4 CIVILISATION AND ANTIQUITIES OF THE NORTH. 



The striking fact brought vividly before our mind is that 

 the people of the North, even before the time when they 

 carried their warfare into Gaul and Britain, possessed a 

 degree of civilisation which would be difficult for us to realise 

 were it not that the antiquities help us in a most remarkable 

 manner, and in many essential points, to corroborate the 

 truthfulness of the Eddas and Sagas. 



The indisputable fact remains that both the Gauls and the 

 Britons were conquered by the Romans and afterwards by the 

 Northern tribes. 



This Northern civilisation was peculiar to itself, having 

 nothing in common with the Roman world. Rome knew 



O 



nothing of these people till they began to frequent the coasts 

 of her North Sea provinces, in the days of Tacitus, and after 

 his time the Mediterranean. The North was separated from 

 Rome by the swamps and forests of Germania a vague term 

 given to a country north and north-east of Italy, a land 

 without boundaries, and inhabited by a great number of 

 warlike, wild, uncivilised tribes. According to the accounts 

 of Roman writers, these people were very unlike those of the 

 North, and we must take the description given of them to be 

 correct, as there is no archaeological discovery to prove the 

 contrary. They were distinct ; one was comparatively civilised, 

 the other was not. 



The manly civilisation the Northmen possessed was their 

 own ; from their records, corroborated by finds in Southern 

 Russia, it seems to have advanced north from about the shores 

 of the Black Sea, and we shall be able to see in the perusal of 

 these pages how many Northern customs were like those of the 

 ancient Greeks. 



A view of the past history of the world will show us that 

 the growth of nations which have become powerful has been 

 remarkably steady, and has depended upon the superior 

 intelligence of the conquering people over their neighbours ; 

 just as to-day the nations who have taken possession ol 

 far-off lands and extended their domain, are superior to the 

 conquered. 



The museums of Copenhagen, Stockholm. Christiania, 

 Bergen, Lund, Goteborg, and many smaller ones in the pro- 



