Excerpt from Northern Mythology, Vol. 2 of 3: Comprising the Principal, Popular Traditions and Superstitions of Scandinavia, North Germany, and the Netherlands The question that naturally first presents itself to us, on hearing these wondrous stories, is: What can have given birth to, and indelibly imprinted and quickened in the imagination of the people a superstition, which is the more remarkable, as similar opinions are found among the majority of the people in the north of Europe? It is probable that unacquaintance with nature and her powers, combined with the innate desire of finding a reason for and explaining the various natural phenomena, that must daily and hourly attract the attention of mankind, has led them to see the causes of these phenomena in the power of the beings who, as they supposed, had produced them, and afterwards frequented and busied themselves with and in their own productions. These phenomena were too numerous and various to allow the ascribing of them to a single being, and therefore a number of super natural beings were imagined, whose dangerous influence and pernicious wrath it was sought to avert by sacrifices and other means. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.