Through The Obscurity, The Exaggeration, And The Ridiculous Fables, With Which His Real Existence Has Been Overloaded, We Can Still See That This Man Evidently Possessed A Genius As Superior To His Contemporaries, As Has Ever Given To Any Child Of Man The Ascendency Over His Generation.

In the simple language of the old chronicler, we are told, "that his countenance was so beautiful that, when

Sitting among his friends, the spirits of all were exhilarated by it; that when he spoke, all were persuaded; that when he went forth to meet his enemies, none could withstand him." Though subsequently made a god by the superstitious people he had benefited, his death seems to have been noble and religious. He summoned his friends around his pillow, intimated a belief in the immortality of his soul, and his hope that hereafter they should meet again in Paradise. "Then," we are told, "began the belief in Odin, and their calling upon him."

On the settlement of the country, the land was divided and subdivided into lots - some as small as fifty acres - and each proprietor held his share - as their descendants do to this day - by udal right; that is, not as a fief of the Crown, or of any superior lord, but in absolute, inalienable possession, by the same udal right as the kings wore their crowns, to be transmitted, under the same title, to their descendants unto all generations.

These landed proprietors were called the Bonders, and formed the chief strength of the realm. It was they, their friends and servants, or thralls, who constituted the army. Without their consent the king could do nothing. On stated occasions they met together, in solemn assembly, or Thing, (i.e. Parliament,) as it was called, for the transaction of public business, the administration of justice, the allotment of the scatt, or taxes.

Without a solemn induction at the Ore or Great Thing, even the most legitimately-descended sovereign could not mount the throne, and to that august assembly an appeal might ever lie against his authority.

To these Things, and to the Norse invasion that implanted them, and not to the Wittenagemotts of the Latinised Saxons, must be referred the existence of those Parliaments which are the boast of Englishmen.

Noiselessly and gradually did a belief in liberty, and an unconquerable love of independence, grow up among that simple people. No feudal despots oppressed the unprotected, for all were noble and udal born; no standing armies enabled the Crown to set popular opinion at defiance, for the swords of the Bonders sufficed to guard the realm; no military barons usurped an illegitimate authority, for the nature of the soil forbade the erection of feudal fortresses. Over the rest of Europe despotism rose up rank under the tutelage of a corrupt religion; while, year after year, amid the savage scenery of its Scandinavian nursery, that great race was maturing whose genial heartiness was destined to invigorate the sickly civilization of the Saxon with inexhaustible energy, and preserve to the world, even in the nineteenth century, one glorious example of a free European people.

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