Northern Antiquities : Or, A Description of the Manners, Customs, Religion, and Laws of the Ancient Danes Including Those of Our Own Saxon Ancestors : with a Translation of the Edda, Or System of Runic Mythology, ...: English translation of L'Introduction à l'histoire de DannemarcC. Stewart, 1809 - Danes |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam of Bremen affembly againſt ages alfo almoſt alſo ancient Arngrim Bartholin becauſe Cæsar called caufes cauſe Celtic Celtic nations Celts Chriſtianity chronicles Cimbri Cluverius coafts compofed confifted cuftom Danes defirous Deity Denmark diſcover diſtinguiſhed Edda eſtabliſhed Europe facrifices fame fays feems feen fent ferved feveral fhall fhew fhort fhould fince firft firſt fome fometimes foon ftill ftones fubject fuch Gauls Germans gods Gothic Gothic language Goths greateſt Greeks Greenland hath Hift hiftorian hiftory himſelf honour Icelandic inhabitants iſland itſelf king king of Denmark king of Norway language lefs leſs manner moft moſt muſt North northern nations Norway Norwegian obferved occafion Odin paffage paffed paffion Pelloutier perfons poets prefent preferved prince raiſed reafon refpect religion Romans Runic Saxo Saxons Scandinavians Scythians ſpeak ſtill ſuch Tacitus Teutonic thefe themſelves theſe thofe Thor thoſe tion uſe Vinland whofe word
Popular passages
Page xxxvi - History has not recorded the annals of a people who have occasioned greater, more sudden, or more numerous revolutions in Europe than the Scandinavians, or whose antiquities, at the same time, are so little known. Had, indeed, their emigrations been only like those sudden torrents of which all traces and remembrance are soon effaced, the indifference that has been shown to them would have been sufficiently justified by the barbarism they have been approached with.
Page 173 - I only beg of thee," said a fourth, "to be quick over thy work; for thou must know that it is a question often discussed at Jomsburg, whether or not a man feels anything after losing his head.
Page 206 - ... concerning princeffes of great beauty, guarded by dragons, and afterwards delivered by young heroes, who could not atchieve their refcue till they had overcome thofe terrible guards. Thefe rude forts were feldom taken by the enemy, unlefs by furprize or after a long blockade: however, when thefe were of great importance,. they raifed terraces and artificial banks on that fide of the fort which was...
Page 330 - the bridge of the " Gods:" Gold was " the tears of Freya:" Poetry, " the prefent, or the drink of *
Page xxxvi - ... people who have occasioned greater, more sudden, or more numerous revolutions in Europe than the Scandinavians *, or whose antiquities, at the same time, are so little known. Had, indeed, their emigrations been only like those sudden torrents of •which all traces and remembrance are soon effaced, the indifference that has been shown to them would have been sufficiently justified by the barbarism they have been reproached with. But, during those general inundations, the face of Europe underwent...
Page xxxviii - But to render this obvious by a particular example ; is it not well known that the most flourishing and celebrated states of Europe owe originally to the northern nations, whatever liberty they now enjoy, either in their constitution, or in the spirit of their government? For although the Gothic form of government has been almost every where altered or abolished, have we not retained, in most...
Page xxxviii - I should rather call it, the forge of those instruments 'which broke the fetters manufactured in the south.
Page xxvii - ... of Jutland, more than in any part of Germany, where, I believe, its former Celtic inhabitants have, up and down, left behind them a few names of places, chiefly of natural situations, as of rivers, mountains, &c. This, at least, is the case in England ;* where, although the Britons were so entirely extirpated, that scarce a single word of the Welsh language was admitted by the Saxons, and although the names of the towns and villages are almost universally of Anglo-Saxon derivation, yet the hills,...
Page 114 - Odin to put an end to a great dearth ; as we read in the history of Norway. The kings, in their turn, did not spare the blood of their subjects; and many of them even shed that of their children.
Page xxxvii - The barriers of the empire, ill defended by a people whom prosperity had enervated, were borne down on all sides by torrents of victorious armies. We then see the conquerors introducing, among the nations they vanquished, viz. into the very bosom of slavery and sloth, that spirit of independence and equality, that elevation of soul, that taste for rural and military life, which both the one and the other had originally derived from the same common source, but which were then among the Romans breathing...