He was ever carnivorous and eupeptic.  We New Englanders are perhaps the leanest of his descendants, because we have forsaken too much the old ways and habits of the race, and given ourselves too much to abstractions and transcendentalism.  The old Teuton abhorred the abstract.  He loved the concrete, the substantial.  The races of Southern Europe, what are now called the Latin races, were more temperate than the Teutonic, but they were far less brave, honest, and manly.  Their sensuality might not be so boisterous, but it was more bestial and foul.  Strength and manliness, and a blithe, cheery spirit, were ever the badges of the Teuton.  But though originally gross and rough, he was capable of a smoother polish, of a glossier enamel, than a more superficial, trivial nature.  He was ever deeply thoughtful, and capable of profounder moods of meditation than the lightly-moved children of the South.  Sighs, as from the boughs of Yggdrasil, ever breathed through his poetry from of old.  He was a smith, an artificer, and a delver in mines from the beginning.  The old Teutonic Pan was far more musical and awe-inspiring than his Grecian counterpart The Noon-spirit of the North was more wild than that of the South.  How all the ancient North was alive in its Troll-haunted hillocks, where clanged the anvil of the faery hill-smith, and danced and banqueted the Gnome and Troll,—­and in its streams and springs, musical with the harps of moist-haired Elle-women and mermaids, who, ethnic daemons though they were, yet cherished a hope of salvation!  The myth-spirits of the North were more homely and domestic than those of the South, and had a broader humor and livelier fancies.  The Northern Elf-folk were true natives of the soil, grotesque in costume and shape.

The Teuton of to-day is the lineal descendant of the old worshipper of Thor.  Mioellnir, the hammer of Thor, still survives in the gigantic mechanisms of Watt, Fulton, and Stephenson.  Thor embodied more Teutonic attributes than Odin.  The feats which Thor performed in that strange city of Utgard, as they are related in the old “Prose Edda,” were prophetic of the future achievements of the race, of which he was a chief god.  Thor once went on a journey to Joetunheim, or Giant-land,—­a primitive outlying country, full of the enemies of the Asgard dynasty, or cosmical deities.  In the course of the journey, he lodged one night with his two companions in what he supposed to be a huge hall, but which turned out to be the glove of a giant named Skrymir, who was asleep and snoring as loud as an earthquake, near by.  When the giant awoke, he said to Thor, who stood near,—­“My name is Skrymir, but I need not ask thy name, for I know that thou art the god Thor.  But what hast thou done with my glove?” Sure enough, on looking, Thor found that he had put up that night in Skrymir’s handshoe, or glove.  The giant and Thor breakfasted amicably together and went on their way till night, when Skrymir gave up his wallet of provisions to Thor