Northern mythology

Xll
PREFACE.
and even in Naples, according to what theory of the
migration of peoples are we to explain the phenomenon ?
One inference may, however, be drawn with tolerable
certainty, viz. the great antiquity of many of these legends,
some of which are, indeed, traceable to Hebrew and
Hindu sources ^
By way of introduction to the matter contained in the
third volume, I have given in the Appendix at the end of
this volume, a brief sketch,
chiefly from the work of William
Miiller'^, of the old German mythology, so far as it
appears unconnected with the Scandinavian.
From the great number of traditions contained in the
works indicated in their respective places, I have chiefly
selected those that seemed to spring from the old mythology,
or at least from an old mythology ; as many of
the supernatural beings, of whom we read in the traditions
even of the three northern kingdoms, are not to
be found
in the Odinic system, and probably never had a place in
it; but, as we have already said, were the divinities of
those earlier races, who, it
may be supposed, by intermarriages
with their Gothic conquerors and a
gradual return
to their ancient home, contributed in no small degree to
form the great mass of the people.
Hence the introduc-
Of the German popular superstitions some maybe traced to the Greek
^
and Roman writers : that of the Bilsen-schnitters, for instance (see p. 245),
is to he found in Apuleius, and the same is probably the case s^^th others.
The inference seems to be, that such are not genuine German superstitions,
but that the South is their native soil, whence they have been transplanted
to Germany or, at least, enrolled as German among the superstitions of
that country.
- Geschichte und Systeme der Altdeutschen Rehgion von Wilhelm
Midler. Gottingen, 1844, 8vo, in which a great part of Grimm's Deutsche
iSIythologie is given in an abridged form.