Some have thought that by the Dwarfs were to be understood the Finns, the original inhabitants of the country, who were driven to the mountains by the Scandinavians, and who probably excelled the new-comers in the art of working their mines and manufacturing their produce. Thorlacius, on the contrary, thinks that it was Odin and his followers, who came from the country of the Chalybes, that brought the metallurgic arts into Scandinavia.
Perhaps the simplest account of the origin of the Dwarfs is, that when, in the spirit of all ancient religions, the subterranean powers of nature were to be personified, the authors of the system, from observing that people of small stature usually excel in craft and ingenuity, took occasion to represent the beings who formed crystals and purified metals within the bowels of the earth as of diminutive size, which also corresponded better with the power assigned them of slipping through the fissures and interstices of rocks and stones. Similar observations led to the representation of the wild and awful powers of brute nature under the form of huge giants.
[SCANDINAVIA.]
De vare syv og hundrede Trolde,
De vare baade grumme og lede,
De vilde gjöre Bonden et Gjæsterie,
Med hannem baade drikke og æde.
Eline af Villenszov.
There were seven and a hundred Trolls,
They were both ugly and grim,
A visit they would the farmer make,
Both eat and drink with him.
Under the name of Scandinavia are included the kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, which once had a common religion and a common language. Their religion is still one, and their languages differ but little; we therefore feel that we may safely treat of their Fairy Mythology together.
Our principal authorities are the collection of Danish popular traditions, published by Mr. Thiele,[122] the select Danish ballads of Nyerup and Rahbek,[123] and the Swedish ballads of Geijer and Afzelius.[124] As most of the principal Danish ballads treating of Elves, etc., have been already translated by Dr. Jamieson, we will not insert them here; but translate, instead, the corresponding Swedish ones, which are in general of greater simplicity, and often contain additional traits of popular belief. As we prefer fidelity to polish, the reader must not be offended at antique modes of expression and imperfect rimes. Our rimes we can, however, safely say shall be at least as perfect as those of our originals.
These ballads, none of which are later than the fifteenth century, are written in a strain of the most artless simplicity; not the slightest attempt at ornament is to be discerned in them; the same ideas and expressions continually recur; and the rimes are the most careless imaginable, often a mere assonnance in vowels or consonants; sometimes not possessing even that slight similarity of sound. Every Visa or ballad has its single or double Omquæd[125] or burden, which, like a running accompaniment in music, frequently falls in with the most happy effect; sometimes recalling former joys or sorrows; sometimes, by the continual mention of some attribute of one of the seasons, especially the summer, keeping up in the mind of the reader or hearers the forms of external nature.