# The Monthly Review, or Literary Journal/Volume 27/December 1798/Article 3

OF Mr. Cottle's poetical talents we have repeatedly spoken with approbation (see Rev. vol. xxiii. p. 109, &c.); and his Icelandic, like his other poetry, is versified often with vigor, and always with neatness, with grace, and with euphony. It suffices not, however, to possess the command of one language in order to translate with propriety: an original must be understood, or a version cannot depict its spirit and imitate its peculiarities. The Edda of Saemund was published at Copenhagen in 1787, accompanied with a very vicious Latin interpretation; and with visionary mythological notes, which point out several fanciful resemblances between the legends of the North and South, and are every way unworthy of a philosophical antiquary. On this interpretation, Mr. Cottle uniformly relies for his construction of the text; and to these notes he is commonly indebted for his attempts at illustration. He has indeed occasionally profited by Percy’s well-edited translation of Mallet’s Northern Antiquities: but with the greater part of what else has been written on this topic, he seems scarcely at all acquainted. He will appear, therefore, to those who have cultivated these inquiries, to be somewhat behind-hand with his subject.
The Introduction begins by discussing with gravity the hypothesis of those writers, (who are they?) who divide the original inhabitants of Europe into Celts and Sarmatians. Of all the antient inhabitants of Europe, there is only one minute nation, the Fins of Lapland, who can with any probability be referred to the Sarmatian or Slavonic stock. Poland, in the time of Herodotus, was wholly occupied by Goths, and so was the Crimea. The first irruption of the Huns, a Sarmatic tribe, is very modern.
This hypothesis is dismissed by our author in favour of a division into Celtic and Teutonic. Under the head Celtic, are improperly comprehended the two radically distinct races which speak the Erse and Welsh tongues; and to these totally diverse nations are ascribed common manners:—whereas the latter alone submitted to the very peculiar institutions of the Bards and Druids. The words Teutonic and Gothic, again, are used indiscriminately. It is probable, however, that the Teutonic tribes are the same as the Jutes, and that they formed the east-most division of the Getic race, whose opposite extreme tribe is known in history by the denomination Massagetae, Visigoths, or West Goths. Odin seems to have originated on the ​confines of the Jutes, and to have led his followers north-westward from Pomerania, or Livonia, into Sweden.
The time of Odin is left in the usual uncertainty: nor is any attempt made to weigh the relative probability of the three extant suppositions concerning his era. Gräter, with ingenious rashness, supposes the island Sams mentioned in the Ĕdda to be the Samos of the Archipelago; and, from some faint resemblance between the Gothic cosmogony and that of a Samian philosopher, he infers Odin to have been a pupil of Melissus; and thus he throws back his antiquity to a period, which would make it probable that the Scythian kings of Herodotus are the heroes deified in Gothic song. Mallet defends the wilder because wholly baseless conjecture, that the arms of Pompey occasioned Odin to migrate from the Euxine to the Baltic. In this case, Pliny and Tacitus would have met with traces of his progress among the nations whom they describe. Extensive recent conquests, terminating in the imposition of a new religion, could not but live in the memory even of barbarians. It is therefore most probable that Odin is posterior to these writers, and that the Anglo-Saxon historians are correct, who describe Hengist as fifth in descent from Odin, and who have preserved the intervening pedigree. As in pastoral nations marriages take place early, it is unlikely that any progenitor of Hengist should have passed in celibacy his twenty-fifth year. An interval of 125 years is enough to allow between Odin himself and his grandson Vecta's great-grandson, Hengist. This would place Odin in the year of Christ 325, about seventy years before Alaric, and would plausibly account for the momentous impulse which, about that time, propelled the Gothic multitudes against all the provinces of the Roman empire.
Odin is called, in the Edda, and by Snorro, Runhofdi and Runomfauthr, father of letters, king of spells, as the poets phrase it; which favours the opinion that he introduced the art of writing among the Goths. Now Tacitus expressly pronounces the alphabet to have been unknown to the Germans; literarum secreta viri pariter ac fœmina ignorant: Odin, then, must have lived subsequently to this period. The oldest Runic inscriptions on stone commemorate the fortunes of soldiers who had served at Constantinople in the corps of Varangi; and the art of stone-cutting in the North is therefore posterior to the transfer of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople. Now Odin, according to Snorro, first introduced the practice of using graves-tones in his time, no doubt, they were simply inscribed, not engraved: but these cannot long have preceded the more permanent memorials. This circumstance, again, tends to ​corroborate a chronology which places Odin at the beginning of the fourth century.
There exists a Russian map of the year 949, (the fac simile may be found in Schlötzer’s Northern History, p. 490.) in which the coast of Esthonia is called Ostrogard, or the East garden. If the opposite coast of Courland was called Asgard, or the West-garden, the river Duna which separates them may well have borne the name Mitgard. In Samo-getia, various etymological notices unite to indicate the original dwelling-place of Odin: it was natural, after his settlement in Upland, to sing the “glad home” which he had forsaken; to promise a return thither to the spirits of such as fell in battle; and to indicate the rainbow, which is usually seen in the East, as the bridge which was to direct their path.
Of Saemund, Mr. Cottle speaks sufficiently, and correctly. Of the Edda, we should willingly have learnt more. Was it first written by Saemund, who died in 1133: or is it, as is probable, of far higher antiquity in the main, and merely collected and arranged by him, with occasional interpolations? Is the Edda of Snorro Sturluson, which was compiled in 1215, and which has evidently received some Christian interpolations, to be regarded as containing portions of equal or superior antiquity to the Edda of Saemund; or is it in all respects a newer work? Was the Edda ever a bible of heathenism in the North; or did it owe its very name to these collectors, who lived after the introduction of Christianity into Iceland? The Voluspa and the Haavamal (which are subjoined to Resenius’s first printed edition of 1665) having originally belonged to the Edda of Saemund, and forming a very interesting part of it, surely Mr. Cottle would have done well also in presenting us with these two sagas,—if we may employ, in a general sense, a word consecrated by the Scalds to the designation of historical ballads.
As the Song of the Ravens may impress the reader, we shall transcribe it but we omit the notes, not being thoroughly satisfied of their soundness.
To these lines we have nothing to object, but their frequent disagreement with the Icelandic text: the translation of a translation, however elegant, is at best but the shadow of a shade,—the reflection of moonlight,—the silhouette of a bust, —the echo of a mockbird’s song:—but it may glide over objects new and strange, it may glisten with the rainbow hues of fancy, it may wear the contour of beauty, it may warble in melodious cadence.