still survived and influenced the minds and practice of the people,--how
they yet clung to the notion that many of the phenomena of nature and
life were under the control of supernatural agents, although they did
not regard these agents, as what in olden times they were considered to
be--divinities, but believed them to be a class of beings living upon or
within the earth, and endowed by the devil with supernatural powers.

In the northern sagas, and in the old ballads and saintly legends of
the Middle Ages--supernatural agents who played a prominent part--there
are giants of enormous size and little dwarfs who can make themselves
invisible, and do all sorts of good to their favourites, and harm to
their enemies. We are also introduced there to dragons and other
monsters which have human understandings, and, guided by a wicked
spirit, could do great mischief. Such beings took the place of the
ancient divinities, and in many cases when the hero or saint is in great
straits, in combat with these evil spirits or fiends, Jesus Christ comes
to their assistance. One instance will exemplify this:

"O'er him stood the foul fiends,
And with their clubs of steel,
Struck him o'er the helmit
That in deadly swound he fell.
But God his sorrow saw,
To the fiends his Son he sent;
From the earth they vanished
With howling and lament.
The Christian hero thanked his God,
From the ground he rose with speed,
Joyfully he sheathed his sword,
And mounted on his steed."