h of the Indo-Teutonic race, who spread
irregularly towards the north of Europe, and at different periods, and
in different regions, came in contact with the more civilized nations of
the south. At this period, there seems to have been a reflux of these
Gothic tribes from the North. Malte Brun considers that there are strong
grounds for receiving the Islandic traditions commented by the Danish
Varro, M. Suhm. From these, and the voyage of Pytheas, which Malte Brun
considers genuine, the Goths were in possession of Scandinavia,
Ey-Gothland, 250 years before J. C., and of a tract on the continent
(Reid-Gothland) between the mouths of the Vistula and the Oder. In their
southern migration, they followed the course of the Vistula; afterwards,
of the Dnieper. Malte Brun, Geogr. i. p. 387, edit. 1832. Geijer, the
historian of Sweden, ably maintains the Scandinavian origin of the
Goths. The Gothic language, according to Bopp, is the link between the
Sanscrit and the modern Teutonic dialects: "I think that I am reading
Sanscrit when I am reading Olphilas." Bopp, Conjugations System der
Sanscrit Sprache, preface, p. x--M.]

[Footnote 6: Jornandes, c. 3.]

[Footnote 7: 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.]

[Footnote 8: Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII. l. 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.]

Till the end of the eleventh century, a celebrated temple subsisted
at Upsal, the most considerable 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. [9] The only traces that now
subsist of this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, [901] a
system of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thirteenth century,
and studied by the learned of Denmark and Sweden, as the most valuable
remains