In bygone ages, beyond the Scythian plains and the fens
of the Tanais, in that land of the morning, to which
neither Grecian letters nor Roman arms had ever penetrated,
there was a great city called Asgaard. Of its founder,
of its history, we know nothing; but looming through the
mists of antiquity we can discern an heroic figure, whose
superior attainments won for him the lordship of his own
generation, and divine honours from those that succeeded.
Whether moved by an irresistible impulse, or impelled by
more powerful neighbours, it is impossible to say; but
certain it is that at some period, not perhaps very long
before the Christian era, under the guidance of this
personage, a sun-nurtured people moved across the face
of Europe, in a north-westerly direction, and after
leaving settlements along the southern shores of the
Baltic, finally established themselves in the forests
and valleys of what has come to be called the Scandinavian
Peninsula. That children of the South should have sought
out so inclement a habitation may excite surprise; but
it must always be remembered that they were, probably,
a comparatively scanty congregation, and that the unoccupied
valleys of Norway and Sweden, teeming with fish and game,
and rich in iron, were a preferable region to lands only
to be colonised after they had been conquered.

Thus, under the leadership of Odin and his twelve Paladins,
--to whom a grateful posterity afterwards conceded thrones
in the halls of their chief's Valhalla,--the new emigrants
spread themselves along the margin of the out-ocean, and