Note 19 — INTRODUCTION.

In the Scandinavian superstition every rune was consecrated to some deity. Nearly all the magic of the north consisted in runes. They could raise or allay tempests; they could change times, and they could bring the most distant objects together. They could produce good or bad seasons; they could raise the dead: in short, they were omnipotent over all nature,—the invisible no less than the visible world.