14 Hartley Burr Alexander 



place of the azure and rose of the South, Thor, the Thunderer, 

 hammers out the ways of men, wielding to their terror that 

 thunderbolt which seems but as a kingly scepter in the hands of 

 the Southron Zeus. 



Mythologies show only too well how Nature rules men's moods ; 

 and we ought never to forget that the persistency of mood is the 

 very essence and definition of personality. The Teutonic gods 

 only reflect the Teutonic temper, which in turn is but the impress 

 of the North upon the souls of men. 



It is generally conceded that this Teutonic temper gives the 

 backbone to English literature. The Celtic, with finer instinct for 

 form and more sensitive imagination, gives the delicate hues of 

 rosy flesh, but bone and muscle are Teuton. This is most natural. 

 From the beginning the Anglo-Saxon mind has been heavy and 

 tenebrous. In primitive times it was moved only by hard knocks : 

 the massy alliteration, the aggressive impact, of its epic verse was 

 necessary to arouse it from somnolence. Anglo-Saxon poetry 

 moves by pounding: it echoes the thwack of cudgels, the clang of 

 swords, the braying screech of spear against shield. 



Ne ivces ecg bona, 

 ac him liilde-grap heortan wyltnas, 



ban-hiis gebrccc. 



No blade was slayer; the bare battle-grip 



Sundered the bone-house, freed the heart's billows. 



This is the language of the Beowulf — a language of iron strength 

 and nerve. Something of its spirit may be gleaned from meta- 

 phors such as ban-hiis (bone-house) and its parallel "bone-vat" 

 applied to the human body ; and again in " whale-road " and 

 " wave-fortress " as names for the sea, we get something of the 

 intensity and fearlessness of Anglo-Saxon imagination. 



The language abounds in similar expressions — kcnnings, as 

 they are called, conventions of poetic insight. Instead of a death- 

 bed there was a " slaughter-bed " — it was a day when men died 

 in their boots, dreading naught more than the stay-at-home 

 " straw-death." The sea was the " terrifying sea," abode of 

 drakes and nixes, but none the less a " path," a " road," a " way " 



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