Produced by Chris Curnow, Sonya Schermann, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) EPICS AND ROMANCES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: FRONTISPIECE.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Epics and Romances Of the Middle Ages. ADAPTED FROM THE WORK OF DR. W. WÄGNER BY M. W. MACDOWALL, AND EDITED BY W. S. W. ANSON, _Editor of Dr. Wägner’s “Asgard and the Gods: the Tales and Traditions of our Northern Ancestors.”_ SECOND EDITION. _WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS._ LONDON: W. SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. 1884. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BUTLER & TANNER, THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS, FROME, AND LONDON. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] INTRODUCTION. Legend is not history; but in legend we find embodied historical truths, manners and customs of past ages, beliefs and superstitions otherwise long forgotten, of which history itself takes no account. Legend has preserved for us, maybe in romantic dress, maybe under altered names and circumstances, stirring pictures of heroes and heroines, who once have lived and suffered, fought and conquered, or have faced death with trustful courage; pictures, too, of men of equal prowess, as strong in evil as in might, who, victorious for a time, have yet ever met a stronger power than theirs, stronger in virtue, stronger in might. As we write, the shadowy forms of terrific Alboin raising aloft his goblet fashioned from royal skull; the noble Siegfried with his loved Chriemhild and the jealous Brunhild; brave King Dietrich; the gentle, patient Gudrun and her beauteous mother Hilde, all flit before the mind, framing themselves into a vivid picture, such as must have lived in the imagination of our early forefathers, stirring them on to noble actions, restraining them from evil working. Thus has good in all ages fought against ill, and all races of men have sung its victory in strains but slightly varying. And so will it ever fight, no matter how our more elaborate ideas of what is good or evil may vary: the nation always glorifies the great and noble according to its own unreasoning reason.