Knowledge Bank

English author Olivia Coolidge published Legends of the North in 1951. The work introduces Old Norse literature and mythology to a general audience, organizing twenty-four stories amongst four sections. Coolidge also provides a list of prominent mythological figures and a list of proper names. A retelling of Old Norse literature on its surface, Legends of the North co-opts its subject material for another purpose. The book reasserts an American version of Anglo-Saxonism that originated with colonial writers and remained popular into the nineteenth century. Coolidge claims her subject material for a fabricated American-Anglo-Saxon race and uses this material to illustrate this race's superiority. The American-Anglo-Saxonism within Legends of the North manifests itself most noticeably in the work's color ideology and mythological narrative. Coolidge ascribes a moral alignment to many of her characters - they are either good or evil - and she uses color to flag this alignment. There is a racial element to this ideology: heroes with blonde hair, blue eyes, and lighter physical characteristics are decidedly more virtuous than characters with darker traits. Her characters' virtue mirrors that of the gods, whom she introduces as supernatural beings tasked with protecting the world against the forces of evil. Legends of the North thus rearticulates the American-Anglo-Saxon idea that its chosen people are religiously endowed with physical and moral superiority. The following exploration of the racial-mythological narrative outlined above will expose Legends of the North as the work of American-Anglo-Saxonism it is.