t is often an
intolerable torment,--and cold, on the other hand, everything
that is pleasant and delightful. But to the dweller in the
North heat brings with it sensations of joy and comfort, and
life without fire has a dreary outlook; so their Hel ruled in
a cold region, over those who were cowards by implication,
while the mead-cup went round, and huge logs blazed and
crackled, for the brave and beautiful who had dared to die on
the field of battle. But under Christianity the extremes of
heat and cold have met, and Hel, the cold, uncomfortable
goddess, is now our Hell, where flames and fires abound, and
where the devils abide in everlasting flame."

Still more will orthodoxy be shocked by Mr. Dasent's neglect to except
Christianity from the conclusion, (no new one, it need hardly be said,
to those who know anything of the subject,) that the mythologies or
personal histories of all religions have been evolved the one from the
other, or grafted the one upon the other,--and by his intimation, that
Christianity, keeping pure in its spirit and undiverted from its
purpose, has yet not hesitated to adapt its outward forms to the tough
popular traditions which it found deeply rooted in the soil where it
sought to grow, thus making itself "all things to all men, that it might
by all means save some."

It will be seen that this book is not milk for babes, but meat for
strong men. Among the tales are some--and those, perhaps, the most
interesting--which Mr. Dasent justly characterizes as "intensely
heathen," and yet in which the Saviour of the world or his apostles
appear as interlocutors or actors, which alone unfits the volume for the
book-table of the household room. We are led to insist upon this trait
of the collection the more, because the translator's choice of language
often seems to be the result of a desire to adapt himself to very
youthful readers,--though why should even they be led to believe that
such phrases as the following are correct by seeing them in
print?--"Tore it up like nothing"; "ran away like anything"; "it was no
good" [_i.e._ of no use]; "in all my born days"; "after a bit" [_i.e._ a
little while]; "she had to let him in, and when he was, he lay," etc.;
"the Giant got up cruelly early." These, and others like them, are
profusely scattered through the tales, apparently from the mistaken
notion that they have some idiomatic force. They jar upon the ear of th