Myths and Legends
arrival of white men in a "bird," undoubtedly a ship, from which issued thunder and lightning. A battle ensued when the visitors landed, and the white men wrote the story of it on the rock. Certain scholars of the eighteenth century declared that the rock bore an account of the arrival of Phœnician sailors, blown across the Atlantic and unable or unwilling to return. A representation of the pillars of Hercules was thought to be included among the sculptures, showing that the castaways were familiar with the Mediterranean. Only this is known about Dighton Rock, however that it stood where it does, and as it does, when the English settled in this neighborhood. The Indians said there were other rocks near it which bore similar markings until effaced by tides and drifting ice.
Longfellow makes the wraith of the long-buried exile of the armor appear and tell his story: Не was a viking who loved the daughter of King Hildebrand, and as royal consent to their union was withheld he made off with the girl, hotly followed by the king and seventy horsemen. The viking reached his vessel first, and hoisting sail continued his flight over the sea, but the chase was soon upon him, and, having no alternative but to fight or be taken, he swung around before the wind and rammed the side of Hildebrand's galley, crushing in its timbers. The vessel tipped and sank, and every soul on board went with her, while the viking's boat kept on her course, and after a voyage of three weeks put in at Narra-
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