That host was Turkish, but closely allied in
origin, language, and habits with the Finno-Ugrian settlers on the Ural.
Attila's fame has not come down to us through the partial and suspicious
medium of chroniclers and poets of his own race. It is not from Hunnish
authorities that we learn the extent of his might: it is from his
enemies, from the literature and the legends of the nations whom he
afflicted with his arms, that we draw the unquestionable evidence of his
greatness. Besides the express narratives of Byzantine, Latin, and
Gothic writers, we have the strongest proof of the stern reality of
Attila's conquests in the extent to which he and his Huns have been the
themes of the earliest German and Scandinavian lays. Wild as many of
those legends are, they bear concurrent and certain testimony to the awe
with which the memory of Attila was regarded by the bold warriors who
composed and delighted in them.
Attila's exploits, and the wonders of his unearthly steed and magic
sword, repeatedly occur in the sagas of Norway and Iceland; and the
celebrated _Nibelungenlied_, the most ancient of Germanic poetry, is
full of them.
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