Year: 1878

The Berserker Business.


1t is question if the Berserker business
has not been overdone; for really the heavy.
limbed, fair-haired, slow-thinking Morse
man is getting little tiresome. Many of the
runes, so laboriously interpreted by our later
writers, are found to be trivial when trans
lated. Yet we have Boyesen giving another
Scandinavian study in Scribner's, and putting
before US again those stock characters, the
maid with long faxen braids and abashed in
genuOus manner-who would be very stupid
indeed in real life-and the heavy Northman
with hai- like bleached hay.


What have these blue-eyed barbarians ever
done that we should so idolize them? What
surprising good has come out of Scandinavia?
What has been gained by the irruption of
these Northerners that we should praise
them above all other men? They brought
new life and energy to world grown coward
and old, it will be said. As much can be said
of the Arabs or of the "moon-eyed lepers"
who rode behind Attia. The Northern
hordes may have brought new life; but they
did their best to destroy the old, and were
only stayed because they ran their thick
heads against walls that even their brute
force could not overthrow-walls built by
that great civilization from which we derive
all our knowledge and culture, which has
taught us how to live, how to govern, how
to get the best out of life. The South SUBJ
mitted to these people as conquerors-and
anpnnnrQ6 than 0nioHopoJ oir fot ;ts
1t made them presentable to the world. 1t
even succeeded, after centuries, in fashioning
from them passable limitations Of Romans,
limitations that may deceive unless they are
closely examined; and now the Northern
savages turn upon their teachers and benefac
tors and pose-even that art was learned from
the South-as the saviours of the world.


One would think, to hear these Northern en-
thusiasts talk-these men who melt into tears
at S light of an iceberg and grow delirious with
joy at thought of walrus-hunt-tha there
were no gods before Odin, no heroes before
Siegfried, no beautiful women before Chriem-
hid; and they audaciously ask us in face OF
the treachery and crime of the Nibelungen
Lied to admire Northern faith and Northern
chastity. They ask US to wonder at the
sublimity of Northern mythology, mytholo-
gy that offers the stupidest heaven; and the
dreariest hell of any known cult; that pic
lures paradise as place where the shades of
heroes eat swine's flesh and stupify them
selves with beer, and perdition as place
where he who has not killed his man and
died with his boots on is condemned to sit
through all eternity on cake of ice and
drink the venom of serpents; that pictures its
best gods as treacherous and revengoful and
its goddesses as the bearers of huge misshapen
monsters that cumber and curse the earth.
Sometimes we find a sublime conception in
the grotesque and monstrous imaginings
of the Northern cult. AS much can be said
for the rude belief of the North American
Indian. There may be found by diligent
search wise line here and there in the runes.
But for the most part they are as platitudi-
nous as page from Poor Richards Alma
nae. How does it all, mythology and runes,
compare with the shapely forms of the Gre
clan fable, with the heroic thoughts of the
epic poets? Who will dare to put Odin the
trickster by the side ofcloud-compelling Zeus,
or the savage Brunehilde by Helen, or Sieg-
fried by the mighty Herakles? Yet, some
one will say, echoing Ruskin, the Gothic
architecture is the solemn beauty of the ice
berg pat into stone. Where would the
Gothic architecture be, had not the dull
Northern wit been quickened by contact,
with the genius of the South?


But, seriously and exaggeration aside, why
should we idolize these pirates, these village
burners and babe killers, and place them so
far above the great races that have made
the history of the world? Doubtless the
Norsemen had many fine and noble qualities,
but so had the heroes of the more ancient
story and the men who carried their empire
to the limits Of the known globe. The rude
and savage energy of the Scandinavians had
its use, great and benefcent use, and they
did their appointed work, limited though it
was, thoroughly and well. But how little,
in comparison, they have done! How scant
their merit and how great their need!


And dismissing all questions of merit, the
Norseman may be objected to on grounds of
entertainment. He is getting tiresome.
Even the dirty and ragged Sclave, or the
fat-headed and narrow-eyed Calmuck is more
interesting because more of novelty. The
Berserker is bore. We weary of hearing
how he murdered his rivals and butchered
all his wife's relations and then sailed away
TO new seas where whales were plentier and
there were other men to kill. And in his
domesticated state he is as uninteresting as
tame buffalo or the pig-penned descendant
of the wild boar that once tore through Ger
man thickets. Give US a rest from the Ber-
serker, even if we have to 60 back to the dark
eyed scoundrel in whom our grandmothers
delighted. He had manners at least, and
never brutally butchered when he could qui-
etly poison. If blood had to be let stiletto
stab was given and we were spared the spec
tacle of the victims brains spattered all about
by blow from broad-axe or bludgeon.
Let us by all means have the olive-skinned
scoundrel in preference to the blond brute.


COLONEL INaERsoLL puts the thing iu
this way: "a poor man buys soup tickets.
He's not hungry at the time of the purchase
and will not be for some hours. During
these hours the greenback gentlemen argue