CHAPTER I.
WHAT IS MYTHOLOGY AND WHAT IS NORSE MYTHOLOGY?
The word mythology ([Greek: mythologia], from [Greek: mythos], word,
tale, fable, and [Greek: logos], speech, discourse,) is of Greek origin,
and our vernacular tongue has become so adulterated
with Latin and Greek words; we have studied Latin
and Greek in place of English, Anglo-Saxon, Norse and
Gothic so long that we are always in a quandary (qu'en dirai-je?), always tongue-tied when we attempt to speak
of something outside or above the daily returning cares
of life. Our own good old English words have been
crowded out by foreign ones; this is our besetting sin.
But, as the venerable Professor George Stephens remarks
in his elaborate work on Runic Monuments, we have
watered our mother tongue long enough with bastard
Latin; let us now brace and steel it with the life-water
of our own sweet and soft and rich and shining and
clear-ringing and manly and world-ranging, ever-dearest
English.
Mythology is a system of myths; a collection of popular legends, fables, tales, or stories, relating to the gods, heroes, demons or other beings whose names have been preserved in popular belief. Such tales are not found in the traditions of the ancient Greeks, Hindoos
