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INTKODUOTION. 66
and government, the manners and customs of the
North. In them we find the family and the commonwealth
minutely and clearly described in their
various relations, while in general history they con-
tain rich treasures for the historian and archaeolo-
gist, which are even yet comparatively untouched,
and out of the North are almost unknown.
They likewise present a rich field of mythological
research, not so much in mythic memorials—for
of these they contain few, except in the inwoven
Skaldic lays—as in the information they give con-
cerning the worship and the entire manifestation of
Northern Heathendom. They lay down a mass of
minute and credible statements in regard to the
temples, festivals, oflferings, religious rites, &c.,
which are indispensable in writing a history of the
Idol-worship, of Scandinavia.
The love of history was enkindled among the Ice-
landers by their intense national feelings, and the
interest in public affairs which was required by
their free institutions, as well as by their attachment
to the Old and the Inherited, and their con-
stant longing for their Mother Country. As soon
as the written language was developed they began
to write history, and it is worthy of remark that the
Historical Sagas were almost universally written
before the Mythic and Komantic ones. Their age
is chiefly the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth
centuries. The sources of history were the lays of
the Skalds, and the genealogical trees which every
chieftain was careful to preserve.
The historiography of Iceland is generally con-