or in the waters?-Do we not discover in these religious opinions, that source of the marvellous with which our ancestors filled their romances; in which we see dwarfs and giants, fairies and demons?"&c. And in another place. "The fortresses of the Goths were only rude castles situated on the summits of rocks, and rendered inaccessible by thick misshapen walls. As these walls ran winding round the castles, they often called them by a name which signified SERPENTS or DRAGONS; and in these they usually secured the women and young virgins of distinction, who were seldom safe at a time when so many enterprising heroes were rambling up and down in search of adventures. It was this custom which gave occasion to antient romancers, who knew not how to describe any thing simply, to invent so many fables concerning princesses of great beauty guarded by dragons, and afterwards delivered by invincible champions P."

I do not mean entirely to reject this hypothesis; but I will endeavour to shew how far I think it is true, and in what manner or degree it may be reconciled with the system delivered above.

A few years before the birth of Christ, soon after Mithridates had been overthrown by Pompey, a nation of Asiatic Goths, who possessed that region of Asia which is now called Georgia, and is connected on the south with Persia, alarmed at the progressive encroachments of the Roman armies, retired in vast multitudes under the conduct of their leader Odin, or Woden, into the northern parts of Europe, not subject to the Roman government, and settled in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and other districts of the Scandinavian territory. As they brought

• Mallet, Introduction a l'Histoire de eam tamen non primam. Verum circa Dannemarc, &c. tom. ii. p. 9.

Ib. ch. ix. p. 243. tom. ii. [This and other similar passages in Mallet's lively history would form an excellent supplement to the Homeric allegories of Heraclides Ponticus.-EDIT.]

"Unicam gentium Asiaticarum Immigrationem, in orbem Arctoum factam, nostræ antiquitates commemorant. Sed

annum tandem vicesimum quartum ante natum Christum, Romanis exercitibus auspiciis Pompeii Magni in Asiæ parte, Phrygia Minore, grassantibus. Illa enim epocha ad hanc rem chronologi nostri utuntur. In cujus (GYLVI SUECIA regis) tempora incidit Odinus, Asiaticæ immigrationis, factæ anno 24 ante natum Christum, antesignanus." Crymogæs,

with them many useful arts, particularly the knowledge of letters, which Odin is said to have invented', they were hospitably received by the natives, and by degrees acquired a safe and peaceable establishment in the new country, which seems to have adopted their language, laws, and religion. Odin is said to have been stiled a god by the Scandinavians; an appellation which the superiour address and specious abilities of this Asiatic chief easily extorted from a more savage and uncivilised people.

This migration is confirmed by the concurrent testimonies of various historians: but there is no better evidence of it, than that conspicuous similarity subsisting at this day between several customs of the Georgians, as described by Chardin, and those of certain cantons of Norway and Sweden, which have preserved their antient manners in the purest degrees. Not that other striking implicit and internal proofs, which often carry more conviction than direct historical assertions, are wanting to point out this migration. The antient inhabitants of Denmark and Norway inscribed the exploits of their kings and heroes on rocks, in characters called Runic; and of this prac

Arngrim. Jon. lib. i. cap. 4. p. 30, 31. edit. Hamburg. 1609. See also Bartholin. Antiquitat. Dan. Lib. ii. cap. 8. p. 407. iii. c. 2. p. 652. edit. 1689. Lazius, de Gent. Migrat. L. x. fol. 573. 30. edit. fol. 1600. Compare Ol. Rudbeck. cap. v. sect. 2. p. 95. xiv. sect. 2. p. 67.

There is a memoir on this subject lately published in the Petersburgh Transactions, but I chuse to refer to original authorities. See tom. v. p. 297. edit. 1738. 4to.

"Odino etiam et aliis, qui ex Asia huc devenere, tribuunt multi antiquitatum Islandicarum periti; unde et Odinus RUNHOFDI Seu Runarum (i. e. Literarum) auctor vocatur.' Ol. Worm. Liter. Runic. cap. 20. edit. Hafn. 1651. Some writers refer the origin of the Grecian language, sciences, and religion to the Scythians, who were connected towards the south with Odin's Goths. cannot bring a greater authority than that of Salmasius, "Satis certum ex his

I

colligi potest linguam, ut gentem, HELLENICAM, a septentrione et ScYTHIA originem traxisse, non a meridie. Inde LITERÆ GRÆCORUM, inde MUSE PIERIDES, inde sacrorum initia." Salmas. de Hellenist. p. 400. As a further proof I shall observe, that the antient poet Thamyris was so much esteemed by the Scythians, on account of his poetry, zidagwola, that they chose him their king. Conon. Narrat. Poet. cap. vii. edit. Gal. But Thamyris was a Thracian and a late ingenious antiquarian endeavours to prove, that the Goths were descended from the Thracians, and that the Greeks and Thracians were only different clans of the same people. Clarke's Connexion, &c. ch. ii. p. 65.

[See also Mr. Pinkerton's Dissertation on the Goths, and Dr. Jamieson's Hermes Scythicus.-EDIT.]

See Pontoppidan. Nat. Hist. Norway, tom. ii. c. 10. §. 1, 2, 3.

Modern

tice many marks are said still to remain in those countries'. This art or custom of writing on rocks is Asiatic". travellers report, that there are Runic inscriptions now existing in the deserts of Tartary. The WRITTEN MOUNTAINS of the Jews are an instance that this fashion was oriental. Antiently, when one of these northern chiefs fell honourably in battle, his weapons, his war-horse, and his wife, were consumed with himself on the same funeral pile". I need not remind my readers how religiously this horrible ceremony of sacrificing the wife to the dead husband is at present observed in the east. There is a very remarkable correspondence, in numberless important and fundamental points, between the Druidical and the Persian superstitions: and notwithstanding the evidence of Cesar, who speaks only from popular report, and without precision, on a subject which he cared little about, it is the opinion of the learned Banier, that the Druids were formed on the model of the Magi. In this hypothesis he is seconded by a modern antiquary; who further supposes, that Odin's followers imported this establishment into Scandinavia, from the confines of Persia. The Scandinavians attributed divine virtue to the misletoe; it is mentioned in their EDDA, or system of religious doctrines, where it is said to grow on the west side of Val-hall, or Odin's elysium. That Druidical rites existed among the Scandinavians we are informed from many antient Erse poems,

* See Saxo Grammat. Præf. ad Hist. Dan. And Hist. lib. vii. See also Ol. Worm. Monum. Dan. lib. iii.

"Paulus Jovius, a writer indeed not of the best credit, says, that Annibal engraved characters on the Alpine rocks, as a testimony of his passage over them, and that they were remaining there two centuries ago. Hist. lib. xv. p. 163.

* See Voyage par Strahlemberg, &c. A Description of the Northern and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia. Schroder says, from Olaus Rudbeckius, that RUNES, or letters, were invented by Magog the Scythian, and communicated to Tuisco the celebrated German chieftain, in the year of the world 1799. Præf. ad Lexicon Latino-Scandic.

which say that the British Druids, in the extremity of their affairs, solicited and obtained aid from Scandinavia. The Gothic hell exactly resembles that which we find in the religious systems of the Persians, the most abounding in superstition of all the eastern nations. One of the circumstances is, and an oriental idea, that it is full of scorpions and serpents. The doctrines of Zeno, who borrowed most of his opinions from the Persian philosophers, are not uncommon in the EDDA. Lok, the evil deity of the Goths, is probably the Arimanius of the Persians. In some of the most antient Islandic chronicles, the Turks are mentioned as belonging to the jurisdiction of the Scandinavians. Mahomet, not so great an inventor as is imagined, adopted into his religion many favourite notions and superstitions from the bordering nations which were the offspring of the Scythians, and especially from the Turks. Accordingly, we find the Alcoran agreeing with the Runic theology in various instances. I will mention only one. It is one of the beatitudes of the Mahometan paradise, that blooming virgins shall administer the most luscious wines. Thus in Odin's Val-hall, or the Gothic elysium, the departed heroes received cups of the strongest mead and ale from the hands of the virgin-goddesses called Valkyres. Alfred, in his Saxon account of the northern seas, taken from the mouth of Ohther, a Norwegian, who had been sent by that monarch to discover a north-east passage into the Indies, constantly calls these nations the ORIENTALS. And as these eastern tribes brought with them into the north a certain degree of refinement, of luxury and splendour, which ap

Ossian's Works. Cathlin, ii. p.216. Not. edit. 1765. vol. ii. They add, that among the auxiliaries came many magicians.

4 See Hyde, Relig. Vet. Pers. p. 399. 404. But compare what is said of the EDDA, towards the close of this Dis

course.

* Odin only, drank wine in Val-hall. EDD. Myth. xxxiv. See Keysler, p. 152.

See Preface to Alfred's Saxon Orosius, published by Spelman. [And since by Daines Barrington.] VIT. ALFREDI.

Spelm. Append. vi. [Oht-here was not sent by Alfred. This voyage was undertaken for the gratification of his own curiosity, and the furtherance of his commercial views. He was doubtlessly ignorant of the existence of Asia. The Orientals, to use the language of the text, were those inhabitants of the Scandinavian peninsula, whose country lay upon his starboard quarter, while steering due north from Halgoland in Norway.-EDIT.]

peared singular and prodigious among barbarians; one of their early historians describes a person better dressed than usual, by saying, “he was so well cloathed, that you might have taken him for one of the Asiatics." Wormius mentions a Runic incantation, in which an Asiatic enchantress is invoked. Various other instances might here be added, some of which will occasionally arise in the future course of our inquiries.

It is notorious, that many traces of oriental usages are found amongst all the European nations during their pagan state; and this phenomenon is rationally resolved, on the supposition that all Europe was originally peopled from the east. But as the resemblance which the pagan Scandinavians bore to the eastern nations in manners, monuments, opinions, and practices, is so very perceptible and apparent, an inference arises, that their migration from the east must have happened at a period by many ages more recent, and therefore most probably about the time specified by their historians. In the mean time we must remember, that a distinction is to be made between this expedition of Odin's Goths, who formed a settlement in Scandinavia, and those innumerable armies of barbarous adventurers, who some centuries afterwards, distinguished by the same name, at different periods overwhelmed Europe, and at length extinguished the Roman Empire.

LANDNAMA-SAGA. See Mallet. Hist. Dannem. c. ii.

h Lit. Run. p. 209, edit. 1651. The Goths came from the neighbourhood of Colchis, the region of witchcraft, and the country of Medea, famous for her incantations. The eastern pagans from the very earliest ages have had their enchanters. Now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like mann r with their enchantments. Exod. vii. 11. See also vii. 18, 19. ix. 11, &c. When the people of Israel had overrun the country of Balak, he invites Balaam, a neighbouring prince, to curse them, or destroy them by magic, which he seems to have professed. And the elders of Moab departed with the rewards of DIVINATION in their hand. Num. xxii. 7. Surely there is no ENCHANTMENT against Israel. xxiii. 23. And he went out, as at other times, to seek for EN

CHANTMENTS, xxiv. 1, &c. Odin himself was not only a warrior, but a magician, and his Asiatics were called Incantationum auctores. Chron. Norweg. apud Bartholin. L. iii. c. 2. p. 657. Crymog. Arngrim. L. i. cap. vii. p. 511. From this source, those who adopt the principles just mentioned in this discourse, may be inclined to think, that the notion of spells got into the ritual of chivalry. In all legal single combats, each champion attested upon oath, that he did not carry about him any herb, SPELL, or ENCHANTMENT. Dugdal. Orig. Juridic. p. 82. See Hickes's account of the silver Dano-Saxon shield, dug up in the Isle of Ely, having a magical Runic inscription, supposed to render those who bore it in battle invulnerable. Apud Hickes. Thesaur. Dissertat. Epistol. p. 187.