satisfaction on the great
brewer's copper which had been wrought by his neighbour, the skilful
smith; or he stood in coloured linen smock-frock before the laden
harvest wagon, on which his boy was throwing the last sheaf of rye, and
his daughter placing the harvest wreath with pious ejaculations.

The German is incomprehensible to us, when, according to the Roman, he
worshipped Mercury as the highest god; but we can realise the figure of
the Asengott Woden, when we see the connection, of the wild hunter of
our traditions and the sleeping Emperor of Kyffhaeuser, with German
antiquity. Now, we know how lovingly and actively the gods and spirits
hovered round the hearths, farms, fields, rivers, and woods of our
forefathers. From this tendency also the old Chatte or Hermundure has
been transformed into a Hessian or Thuringian householder, who in the
twilight looks wistfully up to his rooftree, on which the little
household spirit loves to sit, and who, when the storm rages, carefully
covers the window-openings, in order that a spectral horse's head from
the train of the wild god who rides on the blast may not look into his
hall.

Even from the productions of the Germans in that century that were most
full of heart and soul, their songs, which no careful hand transcribed
on parchment, we may draw some conclusions. Their oldest kind of
poetry is not entirely unknown to us,--the native epic verse, with its
alliterations--and in some of the popular songs and proverbs which have
been preserved, we still find the ancient love of contests of wit and
of enigmas, with which a troubadour delighted his hearers by the hearth
of the Saxon chief.

After the great national exodus, written records begin slowly to appear
in Germany. They came, together with that irresistible power which
changed so much of the whole spirit of the German people,--with
Christianity. However energetically religion turned the mind into new
paths, and however fearful was the destruction occasioned by popular
tumults at that period of immigration, the changes in the Germans
arising from both sources were not sufficient to shatter everything
ancient into ruins. We are too apt to consider the national exodus as a
chaotic process of destruction. It is true that it drove from their
homes many of the most powerful German nationalities that were located
in and beyond East Germany, and the depopulated domiciles were filled
with the Sclavonians who followed. The Bava