almost congenial with the Persian fables. The Edda was compiled in Iceland in the thirteenth century. It is a kind of system of the Scandinavian mythology; and it has been reckoned, and we believe justly, a commentary on the Voluspa, which was the Bible of the northern nations. Odin or Othin, Woden or Waden, was the supreme divinity of these people. His exploits or adventures furnish the far greater part of their mythological creed. That hero is supposed to have come from the East, but from what country or at what period is not certainly known. His achievements are magnified beyond all credibility. He is represented as the god of battles, and slaughtering thousands at a blow. His palace is called Valhalla; it is situated in the city of Midgard, where, according to the fable, the souls of heroes, who had bravely fallen in battle, enjoy supreme felicity. They spend the day in mimic hunting-matches or imaginary combats. At night they assemble in the palace of Valhalla, where they feast on the most delicious viands, dressed and served up by the Valkyriæ, virgins adorned with celestial charms, and flushed with drinking mead out of the skulls of enemies whom they had killed in their nature. Mead, it seems, was the nectar of the Scandinavian heroes.

Sleepner, Odin's horse, is celebrated along with his master. Hela, the hell of the Scandinavians, affords a variety of fables equally shocking and heterogeneous. Loke, the evil genius or devil of the northern people, nearly resembles the Typhon of the Egyptians. Signa, or Sinna, is the consort of Loke; and from this name the English word sin is derived. The giants Weymur, Ferbanter, Belupher, and Hellunda, perform a variety of exploits, and are exhibited in the most frightful attitudes. One would be tempted to imagine that they perform the exact counterpart of the giants of the Greek and Roman mythologists.

The word Voluspa imports "the prophecy of Fola or Vola." This was, perhaps, a general name for the prophetic ladies of the North, as Sybil was appropriated to women endowed with the like faculty in the South. Certain it is that the ancients generally connected madness with the prophetic faculty. Of this we have two celebrated examples : the one in Lycophoron's Cassandra, and the other in the Sybil of the Roman poet. The word vola signifies "mad or foolish"; whence the English words, fool, foolish, folly. Spa, the latter part of the composition, signifies "to prophesy," and is still current among the common people of Scotland, in the word spae, which has nearly the same signification.

The Voluspa consists of between two and three hundred lines. The prophetess having imposed silence on all intelligent beings, declares that she is about to reveal the works of the Father of nature, the actions and operations of the gods, which no mortal ever knew before herself. She then begins with a description of the chaos; and proceeds to the formation of the world, and the creation of the different species of its inhabitants, giants, men, and dwarfs. She then explains the employments of the fairies or destinies, whom the northern people call nornies; the functions of the deities, their most

memorable adventures, their disputes with Loke, and the vengeance which ensued. She at last concludes with a long and indeed animated description of the final state of the universe, and its dissolution by a general conflagration. In this catastrophe, Odin, and all the rabble of the pagan divinities, are to be confounded in the general ruin, no more to appear on the stage of the universe, and out of the ruins of the former world, a new one shall spring up, arrayed in all the bloom of celestial beauty.-Encyclopædia Britannica.

THE WREN: A MANX LEGEND.

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IN the Isle of Man the wren is believed to be a transformed fairy. The ceremony of hunting the wren (says Brand, in his Popular Antiquities") is founded on this ancient tradition. A fairy of uncommon beauty once exerted such undue influence over the male population, that she seduced numbers at various times to follow her footsteps, till by degrees she led them into the sea, where they perished. This barbarous exercise of power had continued so long that it was feared the island would be exhausted of its defenders. A knight errant sprang up who discovered some means of countervailing the charms used by the siren, and even laid a plot for her destruction, which she only escaped at the moment of extreme hazard by assuming the form of a wren. But though she evaded punishment at that time, a spell was cast upon her, by which she was condemned to reanimate the same form on every succeeding New Year's-day, until she should perish by a human hand. In consequence of this legend, every man and boy in the island devotes the hours from the rising to the setting of the sun, on each returning anniversary, to the hope of extirpating the fairy. Woe to the wrens which show themselves on that fatal day they are pursued, pelted, fired at, and destroyed without mercy. Their feathers are preserved with religious care; for it is believed that every one of the relics gathered in the pursuit is an effectual preservative from shipwreck for the ensuing year, and the fisherman who should venture on his occupation without such a safeguard would by many of the natives be considered extremely foolhardy.

ABRAHAM AND THE STRANGER.

I HAVE heard that for one whole week no wayfarer
Came to open the tent of the "friend of God."

With no happy heart would he take his morning meal,
Unless some forlorn wanderer came in from the desert.
Forth he fared from his tent, and looked on every side,
To the skirts of the valley did he direct his gaze.
There saw he an old man, like a willow, alone in the desert,
His head and hair were white with the snows of age.
With affectionate kindness he bade him welcome;

After the manner of the munificent he made his salutation :

"Oh thou," he said, "who art dear as the apple of mine eye,
Deign to honour me by partaking of my bread and salt!"
With a glad assent the old man leaped up and set forth,
For well knew he the saint's character-on whom be peace.
The servants in charge of Abraham's tent

Placed in the seat of honour that poor old man ;

And the master bade them make ready to eat,

And they all sate in order round the table.

But when they commenced their solemn grace in the name of God, They heard no response from the old man's lips.

Abraham said unto him, "Oh, old man of ancient days,

I see not in thee the religion and devotion of age;

Is it not thy custom, when thou eatest bread,

To name the name of the Lord, who giveth that daily meed ?"

He answered, "I never practise customs

Which I have not learned from the old priest of the fire-worshippers!" Then knew the saint of blessèd omen

That the old man was a lost unbeliever;

And he drove him ignominiously from his tent,

When he saw the stranger in his foulness in the presence of the pure. Then came there an angel from the glorious Creator,

And with awful majesty rebuked the saint:

"For a hundred years, O Abraham, have I given him daily food and

life;

And canst thou not bear his presence for a single hour?"

-Sadi.

HOCUS-POCUS.

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THE papistical sacrament was called by the vulgar (at the dawn of the Reformation) "Jack-in-the-Box," "Worm's-meat," Hocus-pocus." The latter epithet had its origin from the manner in which the priest mumbled the words, "Hoc est Corpus"-i.e., "This is My body," etc. -Disraeli.

THE TALMUD.

THE Jewish Rabbis were wont to teach respecting the two divisions of the Talmud, viz. : Mishna (the text) and Gemara (the commentary), as follows:-"He that is learned in the Scriptures and not in the Mishna is a blockhead. The Bible is like water; the Mishna is like wine; the Gemara, spiced wine; the law, salt; the Mishna, pepper; the Gemara, balmy spice." Nevertheless, the Talmud contains admirable maxims, acute and excellent proverbs, gentle and instructive tales, and much information in various branches of knowledge.

In the Talmudic treatise, entitled, Sepher Hachayim, we have the following similitude thus recorded:

"A certain man had three friends, two of whom he loved; but the hir d he did not highly esteem. Once on a time, the king commanded

him to be called before him, and, being alarmed, he sought to find an advocate. He went to the friend whom he loved most; but he utterly refused to go with him. The second offered to go with him as far as the door of the king's palace, but refused to speak a word in his behalf. The third, whom he loved least, not only went with him, but pleaded his cause so well before the king, that he was cleared from all blame. In like manner every man has three friends, when he is cited by death to appear before God. The first friend, whom he loves most, viz. his money, cannot accompany him at all. His second, viz. his relations and neighbours, accompany him only to the grave, and then return; but cannot deliver him from the Judge. The third friend, whom he holds in little esteem, viz.: the law and his good works, goes with him to the King, and delivers him from judgment."

In another treatise of the Talmud, entitled, Sepher Haggadah, will be found in the form of an allegory a legend which has a striking resemblance to one of the most popular of our nursery tales, viz., the one so familiarly known as, "This is the house that Jack built," the summary of which reads as follows :-

"Then came the Holy One, Blessed be He,

And killed the angel of death,

That killed the butcher,

That killed the ox,

That drank the water,
That quenched the fire,

That burned the staff,

That beat the dog,

That bit the cat,

That ate the kid,

Which my Father bought
For two pieces of money."

The Talmud gives the following explanation of the above allegory. The kid, a clean animal, signifies the Jewish people; the Father, who purchased it, Jehovah; the two pieces of money, Moses and Aaron ; the cat, the Assyrians who carried the ten tribes into captivity; the dog, the Babylonians, who destroyed the Assyrians; the staff, the Persians, who conquered the Babylonians; the fire, the Greeks, under Alexander, who overthrew the Persian monarchy; the water, the Roman power, which vanquished the Grecians; the ox, the Saracens, who ejected the Romans from the Holy Land; the butcher, the Crusaders, who did the same for the Saracens; the angel of death, the Turkish power, to which the Holy Land is subject. The commencement, "Then came the Holy One, blessed be He,” is designed to show that God will some day take signal vengeance on the Turks, immediately after whose overthrow the Jews are to be restored to their own land, and to live under the government of their long-expected Messiah. The Quiver.

CURIOSITIES OF PUBLIC AMUSEMENT.

THE FIRST ENGLISH THEATRES.

IN the time of Queen Elizabeth, when our great dramatist donned the sock and buskin, the theatres were mere wooden erections, open to the weather, with the exception of the part over the stage, which was thatched. The pit was without seats, and court ladies and gallants sat in the boxes beneath the gallery, and were sometimes accommodated with stools on the stage, which was covered with rushes, and' on which young gallants frequently reclined, smoking tobacco-then a novelty and a fashionable indulgence-while the play was being performed. Scenery was then unknown, unless rude imitations of trees, etc., may be termed so; the names of the places of action (such as "Forest of Arden,"), being painted on boards, which were hung up in some conspicuous place during the performance. Movable scenery was introduced by Sir W. Davenant, soon after the Restoration. At one period of Queen Elizabeth's reign the theatres, as well as bear gardens, etc., were open on Sundays. During the time of the Commonwealth, public amusements were to a great extent prohibited, but noblemen were wont to have occasional theatrical entertainments at their mansions. (It has been wittily observed that the Puritans suppressed the sport of bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it afforded pleasure to the people !) We find in the public records of the time of the Protectorate, that the play of "Midsummer's Night's Dream" having been enacted on a Sunday at the Bishop of Lincoln's palace, to the pious horror of the Puritans, the unlucky wight who played the part of Bottom, being the ringleader of this Sabbathbreaking, was condemned as a punishment to sit for twelve hours in the stocks," attired with an ass's head and a bottle of hay before him bearing the following inscription on his breast:

"Good people, I have played the beast,

And brought ill things to pass:

I was a man, but thus have made
Myself a silly ass."

After the Restoration, when play-going came once more into fashion, affairs theatrical were considerably improved; but it would appear that the theatres still continued to be partially unroofed; for, says Pepys, "Before the play was done, it fell such a storm of hayle, that we in the middle of the pit were fain to rise, and all the house in disorder."

Performances at theatres and other places of amusement began at a much earlier hour than is the case at the present day, viz., two or three o'clock; the streets being so badly paved and lighted (if, indeed, they can be said to have been paved or lighted at all), and the general insecurity after dark on account of footpads and other evil-doers,