INTRODUCTION

It would seem fitting for a Northern folk, deriving the greater
and better part of their speech, laws, and customs from a
Northern root, that the North should be to them, if not a holy
land, yet at least a place more to be regarded than any part of
the world beside; that howsoever their knowledge widened of other
men, the faith and deeds of their forefathers would never lack
interest for them, but would always be kept in remembrance. One
cause after another has, however, aided in turning attention to
classic men and lands at the cost of our own history. Among
battles, "every schoolboy" knows the story of Marathon or
Salamis, while it would be hard indeed to find one who did more
than recognise the name, if even that, of the great fights of
Hafrsfirth or Sticklestead. The language and history of Greece
and Rome, their laws and religions, have been always held part of
the learning needful to an educated man, but no trouble has been
taken to make him familiar with his own people or their tongue.
Even that Englishman who knew Alfred, Bede, Caedmon, as well as
he knew Plato, Caesar, Cicero, or Pericles, would be hard bestead
were he asked about the great peoples from whom we sprang; the
warring of Harold Fairhair or Saint Olaf; the Viking (1) kingdoms
in these (the British) Western Isles; the settlement of Iceland,
or even of Normandy. The knowledge of all these things would now
be even smaller than it is among us were it not that there was
one land left where the olden learning found refuge and was kept
in being. In England, Germany, and the rest of Europe, what is
left of the traditions of pagan times has been altered in a