I send these notes to you rather than to any other man. Why? First of all, because I know not where you are, so the missive will probably be lost. Doubtless that would be the best thing which could happen, especially for the man who would then be spared reading these pages But it will also be well for me that these lines should lie--or be lost--in some other place than here.

It was a beautiful evening in June, The sun threw its golden beams from the west, from Vindelicia, on the Mercurius Hill, and the modest villa which crowned it. Here and there on the great street a two-wheeled cart, drawn by a yoke of Noric oxen, was returning home at the close of the market-day through the west gate of Juvavum, the Porta Vindelica.

Prokopius von Casarea Ein Beitrag Zur Historiographie der Volkerwanderung und des Sinkenden Romerthums by Felix Dahn. This book is a reproduction of the original book published in 1865 and may have some imperfections such as marks or hand-written notes."

Nigh upon fifty winters ago, there was growing up in the North a boy named Halfred. In Iceland, on the Hamund Fjord, stood the splendid hall of his father, Hamund. At that time, so the heathen people believe, elves and goblins still moved about freely among the Northern nations.