Page:Hours Spent in Prison.djvu/58

 suddenly asked me whether I knew the favourite legend of mariners, about the struggle of the sea with the dam; adding, “If you wish, I will relate it.”

In the gloomy, cloudy North, where frozen winds, with their icy breath, threaten all life; where stout pine and fir trees, wrapped in a wintry shroud, rarely benefit from a smile of the sun, or experience his vernal caress——

Once upon a time, in the far distant seas, rose like a granite rampart, a barricade, evidently erected by human hands. Proudly lifting its massive form over the level of the stormy sea as if scoffing at the angry waves, stood this grim, gigantic, black dam!

There the powerful free billows encountered a dam of granite, which threatened their open course.

This duel lasted for centuries, until the