awake and assemble; the great ash-tree shakes its branches; heaven and earth are full of horror and affright. The gods fly to arms; the heroes place themselves in battle array. Odin appears armed in his golden casque and his resplendent cuirass; his vast scimitar is in his hands. He attacks the wolf Fenrir; he is devoured by him, and Fenrir perishes at the same instant. Thor is suffocated in the floods of venom which the serpent breathes forth as he expires. Loki and Heimdall mutually kill each other. The fire consumes everything, and the flame reaches up to heaven. But presently after a new earth springs forth from the bosom of the waves, adorned with green meadows; the fields there bring forth without culture, calamities are there unknown, a palace is there raised more shining than the sun, all covered with gold. This is the place that the just will inhabit, and enjoy delights for evermore. Then the powerful, the valiant, he who governs all things, comes forth from his lofty abodes, to render divine justice. He pronounces decrees. He establishes the sacred destinies which shall endure for ever. There is an abode remote from the sun, the gates of which face the north; poison rains there through a thousand openings: this place is all composed of the carcasses of serpents: there run certain torrents, in which are plunged perjurers and assassins."*

Notwithstanding the obscurities which are found in these descriptions, we see that it was a doctrine rendered sacred by the religion of the ancient Scandinavians, that the soul was immortal, and that there was a future state reserved for men, either happy or miserable, according to their behaviour here below. All the Teutonic nations held the same opinions, and it was upon these they founded the obligation of serving the gods, and of being valiant in battle: but although the Greek and Latin historians who have spoke of this people, agree in attributing these notions to them, yet none of them have given any particular account of the nature of these doctrines; and one ought to regard in this respect the Icelandic mythology as a precious monument, without which we can know but very imperfectly this important part of the religion of our fathers. I must here sacrifice to brevity many reflections, which the

See the Prose Edda, ch. 51,

picture I have here copied from thence naturally presents to the mind. Many in particular would arise on the surprising conformity that there is between several of the foregoing strokes, and those employed in the gospel to describe the same thing. A conformity so remarkable that one should be tempted to attribute it to the indiscreet zeal of the Christian writer who compiled this mythology, if the Edda alone had transmitted to us this prophecy concerning the last ages of the world, and if we did not find it with the same circumstances in the Völuspá, a poem of greater antiquity, and in which nothing can be discovered that has an air of interpolation, or forgery.

One remark, however, ought not to be omitted, which is, that this mythology expressly distinguishes two different abodes for the happy, and as many for the culpable; which is what several authors who have written of the ancient religion of Europe have not sufficiently attended to. The first of these abodes was the palace of Odin named Valhalla, where that god received all such as died in a violent manner, from the beginning to the end of the world, that is, to the time of that universal desolation of nature which was to be followed by a new creation, and what they called Ragnarök, or the twilight of the gods. The second, which after the renovation of all things was to be their eternal abode, was named Gimli, that is, the palace covered with gold, the description of which we have seen above, where the just were to enjoy delights for ever. It was the same as to the place of punishments; they distinguished two of those, of which the first, named Niflheim, was only to continue to the renovation of the world, and the second that succeeded it was to endure for ever. This last was named Náströnd, the shore of the dead; and we have seen in the description of the end of the world, what idea was entertained of it by the ancient Scandinavians. With regard to the two first places, the Valhalla and Niflheim, they are not only distinguished from the others in being only to endure till the conflagration of the world, but also in respect to rewards and punishments. Those only whose blood had been shed in battle, might aspire to the pleasures which Odin prepared for them in Valhalla. The pleasures which they expected after death show us plainly enough what they relished during life. "The heroes, says the Edda, who are received

into the palace of Odin, have every day the pleasure of arming themselves, of passing in review, of ranging themselves in order of battle, and of cutting one another in pieces; but as soon as the hour of repast approaches, they return on horseback all safe and sound back to the hall of Odin, and fall to eating and drinking. Though the number of them cannot be counted, the flesh of the boar Sæhrimnir is sufficient for them all; every day it is served up at table, and every day it is renewed again entire: their beverage is ale and mead; one single goat, whose milk is excellent mead, furnishes enough of that liquor to intoxicate all the heroes. Odin alone drinks wine for his entire liquor. A crowd of virgins wait upon the heroes at table, and fill their cups as fast as they empty them." Such was that happy state, the bare hope of which rendered all the inhabitants of the north of Europe intrepid, and which made them not only to defy, but even seek with ardour the most cruel deaths. Accordingly King Ragnar Lodbrok, when he was going to die, far from uttering groans, or forming complaints, expressed his joy by these verses. "We are cut to pieces with swords; but this fills me with joy, when I think of the feast that is preparing for me in Odin's palace. Quickly, quickly seated in the splendid habitation of the gods, we shall drink beer out of curved horns*. A brave man fears not to die. I shall utter no timorous words as I

* We have substituted "curved horns" for "the skulls of our enemies ;" Finn Magnusen, and Professor Rask having shown that this is the true meaning of the original passage, literally "soon shall we drink ale out of the curved branches of the skull," i. e. of an animal, a figurative expression employed by the Skald to indicate the usual drinking horns, and that Olaus Wormius, Bartholin and other writers of that period, whom our author has followed, were totally mistaken in rendering it "ex concavis crateribus craniorum," and "ex concavis craniorum poculis," or as one of them gives it, "confestim, ex cranibus hostium capacitate conspicuis, cerevisiam bibemus." It is this mistake that has given rise to the erroneous notion, that the heroes of Valhalla drank their ale out of the skulls of those they had slain in battle.

"They thought

One day from Ella's skull to quaff the mead,
Their valour's guerdon,"

says Southey. We think that a daily dinner consisting solely of boiled pork, washed down with ale and an occasional draught of mead, was bad enough in all conscience, without making skulls serve for drinking cups.—ED.

enter the Hall of Odin." This fanatic hope derived additional force from the ignominy affixed to every kind of death but such as was of a violent nature, and from the fear of being sent after such an exit into Niflheim. This was a place consisting of nine worlds, reserved for those that died of disease or old age, Hela or Death, there exercised her despotic power; her palace was Anguish; her table Famine; her waiters were Slowness and Delay; the threshold of her door was Precipice; her bed Care; she was livid and ghastly pale; and her very looks inspired horror.

After this description of the religion of the Scandinavians, can we be surprised that they should make war their only business, and carry their valour to the utmost excesses of fanaticism. Such also will be the features which I shall most frequently have occasion to present, when I come to give a picture of their manners: there the influence of a doctrine so pernicious will be felt in its utmost extent. But justice obliges me to observe here, that the reproach arising from it does not affect the ancient inhabitants of the north more, than those of all Europe in general, unless it be that they continued to deserve it longer. However strange to a man who reasons coolly may appear the madness of making war habitually, for the sake of war itself, it must notwithstanding be allowed, that this has been for a succession of ages the favourite passion of all those nations at present so polite; and it is but, as it were, of yesterday that they began to be sensible of the value of peace, of the cultivation of arts, and of a government favourable to industry. The farther we look back towards their infancy, the more we see them occupied in war, divided among themselves, cruelly bent on the destruction of each other, by a spirit of revenge, idleness and fanaticism. There was a time when the whole face of Europe presented the same spectacle as the forests of America; viz. a thousand little wandering nations, without cities or towns, or agriculture, or arts; having nothing to subsist on but a few herds, wild fruits and pillage, harassing themselves incessantly by inroads and attacks, sometimes conquering, sometimes conquered, often totally overthrown and destroyed. The same causes everywhere produce the same effects: a savage life necessarily produces cruelty and injustice; disquiet, idleness and envy naturally lead to violence, and the desire of rapine

and mischief.

The fear of death is no restraint when life has no comfort. What evidently proves the unhappiness of those nations who live in such a state as this, is the facility with which they throw their lives away. The pleasure arising from property, from sentiment and knowledge, the fruits of industry, laws and arts, by softening life and endearing it to us, can alone give us a relish for peace and justice.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE EXTERIOR WORSHIP AND RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS.

In laying open the principal doctrines of the ancient Scandinavians, I have already had frequent occasion to remark their conformity with those of the other Teutonic nations of Europe. The same conformity is observable in the worship which they paid the Deity; and one may presume that it would appear still greater if it were easy to pursue with exactness the history of that religion through its several stages of purity and alteration. Thus, for instance, it is easy to comprehend why the ancient Scandinavians made use of temples; although, on the other hand, it would appear that the use of them was proscribed by the primitive religion, which taught that it was offensive to the gods to pretend to inclose them within the circuit of walls; and that men thereby checked and restrained their action, which is to penetrate all creatures freely in order to support them in being. There was doubtless a time, when the Scandinavians, admitting the same doctrine, worshipped their divinities only in the open air, and either knew not or approved not of the use of temples. Although we want the greatest part of the monuments which might instruct us concerning that stage of their religion, the traces of it are not yet entirely destroyed. We find at this day here and there, in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, in the middle of a plain, or upon some little hill, altars, around which they assembled to offer sacrifices and to assist at other religious ceremonies. The greatest part of these altars are raised upon a little hill, either natural or artificial. Three long pieces of rock set upright serve for a basis to a great flat stone, which forms the