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464 HISTORY OP GREECE. old gods Thor and Woden were formally deposed and renounce^ their images were crumbled into dust, and the sacred oaks of worship and prophecy hewn down. But even where conver- sion was the fruit of preaching and persuasion, it did not the less Dreak up all the associations of a German with respect to that mythical world which he called his past, and of wMch the ancient gods constituted both the charm and the sanctity : he had now only the alternative of treating them either as men or as daemons. 1 That mixed religious and patriotic retrospect, formed by the coalescence of piety with ancestral feeling, which constituted the appropriate sentiment both of Greeks and of Germans towards their unrecorded antiquity, was among the latter banished by Christianity: and while the root of the old mythes was thus cankered, the commemorative ceremonies and customs with which they were connected, either lost their consecrated character or disappeared altogether. Moreover, new influences of great im- portance were at the same time brought to bear. The Latin language, together with some tinge of Latin literature the habit of writing and of recording present events the idea of a sys- tematic law and pacific adjudication of disputes, all these form ed a part of the general working of Roman civilization, even after the decline of the Koman empire, upon the Teutonic and Celtic 1 On the hostile influence exercised by the change of religion on the old Scandinavian poetry, see an interesting article of Jacob Grimm in the Got- tingen Gclehrte Anzeigen, Feb. 1830, pp. 268-273 ; a review of Olaf Tryggv- son's Saga. The article Helden, in his Deutsche Mythologie, is also full of instruction on the same subject: see also the Einleitung to the book, p. 11, 2nd edition. A similar observation has been made with respect to the old mythes of the pagan Russians by Eichhoff : " L'etablissement du Christianisme, ce gage du bonheur dcs nations, fut vivement apprecie par les Rosses, qui dans leur jaste reconnaissance, le personnifierent dans un he'ros. Vladimir le Grand, ami des arts, protecteur de la religion qu'il prot^gea, et dont les fruits firent oublier les fautes, devint 1'Arthus et le Charlemagne de la Rus- sie, et sea hauls faits furent un mythe national qui domina tons ceux da paganisme. Autour de lui se groupercnt ces gnerriers aux formes athle'ti- ques, an cceur gcne'reux, dont la poesie aime a entourer le berceau mysteri- eux dcs peuples : et les exploits du vaillant Dobrinia, de Rogdai, d'llia, de Curilo, animerent les ballades nationales. et vivent encore dans de nalft r<$cits." (Eichhoff, Histoire do la Langue et Littdrature des Slaves, Paris, 1839, part iii. ch. 2. p. 190.)