xxii.
latin into the island, and translated the popular odes he there found, written in the Runic character, into that language: neither does he think that he added to, or altered them in the least. Resenius, in his preface to the Voluspa, seems to have adopted the same opinion. Bryniolfus and Wormius were of the former opinion. But however it is, the great antiquity of these odes must be acknowledged. Runalfus Jonas, in his dissertation on the elements of the Northern languages, does not scruple to assert, that the mythology of these odes, and probably a great part of the odes themselves, are as ancient as the times when the Asiatics first came into the North of Europe. The opinions contained in these odes, therefore, he traces up to the Erythrean Sybil, which is known to have existed before the times of the Trojan war.
