Northman became fearless, honest, and truthful, ready to smite and ready to forgive, shrinking not from pain himself and careless of inflicting it on others. Witnessing everywhere the struggle of conflicting forces, he was tempted to look on life as a field for warfare, and to own no law for those who were not bound with him in ties of blood and friendship. Hence there was impressed on him a stern and fierce character, exaggerated not unfrequently into a gross and brutal cruelty; and his national songs reflected the repulsive not less than the fairer aspect of his disposition. In the Volsung tale, as in the later epics, there is much of feud, jealousy, and bloodshed, much which to the mind of a less tumultuous age must be simply distasteful or even horrible. To what extent this may be owing to their own character it may perhaps be difficult to determine with precision; yet it would seem rash to lay to their charge the special kinds of evil dealing of which we read in their great national legends. It is not easy to believe that the relations between Sigurd and Gunnar were (even rarely) realised in the actual life of the Norwegian or the Icelander. But whether with the Greek or the Northman, all judgment is premature until we have decided whether we are or are not dealing with legends which, whether in whole or in part, have sprung from the mythical expressions of which the meaning has been more or less forgotten. We can draw no inference from the actions of Zeus or Heraklês as to the character of the Greeks; we cannot take the fatal quarrels of Brynhild, Gunnar, and Sigurd as any evidence of the character of the Northman.
Special characteristics of Greek mythology.Living in a land of icebound fjords and desolate fells, hearing the mournful wail of the waving pine branches, looking on the stern strife of frost and fire, witnessing year by year the death of the short-lived summer, the Northman was inured to sombre if not gloomy thought, to the rugged independence of the country as opposed to the artificial society of a town. His own sternness was but the reflexion of the land in which he lived; and it was reflected, in its turn, in the tales which he told, whether of the heroes or the gods.[1] The Greek, dwelling in sunnier regions, where the interchange of summer and winter brought with it no feelings of overpowering gloom, exhibited- ↑ It was reflected most of all in the terrific pictures drawn of Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods, in which Odin and the Æsir will be overthrown, and the fall of the world tree Yggdrasil will complete the destruction of the earth, and end the long Aiôn of the gods of Asgard. For an excellent description of this great catastrophe see Brown, Religion and Mythology of the Aryans of Northern Europe, § 15. But the belief of the Norsemen did not stop short with this direful ruin. From the dead sun springs a daughter more beautiful than her sire, and mankind starts afresh from the Life-raiser and his bride Life. For this regeneration see Brown, ibid., § 17.
