Note 502 — Chapter XV · THE COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF TEUTONIC AND GREEK HEROIC POETRY.

This analogy applies perhaps also to the objects aimed at in the two sets of records. Within certain limitations it may be said that the object of the heroic stories is to entertain and that of unheroic records to instruct. The latter remark holds good not only for historical works but also for tribal traditions and tribal law. It is likely that opportunity was taken to impart instruction of this type at festal gatherings. We may quote a passage from Praetorius' Deliciae Prussicae (ed. Pierson, p. 24) relating to a festal gathering of young people at a time when the Prussian Lithuanians had not yet been entirely converted. "Darauf haben sie sich um die Eiche und Stein niedergesetzt, der Weydulut aber uf den Stein das Fell gelegt, sich darauf gesetzet, einen Sermon gehalten von ihrem Herkommen und alten Gebräuchen, Glauben p. p., den Zemyna, den Perkuns und andere mehr genennet." There is abundant evidence for the existence of similar traditions among the Teutonic peoples from the earliest times—for which the reader may be referred to Dr Schütte's interesting book Oldsagn om Godtjod (especially pp. 118-197). But in heroic poetry, whether Teutonic or Greek, references to the early traditions of a nation are extremely rare and practically limited to the ancestors of the royal family, while 'law' is the will of the ruler. For Greek parallels we must turn to works of the Hesiodic school and the elegiac poets.

With regard to historical works we have to remember that all records dating from the Heroic Age are of foreign origin. But it is certainly to be noted that the interest of the stories given by Gregory of Tours and other writers of the sixth century—in so far as they relate to persons of Teutonic blood—is essentially personal, and similar to that which characterises the poems. This is the more noteworthy since these stories are related from a totally different point of view (cf. p. 338 f.).