidity which no affection and no passion may move, touched with the icy chill which not even a mother's last, lingering kiss may melt into warmth-to see the spirit of life pervading that form we had thought to have lain away in silence and dust for ever.

One beautiful and summer-like morning in September, when Harry was just strong enough to walk about the yard with the assistance of a cane, a large hunting party left our town, taking conveniences for camping out, provisions and wine-armed and equipped as the law of sporting directs, for a week's crusade against all sorts of game to whom Heaven had given the freedom of the woods, and who had been obligingly fattening themselves to furnish glory and good living to as arrant a set of scapegraces as ever broke college with a whoop and hurrah!

Half-a-dozen merry fellows came dashing and ha-ha-ing up to our door for Harry's elder brothers, who were to join them. Harry, like a noble, manly boy as he was, strove hard to be happy with and for them, but I saw his lip quiver as he offered his fa

vourite dog and gun to a young stranger from the city. At last, with many regrets, politely and earnestly expressed, that the invalid could not accompany them, they were off-all gone! Harry watched them sadly as they wound up the hill opposite the window, and when the last of all, his noble hound, after giving one long, wistful look backward, turned again and disappeared, the poor boy, sighing deeply, sank back into his arm chair, and covered his face with his emaciated hands. Presently I saw fast tears gliding through the pale and almost transparent fingers! They were the first I had seen him shed, and seemed wrung from my own heart; so, winding my arms about his neck, I spoke words of affection and good cheer, which, though childlike, were effectual. He began by calling himself hard names-he was a "woman," "a girl," a "very baby and a booby-baby at that." Then he drew up his head, and curled his lip, and dashed away his tears, and "Richard was himself again."

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose !

"Oh, Cousin Harry," I exclaimed, "there are flocks of birds in the orchard. Go out and shoot them! I'll carry the gun."

“What gun, Grace? Did you not see that they took them all?" Here was a damper; but trust a woman, even in embryo, for scheming. I set out instanter on an exploring expedition. Every chamber and closet in the roomy old mansion was ransacked, and finally my labours were rewarded by finding, among some rubbish in the attic, a clumsy musket, once belonging to our grandfather. Its battered appearance was presumptive evidence of its having gone through the "seven long and bloody wars;" but there were barrel and stock entire. It was a bona fide engine of destruction and death, and I bore it away in triumph, though with a slight shudder, as I thought how many red-skins it might have sent to their spiritual hunting-grounds.

Harry smiled as, with a mock-heroic air, I presented arms, but laughed outright when he came to examine the musket.

66

come

"Why, Grace," said he, " there is no hammer to this lock!" After a little explanation as to the offices of the important agent in the discharge of fire-arms which had thus inopportunely up missing," I suddenly exclaimed-"I have it now! You just load the gun, and pour the powder into the pan, and I will follow with a coal of fire in the tongs, and—and I think I dare touch it off, cousin."

I thought Harry would have died of extravagant merriment. He rolled on the floor in a perfect paroxysm of laughter, but after becoming calm, vowed he would take up with my proposition for its very fun and oddity.

So behold us sallying forth-Harry, to whom a strange strength seemed given, bearing the gun, and I very busily engaged in efforts to keep coal and courage alive.

The first bird at which we took aim was a "chipmunk," who