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far to Turkland, where Odin had great possessions.[1] But Odin, having foreknowledge and magic-sight, knew that his posterity would come to settle and dwell in the northern half of the world. In those times the Eoman chiefs went wide around the world, subduing to themselves all people; and on this account many chiefs fled from their domains.[2] Odin set his brothers
- ↑ Turkland was usually supposed to mean Moldau and Wallachia. Some, who regard the great mountain barrier as being the Ural Mountains, think Turkland is Turkistan in Asia. Asia Minor is also frequently styled Turkland.
- ↑ Ancient Norse writers connect this event with Mithridates and Pompey the Great. They tell how Odin was a heroic prince who, with his twelve peers or apostles, dwelt in the Black Sea region. He became straightened for room, and so led the asas out of Asia into eastern Europe. Then they go on to tell how the Roman empire had arrived at its highest point of power, and saw all the then known world—the orbis terrarum—subject to its laws, when an unforeseen event raised up enemies agamst it from the very heart of the forests of Scythia, and on the banks of the Don river. The leader was Mithridates the Great, against whom the Romans waged three wars, and the Romans looked upon him as the most formidable enemy the empire had ever had to contend with. Cicero delivered his famous oration. Pro lege Manilla, and succeeded in getting Pompey appointed commander of the third war against Mithridates. The latter, by flying, had drawn Pompey after him into the wilds of Scythia. Here the king of Pontus sought refuge and new means of vengeance. He hoped to arm against the ambition of Rome all his neighboring nations whose liberties she threatened. He was successful at first, but all those Scythian peoples, ill-united as allies, ill-armed as soldiers, and still worse disciplined, were at length forced to yield to the genius of the great general Pompey. And here traditions tell us that Odin and the other asas were among the allies of Mithridates. Odin had been one of the gallant defenders of Troy, and at the same time, with Æneas and Anchises, he had taken flight out of the burning and falling city. Now he was obliged to withdraw a second time by flight, but this time it was not from the Greeks, but from the Romans, whom he had offended by assisting Mithridates. He was now compelled to go and seek, in lands unknown to his enemies, that safety which he could no longer find in the Scythian forests. He then proceeded to the north of Europe, and laid the foundations of the Teutonic nations. As fast as he subdued the countries in the west and north of Europe he gave them to one or another of his sons to govern. Thus it comes to pass that so many sovereign families throughout Teutondom are said to be descended from Odin. Hengist and Horsa, the chiefs of those Saxons
