and
me to hell, if she could do it?' Then spake King Attila, `Surely she is
a devil, and slay thou her, and that were a good work if thou had done
it seven nights ago! Then many a gallant fellow were whole that is now
dead.' Now King Thidrec springs at Grimhild and swings up his sword
Eckisax, and hews her asunder at the middle").

It was believed (as in Polynesia, where "Captain Cook's path" was shown
in the grass) that the heat of the hero's body might blast the grass; so
Starcad's entrails withered the grass.

It was believed that a severed head might bite the ground in rage, and
there were certainly plenty of opportunities for observation of such
cases.

It was believed that a "dumb man" might be so wrought on by passion that
he would speak, and wholly acquire speech-power.

Little is told of "surgery", but in one case of intestines protruding
owing to wounds, withies were employed to bind round the trunk and keep
the bowels from risk till the patient could be taken to a house and his
wounds examined and dressed. It was considered heroic to pay little heed
to wounds that were not dangerous, but just to leave them to nature.

Personal "cleanliness" was not higher than among savages now. A lover is
loused by his lady after the mediaeval fashion.

CHRISTIANITY--In the first nine books of Saxo, which are devoted to
heathendom, there is not much save the author's own Christian point
of view that smacks of the New Faith. The apostleships of Ansgarius in
Denmark, the conversion of King Eric, the Christianity of several later
Danish Kings, one of whom was (like Olaf Tryggwason) baptised in Britain
are also noticed.

Of "Christian legends" and beliefs, besides the euhemerist theory,
widely held, of the heathen gods there are few hints, save the idea
that Christ was born in the reign of Frode, Frode having been somehow
synchronised with Augustus, in whose reign also there was a world-peace.

Of course the christening of Scandinavia is history, and the mythic
books are little concerned with it. The episode in Adam of Bremen, where
the king offers the people, if they want a new god, to deify Eric, one
of their hero-kings, is eminently characteristic and true.

FOLK-TALES.

There might be a classification of Saxo's stories akin to that of the
Irish poets, Battles, Sieges, Voyages, Rapes, Cattle Forays, etc.; and
quite apart from the historic element, however faint and legendary,
there are a set of stories ascr