Myths of the Rhine

EXCERPT:
The Rhine is born in Switzerland, in the Canton of Grisons; it skirts France and passes through it, and after a long and magnificent career it finally loses itself in the countless canals of Holland; and yet the Rhine is essentially a German river.

Already in the earliest ages, long before towns were built on its banks, it saw all the Germanic races dwell here in tents, watch their flocks, and fight their interminable battles, although the clash of arms and the blast of trumpets never for a moment aroused the impassive historian from his deep slumbers.

His silence, long continued into later centuries, does not prevent us from supposing, however, that the Rhine was already at that time the great high-road on which the Germanic races wandered to and fro, and other races came to their native land. It was the Rhine that brought to them commerce and civilization; but on the Rhine came also invasions of a very different kind. We can allude here only to those religious invasions which are connected with our subject.

In the earliest ages the South of Europe alone was inhabited, while the Northern part was covered with vast forests, as old as the world, and as yetunbroken by the footsteps of men. Dark, dismal solitudes, consisting of ancient woods or wretched morasses, where trees struggled painfully for existence and only the strongest survived when they reached the light and the sun; densely wooded deserts, in which vast herds of wild beasts pursued each other incessantly, while in the deep shadow of impenetrable foliage flocks of timid, trembling birds sought a refuge against hosts of voracious birds of prey. Thus, even while Man was yet absent, War was already reigning supreme here, and in these vast regions the Great Destroyer seemed to revel in it, as if it had been a feast, a necessity, a glory!

Had never human eye yet looked upon these magnificent but unknown regions?

Then, one fine day a host of savages appeared here and settled down with their flocks. After them came another host of more warlike and better armed men, who drove out the first comers and took possession of the tilled ground.