the natural source whence their failing exchequers were to be replenished. One of these petty kings, Ragnar Lodbrok, seems to have been, though a prodigious conqueror, since old historians, as as the Sagas, speak of his empire as extending, in the end, north and west, to the Frozen Ocean and the Atlantic. In a piratical invasion of England this great warrior was taken and cruelly put to death; and that vengeance for his murder was the plea of many such a subsequent invasion, is recorded by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. But respecting the precise date of Ragnar Lodbrok's exploits and fall, the historians of Denmark and of England differ, the former placing his grandson or great-grandson on the throne of Denmark, at the very period assigned by the other to his triumphs. Ragnar Lodbrok and his Saga moreover possess a further interest, peculiar to themselves, from their forming a sort of transition point from the mythological to the historical series of Sayas; and hence our author, following the highly-esteemed Swedish historian Professor Geijer, and, though he does not name him, the erudite Danish antiquary, Dr. P. E. Müller, derives these contradictory dates. These writers conclude that the real historical Ragnar Lodbrok, who reigned in Denmark, and fought and fell in England, has been, by poetic licence, transplanted backwards, in order to bring him into counexion with the Edda heroes, by marrying him to a daughter of Sigurd Fafnesbane, or the dragon-slayer, the great hero of Norse and Teutonic legend and early poetry; and again, forwards, for the sake of condensing upon his well-known head the scattered glories of many obscurer warriors, which thus, besides exalting the name of a favourite hero, produce an intensity of splendour (like the sun's rays collected into one focus by a burning glass) to which they could not aspire in their natural dispersed no unwonted process in the early blending of tradition with history. Thus, taking a medium between the last half of the ninth century, the Anglo-Saxon date, and the first half of the eighth century, the Norse era, Geijer and Cronholm fix upon the year 794 as that of Ragnar Lodbrok's death, making him the leader of a

state

Danish invasion, which, without however mentioning his or any other name, old Simeon Dunelmensis describes as peculiarly and ruthlessly destructive, and as having occurred in the year 793; ending his description with the words" in the following year their leader fell." The conjecture that this was the incursion which proved fatal to our Vikingr hero, is further confirmed by the circumstance of the Saxon Chronicler's naming Lindisfearne as the especial theatre of devastation, and Ragnar Lodbrok's mentioning, in his celebrated death song, Lindiseyre as the scene of his misfortune; no violent corruption or alteration in those days of little literary commerce between foreign countries, or even between distant parts of the same country. Hence it is further concluded that many of the avenging expeditions of the Anglo-Saxon Chroniclers' Lodbrokides, were headed not by the fallen hero's sons, but by his remoter descendants; and as enmities, especially the duty of taking vengeance, were as imperatively hereditary as the ties of hospitality amongst the warlike sons of the North, in early times, it is, in fact, much more likely that the grandsons and great-grandsons, even many times removed, of Ragnar Lodbrok, should have continued to revenge their progenitor, such vengeance moreover proving lucrative, than that the spirit of vindictive animosity should have died with the first generation of his descendants. We shall now offer our readers an abstract, rather than a translation, of the Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, in which we would fain preserve, to the best of our abilities, the quaint yet ornate simplicity of the original; but we doubt in such an abstract this is impossible. We shall upon this occasion have recourse chiefly to a valuable Danish work, in which the old Sagas are preserved,' classed, analysed, and criticised with such laborious and judicious research as justifies us in rather relying upon the learned writer's judgment, than ourselves, as foreigners without his means, endeavouring to form an opinion of our own: we mean the Saga Bibliothek of the above-mentioned Dr. Müller.

Jarl Herraud of Gothland presented to his daughter Thora a pretty little

gold-coloured serpent, which he had found in a certain mystic golden egg. The maiden laid the creature upon gold, and it rapidly grew into an enormous dragon, of such a size that it completely encircled her virgin bower. This bower it suffered no one to approach but her father Jarl Herraud, and those who brought its food, an ox daily, and these last of course were allowed to come no nearer than was necessary to drive the ox within a convenient distance of the dragon. The Jarl, who saw his daughter thus seemingly doomed to waste her life in single blessedness, offered her hand to whosoever should slay the monster. Many sought to gain the noble maiden, many fell in the attempt, and Thora Borgarhiort, as she was surnamed, to express her being thus guarded in her bower, remained unwedded.

Ragnar Lodbrok, son of the Danish King Sigurd, heard of the beauty of the dragon-guarded princess. Sigurd had been the enemy of Herraud, and Ragnar told not his birth when he presented himself to try the adventure. He came clad in five woollen garments, the one over the other, and the outer one besmeared with pitch. He looked like a rude low-born hind. The Jarl beheld him with disgust, but likewise with indifference, for he saw in him only another victim to the dragon. But Ragnar's pitchy woollen coverings protected him from the serpent's teeth; he struggled within the coiling folds, obstructed as they were by the pitch, and he quickly plunged his sword into the dragon's heart.

The conqueror then declared himself; and notwithstanding the previous enmity of the fathers, he obtained his prize. Thora bore him two sons, Erik and Agnar, and died; when Ragnar Lodbrok addicted himself to Vikingr courses, in which he gained great booty and great fame. omit his feats and conquests.)

(We

Near Spangarhede, on the north coast, he one day sent his men ashore to bake bread for the fleet; but they burned it, bewitched by a beautiful fishermaiden named Kraka. Ragnar ordered that she should be brought to him, neither clad nor unclad, both fasting and fed, neither alone nor in human company. She came wrapped in a fishing-net, having tasted an

onion, and accompanied by her dog. Ragnar was at once enamoured of the wise and beautiful Kraka; and as she steadily rejected his unlawful love, he married her.

Kraka bore Ragnar several sons; but at length, when visiting the Swedish King Eistein, he was so flouted for marrying a fisherman's daughter, that he resolved to divorce his low-born wife, and wed King Eistein's daughter. Upon his return home he found Kraka supernaturally forewarned of his unkind purpose; and she now informed her royal husband that she was not the daughter of the fisherman, her foster father, but of Sigurd Fafnesbane, and Brynhild, and that her name was not Kraka but Aslaug. Ragnar then refused to part with Aslaug, or to marry Eistein's daughter; and a long war with that King ensued, in which Ragnar's sons acquired great renown.

When Ragnar heard of his sons' great deeds, he was jealous of them. He would no longer sit quietly at home, but resolved to invade England, and said to Aslaug, "I have now conquered the whole of the realms over which my forefathers reigned, except England, and to conquer England I have had two large ships built at Westfold." Aslaug answered, "For the cost of those two large ships thou mightest have built many smaller vessels; and it is not good to invade England with large ships, because of the currents and the shallows upon that coast." But Ragnar heeded not her words, and sailed for England with 500 men on board his two large ships. At parting, Aslaug gave him a silken garment, woven with magic rites by her own hands, and requested him constantly to wear it.

Upon approaching the English shores, the large ships stranded and were wrecked; but Ragnar and his men reached the land in safety, and immediately began to ravage and plunder in all directions. King Ella then reigned in Northumberland; upon hearing of this inroad, he assembled an army, and marched against Ragnar. A long and obstinate battle was fought; Ragnar's men fell fast around him, for the Northumbrians were many to one of them. But Ragnar, who wore Aslaug's silken garment, continued

unhurt in the thickest of the fray. Iron or steel pierced not Aslaug's web. At length he remained alone, and, overpowered by numbers, was made prisoner.

In

The vengeful conqueror now threw his captive into the snake's pit; but, no serpent approached Ragnar, who sat unharmed amidst these venomous reptiles, as he had stood unharmed in the battle. Ella now suspected that the silken garment was his protection, and ordered it to be taken off. stantly the snakes flew upon him; and whilst they coiled round his limbs, and fixed their fangs in every part of his flesh, Ragnar Lodbrok composed and sang the death song, so celebrated throughout the North, in which he boastfully enumerated all the great feats and conquests he had achieved. He ceased to sing only when he ceased

to breathe.

We have given this Saga at some little length, in hopes of thus conveying to the reader an imperfect notion of the strange, wild character of these mythological legends. Yet we fear we have, after all, merely shown their extravagance; their charm lying in the detail, for which we could not possibly make room. We must now observe that our Swedish historical antiquary does little more than allude to this Saga in his disquisition upon the period at which Ragnar Lodbrok lived. It is only with the historical Saga that he really concerns himself; and if any captious critic should object to allow of any legendary authority, we must beg him to consider in the first place that, Saga being the Asa Goddess of History, no Scandinavian historian can be justified in rejecting the authority of her Sagas; in the second, that we must needs, in all matters, take the best we can get, which in the present case these Sagas are; and lastly, that the historical Sagas, to which we now proceed, bear all the marks of being intended for genuine biographies: they abound in little traits characteristic of the times and the people; and indeed, to our mind, possess much of the peculiar charm of old memoirs without their egotism, as they profess not to be autobiographies. These historical Sagas are far too long to be even abstracted in the compressed form in which we have given the Saga GENT. MAG. VOL. V.

of Ragnar Lodbrok. With them we shall take a different course; altogether neglect the general narrative, and select a few extracts that may show the nature both of the Saga, and of the people and events forming its subject matter. These extracts shall relate to a Scotch locality, as we deem Ragnar Lodbrok to be purely AngloScandinavian, in his historical capacity, notwithstanding both Scotland and Ireland are reckoned amongst his conquests.

The Shetland and Orkney islands, we are told, had long been under the sway of the Norse Vikingr, when they were attacked by Harald Harfager, the first King of all Norway. This Harald was himself a very remarkable person; he was originally one of the many petty Kings, and Gida, the daughter of another of the regal swarm, whose hand he sought, refused to wed any one of less rank than a King of all Norway. Harald vowed never to cut his hair till Norway should be his. He succeeded in reducing all his fellow Kings to subjection, and converting them into Jarls or Earls, (in modern diplomatic language, mediatizing them); and besides gaining the hand of the proud Gida, acquired his surname of Harfager (Anglicè, the fairhaired), from the length to which his tresses had grown ere the fulfilment of his vow allowed of their being trimmed.

The distant islands had not been included in Harald's vow; but his ambition was probably inflamed by success, and he seems likewise to have conceived a dislike to the Vikingr, with whom he had been so long at war. It will be recollected that almost all the petty Kings were likewise Vikingr or sea-Kings. It was as the sovereign of Norway and the husband of Gida, that Harald Harfager sailed for the Scottish Isles. He was accompanied upon this successful expedition by his friend Ragnvald More Jarl, whose son fell in one of the battles that led to the conquest of the islands; and Harald bestowed the whole of both groups as a Jarldom, upon the bereaved father, in compensation of his loss. The father, with the King's consent, transferred the insular Jarldom to his brother Sigurd, returning himself to his hereditary domains in Norway. G

The new Jarl soon fell a victim to his own barbarity, or that of his times. He was engaged in hostilities with a Scotch Earl, named Melbrigd, and surnamed the Toothed, by reason of a very large and long tooth that projected from his mouth, and which there were then no dentists to correctthough we suspect it might even then have been radically reformed, alias eradicated. Melbrigd was at length slain in battle.

'The victors, in token of their triumph, cut off the heads of the vanquished, and fastened them to their bridles. Jarl Sigurd himself hung Melbrigd's head to his stirrup leather; when, as he rode, the point of the projecting tooth struck repeatedly against the calf of his leg, and made the wound which ere long proved deadly. Sigurd Jarl lies buried in Eckialsbacki (where that may be, we pretend not to know), and his son Guttorm ruled his lands; but he outlived his father only one winter, and then died childless.

When Ragnvald Jarl, at More, heard that his brother and nephew were dead, and the Vikingr again in possession of the jarldom, he sent his son Hallad westward. Hallad assumed the title of jarl, and was accompanied by an army; but, though he established himself in the Orkneys, his peace and security were troubled by the Vikingr, who winter, autumn, and spring plundered his coasts, killing or carrying off the inhabitants. Hereupon Hallad Jarl grew weary of his islands, laid down his jarldom, and returned to Norway. When Ragnvald Jarl heard this, he was wrath at Hallad, and said that his sons sought to be in all things unlike their forefathers. * * * Torfæus has preserved the offers of the other son's upon this occasion and the father's answers, and his relation bears the Northman character. When Thorer the Silent swore to go wherever his father would send him, Ragnvald Jarl replied, that Thorer should stay at home, and there find lands easy to be tilled. Rolf then demanded the lordship of the islands, but the father answered that he might be rich in strength of both soul and body, and well skilled in military exercise, but that he wanted the mental cultivation requisite for governing a country. Rolf was then of such stature that no horse could carry him; he, therefore, always went on foot, and was for that reason called Gaungo Rolfr (walking Rolf). He was a great Vikingr, and ravaged eastward. But one summer he plundered a Norwegian bay, and Harald outlawed him. [Need we inform the reader that this

race.

*

*

walking Rolf is the Rollo who conquered Normandy?] Hrollaugr next stood forth, and professed himself ready to conquer the islands; but the father said that Hrollaugr was of too mild a disposition; foretelling that he should fix his abode in Iceland, and there be the founder of a mighty Last of all Einar came forward, and said, "Small is the favour I enjoy from my father, and little the kindness that has distinguished me. Readily will I go westward to the isles, so thou wilt equip me, and, what may be grateful to thee, I will vow never, chance what may, to return to Norway." Regnvald Jarl rejoined, "It likes me well that thou shouldst never return, for small hope is there that thy kindred should receive honour by thee, seeing that the whole of thy mother's family are born thralls." Ragnvald Jarl gave Einar a long ship, in which he sailed westward over the sea to the Orkneys. There he met the two Vikingr Thorer Treskegg and Kalfr Skurfa; he fought with and conquered them both Vikingr fell in the battle. Einar was called Torf-Einar, because he had turf cut upon Torfness, a Scotch promontory, and used instead of wood; for there were no forests upon the Orkney islands. Einar Jarl was uncomely and one-eyed, but the most sharpsighted of

men.'

Our last extract shall be from the account of the civil or rather domestic wars that raged long and with fluctuating success amongst the sons and grandsons of Torf-Einar Jarl, each of whom aspired to the possession of the whole jarldom. Upon one occasion Ragnvald, a grandson, equipped an armament against his uncle Torfin, Einar's youngest son.

'When all was ready, Ragnvald Jarl sailed with the first fair wind for Hialtland, where he learned that Thorfin Jarl was then in the Orkneys with very few men, because, at that season of the year, he feared no hostile attack. Ragnvald surprised Thorfin at Hrossey (we give the names as we find them, without attempt at interpretation), and with his people surrounded the house in which the latter dwelt. It was night, most of the jarl's men were asleep, but he himself was sitting up and drinking. When Ragnvald's men set the house on fire, Thorfin ordered his people to ask who made war upon him. The answer was, Ragnvald Jarl, Thorfin's nephew. All women and the unfree (thralls) may have peace; but Thorfin's warriors are less profitable to me alive than dead." Resistance was impossible. As the house burned, Thorfin took his

wife Ingeborg in his arms, and, with her, broke through the house wall. The smoke concealed him as he fled. That night he rowed himself over to Caithness. No one

knew but what he had been burned with the rest. Ragnvald Jarl reduced the islands; he ruled as far as Caithness and the southern isles, possessing himself of all the dominions that had been Thorfin's-and none opposed him. He resided at Kirkinvog, (query, Kirkwall?) and there drew together all that was wanted for the winter, for he had many followers and lived generously. A little before Jule (Christmas) he went to Papey for malt. Upon this island he and his people kindled a fire, and as they sat beside it in the evening, one of the men observed that it was going out. The jarl now made a mistake, saying, "No matter; when it is burnt out we shall be old enough," whereas he meant to have said, we shall be still warm enough (the mistake lying between the two Norse words, fullgamlir, i. e. full aged, and fullbakadir, or full warmed). When he perceived that he had thus missaid, he observed that St. Olof had made a similar blunder shortly before the fatal battle of Stiklastad, and he thence concluded that he himself probably had not long to live. Perhaps," added he, "my kinsman Thorfin is not dead." He had scarcely said the words, when he heard that Thorfin Jarl had landed on Papey, and that the house was surrounded. Wood was now piled up before the door, and set on fire. Peace was granted to all except the jarl and his warriors. As the house began to burn, a man, clad in linen apparel, appeared at the door, and asked Thorfin Jarl to give him his hand, for that he was a clerk. He then steadied himself with his hand upon the pile of burning wood, and sprang over both that and the ring of men beyond it. He disappeared in a moment, favoured by the darkness of the night. "There went the jarl," exclaimed Thor

fin; " 'tis one of his feats that none can imitate." He then divided his people into many bodies, the more surely to find Ragnvald. Thorkel Fostri (Thorfin's foster father), as he reached the strand, heard a dog bark amongst the rocks. This discovered the jarl, for it was his dog that he carried in his arms. Thorkel slew Ragnvald. Ragnvald is said to have been the manliest and most friendly of all the Orkney jarls. The people long regretted him.'

* * *

This may suffice for subjects that assuredly are not of the present agitated day. But ere we, for the present, take our leave of Hyperborean Literature, we must express our regret that the acute, learned, and diligent Herr Cron

holm has not spared some few hours from the study of Anglo-Saxon, for which however he is far from discoverployed in a short course of modern ing Grundtvig's predilection, to be emEnglish. He would then have avoided falling into the error, now seemingly prevalent amongst the continental literati, of supposing that, to balance their almost general want of the letter w, we are destitute of the v.* It is really comical to see how these gentlemen thrust in this unfortunate, to them new-discovered letter w, where none but cockney organs can have a chance of articulating it; as, to take one instance among many, Cronholm spells Dover with a w, i. e. Dower, to be pronounced of course in every respect like the seaport, and not at all like dower, the legal provision for noble widows.

ma

IT is but lately that I have found leisure to read Lord Brougham's " Discourse on Natural Theology;" and I confess that I cannot much commend the manner in which he has executed his task. I should, however, have made no attempt to publish my opinion of his performance, if I had not noticed what appears to me to be a " lus animus" towards our National Church in one of its pages. The noble author seems very desirous of making a display of learning in the notes appended to his work; to which there can be no objection, provided that his reasonings and his quotations are correct and to the purpose. Now, in one of his notes, at page 272, he takes occasion to remark, that Plato, in his

Republic," proposes to punish with death three kinds of blasphemers; namely, those who deny the existence of a Deity, those who deny a providence, and those who attempt to pro

*With respect to the Swedish language, this position of having no w requires qualification. Of old, the Swedes used this letter w, but have lately discarded it. We have a Swedish and Latin dictionary of the

year 1773, in which all the words now spelt with a v, are spelt with the w; but we cannot fix the exact date of this change, which is held to be in accordance with the genius of the language.