Here, Professor Bugge, trying to get out of this difficulty, says that it is not necessary, after all, that Völundr, as a King's son, should have been of pure Finnish blood. Another argument is still more curious. Völundr prepares for himself some roasted bear's flesh at the fire by means of fir-wood. That is quite in keeping with old Norse habits and poetry; but the Norwegian writer deduces therefrom that the scene must be in Finnmarken, because there are bears there as well as forests of fir and birch trees!

But were there not bears once in the whole North, nay, also in Germany, whither even now such an animal occasionally strays? And are there fir and birch trees only in Finnmarken, and not also in Sweden and Norway-not to speak of Germany?

As to whether the Wieland or Wayland tale came, in Professor Bugge's view, to England from the North, or rather by the Angles, the Saxons, and other German tribes, this is a point of little importance. The probability is on the latter side. But why does Professor Bugge not mention the fact of Godfrey of Monmouth speaking of Wayland's home being in the Sigen country—that is, in the German Rhinelands? Is it allowable to suppress such a reference as this:

aurum, gemmasque micantes,

Pocula, quae sculpsit Guilandus in urbe Sigeni.’

'The Sigen country,' says Simrock in his Deutsche Mythologie, 'still famous for its mining, was already known far and wide, in the early Middle Ages, for its artistic work.' Why should Professor Bugge neither quote Godfrey of Monmouth nor Simrock's telling remarks?

In his observations on Wieland's brother, Egil the Marksman, Professor Bugge says that the town of Aylesbury in England bears, from olden times, Egil's name; but that no hero of the German saga is known under that name! Well, should Professor Bugge not know what can be read in Simrock and Grimm —namely, that Völund's brother, Egil, is known in the German tale as Eigel the Marksman, and that, as such, he is almost as famous as Wieland the Smith? Again, should he not know that there is a German tale of King Eigel of Trier; that in the

Rhine and Mosel districts there are the curious Eigel Stones; and that the family name Schützeichel (Eigel the Marksman) occurs to this day on the Lower Rhine? These facts must have been known to Professor Bugge. Why does he not refer to them? Or should he really be unacquainted with Simrock and Grimm? It is an impossible assumption.

In the same way, nothing is said in his treatise about the many ancient German place-names connected with Wieland, such as Welantes Gruoba, Wielantesheim, Wielantisdorf, Wielantes Tanna, Wielandes Brunne. It is true, he quotes the oldest German testimony concerning Wieland, from the Latin Walthari poem (about the year 930). He also mentions that in the German poem, 'Friedrich von Schwaben,' Wieland, as well as the Swan Maidens, appear. I need not say that their figures occur also in the Nibelungen Lied, where Hagen takes their feathery garments from them, in order to compel them to utter a prophecy.

In the Nibelungen Lied they are called Sea Women,' although they rise, up and down the stream, like birds on the river Danube. This characterisation as Sea Women is, it seems to me, another proof that our ancient, but lost, Siegfried songswhich are fortunately preserved, in Norse form, in the Eddawere originally localised throughout in north-western Germany, not far from the North Sea. Although, by a misunderstanding, the revenge for Siegfried's death was afterwards transferred to the Danube; in Attila's realm, the name of Sea Women still clings to the prophecying semi-Goddesses in feathery garb.

III.

In the Edda the three spell-working maidens fly through Myrkwidr, the Black Forest, in swan's garments, to the North. Their names are purely Germanic. They are called Hadgud Swan-White, Hervör All-Wise (or perhaps All-White), and Aelrun. Two of them are daughters of King Lödwer, whose name-as even Professor Bugge avows-is synonymous with the German name Ludwig. Aelrun is described as a daughter of Kiar, of Wal-land or Welsh-land.

In the Eddic poem itself, however, the word Wal-land' does not occur; only in the prose note before mentioned. What country is meant thereby-whether Gaul, where the Franks, or Britain, where other Germanic tribes had penetrated, by whom the natives were called 'Walas,' or Welsh people, a name also applied by the Germans to the Italians-it is impossible to say. At any rate, the author of the Völundr Lay is as little responsible for this word Wal-land,' as for the word 'Finn King.' In the poem we simply hear that the three Swan Virgins, after having for seven years been the wives of Völundr and his brothers, felt a yearning for Myrkwidr, the dark or black forest, which lay in the South, and from which they had once come.

These Maidens are called southern women.' That denotes them as figures of Teuton origin. They are Valkyrs, as may be seen from the first verse of the Eddic Lay, where it is specially said of Hervör All-Wise or All-White, that she had come to the North in order to decide about battle-strife. On the sea-shore the three are sitting, spinning beautiful flax. That is a darkened indication of their weaving the fate of men, like the Norns, or Sisters of Fate, whose figures often slide into those of the Valkyrs. In the Edda the Valkyrs, or Battle Virgins, the Choosers of the Slain, also are called southern women,' or southern semi-goddesses (dísir sudhroenar). So they are named in the First Lay of Helgi the Hunding-Killer. Thus the Icelandic Edda bears witness to Norns and Valkyrs having been creations of Teuton mythology.

In fact, a remarkable stone image, evidently representing the three Sisters of Fate, was discovered years ago at a cloister in Bavaria, which, no doubt, had been built on an old temple site of German heathens, in accordance with a well-known rule of the Roman Church. It was thought that the Old Faith could best be disestablished by laying hold of its own sacred grounds.

From Kiar's name Professor Bugge tries to conclude that the third Swan Maiden may be an Irish girl. His tentative suggestions of the connection between the word 'Kiar' and various Keltic names are wholly uncertain. Certain, however, it is that Kiar's daughter, too, bears a Germanic name. Moreover, she is

described as being of the same kinship with the others (kunn var Oelrún Kjars dóttir).

However, in order to save his Keltic theory, the Norwegian writer boldly suggests an alteration of the Icelandic text. That is an easy way of getting over a difficulty. Instead of the poem saying that Egil had clasped one of the fair Maidens to his comely breast (fögr maer fira), we are asked to read: fögr maer Ira-that is, the Irish girl. It is really too great a liberty to take.

On this occasion, the Norwegian author remarks that there are noteworthy affinities between the spirit of ancient Irish and Norse poetry. Quite true. It holds good, for instance, in regard to the so-called Fenian Poems, which, having come down to us in Keltic language, refer to the Germanic Finnians, the conquerors of Ireland. But these Finnians, as has already been shown, were not Kelts, or Iberians, like the natives of the Green Isle. They were Northmen; and that accounts for the affinity of spirit. The very reverse of what Professor Bugge attempts to prove is thus the case.

Nearly correct is his statement that the Eddic song about Völundr is wholly lacking in those artificial poetical paraphrases, the so-called kenningar of the North. There are, however, I

would point out, two of them in the Völundarkhvida. One of them is the description of Völund's fatherland as Grani's path.' The very circumstance of the absence of all such paraphrases in the Icelandic text rather points, I should think, to a close ancient connection with German poetry, which was of a simpler, less artificial style. For this reason, too, we may say with Simrock that the Norse Lay of Völundr has come from a German source, and that a poem of that kind must have been known in Germany even at a comparatively later time.' Jakob Grimm, on his part, brings to mind that in the Middle Ages the memory of Wieland was still upheld among German smiths, whose smithies were called Wieland Houses.' Perhaps, in Grimm's view, the image of Wieland was set up before, or painted upon, the walls of those houses.

Professor Bugge only mentions by a few words the connection

between the Wieland tale and the Greek one about Daidalos. On this subject, too, Grimm has already said in the main that which can be said. He thinks the name of Wieland must have arisen from a German verb denoting skill in art. Then he goes on:-This inner significance of the hero's name receives, however, a surprising confirmation by a manifest analogy with the Greek fables about Hephaistos, Erichthonios, and Daidalos. Even as Veland does violence to Beadohild (Völundr to Bödhvildr), so also Hephaistos tries to ensnare Athene when she comes to him to have weapons forged for her. Both Hephaistos and Völundr are punished by being lamed; and Erichthonios, too, is lame, who therefore invents the four-horse car, even as Völundr invents the boat and wings. With Erichthonios, the later Erechtheus, and his descendant Daidalos, are equivalent figures; the latter being the originator of various artistic contrivances for instance, of the wings with which his son fell down from the clouds.' And so on.

It is impossible to make out whether the Wieland tale and the Greek tale have come from an original earlier one, or how far the Teutonic saga was afterwards influenced by the Hellenic one. In Eastern Europe and in Asia Minor, in Greec itself, the great Thrakian race, kindred to the Germanic Scan dinavians and to the Teutons, dwelt of yore in pre-Helleni times. The Greek writers themselves fully acknowledge ho much their nation was indebted to the Thrakians in mytholog and heroic saga, in religious ceremonies and philosophic views, in music, and in the poetry connected with it.

Nobody can deny that creeds following each other ha often undergone intermixture; much of the Old Faith bei taken over into the new one. That may be seen in Indian Pantheon, in which there are figures also fi the creed of the subjected Drawidian populations. same was the case with Hellenic mythology, in wh Thrakian and other northern, Phoenikian and Egyptian c ponent parts are discernible. The same hold and age religion of the Romans. Not less so for the cryer, it of thosege and the ceremonies of the Papal Church, wreover, or Bagin

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