rated from the mass, marked round by sacred landmarks, by primeval oaks on which they cut the figures of birds and beasts, by poles set up in the midst of the marsh, which whosoever removed was punished with merciless tortures. In vain these Marches and Ga's1 were grouped into states, and finally formed a half-regulated society, with assemblies and laws, under the lead of a single king; its very structure indicates the necessities to supply which it was created. They united in order to maintain peace; treaties of peace occupy their Parliaments; provisions for peace are the matter of their laws. War was waged daily and everywhere; the aim of life was, not to be slain, ransomed, mutilated, pillaged, hung and of course, if it was a woman, violated:2 Every man was obliged to appear armed, and to be ready, with his burgh or his township, to repel marauders, who went about in bands; one such consisted of thirty-five and more. The animal was yet too powerful, too impetuous, too untamed. Anger and covetousness in the first place brought him upon his prey. Their history, such as that of the Heptarchy, is like a history of kites and crows.' They slew the Britons or reduced them to slavery, fought the remnant of the Welsh, Irish, and Picts, massacred one another, were hewn down and cut to pieces by the Danes. In a hundred years, out of fourteen kings of Northumbria, seven were slain and six deposed. Penda of Mercia killed five kings, and in order to win the town of Bamborough, demolished all the neighbouring villages, heaped their ruins into an immense pile, sufficient to burn all the inhabitants, undertook to exterminate the Northumbrians, and perished himself by the sword at the age of eighty. Many amongst them were put to death by the thanes; one thane was burned alive; brothers slew one another treacherously. With us civilisation has interposed, between the desire and its fulfilment, the counteracting and softening preventive of reflection and calculation; here, the impulse is sudden, and murder and every kind of excess spring from it instantaneously. King Edwy1 having married Elgiva, his relation within the prohibited degrees, quitted the hall where he was drinking on the very day of his coronation, to be with her. The nobles thought themselves insulted, and immediately Abbot Dunstan went himself to seek the young man. 'He found the adulteress,' says the monk Osbern, 'her mother, and the king together on the bed of debauch. He dragged the king thence violently, and setting the crown upon his head, brought 1 A large district; the word is still existing in German, as Rheingau, Breisgau. -TR. 2 Turner, Hist. of the Anglo-Sax. ii. 440, Laws of Ina. 3 Milton's expression. Lingard's History, i. chap. 3. This history bears much resemblance to that of the Franks in Gaul. See Gregory of Tours. The Saxons, like the Franks, were somewhat softened, but above all depraved, and were pillaged and massacred by those of their northern brothers who had remained in a savage state. 4 Vita S. Dunstani, Anglia Sacra, ii. 2 him back to the nobles.' Afterwards Elgiva sent men to deprive Dunstan of his eyes, and then, in a revolt, saved herself and the king by hiding in the country; but the men of the North having seized her, 'hamstrung her, and then subjected her to the death which she deserved." Barbarity follows barbarity. At Bristol, at the time of. the Conquest, as we are told by an historian of the time, it was the custom to buy men and women in all parts of England, and to carry them to Ireland for sale. The buyers usually made the women pregnant, and took them to market in that condition, in order to ensure a better price. You might have seen with sorrow long files of young people of both sexes and of the greatest beauty, bound with ropes, and daily exposed for sale. . . . They sold in this manner as slaves their nearest relatives, and even their own children.' And the chronicler adds that, having abandoned this practice, they 'thus set an example to all the rest of England.' Would you know the manners of the highest ranks, in the family of the last king ? At a feast in the king's hall, Harold was serving Edward the Confessor with wine, when Tostig, his brother, stimulated by envy at his favour, seized him by the hair. They were separated. Tostig went to Hereford, where Harold had ordered a great royal banquet to be prepared. There he seized his brother's attendants, and cutting off their heads and limbs, he placed them in the vessels of wine, ale, mead, and cider, and sent a message to the king: 'If you go to your farm, you will find there plenty of salt meat, but you will do well to carry some more with you.' Harold's other brother, Sweyn, had violated the abbess Elgiva, assassinated Beorn the thane, and being banished from the country, had turned pirate. When we regard their deeds of violence, their ferocity, their cannibal jests, we see that they were not far removed from the sea-kings, or from the followers of Odin, who ate raw flesh, hung men as victims on the sacred trees of Upsal, and killed one another to make sure of dying as they had lived, in blood. A score of times the old ferocious instinct reappears beneath the thin crust of Christianity. In the eleventh century, Sigeward, the great Duke of Northumberland, was afflicted with a dysentery; and feeling his death near, exclaimed, 'What a shame for me not to have been permitted to die in so many battles, and to end thus by a cow's death! At least put on my breastplate, gird on my sword, set my helmet on my head, my shield in my left hand, my golden battle-axe in my right, 4 1 It is amusing to compare the story of Edwy and Elgiva in Turner, ii. 216, etc., and then in Lingard, i. 132, etc. The first accuses Dunstan, the other defends him.-TR. 2 Life of Bishop Wolstan. 3 Tantæ sævitiæ erant fratres illi quod, cum alicujus nitidam villam conspicerent, dominatorem de nocte interfici juberent, totamque progeniem illius possessionemque defuncti obtinerent. Turner, iii. 27. Henry of Huntingdon, vi. 367. 4 'Penè gigas statura,' says the chronicler. H. of Huntingdon, vi. 367. Kemble, i. 393. Turner, ii. 318. so that a great warrior, like myself, may die as a warrior.' III. '1 2 They did They had Under this native barbarism there were noble dispositions, unknown to the Roman world, which were destined to produce a better people out of the ruins of these. In the first place, 'a certain earnestness, which leads them out of idle sentiments to noble ones. From their origin in Germany this is what we find them, severe in manner, with grave inclinations and a manly dignity. They live solitary, each one near the spring or the wood which has taken his fancy. Even in villages the cottages were detached; they must have independence and free air. They had no taste for voluptuousness; love was tardy, education severe, their food simple; all the recreation they indulged in was the hunting of the aurochs, and a dance amongst naked swords. Violent intoxication and perilous wagers were their weakest points they sought in preference not mild pleasures, but strong excitement. In everything, in rude and masculine instincts, they were men. Each in his own home, on his own land, and in his own hut, was master of himself, firm and self-contained, in no wise restrained or shackled. If the commonweal received anything from him, it was because he gave it. In all great conferences he gave his vote in arms, passed judgment in the assembly, made alliances and wars on his own account, moved from place to place, showed activity and daring. The modern Englishman existed entire in this Saxon. If he bends, it is because he is quite willing to bend; he is no less capable of self-denial than of independence; sacrifice is not uncommon, a man cares not for his life and his blood. In Homer the warrior often gives way, and is not blamed if he flees. In the Sagas, in the Edda, he must be over-brave; in Germany the coward is drowned in the mud, under a hurdle. Through all outbreaks of primitive brutality gleams obscurely the grand idea of duty, which is, the self-constraint exercised in view of some noble end. Marriage was pure amongst them, chastity instinctive. Amongst the Saxons the adulterer was punished by death; the adulteress was obliged to hang herself, or was stabbed by the knives of her companions. The wives of the Cimbrians, when they could not obtain from Marius assurance of their chastity, slew themselves with their own hands. They thought there was something sacred in a woman; they married but one, and kept faith with her. In fifteen centuries the idea of marriage is unchanged amongst them. The wife, on entering her husband's home, 2 1 Grimm, Mythology, 53, Preface. 3 Tacitus, xx., xxiii., xi., xii., xiii., et passim. We may still see the traces of this taste in English dwellings. 3 Tacitus, xiii. is aware that she gives herself altogether,1 'that she will have but one body, one life with him; that she will have no thought, no desire beyond; that she will be the companion of his perils and labours ; that she will suffer and dare as much as he, both in peace and war.' And he, like her, knows that he gives himself. Having chosen his chief, he forgets himself in him, assigns to him his own glory, serves him to the death. 'He is infamous as long as he lives, who returns from the field of battle without his chief." It was on this voluntary subordination that feudal society was based. Man, in this race, can accept a superior, can be capable of devotion and respect. Thrown back upon himself by the gloom and severity of his climate, he has discovered moral beauty, while others discover sensuous beauty. This kind of naked brute, who lies all day by his fireside, sluggish and dirty, always eating and drinking,3 whose rusty faculties cannot follow the clear and fine outlines of poetic forms, catches a glimpse of the sublime in his troubled dreams. He does not see it, but simply feels it; his religion is already within, as it will be in the sixteenth century, when he will cast off the sensuous worship of Rome, and confirm the faith of the heart. His gods are not enclosed in walls; he has no idols. What he designates by divine names, is something invisible and grand, which floats through nature, and is conceived beyond nature, a mysterious infinity which the sense cannot touch, but which reverence alone can appreciate;' and when, later on, the legends define and alter this vague divination of natural powers, an idea remains at the bottom of this chaos of giant-dreams; that the world is a warfare, and heroism the greatest excellence. 5 In the beginning, say the old Icelandic legends,6 there were two worlds, Niflheim the frozen, and Muspell the burning. From the falling snow-flakes was born the giant Ymir. 'There was in times of old, where Ymir dwelt, nor sand nor sea, nor gelid waves; earth existed not, nor heaven above; 'twas a chaotic chasm, and grass nowhere.' There was but Ymir, the horrible frozen Ocean, with his children, sprung from his feet and his armpits; then their shapeless progeny, Terrors of the abyss, barren Mountains, Whirlwinds of the North, and 1 Tacitus, xix., viii., xvi. Kemble, i. 232. 2 Tacitus, xiv. 3 In omni domo, nudi et sordidi. . . . Plus per otium transigunt, dediti somno, ciboque; totos dies juxta focum atque ignem agunt. 4 Grimm, 53, Preface. Tacitus, x. 5 'Deorum nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentia vident.' Later on, at Upsal for instance, they had images (Adam of Bremen, Historia Ecclesiastica). Wuotan (Odin) signifies etymologically the All-Powerful, him who penetrates and circulates through everything (Grimm, Mythol.). 6 Edda Sæmundi, Edda Snorri, ed. Copenhagen, three vols. passim. Mr. Bergmann has translated several of these poems into French, which Mr. Taine quotes. The translator has generally made use of the edition of Mr. Thorpe, London, Trübner, 1866. other malevolent beings, enemies of the sun and of life; then the cow Andhumbla, born also of melting snow, brings to light, whilst licking the hoar-frost from the rocks, a man Bur, whose grandsons kill the giant Ymir. 'From his flesh the earth was formed, and from his bones the hills, the heaven from the skull of that ice-cold giant, and from his blood the sea; but of his brains the heavy clouds are all created.' Then arose war between the monsters of winter and the luminous fertile gods, Odin the founder, Baldur the mild and benevolent, Thor the summer-thunder, who purifies the air and nourishes the earth with showers. Long fought the gods against the frozen Jötuns, against the dark bestial powers, the wolf Fenrir, the great Serpent, whom they drown in the sea, the treacherous Loki, whom they bind to the rocks, beneath a viper whose venom drops continually on his face. Long will the heroes, who by a bloody death deserve to be placed in the halls of Odin, and there wage a combat every day,' assist the gods in their mighty war. A day will, however, arrive when gods and men will be conquered. Then 1 'trembles Yggdrasil's ash yet standing; groans that ancient tree, and the Jötun Loki is loosed. The shadows groan on the ways of Hel, until the fire of Surt has consumed the tree. Hrym steers from the east, the waters rise, the mundane snake is coiled in jötun-rage. The worm beats the water, and the eagle screams; the pale of beak tears carcases; (the ship) Naglfar is loosed. Surt from the South comes with flickering flame; shines from his sword the Val-god's sun. The stony hills are dashed together, the giantesses totter; men tread the path of Hel, and heaven is cloven. The sun darkens, earth in ocean sinks, fall from heaven the bright stars, fire's breath assails the all-nourishing tree, towering fire plays against heaven itself. '2 The gods perish, devoured one by one by the monsters; and the celestial legend, sad and grand now like the life of man, bears witness to the hearts of warriors and heroes. There is no fear of grief, no care for life; they count it as dross when the idea has seized upon them. The trembling of the nerves, the repugnance of animal instinct which starts back before wounds and death, are all lost in an irresistible determination. See how in their epic3 the sublime springs up amid the horrible, like a bright purple flower amid a pool of blood. Sigurd has plunged his sword into the dragon Fafnir, and at that very moment they looked on one another; and Fafnir asks, as he dies, 'Who art thou? and who is thy father? and what thy kin, that thou wert so hardy as to bear weapons against 1 Hel, the goddess of death, born of Loki and Angrboda.—TR. 3 2 Thorpe, The Edda of Sæmund, The Vala's Prophecy, str. 48-56, p. 9 et passim. Fajnismál Edda. This epic is common to the Northern races, as is the Iliad to the Greek populations, and is found almost entire in Germany in the Nibelungen Lied. The translator has also used Magnusson and Morris' poetical version of the Völsunga Saga, and certain songs of the Elder Edda, London, Ellis, 1870. C |