easily. Clytemnestra is not brought on the stage to speak for
herself. In this respect the epic of the North, without the charm
and the delightfulness of the Southern epic, excels it; in this and
in a certain bare veracity, but in nothing else. We cannot put the
Germanic legend on the level of the Greek, for variety, for many-
sided wisdom, for changing beauty of a thousand colours. But in
this one passion of love the "Volsunga Saga" excels the Iliad.

The Greek and the Northern stories are alike in one thing. Fate is
all-powerful over gods and men. Odin cannot save Balder; nor
Thetis, Achilles; nor Zeus, Sarpedon. But in the Sagas fate is more
constantly present to the mind. Much is thought of being "lucky,"
or "unlucky." Howard's "good luck" is to be read in his face by the
wise, even when, to the common gaze, he seems a half-paralytic
dotard, dying of grief and age.

Fate and evil luck dog the heroes of the Sagas. They seldom "end
well," as people say,--unless, when a brave man lies down to die on
the bed he has strewn of the bodies of his foes, you call THAT
ending well. So died Grettir the Strong. Even from a boy he was
strong and passionate, short of temper, quick of stroke, but loyal,
brave, and always unlucky. His worst luck began after he slew Glam.
This Glam was a wicked heathen herdsman, who would not fast on
Christmas Eve. So on the hills his dead body was found, swollen as
great as an ox, and as blue as death.

What killed him they did not know. But he haunted the farmhouse,
riding the roof, kicking the sides with his heels, killing cattle
and destroying all things. Then Grettir came that way, and he slept
in the hall. At night the dead Glam came in, and Grettir arose, and