recesses.[A] 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--_Hervarar Saga,_ p. 9. Similar
to this was the enchanted sword, _Skoffhung_, which was taken by a
pirate out of the tomb of a Norwegian monarch. Many such tales are
narrated in the Sagas; but the most distinct account of the _-duergar_,
or elves, and their attributes, is to be found in a preface of Torfaeus
to the history of Hrolf Kraka, who cites a dissertation by Einar
Gudmund, a learned native of Iceland. "I am firmly of opinion," says the
Icelander, "that these beings are creatures of God, consisting, like
human beings, of a body and rational soul; that they are of different
sexes, and capable of producing children, and subject to all human
affections, as sleeping and waking, laughing and crying, poverty and
wealth; and that they possess cattle, and other effects, and are
obnoxious to death, like other mortals." He proceeds to state, that the
females of this race are capable of procreating with mankind; and gives
an account of one who bore a child to an inhabitant of Iceland, for whom
she claimed the privilege of baptism; depositing the infant, for that
purpose, at the gate of the church-yard, together with a goblet of gold,
as an offering.--_Historia Hrolfi Krakae, a_ TORFAEO.

[Footnote A: Perhaps in this, and similar tales, we may recognize
something of real history. That the Fins, or ancient natives of
Scandinavia, were driven into the mountains, by the invasion of Odin and
his Asiatics, is sufficiently probable; and there is reason to believe,
that the aboriginal inhabitants understood, better than the intruders,
how to manufacture the produce of their own mines. It is therefore
possible, that, in process of time, the oppressed Fins may have been
transformed into the supernatural _duergar_. A similar transformation
has taken place among the vulgar in Scotland, regarding the Picts, or