Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/173

Rh with Bertha it is the great size of her feet which determines the issue, not their smallness. To coin a word, she is Eurypous, instead of Europe; and there was a version which spoke of her as Queen Goosefoot, a personage over whom it might seem impossible that a poet could become sentimental. Yet the goose-footed queen is simply a swan-maiden, one of the most beautiful creatures of Aryan mythology.

The same materials will probably be found to have furnished the Saga Literature of framework of at least the greater part of the Saga literature 01 Europe. Northern Europe. If here and there a name or an incident belonging to real history be introduced into them, this cannot of itself raise the story above the level of plausible fiction. Far too much, probably, has been said of these Sagas as a true picture of society and manners. That the writers would throw over their narrative a colouring borrowed from the ways and customs of their own time is certain ; but the acts which they record are not proved to be deeds which were constantly or even rarely occurring, if they involve either a direct contradiction or a physical impossibility. To say that all incidents involving such difficulties are to be at once rejected, while we are yet to give faith to the residue, is to lay ourselves as bondmen at the feet of Euemeros and his followers, and to bid farewell to truth and honesty. Even in pictures of life and manners there is a certain limit beyond w^hich we refuse to credit tales of cruelty, villainy, and treachery, when they are related of whole tribes who are not represented as mere savages and ruffians ; and unless we are prepared to disregard these limits, the history of many of these Sagas becomes at once, as a whole, incredible, although some of the incidents recorded in them may have occurred.

This is especially the case with the Grettir Saga, for which a high The historical character has been claimed by the translators.^ Yet the gaga." tale from beginning to end is full of impossibilities. In his early youth Grettir, being set by his father to watch his horses, gets on the back of one named Keingala, and drawing a sharp knife across her shoulders and then all along both sides of the back, flays off the whole strip from the flank to the loins. When Asmund next strokes the horse, the hide to his surprise comes off in his hands, the animal being seemingly very little the worse for the loss. After this impos-

that "those who hold that popular tales common stock from which all these are preserved in all countries and in all races sprang." See also the story of languages alike, will hold that the the "Sharp Grey Sheep," Campbell, Italian, German, French, Norse, Eng- ii. 289. lish, and Gaelic are all versions of the ' Eirikr Magnusson and William same story, and that it is as old as the Morris.