the king offers the people, if they want a new god, to deify Eric, one
of their hero-kings, is eminently characteristic and true.




FOLK-TALES.

There might be a classification of Saxo's stories akin to that of the
Irish poets, Battles, Sieges, Voyages, Rapes, Cattle Forays, etc.; and
quite apart from the historic element, however faint and legendary,
there are a set of stories ascribed by him, or rather his authorities,
to definite persons, which had, even in his day, probably long been the
property of Tis, their original owners not being known owing to lapse
of time and the wear of memory, and the natural and accidental
catastrophies that impair the human record. Such are the "Dragon-Slayer"
stories. In one type of these the hero (Frithlaf) is cast on a desolate
island, and warned by a dream to attack and slay a dragon guarding
treasure. He wakes, sees the dragon arise out of the waves, apparently,
to come ashore and go back to the cavern or mound wherein the treasure
lay. His scales are too hard to pierce; he is terribly strong, lashing
trees down with his tail, and wearing a deep path through the wood and
over the stones with his huge and perpetual bulk; but the hero, covered
with hide-wrapped shield against the poison, gets down into the
hollow path, and pierces the monster from below, afterward rifling its
underground store and carrying off its treasure.

Again the story is repeated; the hero (Frode Haddingsson) is warned by
a countryman of the island-dragon and its hoard, is told to cover his
shield and body with bulls' hides against the poison, and smite the