dominions, who had resolved to destroy him: that magician was to be known by this token—that no dog would bark at him. The royal command was therefore given that dogs should be set on all who approached the palace, and whomsoever they refused to assail should be brought before him. A man, covered with a blue peltz, was brought before him and questioned; but the stranger would return no other answer than that he was called Grimner. In great wrath, the king placed him between two great fires—an infallible way of discovering a wizard—and commanded that he should receive no food. There he remained eight days and eight nights, suffering from the heat and from thirst, when Agner, the son of Geirrod, a boy of ten years, took pity on him, and presented him with a full horn, observing that his father did wrong thus to punish a guiltless man. Here the piece opens: Odin exclaims that the fire is hot; and prophesies that the royal youth shall, for this service, soon hold the sceptre of the Goths. He then proceeds—somewhat oddly, only immortal beings may be privileged to say or do what they please—to describe in succession the twelve mansions of heaven. (To this description we shall afterwards advert, when we endeavour to explain the cosmogony of the Scandinavians.) He ended by declaring who he was; and that the death of Geirrod was at hand. In great fear, the king arose to release the divine speaker; but stumbling, the point of his sword entered his body, and Agner was immediately proclaimed. As many poems on the Edda will hereafter occupy our attention, we shall only observe that the _Alvis-mâl_, or song concerning the dwarf Alvis; the _Hyndlu-liod_, or song concerning Hyndla; and the _Fiolsvinns-mâl_, or story about Fiolsvinr, are of the same class, and equally conversant with mythological subjects. The second of these also mentions the names of some Norwegian jarls who traced their origin to a divine source. The _Hava-mâl_, or sublime discourse of Odin, concludes this class of poems. It consists partly of moral precepts, some of which are very good; while others are dictated by a mind more cunning than wise; and partly of the wonderful powers attached to certain runes. For the latter we have no taste; of the former, half a dozen specimens may be given. “Remain not long a guest in the house of another; for he who does so becomes a burden to his host.” “A secret can be kept by _one_ person only,—by him whom it concerns. If two know it, there is danger; if three know it, it is no longer a secret.” “Be thou the friend of thy friend’s friend, and in no wise the friend of thine enemy’s friend.” “If thou hast a true friend, and keepest nothing from him, join thy heart with his, exchange gifts with him, and visit him often. The path untrodden is soon overgrown.”