nt and
incredulity of Atahualpa the Peruvian King; how he made the Spanish
Soldier who was guarding him scratch _Dios_ on his thumb-nail, that he
might try the next soldier with it, to ascertain whether such a miracle
was possible. If Odin brought Letters among his people, he might work
magic enough!

Writing by Runes has some air of being original among the Norsemen: not
a Phoenician Alphabet, but a native Scandinavian one. Snorro tells us
farther that Odin invented Poetry; the music of human speech, as well as
that miraculous runic marking of it. Transport yourselves into the early
childhood of nations; the first beautiful morning-light of our Europe,
when all yet lay in fresh young radiance as of a great sunrise, and
our Europe was first beginning to think, to be! Wonder, hope; infinite
radiance of hope and wonder, as of a young child's thoughts, in the
hearts of these strong men! Strong sons of Nature; and here was not only
a wild Captain and Fighter; discerning with his wild flashing eyes what
to do, with his wild lion-heart daring and doing it; but a Poet too, all
that we mean by a Poet, Prophet, great devout Thinker and Inventor,--as
the truly Great Man ever is. A Hero is a Hero at all points; in the soul
and thought of him first of all. This Odin, in his rude semi-articulate
way, had a word to speak. A great heart laid open to take in this great
Universe, and man's Life here, and utter a great word about it. A Hero,
as I say, in his own rude manner; a wise, gifted, noble-hearted man. And
now, if we still admire such a man beyond all others, what must these
wild Norse souls, first awakened into thinking, have made of him! To
them, as yet without names for it, he was noble and noblest; Hero,
Prophet, God; _Wuotan_, the greatest of all. Thought is Thought, however
it speak or spell itself. Intrinsically, I conjecture, this Odin must
have been of the same sort of stuff as the greatest kind of men. A great
thought in the wild deep heart of him! The rough words he articulated,
are they not the rudimental roots of those English words we still use?
He worked so, in that obscure element. But he was as a _light_ kindled
in it; a light of Intellect, rude Nobleness of heart, the only kind of
lights we have yet; a Hero, as I say: and he had to shine there, and
make his obscure element a little lighter,--as is still the task of us
all.

We will fancy him to be the Type Norseman; the finest Teuton whom that
race had yet prod