Popular Tales from the Norse | Page 6

the Hindoos. [3]
In this passive, abstract, unprogressive state, they have remained ever
since. Stiffened into castes, and tongue-tied and hand-tied by absurd
rites and ceremonies, they were heard of in dim legends by Herodotus;
they were seen by Alexander when that bold spirit pushed his phalanx
beyond the limits of the known world; they trafficked with imperial
Rome, and the later empire; they were again almost lost sight of, and
became fabulous in the Middle Age; they were rediscovered by the
Portuguese; they have been alternately peaceful subjects and desperate
rebels to us English; but they have been still the same immovable and
unprogressive philosophers, though akin to Europe all the while; and
though the Highlander, who drives his bayonet through the heart of a
high-caste Sepoy mutineer, little knows that his pale features and sandy
hair, and that dusk face with its raven locks, both come from a common
ancestor away in Central Asia, many, many centuries ago.
But here arises the question, what interest can we, the descendants of
the practical brother, heirs to so much historical renown, possibly take
in the records of a race so historically characterless, and so sunk in
reveries and mysticism? The answer is easy. Those records are written
in a language closely allied to the primaeval common tongue of those

two branches before they parted, and descending from a period anterior
to their separation. It may, or it may not, be the very tongue itself, but it
certainly is not further removed than a few steps. The speech of the
emigrants to the west rapidly changed with the changing circumstances
and various fortune of each of its waves, and in their intercourse with
the aboriginal population they often adopted foreign elements into their
language. One of these waves, it is probable, passing by way of Persia
and Asia Minor, crossed the Hellespont, and following the coast, threw
off a mighty rill, known in after times as Greeks; while the main stream,
striking through Macedonia, either crossed the Adriatic, or, still
hugging the coast, came down on Italy, to be known as Latins. Another,
passing between the Caspian and the Black Sea, filled the steppes
round the Crimea, and; passing on over the Balkan and the Carpathians
towards the west, became that great Teutonic nationality which, under
various names, but all closely akin, filled, when we first hear of them in
historical times, the space between the Black Sea and the Baltic, and
was then slowly but surely driving before them the great wave of the
Celts which had preceded them in their wandering, and which had
probably followed the same line of march as the ancestors of the
Greeks and Latins. A movement which lasted until all that was left of
Celtic nationality was either absorbed by the intruders, or forced aside
and driven to take refuge in mountain fastnesses and outlying islands.
Besides all these, there was still another wave, which is supposed to
have passed between the Sea of Aral and the Caspian, and, keeping still
further to the north and east, to have passed between its kindred
Teutons and the Mongolian tribes, and so to have lain in the
background until we find them appearing as Slavonians on the scene of
history. Into so many great stocks did the Western Aryans pass, each
possessing strongly-marked nationalities and languages, and these
seemingly so distinct that each often asserted that the other spoke a
barbarous tongue. But, for all that, each of those tongues bears about
with it still, and in earlier times no doubt bore still more plainly about
with it, infallible evidence of common origin, so that each dialect can
be traced up to that primaeval form of speech still in the main preserved
in the Sanscrit by the Southern Aryan branch, who, careless of practical
life, and immersed in speculation, have clung to their ancient traditions
and tongue with wonderful tenacity. It is this which has given such

value to Sanscrit, a tongue of which it may be said, that if it had
perished the sun would never have risen on the science of comparative
philology. Before the discoveries in Sanscrit of Sir William Jones,
Wilkins, Wilson, and others, the world had striven to find the common
ancestor of European languages, sometimes in the classical, and
sometimes in the Semitic tongues. In the one case the result was a
tyranny of Greek and Latin over the non- classical tongues, and in the
other the most uncritical and unphilosophical waste of learning. No
doubt some striking analogies exist between the Indo-European family
and the Semitic stock, just as there are remarkable analogies between
the Mongolian and Indo- European families; but the ravings of
Vallancy, in his effort to connect the Erse with Phoenician, are an
awful warning of what unscientific