how brave men--of our own blood very likely--lived, and loved, and
fought, and voyaged, and died, before there was much reading or
writing, when they sailed without steam, travelled without railways,
and warred hand-to-hand, not with hidden dynamite and sunk
torpedoes. But, for stories of gallant life and honest purpose, the
Sagas are among the best in the world.

Of Sagas in English one of the best is the "Volsunga," the story of
the Niflungs and Volsungs. This book, thanks to Mr. William Morris,
can be bought for a shilling. It is a strange tale in which gods
have their parts, the tale of that oldest Treasure Hunt, the Hunt
for the gold of the dwarf Andvari. This was guarded by the serpent,
Fafnir, who had once been a man, and who was killed by the hero
Sigurd. But Andvari had cursed the gold, because his enemies robbed
him of it to the very last ring, and had no pity. Then the brave
Sigurd was involved in the evil luck. He it was who rode through
the fire, and woke the fair enchanted Brynhild, the Shield-maiden.
And she loved him, and he her, with all their hearts, always to the
death. But by ill fate she was married to another man, Sigurd's
chief friend, and Sigurd to another woman. And the women fell to
jealousy and quarrelling as women will, and they dragged the friends
into the feud, and one manslaying after another befell, till that
great murder of men in the Hall of Atli, the King. The curse came
on one and all of them--a curse of blood, and of evil loves, and of
witchwork destroying good and bad, all fearless, and all fallen in
one red ruin.

The "Volsunga Saga" has this unique and unparalleled interest, that
it gives the spectacle of the highest epic genius, struggling out of
savagery into complete and free and conscious humanity. It is a