Wehad now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. 3. a passage or stairway leading down. When it is flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and Moskoe with a boisterous rapidity ;but the roar of its impetuous ebb to the sea is scarce equalled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts ;the noise being heard several leagues off, and the vortices or pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship comes within its attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom, and there beat to pieces against the rocks ;and when the water relaxes, the fragments thereof are thrown up again. All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. Not long ago, said he at length, and I could have guided you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about three years past, there happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal man or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. But for this circumstance we should have foundered at once for we lay entirely buried for some moments. Round and round we swept -- not with any uniform movement -- but in dizzying swings and jerks, that sent us sometimes only a few hundred yards -- sometimes nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. if(!d.getElementById(id)) I glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst into tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. It was until today's afternoon that I found out that I do not only own a copy of Poe's most tales, but that I also already have started reading one of his less appreciated not-so-short-stories. Its worth noting, too, that he goes on to observe that his attempts to guess which object will next be pulled into the whirlpools currents all prove to be wrong: At length, after making several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all this fact the fact of my invariable miscalculation, set me upon a train of reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat heavily once more. Mans attempt at understanding and second-guessing nature has failed. links The Moskoe-Strm whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead -- but no more like the every-day Moskoe-Strm, than the whirl as you now see it is like a mill-race. And yet all the morning, and indeed until late in the afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze from the south-west, while the sun shone brightly, so that the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what was to follow. Powerful story that makes the whirlpool feel cosmic in its elemental terror. js.src='https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js'; poetry We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge. By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or perhaps we did not feel it so much, as we scudded before it, but at all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the wind, and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute mountains. This plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they are whirled to and fro. Both above and below us were visible fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture, broken boxes, barrels and staves. I dragged my watch from its fob. "The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called by the Norwegians Vurrgh. The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not asourways; nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works,which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus. A Descent Into The Maelstrom. A maelstrom is a whirlpool: the word dates from at least the sixteenth century and was formed from Dutch words malen (meaning grind) and stroom (meaning stream). But these intervals of tranquility are only at the turn of the ebb and flood, and in calm weather, and last but a quarter of an hour, its violence gradually returning. Boats, yachts, and ships have been carried away by not guarding against it before they were within its reach. The first was, that, as a general rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent the second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the one spherical, and the otherof any other shape, the superiority in speed of descent was with the sphere the third, that, between two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical, and the other of any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. I have arranged my thoughts into a haiku: An awesome tale about a man who survives an encounter with the terrible Maelstrm. "In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell away, and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. Poe's short story is exciting and suspenseful as the fisherman tries to save himself from certain death from this violent force of nature. My eldest brother had a son eighteen years old, and I had two stout boys of my own. The depth in the centre of the Moskoe-strm must be immeasurably greater; and no better proof of this fact is necessary than can be obtained from even the sidelong glance into the abyss of the whirl which may be had from the highest crag of Helseggen. Inspired by the Moskstraumen, tidal eddies and whirlpools in northern Norway which are real, the story is couched as a story within a story, a tale told at the summit of a mountain climb. "At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately. The choice spots over here among the rocks, however, not only yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance ;so that we often got in a single day, what the more timid of the craft could not scrape together in a week. I glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst into tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. It was just seven,by my watch, when we weighed and started for home, so as to make the worst of the Strm at slack water, which we knew would be at eight. "You must get over these fancies," said the guide, "for I have brought you here that you might have the best possible view of the scene of that event I mentioned -- and to tell you the whole story with the spot just under your eye." You can read A Descent into the Maelstrom here before proceeding to our summary and analysis below. It likewise happens frequently, that whales come too near the stream, and are overpowered by its violence; and then it is impossible to describe their howlings and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to disengage themselves. I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother but, in some manner which I could not understand, the din had so increased that I could not make him hear a single word, although I screamed at the top of my voice in his ear. This state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us time to think about it. It was long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into the distance. -Joseph Glanville There are some passages of his description, nevertheless, which may be quoted for their details, although their effect is exceedingly feeble in conveying an impression of the spectacle. A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. I attracted my brothers attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him understand what I was about to do. On a fishing trip with his brothers a storm arose fuelled by the most powerful and wicked hurricane that ever erupted from heaven caused their ship to be swept into an almighty vortex. It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it. For some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak. It was my first experience with the writer Edgar Allan Poe, I woke up this morning eager to do nothing but to celebrate the birthday of a man who loved with a love that was more than love. She lit up every thing about us with the greatest distinctness but, oh God, what a scene it was to light up! "So it is sometimes termed," said he. A supposedly old man tells his story of getting into the whirlpool of the Moskoe-stroem while on a fishing trip with his brothers. The first example is that of which explaining the first, high class house when it had began to burn down, as the narrator exclaims, On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. And how they unfortunately didn't. The old fisherman once he calms his fear uses his observations and logic to save his own life. I shook from head to foot as if I had had the most violent fit of the ague. Upon this occasion we should have been driven out to sea in spite of everything, (for the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently, that, at length, we fouled our anchor and dragged it) if it had not been that we drifted into one of the innumerable cross currents here to-day and gone to-morrow which drove us under the lee of Flimen, where, by good luck, we brought up. The vortex was spinning at incredible speeds. Just click the "Edit page" button at the bottom of the page or learn Twice, during six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor on account of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the channel too boisterous to be thought of. descent n (slope) descente nf : pente nf : Harry ran down the descent to the lake. Large stocks of firs and pine trees, after being absorbed by the current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. Perhaps that was his experimental way to create an unusual type of "horror" story. It was my elder brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I had made sure that he was overboard -- but the next moment all this joy was turned into horror -- for he put his mouth close to my ear, and screamed out the word 'Moskoe-strm'! Tim Johnston's newest novel is THE CURRENT (2019, Algonquin). The three of us my two brothers and myself had crossed over to the islands about two oclock P. M., and had soon nearly loaded the smack with fine fish, which, we all remarked, were more plenty that day than we had ever known them. Everything was in its place but my own mind as it tried hard to wander the streets of Boston in its desperate attempt to figure out a way to celebrate this man's literary genius. Since my escape, I have had several conversations on this subject with an old school-master of the district ;and it was from him that I learned the use of the words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.' Presently he shook his head, looking as pale as death, and held up one of his finger, as if to say 'listen'! The mountain upon whose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. But since Marie Bonapartes (now largely derided) analysis of Poes life and work in the 1930s, A Descent into the Maelstrom has also been analysed in light of Freudian psychoanalysis: the whirlpool represents the eddies and currents of sexual desire, threatening to overwhelm us. I knew it could make no difference whether either of us held on at all; so I let him have the bolt, and went astern to the cask. We were now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl ;and I thought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the abyss -- down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we wore borne along. Scarcely had I secured myself in my new position, when we gave a wild lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the abyss. There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them to account, and this was that, at every revolution, we passed something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a vessel, while many of these things, which had been on our level when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool, were now high up above us, and seemed to have moved but little from their original station. In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another radical alteration. This certainly is the best depiction of a natural phenomenon I read. wordlist At the same moment the roaring noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek such a sound as you might imagine given out by the waste-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels, letting off their steam all together. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge. As we approached the brink of the pit he let go his hold upon this, and made for the ring, from which, in the agony of his terror, he endeavored to force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us both a secure grasp. //