Page:Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations (Volume 1).djvu/9



English reader of these volumes must not expect to find in them the style of romance, which is now so popular, and justly popular, in his own country. These tales do not pretend to be a picture of human nature or human manners; they are either imitations of early traditions, or the traditions themselves, amplified by some modern writer, and must be judged of in reference to such origin. Stories of this kind form an important feature in the literature of the Germans, who seem to be the authenticated historians of Satan in all his varieties of name and attribute. Of such tales, no small portion has been