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Feats on the Fiord By: Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) |
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FEATS ON THE FIORD
BY HARRIET MARTINEAU WITH COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR RACKHAM LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
1914
INTRODUCTION Miss Martineau's Norwegian romance won its way long since into the
hearts of children in this country. The unhackneyed setting to the
incidents of the tale distinguish it from thousands of more ordinary
children's stories; nor is there any other tale so well known having
its scenes laid in the land of the fiords. It is quite safe to add
that perhaps no other author has felt so strongly and communicated so
convincingly the mystic charm of these northern lagoons with their
still depths and reflections, their inaccessible walls of rock and
their teeming wild fowl life. This mystic charm is deepened in the book by the thread of popular
superstition which runs throughout the episodes and, in fact, gives
rise to them. Miss Martineau's dénouements were calculated to
shatter the follies of belief in Nipen and other supernatural agents;
but her own crusading traffic in them rather endears them to the
imagination of the reader and certainly supplies a fascination which
the most sceptical of young readers would be sorry to miss. The author also brings home to the youthful mind the wonder of the
physiographical peculiarities of northern latitudes. The book opens
with the long nights and ends with the long days. The midnight sun and
the northern lights play their parts, whilst the beautiful simplicity
of farm life in the Arctic circle is unfolded with authoritative
interest. As for the hero, young Oddo, he is a prince among dauntless boys, yet
he never oversteps the bounds of true boyishness. He would be a hero
anywhere; but as a leading character in this romance, combined with all
the charm of natural effect in which he moves, he makes Feats on the
Fiord a book to be classed among the few best of its kind. F. C. TILNEY.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
It came nearer and nearer, and at last quite up to the can
of ale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece In the porch she found Oddo And that vessel, he knew, was the pirate schooner He sometimes hammered at his skiff No other than the Mountain Demon At the end of a ledge he found the remains of a ladder
made of birch poles In desperation Hund, unarmed as he was, threw himself
upon the pirate It was Hund, with his feet tied under his horse, and the
bridle held by a man on each side
FEATS ON THE FIORD Every one who has looked at the map of Norway must have been struck
with the singular character of its coast. On the map it looks so
jagged; a strange mixture of land and sea. On the spot, however, this
coast is very sublime. The long straggling promontories are
mountainous, towering ridges of rock, springing up in precipices from
the water; while the bays between them, instead of being rounded with
shelving sandy shores, on which the sea tumbles its waves, as in bays
of our coast, are, in fact, long narrow valleys, filled with sea,
instead of being laid out in fields and meadows. The high rocky banks
shelter these deep bays (called fiords) from almost every wind; so that
their waters are usually as still as those of a lake. For days and
weeks together, they reflect each separate tree top of the pine forests
which clothe the mountain sides, the mirror being broken only by the
leap of some sportive fish, or the oars of the boatman as he goes to
inspect the sea fowl from islet to islet of the fiord, or carries out
his nets or his rod to catch the sea trout, or char, or cod, or
herrings, which abound, in their seasons, on the coast of Norway. It is difficult to say whether these fiords are the most beautiful in
summer or in winter. In summer, they glitter with golden sunshine; and
purple and green shadows from the mountain and forest lie on them; and
these may be more lovely than the faint light of the winter noons of
those latitudes, and the snowy pictures of frozen peaks which then show
themselves on the surface: but before the day is half over, out come
the stars the glorious stars, which shine like nothing that we have
ever seen... Continue reading book >>
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