> Character Studies 1 3 1 



is little trace in the Sagas, and this is the most remark- 

 able thing about them. Not, of course, that the ideas 

 of magic or of ghosts are entirely absent, — that is 

 not to be expected in such an age, and sometimes the 

 magic intervenes in an odd way in most naturalistic 

 story-telling. But the traces of the fundamental 

 beliefs of old heathenism are very few. The Svarfdcela 

 Saga is, perhaps, the most imbued with them. This 

 peculiarity, which makes such a strong contrast be- 

 tween the Sagas and the Edda poetry, is an argument 

 either that the Sagas, as they now stand, were written 

 or composed after the conversion of Iceland ; or else 

 that, for some time previous to their conversion, the 

 ancient creed had lost all hold on the people of the 

 island. The latter is the most probable explanation. 

 Ancient creeds, much less than modern ones, admit of 

 a change of domicile. They are very largely rooted to 

 the soil in which they have sprung up. And the fact 

 that the Icelanders of the Saga age had so completely 

 got rid of their ancestral beliefs is, I think, some evi- 

 dence that the Edda mythology did really spring from 

 Norse soil, and that it really does reflect, as it seems 

 to do, the aspects of nature which belong to Scandinavia 

 more than to any other country. 



These Icelandic Sagas preserve the quintessence of 

 the national character, and show it, moreover, not only 

 in its heroic moments, but in the affairs of common life. 

 We are irresistibly reminded in reading these accounts 

 of the northern farmer, the Yorkshire farmer, say, as 

 we know him to-day, the true descendant of the 

 Scandinavian. Observe two men of this class meet- 

 ing. They shake hands — in silence. Tlien, after a 



