A LEGEND OF FINLAND.
From the French of Charles Epheyre.
PON one of the rugged coasts of Finland, facing the little fishing village of Liedsmarken, there rises a barren peak, a solitary rock in the middle of the sea. When the weather is fine, you can distinguish, from the coast, the jagged outlines and steep slopes of this peak, its forbidding aspect unrelieved by any trace of vegetation; it is an unfavourable place for sailors and fishermen, for the sea is deep just there, and landing becomes a very difficult matter as soon as the wind begins to blow a little. The only inhabitants of the rock are the sea-birds, which gather there in great numbers at evening time.
As you draw near to it you can see a necess in the cliff, about half-way up—a recess which, with a slight stretch of the imagination, may be compared to a chapel—in which a human figure, probably the figure of a woman, has been roughly cut in the rock. The worship of this singular divinity dates back, without doubt, to the time of paganism; in later years it has been looked upon as the statue of a virgin. It is called "The Black Virgin," and is supposed to watch over the destiny of the village of Liedsmarken.
The Black Virgin, however, is not looked upon as a benevolent divinity. For a long time it exercised a fatal power; and if at the present time this power is not used, it is because it was conjured many years ago by devotion and love.
Here is the story as it was told to me by a fisherman of the village:—
The village of Liedsmarken has always been inhabited by fishermen and peasants; honest, poor, and hard-working, and all thoroughly convinced of the power of the Virgin on the rock.
Every year the Virgin demanded a victim, and, as a matter of fact, each year one of the inhabitants of Liedsmarken had been
