FABLE AND FOLKLORE 159 



a ghoulish attendant of battling men and feasting on their 

 slain, muttering strange soliloquies, and diabolically cun- 

 ning withal — that such a creature should have appealed 

 to the rough mariners of the North is far from surpris- 

 ing. The supreme Norse god was Odin, an impersona- 

 tion of force and intellect — an apotheosis, indeed, of the 

 Viking himself; and his ministers were two ravens, 

 Hugin and Munin, i.e., Reflection and Memory. 'They 

 sit upon his shoulders and whisper in his ears," says 

 history. "He sends them out at daybreak to fly over the 

 world, and they come back at eve, toward meal-time." 

 Hence it is that Odin knows so much, and is called 

 Rafnagud, Raven-god. Most solicitously does Odin 

 express himself about these ministers in Grunner's lay 

 in the Elder Edda : 



Hugin and Munin fly each day 



Over the spacious earth. I fear for Hugin 



That he come not back, 



Yet more anxious am I for Munin. 



Again, in Odin's fierce Raven Song, Hugin goes "to ex- 

 plore the heavens." Jupiter's two eagles, sent east and 

 west, will be recalled by readers of classic tales. 



As the eagle of Jove became the standard of the 

 Roman legions, so Odin's bird was inscribed on the 

 shields and the banners of his warrior sons. You may 

 see such banners illustrated in the Bayeux tapestry. The 

 Dane called his standard landeyda (land- waster), and 

 had faith in its miraculous virtues. The original ensign, 

 that is, the one brought to England by the first invaders, 

 is described in St. Neot's biographical Chronicles (9th 

 century). In 878, it records, a wild Danish rover 



