FFeoyi e Peieson

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J(PON once of the rugucd coasts of I'inland, facing the linle ishing village of Liedsmarken,

there rises a barren peak. a solitary rock in the middle of the scac When the weather I fine, vou can distinguish, from the conast, the jagged outlines and steep slopes of this its forbidding aspeet unrelieved by any trace ol vegetation s it is an unlavour:

able place for satlors and fishermen, for the sca1s deep just there, and Tanding a very ditheult matter as soon as the wind

I WeCoOnes

begins to blow o litde, The only inhabi- tants of the rock arc the sca-birds, which wather there i great numbers at evening thme,

As you draw near o it vou can see teeess e the chiff; about half-way up a recess which, with a slight stretch of the

imagination, may be (nmlmul to a chapel in which a human figure. probablv the figure of a woman, has been roughly cut

(WhE

e rpm o T T

FINLAND.

A LEGEND OF

CHARLES 150y R

the rock, The mnslnp of this singular divinity dates - back, without doubt, 10 the tme of paganism: in o later vears it has Leen looked upon as the statue of a virgin, It called = "T'he Black Virgin,” and s supposcd to watch over the (letm\ ol the

village of Licdsmarken.

IS

The Black Virgin, however, is not looked upon as o benevolent divinity, Fora long

the

[N

it exercised o fatal power s and il at prosent time this power is not used, it because 1t was conjured NIV Vears by devotion and love,

Here as the story as it was told to me @ hsherman of the village:

The village of Tiedsmarken has alw; AVS heen inhabited by fishermen and peasants honest, poor, and hard- working, and all thoroughly convinced the power of the Virgim on the rock.

Fovery vear the Virein demanded a victin,

ago

Iy

and, as a matter of fact, each vear one of the mhabitants of Liedsmarken had been Vol v — os.