stures and the fields. When the seasons were
mild, and the harvests were plentiful, and peace and gladness prevailed,
they blessed Frey, the giver of good gifts to men.

To them the blue sky-dome which everywhere hung over them like an arched
roof was but the protecting mantle which the All-Father had suspended
above the earth. The rainbow was the shimmering bridge which stretches
from earth to heaven. The sun and the moon were the children of a giant,
whom two wolves chased forever around the earth. The stars were sparks
from the fire-land of the south, set in the heavens by the gods. Night
was a giantess, dark and swarthy, who rode in a car drawn by a steed the
foam from whose bits sometimes covered the earth with dew. And Day was
the son of Night; and the steed which he rode lighted all the sky and
the earth with the beams which glistened from his mane.

It was thus that men in the earlier ages of the world looked upon and
spoke of the workings of Nature; and it was in this manner that many
myths, or poetical fables, were formed. By and by, as the world grew
older, and mankind became less poetical and more practical, the first or
mythical meaning of these stories was forgotten, and they were regarded
no longer as mere poetical fancies, but as historical facts. Perhaps
some real hero had indeed performed daring deeds, and had made the world
around him happier and better. It was easy to liken him to Sigurd, or
to some other mythical slayer of giants; and soon the deeds of both were
ascribed to but one. And thus many myth-stories probably contain some
historical facts blended with the mass of poetical fancies which
mainly compose them; but, in such cases, it is generally impossible to
distinguish what is fact from what is mere fancy.

All nations have had their myth-stories; but, to my mind, the purest and
grandest are those which we have received from our northern ancestors.
They are particularly interesting to us; because they are what
our fathers once believed, and because they are ours by right of
inheritance. And, when we are able to make them still more our own by
removing the blemishes which rude and barbarous ages have added to some
of them, we shall discover in them many things that are beautiful and
true, and well calculated to make us wiser and better.

It is not known when or by whom these myth-stories were first put into
writing, nor when they assumed the shape in which we now have them.
But it is said