Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/44

 ''and fashion of that wondrous edifice of mythology which our forefathers in the dawn of time imagined to themselves as the temple at once of their gods and of the worship due to them from all mankind on this middle earth''. For man, according to their system of belief, could have no existence but for those gods and stalwart divinities, who, from their abode in Asgard, were ever watchful to protect him and crush the common foes of both, the earthly race of giants, or, in other words, the chaotic natural powers. Any one, therefore, that desires to see what manner of men his forefathers were in their relation to the gods, how they conceived their theogony, how they imagined and constructed their cosmogony, must betake himself to the Eddas, as illustrated by the Sagas, and he will there find ample details on all these points; while the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic literatures only throw out vague hints and allusions. As we read Beowulf and the Traveler's Song, for instance, we meet at every step references to mythological stories and mythical events, which would be utterly unintelligible were it not for the full light thrown upon them by the Icelandic literature. Thus far Dasent's opinion.

The Norse mythology, we say, then, shows what the religion of our ancestors was; and their religion is the main fact that we care to know about them. Knowing this well, we can easily account for the rest. Their religion is the soul of their history. Their religion tells us what they felt; their feelings produced their thoughts, and their thoughts were the parents of their acts. When we study their religion, we discover the unseen and spiritual fountain from which all their outward acts welled forth, and by which the character of these was determined.

The mythology is neither the history nor the poetry