'kyrs or Väl kyr'i as: in Norse mythology, warlike maidens Odin sent to the battlefield to choose the bravest who to be slain. Hall of O'din, Văl hăl'là: according to Norse the most beautiful palace of the gods. Odin was the me Norse deity. He'là: the Norse goddess of death, the ater of Loki. Prò gen'i tors: forefathers. Rollo, Duke rmandy (860-932): first duke of Normandy. He was ally a Norse viking, or pirate. Thôr: the Norse god of Ler, the strongest of the gods. Lō'ki: the Norse god of the spirit of all evil. Jö'tun heim: the home of the Jöor giants. n Henry, Cardinal Newman (1801-1890): An eminent sh theologian and author. He left the Church of England e Roman Catholic Church, and one of his chief works is Apologia pro Vitâ Suâ" ("Apology for His Life"), in he defends his religious course. He wrote many sermons, ogical works, poems, and some volumes of "Historical hes," from one of which this extract is made. ough of the same stock as the Saxons, the Northmen gifted with a more heroic cast of soul. Perhaps it he peculiar scenery and climate of their native homes suggested to them such lofty aspirations and such asiastic love of dangers and hardship. The stillness 5 Le desert may fill the fierce Arab with a rapturous ment, and the interminable forests of Britain or Germight breathe profound mystery; but the icy ntains and the hoarse resounding waves of the North ured warriors of a princely stature, both in mind and 10 , befitting the future occupants of European thrones. Cradled in the surge and storm, they were spared the temptation of indolence and luxury; they neither worshiped the vivifying powers of nature with the Greek, nor with the Sabian did they kiss the hand to the bright 5 stars of heaven; but while they gave a personal presence and volition to the fearful or the beautiful spirits which haunted the mountains or lay in ambush in the mists, they understood by daily experience that good could not be had by the mere wishing, and they made it a first arti10 cle in their creed that their reward was future and that their present must be toil. The most obvious and prominent point of character common to the Northman and Norman is the peculiarity of their warlike heroism. War was their life; it was 15 almost their chief good; good in itself, though nothing came of it. The impetuosity of the Norman relieved itself in extravagances and raises a smile from its very intensity, at one time becoming a religious fanaticism, at another 20 á fantastic knight-errantry. His very worship was to do battle; his rite of sacrifice was a passage of arms. He couched his lance to prove the matter of fact that his lady was the beautifullest of all conceivable women; he drew his sword on the blasphemer to convince him of the 25 sanctity of the Gospel; and he passed abruptly from demolishing churches and burning towns to the rescue of the holy sepulcher from the unclean infidel. In the Northmen, too, this pride of demolition had been their life revel. They destroyed for destroying's sake, 30 because it was good to destroy; it was a display of power, and power made them gods. They seemed as though they = possessed by some inward torment which needed outand which degraded them to the madness of their Berserkers in the absence of some nobler satisfaction. r fearful activity was their mode of searching out thing great, they knew not what, the idea of which 5 ted them. It impelled them to those sudden descents rapid careerings about a country, which, even in ern times, has broken out in the characteristic energy ustavus and Charles XII. of Sweden. ence, too, when they had advanced some steps in the 10 of civilization, from this nature or habit of restlessthey could not bear neutrality; they interfered acy in the cause of right in proportion as they gave up practice of wrong. When they began to find out that y was criminal, instead of having recourse to peace- 15 Occupations, they found an occupation cognate to y itself in putting piracy down. ngs, indeed, would naturally undertake such a misfor piracy interfered with their sovereign power and d not die of itself. It was not wonderful that Har-20 Haco the Good, and St. Olaf should hang the pirates destroy their vessels, but the point of our remark s, that they pursued the transgressors with the same us zeal with which they had heretofore committed ame transgressions themselves. It is sometimes said 25 a reformed profligate is the sternest of moralists; hese Northern rovers, on their conversion, did penfor their own piracy by a relentless persecution of es. ey became knight-errants on water, devoting them- 30 peaceful merchant. Under Canute of Denmark, a confraternity was formed with this object. Its members characteristically began by seizing on vessels not their own for its prosecution, and imposing compulsory loans 5 on the wealthy trader for their outfit, though they professed to indemnify their owners out of the booty ultimately secured. Before they went on board, they communicated; they lived soberly and severely, restricting themselves to as few followers as was possible. 10 When they found Christians in the captured ships, they set them at liberty, clothed them, and sent them home. In this way as many as eight hundred pirate vessels were destroyed. Sometimes, in spite of their reformation, they still pur15 sued a pirate's trade; but it was a modified piracy. They put themselves under laws in the exercise of it, and waged war against those who did not observe them. These objects of their hostility were what Turner calls "indiscriminate" pirates. "Their peculiar and self-chosen 20 task," he says, "was to protect the defenceless navigator, and to seek and assail the indiscriminate plunderer. The pirate gradually became hunted down as the general enemy of the human race." He goes on to mention some of the laws imposed by 25 Hjalmar upon himself and some other discriminating pirates, to the effect that they would protect trade and agriculture, and that they would not eat raw flesh. Now, in what we have been drawing out, there is enough to show both the elementary resemblance of char30 acter, and yet the vast actual dissimilitude, between the Scandinavian and the Norman. s ta'vus II. or Gustavus A dol'phus (1594-1632): king of en, a great general and able ruler. Charles XII. (1682 a king of Sweden, celebrated for his martial genius. ate: of the same nature; kindred. Harold I. (1040): of England, the son of Ca nute' or Knut, a Danish king onquered England. Ha'co the Good, St. Ō'läf (995-1050): g and king of Norway. Com mun'i cate: to participate in ommunion Service. Sharon Turner (1768-1847): an Engistorian. Dis si mil'i tude: unlikeness; difference. tthew Arnold (1822-1888): an English poet and prose e, one of the ablest of English critics. He was the son of homas Arnold of Rugby - the Dr. Arnold of "Tom Brown gby" and, like his father, did much to further the of education. He tried to "add to the sum of happiness mulating his fellow-men to find in true culture a nobler for their lives." His chief prose works are "Essays in sm" and "Culture and Anarchy." Among his poems. Sohrab and Rustum," "Balder Dead," "The Forsaken an," and "The Strayed Reveler." Come, dear children, let us away; Now my brothers call from the bay; Now the wild white horses play, |