X.

CHAP. the imperfect abridgment of Jornandes *. These writers passed, with the most artful conciseness, over the misfortunes of the nation, celebrated its successful valour, and adorned the triumph with many Asiatic trophies, that more properly belonged to the people of Scythia. On the faith of ancient songs, the uncertain, but the only memorials of barbarians, they deduced the first origin of the Goths, from the vast island, or peninsula, of Scandinavia †. That extreme country of the north was not unknown to the conquerors of Italy: The ties of ancient consanguinity had been strengthened by recent offices of friendship; and a Scandinavian king had cheerfully abdicated his savage greatness, that he might pass the remainder of his days in the peaceful and polished court of Ravennat. Many vestiges, which cannot be ascribed to the arts of popular vanity, attest the ancient residence of the Goths in the countries beyond the Baltic. From the time of the geographer Ptolemy, the southern part of Sweden seems to have continued in the possession of the less enterprising remnant of the nation, and a large territory is even at present divided into east and west Gothland. During the middle ages, (from the ninth to the twelfth century,) whilst Christianity was advancing with a slow progress into the north, the Goths and the Swedes composed

* See the prefaces of Cassiodorus and Jornandes. It is surpri sing that the latter should be omitted in the excellent edition published by Grotius, of the Gothic writers.

+ On the authority of Ablavius, Jornandes quotes some old Gothic chronicles in verse. De Reb. Geticis, c. 4.

Jornandes, c. 3.

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composed two distinct, and sometimes hostile C HA P. members, of the same monarchy. The latter of these two names has prevailed, without extinguishing the former. The Swedes, who might well be satisfied with their own fame in arms, have, in every age, claimed the kindred glory of the Goths. In a moment of discontent against the court of Rome, Charles XII. insinuated, that his victorious troops were not degenerated from their brave ancestors, who had already subdued the mistress of the world †.

of the

Till the end of the eleventh century, a cele- Religion brated temple subsisted at Upsal, the most con- Goths. siderable town of the Swedes and Goths. It was enriched with the gold which the Scandinavians had acquired in their piratical adventures, and sanctified by the uncouth representations of the three principal deities, the God of War, the Goddess of Generation, and the God of Thunder. In the general festival, that was solemnized every ninth year, nine animals of every species (without excepting the human) were sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the sacred grove adjacent to the temple . The only traces that

Cc3

* See in the Prolegomena of Grotius, some large extracts from Adam of Bremen, and Saxo-Grammaticus. The former wrote in the year 1077; the latter flourished about the year 1200.

+ Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII. 1. iii. When the Austrians desired the aid of the court of Rome against Gustavus Adolphus, they always represented that conqueror as the lineal successor of Alaric. Harte's History of Gustavus, vol. ii. p. 123.

+ See Adam of Bremen in Grotii Prolegomenis, p. 104. The temple of Upsal was destroyed by Ingo, king of Sweden, who

began

390

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CHAP. that now subsist of this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, a system of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thirteenth century,' and studied by the learned of Denmark and Swe den, as the most valuable remains of their an cient traditions.

Institu

death of

Odin.

Notwithstanding the mysterious obscurity of tions and the Edda, we can easily distinguish two persons, confounded under the name of Odin; the god of war, and the great legislator of Scandinavia. The latter, the Mahomet of the north, instituted a religion adapted to the climate and to the people. Numerous tribes, on either side of the Baltic, were subdued by the invincible valour of Odin, by his persuasive eloquence, and by the fame, which he acquired, of a most skilful magician. The faith that he had propagated during a long and prosperous life, he confirmed by a voluntary death. Apprehensive of the ignominious approach of disease and infirmity, he resolved to expire as became a warrior. In a solemn assembly of the Swedes and Goths, he wounded himself in nine mortal places, hastening away (as he asserted with his dying voice) to prepare the feast of heroes in the palace of the god of war *. The native and proper habitation of Odin is Agreeable distinguished by the appellation of As-gard. The tain hypo- happy resemblance of that name with As-burg,

but uncer

thesis con

cerning

Odin.

or

began to reign in the year 1075, and about fourscore years afterwards a Christian cathedral was erected on its ruins. See Dalin's History of Sweden, in the Bibliotheque Raisonnee.

* Mallet, Introduction a l'Histoire du Dannemarc.

X..

or As-of, words of a similar signification, has c H A P. given rise to an historical system of so pleasing a contexture, that we could almost wish to persuade ourselves of its truth. It is supposed that Odin was chief of a tribe of barbarians which dwelt on the banks of the lake Mæotis, till the fall of Mithridates and the arms of Pompey menaced the north with servitude. That Odin, yielding with indignant fury to a power which he was unable to resist, conducted his tribe from the frontiers of the Asiatic Sarmatia into Sweden, with the great design of forming, in that inaccessible retreat of freedom, a religion and a people, which in some remote age, might be subservient to his immortal revenge; when his invincible Goths, armed with martial fanaticism, should issue in numerous swarms from the neighbourhood of the Polar circle, to chastise the oppressors of mankind +.

of the

If so many successive generations of Goths Emigration were capable of preserving a faint tradition of their Goths from Scandinavian origin, we must not expect, from into PrusC c 4

Scandinavia

such sia.

* Mallet, c. iv. p. 55. has collected from Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, and Stephanus Byzantinus, the vestiges of such a city and people.

+ This wonderful expedition of Odin, which, by deducing the enmity of the Goths and Romans from so memorable a cause, might supply the noble groundwork of an Epic poem, cannot safely be received as authentic history. According to the obvi ous sense of the Edda, and the interpretation of the most skilful critics, As-gard, instead of denoting a real city of the Asiatic Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation of the mystic abode of the gods, the Olympus of Scandinavia; from whence the prophet was supposed to descend, when he announced his new religion to the Gothic nations, who were already seated in the southern parts of Sweden.

C. HA P. such unlettered barbarians, any distinct account

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of the time and circumstances of their emigration. To cross the Baltic was an easy and natural attempt. The inhabitants of Sweden were masters of a sufficient number of large vessels, with oars, and the distance is little more than one hundred miles from Carlscroon to the nearest ports of Pomerania and Prussia. Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At least as early as the Christian æra †, and as late as the age of the Antonines ‡, the Goths were established towards the mouth of the Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial cities of Thorn, Elbing, Koningsberg, and Dantzick, were long afterwards founded §. Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes of the Vandals were spread along the banks of the Oder, and the sea-coast of Pomerania and Mecklenburgh, A striking resemblance of manners, complexion,religion, and language, seemed to indicate that the Vandals and the Goths were originally one great people. The latter appear to have been subdivided

*Tacit. Germania, c. 44.

+ Tacit. Annal. ii. 62. If we could yield a firm assent to the navigations of Pytheas of Marseilles, we must allow that the Goths had passed the Baltic at least three hundred years before Christ.

+ Ptolemy, 1. ii.

By the German colonies who followed the arms of the Teutonic knights. The conquest and conversion of Prussia were completed by those adventurers in the xiiith century.

Pliny (Hist. Natur. iv. 14.) and Procopius in Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 1.) agree in this opinion. They lived in distant ages, and possessed different means of investigating the truth.