an earlier time
than that with which we are concerned; but any one who knows the
tales, and will try to realise the state of mind of those who
received them not as fancy but as serious fact, will know something
of the religion of early Germany; of the strange beings, fairies,
dwarfs, magicians, talking animals, animated sun and moon and winds,
by which the German believed himself to be surrounded.

Later German Religion.--In Southern Germany the introduction of
Christianity early put an end to any development of Teutonic religion
which might have taken place there. The old faith, however, still
maintained itself in more Northern latitudes. It was brought to
Britain by the German invaders, continued there till the seventh
century, and was brought in again in a more Northern form by the
Norsemen, who in their turn "gradually deserted Thor and Odin for the
white Christ."[3] Bede tells hardly anything of the paganism which
had been the religion of England a century before he wrote; in this
he is like other Christian teachers who might have told but did not.
But though it came to an end in England, Teutonic religion continued
to prevail in the countries from which the invaders had come. In
Frisia in the eighth century we hear of a goddess Hulda, a kind
goddess, as her name implies, who sends increase to plants and is a
patroness of fishing. A god called Fosete, or Forsete (Forseti in
modern Icelandic=chairman), identified both with Odin and with
Balder, was worshipped in Heligoland; he had a sacred well there,
from which water had to be drawn in silence. There are temples, often
in the middle of a wood, with priestly incumbents, and rich
endowments, both of lands and treasure; and human sacrifice in
various forms is said to have been in use. Idols are mentioned, even
(at Upsala in Sweden) a trinity of idols; but this is what Church
writers would naturally impute to heathens, and the statement is
discredited. No Teutonic idol has survived; the loss to art may not
be great, but such a relic would have settled the controversy.

[Footnote 3: Kingsley's _Hereward the Wake_.]

Iceland.--Teutonic paganism reached its highest development in
Iceland. Of this branch of it alone is there a literature, for many
of the sagas are the fruit of a literary movement in Iceland anterior
to the establishment of Christianity; and the historian Ari, who
wrote within a century after that event, gives careful information of
the earlier state of