gulls, scouries, and other sea-fowl, appeared like flakes of snow; while, upon the lower ranges of the cliff, stood whole lines of cormorants, drawn up alongside of each other, like soldiers in their battle array, and other living thing was there none to see. The sea, although not in a tempestuous state, was disturbed enough to rush on these capes with a sound like distant thunder, and the billows, which rose in sheets of foam half way up these sable rocks, formed a contrast of colouring equally striking and awful.

Betwixt the extremities, or capes of these projecting head-lands, there rolled, on the day when Mertoun visited the scene, a deep and dense aggregation of clouds, through which no human eye could penetrate, and which, bounding the vision, and excluding all view of the distant ocean, rendered it no unapt representation of the sea in the vision of Mirza, whose extent was concealed by vapours and clouds and storms. The ground rising steeply from the sea-beach, permitted no view into the interior of the country, and seemed a scene of irretrievable barrenness, where scrubby

and stunted heath, intermixed with the long bent, or coarse grass, which first covers sandy soils, were the only vegetables that could be seen. Upon a natural elevation, which rose above the beach in the very bottom of the bay, and receded a little from the sea, so as to be without reach of the waves, arose the half-buried ruin which we have already described, surrounded by a wasted, half-ruinous, and mouldering wall, which, breached in several places, served still to divide the precincts of the cemetery. The mariners who were driven by accident into this solitary bay, pretended that the church was occasionally observed to be full of lights, and from that circumstance, were used to prophecy shipwrecks and deaths by sea.

As Mertoun approached near to the chapel, he adopted, insensibly, and perhaps without much premeditation, measures to avoid being himself seen, until he came close under the walls of the burial-ground, which he approached, as it chanced, on that side where the sand was blowing from the graves, in the manner we have

described.

Here, looking through one of the gaps in the wall, which time had made, he beheld the person' whom he sought, occupied in a manner which assorted well with the ideas popularly entertained of her character, but which was otherwise sufficiently extraordinary.

She was employed beside a rude monument, on one side of which was represented the rough outline of a cavalier, or knight, on horseback, while on the other appeared a shield, with the armorial bearings so defaced as not to be intelligible; which scutcheon was suspended by one angle, contrary to the modern custom which usually places them straight and upright. At the foot of this pillar was believed to repose, as Mertoun had formerly heard, the bones of Ribolt Troil, one of the remote ancestors of Magnus, and a man renowned for deeds of valorous emprize in the fifteenth century. From the grave of this warrior Norna of the Fitful-head seemed busied in shovelling the sand, an easy task where it was so light and loose; so that it seemed plain that she would shortly complete what the rude winds had begun, and make bare the bones which

lay there interred. As she laboured she muttered her magic song; for without the Runic rhyme no form of northern superstition was ever performed. We have perhaps preserved too many examples of these incantations; but we cannot help attempting to translate that which follows :

Champion, famed for warlike toil,
Art thou silent, Ribolt Troil?

Sand, and dust, and pebbly stones,
Are leaving bare thy giant bones.
Who dared touch the wild bear's skin
Ye slumber'd on, while life was in ?-
A woman now, or babe may come
And cast the covering from thy tomb.

"Yet be not wrathful, Chief, nor blight
Mine eyes or ears with sound or sight!
I come not with unhallow'd tread,

To wake the slumbers of the dead,

Or lay thy giant reliques bare;

But what I seek thou well can'st spare.

Be it to my hand allow'd

To shear a merk's weight from thy shroud
Yet leave thee sheeted lead enough

To shield thy bones from weather rough.

2

"See, I draw my magic knifeNever while thou wert in life

Laid'st thou still for sloth or fear,

When point and edge were glitt’ring near; See, the cearments now I sever

Waken now, or sleep for ever!

Thou wilt not wake-the deed is done,The prize I sought is fairly won.

Thanks, Ribolt, thanks,-for this the sea Shall smooth its ruffled crest for thee,And while afar its billows foam, Subside to peace near Ribolt's tomb. Thanks, Ribolt, thanks-for this the might Of wild winds raging at their height, When to thy place of slumber nigh, Shall soften to a lullaby.

"She, the dame of doubt and dread,
Norna of the Fitful-head,

Mighty in her own despite-
Miserable in her might;

In despair and frenzy great,—
In her greatness desolate ;
Wisest, wickedest who lives,
Well can keep the word she gives."