Five or six rushed to the spot where the
turbans hung, and only an opportune fall of stones from above prevented
their destroying the apparatus in their blind hurry to escape. The chief
claimed the privilege of being drawn up first, and he and all his
followers declared that nothing should ever tempt them to visit again
the Cave of Yeermalik.[104]
_The Surtshellir, in Iceland_.
The first account of this lava-cavern is given by Olafsen,[105] who
visited it in 1750 and 1753. Ebenezer Henderson[106] explored it in
1815, and Captain Forbes gives some account of it in his recent book on
Iceland.[107] It is mentioned in some of the Sagas,[108] and appears to
have been a refuge for robbers in the tenth century, and Sturla
Sigvatson, with a large band of followers, spent some time here. The
Landnama Saga derives the name Surtshellir from a huge giant called
Surtur, who made his abode in the cave; but Olafsen believed that the
name merely meant _black hole_, from _surtur_ or _svartur_, and was due
to the darkness of the cave and the colour of the lava: in accordance
with this view, it is called _Hellerin Sortur_, or _black hole_, in some
of the earlier writings.
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