a popular view of the same mythos upon which the Platonists have expended so much commentary-the history of the Cretan Bacchus or Zagreus. In Sweden, the story of Hero and Leander has become localized, and forms the subject of an interesting national ballad; the fate of Midas is to be found incorporated as an undoubted point of Irish history 149; and the treasury of Rhampsinitus has passed from Egypt to Greece, and from Mycena to Venice 150. The youthful history of Theseus bears a strong resemblance to many parts of Sir Degoré ; the white and black sails, the emblems of his success or failure, are attached to the history of Tristram and fair Ysoude; the ball of silk given him by Ariadne, has passed into the hands of the Russian witch Jaga-Baba; and the heroic feat which was to establish the proof of his descent, has been inserted in the lives of Arthur, and the Northern Sigurdr11. The talis

and is forthwith murdered. The dismembered body is now placed in a kettle, for the repast of his destroyers; but the vapour ascending to heaven, the deed is detected, and the perpetrators struck dead by the lightning of Jove. Apollo collects the bones of his deceased brother, and buries them at Delphi, where the palingenesy of Bacchus was celebrated periodically by the Hosii and Thyades. (Compare Clemens Alex. Protrept. p. 15. ed. Potter; Nonnus Dionys. vi. 174, &c. and Plutarch de Isid. et Osirid. c. 35. et De Esu Carnium, i. c. vii.) But this again is only another version of the Egyptian mythos relative to Osiris, which will supply us with the chest, the tree, the sisterly affection, and perhaps the bird (though the last may be explained on other grounds). (Plut. de Isid. &c. c. 13. et seqq.) Mr. Grimm wishes to consider the "Machandel-Boom" the juniper-tree; and not the "Mandel," or almond-tree. It will be remembered, that the latter was believed by the ancient world to possess very important properties. The fruit of one species, the Amygdala, impregnated the daughter of the river Sangarius with the Phrygian Attys (Paus. vii,

17); and another, the Persea, was the sacred plant of Isis, so conspicuous on Egyptian monuments. (For this interpretation of the Persea, see S. de Sacy's Abd-allatif Relation de l'Egypte, p. 4772, and the Christian and Mahommedan fictions there cited.) This story of dressing and eating a child is historically related of Atreus, Tantalus, Procne, Harpalice (Hyginus ed. Staveren, 206), and Astyages (Herod. i. 119); and is obviously a piece of traditional scandal borrowed from ancient mythology. The Platonistic exposition of it will be found in Mr. Taylor's tract upon the Bacchic Mysteries, (Pamphleteer, No. 15.)

149 Keating's 's Hist. of Ireland, as cited by MM. Grimm, iii. 391.

150 Compare Herod. ii. c. 121. Schol. in Aristoph. Nub. 508. and the notes to Childe Harold, canto iv.

151 Compare Plutarch's Life of Theseus with Sir Degoré, as published in the "Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry;" Scott's Sir Tristram, p. 199; Prince Wladimir and his Round Table, a collection of early Russian Heroic Songs, Leipzig 1819, 8vo. as cited by Mone 130; the Morte Arthur, P. I. c. 4; and the Volsunga Saga, Müller, p. 31.

man of Meleager-" Althæa's firebrand"-has been conferred upon the aged Norna-Gest, a follower of king Olaf 152; the artifice of Jack the Giant-killer, in throwing a stone among his enemies, occurs in the histories of Cadmus and Jason 153; and the perilous labour of Alcmene is circumstantially related in the Scottish ballad of Willie's Lady. Among the marvellous tales with which the traveller Pytheas chose to enliven the narrative of his voyage, at the risk of sacrificing his character for discernment and veracity, the following has been preserved by the Scholiast to Apollonius Rhodius. "Vulcan appears to have taken up his abode in the islands of Lipara and Strongyle......and it was formerly said, that whoever chose to carry there a piece of unwrought iron, and at the same time deposited the value of the labour, might on the following morning come and have a sword, or whatever else he wished, for it 155 " This fiction has a double claim upon our attention, both from the manner in which it became localized at a very early period in England, and from the interest it has recently excited, by its reception into one of those unrivalled produc

159 Apollod. Biblioth. i. c. 8. 1. “At length Gest told them the reason of his being called Norna-Gest. Three Völar cast his nativity; the two first spaced every thing that was good, but the last became displeased, and said the child should not live longer than the candle lasted which was then burning. Upon this the two Völar seized the light, and bade his mother preserve it, saying, it was not to be lighted till the day of his death." Norna-Gest's Saga, Müller 118. Gest was more fortunate in his family connexions than the Grecian hero; for on the day king Olaf recommended him to try the experiment of lighting the candle, he was 300 years old. Ib.

163 Schol. in Apoll. Rhod. iii. 1178. 154 Minstrelsy of the Border, vol. ii. Sir Walter Scott has observed, that the billieblind, who detects the mother's charm in this ballad, was a species of domestic spirit or Brownie. The Thebans appear

to have held a similar opinion relative to Galinthias, whom they considered a ministrant of Hecate, and to whom the first sacrifice was performed during the festival of Hercules. (Anton. Lib. c. 29.) They were hence reputed to worship a weasel (Ælian. Hist. Nat. xii. v.), an animal of an exceedingly ominous character in the ancient world. (Theophrastus Charact. 17.) In the reputed house of Amphitryon, Pausanias (ix. 11.) saw a relievo representing the Sorceresses (Pharmacides) sent by Juno to obstruct Alcmene's labour. According to him (and he gathered the account at Thebes), they were defeated by Historis, a daughter of Tiresias; which again confirms the analogy between the ancient and modern fiction, for Tiresias and his family move in Theban story with all the importance of tutelary divinities.

155 Schol. in Apoll. Rhod. iv. 761.

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tions, which have given a new character to the literature of the day. In a letter written by Francis Wise to Dr. Mead, concerning some antiquities in Berkshire, particularly the White Horse," an account is given of a remarkable pile of stones, to which the following notice is attached: "All the account which the country people are able to give of it is: At this place lived formerly an invisible smith; and if a traveller's horse had left a shoe upon the road, he had no more to do than to bring the horse to this place with a piece of money, and leaving both there for some little time, he might come again, and find the money gone, but the horse new shoed. The stones standing upon the Rudgeway, as it is called, I suppose gave occasion to the whole being called Wayland-Smith; which is the name it was always known by, to the country-people." The reader will have no difficulty in detecting here the previous recital of Pytheas, or in recognising in this simple tradition the germ of a more recent fiction, as it has been unfolded in the novel of Kenilworth. But he may not be equally aware, that the personage whose abilities it has so unostentatiously transmitted, is a very important character in early Northern poetry; and that the fame of "WaylandSmith," though less widely extended than it now promises to become, was once the theme of general admiration, from the banks of the Bosphorus 156 to the Atlantic and Frozen oceans. The first historical song in the Edda of Sæmund-if it be lawful to give this name to a composition containing such a strong admixture of mythological matter-is devoted to the fortunes of a celebrated smith called Völundr. The Vilkina-Saga, a production of the fourteenth century, enters more fully into his

156 In the Vilkina-Saga he is called Velent: but the author adds, he bore the name of Völundr among the Varingar. These Bagayya were mercenaries in the service of the Greek emperors. See Anna Comn., Codrin., &c. and Ducange v. Barangi. In the eleventh century,

the Northern portion of this body-guard amounted to 300, according to the Flato Codex, c. 507-8, which makes a distinction between them and the French and Flemings in the Imperial service. Müller 149.

history; and he is spoken of by various writers between the ninth and fourteenth centuries 157 as the fabricator of every curious weapon, or unusual piece of art. In the outline of his story there is a very strong analogy with the events that shine so marvellously in the life of Dædalus. The flight of Völundr from his native country, like that of the Athenian artist, is attributed to an act of violence upon the persons of two rival craftsmen. His first reception at the court of Nidung is attended by every demonstration of kindness and attention; but an accidental offence occasions the seizure and mutilation of his person, and he is compelled to labour incessantly in the duties of the forge for his tyrannical host. The double cruelties inflicted on him, in the loss of liberty and his bodily injuries, inspire him with sentiments of revenge: the infant sons of his persecutor fall the victims of his artifice; their sister is seduced and publicly disgraced; and the triumphant artist, having attached wings to his person, takes his way through the air to seek a more friendly employer 158. It is not a little remarkable, that the only term in the Icelandic language to designate a labyrinth is Völundar-hus-a Weland's house 159

157 Some of these have been already noticed. (See Alfred's Boethius, and the poem of Beowulf, and note p. liv. below.) The following may be added from Müller's Saga-Bibliothek: "Et nisi duratis Vuelandia fabrica giris obstaret...." from a Latin poem of the ninth century, entitled "De prima Expeditione Attilæ regis Hunnorum in Gallia, ac de rebus gestis Waltharii Aquitanorum principis." Lipsia 1780. In Labbe's Bibliotheca MSS. Nova, tom. ii., the following notice occurs: "Gillermus Sector Ferri hoc nomen sortitus est, quia cum Normannis confligens venire solito conflictu deluctans, ense corto vel scorto durissimo, quem Valandus faber condiderat, per medium corpus loricatum secavit una percussione." Historia Pontificum et Comitum Engolismensium incerto auctore, (but who

was living in 1159,) p. 252. See also the romance of Horn-child and Maiden Riminild, in Ritson's Met. Rom. vol. iii. p. 295.

158 These circumstances are taken from the recital given in the Vilkina-Saga. (Müller 154.) The Eddaic song makes no mention of Völundr's flight to the court of Nithuthur (Nidung), nor of his killing his instructors the Dwarfs : a deed of mere self-defence according to the Vilkina-Saga, since, his rapid improvement having excited their envy, they were devising a plan for destroying him.

159 The name of Völundr became a general name in the North for any distinguished artist, whether working in stone or iron. The same may be said of Dadalus in Greece (daidú 22uv, daída λa), whose labours are found to run through a

The resemblances here detailed are obviously too intimate to have been the result of accident, or a common development of circumstances possessing some general affinity. The majority, on investigation, will be found to have been derived, however indirectly, from sources of classical antiquity; and their existence in this dismembered state forcibly illustrates a remark of Mr. Campbell's, which is equally distinguished for its truth and beauty: "that fiction travels on still lighter wings [than science], and scatters the seeds of her wild flowers imperceptibly over the world, till they surprise us by springing up with similarity, in regions the most remotely divided 160 " But while these resemblances tend to establish the fact, that popular fiction is in its nature traditive, they necessarily direct our attention to another important question-the degree of antiquity to be ascribed to the great national fables relative to Arthur, Theoderic, and Charlemagne. It will be almost needless to remark, that the admixture of genuine occurrences in all these romances, is so disproportionate to the fictitious materials by which it is surrounded, that without the influence of particular names, and the locality given to the action, we should never connect the events detailed with personages of authentic history. The deeds ascribed to Charlemagne, by a mere change of scene, become as "germane" to the life of the most illustrious of the Gothic kings as any of the circumstances advanced in his own veracious Vilkina-Saga. A similar

succession of ages; and who, in addition to his numerous inventions, constructed such enormous works in Egypt, Sicily and Crete. In the foriner country he received divine honours (Diod. Sic. i. p. 109.); the mythologic character of Volundr is clear from the Edda; and Prætorius speaks of Spirits

Volands and Water-Nixen as synonymous terms. If we allow the daughter of Nidung to take the place of Pasiphäe, the Athenian proverb will be

fully substantiated: ¡v zavrì μúbq xai rò Δαιδάλου μῦσος. Suidas, i. p. 752.

160 Essay on English Poetry, p. 30. To this may be added the doctrine of an ancient aphorism cited by Demosthenes (De falsa legatione): Φήμη δ ̓ οὔ τις πάμπαν ἀπόλλυται, ἥντινα [πολλοὶ Λαοὶ φημίξωσι· θεός νύ τίς ἐστι καὶ αὐτή.

161 Suppose we on things traditive divide, And both appeal to Scripture to decide.-DRYDEN,