CHAPTER FIVE.
SIGURD THE HERO.
Sub-Chapter I.
THE TOWER OF THE NORTH-WEST WIND.
On the rugged shore of the Northern Sea, where the summer sun never sets, there stood long ago a grim bleak fortress, called the Tower of the North-West Wind.

Before it stretched the sea, which thundered ceaselessly at its base, like a wolf that gnaws at the root of some noble oak.

On either side of it glittered the blue fiord, dotted with numberless islets, throwing its long arms far inland.

Behind it frowned a dense forest of pines as far as eye could reach, in which the wind roared day and night, mingled often with the angry howls of the wolves.
The Tower of the North-West Wind stood there, the solitary work of man in all that wild landscape.

Not a sign of life was to be seen besides.
Not even a fisherman's hut on the shores of the fiord, or a woodman's shed among the trees.