:

holy verses, the Gospel, and the Psalm, were to be written on the sacred patina; water was to be brought by the purest hands from the running stream, in deadlike silence, thyme and valerian and fennel were to be infused, and with the decoction the words were to be washed off from the hallowed dish and after penitential Psalms and masses, the potion was administered. So for the quartan fever, on midsummer-day, after sunset or before sunrise, St. John's wort was to be gathered, and kept till yule, when it was laid on the altar until three masses were sung, after which it would put forth new flowers and leaves-then stamped and tempered with warm wine, let it be drank "dicendo ter, Pater Noster." Others are scarcely less imaginative, though more singular: "To provoke hatred of wine, cause a man to drink the blossomes of rye, gathered at such time as the rye bloometh-or else take a frog, and let her lie in wine till she die,-otherwise, marke diligentlie where the owle haunteth, that you may gette some of her egs-frie them, and give them to your drunken manne to eate."b

In the following observations, therefere, on the Origin of Romance, I propose to direct the attention of the Society more immediately to its mythology, forming as it does by far the most conspicuous point from which to conduct our researches, I have only to hope accordingly that the

"Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,"

which were duly dilated upon on a former occasion, did not strike such terror into the minds of my learned brethren as to produce a thrill of horror at the bare idea of a "haustus bis capiendus,”—and, in concluding this introductory chapter, I shall beg to present the Society with an

b Liebault-Maison Rustique, p. 761.

Enter-Motto.

CHRISTOPHER SLY.

By Saint Anne! A good matter, surely-comes there any more of it?

"Tis a very excellent piece of matter, madam, Lady! would 'twere done!

CHAPTER II.

SCANDINAVIAN ORIGIN OF ROMANCE.

"Of Gothic structure was the Northern side,
O'erwrought with ornaments of barb'rous pride:
There huge Colosses rose, with trophies crowned,
And Runic characters were graved around.

There sat Zamolxis with erected eyes

And Odin here in mimic trances dies.

There on rude iron columns, smear'd with blood,

The horrid forms of Scythian heroes stood:

Druids and Bards, (their once loud harps unstrung,)
And youths that died to be by poets sung."

Pope-Temple of Fame.

"To Norroway, to Norroway,

To Norroway o'er the faem."

Sir Patrick Spens.

It will be impossible, where so much is before us, to take anything like even a general survey of the great Collection of Northern Mythology and Poetry-the famous Edda of Sæmund the Wise: it has been well called " the poetry of ice," and would seem to be the almost necessary production of a country abounding in the wildest forms of gloom and grandeur, and whose inhabitants were a nation of warriors. The Vikingr, we are told, chaunted hymns to the gods at sunrise and sunset, and the northern sailors are yet compelled, by an ancient law, to sing to the Virgin at

those hours, and amid the clash of swords and "joy of battle," the Scald accompanied his chief, in order that his own eyes might behold those deeds of " derring do" which he was afterwards to hand down to distant ages in the wild rhymes of his saga. But whilst the whole spirit of the north was essentially warlike, there were other causes which contributed not a little to throw a peculiar spirit of poetry and romance over both their mythological poems and their fierce battle songs. The existence of an extraordinary race of men, distinguished by most remarkable peculiarities from the Scythic and Celto-Scythic inhabitants, known by the various appellations of Iotun, Bersækir, Cappar, or Champions, and Blaumen, and which have apparently furnished the type for all the many monsters which fell beneath the valorous strokes of Jack the Giant Killer and divers other heroes of the olden time, is perfectly established, and genuine matter of history. "Of giants," saith the exceeding learned Saxo Grammaticus, " of giants there be three sorts: first, the vulgar giant, who excelled all mankind in bodily stature: next, the wise men, who penetrated into the secret operations of nature, and were enemies of the first species: and thirdly, the offspring of the two preceding; inferior to the one parent in magnitude of body, to the other in knowledge." It would appear that the first of these, or the genuine sons of Anak, are those with whom we have to do at present-agreeing in a singular manner with those few and dim notices of nations and tribes of enormous physical strength and huge stature preserved to us not only in the sacred writings, but in the earliest poems and records of almost all people. I shall leave to abler hands the long promised dissertation on the Zamzummims, who belong to this class, and proceed at once to notice the Bersækir and Blaumen.

Bersækir then, is the Norsk denomination of a species

of men, answering to the description of giants in every particular, and existing as late as the eleventh century. They were kept by the chiefs about their households, more in the light of brutes than of men, and lodged in a kind of porch, about the outhouses, or beneath the steps of the castle gates, like watch dogs; leading the kind of life which in the romance of Valentine and Orson is attributed to the last named warrior: and it is to them we must refer the origin of the "salvage men" used in heraldry as supporters. They were forbidden to seek shelter during the most tremendous storms, and were not allowed to dress their wounds until the conclusion of the battle. Alf of Norway had sixty, and none were enrolled among the number who could not lift a stone in his court yard which required the strength of twelve ordinary men to raise. They were subject to a species of frenzy termed "Bersæksgangr," not like the mook or muck of the Malays, which is a kind of drunkenness produced by opium, but resembling, it would rather seem, the paroxysms of epilepsy. They felt the approach of the fit, during which they were ungovernable and irresistible; and if no enemy was at hand, they would go into the woods and spend the force of the paroxysm upon trees and rocks after which they were so greatly debilitated that they were less than other men. A similar affection seems to have been prevalent at a comparatively late period among the Scottish Highlanders, where it was called "miri-cath," or the madness of battle.

C

There can be little or no doubt but that these Iotun and Bersækir have been one of the principal types of the giant or ogre of romance. Sufficiently terrible in themselves, they

c Is there not a reference to the Bersæksgangr in the Romance of Merlin, (Ellis, vol. i.) where it is said of Sir Gawaine, "that from nine in the morning till noon, his muscular powers were doubled-from thence till nones they relapsed into their ordinary state,-and from nones till evensong they were again doubled?"