ble power.

"Lord God!" cried he, and blessed himself and looked on poor Aslog, who
seemed to be dying of weakness before his eyes.

Scarcely had the exclamation passed his lips when the storm ceased, the
waves subsided, and the vessel came to the shore without encountering
any hindrance. Orm jumped out on the beach. Some mussels that he found
upon the strand strengthened and revived the exhausted Aslog so that she
was soon able to leave the boat.

The island was overgrown with low dwarf shrubs, and seemed to be
uninhabited; but when they had got about the middle of it, they
discovered a house reaching but a little above the ground, and appearing
to be half under the surface of the earth. In the hope of meeting human
beings and assistance, the wanderers approached it. They listened if
they could hear any noise, but the most perfect silence reigned there.
Orm at length opened the door, and with his companion walked in; but
what was their surprise to find everything regulated and arranged as if
for inhabitants, yet not a single living creature visible. The fire was
burning on the hearth in the middle of the room, and a kettle with fish
hung on it, apparently only waiting for some one to take it off and eat.
The beds were made and ready to receive their weary tenants. Orm and
Aslog stood for some time dubious, and looked on with a certain degree
of awe, but at last, overcome with hunger, they took up the food and
ate. When they had satisfied their appetites, and still in the last
beams of the setting sun, which now streamed over the island far and
wide, discovered no human being, they gave way to weariness, and laid
themselves in the beds to which they had been so long strangers.

They had expected to be awakened in the night by the owners of the house
on their return home, but their expectation was not fulfilled. They
slept undisturbed till the morning sun shone in upon them. No one
appeared on any of the following days, and it seemed as if some
invisible power had made ready the house for their reception. They spent
the whole summer in perfect happiness. They were, to be sure, solitary,
yet they did not miss mankind. The wild birds' eggs and the fish they
caught yielded them provisions in abundance.

When autumn came, Aslog presented Orm with a son. In the midst of their
joy at his appearance they were surprised by a wonderful apparition. The
door opened on a sudden, and an old woman stepped in. She had on her a
han