Chapter 2 - Page 2

in Iceland."

"Indeed;" I cried, keeping up wonderfully, "of course it is a Germantranslation?"

"What!" sharply replied the Professor, "a translation! What should Ido with a translation? This _is_ the Icelandic original, in themagnificent idiomatic vernacular, which is both rich and simple, andadmits of an infinite variety of grammatical combinations and verbalmodifications."

"Like German." I happily ventured.

"Yes." replied my uncle, shrugging his shoulders; "but, in additionto all this, the Icelandic has three numbers like the Greek, andirregular declensions of nouns proper like the Latin."

"Ah!" said I, a little moved out of my indifference; "and is the typegood?"

"Type! What do you mean by talking of type, wretched Axel? Type! Doyou take it for a printed book, you ignorant fool? It is amanuscript, a Runic manuscript."

"Runic?"

"Yes. Do you want me to explain what that is?"

"Of course not," I replied in the tone of an injured man. But myuncle persevered, and told me, against my will, of many things Icared nothing about.

"Runic characters were in use in Iceland in former ages. They wereinvented, it is said, by Odin himself. Look there, and wonder,impious young man, and admire these letters, the invention of theScandinavian god!"

Well, well! not knowing what to say, I was going to prostrate myselfbefore this wonderful book, a way of answering equally pleasing togods and kings, and which has the advantage of never giving them anyembarrassment, when a little incident happened to divert conversationinto another channel.

This was the appearance of a dirty slip of parchment, which slippedout of the volume and fell upon the floor.

My uncle pounced upon this shred with incredible avidity. An olddocument, enclosed an immemorial time within the folds of this oldbook, had for him an immeasurable value.

"What's this?" he cried.

And he laid out upon the table a piece of parchment, five inches bythree, and along which were traced certain mysterious characters.

Here is the exact facsimile. I think it important to let thesestrange signs be publicly known, for they were the means of drawingon Professor Liedenbrock and his nephew to undertake the mostwonderful expedition of the nineteenth century.

[Runic glyphs occur here]

The Professor mused a few moments over this series of characters;then raising his spectacles he pronounced:

"These are Runic letters; they are exactly like those of themanuscript of Snorre Turlleson. But, what on earth is their meaning?"

Runic letters appearing to my mind to be an invention of the learnedto mystify this poor world, I was not sorry to see my uncle sufferingthe pangs of mystification. At least, so it seemed to me, judgingfrom his fingers, which were beginning to work with terrible energy.

"It is