3o8 EARLY REMINISCENCES On Stromsoe, near the southern point, is a terrace little raised above the high-tide level, frowned down upon by belted crags, red and black striped ; here are the ruins of a cathedral, that was never more than a shabby little parish church in size and structure, and beside it is a small farm. The low walls and roof never enclosed any crowd, for there were no neighbours—there could be none, as the little platform would accommodate but a single family; the only song of white-robed choristers ever heard there was the scream of the gulls, and the only organ-note the piping of the wind and the boom of the sea. In this little farm lived the Bishop. Hither came, about the year 1154, a young woman named Gunnhild, with her husband, Uni, the brother of the Bishop's chaplain, and a young son, aged five, named Sverrir. Gunnhild was taken into service by the Bishop as dairymaid, and Uni, by profession a horner, picked up a little money by the making of spoons and tooth-combs out of cow-horn. It was not then, any more than now, that every individual possessed his own comb, but one served the general purpose of an entire household, and was passed from one head to another. The Bishop, by name Matthias, died in 1158, and his chaplain, the uncle of Sverrir, was elected in his room. He was a married man, as were most of the Scandinavian clergy, and had a family. Bishop Hroi took a kindly interest in his nephew, taught him to read and write, and instructed him in the rudiments of Latin. He must have well grounded Sverrir, and have given him a love of literature, for this characterized him to the end of his days. Sverrir was not alone, for the Bishop was the schoolmaster of the diocese, and the bonders sent their sons to Kirkjuboe to be instructed. The scholars delighted to boat in summer from isle to isle, and to fish, and particularly to partake in the whale slaughter, when a shoal of these monsters was driven by boatloads of shouting men into a haven and there harpooned. The boys also climbed the crags after birds' eggs. On the red ledges of burnt sand are tens of thousands of sea-birds. They have burrowed in the friable soil, forming caves, into which they can retire and lay their eggs, but they delight in standing at the edge of the cliff, watching the tumbling waves, and screaming and laughing as the boats shoot by ; curiously resembling an array of white-breasted soldiers drawn up in line to resist invasion. The
