The annals of the North afford another curious instance of this source of error.  A tribe of Finns called Quaens occupied a considerable part of the eastern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia.  Their country was known as Quaenland; and this name gave rise to a belief that to the north of the Baltic there was a nation of Amazons.  This would easily have been corrected by local knowledge:  but by the use of writing, the flying rumor was at once fixed; and the existence of such a people is positively affirmed in some of the earliest European histories.  Thus too Abo, the ancient capital of Finland, was called Turku, which in the Swedish language means a market-place.  Adam of Bremen, having occasion to treat of the countries adjoining the Baltic, was so misled by the word Turku that this celebrated historian assures his readers that there were Turks in Finland.

To these illustrations many others might be added, showing how mere names deceived the early historians, and gave rise to relations which were entirely false, and might have been rectified on the spot; but which, owing to the art of writing, were carried into distant countries and thus placed beyond the reach of contradiction.  Of such cases, one more may be mentioned, as it concerns the history of England.  Richard I., the most barbarous of our princes, was known to his contemporaries as the Lion; an appellation conferred upon him on account of his fearlessness and the ferocity of his temper.  Hence it was said that he had the heart of a lion; and the title Coeur de Lion not only became indissolubly connected with his name, but actually gave rise to a story, repeated by innumerable writers, according to which he slew a lion in a single combat.  The name gave rise to the story; the story confirmed the name:  and another fiction was added to that long series of falsehoods of which history mainly consisted during the Middle Ages.

The corruptions of history, thus naturally brought about by the mere introduction of letters, were in Europe aided by an additional cause.  With the art of writing, there was in most cases also communicated a knowledge of Christianity; and the new religion not only destroyed many of the Pagan traditions, but falsified the remainder by amalgamating them with monastic legends.  The extent to which this was carried would form a curious subject for inquiry; but one or two instances of it will perhaps be sufficient to satisfy the generality of readers.

Of the earliest state of the great Northern nations we have little positive evidence; but several of the lays in which the Scandinavian poets related the feats of their ancestors or of their contemporaries are still preserved; and notwithstanding their subsequent corruption, it is admitted by the most competent judges that they embody real and historical events.  But in the ninth and tenth centuries, Christian missionaries found their way across the Baltic, and introduced a knowledge of their religion among the inhabitants of