mythology itself, but of its influence upon the minds of the people. If we mean it in a prophetic sense, the Norse mythology has also an historical interpretation. In it was mirrored the grand future of the Norse spirit; by it the Norsemen were taught to make those daring expeditions to every part of the civilized world, making conquests and planting colonies; to cross the briny deep and open the way to Iceland, Greenland and America; to take possession of Normandy in France, subdue England and make inroads into Spain and Italy; to pass between the pillars of Hercules, devastate the classic fields of Greece, and carve their mysterious runes on the marble lion in Athens; to lay the foundations of the Russian Empire, penetrate the walls of Constantinople and swing their two-edged battle-axes in its streets; to sail up the rivers Rhine, the Scheldt, the Seine, and the Loire, conquering Cologne and Aachen and besieging Paris; to lead the van of the chivalry of Europe in rescuing the holy sepulchre and rule over Antioch and Tiberias under Harald; to sever the fetters forged by the Roman emperors, break the crosiers in the hands of the Roman popes and infuse a nobler and freer spirit into the nations of the earth; and by their mythology they were taught to give to the world that germ of liberty that struck root in the earliest literature of France, budded in the Magna Charta of England, and developed its full-blown flowers in the American Declaration of Independence.
The principal object of the second part of this volume is to give a faithful, accurate and complete presentation of the myths; but interpretations and reflections will be freely indulged in. The basis of the interpretation will be the physical and ethical combined, the two taken as a unit. The reflections will consist in
