312 
creator of a new poetic and picturesque 
demonology, derive the materials of 
such sublime description? Certainly 
not (in the main, at least) from the 
fables of Greece ‘and Rome; but from 
the sources of this very Northern My- 
thology, whose fitness for the purposes 
of poetry and the arts is now so fasti- 
diously questioned.* 
That many of the superstitions of 
the Scandinavian mythology are deeply 
tinged with the rudeness and even bar- 
barism of the ages in which they pre- 
vailed, and that wildness, even to occa- 
sional incoherence, is a prevalent fea- 
ture in them, must be, indeed, admitted ; 
nor will it be denied, that some of the 
attributes of some of their divinities are 
liable to the imputation of grossness: 
but, be it remembered, it is never a 
licentious grossness. Inebriation may 
be as much deified in the Feasts of 
Valhalla,} asinthe Orgies of Bacchus,— 
and the Hall of Shields more horrid 
still with the sanguinary stains of 
slaughter than that of the Thracian 
God; but the beatitude of the Northern 
Heaven is never embrothelled, like that 
of the Deities of Olympus. No limping 
Vulcan here detects his Goddess in the 
adulterer’s embrace, and exposes her 
and her paramour, in the very act of 
sin, to the laughter of her kindred 
Deities. 
In the saintly, or menastic sense, at 
least, the mythology of Scandinavia is 
pure and undefiled. It has its splen- 
dours and its beauties, however, as well 
as its rude grandeur and its wild sublimi- 
* Tn farther illustration of the uses that 
may be made of the imagery and fables of 
the Northern superstition, for the purposes 
of modern poetry, may we be permitted to 
quote a single passage from an ** Occasional 
Address spoken at Coyent-garden Theatre 
during the tremendous winter of 1819, for 
the benefit of the Charitable Establishment 
for Shelter to the Houseless ?””— 
*« When, clad in storms, the Giants of the Frost 
Condense the waves, and stride from coast to coast, 
O’er realms aghast the darkening tempests roll, 
And bring the nations nearer to the Pole !” 
How far the quotation makes for or against 
the argument of our correspondent, is left, 
without a comment, to the judgment of the 
reader.—Epit. 
+ Valhalla, “ The Hall of Shields,’— 
Woden’s palace, where the Monoheroes, 
or Patriarchs, engaged every day in direful 
conflict ; after which they sat down to re- 
gale themselves at a sumptuous banquet, 
and drank ale, wassail, &c. out of the sculls 
of their enemies. 
Northern Mythology. 
(May I, 
ties. BaLpER on his Steed of Day, Ihave 
already endeavoured to shew, might be 
as poetical as Arotio in his Car: I 
should think, he might also be rendered 
as picturesque—and might suggest, per- 
haps, as good a model for the plastic 
art. Nor doIsee why Tuor with his 
Mace,{ might not be as sublime a sub- 
ject for colossal statuary as. Jurrrer 
with his Bolts. The Raven of the North, 
it is true, cannot compete with the 
Eagle of Olympus, either in sculpture, 
poetry, or picture; but the multifarious 
attributes of Woden offer materials of 
selection for almost every description of 
embellishment to them all. And as for 
themes and assemblages of grace and 
beauty,—the Bowers of Asgard (the 
celestial Elysium of the North), though 
not so voluptuous, might be made as 
lovely and imaginative, as those of 
Cyprus; and Frea§ and her three atten- 
dant 
+ Thor, ‘‘the God of Thunder, and of the 
Air,” son of Woden and Frea. With his: 
iron gauntlet he hurled the thunder-bolts ; 
and with his mace he controlled the Giants 
of Frost, and ruled the elements. He was, 
also, a great warrior; the enemy of the 
gigantean race; and yictor over Lok and 
all his monster-brood.— What is there in 
all this less poetical, less picturesque, or 
less applicable to the skill of the statuary, 
than in Hereules and the Hydra, &c., 
Typhon and Briareus— Apollo and the 
Python ? 
§ Frea, “ the Goddess of Beauty’”— 
(daughter of Niord, or Nocca, God of the 
Sea.) She was the wife of Woden, though 
Sayer and some others assign that honour 
to Hertha, I believe upon no better authority 
than that of Tacitus,—who, certainly, upon 
Runic Mythology, is not a very good one ; 
it being palpable, I think, that the primi- 
tive Scandinavians are not included in his 
German tribes. She is called “the propi- 
tious Goddess ;” and, to her, lovers prefer 
their vows. She is the goddess, however, 
not of wanton gallantry, but of marriage— 
the Venus and the Cupid, the Juno and 
the Hymen, all combined. She bears the 
bow, she lifts the torch, she presides over 
the sanctity of the nuptial-bed, and she. is 
invoked in the hour of child-birth. The 
purity of the Scandinavian mythology is so. 
marked, that Mr. Coleridge, in one of bis 
public lectures, seemed to regard the tem- 
porary prevalence of that superstition (not- 
withstanding its gross and sanguinary fero. 
city) as a necessary preliminary to the- 
Christian revelation ; and I have conversed 
upon the subject with one of the most 
learned of our evangelical divines, who was 
evidently disposed to maintain the same 
opinion. 
