they presented with clothing, and dismissed to their own homes*.' The frantic ravages of these barbarians have been described by the sufferers, and belong in part to our own history; while those committed by the unknown tribes, who two thousand years before occupied the other extremity of Europe, are long since forgotten, or remembered only in the flattering traditions of their countrymen. The former, therefore, are known and execrated, while the latter stand fair with the world and in the absence of evidence, we are far from wishing to impute to them that bestial ferocity which so often disgraced the Northmen: but who can compare the passages just given with that quoted from Thucydides, without being convinced that they refer to corresponding periods of civilization, and describe similar principles, if not similar modes of action? And as the best historical accounts which we can procure represent the feelings and habits of the early Greeks as closely akin to those of our own barbarous ancestors, so their traditions and fables lead us to the same conclusion. The Scaldic poems bear, indeed, a more savage cast; some say from the inhospitable rigour of our northern sky; but more probably because we possess them in their original, or nearly their original, state, while the earliest Greek compositions extant were written in an age comparatively civilized. But the heroes of both were actuated by the same spirit. Siegfrid and Wolf Dietrich differ little but in external ornament from Castor, or Achilles, or Diomed: their pride was in the same accomplishments, their delight in the same pleasures, their hope in an immortality of the same sensual enjoyments †. Barthol. 1. ii. 9. We speak with some degree of doubt, both from the fluctuating notions of the Greeks upon this head, and from imperfect Some sketch of the life of Starchaterus, a purely fictitious person, may serve as a specimen of these stories. Starchaterus was born in Sweden, a few years acquaintance with their opinions. The unhesitating belief of the Celtic nations in a happy immortality was known even in the time of Lucan, and is celebrated by him in a fine and well-known passage. The immortality of Homer's heroes was mournful and discontented. "Talk not to me of death," says Achilles (Od. xi. 487), "I would rather be the hired servant of some needy man, whose means of life are scanty, than rule over the whole of the deceased." Other passages to the same effect are collected at the beginning of the third book of the Republic, by Plato, who objects seriously to their effect as making death an object of terror. Yet, in another passage, Homer speaks of the "Elysian plain, and the ends of the earth, where man's life is easiest, where there is no snow, nor rain, nor winter, but thither ocean ever wafts the clear toned gales of the west to refresh men." (Od. iv. 565.) Hesiod, on the other hand, (Works and Days. v. 166,) and some centuries after, Pindar (Ol. ii.) speaks of a future life as perfectly happy, describing it in terms closely similar to those of the last quotation from Homer. All these writers appear to place their happiness in perfect rest: the blessed are no longer compelled to till the earth, or navigate the ocean; they lead a careless life; there is no reference to sensual pleasures, except that the earth produces fruits spontaneously thrice a year, nor even to their continuing to take delight in arms, or in the chase. In later authors they are described as retaining the habits and pleasures of life, (see the note on the scholium of Callistratus, chap. v., Ov. Met. iv. 444.) and more especially the passage in Virgil, vi. 651, which, but for wanting the personal superintendence of Odin, bears much resemblance to a refined Valhalla. The chief beheld their chariots from afar, Their shining arms, and coursers trained to war; Dryden. Mitford, on the other hand, says, that "the drunken paradise of the Scandinavian Odin was really a notion, as we learn from Plato, of the highest antiquity among the Greeks." (Chap. ii. sect. 1.) He has not, however, given references, and we much regret that we have not been able to find the passage. after the Christian era. He was of giant stature, and of strength and courage correspondent to the magnitude of his frame, so that in prowess he was held inferior to none of mortal parentage; and as he excelled all in bodily endowments, so his life was protracted to three times the usual. duration of human existence. Like his great prototype, the Grecian Hercules, he traversed the neighbouring regions, and went even to Ireland and Constantinople, in quest of adventures; but unlike him, he was animated by a most intolerant hatred of everything approaching to luxury, insomuch that he treated an invitation to dinner as an insult, and inflicted severe punishment upon all who were so imprudently hospitable as to request his company. For it was the mark of a buffoon and parasite, he said, to run after the smell of another man's kitchen, for the sake of better fare *. In other respects, the severity of his manners was more commendable; when he found any of the classes who live by the follies or vices of mankind, mixing with soldiers, he drove them away with the scourge, esteeming them unworthy to receive death from the hands of brave men. In addition to his other accomplishments, he was skilled in poetry, and persecuted luxury in verse no less successfully than by corporeal inflictions, as is evident from certain of his compositions, which have been translated into Latin by Saxo Grammaticus. He went to Russia on purpose to fight Visin, who possessed the power of blunting weapons with a look, and trusting in this magic power, exercised all sorts of cruelty and oppression. Starchaterus rendered the charm of no avail by covering his sword with thin leather, and then obtained an easy victory. Nine warriors of tried valour offered to Helgo, king of Norway, the alternative of doing battle singly He had the advantage over Hercules here; see the Alcestes, v. 763, ed. Monk. against the nine, or losing his bride upon his marriage day. Helgo thought it best to appear by his champion, and requested the assistance of Starchaterus, who was so eager for the adventure, that in following Helgo to the appointed place, in one day, and on foot, he performed a journey which had occupied the king, who travelled on horseback, during twelve days. On the morrow, which was the appointed day, ascending a mountain, which was the place of meeting, he chose a spot exposed to the wind and snow, and then, as if it were spring, throwing off his clothes, he set himself to dislodge the fleas that nestled in them. Then the nine warriors ascended the mountain on the other side, and shewed the difference of their hardihood by lighting a fire in a sheltered spot. Not perceiving their antagonist, one went to look out from the mountain top, who saw at a distance an old man, covered with snow up to the shoulders. They asked him if it were he who was to fight with them, and being answered in the affirmative, enquired further, whether he would receive them singly, or all together. His reply was rather more churlish than the question deserved. "When the dogs bark at me I drive them off altogether, and not one by one." Then, after a severe battle, he slew them all. At last, being overtaken by age, he thought it fit to terminate his life before his glory was dimmed by decrepitude; for men used to consider it disgraceful for a warrior to perish by sickness. So he hung round his neck one hundred and twenty pounds of gold, the spoil of one Olo, to buy the good offices of an executioner, thinking it fit that the wealth which he had obtained by another man's death should be spent in procuring his own. And meeting Hather, whose father he had formerly slain, he exhorted him to take vengeance for that injury, and pointed out what he would gain by doing so. Hather willingly consented, and Starchaterus, stretching out his neck, bade him strike boldly, adding, for his encouragement, that if he leaped between the severed head and the trunk before the latter touched the earth, he would become invincible in arms. Now, whether he said this out of good will, or to be quits with his slayer, who ran a good chance of being crushed by the falling giant, is doubtful. The head stricken off at a blow, bit the earth, retaining its ferocity in death: but Starchaterus' real meaning remained unknown, for Hather shewed his prudence by declining to take a leap, which had he taken, he might never have leapt again *. This is an early and rude specimen of an errant knight; the same character which was afterwards expanded into Roland and Launcelot, the paladins and peers of Charlemagne and Arthur, worthies closely allied to the heroes of Homer and Hesiod. The triple-bodied Geryon, the Nemean lion and Lernæan hydra, the deliverance of Andromeda by Perseus, the capture of the golden fleece, and above all, perhaps, Amycus, who compelled all strangers to box with him, till he was beaten by Pollux, and bound by oath to renounce the practice, are entirely in unison with the spirit and imagery of chivalric romance. Examples to this effect might easily be multiplied. But an essay on the fictions of the Greeks would be foreign to the scope of this publication and it would be absurd to enter upon a critical investigation of a series of stories, extended by some chronologers over seven centuries, from the foundation of Argos to the Trojan war, while Newton contracts them within a century and a half, which tell of little but bloodshed, abductions, and violence of all sorts, intermixed, however, with notices of those who *Joannes Magnus, Hist. Gothorum. |