hat one; why, the two
young gentry can scarcely lift it!' And, indeed, my brother and myself
had entered the Golgotha, and commenced handling these grim relics of
mortality. One enormous skull, lying in a corner, had fixed our
attention, and we had drawn it forth. Spirit of eld, what a skull was
yon!

"I still seem to see it, the huge grim thing; many of the others were
large, strikingly so, and appeared fully to justify the old man's
conclusion that their owners must have been strange fellows; but compared
with this mighty mass of bone they looked small and diminutive, like
those of pigmies; it must have belonged to a giant, one of those
red-haired warriors of whose strength and stature such wondrous tales are
told in the ancient chronicles of the north, and whose grave-hills, when
ransacked, occasionally reveal secrets which fill the minds of puny
moderns with astonishment and awe. Reader, have you ever pored days and
nights over the pages of Snorro? probably not, for he wrote in a language
which few of the present day understand, and few would be tempted to read
him tamed down by Latin dragomans. A brave old book is that of Snorro,
containing the histories and adventures of old northern kings and
champions, who seemed to have been quite different men, if we may judge
from the feats which they performed, from those of these days. One of
the best of his histories is that which describes the life of Harald
Haardraade, who, after manifold adventures by land and sea, now a pirate,
now a mercenary of the Greek emperor, became King of Norway, and
eventually perished at the battle of Stanford Bridge, whilst engaged in a
gallant onslaught upon England. Now, I have often thought that the old
Kemp, whose mouldering skull in the Golgotha at Hythe my brother and
myself could scarcely lift, must have resembled in one respect at least
this Harald, whom Snorro describes as a great and wise ruler and a
determined leader, dangerous in battle, of fair presence, and measuring
in height just _five ells_, neither more nor less."

Of this incident he says he need offer no apology for relating it "as it
subsequently exercised considerable influence over his pursuits," _i.e._,
his study of Danish literature; but in the proof he added also that the
incident, "perhaps more than anything else, tended to bring my
imaginative powers into action"--this he cut out, though the skulls may
have impressed him as the skeleton disinterred by a ho