choose a husband from among them, not seeing more than their feet. She saw a pair of very beautiful feet, and said: ‘This one I choose; few things can be ugly in Baldr.’ But it was Njörd of Nóatún.” (Later Edda, Bragarœdur, c. 56.) CHAPTER VI. ODIN OF THE NORTH. The Odin of the North—The forefathers of the English—Their migration from the shores of the Black sea—The geographical knowledge of the Norsemen—Tyrkland the home of Odin—Sigrlami, one of the sons of Odin—Odin establishes his family in the North—Death of Odin in the North—Attributes of Odin—Poetical names of Odin—Sleipnir, the horse of Odin—Odin as a one-eyed man. In the Norse literature we find Odin referred to not only as a god, but as a hero and leader of men. It is not necessary to believe that any real person of the name of Odin ever existed, but from the frequency with which a migration northwards is mentioned, and from the details with which it is described, it is legitimate to infer that the predecessor of the Norsemen came from the south or south-east of Europe—probably, to judge from literature and archæology combined, from the shores of the Black Sea. At the time of Odin’s arrival in the North we find not only a country called Gardariki, which is often mentioned in the Sagas, and seems to have adjoined the south-eastern shores of the Baltic, but also the large Scandinavian peninsula and that of Jutland, and the islands and shores of the Baltic, populated by a seafaring people whose tribes had constant intercourse with each other, and, to judge by the finds, seem to have had an identical religion. These people intermarried with the Asar who came north with Odin, and hence arose tribes called half-Risar and half-Troll. “It is written in old books that Alfheimar[78] were north in Gandvik and Ymisland, between it and Hálogaland. And before the Tyrkjar and Asia-men came to the Northern lands, Risar and half-Risar lived there; then the nations (peoples) were much mixed together; the Risar got wives from Mannheimar, and some of them married their daughters there” (Hervarar Saga, ch. i.). The account given in the Hervarar Saga agrees with that in the Ynglinga Saga, which is important not only as giving an idea of the conception the people of the North had of our world, but as describing the names of the lands and countries mentioned in the earlier Eddas and Sagas.