teutonicmythology.docVIP

Teutonic Mythology TO HIS MAJESTY KING OSCAR II., THE RULER OF THE ARYAN PEOPLE OF THE SCANDINAVIAN PENINSULA, THE PROMOTER OF THE SCIENCES, THE CROWNED POET, THIS WORK IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR, ? ? ? ? ? ? ?AND TRANSLATOR, VIKTOR RYDBERG. ? ? ? ? RASMUS B. ANDERSON. STOCKHOLM, November 20, 1887. HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON, United States Minister, Copenhagen, Denmark. DEAR SIR, It gives me pleasure to authorise you to translate into English my work entitled Researches in Teutonic Mythology, being convinced that no one could be found better qualified for this task than yourself. Certainly no one has taken a deeper interest than you in spreading among our Anglo-Saxon kinsmen, not only a knowledge of our common antiquity, but also of what modern Scandinavia is contributing to the advancement of culture—a work in which England and the United States of America are taking so large a share. Yours faithfully, VIKTOR RYDBERG. INTRODUCTION. A. THE ANCIENT ARYANS. 1. THE WORDS GERMAN AND GERMANIC. ALREADY at the beginning of the Christian era the name Germans was applied by the Romans and Gauls to the many clans of people whose main habitation was the extensive territory east of the Rhine, and north of the forest-clad Hercynian Mountains. That these clans constituted one race was evident to the Romans, for they all had a striking similarity in type of body; moreover, a closer acquaintance revealed that their numerous dialects were all variations of the same parent language, and finally, they resembled each other in customs, traditions, and religion. The characteristic features of the physical type of the Germans were light hair, blue eyes, light complexion, and tallness of stature as compared with the Romans. Even the saga-men, from whom the Roman historian Tacitus gathered the facts for his German ia—an invaluable work for the history of civilisation—knew that in the so-called Svevian Sea, north of the German continent, lay another important part of Germany,