CHAPTER III

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NORSE MYTHOLOGY COMPARED WITH THE GREEK.

Dr. Dasent says the Norse mythology may hold its own against any other in the world. The fact that it is the religion of our forefathers ought to be enough to commend it to our attention; but it may be pardonable in us to harbor even a sense of pride, if we find, for instance, that the mythology of our Gothic ancestors suffers nothing, but rather is the gainer in many respects by a comparison with that world-famed paganism of the ancient Greeks. We would therefore invite the attention of the reader to a brief comparison between the Norse and Greek systems of mythology.

A comparison between the two systems is both interesting and important. They are the two grandest systems of cosmogony and theogony of which we have record, but the reader will generously pardon the writer if he ventures the statement already at the outset, that of the two the Norse system is the grander. These two, the Greek and the Norse, have, to a greater extent than all other systems of mythology combined, influenced the civilization, determined the destinies, socially and politically, of the European nations, and shaped their polite literature. In literature it might indeed seem that the Greek mythology has played a more important part. We admit that it has acted a more _conspicuous_ part, but we imagine that there exists a wonderful blindness, among many writers, to the transcendent influence of the blood and spirit of ancient Norseland on North European, including English and American, character, which character has in turn stamped itself upon our literature (as, for instance, in the case of Shakespeare, the Thor among all Teutonic writers); and, furthermore, we rejoice in the absolute certainty to which we have arrived by studying the signs of the times, that the comparative ignorance, which has prevailed in this country and in England, of the history, literature, ancient religion and institutions of a people so closely allied to us by race, national characteristics, and tone of mind as the Norsemen, will sooner or later be removed; that a school of Norse philology and antiquities will ere long flourish on the soil of the Vinland of our ancestors, and that there is a grand future, not far hence, when Norse mythology will be copiously reflected in our elegant literature, and in our fine arts, painting, sculpturing and music.

The Norse mythology differs widely from the Greek. They are the same in essence; that is to say, both are a recognition of the forces and phenomena of nature as gods and demons; but all mythologies are the same in this respect, and the differences, between the various mythological systems, consist in the different ways in which nature has impressed different peoples, and in the different manner in which they have comprehended the universe, and personified or deified the various forces and phenomena of nature. In other words, it is in the ethical clothing and elaboration of the myths, that the different systems of mythology differ one from the other. In the Vedic and Homeric poets the germs of mythology are the same as in the Eddas of Norseland, but this common stock of materials, that is, the forces and phenomena of nature, has been moulded into an infinite variety of shapes by the story-tellers of the Hindoos, Greeks and Norsemen.

Memory among the Greeks is _Mnemosyne_, the mother of the muses, while among the Norsemen it is represented by Munin, one of the ravens perched upon Odin’s shoulders. The masculine Heimdal, god of the rainbow among the Norsemen, we find in Greece as the feminine Iris, who charged the clouds with water from the lakes and rivers, in order that it might fall again upon the earth in gentle fertilizing showers. She was daughter of Thaumas and Elektra, granddaughter of Okeanos, and the swift-footed gold-winged messenger of the gods. The Norse Balder is the Greek Adonis. Frigg, the mother of Balder, mourns the death of her son, while Aphrodite sorrows for her special favorite, the young rosy shepherd, Adonis. Her grief at his death, which was caused by a wild boar, was so great that she would not allow the lifeless body to be taken from her arms until the gods consoled her by decreeing that her lover might continue to live half the year, during the spring and summer, on the earth, while she might spend the other half with him in the lower world. Thus Balder and Adonis are both summer gods, and Frigg and Aphrodite are goddesses of gardens and flowers. The Norse god of Thunder, Thor (Thursday), who, among the Norsemen, is only the protector of heaven and earth, is the Greek Zeus, the father of gods and men. The gods of the Greeks are essentially free from decay and death. They live forever on Olympos, eating ambrosial food and drinking the nectar of immortality, while in their veins flows not immortal blood, but the imperishable ichor. In the Norse mythology, on the other hand, Odin himself dies, and is swallowed by the Fenriswolf; Thor conquers the Midgard-serpent, but retreats only nine paces and falls poisoned by the serpent’s breath; and the body of the good and beautiful Balder is consumed in the flames of his funeral pile. The Greek dwelt in bright and sunny lands, where the change from summer to winter brought with it no feelings of overpowering gloom. The outward nature exercised a cheering influence upon him, making him happy, and this happiness he exhibited in his mythology. The Greek cared less to commune with the silent mountains, moaning winds, and heaving sea; he spent his life to a great extent in the cities, where his mind would become more interested in human affairs, and where he could share his joys and sorrows with his kinsmen. While the Greek thus was brought up to the artificial society of the town, the hardy Norseman was inured to the rugged independence of the country. While the life and the nature surrounding it, in the South, would naturally have a tendency to make the Greek more human, or rather to deify that which is human, the popular life and nature in the North would have a tendency to form in the minds of the Norsemen a sublimer and profounder conception of the universe. The Greek clings with tenacity to the beautiful earth; the earth is his mother. Zeus, surrounded by his gods and goddesses, sits on his golden throne, on Olympos, on the top of the mountain, in the cloud. But that is not lofty enough for the spirit of the Norsemen. Odin’s Valhal is in heaven; nay, Odin himself is not the highest god; Muspelheim is situated above Asaheim, and in Muspelheim is Gimle, where reigns a god, who is mightier than Odin, the god whom Hyndla ventures not to name.

In _Heroes and Hero Worship_, Thomas Carlyle makes the following striking comparison between Norse and Greek mythology: To me, he says, there is in the Norse system something very genuine, very great and manlike. A broad simplicity, rusticity, so very different from the light gracefulness of the old Greek paganism, distinguishes this Norse system. It is _thought_, the genuine thought of deep, rude, earnest minds, fairly opened to the things about them, a face-to-face and heart-to-heart inspection of things—the first characteristic of all good thought in all times. Not graceful lightness, half sport, as in the Greek paganism; a certain homely truthfulness and rustic strength, a great rude sincerity, discloses itself here. Thus Carlyle.

As the visible workings of nature are in the great and main features the same everywhere; in all climes we find the vaulted sky with its sun, moon, myriad stars and flitting clouds; the sea with its surging billows; the land with its manifold species of plants and animals, its elevations and depressions; we find cold, heat, rain, winds, etc., although all these may vary widely in color, brilliancy, depth, height, degree, and other qualities; and as the minds and hearts of men cherish hope, fear, anxiety, passion, etc., although they may be influenced and actuated by them in various ways and to various extents; and as mythology is the impersonation of nature’s forces and phenomena as contemplated by the human mind and _heart_, so all mythologies, no matter in what clime they originated and were fostered, must of necessity have their stock of materials, their ground-work or foundation and frame in common, while they may differ widely from each other in respect to peculiar characteristics, both in the ethical elaboration of the myth and in the architectural effect of the _tout ensemble_. Thus we have a tradition about a deluge, for instance, in nearly every country on the globe, but no two nations tell it alike. In Genesis we read of Noah and his ark, and how the waters increased greatly upon the earth, destroying all flesh that moved upon the earth excepting those who were with him in the ark. In Greece, Deukalion and his wife Pyrrha become the founders of a new race of men. According to the Greek story, a great flood had swept away the whole human race, except one pair, Deukalion and Pyrrha, who, as the flood abated, landed on Mt. Parnassos, and thence descending, picked up stones and cast them round about, as Zeus had commanded. From these stones sprung a new race—men from those cast by Deukalion, and women from those cast by his wife. In Norseland, Odin and his two brothers, Vile and Ve, slew the giant Ymer, and when he fell, so much blood flowed from his wounds, that the whole race of frost-giants was drowned, except a single giant, who saved himself with his household in a skiff (ark), and from him descended a new race of frost-giants. Now this is not a tradition carried from one place to the other; it is a natural expression of the same thought; it is a similar effort to account for the origin of the land and the race of man. A people develops its mythology in the same manner as it develops its language. The Norse mythology is related to the Greek mythology to the same extent that the Norse language is related to the Greek language, and no more; and comparative mythology, when the scholar wields the pen, is as interesting as comparative philology.

The Greeks have their chaos, the all-embracing space, the Norsemen have Ginungagap, the yawning abyss between Niflheim (the nebulous world) and Muspelheim (the world of fire). The Greeks have their titans, corresponding in many respects to the Norse giants. The Greeks tell of the Melian nymphs; the Norsemen of the elves, etc.; but these comparisons are chiefly interesting for the purpose of studying the differences between the Norse and Greek _mind_, which reflects itself in the expression of the thought.

The hard stone weeps tears, both in Greece and in Norseland; but let us notice how differently it is expressed. In Greece, Niobe, robbed of her children, was transformed into a rugged rock, down which tears trickled silently. She becomes a stone and still continues her weeping—

Et lacrymas etiamnum marmora manant,

as the poet somewhere has it. In Norseland all nature laments the sad death of Balder, even the stones weep for him (gráta Baldr).

Let us take another idea, and notice how differently the words symbolize the same truth or thought in the Bible, in Greece, and in Norseland. In the Bible:

And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: for all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.

In Greece:

A rich Thessalian offered to the temple at Delphi one hundred oxen with golden horns. A poor citizen from Hermion took as much meal from his sack as he could hold between two fingers, and he threw it into the fire that burned on the altar. Pythia said, that the gift of the poor man was more pleasing to the gods than that of the rich Thessalian.

In Norseland the Elder Edda has it:

Knowest thou how to pray? Knowest thou how to offer? Better not pray at all Than to offer too much, Better is nothing sent Than too much consumed.

In these few and simple words are couched the same thought as in the Jewish and Greek accounts just given. It is this identity in thought, with diversity of depth, breadth, beauty, simplicity, etc., in the expression or symbol that characterizes the differences between all mythological systems. Each has its own peculiarities stamped upon it, and in these peculiarities the spirit of the people, their tendency to thorough investigation or superficiality, their strength or weakness, their profoundness or frivolity, are reflected as in a mirror.

The beauty of the Greek mythology consists not so much in the system, considered as a whole, as in the separate single groups of myths. Each group has its own center around which it revolves, each group moves in its own sphere, and there develops its own charming perfection, without regard to the effect upon the system of mythology considered as a whole. Each group is exquisite, and furnishes an inexhaustible fountain of legendary narrative, but the central thought that should bind all these beautiful groups into one grand whole is weak. Nay, the complex multiplicity into which it constantly kept developing, as long as the Greek mind was in vigorous activity, was the cause that finally shattered it. Is not this the same spirit, which we find so distinctly developed in the Greek mythology, this want of a centralizing thought, most wonderfully and perfectly reflected in the social and political characteristics of the Greek states, and in all the more recent Romance nations? Each Greek state developed a peculiar beauty and perfection of its own; but between the different states (Sparta, Athens, etc.,) there was no strong bond of union which could keep them together, and hence all the feuds and civil wars and final dissolution. In the Norse mythology, on the other hand, the centralizing idea or thought is its peculiar feature; in it lies its strength and beauty. In the Norse mythology, the one myth and the one divinity is inextricably in communion with the other; and thus, also, the idea of unity, centralization, is a prominent feature, and one of the chief characteristics of the Teutonic nations. While the Greek mythology foreshadowed all the petty states of Greece, as well as those of South Europe and South America, the Norse mythology foreshadowed the political and social destinies of _united_ Scandinavia, _united_ Great Britain, _united_ Germany, and the _United_ States of North America. When the Greeks unite, they _fall_. We Northerners live only to be _united_.

As we would be led to suppose, from a study of the physical and climatical peculiarities of Greece and Norseland, we find that the Greek mythology forms an epic poem, and that the Norse is a tragedy. Not only the mythology, considered as a whole, but even the character of its speech, and of its very words and phrases, must necessarily be suggested and modified by the external features of the country. Thus in Greece, where the sun’s rays never scorch, and where the northern winds never pierce, we naturally find in the speech of the people, brilliancy rather than gloom, life rather than decay, and constant renovation rather than prolonged lethargy. But in the frozen-bound regions of the North, where the long arms of the glaciers clutch the valleys in their cold embrace, and the death-portending avalanches cut their way down the mountain-sides, the tongue of the people would, with a peculiar intensity of feeling, dwell upon the tragedy of nature.

The Danish poet Grundtvig expressed a similar idea more than sixty years ago, when he said that the Asa-Faith unfolds in five acts the most glorious drama of victory that ever has been composed, or ever could be composed, by any mortal poet. And Hauch defines these five acts as follows:

## Act I. The Creation.

## Act II. The time preceding the death of Balder.

## Act III. The death of Balder.

## Act IV. The time immediately succeeding the death of Balder.

## Act V. Ragnarok, the Twilight of the gods, that is, the decline and

fall immediately followed by the regeneration of the world.

It is an inestimable peculiarity of the Norse mythology, that it, in addition to beginning with a theogony (birth of the gods), also ends with a theoktony (death of the gods). In the Greek mythology, the drama lacks the fifth or final act, and we have only a prosaic account of how the people at length grew tired of their gods, and left them when they became old and feeble. But the Eddas have a theoktonic myth, in which the heroic death of the gods is sung with the same poetic spirit as their youthful exploits and victories. As the shades of night flee before the morning dawn, thus Valhal’s gods had to sink into the earth, when the idea, that an idol is of no consequence in this world, first burst upon the minds of the idol-worshipers. This idea spontaneously created the myth of Ragnarok. All the elements of its mythical form were foreshadowed in the older group of Norse conceptions. The idea of Ragnarok was suggested already in the Creation; for the gods are there represented as proceeding from giants, that is, from an evil, chaotic source, and, moreover, that which can be born must die. The Greeks did not release the titans from their prisons in Tartaros and bring them up to enter the last struggle with the gods. Signs of such a contest flitted about like clouds in the deep-blue southern sky, but they did not gather into a deluging thunder-storm. The ideas were too broken and scattered to be united into one grand picture. The Greek was so much allured by the pleasures of life, that he could find no time to fathom its depths or rise above it. And hence, when the glories of this life had vanished, there remained nothing but a vain shadow, a lower world, where the pale ghosts of the dead knew no greater happiness than to receive tidings from this busy world.

The Norseman willingly yields the prize to the Greek when the question is of precision in details and external adornment of the figures; but when we speak of deep significance and intrinsic power, the Norseman points quietly at Ragnarok, the Twilight of the gods, and the Greek is silent.

The Goth, as has before been indicated, concentrated life; the Greek divided it into parcels. Thus the Greek mythology is frivolous, the Norse is profound. The frivolous mind lives but to enjoy the passing moment; the profound mind reflects, considers the past and the future. The Greek abandoned himself wholly to the pleasures of this life, regardless of the past or future. The Norseman accepted life as a good gift, but he knew that he was merely its transient possessor. Over every moment of life hangs a threatening sword, which may in the next moment prove fatal. Life possesses no hour of the future. And this is the peculiar characteristic of the heroic life in the North, that our ancestors were powerfully impressed with the uncertainty of life. They constantly witnessed the interchange of life and death, and this nourished in them the thought that life is not worth keeping, for no one knows how soon it may end. Life itself has no value, but the object constantly to be held in view is to die an honorable death. While we are permitted to live, let us strive to die with honor, it is said in Bjarkemaal; and in the lay of Hamder of the Elder Edda we read:

Well have we fought; On slaughtered Goths we stand, On those fallen by the sword, Like eagles on a branch. Great glory we have gained; Though now or to-morrow we shall die,— No one lives till eve Against the norns’ decree.

It is this same conception of the problem of life that in the Christian religion has assumed a diviner form. Though his ideas were clothed in a ruder form, the Norseman still reached the same depth of thought as when the Christian says: I am ready to lay down my life, if I may but die happy, die a child of God; for what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

The Norseman always concentrated his ideas as much as possible. For this reason he knew but three sins—perjury, murder, and adultery; that is, sin against God, sin against the state, and sin against fellow-man; and all these are in fact but one sin—deceitfulness. In the same manner the Norseman concentrated his ideas in regard to the punishment of sin. When the Eddas tell us about the punishment of the wicked, they sum it all up in Naastrand (the strand of corpses), that place far from the sun, that large and terrible cave, the doors of which open to the north. This cave is built of serpents wattled together, and the heads of all the serpents turn into the cave, filling it with streams of poison, in which perjurers, murderers and adulterers have to wade. The suffering is terrible; gory hearts hang outside of their breasts; their faces are dyed in blood; strong venom-dragons fiercely run through their hearts; their hands are riveted together with ever-burning stones; their clothes a wrapped in flames; remorseless ravens tear their eyes from their heads:

But all the horrors You cannot know, That Hel’s condemned endure; Sweet sins there Bitterly are punished, False pleasures Reap true pain.

The point to be observed is, that all the punishment here described is the same for all the wicked.

But with this, the versatile Greek is not content. He multiplies the sins and the punishments. Tartaros is full of despair and tears, and the wicked there suffer a variety of tortures. Enormous vultures continually gnaw the liver of Tityos, but it always grows again. Ixion is lashed with serpents to a wheel, which a strong wind drives continually round and round. Tantalos suffers from an unceasing dread of being crushed by a great rock that hangs over his head; he stands in a stream of water that flows up to his throat, and he almost perishes from thirst; whenever he bends his head to drink the water recedes; delicious fruits hang over his head, whenever he stretches out his hand they evade his grasp. Thus it is to be _tantalized_. The Danaïdes must fill a cistern that has holes in the bottom; all the water they pour in runs out equally fast. Sisyphos, sweating and all out of breath, rolls his huge stone up the mountain side; when he reaches the summit, the stone rolls down again.

The fundamental idea is always the same. It is always punishment for sin; but it is expressed and illustrated in many different ways. The variety enhances the beauty. The Greek mythology is rich, for profuseness of illustration is wealth. The Norse mythology is poor, because it is so strong; it consumes all its strength in the profoundness of its thought. The Norse mythology excels in the concentratedness and strength of the whole system; the Greek excels in the beauty of the separate groups of myths. The one is a religion of _strength_, the other of _beauty_.

The influence that the outward features of a country exercise upon the thoughts and feelings of men, especially during the vigorous, imaginative, poetic and prophetic childhood of a nation, can hardly be overestimated. Necessarily, therefore, do we find this influence affecting and modifying a nation’s mythology, which is a child-like people’s thoughts and feelings, contemplating nature reflected in a system of religion. Hence, it is eminently fitting, in comparing the Norse mythology with the Greek, to take a look at the home of the Norsemen. We, therefore, cordially invite the traveler from the smooth-beaten tracks of southern Europe to the mountains, lakes, valleys and fjords of Norseland. You may come in midsummer, when Balder (the summer sunlight) rules supreme, when the radiant dawn and glowing sunset kiss each other and go hand in hand on the mountain tops; but we would also invite you to tarry until Balder is slain, when the wintry gloom, with its long nights, sits brooding over the country, and Loke (Thok, fire) weeps his arid tears (sparks) over the desolation he has wrought.

Norway is dark, cloudy, severe, grand, and majestic. Greece is light, variegated, mild, and beautiful. No one can long more deeply for the light of summer, with its mild and gentle breezes from the south, than the Norseman. When he has pondered on his own thoughts during the long winter, when the sun entirely or nearly disappeared from above the horizon, and nothing but northern lights flickered and painted the colors of the rainbow over his head, he welcomes the spring sun with enthusiastic delight. It was this deep longing for Balder that drove swarms of Norsemen on viking expeditions to France, Spain, and England; through the pillars of Hercules to Italy, Greece, Constantinople and Palestine, and over the surging main to Iceland, Greenland and Vinland. It is this deep longing for Balder that every year brings thousands of Norsemen to alight upon our shores and scatter themselves to their numberless settlements in these United States. Still every Norse emigrant, if he has aught in him worthy of his race, thinks he shall once more see those weird, gigantic, snow-capped mountains, that stretched their tall heads far above the clouds and seemed to look half anxiously, half angrily after him as his bark was floating across the deep sea.

There is something in the natural scenery of Norway—a peculiar blending of the grand, the picturesque, the gigantic, bewildering and majestic. There is something that leaves you in bewildering amazement, when you have seen it, and makes you ask yourself, Was it real or was it only a dream? Norway is in fact one huge imposing rock, and its valleys are but great clefts in it. Through these clefts the rivers, fed by vast glaciers upon the mountains, find their way to the sea. They come from the distance, now musically and chattingly meandering their way beneath the willows, now tumbling down the slopes, reeking and distorted by the rocks that oppose them, until they reach some awful precipice and tumble down some eight hundred to a thousand feet in a single leap into the depths below, where no human being ever yet set his foot. We are not overdrawing the picture. You cannot get to the foot of such falls as the Voring Force or Rjukan Force, but you may look over the precipice from above and see the waters pouring like fine and fleecy wool into the seething caldron, where you can discern through the vapory mists shoots of foam at the bottom, like rockets of water, radiating in every direction. You hear a low rumbling sound around you, and the very rock vibrates beneath your feet; and as you hang half giddy over the cliff, clasping your arms around some young birch-tree that tremblingly leans over the brink of the steep, and turn your eyes to the huge mountain mass that breasts you,—its black, melancholy sides seemingly within a stone’s throw, and its snow-white head far in the clouds above,—your thoughts involuntarily turn to _him_, the God, whom the skald dare not name, to _him_ at whose bidding Gausta Fjeld and Reeking Force sprang from Ginungagap, from the body of the giant Ymer, from chaos. You look longer upon this wonderful scene, and you begin to think of Ragnarok, of the Twilight of the gods. Once seen, and the grand picture, which defies the brush of the painter, will forever afterwards float before your mind like a dream.

Make a journey by steamer on some of those noble and magnificent fjords on the west coast of Norseland. The whole scenery looks like a moving panorama of the finest description. The dark mountains rise almost perpendicularly from the water’s edge to an enormous height; their summits, crowned with ice and snow, stand out sharp and clear against the bright blue sky; and the ravines on the mountain tops are filled with huge glaciers, that clasp their frosty arms around the valley, and send down, like streams of tears along the weather-beaten cheeks of the mountains, numerous waterfalls and cascades, falling in an endless variety of graceful shapes from various altitudes into the fjord below. Sometimes a solitary peak lifts its lordly head a thousand feet clear above the surrounding mountains, and towering like a monarch over all, it defiantly refuses to hold communion with any living thing save the eagle. Here and there a force appears, like a strip of silvery fleecy cloud, suspended from the brow of the mountain, and dashing down more than two thousand feet in one leap; and all this marvelously grand scenery, from base to peak, stands reflected, as deep as it is lofty, in the calm, clear, sea-green water of the fjord, perfect as in a mirror.

There is no storm; the deep water of the fjord is silent and at rest. Not even the flight of a single bird ruffles its glassy surface. As the steamer glides gently along between the rocky walls, you hear no sound save the monotonous throbbing of the screw and the consequent splashing of the water. All else is still as death. The forces hang in silence all around, occasionally overarched by rainbows suspended in the rising mist. The naked mountains have a sombre look, that would make you melancholy were it not for the overpowering grandeur. Sunshine reaches the water only when the sun’s rays fall nearly vertically, in consequence of the immense height of the mountains’ sides, whose enormous shadows almost perpetually overshade the narrow fjord. The noonday sun paints a streak of delicate palish green on one side, forming a striking contrast to the other dark overshadowed side of the profound fjord. It is awe-inspiring. It is stupendous. It is solemnly grand. You can but fancy yourself in a fairy land, with elves and sprites and neckens and trolls dancing in sportive glee all around you.

Words can paint no adequate picture of the stupendousness, majesty and grandeur of Norse scenery; but can the reader wonder any longer that this country has given to the world such marvelous productions in poetry, music and the fine arts? Nay, what is more to our purpose at present, would you not look for a grand and marvelous mythological system from the poetic and imaginative childhood of the nation that inhabits this land? Knock, and it shall be opened unto you! and entering the solemn halls and palaces of the gods, where all is cordiality and purity, you will find there perfectly reflected the wild and tumultuous conflict of the elements, strong rustic pictures, full of earnest and deep thought, awe-inspiring and wonderful. You will find that simple and martial religion which inspired the early Norsemen and developed them like a tree full of vigor extending long branches over all Europe. You will find that simple and martial religion which gave the Norsemen that restless unconquerable spirit, apt to take fire at the very mention of subjection and constraint; that religion which forged the instruments that broke the fetters manufactured by the Roman emperors, destroyed tyrants and slaves, and taught men that nature having made all free and equal, no other reason but their mutual happiness could be assigned for making them dependent. You will find that simple and martial religion which was cherished by those vast multitudes which, as Milton says, the populous North

——poured from her frozen loins to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons Came like a deluge on the South and spread Beneath Gibraltar and the Libyan sands.

But it may be necessary for the reader to refresh himself with a few draughts of that excellent beverage kept in Minter’s gushing fountain, and drink with _his_ glittering horn, before he will be willing to accept these and many more such statements that we will make in thee course of this introduction.

To return to our theme. The gods of Norseland are stern and awe-inspiring; those of Greece are gentle and lovely. In the Norse mythology we find deep devotion, but seldom tears. In the Greek, there are violent emotions and the fears flow copiously. In Norseland, there is plenty of imagination; but it is not of that light, variegated, butterfly, soap-bubble nature as in Greece. In the Norse mythology there is plenty of cordiality and sincerity, and the gods treat you hospitably to flesh of the boar, Sæhrimner; and the valkyries will give you deep draughts from bowls flowing with ale. In Greece there is gracefulness, a perfect etiquette, and you dine on ambrosia and nectar; there Eros and Psyche, the graces and muses, hover about you like heavenly cherubs. Graces and muses are wanting in Norseland. The Norse mythology is characterized throughout by a deep and genuine sincerity; the Greek, on the other hand, by a sublime gracefulness; but, with Carlyle, we think that sincerity is better than grace.

But the comparison between Norse and Greek mythology is too vast a field for us to attempt to do justice to it in this volume. It would be an interesting work to show how Norse and Greek mythologies respectively have colored the religious, social, political and literary character of Greek and Romance peoples on the one hand, and Norsemen and Teutons on the other. Somebody will undoubtedly in due time be inspired to undertake such a task. We must study both, and when they are harmoniously blended in our nature, we must let them together shape our political, social and literary destinies, and, tempered by the Mosaic-Christian religion, they may be entitled to some consideration even in our religious life.

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