much of their former reputation.  Among a perfectly unlettered people, the singers of ballads are, as we have already seen, the sole depositaries of those historical facts on which the fame, and often the property, of their chieftains principally depend.  But when this same nation becomes acquainted with the art of writing, it grows unwilling to intrust these matters to the memory of itinerant singers, and avails itself of its new art to preserve them in a fixed and material form.  As soon as this is effected, the importance of those who repeat the national traditions is sensibly diminished.  They gradually sink into an inferior class, which, having lost its old reputation, no longer consists of those superior men to whose abilities it owed its former fame.  Thus we see that although without letters there can be no knowledge of much importance, it is nevertheless true that their introduction is injurious to historical traditions in two distinct ways:  first by weakening the traditions, and secondly by weakening the class of men whose occupation it is to preserve them.

But this is not all.  Not only does the art of writing lessen the number of traditionary truths, but it directly encourages the propagation of falsehoods.  This is effected by what may be termed a principle of accumulation, to which all systems of belief have been deeply indebted.  In ancient times, for example, the name of Hercules was given to several of those great public robbers who scourged mankind, and who, if their crimes were successful as well as enormous, were sure after their death to be worshiped as heroes.  How this appellation originated is uncertain; but it was probably bestowed at first on a single man, and afterwards on those who resembled him in the character of their achievements.  This mode of extending the use of a single name is natural to a barbarous people, and would cause little or no confusion, as long as the tradition of the country remained local and unconnected.  But as soon as these traditions became fixed by a written language, the collectors of them, deceived by the similarity of name, assembled the scattered facts, and ascribing to a single man these accumulated exploits, degraded history to the level of a miraculous mythology.  In the same way, soon after the use of letters was known in the North of Europe, there was drawn up by Saxo Grammaticus the life of the celebrated Ragnar Lodbrok.  Either from accident or design, this great warrior of Scandinavia, who had taught England to tremble, had received the same name as another Ragnar, who was prince of Jutland about a hundred years earlier.  This coincidence would have caused no confusion as long as each district preserved a distinct and independent account of its own Ragnar.  But by possessing the resource of writing, men became able to consolidate the separate trains of events, and as it were, fuse two truths into one error.  And this was what actually happened.  The credulous Saxo put together the different exploits of both Ragnars, and ascribing the whole of them to his favorite hero, has involved in obscurity one of the most interesting parts of the early history of Europe.