II. DIFFUSION OF POPULAR TALES—Tell’s Mastershot and Gellert’s
Grave—Sanscrit Literature—the Pantcha Tantra, and Calila and
Dinma, Somadeva’s Stories—Modern African and Ananzi
Stories—Origin of Human Race.
III. NORSE MYTHOLOGY—The Æsir and Frost Giants—The Wondrous Volsung
Tale (The Elder Version of the Nibelungen Lied)—The Norseman’s
Gods and Faith—Christianity in the North—The Heathen Gods—The
Wild Huntsman—The Church of Rome.
IV. NORSE POPULAR TALES—The Gods on Earth—Heathen Gods in Christian
Garb—The Norseman’s God—The God of Wish and Wishing
Things—Frodi’s Quern—The Devil and Hel—The Norseman’s Hell—Dame
Habonde and Herodias—Witchcraft and the Mediæval
Witch—Transformation into Beasts—Were Wolves—Were Bears—The
Beast Epic in the North—The Wolf, Horse, Bull, Dog—The Goat and
Little Birds—Giants and Trolls—The Trolls are Finns and
Lapps—The Naked Sword.
V. CONCLUSION—Literature of Popular Tales—Characters in Norse
Tales—Norse Nature.
“The loves and feuds of the Powers of Nature, after they had been told,
first of gods, then of heroes, appear in the tales of the people as the
flirting and teasing of fairies and imps. Christianity had destroyed the
old gods of the Teutonic tribes, and supplied new heroes in the saints
and martyrs of the Church. The gods were dead, and the heroes, the sons
of the gods, forgotten. But the stories told of them would not die, and
in spite of the excommunications of the priests, they were welcomed
wherever they appeared in their strange disguises. Kind-hearted grannies
would tell the pretty stories of old, if it was only to keep their
little folk quiet. They did not tell them of the gods; for those gods
were dead; or, worse than that, had been changed into devils. They told
them of nobody; ay, sometimes they would tell them of the very saints
and martyrs, and the apostles themselves have had to wear some of the
old rags that belonged by right to Odin and other heathen gods. The
oddest figure is that of the Devil in his half-Christian and
half-heathen garb. The Aryan nations had no Devil. Pluto, though of a
sombre character, was a very respectable personage; and Loki, though a
mischievous person, was not a fiend. The German goddess, Hell, too—like
Proserpina—had once seen better days. Thus, when the Germans were
indoctrinated with the idea of a real Devil, the Semitic Satan or
Diabolus, they treated him in the most good-humoured manner. They
ascribed to him all the mischievous tricks of their most mischievous
gods. But while the old Northern story-tellers delighted in the success
of cunning, the new generation felt in duty bound to represent the Devil
in the end as always defeated. He was outwitted in all the tricks which
had formerly proved successful, and thus quite a new character was
produced—the poor or stupid Devil, who appears not unfrequently in the
German and in Norwegian tales.
All this Mr. Dasent has described very tersely and graphically in his
Introduction, and we recommend the readers of his tales not to treat
that Introduction as most introductions are treated.”—_Saturday Review,
January 15, 1859._
APPENDIX—Ananzi Stories. Why the Jack Spaniard’s Waist is Small—Ananzi
and the Lion—Ananzi and Quanqua—The Ear of Corn and the Twelve
Men—The King and the Ant’s Tree—The Little Child and the Pumpkin
Tree—The Brother and his Sisters—The Girl and the Fish—The Lion, the
Goat, and the Baboon—Ananzi and Baboon—The Man and the Doukana
Tree—Nancy Fairy—The Dancing Gang.
_In preparation._
The Prose, or Younger Edda. Commonly ascribed to Snorri Sturluson.
Translated from the Old Norse, by GEORGE WEBBE DASENT, D.C.L. A New
Edition, with an Introduction, in one volume crown 8vo.
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_Books Suitable for Children._
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Charlie and Ernest; or, Play and Work. A story of Hazlehurst School,
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The Giants, the Knights, and the Princess Verbena. A fairy story, with
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