Frey 99 



same time he expresses the courage and resolution 

 with which all these forces were met and confronted ; 

 and above all, he expresses the humour which was 

 never far absent from the ISTorseman's mind even in 

 the midst of the strangest surroundings and of the 

 greatest dangers. There is no 'high falutin' about Thor. 

 He sometimes fails conspicuously and makes himself 

 ridiculous ; but more frequently the laugh is upon his 

 side. It has been said of Thor that, by the side of 

 Odin, he is a somewhat rustic figure. He is essentially 

 the god of the hondi or yeoman-farmer at home in 

 Norway or in Iceland. He is not in an equal degree the 

 god of the Viking, the seafarer and adventurer. Thor 

 is a patron of agriculture as well as a constant fighter. 



Frey is a great contrast to Thor in most particulars, 

 though he resembles him in some. We know so little 



O 



of the Swedes during this period that we cannot say 

 whether Frey represents them as well as Thor represents 

 the people of the Sagas ; but if he does so they must 

 have been a much more peaceful race than their brother 

 Scandinavians. It is possible that this was the case. 

 It seems to be a law of national growth that people are 

 capable of exhausting their energy by great achieve- 

 ments, and that after these efforts they are condemned 

 to a period of long repose. The Danes and Norsemen 

 exhausted their energies by the immense vigour which 

 they displayed during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh 

 centuries. The Swedes, on the other hand, owe their 

 chief title to fame to their achievements in the days of 

 Chistavus-Adolphus and of Charles the Twelfth. If we 

 assume that, during the earlier centuries of Scandinavian 

 history, fhey were as much inferior in energy and spirit 



