erwent a similar
metamorphosis, resembling that proposed by Drawcansir in the
"Rehearsal," who threatens "to make a god subscribe himself a devil."

The warriors of the North received this new impression concerning the
influence of their deities, and the source from which it was derived,
with the more indifference, as their worship, when their mythology was
most generally established, was never of a very reverential or
devotional character. Their idea of their own merely human prowess was
so high, that the champions made it their boast, as we have already
hinted, they would not give way in fight even to the immortal gods
themselves. Such, we learn from Caesar, was the idea of the Germans
concerning the Suevi, or Swabians, a tribe to whom the others yielded
the palm of valour; and many individual stories are told in the Sagas
concerning bold champions, who had fought, not only with the sorcerers,
but with the demigods of the system, and come off unharmed, if not
victorious, in the contest. Hother, for example, encountered the god
Thor in battle, as Diomede, in the Iliad, engages with Mars, and with
like success. Bartholsine[17] gives us repeated examples of the same
kind. "Know this," said Kiartan to Olaus Trigguasen, "that I believe
neither in idols nor demons. I have travelled through various strange
countries, and have encountered many giants and monsters, and have never
been conquered by them; I therefore put my sole trust in my own strength
of body and courage of soul." Another yet more broad answer was made to
St. Olaus, King of Norway, by Gaukater. "I am neither Pagan nor
Christian. My comrades and I profess no other religion than a perfect
confidence in our own strength and invincibility in battle." Such
chieftains were of the sect of Mezentius--

"Dextra mihi Deus, et telum, quod missile libro,
Nunc adsint!"[18]

And we cannot wonder that champions of such a character, careless of
their gods while yet acknowledged as such, readily regarded them as
demons after their conversion to Christianity.

[Footnote 17: "De causis contemptae necis," lib. i. cap 6.]

[Footnote 18: "AEneid," lib. x. line 773.]

To incur the highest extremity of danger became accounted a proof of
that insuperable valour for which every Northman desired to be famed,
and their annals afford numerous instances of encounters with ghosts,
witches, furies, and fiends, whom the Kiempe, or champions, compelled to
submit to their mere mortal st