The Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, Ohio) 1853-1861, 1854-12-16
A Story of the North.

STORY OF the NOrths
The interest with which the recent discoye,
ry OF the fate of the party of Sir John franklin
has invested all the old stories and traditions
OF adventure in the Arctic seas, renders the
following narrative of the fate of Errick
Rande peculiarly interesting and appropri~
ate at the present time:
GAS early as 988, Errick Rande, an Ice
landic chieftain, fitted out an expedition of
twenty five gallies at Suefell, and having
manned them with sufficient crews of colo
nists, set forth from Iceland to what ap~
peared more congenial climate. They sail
ed upon the ocean fifteen days, and they saw
no land. The next day brought with it
storm, and many gallant vessel sunk in the
deep. Mountains of ice covered the water
as far as the eye could reach, and but few
gallies escaped destruction. The morning Of
the seventeenth day was clear and cloudless
the sea was calm, and far away to the north
ward could be seen the glare of ice fields re-
fecting on the sky. The remains of the
shattered fleet gathered together to pursue
their voyage, but the galley of Errick Rande
was not there.
"The crew of galley which was driven fur
ther down than the rest, reported that as the
morning broke, the large fields of ice that had
covered the ocean were driven by the current
Errick Rande, borne by resistless force, and
mendous field of ice-her crew had lost all
control over her-they were tossing theis
arms in wild agony. Scarcely moment
had elapsed before it was walled in by
hundred ice-hills, and the whole mass moved
forward and was soon beyond the horizon.
THAT the galley OF the narrators escaped
was wonderful-it remained. however, un-
contradicted, and the vessel Of Errck Rande
was never more seen. Half century after
i that a Danish colony established npon
the western coast of Greenland. The crew
of the vessels which carried the colonists
thither, in their excursions into the interior,
crossed a range of hills that stretched to
the northward; they had approached nearer
TO the pole than any preceding adventurers
i Upon looking down from the summit of the
hills, they beheld vast and interminable
field of ice, undulating in various places.
and formed into thousand grotesquc
shapes.
"They saw, not far from the shore, figure
, of an ice vessel, with glittering icicles in
stead of masts rising from it. Curiosity
prompted them TO approach, when they be-
5 held a dismal sight. Figures of men in
? every attitude of woe, were upon the deck,
! but they were icy things one figure alone
| stood erect, and, with folded arms, leaning
l against the mast. A hatchet was procured
and the ice split away, and the features of a
chieftain disclosed, pallid and deathly and
free from decay. This was doubtless the
i vessel, and that figure the form of Errick
! Rande. Benumbed with cold, and in the
! agony of despair, his crew had fallen around
him. The spray of the ocean and the fogs
had frozen as it lighted upon them. and Gov
cred each figure with an icy robe, which the
short-ived glance of Greenland sun had
: not time to remove. The Danes gazed upon
:: the spectacle with trembling. They knew
v not but the scene might be their fate. They
knelt down upon the deck and muttered &
J. prayer in their native tongue for the souls Of
$ the frozen crew, then hurredly left the place
$ for the night was approaching"