“Now, I am queen of Assyria,” exclaimed Semiramis; “and perish every one, like the eunuch and Ninus, who dare disobey my orders.”
“The discovery of the sword by Sir Guido, in your tale of the Crusader,” said Herbert, “reminds me of the elfin swords so common among the Scandinavian heroes.”
“Such as the enchanted sword taken by a pirate from the tomb of a Norwegian monarch,” suggested Lathom.
“Rather, perhaps, of those manufactured by the elves under compulsion, or from gratitude to some earthly warrior; the famous sword Tyrfing, the weapon of the Scandinavian monarch Suafurlami, was one of these. This is the story as given by Scott, in the second volume of his Scottish Minstrelsy: ‘The Scandinavian king, returning from hunting, bewildered himself among the mountains; about sunset he beheld a large rock, and two dwarfs sitting before the mouth of a cavern. The king drew his sword, and intercepted their retreat by springing between them and their recess, and imposed upon them the following condition of safety:—That they should make him a falchion, with a baldric and scabbard of pure gold, and a blade which would divide stones and iron as a garment, and which would render the wielder of it ever victorious in battle. The elves complied with his demand, and Suafurlami pursued his way home. Returning at the time appointed, the dwarfs delivered to him the famous sword Tyrfing; then standing in the entrance to the cavern, spoke thus: “This sword, O king, shall destroy a man every time it is brandished; but it shall perform three atrocious deeds, and shall be thy bane.” The king rushed forward with the charmed sword, and buried both its edges in the rock, but the dwarfs escaped into their recesses. This enchanted sword emitted rays like the sun, dazzling all against whom it was brandished; it divided steel like water, and was never unsheathed without slaying a man.’”
“The supernatural skill in the fabrication of arms attributed to the Northern elves,” remarked Lathom, “seems to indicate some traces of historical truth. The Fins, who inhabited Scandinavia when Odin and his Asiatics invaded the country, retired to the mountains to avoid the tyranny of the new people. Far better acquainted than the invaders could have been with the mines of their country, a superior knowledge in the manufacture of arms may be fairly awarded to them. And thus, in time, the oppressed Fins would come to be the dwarfish armorers of Scandinavian mythology.”
“As theory is the fashion,” said Thompson, “what say you to a geological foundation to many of your mythological wonders? Were not the great dragons of stone suddenly released from their rocky beds—the long serpents guarding treasures in deep pits—the closely coiled snake of the cavern—were not many of these the gigantic antediluvian relics of our caves? Has not many an ichthyosaurus, in his earthly bed, been transformed into a deputy fiend, or even into the father of evil himself, keeping watch over some hoard of ill-gotten wealth; whilst the strange form of the huge pterodactyl, with its wings and claws, has been metamorphosed into the dragon of Wantley and his compeers?”
“Your theory, Thompson,” rejoined Herbert, “may not be so baseless as you regard it. The entire series of the heathen mythology has been of old, and still is, in Germany, regarded as a mere mystical delineation of the phenomena of nature. The elements are said to have suggested the nature of the gods and their origin; the specific phenomena of nature may have suggested the various forms under which the divine race appears and acts. It was a very common practice among the astronomers of the days of Galileo, and even to a later period, to conceal their discoveries in enigmas. May we not, with some little appearance of reason, regard the fables of our ancestors, the knights, the dragons, the giants, the magicians and their followers, as in some respect an esoteric teaching of the philosophy of physics, a mystical setting forth of natural phenomena?”
“The love of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors for philosophical enigmas, as they may be called, was undoubtedly very great,” rejoined Lathom. “I remember one given by Mr. Wright, in his introduction to Anglo-Saxon literature. It was in these words:
“‘I saw tread over the turf
Ten in all,