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distributed justice[1]. Odin having united under his banners the youth of the neighbouring nations, marched towards the north and west of Europe, subduing, we are told, all the people he found in his passage; and giving them to one or other of his sons for subjects. Thus Suarlami was made king over a part of Russia: Baldeg over the western parts of Saxony or Westphalia: Segdeg had eastern Saxony, and Sigge had
- ↑ Among the several nations to whom these men distributed justice, the Turks are often mentioned in the Icelandic chronicles. There was in effect, at the foot of mount Taurus, a Scythian people from the earliest times known by that name. Pomponius Mela mentions them expresly; [Lib. 1. cap. 19. towards the end.] Herodotus himself seems to have had them in his eye. [Lib. iv. p. 22.] One part of the Turks followed Odin into the north, where their name had long been forgotten by their own descendants, when other offshoots from the same root, over-spreading the opposite part of Europe, revived the name with new splendor, and gave it to one of the most powerful empires in the world. Such strange revolutions have mankind in general undergone, and especially such of them, as long led a wandering unsettled life. First Edit.
Norway and Sweden, which have best preserved the ancient manners. The learned Bishop Pontoppidan mentions several of these in his Nat. Hist. of Norway. Tom. 2. c. 10. §. 1, 2, 3. The Georgians (adds our author) possess at present one part of the country, which was inhabited by the Ases, whom Odin conducted into the north.]
