to have been given by Odin himself. The third is the "Runie Chapter," which contains a short system of ancient Magic, and especially of the enchantments wrought by the operation of Runic characters. At the end of the Edda will be found some account of these three Tracts; it would have been very difficult to have been more diffuse about them.

Some people have maintained that all the Fables of the Edda were nothing but the offspring of the Author's fancy. This even seems to have been the opinion of the famous HUET. We cannot pardon this learned man for the peremptory air he assumes in treating on a subject he so little understood as the antiquities of the north. All he has said upon this subject is full of inaccuracies *. To suppose that Snorro invented the Fables of the Edda, plainly proves the maintainer of such an opinion neither to have read that work, nor the ancient historians of the north of Germany, or of England. It shows him to be ignorant of this great truth, which all the ancient monuments and records of these countries; which all the Greek and Roman writers since the sixth century; which the Runic inscriptions, universal tradition, the popular superstitions, the names of the days, and many modes of speech still in use, all unanimously depose, viz. That before the times of Christianity, all these parts of Europe worshipped Odin and the gods of the Edda.

See his book De l'Origine des Romans, p. 116. What is most astonishing is, that he pretends to have himself seen in Denmark, the ancient histories of that country, written in Runic characters on the rocks. Another author, Mr DES

LANDES, in his History of Phil.

Nevertheless,

sophy, affirms, that one finds engraven on those stones the myste-' ries of the ancient religion. This shows how little one can rely upon the accounts given of one country in another that lies remote from it.

Nevertheless, if it were necessary to answer an objection, which the bare perusal of the Edda alone, and the Remarks I have added, will sufficiently obviate; the reader need only cast his eyes over some Frag ments of Poetry of the ancient northern Scalds, which I have translated at the end of this book: He will there find throughout, the same mythology that is set forth in the Edda; although the authors of these pieces lived in very different times and places from those in which Sæmund and Snorro flourished.

These doubts being removed, it only remains to clear up such as may arise concerning the fidelity of these different translations. I freely confess my imperfect knowledge of the language in which the Edda is written. It is to the modern Danish or Swedish languages, what the dialect of Ville-hardouin, or the ire de Joinville, is to modern French *. I should have been frequently at a loss, if it had not been for the assistance of Danish and Swedish versions of the Edda, made by learned men, skillful in the old Icelandic tongue. I have not only consulted these translations, but, by comparing the expressions they employ with those of the original, I have generally ascertained the identity of the phrase, and attained to a pretty strong assurance that the sense of my text hath not escaped me. Where I suspected my guides, I have carefully consulted those who have long made the Edda, and the language in which it is written, their peculiar study. I stood particularly in need of this assistance, to render with exactness the two fragments of the more ancient Edda, namely, the SUBLIME DISCOURSE OF ODIN, and the RUNIC CHAPTER; and here, too, my labours were more particularly assisted. - This advantage I owe to Mr ERICHSEN, a native of Iceland, who joins to a most extensive

* i. e. As the language of CHAUCER OF PIERCE PLOWMAN, compared to modern English..

T.

sive knowledge of the antiquities of his country, a judgment and a politeness not always united with great erudition. He has enabled me to give a more faithful translation of those two pieces, than is to be met with in the Edda of Resenius.

This

I am however a good deal indebted to this last. J. P. Resenius, professor and magistrate of Copenhagen towards the end of the last century, was a laborious and learned man, who in many works manifested his zeal for the honour of letters and of his country. He published the first edition of the Edda; and we may, in some respects, say it is hitherto the only one. edition, which forms a large quarto volume, appeared at Copenhagen in the year 1665, dedicated to King Frederick III. It contains the text of the Edda, a Latin translation, done in part by a learned Icelandic priest, named Magnus Olsen, or Olaï, and continued by Torfæus; together with a Danish version, by the historiographer Stephen Olaï, and various readings from different MSS.

With regard to the text, Resenius hath taken the utmost care to give it correct and genuine. He collated many MSS. of which the major part are still preserved in the royal and university libraries; but what he chiefly made the greatest use of, was a MS. belonging to the King, which is judged to be the most ancient of all, being as old as the thirteenth, or at least the fourteenth century, and still extant. Exclusive of this, we do not find in the edition of Resenius any critical remarks, calculated to elucidate the contents of the Edda. In truth, the Preface seems intended to make amends for this deficiency, since that alone would fill a volume of the size of this book; but, excepting a very few pages, the whole consists of learned excursions concerning Plato, the best editions of Aristotle, the Nine Sybils, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, &c.

From

From the manuscript copy of the Edda preserved in the university library of Upsal, hath been published, a few years since, a second edition of that work. This MS. which I have often had in my possession, seems to have been of the fourteenth century. It is well preserved, legible, and very entire. Although this copy contains no essential difference from that which Resenius has followed, it notwithstanding afforded me assistance in some obscure passages; for I have not scrupled to add a few words to supply the sense, or to suppress a few others that seemed devoid of it, when I could do it upon manuscript authority: and of this I must beg my readers to take notice, whenever they would compare my version with the original: for if they judge of it by the text of Resenius, they will frequently find me faulty; since I had always an eye to the Upsal MS. of which Mr Solberg, a young learned Swede, well versed in these subjects, was so good as to furnish me with a correct copy. The text of this MS. being now printed, whoever will be at the trouble, may easily see, that I have never followed this new light, but when it appeared a surér guide than Resenius. M. Goranson, a Swede, hath published it with a Swedish and Latin version, but he has only given us the first part of the Edda: Prefixed to which is a long Dissertation on the Hyperborean Antiquities; wherein the famous Rudbeck seems to revive in the person of the author.

Notwithstanding these helps, it must be confessed, that the Edda hath been quoted by, and known to, a very small number of the learned. The edition of Resenius, which doubtless supposes much knowledge and application in the editor, presents itself under a very unengaging form; we there neither meet with observations on the parallel opinions of other Celtic or Gothic' people, nor any lights thrown on the customs alluded to, Nothing but a patriotic zeal for the Anti

quities

quities of the North can carry one through it. Besides, that book is grown very scarce; but few impressions were worked off at first, and the greatest part of them were consumed in the fire which, in the year 1728, destroyed a part of Copenhagen. M. Goranson's edition, as it is but little known out of Sweden, and is in compleat, hath not prevented the Edda of Resenius. from being still much sought after; and this may justify the present undertaking.

Without doubt, this task should have been assigned to other hands than mine. There are in Denmark many learned men, from whom the public might have expected it, and who would have acquitted themselves much better than I can. I dissemble not, when I avow, that it is not without fear and reluctance, that I have begun and finished this work, under the attentive eyes of so many critical and observing judges: But I flatter myself, that the motives which prompted me to the enterprize, will abate some part of their severity. Whatever opinion may be formed of these Fables, and of these Poems, it is evident they do honour to the nation that has produced them; they are not void of genius or imagination. Strangers who shall read them will be obliged to soften some of those dark colours in which they have usually painted our Scandinavian ancestors. Nothing does so much honour to a people, as strength of genius, and a love of the arts. The rays of genius, which shone forth in the Northern nations amid the gloom of the dark ages, are more valuable in the eye of reason, and contribute more to their glory than all those bloody trophies, which they took so much pains to erect. But how can their Poetry produce this effect, if it continues unintelligible to those who wish to be acquainted with it; if no one will translate it into the other languages of Europe?

The professed design of this work required that the Version should be accompanied by a Commentary. It

was