s now rarely found on stalls,
and to me it appeared to possess but little value. My uncle, however,
was in raptures.

He admired its binding, the clearness of its characters, the ease with
which it opened in his hand, and repeated aloud, half a dozen times,
that it was very, very old.

To my fancy he was making a great fuss about nothing, but it was not my
province to say so. On the contrary, I professed considerable interest
in the subject, and asked him what it was about.

"It is the Heims-Kringla of Snorre Tarleson," he said, "the celebrated
Icelandic author of the twelfth century--it is a true and correct
account of the Norwegian princes who reigned in Iceland."

My next question related to the language in which it was written. I
hoped at all events it was translated into German. My uncle was
indignant at the very thought, and declared he wouldn't give a penny for
a translation. His delight was to have found the original work in the
Icelandic tongue, which he declared to be one of the most magnificent
and yet simple idioms in the world--while at the same time its
grammatical combinations were the most varied known to students.

"About as easy as German?" was my insidious remark.

My uncle shrugged his shoulders.

"The letters at all events," I said, "are rather difficult of
comprehension."

"It is a Runic manuscript, the language of the original population of
Iceland, invented by Odin himself," cried my uncle, angry at my
ignorance.

I was about to venture upon some misplaced joke on the subject, when a
small scrap of parchment fell out of the leaves. Like a hungry man
snatching at a morsel of bread the Professor seized it. It was about
five inches by three and was scrawled over in the most extraordinary
fashion.

The lines shown here are an exact facsimile of what was written on the
venerable piece of parchment--and have wonderful importance, as they
induced my uncle to undertake the most wonderful series of adventures
which ever fell to the lot of human beings.

My uncle looked keenly at the document for some moments and then
declared that it was Runic. The letters were similar to those in the
book, but then what did they mean? This was exactly what I wanted to
know.

Now as I had a strong conviction that the Runic alphabet and dialect
were simply an invention to mystify poor human nature, I was delighted
to find that my uncle knew as much about the matter as I did--which was
nothing. At all event