NORSE VIKING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16848, 26 September 1922, Page 3

NORSE VIKING.

ICEBERG GIVLS UP ITS DEAD Drifting for ton centuries through Lite uncharted sons north of tin* Arctic Circle, traversing manv thousand miles of snow and silence. perhaps pushed by the evergrinding i e-floes to the North Pole itself, tho body of Viking a thousand years old has open returned at last to civilisation. Encased from head to heel in a frozen winding sheet that preserved it more perfectly tlv-<n any Egyptian mummy the Viking’s body was discovered by Danish doctors standing upright in a huge iceberg cast up on tho cast coast of Greenland (says ” Popular Scienc:* Siftings ”). Tt towered before their amazed eyes like an incredible phantom—seven feet tall, clad in rude ancient armour, gripping spear and shield head crowned with the \\pnged helmet of Norse royalty, the whole dimly risible within the transparent tomb of ice. Men with axes chopped away this natural casket. Then the Viking stood as unmarred by time as though he had died but yesterday. He was not dried or shrunken. The skin was white and firm. The hair of tho head and the bushy moustache was long and red and silky. The icebery had ke.pt him imperishable for posterity. The body is being taken to Copenhagen. There scientists will endeavour to perpetuate the process of preservation by the injection of chemicals. If they are successful the body will be the most remarkable relic on earth. Millions will come to stare at the Norseman who lived and loved and fought a thousand years ago.

The Viking, with his royal winged helmet, m>av be no less a celebrity than Lief Ericksen, “ Erik the Red,” famed in saga and rune as a dauntless voyager, believed by many historians (who base their assumption on authentic findings) to have even landed on the shores of America four hundred years before Columbus steered the Santa Maria into harbour at Sail Salvador.