The Project Gutenberg EBook of The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales
by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

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Title: The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales

Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Release Date: January 27, 2005 [EBook #14817]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHITE WOLF AND OTHERS ***

Produced by Lionel Sear

THE WHITE WOLF AND OTHER FIRESIDE TALES.

By Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch ('Q').

CONTENTS.

MIRACLE OF THE WHITE WOLF.

SINDBAD ON BURRATOR.

VICTOR.

THE CAPTURE OF THE _BURGOMEISTER VAN DER WERF.

KING O' PRUSSIA.

THE MAN WHO COULD HAVE TOLD.

THE CELLARS OF RUEDA.

THE HAUNTED YACHT.

PARSON JACK'S FORTUNE.

THE BURGLARY CLUB.

CONCERNING ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

COX _VERSUS_ PRETYMAN.

THE BRIDALS OF YSSELMONDE.

ENGLAND!

JOHN AND THE GHOSTS.

THREE PHOTOGRAPHS.

THE TALKING SHIPS.

THE KEEPERS OF THE LAMP.

TWO BOYS.

THE SENIOR FELLOW.

BALLAST.

THE MIRACLE OF THE _WHITE WOLF_.

I.--THE TALE OF SNORRI GAMLASON

In the early summer of 1358, with the breaking up of the ice, there came
to Brattahlid, in Greenland, a merchant-ship from Norway, with
provisions for the Christian settlements on the coast. The master's
name was Snorri Gamlason, and it happened that as he sailed into
Eric's Fiord and warped alongside the quay, word was brought to him that
the Bishop of Garda had arrived that day in Brattahlid, to hold a
confirmation. Whereupon this Snorri went ashore at once, and, getting
audience of the Bishop, gave him a little book, with an account of how
he had come by it.

The book was written in Danish, and Snorri could not understand a word
of it, being indeed unable to read or to write; but he told this
tale:--

His ship, about three weeks before, had run into a calm, which lasted
for three days and two nights, and with a northerly drift she fell away,
little by little, towards a range of icebergs which stretched across and
ahead of them in a solid chain. But about noon of the third day the
colour of the sky warned him of a worse peril, and soon there came up
from the westward a bank of fog, with snow in it,