Note 317 — Chapter I · THE STEAM-SHIP “QUEEN”—THE ORKNEYS AND MAES HOWE—THE SHETLANDS AND THE FÆROE ISLANDS.

These Northmen left their handiwork even on the “Stones of Venice.” Readers may not be unwilling to see the legend upon the maneless and melancholy lion, the statue of Pentelic marble, ten feet high, once at the harbour mouth of the Piræus (Porto Leone), where the pedestal still stands, now fronting the arsenal, Venice, where, after the retreat from Greece, the Doge Morosini carried it in 1687. The hardly legible inscription on the right side of the animal is supposed to be, “Asmundr graved these runes united with Asgeir, Thorlief, Thórd, and Ívar, at the request of Haraldr Háfi (the Tall); although the Greeks, taking thought, forbade it.” It is supposed that this Harold was the same who had the promise of seven feet in English ground. The left flank and shoulder are less uncertain, and the legend reads as follows: “Hakun, united with Ulfr (Wolf) and Asmundr and Aurn (Örn), conquered this port. These men and Haraldr Háfi, on account of the uprising of the Greek people, imposed considerable fines. Dálkr remained (prisoner?) in remote regions. Egill fared with Ragnar to Rumania ... and Armenia.”

The inscriptions were first published in 1800 by Åkerblad, a Swedish savant; they have been frequently revised, and the last study is the “Inscription Runique du Pirée, interpretée par C. C. Rafn; et publiée par la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord,” Copenhagen, 1856.