And a little farther, when Calidore gazes on the "hundred naked maidens lily white," that danced around the Graces, he wist not Whether it were the train of beauty's queen, Or Nymphs or Faeries, or enchanted show, With which his eyes mote have deluded been.--St. xvii. The popular Elves, who dance their circlets on the green, were evidently here in Spenser's mind.[88] It is now, we think, if not certain, at least highly probable, that the Fairy-land and the Fairies of Spenser are those of romance, to which the term Fairy properly belongs, and that it is without just reason that the title of his poem has been styled a _misnomer_.[89] After the appearance of his Faerie Queene, all distinction between the different species was rapidly lost, and Fairies became the established name of the popular Elves. Here, then, we will take our leave of the potent ladies of romance, and join the Elves of the popular creed, tracing their descent from the Duergar of northern mythology, till we meet them enlivening the cottage fireside with the tales of their pranks and gambols. FOOTNOTES: [87] That is, _elfe_ is _alive_. [88] These Fairies thus coupled with Nymphs remind us of the Fairies of the old translators. Spenser, in the Shepherd's Calendar, however, had united them before, as Nor elvish ghosts nor ghastly owls do flee, But friendly _Faeries_ met with many Graces, And light-foot _Nymphs_.--Æg. 6. [89] "Spenser's _Fairy Queen_, which is one of the grossest misnomers in romance or history, bears no features of the Fairy nation."--Gifford, note on B. Jonson, vol. ii. p. 202. EDDAS AND SAGAS. En sång om strålende Valhalla, Om Gudar och Gudinnar alla. TEGNER. A song of Vallhall's bright abodes, Of all the goddesses and gods. The ancient religion of Scandinavia, and probably of the whole Gotho-German race, consisted, like all other systems devised by man, in personifications of the various powers of nature and faculties of mind. Of this system in its fulness and perfection we possess no record. It is only from the poems of the elder or poetic Edda,[90] from the narratives of the later or prose Edda and the various Sagas or histories written in the Icelandic language,[91] that we can obtain any knowledge of it. The poetic or Sæmund's Edda was, as is generally believed, collected about the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century by an Icelander named Sæmund, and styled Hinns Fròda, or The Wise. It consists of a number of mythological and historical songs, the production of the ancient Scalds or poets, all, or the greater part, composed before the introduction of Christianity into the north. The measure of these venerable songs is alliterative rime, and they present not unfrequently poetic beauties of a high and striking character.[92]