Page:The North Star (1904).djvu/311

Rh too could go! It may be, Thorgills, when Leif doth return, thou and I shall go journeying again.” King Olaf turned to Father Breasal. “Didst ever hear what manner of men dwell in the new land?”

“When I was a youth in my Irish monastery, I did read in the Roman books of history that Pliny the Elder spoke of two strange red men who were brought to Rome in the reign of Nero. They were exhibited to the Roman populace in the arena, with the gladiators; and the people did believe the strange wild men were satyrs. My old abbot did believe, and I believe these unknown, red men were of that new land that St. Brendan of Clonfert visited in his seven years’ voyage. But, my King, it is to Iceland we now must go; and not to the happy isles of Brendan’s memory. In the years when we are all at rest, our brethren from our own island shall find again this golden West and give it to Christ as Brendan longed to do; and it may indeed become, in zeal and faith, what your forefathers, honored bard, have called it, the ‘Irland it Mikla,’ a greater land of St. Patrick. And now, my King, farewell! God’s blessing be on thee always.”