FROM the oldest times down to the present day the Scandinavian countries have been rich in tradition and folk-lore. The memories of the Northern peoples were long, and their beliefs inclined to the mysterious and the marvellous. When saga-writing began in Iceland in the 12th century, it rested upon a mass of traditional lore, which comprised not merely genealogy and history, but also an element of the supernatural. This had often permeated the original fact to such an extent as to render its historic basis doubtful, but at the same time it made the legend more impressive, more picturesque, and less easily forgotten. The same spirit is manifest throughout all the centuries. Scandinavian folk-lore Covers a period of fully a thousand years, changing to some extent with the rise of a new faith and the growth of new ideas, yet remaining the same in its inmost nature. For this reason it is one that must always be of great interest and value to the student of popular beliefs.

When we consider that the science of folk-lore owes more to Great Britain than to any other country, it is remarkable that so little has yet been done to bring the traditional beliefs of Scandinavia before the professed student or the more general reader. Even the few works that have appeared on the subject are now both scarce and dear. It is in the hope of making a wider knowledge possible, that I have gathered together the materials contained in the following pages. The book is, in fact, an attempt to repeat, with fuller resources, the design of Thorpe in the second volume of his Northern Mythology. When Thorpe published his work in 1851, the material at his disposal was very scanty. Modern Icelandic folk-lore remained untouched, editions of the sagas were less accessible than now, and several valuable collections (especially in Danish) were then non-existent. So much new matter has become accessible in this way since then, that a new and fuller work on the same lines is both possible and desirable. But while the intention is the same, the plan of the present volume is slightly different from Thorpe's. The pieces contained in it have been selected with a view to cover the whole range of Scandinavian folk-lore, both in point of time and of content. They are intended to supply concrete instances of each separate conception in popular belief, as well as its leading variations. Hence the tales are grouped according to their subjects, and not (as in Thorpe) according to their place of origin. The details in the design, however, have been affected by considerations of space, and its divisions are not all equally full and adequate. Especially is this the case in the sections on Ghosts and Witches, where the wealth of the material prevented full justice from being done to it. Still, each section gives a fair view of the kind of lore current on that head, and indicates the period over which the belief is known to extend. The passages from the sagas prove its existence in early times, the later anecdotes show the form in which it has been familiar down to the present day. The work is thus a constant alternation of the new and old, but the two are seldom greatly at variance, and both together bear witness to a unity of faith that underlies them.

Wherever possible, the belief has been brought out by a narrative embodying it, not by a mere statement of its existence. The story is the soul of folk-lore, by which the general concept is made living and interesting. There is naturally much in popular belief and practice which is not thus clothed in anecdote — all the thousand and one observances with regard to man and woman, beast and bird, weather and seasons — but this belongs to another branch of folk-lore than the one here illustrated. How the story in many cases preserved the belief we may see in our oldest sources, the sagas, and the same is true even now. These tales were part of the unwritten literature of a people which read little or not at all, and as such they were handed down from parent to child. They served both for instruction and amusement, often under circumstances where the interest they excited, and the imagination they called forth, were a salutary relief from the pressure of real life. The beliefs of folk-lore are not Aecessarily dark and degrading superstitions, as well-meaning persons have often hastily supposed. The good that might lie in them, the honest purposes for which they might be used, are well brought out in the following incident, told by a Danish collector of the present day. "Iver Skade's wife told me, in a most affecting manner, how she, when a child, stood till far on in the night, blowing the bellows for her father, who was known as an excellent scythe-maker. During the day he fished in the firth; in the evening and by night he worked in his smithy. He seldom got more than four hours' sleep, as he had a large family and was very poor. As soon as the children were strong enough for the task, they took turns of blowing the bellows or working the hammer, while their father told them stories to keep their eyes open." Another woman learned them from her mother, who took her along with her while she went about and begged, and told the tales in order to make the long wanderings lighter for the child. Under these and similar conditions, of poverty or loneliness, has much of the Northern folk-lore been preserved, and it has had a value of its own as an educative force for minds cut off by circumstances from other mental interests.

This fact is often brought out by the tone of the modern tales, compared with their grander counterparts in the sagas, where the spirit of a great age still lingers in the thoughts, and an artist's power over language is manifest in the words. The newer forms are poorer in thought, and barer in language, but this, of course, is partly due to the fact that they are given as taken down from the mouths of the people, without any literary adornment. This difference in the character of the tales themselves has necessarily produced a difference in the style of the translations, although in both cases my aim has been to make the English as natural as was consistent with the form of the originals. To improve the narrative would often have meant rewriting the tale, and if the story does not always run smoothly, this is perhaps not entirely the fault of the translation. It is not always easy to avoid a childish simplicity in translating from Danish, or a stilted archaism in the rendering of a saga. In various instances, particularly in passages from the sagas, some condensation of the narrative was necessary to prevent the tale from being too long, but the abridged passages are always unessential for the folk-lore, and are faithfully recorded in the notes. In translating the few modern Icelandic verses which occur, I have been careful to retain both alliteration and rhyme, where these appear in the originals: only thus can one do full justice to the technique of Icelandic poetry.

In every instance the contents of this volume have been translated from the language of the country to which they belong — Icelandic, Færöese, Danish (Norwegian), and Swedish. The only exceptions to this rule are a few passages of Swedish origin, which were translated from Danish versions in Nordiske Sagn, a small collection published at Copenhagen in 1868. The present work was indeed begun as a translation of that volume, but has so far outgrown it, that the pieces taken exclusively from that source form a very small proportion of the whole (some 30 out of 311). In a few instances, where no better version presented itself, passages have been taken which were already included in Thorpe, or still earlier in Keightley's Fairy Mythology, but in all cases these have been translated afresh. For the most part the bearing of the stories is clear enough in itself, or may be gathered by comparison, but a few additional particulars are added to many of them in the notes. These, however, are mainly intended to give the sources for each passage, and make no pretensions to completeness in other respects. As the names of persons and places in the tales will be strange to the majority of readers, I have often simplified the forms of the latter by dividing them into their component parts. Some hints as to their pronunciation will also be found at the beginning of the notes.

I have to record my sincerest thanks to Herr E. T. Kristensen for his ready permission to make full use of his valuable collections of Danish folk-lore, as well as for several manuscript contributions; and to cand. phil. Olaf Davidsson for similar kindness with regard to his small volume of Icelandic tales. To Fröken Th. Rambusch in Copenhagen I am indebted for several researches after necessary books, a service always willingly and conscientiously rendered.