Furniture and household goods consisted of a few articles of metal and numerous wooden and clay vessels. The booty gained in war and on raids, such as were often undertaken in the North, was preserved more from a faint idea of its value than from appreciation of its use. It constituted those princely treasures which play so great a part in the old Sagas. Plate 33 gives the necessary information about the household goods as far as they have any bearing upon the History of Culture.
The manufacture of bronze utensils, which, as has been stated (p. 49), had previously been imported from Etruria, became naturalized by the time of the fall of the Western Empire. The peculiar thong and tendril decora tions, winch pertain exclusively to the North, upon vessels (pt. 33, jigs. 86, 91), implements, and ornamental objects (jigs. 84, 85, etc.), furnish sufficient evidence of this. Vessels like those shown in Figures 99, too, and 107, taken from Alemannic tombs, the chair (jig. 102), and the chests (figs. 103, 1o4), prove that the Germans knew how to give appropriate form to wooden articles. Wooden candlesticks, apparently turned, also occur, proving that the houses were already lighted by something better than the flickering pine torches which had been in use at an early period. The chairs (jigs. 109) show that progress corresponding to that of the house had been made in the case of furniture also. The original of Figure IoS, now in the museum of Copenhagen, was made in Iceland, the faithful custodian of old Teutonic customs ; it shows the style of ornamentation above referred to in its full development. The bronze chair (fg. 1o9) is in the Louvre at Paris. It is said to have belonged to the Merovingian king Dagobert, and it bears unmistakable traces of Roman influence. But the most precious treasures of the household were the weapons of the husband. They were untouched by Latin influence, which is a proof of the high esteem in which they were held by their owner.
are extant no figured representations of the gods either of the Celts or of the ancient Teutons. Religion found poetical and popular expression, but never in plastic forms, as among the nations of classic antiquity. Among the Celts, probably in consequence of the invasion of the Romans, the religious creed seems to have been kept a secret by the priests, so that we know even less of it than of the creed of the Teutons. In the narrower sense the objects of worship in the national religion of the ancient Teutons were the immediate powers of Nature, and its feasts were determined by the change of the seasons. Antiquarian research has discovered traces of the ancient faith in many popular superstitions, customs, and usages of the present time. The poetical form of the old German mythology was especially developed in the North. It was in substance as follows.
first cause of existence, Alfadur "—i. e. the father of all), divided the chaos which lay beneath him into an upper kingdom of light, ilfusfie/heim, and a lower one of darkness, Nifiheim. Between these two realms originated the giant Ymir. After he was slain the earth was formed out of his body. The demigods (Asen), sprung from the All-father in Muspelheim, were personifications of the several powers of Nature. Some scholars, however, interpret them as represent atives of ancient national heroes.
The supreme divinity was Odin (IT'odan among the Germans), who was " lord of heaven and earth," and especially of war. Closely related to him was Thor, the " god of thunder." Freia, the " goddess of the moon," was also the patron deity of love and matrimony, of song and rejoicing at the fruits of spring. L'abinr resembled her; he was the type
of manly beauty, mental as well as physical, a gentle being in whose tragic fate the Teuton unconsciously lamented that it had not been given to him, as it had been to the Greeks and Romans, to bring forth the principle of Beauty in his development. Ilcrtha was the "goddess of the earth;" Acgyr, "god of the ocean;" and Loke, of fire," the evil being of Northern Mythology.
This, like other mythologies, associated spirits with natural events as well as with the various relations of human life, but the youthful imagi nation of the Teuton, unlike that of the Southern races, was guided not by creative power, but by intuitive sentiment, and he estimated the nature of his gods according to the beneficent influences which they exercised. Fairies looked after the small details of the course of nature; misshapen trolls inhabited the mountains and forests; protecting spirits Spadiscn) assisted the needy; Fy/giers and Ilamingicrs were present at births and deaths; fates (D\'ornen) presided over the destiny of every mortal. lUalkyrs, the virgin shield-bearers of Wodan, accompanied the heroes to the battlefield and bore those who fell to the halls of Walhalla. There the slain heroes quaffed inexhaustible horns of mead and feasted at a never-ending banquet. But cowards were cast, after an infamous death, into Niflheim, where they dragged out a rueful existence in the kingdom of the blue-white Hcla. The entire world of the gods them selves was eventually to be destroyed by the treason of Loke; but the All-father was to replace it, after changing the inadequate earthly cir cumstances, by a new and everlasting God/rein/ (home of the gods).
to Cresar's description, the Druid priesthood among the Celts had a gloomy and fearful character. Among the Ger mans the priesthood, although but little organized, had attained great importance on account of its moral influence. Both in war and in peace the priests influenced the great affairs of the people by their blessings and advice. They were the prophets of inspiration and the mouthpieces of assemblies. They were the executioners of the capital sentences pro nounced by the people. Perhaps in this sense we are to understand the sacrifices of Roman prisoners which took place after the defeat of Varies and on other occasions. As bards they fostered a community of feeling among the people, and did not disdain to exalt by means of song the general rejoicing on public occasions.
do not, of course, expect to find intellectual aims among a people in a state of nature. But a rich and deep vein of senti ment took the place of such aspirations. The transition to a state of enlightened self-consciousness forms the subject and object of all their subsequent history. This transition was effected only after a struggle of a thousand years' duration, and an unexampled martyrdom stamped the issue as an enduring testimonial for all mankind.
The struggle with the preceding world of antiquity, as conceived and developed by the Romans, first awakened the dormant powers of the race, but this contest was waged not only in the countries beyond the Alps and the Rhine, but also upon native soil, where its influence entered into the most complex phenomena of civilization, at times diverting it, again pro moting it, but always reacting upon it. The object of the following pages will be to exhibit this contest between the enslaving tendency of ancient modes of thought and the inherent independence of the Teutonic character.