all the races.
The North Sea did not limit the sturdiness of the Teutonic seafarers of
the Norse race, just as the Mediterranean did not restrain their energy
and wandering instincts. As the Lombard cycle of sagas reaches out
beyond the confines of the Teutonic world to Constantinople, to Syria,
to Babylon, and to the mythical lands beyond the seas, so the cycle of
the North leads us not only to the Netherlands, the land of the Frisians
and Ditmarsch, but over to Seeland, Normandy, Ireland, even to the
Orkneys, and perchance to Iceland.

And perhaps it may not be amiss, by way of contrast and to show the
opposite poles of the Germanic world, to recount briefly an epic lay of
the Lombard cycle which breathes quite a different atmosphere and
exhibits different colors, geographically and morally speaking, from
those of the North Sea. In the Lombard cycle there is a connection of
the Teutonic cosmos with the fabulous Oriental world. King Ortnit of
_Lamparten_ (Lombardy) wins by a series of stratagems the resplendent
daughter of the heathen king Nachaol, of Muntabur, in Syria, and makes
her his wife. Descriptions of golden armor, magic rings, and rich
treasures of the East betray everywhere the Oriental character of this
Langobard legend.

More Germanic, though its sources lay entirely in the Byzantine Empire,
is the saga of _Hugdietrich_ with its moral of the all-pervading power
of love. The names of the leading characters especially indicate the
Teutonic setting of the saga. Hugdietrich is King of Constantinople,
and, after the early death of his father, is reared by Duke Berchtung.
At the age of twelve an Oriental age for marriage he consults with his
guardian concerning the choice of a wife. The choice falls upon the fair
maiden Hildeburg, daughter of King Walgund at Salnek (_Saloniki_); but
this princess is confined in a lofty tower, for it has been decided that
she is never to marry. Unlike Danae, the Greek beauty, who is reached in
her solitary tower by the love of the Olympian Zeus in the form of a
golden rain, Hildeburg receives Hugdietrich in a more satisfactory form.
The young king to attain his end disguises himself in the garb of a
maiden with flowing golden hair; he learns feminine arts, among them
that of embroidery, and journeys to Salnek, accompanied by a numerous
retinue. Here he represents himself as Hildegund, the exiled sister of
the King of the Greeks, and is hospitably received by King Walgund. The