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falsehoods. This is effected by what may be termed a principle of
accumulation, to which all systems of belief have been deeply indebted.
In ancient times, for example, the name of Hercules was given to several
of those great public robbers who scourged mankind, and who, if their
crimes were successful as well as enormous, were sure after their death
to be worshiped as heroes. How this appellation originated is
uncertain; but it was probably bestowed at first on a single man, and
afterwards on those who resembled him in the character of their
achievements. This mode of extending the use of a single name is natural
to a barbarous people, and would cause little or no confusion, as long
as the tradition of the country remained local and unconnected. But as
soon as these traditions became fixed by a written language, the
collectors of them, deceived by the similarity of name, assembled the
scattered facts, and ascribing to a single man these accumulated
exploits, degraded history to the level of a miraculous mythology. In
the same way, soon after the use of letters was known in the North of
Europe, there was drawn up by Saxo Grammaticus the life of the
celebrated Ragnar Lodbrok. Either from accident or design, this great
warrior of Scandinavia, who had taught England to tremble, had received
the same name as another Ragnar, who was prince of Jutland about a
hundred years earlier. This coincidence would have caused no confusion
as long as each district preserved a distinct and independent account of
its own Ragnar. But by possessing the resource of writing, men became
able to consolidate the separate trains of events, and as it were, fuse
two truths into one error. And this was what actually happened. The
credulous Saxo put together the different exploits of both Ragnars, and
ascribing the whole of them to his favorite hero, has involved in
obscurity one of the most interesting parts of the early history
of Europe.

The annals of the North afford another curious instance of this source
of error. A tribe of Finns called Quaens occupied a considerable part of
the eastern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. Their country was known as
Quaenland; and this name gave rise to a belief that to the north of the
Baltic there was a nation of Amazons. This would easily have been
corrected by local knowledge: but by the use of writing, the flying
rumor was at once fixed; and the existence of such a people is
positively affirmed in some of th