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THESE Fragments of the Ancient Edda are followed, in the Edition of Resenius, by a little Poem called, The Runic Chapter, or the Magic of Odin. I have before observed, that the Conqueror, who usurped this name, attributed to himself the invention of Letters; of which, they had not probably any idea in Scandinavia before his time. But although this noble art is sufficiently wonderful in itself, to attract the veneration of an ignorant people towards the teacher of it: yet Odin caused it to be regarded as the Art of Magic by way of excellence, the art of working all sorts of miracles: whether it was that this new piece of fallacy was subservient to his ambition, or whether he himself was barbarous enough to think there was something supernatural in writing. He speaks, at least in the following Poem, like a man who would make it so believed.
“Do you know (says he) how to
engrave Runic characters? how to
explain them? how to procure them?
how to prove their virtue?” He then
goes on to enumerate the wonders he could
