EARLY MTEUATURE 93 



cipating in any way in the labor of the settlement, that being altogether 

 performed by the smaller, darker species. 



RUSTICUS. 



EARLY LITERATURE OF THE GERMANS. 



BY PROF. HENRV I. SMITH, OF HARTVVICK, N. Y. 



Every one, who is at all acquainted with the literature of our 

 Fatherland, must be aware with what spirit and success the magazines 

 of its earlier, and long forgotten productions, have been, of late years, 

 explored, and what numbers of venerable, and highly interesting monu- 

 ments, have been exhumed from the dust of centuries. Among the most 

 important enterprises, directed to the discovery and publication of such 

 ancient monuments of German literature, is the "■Zeitschrift fiir Deut- 

 sches Alterlhum," published since 1841, at Leipsic, and edited by Pro- 

 fessor Moritz Haupt. This valuable publication has already made known 

 a great number of interesting relics of the olden times of Germania. 

 Among them are poems, fragments of epic poems, allegories, mysteries, 

 tales, fables, and sermons. I doubt not that your readers would be much 

 gratified, if some of these could be transferred to the pages of your val- 

 uable monthly. Unfortunately many of them, both poems and sermons, 

 are written in Latin, so that their publication would ailbrd but little sat- 

 isfaction to the general reader ; many others again are in a Gotiiic, Old- 

 High-German, Frisian, or other antiquated dress ; and I am sorry to say 

 that, having no dictionary of these ancient dialects, I am unable to un- 

 derstand many of these perfectly, so as to enable me to give a complete 

 translation. Sometimes there is, in several lines, but one strange word, 

 which defies every eflbrt to divine its meaning, thus destroying the con- 

 nection, and obscuring the sense. It is impossible duly to appreciate 

 these old and singular monuments, without a lexicon of the different 

 dialects in which they are written. Were it not for these difliculties, 1 

 should be vastly tempted to bore you and your readers with translations 

 of a number of these remnants of ancient Teutonic lore. Perhaps a few 

 of the more tractable ones may not be unacceptable. 



Your readers are perhaps, to some extent, familiar with the ancient 

 Scandinavian mythes respecting the origin of the world. The Scandi- 

 navians conceived the materials for the production of the world and the 

 earth to have been obtained from the body of an enonnou.s giant, as we 

 are informed by the Snorraedda and tlie Saemundcrcdda. Of lliis giant, 

 called Ymir, the flesli furnished the earth, the bones tlie mounlains, the 

 skull the sky ; from his blood was lurmcd the tica, from his hair the 



