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a Persian war, which was not terminated til wards, under the reign of Heraclius, in the Christian era.

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A remarkable revolution now awaited the empire, which, from a slender beginning, effected a surprising change on the great theatre of human affairs. This was the rise of Mahomet and his religion. But here we fix the termination of ancient history, and the commencement of the modern. Previous, however, to our entering upon this second and most important part of our work, we shall consider, with some attention, the manners, genius, laws, and policy of those Gothic nations who subverted the Roman empire in the West, and, establishing themselves in every quarter of Europe, are justly considered, at this day, as the parent stock of most of the modern European nations.

CHAPTER VI.

Genius and Character of the Gothic Nations.

THE ancient nations of Scandinavia have been compared to an mmense tree, full of sap and vigor, which, while its root and stem were fostered in the hårdy regions of the North, extended, by degrees, its wide branches over all Europe. To drop the language of metaphor, we know that the present European nations are, in fact, a mixed race, compounded of the Scandinavians, who, at different periods, invaded every quarter of this Western continent, and of the nations whom they subdued in their progress. As this is certainly the case, we have little room to doubt that the laws, manners, and customs of the modern nations of Europe are the result of this conjunction; and that, in so far as these are different from the civil and political usages which prevailed before this intermixture, the difference is to be sought in the original manners and institutions of these Northern nations.

This consideration, as it has led to much research into the history and antiquities of the nations of Scandinavian origin, has opened up to us a variety of curious particulars, of equal importance to the historian and to the philosopher. It will, therefore, be an employment neither unpleasing nor unprofitable, if we attempt to give a view of the most interesting particulars of the history, manners, and usages of the Scandinavians, such as we have reason to believe them to have been before their intermixture

with the nations of the South; and after thus endeavoring to obtain an acquaintance with the original character of this people, I shall consider the change which that character underwent when they became sovereigns of the greatest part of the Roman empire in Europe.

It is very evident that if we can at all attain to a knowledge of the character of this remarkable people antecedently to their intercourse with the southern kingdoms, it must be from the most ancient chronicles now existing among the present Scandinavian nations. For this source of information is infinitely more to be relied on than the accounts of Roman writers, who, although well qualified to describe them after their migration and establishment in the South, had no knowledge of their character while in their original

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The most ancient Scandinavian Chronicles attribute to all the northern European nations an Asiatic origin. These Chronicles give strong grounds for conjecturing that the Goths of Scandinavia were a colony of Scythians, from the borders of the Black Sea and the Caspian; that this migration was performed about seventy years before the Christian era-though, according to some thors, not less than one thousand years before this period; and that the Cimbri, the inhabitants of the Chersonesus Cimbrica, or Denmark, were the descendants of the Cimmerian Scythians. All the ancient writers of the North make mention of an invasion of Scandinavia by a colony of Asiatics; of bloody wars on that account; and of the original inhabitants being expelled, or driven very far to the North, by these invaders. Odin, who afterwards came to be regarded as the chief deity of the Scandinavians, was formerly the principal god of the Scythians who inhabited the country about Mount Taurus.*

The Northern Chronicles say that a Scythian prince of the name of Sigga, who, according to the custom of his country, was chief priest of the god, having raised a large band of followers, set out upon a warlike expedition to the northwest of the Black Sea; that having subdued several of the Sarmatian or Russian tribes, he penetrated into the country of the Saxones, which he conquered, and divided among his children. The Icelandic Chronicles record the names of these children; and it is remarkable that, at this day, the sovereign princes of Westphalia, of East Saxony, and of Franconia, pretend to derive their origin from princes bearing these names.

Sigga afterwards entered Scandinavia by the country of Holstein and of Jutland; and taking possession of the island of Funen, he built there the city of Odenzee, so called after the Scythian god, whose name he from that time assumed to himself, and dropping his name of Sigga, took that of Odin. Extending his conquests, he made himself master of all Denmark, of which he gave the sovereignty to his son Sciold, who, in the Icelandic Chronicle, stands the first of the princes who took the title of king of Den

mark. The same Chronicle informs us that Sigga (now called Odin) continued his progress, and entering Sweden, was received by the inhabitants, and even by the prince, with divine honors; that, upon the death of this prince, the Swedes made him offer of the sovereignty; and that, penetrating from thence into Norway, he forced all the Scandinavian princes, one after another, to submit to his authority.

But Odin distinguished himself not only as a conqueror, but as a legislator and consummate politician. Under this character of divinity, while his immense conquests gave credit to his pretensions, he found the imposture highly advantageous in procuring an easy submission to all his laws and regulations. These, if we may Delieve the ancient chronicles, were extremely wise and salutary, and gave to those barbarous nations a species of civilization to which hitherto they had been entirely strangers. The historical evidence arising from these Scandinavian Chronicles, of an Eastern people migrating to the northwest, and spreading themselves over all the northern kingdoms, is much confirmed when we attend to the perfect coincidence that appears between the manners of the ancient Scandinavians, and those of the ancient Scythians.

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The religion of the ancient Scandinavians forms a very curious object of inquiry, and is the more worthy of attention that it was most intimately connected with their manners. Three great moral principles were the foundation of their religion, and influenced their whole conduct. These were, "to serve the Supreme Being with prayer and sacrifice; to do no wrong or unjust actions; and to be valiant and intrepid in fight. These were the principles of the ancient religion, which, although accompanied by a most wild and extravagant mythology, yet resting on this pure and simple basis, had a wonderful effect upon the character and manners of the people. Keeping in view these principles, if we peruse the Edda, or sacred book of the Scandinavians, we shall see amidst all its absurdities the traces of a luminous and rational system of religion, which does no dishonor to the people who professed it.

Mallet, who, in his Introduction to the history of Denmark, has given an abridgment of this sacred book, has clearly shown, that although it contains the substance of a very ancient religion, it is not itself a work of very high antiquity. The Edda, according to his account, was compiled by an Icelandic author a short time after the introduction of Christianity into that island, with the sole purpose of preserving the memory of the ancient poetry of the Scandinavians, which was inseparably connected with the ancient mythology. The compiler, who endeavored to collect the best specimens of this ancient national poetry, was obliged, in order to render these intelligible, to explain that mythology on which they were founded, and thus, in fact, to unfold the whole doctrines of that ancient religion. Snorro Sturleson, the Icelandic writer who

compiled the Edda as it is in its present form, lived in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and was supreme judge of Iceland. The work, besides the specimens of ancient poetry, consists of certain dialogues on the subject of mythology, which proceed on this fiction, that a king of Sweden, named Gulphus, being at a loss to comprehend the origin of those notions of theology which prevailed in his country, and which tradition reported to have been originally derived from the Asiatics, undertook a journey in disguise to Asgard, a city of Asia, in order to be instructed in the genuine principles of that religion. He had several conversations with three princes, or rather priests, who answered all his questions, and fully explained to him the whole of the Celtic mythology. These dialogues compose the greatest part of the Edda; and from them it is easy to deduce a short account of the religion of the Scandinavians.

Odin, as we have before said, was their principal divinity; and it is very remarkable, that to him they attributed every character that could inspire fear and horror, without any mixture of the amiable or merciful. He is called in the Edda, the terrible and severe God, the father of carnage, the avenger, the deity who marks out those who are destined to be slain. This terrible God was held to be the Creator and Father of the Universe. The next in power to Odin, was Friga or Frea, his wife. The God of heaven, says the Edda, united himself with the goddess of the earth; and from this conjunction sprang all the race of subordinate deities. This Frea, or the heavenly mother, came naturally to be considered as the goddess of love and of pleasure.

The third divinity in power and in authority was Thor, the son of Odin and of Frea, who was supposed to partake of the terrible attributes of his father, and was believed to be constantly occupied in warring against Loke, the father of treachery, and the rest of those giants and evil spirits who envied the power and meditated the destruction of Odin. The Edda enumerates likewise a great train of inferior deities, male and female, among the last of whom are the virgins of the Valhalla, or Hall of Odin, whose office was to mark out those whom Odin destines to be slain in battle, and to minister to the deceased heroes in Paradise.

The creation of the world, as described in the Edda, is full of those wild and extravagant ideas which an ignorant and rude people must of necessity form, when left to their own conjectures on matters beyond the reach of human intellect.

I have observed that the religion of the Scandinavians had the greatest influence on their conduct and character. They were convinced that as this world was the work of some superior intelligences, so these presided continually over all nature, which they supposed to be of itself perfectly inanimate, and requiring constantly the interposition of deity to direct and regulate its motions. All the actions of men they believed therefore to proceed from

this continual interposition of a deity, without whose aid they could no more move their limbs, or perform any vital function, than a stone could change its place. They therefore believed implicitly in fate or predestination, and in the absolute impossibility of a man's avoiding that course or destiny which was prescribed for him.

But while this was their firm persuasion, they allowed likewise the moral agency of man, and the possibility of his deserving rewards and punishments for his actions; a difficulty which more enlightened people have long labored to reconcile. The favorites of Odin were all those who had died a violent death, either by the hand of an enemy, or, what was equally meritorious, by their own. These went directly after their death to Valhalla, or the palace of Odin. The wretch who had the pusillanimity to allow himself to be cut off by disease was unworthy of the favor of the gods, and was doomed to a state of punishment in the next world, and to the perpetual sufferance of anguish, remorse, and famine.

The way in which the departed heroes pass their time in Valhalla, or in the palace of Odin, is described in several places of the Edda. They have every day the pleasure of arming themselves, marshalling themselves in military order, engaging in battle, and being all cut to pieces; but when the stated hour of repast arrives, their bodies are reunited, and they return on horseback safe to the hall of banquet, where they feed heartily on the flesh of a boar, and drink beer out of the skulls of their enemies, till they are in a state of intoxication. Odin sits by himself at a particular table. The heroes are served by the beautiful virgins, named Valkirie, who officiate as their cup-bearers; but the pleasures of love do not enter at all into the joys of this extraordinary Paradise.

These notions of religious belief among the Scandinavians, arising from a native ferocity of character, had a strong effect on their national manners and on the conduct of individuals. Placing their sole delight in war, and in the slaughter of their enemies, they had an absolute contempt of danger and of bodily pain. It was not enough that they exposed themselves without fear to the greatest perils-they courted death with avidity. Several most remarkable instances of this intrepidity of character we find in the Icelandic Chronicle. Harald with the blue teeth, king of Denmark, who lived about the middle of the tenth century, founded on the coast of Pomerania a city which he named Julin or Jomsburg. He had sent thither a colony of young Danes, 'under the command of a famous leader named Palnatoko. This man's am

bition was to form a nation of heroes. All his institutions tended to instil into his subjects the contempt of life. It was disgraceful for a citizen of Jomsburg to hesitate to engage in an enterprise where the event was inevitably fatal: on the other hand, it was glorious to seek for every opportunity of encountering death.

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