"Served them right!" said Lorimer. "And now they are dead, I suppose the wronged ghosts don't appear any more?"
"Oh yes, they do," said Güldmar very seriously. "If any sailor passes at midnight, and sees them or hears their cries, he is doomed."
"But does he see or hear them?" asked Errington, with a smile.
"Well, I don't know," returned Güldmar, with a grave shake of his head. "I'm not superstitious myself, but I should be sorry to say anything against the berg-folk. You see they may exist, and it's no use offending them."
"And what do ye mean by the berg-folk?" inquired Macfarlane.
"They are supposed to be the souls of persons who died impenitent," said Thelma, "and they are doomed to wander, on the hills till the day of judgment. It is a sort of purgatory."
Duprèz shook his fingers emphatically in the air.
"Ah, bah!" he said; "what droll things remain still in the world! Yes, in spite of liberty, equality, fraternity! You do not believe in foolish legends, Mademoiselle? For example,--do you think you will suffer purgatory?"
"Indeed yes!" she replied. "No one can be good enough to go straight to heaven. There must be some little stop on the way in which to be sorry for all the bad things one has done."
"'Tis the same idea as ours," said Güldmar. "We have two places of punishment in the Norse faith; one, Nifleheim, which is a temporary thing like the Catholic purgatory; the other Nastrond, which is the counterpart of the Christian hell. Know you not the description of Nifleheim in the Edda?--'tis terrible enough to satisfy all tastes. 'Hela, or Death rules over the Nine Worlds of Nifleheim. Her hall is called Grief. Famine is her table, and her only servant is Delay. Her gate is a precipice, her porch Faintness, her bed Leanness,--Cursing and Howling are her tent. Her glance is dreadful and terrifying,--and her lips are blue with the venom of Hatred.' These words," he added, "sound finer in Norwegian, but I have given the meaning fairly."
"Ma certes!" said Macfarlane chuckling. "I'll tell my aunt in Glasgie aboot it. This Nifleheim wad suit her pairfectly,--she wad send a' her relations there wi' tourist tickets, not available for the return journey!"
"It seems to me," observed Errington, "that the Nine Worlds of Nifleheim have a resemblance to the different circles of Dante's Purgatory."