When we appeal to Archæology, we find in the neighbourhood of the Black Sea, near to the old Greek settlement, graves similar to those of the North, containing ornaments and other relics also remarkably like those found in the ancient graves of Scandinavia. The Runes of the North remind us strikingly of the characters of Archaic Greek. If we follow the river Dnieper upwards from its mouth in the Black Sea, we see in the museums of Kief and Smolensk many objects of types exactly similar to those found in the graves of the North. When we reach the Baltic we find on its eastern shores the Gardariki of the Sagas, where, we are told, the Odin of the North placed one of his sons, and on the southern shores many specimens have been discovered similar to those obtained in Scandinavia. In the following chapters the reader will be struck by the similarity of the customs of the Norsemen with those of the ancient Greeks as recorded by Homer and Herodotus; for example, the horse was very much sacrificed in the North, and Herodotus, describing the Massagetæ, says: “They (the Massagetæ) worship the sun only of all the gods, and sacrifice horses to him” (I. 216). In regard to the Jutes, Jutland = Jöts, Jötnar; Jötland, Jötunheim, we find them from the Sagas to be a very ancient land and people, and meet several countries bearing kindred names—even to this day we have Göteborg, in which the _G_ is pronounced as English _Y_. From the Roman, Greek, Frankish, Russian, English, and Arabic records, we must come to the conclusion that the “Viking Age” lasted from about the second century of our era to about the middle of the twelfth without interruption, hence the title given to the work which deals with the history and customs of our English forefathers during that period. CHAPTER IV. THE MYTHOLOGY AND COSMOGONY OF THE NORSEMEN. The three poems giving the mythology and cosmogony of the North—The Völuspa, Vafthrudnismal, Grimnismal, the Asar, Jötnar, and Thursar—Odin and Vafthrudnir—The nine worlds—Before the creation—The origin of the Hrim Thursar—Birth of Ymir—Birth of Odin—Vili and Ve—The ash Yggdrasil—The well of wisdom—Hel, one of the nine worlds—The bridge Bifröst—Heimdall—Bergelmir born before the creation—The Jötun—Ymir slain by Odin—The deluge of blood—Creation of the world—Divisions of time—End of the world—A new world. In the three poems called _Völuspa_, _Vafthrudnismal_, and _Grimnismal_, we have the earliest accounts of the cosmogony and of the mythology of the people of the North. The grand central figure in the mythology is Odin. He and his kin formed the people known as Asar in the lore and literature of the North, and were treated as gods. These poems are too long to be given here in full, but in the following pages we have endeavoured, by means of extracts, to give a more or less consecutive account of the subjects with which they deal.