“ Between this outcast nomad race, which wandered from forest to forest, and from fell to fell, without a fixed place of abode, and the old natural powers and Frost Giants, the minds of the race which adored Odin and the Aesir soon engendered a monstrous man-eating cross-breed of supernatural beings, who fled from contact with the intruders as soon as the first great struggle was over, abhorred the light of day, and looked upon agriculture and tillage as a dangerous innovation which destroyed their hunting fields, and was destined finally to root them out from off the face of the earth. ”

“ There he sits idle whilst all work; there he lies with that deep irony of conscious power, which knows its time must one day come, and meantime can afford to wait. When that time comes, he girds himself to the feat, amidst the scoffs and scorn of his flesh and blood; but even then, after he has done some great deed, he conceals it, returns to his ashes, and again sits idly by the kitchen-fire, dirty, lazy, and despised, until the time for final recognition comes, and then his dirt and rags fall off—he stands out in all the majesty of his royal robes, and is acknowledged once for all, a king. ”

“ Then she went on:
“You haven’t such a fine farm-yard as ours, I’ll be bound; for when two shepherds stand, one at each end of it, and blow their ram’s horns, the one can’t hear the other.”
“Haven’t we though!” answered Boots; “ours is far bigger; for when a cow begins to go with calf at one end of it, she doesn’t get to the other end before the time to drop her calf is come.”
“I dare say!” said the Princess. “Well, but you haven’t such a big ox, after all, as ours yonder; for when two men sit one on each horn, they can’t touch each other with a twenty-foot rule.” ”

“ How should all these things be, and how could they possibly be, except on that theory which day by day becomes more and more a matter of fact; this, that the whole human race sprung from one stock, planted in the East, which has stretched out its boughs and branches laden with the fruit of language, and bright with the bloom of song and story, by successive offshoots to the utmost parts of the earth. ”

“ But, besides these gods, there were heroes of the race whose fame and glory were in every man’s memory, and whose mighty deeds were in every minstrel’s mouth. Helgi, Sigmund, Sinfjötli, Sigurd, Signy, Brynhildr, Gudrun; champions and shield-maidens, henchmen and corse-choosers, now dead and gone, who sat round Odin’s board in Valhalla. Women whose beauty, woes, and sufferings were beyond those of all women; men whose prowess had never found an equal. ”

“ In all these the lassie is bright, and good, and helpful; she forgets herself in her eagerness to help others. When she goes down the well after the unequal match against her step-sister in spinning bristles against flax; she steps tenderly over the hedge, milks the cow, shears the sheep, relieves the boughs of the apple-tree—all out of the natural goodness of her heart. When she is sent to fetch water from the well, she washes and brushes, and even kisses, the loathsome head; she believes what her enemies say, even to her own wrong and injury ”

“ Popular mythology is a virgin mine, and its ore, so far from being exhausted or worked out, has here, in England at least, been scarcely touched. It may, indeed, be dreaded lest the time for collecting such English traditions is not past and gone; whether the steam-engine and printing-press have not played their great work of enlightenment too well; and whether the popular tales, of which, no doubt, the land was once full, have not faded away before those great inventions, as the race of Giants waned before the might of Odin and the Aesir. ”

“ Nothing is more magnificent, in short, than the theory of Christianity; but nothing is more mean and miserable than the time-serving way in which those dogmas are dragged down to the dull level of daily life, and that sublime theory reduced to ordinary practice. At Rome, it was true that the Pope could congratulate the faithful that whole nations in the barbarous and frozen North had been added to the true fold, and that Odin’s grim champions now universally believed in the gospel of peace and love. ”

“ No wonder, then, that instead of completing her conquest over the heathen, and carrying out their conversion, she became half heathen herself; that she adopted the tales and traditions of the old mythology, which she had never been able to extirpate, and related them of our Lord and his Apostles. No wonder, then, that having abandoned her mission of being the first power of intelligence on earth, she fell like Lucifer when the mist of medieval feudalism rolled away, and the light of learning and education returned—fell before the indignation of enlightened men, working upon popular opinion. ”

“ What do we want with a horse? People would only say we had got so proud that we couldn’t walk to church. Go out, child, and put up the pig in the sty.”
“But I’ve not got the pig either”, said Gudbrand; “for when I got a little farther on, I swopped it away for a milch goat.”
“Bless us!” cried his wife, “how well you manage everything! Now I think it over, what should I do with a pig? People would only point at us and say, ‘Yonder they eat up all they have got.’ No! now I have got a goat, and I shall have milk and cheese, and keep the goat too. Run out, child, and put up the goat.” ”

“ Ill assorted marriages; the right man to the wrong woman, and the wrong man to the right woman; envyings, jealousies, hatred, murders, all the works of the natural man, combine together to form that marvellous story which begins with a curse—the curse of ill-gotten gold—and ends with a curse, a widow’s curse, which drags down all on whom it falls, and even her own flesh and blood, to certain doom. ”

“ Their excuse is, that no one is before his age. The intense personality given to the Devil in the Middle Age had possessed the whole mind of Europe. We must take them as we find them, with their bright fancy, their earnest faith, their stern fanaticism, their revolting superstition, just as when we look upon a picture we know that those brilliant hues and tones, that spirit which informs the whole, could never be, were it not for the vulgar earths and oil out of which the glorious work of art is mixed and made. ”

“ The Christian notion of Hell is that of a place of heat, for in the East, whence Christianity came, heat is often an intolerable torment, and cold, on the other hand, everything that is pleasant and delightful. But to the dweller in the North, heat brings with it sensations of joy and comfort, and life without fire has a dreary outlook; so their Hel ruled in a cold region over those who were cowards by implication, while the mead-cup went round, and huge logs blazed and crackled in Valhalla, for the brave and beautiful who had dared to die on the field of battle. ”

“ How is it that we still find among the Negroes in the West Indies [19] a rich store of popular tales, and the Beast Epic in full bloom, brought with them from Africa to the islands of the West; and among those tales and traditions, how is it that we find a “Wishing Tree”, the counter-part of that in a German popular tale, and “a little dirty scrub of a child”, whom his sisters despise, but who is own brother to Boots in the Norse Tales, and like him outwits the Troll, spoils his substance, and saves his sisters? ”

“ When they got there, the West Wind asked him if he could tell her the way to the castle that lay EAST O’ THE SUN AND WEST O’ THE MOON, for it was she who ought to have had the prince who lived there.
“You don’t say so! That’s she, is it?” said the South Wind.
“Well, I have blustered about in most places in my time, but so far have I never blown; but if you will, I’ll take you to my brother the North Wind; he is the oldest and strongest of the whole lot of us, and if he don’t know where it is, you’ll never find any one in the world to tell you. ”

“ What are we to say of the many tales and fables which are to be found in neither of those famous collections, and not tales alone, but traits and features of old tradition, broken bits of fable, roots and germs of mighty growths of song and story, nay, even the very words, which exist in Western popular literature, and which modern philology has found obstinately sticking in Sanscrit, and of which fresh proofs and instances are discovered every day? ”

“ So one day his wife said to Gudbrand:
“Do you know, dear, I think we ought to take one of our cows into town, and sell it; that’s what I think; for then we shall have some money in hand, and such well-to-do people as we ought to have ready money like the rest of the world. As for the hundred dollars at the bottom of the chest yonder, we can’t make a hole in them, and I’m sure I don’t know what we want with more than one cow. Besides, we shall gain a little in another way, for then I shall get off with only looking after one cow, instead of having, as now, to feed and litter and water two.” ”

“ Then the King’s son took hold of a rusty old sword which hung on the wall, but he could scarce stir it.
“Now you must take a pull at this flask”, said the Troll; and when he had done that he could stir it, and when he had taken another he could lift it, and when he had taken a third he could brandish the sword as easily as if it had been his own.
“Now, when you get on board”, said the Troll Prince, “you must hide the sword well in your berth, that Ritter Red mayn’t set eyes on it; he’s not man enough to wield it, but he’ll get spiteful against you, and try to take your life. ”

“ WELL DONE AND ILL PAID
Once on a time there was a man, who had to drive his sledge to the wood for fuel. So a Bear met him.
“Out with your horse”, said the Bear, “or I’ll strike all your sheep dead by summer.”
“Oh! heaven help me then”, said the man; “there’s not a stick of firewood in the house; you must let me drive home a load of fuel, else we shall be frozen to death. I’ll bring the horse to you to-morrow morning.”
Yes! on those terms he might drive the wood home, that was a bargain; but Bruin said, “if he didn’t come back, he should lose all his sheep by summer”. ”

“ When you come thither you’ll find a wooden cloak, all made of strips of lath; that you must put on, and go up to the castle and say your name is ‘Katie Woodencloak’, and ask for a place. But before you go, you must take your penknife and cut my head off, and then you must flay me, and roll up the hide, and lay it under the wall of rock yonder, and under the hide you must lay the copper leaf, and the silver leaf, and the golden apple. Yonder, up against the rock, stands a stick; and when you want anything, you’ve only got to knock on the wall of rock with that stick. ”

“ When Sinfjötli was of age to help him, they proceed to vengeance, and burn the treacherous brother-in-law alive, with all his followers. Sigmund then regains his father’s kingdom, and in extreme old age dies in battle against the sons of King Hunding. Just as he was about to turn the fight, a warrior of more than mortal might, a one-eyed man in a blue cloak, with a flapping hat, rose up against him spear in hand. At that outstretched spear Sigmund smites with his trusty sword. It snaps in twain. Then he knows that his luck is gone ”

“ When Big Peter got home again, he was so wroth and mad against Little Peter, he threatened to strike him dead there and then; he needn’t hope for mercy, die he must.
“Well! well!” said Little Peter, “that’s the way we must all trudge, and betwixt to-day and to-morrow, there’s only a night to come. But if I must set off now, I’ve only one thing to ask; stuff me into that sack that hangs yonder, and take and toss me into the river.”
Well! Big Peter had nothing to say against that, he stuffed him into the sack and set off. ”

“ Once on a time there was a king, and he had a daughter who was such a scold, and whose tongue went so fast, there was no stopping it. So he gave out that the man who could stop her tongue should have the Princess to wife, and half his kingdom into the bargain. Now, three brothers, who heard this, made up their minds to go and try their luck; and first of all the two elder went, for they thought they were the cleverest; but they couldn’t cope with her at all, and got well thrashed besides. ”

“ In the castle kitchen a great fire was blazing, and Halvor went into it, but such a kitchen he had never seen in all his born days. It was so grand and fine; there were vessels of silver and vessels of gold, but still never a living soul. So when Halvor had stood there a while and no one came out, he went and opened a door, and there inside sat a Princess who span upon a spinning-wheel.
“Nay, nay, now!” she called out, “dare Christian folk come hither? But now you’d best be off about your business, if you don’t want the Troll to gobble you up; for here lives a Troll with three heads.” ”

“ But next day, when the wedding was to be, the Prince said:
“First of all, I’d like to see what my bride is fit for.”
“Yes!” said the step-mother, with all her heart.
“Well”, said the Prince, “I’ve got a fine shirt which I’d like for my wedding shirt, but some how or other it has got three spots of tallow on it, which I must have washed out; and I have sworn never to take any other bride than the woman who’s able to do that. If she can’t, she’s not worth having.” ”

“ This is what our Western Brahmins say; but if they remembered that He who set sun and moon also planted the eye and ear, that he gave sense, and speech, and mind; if they considered that faith is a lively thing, elastic and expansive; that it embraces a thousand or a million years as easily as a moment of time; that bonds cannot fetter it, nor distance darken and dismay it; that it is given to man to grow with his growth and strengthen with his strength; that it rises at doubts and difficulties, and surmounts them ”

“ To them belonged all the universe that had not been seized and reclaimed by the younger race of Odin and Aesir; and though this upstart dynasty, as the Frost Giants in Promethean phrase would have called it, well knew that Hel, one of this giant progeny, was fated to do them all mischief, and to outlive them, they took her and made her queen of Niflheim, and mistress over nine worlds. There, in a bitterly cold place, she received the souls of all who died of sickness or old age; care was her bed, hunger her dish, starvation her knife. ”

“ Brave men and fair women, who cling to the traditions of their forefathers, and whose memory reflects as from the faithful mirror of their native steel the whole history and progress of their race—when all these natural features, and such a manly race meet; then we have the stuff out of which these tales are made, the living rocks out of which these sharp-cut national forms are hewn. Then, too, our task of introducing them is over, we may lay aside our pen, and leave the reader and the tales to themselves. ”

“ The science of comparative philology—the inquiry, not into one isolated language—for nowadays it may fairly be said of a man who knows only one language that he knows none—but into all the languages of one family, and thus to reduce them to one common centre, from which they spread like the rays of the sun—if it has not solved, is in a fair way of solving, this problem. When we have done for the various members of each family what has been done of late years for the Indo-European tongues, its solution will be complete. ”

“ We in the West have got beyond fables and apologues, but we are only now collecting our popular tales. In Somadeva’s time the simple tale no longer sufficed; it had to be fitted into and arranged with others, with an art and dexterity which is really marvellous; and so cleverly is this done, that it requires a mind of no little cultivation, and a head of more than ordinary clearness, to carry without confusion all the wheels within wheels, and fables within fables, which spring out of the original story as it proceeds. ”

“ Boots begged to go and see the sight, but the two wouldn’t hear of his going with them. When they got to the hill there was no one who could get so much as a yard up it; and now all waited for the knight in silver mail, but they neither saw nor heard of him. At last came one riding on a steed, so brave that no one had ever seen his match; and the knight had a suit of golden mail, and a golden saddle and bridle, so wondrous bright that the sunbeams gleamed from them a mile off. ”

“ In the Eddas the natural powers have been partly subdued, partly thrust on one side, for a time, by Odin and the Aesir, by the Great Father and his children, by One Supreme and twelve subordinate gods, who rule for an appointed time, and over whom hangs an impending fate, which imparts a charm of melancholy to this creed, which has clung to the race who once believed in it long after the creed itself has vanished before the light of Christianity. ”

“ To that love and adoration and awe, throughout the middle age, one woman, transfigured into a divine shape, succeeded by a sort of natural right, and round the Virgin Mary’s blessed head a halo of lovely tales of divine help, beams with soft radiance as a crown bequeathed to her by the ancient goddesses. ”

“ The third day, at dawn, the Giant went off to the wood again with his goats; but before he went he said to the Prince:
“To-day you must go to Hell and fetch my fire-tax. When you have done that you can rest yourself all day, for you must know it is an easy master you have come to”; and with that off he went.
“Easy master, indeed!” said the Prince. “You may be easy, but you set me hard tasks all the same. But I may as well see if I can find your Mastermaid, as you call her. I daresay she’ll tell me what to do” ”