himself by slaying the king's two sons, making drinking-cups of their sculls, and breast-clasps of their teeth, as a present for the parents. He flies away afterwards with the king's daughter, having discovered the secret of the robe of feathers, and mocks the king in the distance with an account of his revenge. Attached to this mythology is a goodly array of spirits of a minor order, Elves, Dwarfs, Gnomes, Cobolds, and Nixes, who peopled the woods, fields, and rocky caverns, in the same manner as the Fauns, and Nymphs did among the Greeks and Romans, and interfered in the affairs of men. The stories of them and their good or evil propensities are innumerable, but the most remarkable are those of the white women, denoting a transition from Paganism to the rites of Christianity. these There are the white women who often appear at early dawn, or dewy evening with their pale sad faces and shadowy forms; are the goddesses of ancient Paganism condemned to wander through ages to expiate the guilt of having received divine worship, and sentenced at length to eternal punishment unless redeemed by mor tal aid. At certain times they are permitted to appear to human view to seek that which alone can procure them salvation. A fisherman in the neighbourhood of Fieben, suddenly beheld a white woman standing before him; "Home, home!" she cried, "thy wife has brought a boy into the world, carry it hither, let me kiss it that I may be redeemed." The fisherman amazed, hastened to his cottage and found all as the white woman had said; but fearing very naturally to trust his new born infant into the hands of this un earthly being till protected by the holy rite of baptism, he had this ceremony performed, and then bore it to the sea shore where be found the white woman weeping bitterly, for the condition attached to her salvation was, that the child should not be baptized! and still at times does she appear upon the sea shore sighing and lamenting. The goddess Hertha, mentioned by Tacitus, designated in the middle ages by the name of Perchta, plays a most conspicuous part in these legends. She had been spouse to Odin, and watched over certain districts of the country with beneficent sway, having the privilege of appearing on the feast of the three kings to the inhabitants of upper earth. In consequence however of a slight put upon her and her attendant dwarfs, she withdrew from the neighbourhood, which soon lost its fertility, and became lone and desolate. Some of those fables indicate the influence which the first seeds of Christianity had among the people, and the way in which the priests endeavoured to turn these superstitions to the advantage of the new creed. The translation of the Scriptures in the Mæso Gothic tongue, done by Ulphilas, Bishop of the Visigoths, in the middle of the fourth century, may be looked upon as the earliest specimen of German literature extant. It is still preserved in the Cathedral at Upsal under the title of the "silver codex," having been brought from Prague by Count Königsmark. It is partially written in metre, and adheres in many passages to the rythm of the Greek version. Thus in Matthew, chap. xi. verse xvii, the original runs thus :— Πυλησαμεν ὑμῖν, καὶ ουκ ὠρχήσασθε Εθρηνήσαμεν ὑμῖν, καὶ οὐκ έκοψασθε, The meaning of which is; "we have piped to you and you have not danced; we have lamented and you have not mourned.” The Maso Gothic version of Ulphilas is as follows: Swiglodedum izwis, jah ni plinsideduth, Gaunodedum izwis, jah ni gaigeroduth. The words of this passage do not seem to have much affinity with modern German, except those "jah ni," which are evidently the first forms of the "ja nicht" of the present day. After Ulphilas a great hiatus of nearly four hundred years occurs, during which there does not appear to have been any noted lay produced among the German nations. No doubt they had their warlike chaunts and songs celebrating achievements of their heroes, but the first signs of revival are in the eight century, when the Northmen began to form their piratical excursions. One of these "Ragnar the sea king," the terror of the coasts, who was taken prisoner while invading the territories of Ella, King of Northumberland, and perished stung to death by serpents in a loathsome dungeon, has left behind him an ode sung in the midst of tortures. It is composed of short strophes, without rhyme, each commencing with the refrain "we fought with the sword." A series of similar lays, in which may be reckoned the Weissbrunnen Gebet, Hildebrand lied, Walter of Aquitaine and Beowulf, form the Frankish period of German poetry, in which a certain number of characters are constantly reproduced in different views and adventures. They are rhymeless, the measure consisting of a species of alliteration, formed by the accentuation of the principal words in each line commencing with the same consonants. The hero Siegfried, Etzel, or Attila, King of the Huns, Theodoric the Great under the name of Dietrich of Berne or Verona, Günther, King of the Burgandians, and his vassals Hagan and Hildebrand, are the principal personages running through the whole. Walter of Aquitaine appears to be the most complete of the series, although the only manuscripts now extant of it are in the Latin tongue. It commences with an account of an expedition by Etzel and his Hunnish army, in which he takes Hagan and Walter, then mere youths, as captives from the Burgundians. When they grow up the former escapes from his servitude, and the other having made Etzel and his court drunk, flies off with the king's daughter Hildegunda and two boxes of treasures. They arrive in the territories of Günther, the King of Burgandy, who sends out Hagan and twelve picked men to seize the maiden and jewels. They are vanquished by Walter and Hagan's son Patafred slain. Gunther and Hagan afterwards attacked Walter together, and fight until one has lost a hand, another an eye, and the third a foot, when they consider it right to make up the quarrel, become good friends, and return to Worms in company. This lay is attributed to a monk of St. Gall, Eckard, who lived in the ninth century. A manuscript copy dating from about that period is still preserved in the library at Carlsruhe. From some passages translated by Madame Pontés it would appear to have been written in a discursive ballad style, and gives a good idea of the manners of that strange age. Walter's declaration of love to Hildegunda, when he persuades her to fly with him, would not disgrace some of the more finished romances of the present day. He finds Hildegunda pensive and alone in the royal apartment, and the following scene takes place : Upon the maiden's lips he prest a tender kiss, the first. She gave it to the warrior; he crossed himself and drank; I was destined for thy husband; thou wert chosen for my bride; But why deny each other in this sad and foreign land, "Thy tongue affects a language which is foreign to thy heart; Young queens of radiant beauty thy hand and homage crave: Then thus the prudent hero to the damsel made reply; Then at his feet the maiden sank, and cried with trembling tone, We now enter upon the cycle of the Niebelungen, containing several lays all relating to the same personages under different phases, and forming such a train of extraordinary encounters as are read of in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. The first is that of the Horny Siegfried, who may be styled the Achilles of the North, for he owes his extraordinary power to a bath of dragon's blood, which changes the surface of his body into horn, and makes him invulnerable. He delivers Chriemhild, a princess of Burgundy, from the jaws of a monstrous giant, and is married to her at Worms to be stabbed by Hagan, Günther's fierce vassal, in the only spot where he is vulnerable. Thus the termination of the poem is anti-classical, ending in the slaughter of the hero himself. The Niebelungen lay itself, the crowning effort of ancient German chivalrous poetry, is of such a truculent nature that it is very difficult to conceive how it can have formed the delight of the ladies' bower of those ages of romance. The characters are nearly the same as before; Siegfried is introduced winning Chriemhild, the sister of Günther, by his prowess. The Burgundian king, seeking to obtain the hand of Brunhild, a warlike princess of Isenland, employs Siegfried to overcome her in the combat. A rivalry ensues between the two ladies, and Brunhild obtains the assassination of Siegfried. Chriemhild, for the sake of revenge, marries Etzel, the king of the Huns, and having invited her brother Günther and his wife to a banquet, procures them to be murdered. A general slaughter ensues, only three of the characters being left alive at the end of the poem. The action of the epic extends over a great period of years, nearly thirty, and by some has been regarded as proceeding from several hands, not put together by one composer. There are many passages of great power and beauty, impossible to give in a translation, which have caused it to be compared with the great Greek and Roman heroic poems, but its unartistic arrangement, prolixity, and truculent termination, depreciate very much its merits as a production of human genius. Another lay of this cycle, the Gudrune, may be considered to have more interest for our readers, as one of the principal personages is Siegbert, king of Ireland, and Hagan, his son. Hilda, the daughter of the latter, is persecuted by three royal suitors, who carry her off at various times, but she is at length married to her real lover, Herwig. The construction of the poem and verse is said to be much superior to the other lays, while many tender and artistic touches soften the harsher manners of the age pourtrayed. This, along with the other Niebelungen, was preserved in the Castle Ambras, near Innspruck in the Tyrol, by the Emperor Maximilian the First in 1517. It contains some 4,700 verses, of a gentle, melodious kind, well calculated to draw the reader on to a full appreciation of its beauties. Another cycle, that of Dietrich of Berne, or Theodoric of Verona, contains the Ecken Ausfahrt, Battle of Ravenna, Dwarf Lauriu, and the Rosengarten. The principal hero throughout is Dietrich, but in the last poem several of the characters of the Niebelungen are introduced. It begins thus in ballad style : Upon the lordly Rhine, there lies a fair and goodly town, His gentle wife had given him three sons both fair and brave; A garden of sweet roses was the beauteous virgin's pride; A mile at least it was in length, and half a mile 'twas wide. No bower on earth, Chriemhild exclaimed, is like this bower of mine. The bower is guarded by twelve knights, whom Dietrich and his followers engage to overcome. All are conquered except the horny Siegfried, husband to Chriemhild, whom on account of his early friendship Dietrich does not wish to fight. He is induced to do so, however, by a stratagem of one of his own warriors, old Hildebrand, and comes off victorious. There is more of chivalry and knightly bearing in this poem than in the others. It remained a favorite romance in Germany up |