NUMBER LIV. With mighty ale the goblet crown; From danger's front, at battle's eve, FROM the rapid sketch which we have given in the preceding paper, of the character and attributes of the chief deity of Scandinavia, and of his system of rewards and punishments, the intelligent reader will immediately infer the vast influence, which such a mythology must necessarily exercise over the manners and opinions of its enthusiastic disciples. It was, indeed, more than any religion, which had previously, or has since existed, calculated to form and perpetuate a nation of warriors. All the future happiness which it unfolded, was exclusively destined to the valiant, and to those of this description only, who perished on the field of battle, or who, to escape the horrors and degradation of servitude, inflicted death upon themselves. To these, the halls of Odin, we have seen, were ever open, and on these were all the luxuries, most dear to a northern imagination, lavished. On the contrary, the pusillanimous and those who died of lingering disease, were not only excluded from society, and held, by the laws of Scandinavia, in a light contemptible and infamous, but they were condemned, in another world, to a severe and perpetual punishment, plunged into more than midnight gloom, surrounded by piles of mountain ice and regions of eternal frost, for ever taunted by the apparitions of the damned, and devoted as the prey of loathsome serpents. Military enthusiasm, therefore, and an utter contempt of danger and of death, were the direct consequences of this martial creed. Hence the love of combat flows, Hence the warrior's throbbing breast; Bright his kindling courage glows, Fierce he shakes his frowning crest; He grasps his sword, he burns with noble rage, To rush where thronging hosts, and giant chiefs engage: In other claims his glory shall be known, For him the tale shall live in future times; For him his sons shall rear the chisel'd stone, For him the harps of bards and Runic rhymes: With screams the drooping eagle mourns his fall, And his the "plenteous feast of" Odin's echoing hall.* To delight in the slaughter of his enemies, to rush undaunted on the foe, to despise all pain, to suffer no exclamation or groan, indicative of suffering, to escape his lips, were essential to the formation of a hero, and even to rejoice and laugh in the last agonies of death. Innumerable are the instances recorded in the annals of Scandinavia, of men, who, to the last, supported this stern fana * Sterling's Poems, page 152, ticism of the Edda. The most memorable, perhaps, is preserved by Olaus Wormius, in his book de Literatura Runicu; he has there given, as the Death-Song of Ragner Lodbrach, who flourished in the eighth century, and, by his naval expeditions and his prowess, became the terror and scourge of Europe. He had the misfortune, however, after a series of unparalleled enterprise and success, to be taken prisoner by Ella, king of Northumberland, who, with savage joy, cruelly tormented his illustrious victim, and threw him into a dungeon filled with serpents. In this tremendous situation he composed his song of triumph, exulting to the last moment of life, in the recollection of his heroic deeds, and threatening the most dreadful retaliation, through the medium of his sons, on the head of the ferocious Ella, a threat which was soon after amply carried into execution. This celebrated song breathes the very soul of war, and expresses, in terms of the utmost fire and energy, that extreme passion for arms and glory, and that astonishing contempt of death and danger, so prevalent, at |