Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/38

xii 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