his companions in arms, and not to vie with him in martial exploits was disgraceful to the soldiers. If he died on the field of battle, he who survived lived a life of contempt and infamy. The field of danger was the field of glory; death was hailed as a supreme reward; the fallen warrior was received into the hall of Valhallah, to sit in pomp and glory with Odin, to dwell with gods and heroes in festivity and triumph and song for evermore! Marriage among the Saxons was considered a strictly sacred institution, and polygamy was altogether unknown. The dowry of the bride was received from the husband; the whole fortune consisted of oxen, a caparisoned horse, a shield, and a sword. By these presents she was reminded of her own domestic duties, and those of her husband and children in war. Thus from simple manners and unsophisticated habits, the married state became one of affection and constancy; female virtue was protected from the lures of the voluptuary and the craft of the seducer; no public spectacles to excite her passions, no baits of pleasure to disarm her innocence.1 Vice was not treated by the Germans as a subject of raillery, nor, as at Rome, was the profligacy of corrupting and of being corrupted the elegant accomplishment of the age. Unlike the licentious Romans, also, with one husband, as with one life, one mind, one body, every woman was satisfied; in him her sole pride and happiness were centred; her heart's devotions extended no further; and this principle was not only an affection for her husband's person, but a sacred obligation, and a reverence for the married state. To adopt the attachments and animosities of parents and relatives, to resent all mutual affront as a personal injury, and to avenge oppression on the head of the oppressor, was held a sacred, an indispensable duty. Hospitality and convivial pleasure were no where so liberally and universally enjoyed; to refuse admittance to a stranger was an insult to humanity. What formed their chiefest expectation in Valhallah, formed their principal terrestrial delight. The convivial moment, according to their notions, was the true season for deliberation and urgent business in war or legislation, for then "the mind opens itself in plain simplicity, or grows warm with bold and noble ideas." But, first and foremost of all, they inherited an unchanging and unquenchable love of liberty. They were free, because they inhabited vast wildernesses, rude forests, and gigantic mountains. Liberty is the sole treasure of an indigent people, and is therefore grasped the more eagerly: a poor country does not excite the avidity of the conqueror, and they who possess it defend it easily. They were free, because untrammelled by those pleasures often so dearly bought, rendering the protection of a powerful master an absolute necessity. They were free, because hunters and shep 1 Seneca inveighs strongly against public spectacles, as injurious to public morality: "Nihil vero est tam damnosum bonis moribus, quam in aliquo spectaculo desidere. Tunc enim per voluptatem facilius vitia surripiunt. Quid existimas dicere? Avarior redeo, ambitiosior, luxuriosior !"-SENECA, epist. vii. E herds of the hills and forests are not oppressed like the timorous and pusillanimous inhabitants of towns; and because a wandering, unsettled people, if deprived of liberty in one place, will command it in another. Lastly, they were free, because from their contempt for gold, there could not be employed against them that potent instrument of slavery and corruption, which enables the proud and ambitious to collect and distribute at will the emblems of his power. Further, that spirit of liberty, produced partly by climate, partly by their rustic and military life, had acquired new strength from the opinions and principles it had inculcated: in effect, esteeming beyond all things the duty of revenging an affront, the glory of despising death and perishing sword in hand, they were always ready to attack tyranny, in the first who dared to attempt it, and in whatever terrible attitude it appeared.' Such, nearly two thousand years ago, were the brave, heroic, and noble race of men (noble and brave even amidst savage barbarism and dreadful superstition), who, from the vast forests of Germany, the mountains of the Rhine, and the broad valleys of Denmark, invaded this country and expelled its ancient people, and from whom the present race of Englishmen are directly descended, inheriting all the virtues, and not a few of the vices, of their ancestors. Of the religion of the ancient conquerors of Britain it may suffice to say, that they taught the existence of a Supreme Being, master of the universe, to whom all things were submissive and obedient, "the Author of every thing that existeth, the eternal, the ancient, the living, and awful Being, the Searcher into concealed things, the Being that never changeth." They were not even to think of confining him within the enclosure of walls, or "temples made with hands," but were taught that only in woods, and consecrated places, beneath the boundless canopy of heaven, could they properly serve and adore him. Each element was also under the guidance of some being peculiar to it. The earth, the water, the fire, the air, the sun, the moon, the stars, had each their respective divinity. The trees, forests, rivers, mountains, rocks, woods, thunder, and tempests, obeyed a similar guardian influence, meriting on that score a religious worship, not directed in the first instance to the visible object, but to the intelligence with which it was animated. These were emanations from Odin, or Woden; they were all obedient and subservient to his behest; "ministrant angels," over whom he was chief and lord. The belief of a future state of rewards and punishments cemented and completed this rude structure of superstition. The place of torture was called Niflheim. This consisted of nine worlds, reserved for those who died of old age or disease, which were held as a reproach among the Saxons. Thus when Siward, the celebrated earl of Northumbria (of whom we shall speak afterwards), was at the point of death, he exclaimed: "Oh! what a shame it is for me, who have escaped death in so many See Montesquieu, L'Esprit des Loir, tom. ii., and Mallet's Northern Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 139, 140. 2 Edda. dangerous battles, to die like a beast at last! Put me on my impenetrable coat of mail," he said, "gird on my sword, place on my helmet, give me my shield in my right hand, and my battle-axe in my left; thus as a valiant soldier I have lived, even so I will die." His friends had no sooner obeyed the injunction, than, after expressing his satisfaction, he fell back and immediately expired. In the place of torture, Niflheim, Hela, or Death, exercised despotic power; Loké, the evil spirit, presided; the palace was Anguish, the threshold Precipice, the bed Leanness, and it was the abode of cowards, adulterers, assassins, and wicked men. "On the shores of the dead bodies remote from the sun," says the Edda," there is a spacious and dismal hall, with its gates wide open to the northern winds. The walls are wattled with snakes, whose heads look inward and vomit poison. Rivers of this poison rush through the hall, which the unhappy are forced to pass." Hela, who presides over those regions, is a frightful and horrible figure; one-half of her frame is blue, the other of a livid colour; her aspect is fierce and terrible; her temper unrelenting and cruel. Those only whose blood had been shed in battle might aspire to the raptures which Odin prepared for warriors and heroes in the hall of Valhallah. The pleasures anticipated after death shew plainly what they relished during life. "The heroes," says the Edda, "received into the palace of Odin, have every day the pleasure of arming themselves, of passing in review, of ranging 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 Scrimner is sufficient for them all; every day it is served up at table, and every day it is renewed again entire. Their beverage is beer and mead; one single goat, whose milk is excellent, furnishing enough of that liquor to exhilarate all the heroes; the cups from which they drink are the skulls of their enemies slain in battle. who sits at a table by himself, drinks wine for his entire liquor." Odin alone, In the celebrated death-song of Regner Lodbrog2 (rival of his contemporary Charlemagne as well in warlike renown as extent of conquest), said to have been chanted by that unfortunate chieftain whilst imprisoned amongst serpents by command of Ella, king of Northumbria, and who had previously overrun great part of England, 1 Edda, Iceland. Mytho. pp. 31, 33, 34, 35. 2 Regner Lodbrog was one of the most renowned heroes, accomplished poets, and successful wooers of his age. Some of his love-poems are extant; and descriptions of his amours with the Princess Thora and the beautiful nymph Aslauga, are yet celebrated in Icelandic verse. In his Quida will be found abundant allusions of this kind. For instance : : "We have fought with our swords, hurrah! I've seen dawn gild the tresses Of lover in his lingering stay 'Mid the blushing girl's caresses— Scotland, Ireland, the Western and Orkney Isles, the Low Countries, Norway, Sweden, western and southern Russia, Vandalia, the countries round the Hellespont, &c.,-in that celebrated song (with my version of which I here present the reader, as near the original prose extracts in Mallet's Edda as possible) will be found a large tincture of the ancient Saxon superstition; and it is now inserted for the purpose of exhibiting the wild and heroic spirit of their heroes, even in the midst of cruel torments and on the point of death: 66 DEATH-SONG OF REGNER LODBROG. We fought with our swords: yea, when joyous hearts were bounding, O'er the eastern deeps with warrior-glee I went; For the tawny eagle and fierce wolves far-sounding, For th' avenging gods, a dread repast I sent : Then the billows round our ships were all red with gory rain, And the vultures grimly fed on the corpses of the slain. We fought with our swords in that ghastly day of battle, When Helsinga's furious hosts were dismiss'd to Odin's hall; With our good broad swords we crash'd through the armour of our foes, We fought with our swords on Valdefur's promontory, On proud helms and stately plumes rang our shafts a knell of glory, We fought with our swords, when to Hela's gloomy portal I drove presumptuous Harald (of his flowing tresses proud, He who wiled the blushing maidens with his love-songs more than mortal, To whose might-compelling arms Norway's best and boldest bow'd); But in glorious fight to fall is the portion of the brave; Who in battle nobly dies, wins a consecrated grave! Ha, ha! the morn when fell King Aurn Found us at other pleasure; A crimson bath, as of warm wine borne By a maid in a silver measure, Was our delight that day." The above is from a spirit-stirring version of the ode, in Blackwood's Magazine for June 1833, and is followed by an article on the subject of Regner Lodbrog's exploits, abounding in information. See also Mallet's Northern Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 172-175. We fought with our swords in the Saxon's mountain-dwelling, We fought with our swords; all the southern isles were gory, We fought with our swords on Northumbria's craggy mountains, Yet though hemm'd by countless thousands, we crimson'd Cleveland's fountains, We fought with our swords :-O, with joy my soul is burning, To dwell in pomp for ever with them who bravely fall: Be accursed the craven coward who would shun the shock of war, We fought with our swords :—what fell demons cling around me !- To black Ella's tyrant-heart drive the death-compelling spear.1 'The conduct of Ivar, Siward, and Biorn, on hearing of the cruel death of their father, has been recorded by the Icelandic historians. Ivar was presiding at the celebration of some solemn game. He did not change countenance, commanded the affrighted actors to proceed with the sports, and remained to the last without exhibiting any external expression of grief. Siward heard the news as he stood with his short spear in his hand, prepared for hunting: to distract and confound his mental anguish by physical agony, he struck the javelin into his foot. The news reached Biorn as he was playing at dice. To subdue his emotion, he grasped the die so hard that the blood spurted from his fingers' ends:—“ ubi nimirum fortunæ jactum ipsá quam versebat aleá leviorem esse didicit.” It is hard to say whether the death of Regner or that of Ella was the most horrible. They seized their enemy at York; and, in the words of Saxo," comprehensi ipsius dorsum plagá aquilonem figurante afficitur,” or “cutting the eagle," a barbarous northern custom. They thrust the sword in at the back of the neck, thence carrying it round either shoulder-blade and down the back-bone, detaching everything as they went along; then they wrenched off the ribless spine, with the scapula hanging at each side like a bird's wings (hence the name), and finished the horrid butchery by tearing the entrails from the carcass, with which they fed their dogs. For this |