to controversy. Schöning and Suhm incline to distinguish between Woden the god of war, and Odin chief of the Asæ; and suppose the apotheosis of the former to have long preceded that of the latter, who perhaps was merely the conductor of the first colony of Goths which ventured to forsake the southern shores of the Baltic and to take up its abode in Scandinavia. Gibbon (i. 204) inclines to the speculation which makes the enterprises of the northern Mahomet co-æval with those of Pompey. Gröter, struck with a resemblance between the cosmogony of the Edda and that of Melissus of Samos, as described by Diogenes Laertius, has attempted to prove from a passage in the Ægisdrecka (Str. 24.), that Odin visited the island of Samos (Sams-egio), and derived his doctrines from this Grecian philosopher, who flourished in the eighty-fourth Olympiad. In confirmation of a theory which aligns to this earlier æra the exploits of the northern divinities, it might be pleaded that Herodotus mentions (Melpomene LXXXI.) an immense brewing-copper, in high estimation among the Scythians, the acquisition of which by Thor, appears to be celebrated in the Hymis-Quida. The identity of the elder Anacharsis, and of Odin, may one day not seem indefensible.
But at whatever period those persons flourished, whose actions form the themes of the Edda: whether their deeds and their doctrines were chronicled in verse by the [1]Scalds of their own times; or were preserved by tradition merely, until the northern dawn of literature broke forth over Iceland; the sagas which preserve these transactions, are equally interesting. They are, and must remain the earliest monuments of Gothic intellect. They are, and must remain the first fruits of that noble stem of language, whose spreading branches yet overshadow Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain. They are the childhood stammerings of those nations who have created a school of poetry superior to the Greek. They will acquire an increasing interest among all the descendants from the Gothic stock. They are supplying to new poets the outlines of an original mythology: and they will afford a favourite text for commentary to all the antiquaries who shall in future busy themselves with arctic paleosophy.
The poetical value of the elder northern reliques, is far inferior to that of the fanciful stories, which compose the new Edda: no metaphors equally bold, no adventures equally prodigious, no descriptions equally romantic here startle and reward the curiosity. In their stead occur definite allegories, which throw much light on the manner in which rude nations endeavour to account to themselves for the origin of things, and in which moral facts assume in their minds a mythic, form. Much information too is afforded concerning the different tribes into which the Goths and the contiguous nomade nations were divided, and concerning the geographical allotment of their respective territory. But it is time to pass from prosing to scanning.
Whose unquiet bosom broods
A journey to Vafthruni's hall,
With the wise and crafty Jute,
To contend in Runic lore.
In the dwelling-place of Goths,
Let me counsel thee to stay;
For to none among the Jutes[2],
Is Vafthruni's wisdom given.
In the kingdoms of the earth;
But Vafthruni's royal hall
I have still the wish to know.
May the fatal sisters grant!
The father of the years that roll,
Shield my daring traveller's head!
To contend in Runic lore,
With the wise and crafty Jute.
To Vafthruni's royal hall
Came the mighty king of spells.
To thy lofty hall I come,
Beckon'd by thy wisdom's fame.
Art thou, I aspire to learn,
First of Jutes in Runic lore?
Doubts Vafthruni's just renown?
Know that to thy parting step
Never shall these doors unfold,
If thy tongue excel not mine
In the strife of mystic lore.
- ↑ Klopstock erroneously ascribes bards to
the Gothic nations on the faith of a false
reading in Tacitus: this word is Cimbric, or
Welth, and includes both the civil and ecclesiastical magistracy. Milton, with learned
accuracy, notices the steep,
“Where your old bards, the famous druids lie.”
- ↑ The Danish interpreters should not be always followed in the use of the words god and giant. The Goths and the Jutes were contiguous nations, part of whom ultimately became stationary in Gothland and Jutland. From the name of the latter, by coalescence with the article, is formed the denomination Teutones, Deutch. (Thus the French call the Antinous le L'antin, instead of l’ Amin, and the English say a newt, instead of an ewt, using in fact a double article. These two nations were early hostile: Lucian (in his letter to Philo on history-writing) alludes to some account of a war between the Goths and the Jutes: and the Edda abounds with traces of their habitual rivalry.Vafthruni was a king of the Jutes.
