Book excerpt: Excerpt from Teutonic Mythology, Vol. 3 That such was the case we are assured by Tacitus; and the testimony of Jornandes and Eginhart leaves not the smallest room for doubt respecting later ages. Those primitive songs on Tuisco, on Mannus and the three races that branched out of him, are echoed long after in the genealogies of Ingo, Iscio, Hermino; so the Hygelac of the Beowulf-song, whom a tenth century legend that has just emerged from oblivion names Huglacus Magnus (Haupt 5, 10), is found yet again - as a proof that even poetry may agree with history - in the 'Chochilaichus' of Gregory of Tours. If in the 12th and 13th centuries our country's hero-legend gleamed up for the last time, poets must have kept on singing it for a long time before, as is plain from the saved fragment of Hildebrand and the Latin versions of Rudlieb and Waltharius; while not a tone survives of those Low German lays and legends, out of which nevertheless proceeded the Vilkinasaga that mirrors them back. The rise of our Court-poetry has without the slightest ground or necessity been ascribed to the Crusades; if we are to assume any importations from the East, these can more conveniently be traced to the earlier and quieter intercourse of Goths and Northmen with the Greek empire, unless indeed we can make up our minds to place nearly all the coincidences that startle us to the account of a fundamental unity of the European nations, a mighty influence which is seen working through long ages, alike in language, legend and religion. I am met by the arrogant notion, that the life of whole centuries was pervaded by a soulless cheerless barbarism; this would at once contradict the loving kindness of God, who has made His sun give light to all times, and while endowing men with gifts of body and soul, has instilled into them the consciousness of a higher guidance: on all ages of the world, even those of worst repute, there surely fell a foison of health and wealth, which preserved in nations of a nobler strain their sense of right and law. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."