The most distinctive traits of this mythologyĪre a peculiar grim humour, to be found in the religion of no other race, and a dark thread of tragedy which runs throughout Undoubtedly Northern mythology has exercised a deep influence upon our customs, laws, and language, and there has been, therefore,Ī great unconscious inspiration flowing from these into English literature. Of the mental equipment of the northern peoples in proportion as the native literature and tradition have been neglected. Supplanted the native genius, so that the alien mythology and literature of Greece and Rome have formed an increasing part The introduction of Christianity into the North brought with it the influence of the Classical races, and this eventually It is a greatness not of mere body and gigantic bulk, but a rude greatness of soul.” 3 Great spirit, and placed them upon a high level that is all their own.” 2 “In fact these old Norse songs have a truth in them, an inward perennial truth and greatness. “a spirit of victory, superior to brute force, superior to mere matter, a spirit that fights and overcomes.” 1 “Even were some part of the matter of their myths taken from others, yet the Norsemen have given their gods a noble, upright, Neither is itĭue to anything weak in the conception of the deities themselves, for although they may not rise to great spiritual heights,įoremost students of Icelandic literature agree that they stand out rude and massive as the Scandinavian mountains. Romance and race-imagination, rugged though it be, as the more graceful and idyllic mythology of the South.
Of their religious beliefs is enshrined, for it may safely be asserted that the Edda is as rich in the essentials of national The long neglect of these precious records of our heathen ancestors is not the fault of the material in which all that survives The prime importance of the rude fragments of poetry preserved in early Icelandic literature will now be disputed by none,īut there has been until recent times an extraordinary indifference to the wealth of religious tradition and mythical lore Frithiof Watches the Sleeping King ( Knut Ekwall) 324.Frithiof at the Court of Ring ( Knut Ekwall) 320.Frithiof at the Shrine of Balder ( Knut Ekwall) 318.Frithiof’s Return to Framnäs ( Knut Ekwall) 316.Ingeborg Watches her Lover Depart ( Knut Ekwall) 312.Frithiof Cleaves the Shield of Helgé ( Knut Ekwall) 308.Aslaug ( Gertrude Demain Hammond, R.I.) 282.Loki and Svadilfari ( Dorothy Hardy) 222.The Death of Balder ( Dorothy Hardy) 206.
The Road to Valhalla ( Severin Nilsson) 182.The Swan-Maiden ( Gertrude Demain Hammond, R.I.) 174.The Binding of Fenris ( Dorothy Hardy) 92.Norsemen Landing in Iceland ( Oscar Wergeland) Frontispiece.
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