common foes of both, the earthly race of giants, or, in other words, the chaotic natural powers. Any one, therefore, that desires to see what manner of men his forefathers were in their relation to the gods, how they conceived their theogony, how they imagined and constructed their cosmogony, must betake himself to the Eddas, as illustrated by the Sagas, and he will there find ample details on all these points; while the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic literatures only throw out vague hints and allusions. As we read Beowulf and the Traveler’s Song, for instance, we meet at every step references to mythological stories and mythical events, which would be utterly unintelligible were it not for the full light thrown upon them by the Icelandic literature. Thus far Dasent’s opinion. The Norse mythology, we say, then, shows what the religion of our ancestors was; and their religion is the main fact that we care to know about them. Knowing this well, we can easily account for the rest. Their religion is the soul of their history. Their religion tells us what they felt; their feelings produced their thoughts, and their thoughts were the parents of their acts. When we study their religion, we discover the unseen and spiritual fountain from which all their outward acts welled forth, and by which the character of these was determined. The mythology is neither the history nor the poetry nor the natural philosophy of our ancestors; but it is the germ and nucleus of them all. It _is_ history, for it treats of events; but it is _not_ history in the ordinary acceptance of that word, for the persons figuring therein have never existed. It _is_ natural philosophy, for it investigates the origin of nature; but it is _not_ natural philosophy according to modern ideas, for it personifies and deifies nature. It _is_ metaphysics, for it studies the science and the laws of being; but it is _not_ metaphysics in our sense of the word, for it rapidly overleaps all categories. It is poetry in its very essence; but its pictures are streams that flow together. Thus the Norse mythology is history, but limited to neither time nor place; poetry, but independent of arses or theses; philosophy, but without abstractions or syllogisms. We close this chapter with the following extract from Thomas Carlyle’s essays on Heroes and Hero-worship; an extract that undoubtedly will be read with interest and pleasure: