II. of the inhabitants they massacre, and part they CHAP. make captive; but the fields were ravaged far and wide with fire.40 The same miseries proclaimed their triumphs in Wendila. The flame and sword were unsparing assailants, and villages were converted into uninhabited deserts.41 Thus at Paris they impaled 111 of their captives, crucified many others on houses and trees, and slew numbers in the villages and fields.42 In war they seemed to have reckoned cruelty a circumstance of triumph; for the sea-king and the vikingr even hung the chiefs of their own order on their defeat.43 And yet from the descendants of these men some of the noblest people in Europe have originated. 40 Snorre, c. xxxi. p. 39. 41 Ibid. 42 Du Chesne, Hist. Francorum Script. vol. ii. p. 655. The annals which he edited abound with such incidents. 43 There are many instances of this in Snorre, p. 31. 33. 44., &c. also in the Herverar Saga, and others. CHAP. III. Comparison between the Histories of SAXO-GRAMMATICUS and BROG. IV. BOOK SUCH was the dismal state of society in the North. For a long time the miseries of this system were limited to the Baltic. After the colonisation of England had freed the Germanic and British ocean from Saxon piracy, Europe was blessed with almost three centuries of tranquillity. One Danish rover is stated to have wandered to the Maese' in the beginning of the sixth century; but the enterprise was unfortunate. Other Danes are mentioned as acting with the Saxons against the Francs. But after this century2 we hear no more of Danes for above two hundred years. BUT some of the historians of the North pretend that the Danes visited England and Europe in a much earlier period. Are these entitled to our belief? SAXO-GRAMMATICUS, who died 12043, has left us a history which has delighted both taste and 1 Gregory of Tours, who lived in 573, the oldest author extant who mentions the Danes, narrates this expedition. lib. iii. c. 3. p. 53. Corpus Franc. Hist. ed. Hanov. 1613. 2 Venantius Fortunatus, who lived 565, mentions them as defeated by the kings of the Francs, lib. viii. c. 1. p. 822., and his lines to the Dux Lupus (lib. vi.) imply that the Danes and Saxons had invaded the country near Bourdeaux. This was probably some ebullition of the Anglo-Saxon expeditions against Britain. 3 Stephan. Prolog. p. 22. learning, by its elegance and vigour; and which, CHAP. considering his age and country, is surprising for its power of composition. He conducts the Danes into Britain long before the Christian æra. According to his narration, Frotho the first, his ninth king of Denmark, Amleth, whose memory our Shakspeare has preserved, Fridlevus, the twentythird king of Saxo', and Frotho, the next sovereign, fought, and with one exception obtained splendid victories in Britain, previous to the appearance of the Christian legislator. Twelve reigns afterwards, he states that Harald Hyldetand invaded England, and conquered the king of Northumbria.9 SOME documents for his history Saxo may have derived from poems of the ancient scallds, from inscriptions on stones and rocks, from an inspection (yet how imperfect!) of the Icelandic authors, and 4 Erasmus has honoured Saxo with a panegyric which every historian must covet; "qui suæ gentis historiam splendide magnificeque contexuit. Probo vividum et ardens ingenium, orationem nusquam remissam aut dormitantem; tam miram verboram copiam, sententias crebras, et figurarum admirabilem varietatem, ut satis admirari nequeam, unde illa ætate, homini Dano, tanta vis eloquendi suppetiverit.” Dial. Ciceron. ap. Stephan. p. 33. And yet a more correct taste would suggest that his work is rather an oration than a history. Though some parts are happy, it is in general either tumid and exaggerated, or the specific fact is darkened or lost in declamatory generalities. It wants that exact taste for truth, as well as for patient comparison of antiquarian documents, which the history of such a period peculiarly required. 5 Hist. Dan. lib. ii. p. 25. 6 Hist. Dan. lib. iii. p. 56, 57. The speech of Amleth to the people, after destroying Fengo, is an exertion of eloquence very creditable to the genius of Saxo, p. 54, 55. 7 Hist. Dan. 67. 8 Hist. Dan. 95. Saxo places the birth of Christ immediately after. Ibid. 9 Hist. Dan. 137. IV. BOOK from the narrations of his friend. 10 We may even grant to him, that such men as he enumerates, such actions as he so eloquently describes, and such poems as he so diffusely translates", once appeared; but the chronology and succession into which he arranges them are unquestionably false. The boasted fountains of the history of the ancient Scandinavians 12, their memorial stones, and funeral runæ13, the inscribed rings of their shields, the woven figures of their tapestry, their storied walls, their lettered seats and beds, their narrative wood, their recollected poetry, and their inherited traditions, may have given to history the names of many warriors, and have transmitted to posterity the fame of many battles; but no dates accompanied the memorials; even the geography of the incidents was very rarely noted. Hence, however numerous may have been the preserved memoranda, their arrangement and appropriation were left to the mercy of literary fancy or of national conceit. SAXO unfortunately emulated the fame of Livy, 10 Saxo mentions these authorities in his preface, p. 2.; and the curious will be pleased to read Stephanius's notes upon it. 11 We have a striking proof how much Saxo has amplified the barren songs of the scallds, and therefore how little to be relied on for precision, in his poetical and elegant dialogue between Hialto and his friend Biarco, whom he roused to the defence of his endangered king. Forgetful of the emergency, Saxo prolongs it to six folio pages. Stephanius has cited part of the concise and energetic original, p. 82. which discovers the historian's exuberance. 12 Torfæus mentions these in the prolegomena to his History of Norway, and in his Series Regum Dan. 50-53. They are also remarked by Bartholin, lib. i. c. 9. 13 Wormius has given us the inscriptions found in Denmark in his Monumenta Danica; and Peringskiold copies many out of Sweden in his Monumenta Ullerakarensia, 321-349., and in his Monumentum Sveo-Goth. 177-306. See also Verelius's Manuductio, and others. III. instead of becoming the Pausanias of Scandinavia; CHAP. and instead of patiently compiling and recording his materials in the humble style or form in which he found them, which would have been an invaluable present to us, has shaped them into a most confused, unwarranted, and fabulous chronology. The whole of his first eight books, all his history anteceding Ragnar Lodbrog, can as little claim the attention of the historian, as the British history of Jeffry, or the Swedish history of Johannes Magnus. It is indeed superfluous, if we recollect the Roman history, to argue against a work which pretends to give to Denmark a throned existence, a regular government, and a tissue of orderly and splendid history for twenty-four royal accessions before the birth of Christ. Saxo, on whose history many others were formerly built, refers to the Icelandic writers 14; but this only increases our depreciation of his narratives, for they are at irreconcileable variance with all his history before the ninth century. 15 THE ICELANDIC writers, Torfæus, their able champion, divides into four kinds: the allegorical, the fabulous, the mixed, and the authentic. 16 14 Though he applauds them in his preface, and even says, "quorum thesauros historicarum rerum pignoribus refertos curiosius consulens, haud parvam præsentis operis partem ex eorum relationis imitatione contexui; nec arbitros habere contempsi, quos tanta vetustatis peritia callere cognovi ;" notwithstanding this, it may be fairly doubted if he knew much of them. 15 Torfæus says justly of Saxo, that he has placed some kings before Christ, who flourished long after him; that he has made other kings of Denmark, who belonged to other regions, and has raised some to the supreme throne of Denmark, who were but tributary reguli. Series Regum Dan. p. 219. 16 See his discriminated catalogue of the Icelandic writings in his Series Regum Dan. p. 3-12. |