Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

reducing it to one undistinguished mass of truth and fable. It is true, by conforming to this rule, an historian will leave great chasms in his work, and the annals of eight or nine centuries which, in some hands, fill up several volumes, will by this means be reduced within very few pages. But this chasm if it be one, may be usefully filled up. Instead of discussing the doubtful facts which are supposed to have happened among the northern nations, during the dark ages of paganism, let us study the religion, the character, the manners and customs of the ancient inhabitants during those ages. Such a subject, I should think, may interest the learned, and even the philosopher. It will have to most readers the charm of novelty, having been but imperfectly treated of in any modern language and so far from being foreign to the History of Denmark, it makes a very essential part of it. For why should history be only a recital of battles, sieges, intrigues, and negotiations? And why should it contain merely a heap of petty facts and dates, rather than a just picture of the opinions, customs, and even inclinations of a people? By confining our inquiries to this subject, we may with confidence consult those ancient annals, whose authority is too weak to ascertain events. It is needless to observe that great light may be thrown on the character and sentiments of a nation, by those very books, whence we can learn nothing exact or connected of their history. The most credulous writer, he that has the greatest passion for the marvellous, while he falsifies the history of his contemporaries, paints their manners of life and modes of thinking without perceiving it. His simplicity, his ignorance, are at once pledges of the artless truth of his drawing, and a warning to distrust that of his relations. This is doubtless the best, if not the only use, we can make of those old relics of poetry, which have escaped the shipwreck of time. The authors of those fragments, erected into historians by succeeding ages, have caused ancient history to degenerate into a mere tissue of fables. To avoid this mistake, let us consider them only on the footing of poets, for they were in effect nothing else; let us principally attend to and copy those strokes, which, without their intending it, point out to us the notions, and mark the character of the ages in which they lived. These are the most certain truths we can find in their works, for they could not help delivering them whether they would or not.

CHAPTER III.

OF ODIN, HIS SUPPOSED ARRIVAL IN THE NORTH, AND THE CHANGES WHICH HE IS SAID TO HAVE EFFECTED.

BEFORE I describe the state of ancient Scandinavia, I must stop one moment. A celebrated tradition, confirmed by the poems of all the northern nations, by their chronicles, by institutions and customs, some of which subsist to this day, informs us, that an extraordinary person named Odin, formerly reigned in the north: that he made great changes in the government, manners, and religion of those countries; that he enjoyed there great authority, and had even divine honours paid him. As to what regards the origin of this man, the country whence he came, the time in which he lived, and the other circumstances of his life and death, they are so uncertain, that the most profound researches, the most ingenious conjectures about them, discover nothing to us but our own ignorance. Thus previously disposed to doubt, let those ancient authors I have mentioned relate the story: all their testimonies are comprised in that of Snorri, the ancient historian of Norway, and in the commentaries and explications which Torfæus added to his narrative.

The Roman Commonwealth was arrived to the highest pitch of power, and saw all the then known world subject to its laws, when an unforeseen event raised up enemies against it, from the very bosom of the forests of Scythia, and on the banks of the Tanäis. Mithridates by flying, had drawn Pompey after him into those deserts. The king of Pontus sought there for refuge, and new means of vengeance. He hoped to arm against the ambition of Rome, all the barbarous nations his neighbours, whose liberty she threatened. He succeeded in this at first; but all those people, ill united as allies, ill armed as soldiers, and still worse disciplined, were forced to yield to the genius of Pompey. Odin is said to have been of this number. He was obliged to withdraw himself by flight from the vengeance of the Romans; and to go and seek in countries unknown to his enemies that safety which he could no longer find in his own. His true name was Sigge, son of Fridulph; but he assumed that of Odin, who was the Supreme

God among the Teutonic nations: either in order to pass among his followers for a man inspired by the Gods, or because he was chief priest, and presided over the worship paid to that deity. We know that it was usual with many nations to give their pontiffs the name of the God they worshipped. Sigge, full of his ambitious projects, we may be assured, took care to avail himself of a title so proper to procure him respect among the people he meant to subject.

Odin, for so we shall hereafter call him, commanded the Æsir, whose country must have been situated between the Pontus Euxinus, and the Caspian Sea. Their principal city was Asgard. The worship there paid to their supreme God was famous throughout the circumjacent countries. Odin having united under his banners the youth of the neighbouring nations, marched towards the north and west of Europe, subduing, we are told, all the people he found in his passage, and giving them to one or other of his sons for subjects. Many sovereign families of the north are said to be descended from these princes. Thus Horsa and Hengist, the chiefs of those Saxons, who conquered Britain in the fifth century, counted Odin, or Wodin in the number of their ancestors; it was the same with the other Anglo-Saxon princes; as well as the greatest part of those of Lower Germany and the north. But there is reason to suspect that all these genealogies, which have given birth to so many insipid panegyrics and frivolous researches, are founded upon a mere equivoque, or double meaning of the word Odin. This word signified, as we have seen above, the Supreme God of the Teutonic nations; we know also that it was customary with all the heroes of these nations to speak of themselves as sprung from their divinities, especially their god of war. The historians of those times, that is to say the poets, never failed to bestow the same honour on all those whose praises they sung: and thus they multiplied the descendants of Odin, or the Supreme God, as much as ever they found convenient.

After having disposed of so many countries, and confirmed and settled his new governments, Odin directed his course towards Scandinavia, passing through Cimbria, at present Holstein and Jutland. These provinces, exhausted of inhabitants, made him no resistance; and shortly after he passed into Fünen, which submitted as soon as ever he appeared.

He is said to have staid a long time in this agreeable island, where he built the city of Odensee, which still preserves in its name the memory of its founder. Hence he extended his arms over all the north. He subdued the rest of Denmark, and made his son Skjöld be received there as king; a title, which according to the Icelandic annals, no person had ever borne before, and which passed to his descendants, called after his name Skjöldungians; if this name was not rather given them on account of the shield, which they were accustomed to bear, for this is called Skjold in the Danish language to this day. Odin, who was apparently better pleased to give crowns to his children, than to wear them himself, afterwards passed into Sweden, where at that time reigned a prince named Gylfi, who persuaded that the author of a new worship consecrated by conquests so brilliant, could not be of the ordinary race of mortals, paid him great honours, and even worshipped him as a divinity. By favour of this opinion, which the ignorance of that age led men easily to embrace, Odin quickly acquired in Sweden the same authority he had obtained in Denmark. The Swedes came in crowds to do him homage, and by common consent bestowed the regal title and office upon his son Yngvi and his posterity. Hence sprung the Ynglingians, a name by which the kings of Sweden were for a long time distinguished. Gylfi died, or was forgotten. Odin governed with absolute dominion. He enacted new laws, introduced the customs of his own country; and established at Sigtuna (a city at present destroyed, situate in the same province with Stockholm) a supreme council or tribunal, composed of twelve pontiffs or judges. Their business was. to watch over the public weal, to distribute justice to the people, to preside over the new worship, which Odin brought. with him into the north, and to preserve faithfully the religious and magical secrets which that prince deposited with them. He was quickly acknowledged as a sovereign and a god, by all the petty kings among whom Sweden was then divided; and he levied an impost or poll-tax upon every head through the whole country. He engaged on his part to defend the inha bitants against all their enemies, and to defray the expense of the worship rendered to the gods at Sigtuna.

These great acquisitions seem not, however, to have satisfied his ambition. The desire of extending farther his religion,

G

his authority and his glory, caused him to undertake the conquest of Norway. His good fortune or address followed him thither, and this kingdom quickly obeyed a son of Odin named Sæming, whom they have taken care to make head of a family, the different branches of which reigned for a long time in that country.

After he had finished these glorious achievements, Odin retired into Sweden; where perceiving his end to draw near, he would not wait till the consequences of a lingering disease should put a period to that life, which he had so often bravely hazarded in the field; but assembling the friends and companions of his fortune, he gave himself nine wounds in the form of a circle with the point of a lance, and many other cuts in his skin with his sword. As he was dying, he declared he was going back to Asgard to take his seat among the other gods at an eternal banquet, where he would receive with great honours all who should expose themselves intrepidly in battle, and die bravely with their swords in their hands. As soon as he had breathed his last, they carried his body to Sigtuna, where, conformably to a custom introduced by him into the north, his body was burnt with much pomp and magnificence.

Such was the end of this man, whose death was as extraordinary as his life. The loose sketches which we have here given of his character, might afford room for many curious conjectures, if they could be depended on as well founded. Among those which have been proposed, there is nevertheless one which deserves some attention. Several learned men have supposed that a desire of being revenged on the Romans was the ruling principle of his whole conduct. Driven from his country by those enemies of universal liberty; his resentment, say they, was so much the more violent, as the Teutonic tribes esteemed it a sacred duty to revenge all injuries, especially those offered to their relations and country. He had no other view, according to them, in running through so many distant kingdoms, and in establishing with so much zeal his sanguinary doctrines, but to spirit up all nations against so formidable and odious a power. This leaven, which he left in the bosoms of the northern people, fermented a long time in secret; but the signal, they add, once given, they all fell as it were by common consent upon this unhappy empire; and after many repeated shocks, entirely overturned

« ForrigeFortsæt »