[Footnote 1: The word Runes is here used in its original signification,--that of mystery or secret. Each letter of the Runic alphabet was supposed to possess a mysterious and magical power. In the Scandinavian mythology, each Rune was originally dedicated to some deity; it also denoted some natural quality or object: their Asiatic origin is now proved beyond doubt. There is a remarkable poem in the elder Edda--the Song of Brynhildé, in which mention is made of several kinds of Runes. Among them may be classed numerous amulets of most of the Asiatic tribes, as well as of the Egyptians, Greeks, &c., on which these characters were cut or traced. The custom among sailors of marking their skins with letters and devices may clearly be traced to Runic origin, and the tattooing among savage tribes is evidently similarly derived. In Wilson's account of the Pelew Islands, King Abba Thulé is represented as tattooed with two crosses on the breast and two on one shoulder, with a snake, and these distinct northern Runes [Illustration of rune]. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, when superstition dragged her victims to the stake throughout all Christian Europe, the use of Runes became an especial object for the persecutions exercised by the authorities and clergy of Iceland,--the word Rune there signifying a mysterious and magical character. The songs of the Finns and Laps, which are supposed by them to possess magic powers, are still called Runes.--_Translator_. Vide _Professor Finn Magnussen's Notes to the Elder Edda_, vol. iii.]