l, to fascinate or charm a cruel
mistress, &c., with all the usual necromantic rites. But if they
could acknowledge the characteristics of the Italian Striga,
those nations at the same time retained a proper respect for the
venerated Saga--the German Hexe.

[30] Aurinia was the Latin name of another of these
venerable sagae. Tacitus, _Histor._ iv. 61, and _Germania_,
viii.

Of all the historic peoples of ancient Europe, the Scandinavians
were perhaps most imbued with a persuasion of the efficacy of
magic; a fact which their home and their habits sufficiently
explain. In the Eddas, Odin, the leader of the immigration in the
first century, and the great national lawgiver, is represented as
well versed in the knowledge of that preternatural art; and the
heroes of the Scandinavian legends of the tenth or twelfth
century are especially ambitious of initiation. The Scalds,
like the Brahmins or Druids, were possessed of tremendous
secrets; their _runic_ characters were all powerful charms,
whether against enemies, the injurious effects of an evil eye,
or to soften the resentment of a lover.[31] The Northmen, with
the exception of some nations of Central Europe, like the
Lithuanians, who were not christianised until the thirteenth or
fourteenth century, from their roving habits as well perhaps as
from their remoteness, were among the last peoples of Europe to
abandon their old creed. Urged by poverty and the hopes of
plunder, the pirates of the Baltic long continued to be the
terror of the European coasts; but, without a political status,
they were the common outlaws of Christendom. They were the relics
of a savage life now giving way in Europe to the somewhat more
civilised forms of society, continuing their indiscriminate
depredations with impunity only because of the want of union and
organisation among their neighbours. But they were in a
transitional state: the coasts and countries they had formerly
been content to ravage, they were beginning to find it their
interest to colonise and cultivate. In the new interests and
pursuits of civilisation and commerce, a natural disgust might
have been experienced for the savage traditions of a religion
whose gods and heroes were mostly personifications of war and
rapine, under whose banners they had suffered the hardships, if
they had enjoyed the plunder, of a piratic life. The national
deities from being disregarded, must have come soon to be treated
with undisguised con