Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Hooper.djvu/27

Rh worst light possible. They thought them the most wretched beings in creation; and they might, therefore, artfully pervert their creed and exaggerate their vices. Most frequently, such would be the genuine result of their abhorrence: just as popular superstition pictures the "foul fiend" with horns, and cloven feet, and a hideously distorted countenance—not because it is really accredited, but because nothing is thonght too vile or too fearful for the Evil One. The hostility which the crusades excited and nourished; nay, the very difference of religious feeling, would necessarily call out the whole virulence of an age not remarkable for its forbearance; and it is absurd to suppose that the intercourse so long maintained between the two continents (both previous to these expeditions, and subsequent) should not have given them a sufficient acquaintance with the Saracen belief and mode of worship. If the great Saladin required and received knighthood from the hands of the Christians, it argued a degree of intimacy with European customs on the one side, which it would be unfair and arbitrary to deny the other.

That the Scalds added some circumstances to the original matter, and rejected others, is extremely probable. The traditions which conveyed the fable would, of course, be corrupted; not only from the mode of conveying it, but from the dissimilarity of customs and ideas among those by whom it was received. All I contend for is the original ground, upon which they and other nations have built; and this, I think I shall be able to demonstrate, purely oriental. But it is objected that, if the Northern bards had derived their systems from the East, they would have naturalized them as the Romans did the stories of Greece. It is thought that they must have adopted into their religious rites the same mythology, and have evinced as strong a similitude, as the nations of classical celebrity. There is, in truth, no basis for such an assertion to stand upon. The long intercourse between these nations, their vicinity to each other, and, more than all, the original similarity of their worship, prepared the Romans to receive the devotional system of a conquered country without hesitation. They understood and valued Grecian literature, and consequently found an additional motive for the reception of Grecian theology. It accorded with preconceived notions; it was, in fact, a part of their own. Besides, the Romans were rising in civilization, and caught at every shadow of improvement. The people of the North were totally the reverse. They were the children