The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1957, Side 28

26
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Summer 1957
penury. But if poor she was un-
complaining, for her son grew apace,
with promise and comeliness.
But early in his life the lad showed
evidences of independence in his
thinking. He asked the questions
other children asked, but dif-
ferent from them in that he did not
always or necessarily accept the answers
he received as final. He even asked
questions about the mountain, so near
yet so remote, and the answers he
received did not satisfy him. Often he
sat and stared at it, regarding its
brooding majesty and the mysteries of
those far heights, challenging if im-
penetrable. There came the time that
he essayed a faltering step above its
foot, and as he grew older and strength
came to his legs he clambered even
higher and with more confidence.
At first his fellows of the strand
gave it no heed. But when he spoke to
them of having approached the shelf
and the edge of the forest, heard the
murmur of its branches and other
sounds from its depths, the people
crossed themselves and bade him say
no more. The mountain was sacrosanct.
They would not even hear about it.
The chieftain had two children, a
boy and girl, of an age like that of
the widow’s son, with whom he often
played, and always harmoniously. He
told them about the various things he
had seen and heard on his sorties up
the mountainside—the sough of the
wind in the forest and the strange
noises from its depths. At first they
were afraid, but their curiosity over-
came this, and their interest increased.
When their father the chieftain learn-
ed about this he was incensed and
strictly forbade them to have further
contact with the widow’s son, and for
a while they bowed to his will.
But in time they resumed the former
association, but only clandestinely, in
the dusk of evening. And so great was
their interest in the mysteries of the
mountain, that each day dragged to-
wards the evening tryst when the
widow's son would recount to them
his adventures of the day’s climb.
Their imagination stirred, and they
dreamt of far realms and wonders be-
yond their ken, out of reach but no
less desirable to explore.
Came the time that the two child-
ren of the chieftain accompanied the
widow’s son part way up the moun-
tainside, only to be apprehended by
one of their father’s men, who brought
all three before his chief. It went hard
with them then, for the chieftain was
not one to brook disobedience of his
explicit orders. The punishment was
dire, if condign, the whip in his hand
taking cruel toll of juvenile derma.
At its termination he addressed the
culprit, the widow’s son, apprising
him that the heights of the mountain
were out of bounds and not to be
disturbed lest he bring calamities to
the strand. If he persisted in further
exploration he would be incarcerated
in the Stone Church, a keep ol formid-
able reputation, dark and cold, where
malefactors were detained on the rare
occasions that peace on the strand was
disturbed.
With that the widow’s son was re-
leased, with warnings ringing; in his
ears, if not in his heart. He could not
forget the forest, its murmurs and its
voices, now doubly alluring.
His mother was shocked by his ap-
pearance after the castigation at the
hands of the chieftain, and tearfully
pleaded with him to desist from further
prying into the secrets of the moun-
tain. But the lad was inconsolable. His
plea, the mountain was a magnet that
irresistibly drew him to its bosom. And
the mother, sensing his plight, em-
braced him, thus transmitting her
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