User:Inge Hoonte/research

Ship Voyage Diaries & Journals

In 1918, Samuel Baker chartered a transatlantic vessel in Ireland, and with his whole family, servants and possessions set sail for Canada. A few extracts from his diary of their three-month voyage may be of interest.

The Poetic Edda

Of old was the age | when Ymir lived;

Sea nor cool waves | nor sand there were;

Earth had not been, | nor heaven above,

But a yawning gap, | and grass nowhere.

Then Bur's sons lifted | the level land,

Mithgarth the mighty | there they made;

The sun from the south | warmed the stones of earth,

And green was the ground | with growing leeks.

The sun, the sister | of the moon, from the south

Her right hand cast | over heaven's rim;

No knowledge she had | where her home should be,

The moon knew not | what might was his,

The stars knew not | where their stations were.

Then sought the gods | their assembly-seats,

The holy ones, | and council held;

Names then gave they | to noon and twilight,

Morning they named, | and the waning moon,

Night and evening, | the years to number.

Mermaids, Whales & Giant Squids

The Little Mermaid