parts of Germany demands tribute of human life, are all forms of the ancient Nicor; but more genuine perhaps,—certainly more pleasing,—is the Swedish Stromkarl, who from the jewelled bed of his river, watches with delight the children gambol in the adjoining meadows, and singing sweetly to them in the evening, detaches from his hoary hair the sweet blossoms of the water-lily, which he wafts over the surface to their hands. ----- Footnote 721: Beówulf, _passim_. Footnote 722: The fisherman in Ælfric’s dialogue disclaims any intention of whale-fishing, on account of its dangers. Thorpe, Anal. p. 24. ----- HEL.—Among the fearful beings whose power was dreaded even by the gods, was Hel, mistress of the cold and joyless under-world. Called, through the fate of battle, to the glories of Wælheal, the Teutonic or Norse hero trembled at a peaceful death which would consign him to a dwelling more desolate and wretched than even that which awaited the fallen warriors of heroic Greece[723], and many a legend tells of those whose own hand saved them from a futurity so abhorred[724]. But Hel was not herself the agent of _death_; she only received those who had not earned their seat in Oþinn’s hall by a heroic fall, and the Wælcyrian or Shieldmays were the choosers of the slain. The realm of Hel was all that Wælheal was not,—cold, cheerless, shadowy; no simulated war was _there_, from which the combatants desisted with renovated strength and glory; no capacious quaighs of mead, or cups of the life-giving wine; no feast continually enjoyed and miraculously reproduced; no songs nor narratives of noble deeds; no expectation of the last great battle where the _einherjar_ were to accompany Allfather to meet his gigantic antagonists; no flashing Shieldmays animating the brave with their discourse, and lightening the hall with their splendour: but chill and ice, frost and darkness; shadowy realms without a sun, without song or wine or feast, or the soul-inspiring company of heroes, glorying in the great deeds of their worldly life. ----- Footnote 723: Odyssey, book xi. Footnote 724: