WONDERFUL STORIES FROM northernLANDS - 1871 - PREFACE - ALTHOUGH n glish children have long been delighted with the legends of Germany and Scandinavia as collected in the Household Stories of Grirnm, and in Dasents Popular Tales from the Norse, no use has yet been made of the materials of the Eddas and Sagas of Northern Europe for the amusement and the instruction of the Young. In the belief that these materials may be presented in a form as delightful as that of the old stories with which all are familiar, I have clothed a few of the Edda and her narratives in language which, I trust, the youngest child may understand with ease, and from which even they who have left childhood behind them may derive some enjoyment. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION . . vii I. HOW THOR RECOVERED HIS HAMMER. I 11. THE STORY OF BALDER . 111. THE STORY OF VOLUND . IV. THORS ADVENTURES AMONG THE JOTUNS . V. SJFS C-OLDEN HAIR . VI. THE WONDERFUL QUERN STONES . VII. THORWALDS BRIDAL . IX. HOW THE WOLF FENRIS WAS CHAINED . X. THE STORY OF IDUNA XI. HOW THOR GOT A CAULDRON FOR AGER, LORD OF HELSEYIA . XII. KING OLAF THE SAINT. . . 176 XIII. THE STORY OF FRITHIOF . . 185 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. THE KING OF THE FROST-GIANTS Page 5 R ontispiece THE DWARFS AT WORK . to face page 7 8 8 . MENIA AND FENIA . YP Y , 93 SIR PETER , AND THE . UGLY SPRITE . 19 Y I17 KING OLAF AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE . YP 3, 182 INTRODUCTION. AMONG th e marvels of the inchanted land of Folklore none is greater than the freshness which every form retains, although it may be presented to us in a hundred different dresses. We may see and feel that under all these disguises we are looking on the same being but we are never tired of listening to the tale of his adventures, slightly as these may be . varied in each of the many versions of his history. The repetition never wearies us the monotony never becomes irksome. Even when by long acquaintance with some of these tales we know what is going to happen in others, we read or listen for the thousandth time with the feeling that whether for old or young these stories can never lose their charm. The child to whom is told the old Greek tale of Psyche and Love,-how she was carried away to a cave in a lonely garden, where her sisters told her that she was wedded to a hideous monster, how by their evil counsels she rose up in the night to look at her lover, how Love wakened by a drop of oil from her torch vanished away in the form of a dove, how Psyche sought for him in all lands and found him again at last after . achieving three marvellous tasks,-will say at once, This is the story of Beauty and the Beast, or something very like it... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.