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28 INTRODUCTION.
plete system of Nortliern Mythology of that age,
although it will not bear the test of scientific and
mythological criticism any more than its predeces-
sors.
Towards the last quarter of the century, a mass
of antiquarian matter was produced, especially in
the decennium from 1769 to 1779, when " Edda " and
" Odin " and " Northern Mythology " became the
whole order of the day. Eiriksson wrote some small-
er works .of merit ; Bishop Finn Jonsson treated of
the early inhabitants of Iceland in an excellent
work, " Historia Ecclesiastica Islandise," in 1772
Ihre published his "Lexicon Sviogothicum " and
" Letters to Lagerbring ;" and amid the mass of writings
by which the mythological literature was ma-
terially increased, it gained the most, in a scientific
view, from the works of Thorkelin* and Thorlacius.f
Amid all this exuberant growth of dry material in
the mythological field, we find a most beautiful ornament
in "Baldur's Death," by Evald- (1774), a
striking evidence of what the myths of the ancients
may become in the hands of the inspired poet ;
— ;
and in the Hector Halfdan Einarsson's " Sciagraphia
Historise Mandicse " (Hafn. 1787), we have a useful
cyclopedia of Icelandic Literature.
By this time the subject had reached other lands
and begun to awaken attention, especially in Ger-
* " Vafthrudnismiil, eive Odarum Eddse Ssemundinse una, etc."
Hafnite, Ill9.
f " Antiquitat. boreal, observationes Spec. ;" a Beries of articles
in which the richest treasures of Eddaic lore and Icelandic learn-
ing are presented,