48 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION 



Europe, we are presented with such a combination of 

 effective causes as might well stimulate the fancy of an 

 imaginative people, and might, among the members 

 of the great Teutonic family, evoke feelings and super- 

 stitions not less characteristic than those of ancient 

 Greece. 



The grandeur and ruggedness of the scenery of 

 these western and northern European countries, and 

 the frequent sombreness of the climate are faithfully 

 reflected in the prevalent Teutonic myths and super- 

 stitions. Thor and his mallet found a congenial home 

 among the Scandinavian mountains and fjords. There, 

 too, was the appropriate haunt of the Frost-giants. 

 The race of giants, with their fondness for stones and 

 rocks, to whom so much influence in altering the 

 external aspects of nature was ascribed by the Teutonic 

 races, might have had their ancestral abode among the 

 crags and defiles of the north-west, but they readily 

 naturalised themselves among the less rugged tracts of 

 northern Germany and of Britain. The dwarfs, trolls, 

 fairies, and hill-folk who, whether or not they are to 

 be regarded as representatives of a diminutive human 

 population that originally inhabited those regions, were 

 believed to dwell under the earth and in caves, and 

 who were regarded as having played a distinct though 

 subordinate part in changing the surface of the land, 

 would find appropriate haunts wherever the Teutons 

 established themselves. The personification of natural 

 forces and the effects produced by the supernatural 

 beings so pictured to the imagination, certainly bear a 

 marked family likeness all over the west and north- 

 west of Europe. 



