Heaven and Hell.—The Valkyrias.—Amusements in Walhalla.—Pork and Wild Boar.—A Frozen Hell.—Balder’s Death.—Frigg’s Devotion.—The Iron Tree Forest.—The Twilight of the Gods.—Idunas’ Apples.—The Fall of Heaven and the End of the World.—Reflections on that Event.—The Little Fellow still alive.
When the warriors were preparing for battle, a number of blue-eyed young maidens, mounted on bright, shining horses, passed through their ranks, animating them with word and gesture, and whispering into their ears warlike songs to be soon changed into triumphal chants for those who fell on the battlefield, mortally wounded.
196s
Full Page Image -- Medium-Size
These maidens were the Valkyrias, those Valkyrias whom ever since the poets and painters of the Ossianic school have reproduced in a thousand forms. Nor must it be forgotten that this remarkable school, which the Scotchman Macpherson revived towards the end of the eighteenth century, counted among its most ardent admirers two enthusiastic Frenchmen, whose names were Napoleon and Lamartine.
These Valkyrias, beautiful nymphs of carnage as they were, delighted in the clash of arms, the shedding of blood, and the dying groans of the wounded, even in the odors exhaled by the dying,—a taste which seems little suited to fair, blue-eyed maidens. These unnatural tastes were, however, justified to a certain extent, by the peculiar mission which they had to fulfill, a mission of kindness and tender compassion. They walked to and fro on the battlefield, not to carry off the dead, but to gather the souls of those who had fallen. Of the Seola (such was the sweet name of the Soul among the nations of Germanic or Scandinavian race), they rapidly asked these questions:—
“Seola, did you belong to a free man or to a slave?
“Seola, did your master honor the gods and the priests of those gods?
“Did he keep his pledged word?
“Did he die like a brave man, with his face to the enemy and not a fear in his heart?
“Seola, did he ever fight against the men of his own blood and his own race?”
The human soul, as soon as it escapes from the wretched bondage of this earth, no longer possesses the sad power of being able to tell a falsehood; Seola, therefore, answered these questions truthfully, even though it were to its own condemnation. In the latter case the Valkyrias left it to the black Alfs, a kind of demons who belonged to hell; but if the Seola had belonged to a brave and loyal warrior, the Valkyria instantly unfolded her white wines and took it to Walhalla, the home of the gods and the paradise of heroes.
This paradise, exclusively intended for free men, was still open to slaves also, if they had fallen by the side of their masters, or if they had thrown themselves voluntarily into the fire of the funeral pile for the purpose of continuing their service in the future life.
Let us see whether the delights of Walhalla were sufficiently attractive to warrant such selfimmolation.
The one great enjoyment of all who dwell in Walhalla was combat and strife. That is a matter of taste, but did they not carry combat and strife a little too far? They fought there for hours and hours, with eagerness, with fury, even piercing each other and cutting each other to pieces to their hearts’ delight. It is true, that as soon as the dinner hour came the blood ceased to flow, the wounds closed their gaping lips, the limbs that had been lopped off by the swords returned to their place, the broken heads and exposed entrails were restored without the surgeon’s aid, not leaving a scar behind, and the heroes went arm in arm to dinner, looking forward with joy to a repetition of the same merry sport as soon as the meal should be finished.
The fare at this table of gods and heroes does not seem to have been peculiarly wholesome; at all events it was not very varied.
The pork-butchers’ business was at that time uncommonly flourishing both in heaven and on earth. Tacitus tells us that among the races of the North, as far as the borders of the Baltic Sea, chieftains and matrons alike loved to wear suspended around their neck a small image of a pig as an emblem of abundance and fecundity. Rich and poor, all looked upon pork as the main supply of their pantry. The pig, however, was not deemed worthy to appear on Odin’s table, and its place was taken by the boar: the gods lived upon wild boar, men upon domestic pig, that was the whole difference.
I am often tempted to eat pork, and I am occasionally enabled to taste wild boar; but I must solemnly confess, swearing if needs be by my stomach, that in my opinion, the gods and the heroes had by no means the best of it. It may be, however, that wild boars here below are not quite equal to heavenly boars.
However that may be, there appeared every morning upon the edge of one of the marvelous forests to be found in Walhalla, an enormous colossal boar, a very mammoth of a boar. The heroes proceeded to hunt it, accompanied at times by Thor, by Vali, the skillful archer, or by Tyr, the one-handed god, who nevertheless wielded his sword with power and accuracy. Then the monster was killed, cut up and roasted, and all dined together.
201s
Full Page Image -- Medium-Size
The next day there appeared on the edge of the marvelous forest another wild boar, quite as fat and quite as enormous, in fact in every respect as attractive as the boar of the day before—some think it was always the same animal, come to life again. Then a new hunt and a new dinner upon roasted wild boar. Surely we poor people might become disgusted for the rest of our lives, one would imagine,—and those were immortal gods! What taste!
But there is worse behind yet. The Scandinavian paradise was by no means the only one where the pork-butcher was thus glorified. In a neighboring paradise, which the Finns had established, we are told by a learned writer, the rivers were flowing with beer and hydromel, the mountains consisted of lard and the hills of half salted pork.
To help them in digesting their solid food, the Scandinavian gods drank, like those of Finland, great quantities of beer and hydromel; but they had in addition, an abundance of wine which they quaffed from gold cups. Wine! In this one word thoughtful historians have discovered a whole revelation.
Now would it ever have occurred to Odin, in his hyperborean lands, where the vine did not exist and could not possibly live, to bring the fruit of the vine to his paradise? Did he know grapes? And when had he learnt to know them? But as I do not wish to interrupt my story, I reserve the discussion of this great and important question, with several others of the same kind, for another chapter, in which I hope to be able to develop my views fully and scientifically.
Besides wine, beer, and hydromel, the blessed people in Walhalla had an additional precious beverage of their own, which it may safely be presumed, no mortal on earth has ever tasted. This ambrosia of a novel nature was obtained by the gods and heroes themselves, on certain favorable days, from the white substance of the moon. Yes, from the moon! Did they quaff it in full draughts or did they inhale it through calumets? We do not know, but the nations of the earth saw in these periodical bleedings of the moon the reason for her divers phases and her gradual diminution. When she became reduced to a mere crescent, fright was seen on all faces and oppressed all hearts. Were the great people up there forgetting themselves in their celestial orgies, and would they drink up the moon to the last drop?
It must be borne in mind that they, like the Germans, saw in the moon nothing but a transparent leathern bottle, filled with sweetened milk, and phosphorescent.
Let us return now. To hunt the boar, to breakfast on wild boar, to dine on the same dish, day after day, to drink beer and wine, and from time to time that mulled egg which the moon furnished, to fight morning and evening, to die and come to life again, merely for the purpose of fighting again—these were the amusements of that delightful place. Upon my word, it took Scandinavians to be content with such pleasures.
If Odin’s paradise appears to us but little attractive, his hell, on the other hand, seems to have been far from terrible, especially if we compare it with the hell of some of our great poets, such as Dante and Milton.
The hell of the Scandinavians occupied the lowest depths of the world and consisted of two parts, Nastrond and Niflheim. The latter is a kind of dismal vestibule shrouded in darkness, in which are seen wandering about the mournful seolas of those who have been neither good nor bad, neither heroes nor scoundrels, and of all who have not fallen by the sword. To die on one’s bed or in an armchair, was a wrong in Odin’s eyes, a grievous wrong, though not exactly a crime, since he punished it only with a temporary detention in those damp, low places, where darkness, silence, and weariness seemed to combine for their punishment. The dwellers in Niflheim had scarcely any amusement except their reciprocal yawns, and from time to time a flash of dim light which reached there when the little black Alfs came in or went out, busily engaged in conveying a load of souls.
The great criminals were thrown into Nastrond, the real hell. What is very remarkable is, that here there were no braziers and burning gridirons to be seen, no furnaces and masses of flames as in all the other hells. This was a hell of ice; it froze here hard enough to split iron, and the damned shivered with cold. Dante mentions something of the kind in his great work, but between the Florentine and the Scandinavian there can be no doubt who borrowed from the other.
It was quite natural after all that in these win-tery regions of Scandinavia, where cold is the greatest evil to be dreaded, intense, continued, eternal cold should have become the terror and the punishment of the criminal. The idea of a hell of fire, so far from keeping them from the fatal slope, might very well have tempted some chilly scoundrel to commit a great crime.
205s
Full Page Image -- Medium-Size
The poor wretches who were shivering in Nastrond with stiffened hands and eyes full of frozen tears, felt their tortures increased whenever Hela, the pale goddess, the queen of that place, Death itself, cast upon them a glance from her lack-lustre eyes.
Yes, it was Hela who reigned over this frightful iceberg; her palace is called Misery, her gate the Precipice, her reception room Grief, her bed Disease, her table Famine, and her throne Malediction!
The body of this terrible queen is party-colored, half white and half blue, and her breath is perfumed with that horrible cadaverous odor in which the Valkyrias delight.
But after all, the names seem to be worse than the sufferings themselves; for excessive cold paralyzes pain itself, and there is nothing here to compare with those classic places where lava-baths, rolling rocks, flaming wheels, horses of red-hot iron, boiling pitch, fiery arrows and the snake whips of the Eumenides made up an infernal stock of tortures which might well tempt the imagination of the greatest of poets.
In Nastrond there were no demons and no Eumenides; to be sure, there was a Bigvor and a Sisvor, furies if you will have it so, watching at the gates of hell, with the help of Gaun, the formidable dog, but all three are forbidden to enter within. The place of missing monsters is occupied by some of those whom Odin spared on the occasion of his first campaign against the giant sons of Ymer, and by the wolf Fenris, whom the Ases had treacherously captured. There are also two other wolves, convicted of having made an attempt upon the life of the Sun, and all of these monsters are firmly chained and appear rather as sufferers than as tormentors.
One of these days, their iron chains will be loosened; one of these days heaven will turn cold and hell will melt, and—then, woe to the gods!
Listen! The moment is drawing near when all these mysteries are to be solved. The hour is coming when you shall hear, when you shall understand! But before uttering these last words, final and at the same time fatal words, we must mention an event which at that moment occurred in the open assembly of the gods, filling heaven and earth with amazement, with pity and horror.
It must be acknowledged that so far the heavenly personages have appeared to be rather kindhearted and mild. Odin, in spite of his Druids and their demands for bloody sacrifices, seems to have been full of good intentions. The god Thor, with all his somewhat brutal ways, rendered great services to mankind; and the same hammer, which protected them against the giants, afterwards served, without the aid of geometry, to mark the boundary lines of their respective properties. The golden-teethed god, Heimdall, gave most undoubted evidence of his devotion to the human race and of his self-denial in his visits to the Grandmother and the Great-grandmother, and so did the other gods. But we had good reasons for not going through the whole list of the Ases. For there is one whom we keep in reserve so that he may appear at the right hour, and that is Loki, the god of evil and the genius of destruction.
Surpassing Odin himself in his magic skill, fair of form and features, a smile on his lips—thin lips, however, the Edda adds—and apparently possessed of the most jovial temper so as to make him a most agreeable person, Loki is in reality a compound of the most hideous vices. He is the representative of hatred and cruelty, of envy, hypocrisy, and perversity. In fact, he is our Satan, before the fall. If he had been king of hell, Miflheim and Nastrond would both have been filled with more tortures and more horrors than all the other hells which are known to men.
And yet he was the god upon whom the dwellers in Walhalla counted for their entertainment, and whom they had surnamed the Clown!
One day an ancient prophetess returns to life, rises in her grave, and utters a terrible cry: “Balder, fair Balder, is going to die!” With these words she falls back again upon her mournful couch and dies again—forever.
209s
Full Page Image -- Medium-Size
In the meantime this cry has been heard even at the top of the ash Ygdrasil. The Ases are troubled and amazed; they meet, they look at each other, thoroughly frightened, for on the life of Balder depends the existence of all the other gods. Moreover, Balder the Bright is the glory of heaven and the love of the earth. Can Balder die, the most charming and the purest as well as the most beautiful of all the sons of Odin? He, who was so beautiful that Hela herself could not help smiling when she looked at him—he, so pure that no falsehood could be uttered in his presence and that a vessel containing an adulterated liquid would break instantly at his approach—he, so charming that all the gods love him as their favorite child, and that men have surnamed him Hope? No, no! Balder shall not die, said the Ases.
His distressed mother Frigg, Odin’s wife, shows her apprehensions by her intense anguish, and her sobs scarcely allow her to speak. She tells those who try to laugh at the sudden alarm of all who have heard the warning of the prophetess, that for several nights already she has been repeatedly, persistently warned in her dreams of the death of her well-beloved son. She would not believe it, she adds, but now she does believe.
The divine sybil Vola, whose predictions have never proved untrue, and Skulda, the Norn of the Future, are ‘summoned to appear. They consult with each other and this is their decision:—
“Balder is in danger; Balder will die unless all earthly substances that can inflict death, are rendered powerless.” Frigg descends to the earth and speaks to volcanoes and water-spouts, to frost and hail, and they promise to spare her son. Among the aquatic powers, from the ocean to the smallest brook, among the stones, from the mightiest rock to the pebble, and among the metals, from gold to iron, there is none that does not swear the same oath. The plants also promise, from the oak to the smallest shrub and down to the humblest grass.
211s
Full Page Image -- Medium-Size
Triumphantly she returns to heaven to announce the good news. Everybody is overjoyed. They celebrate the happy result of her journey by a family dinner, at which Loki succeeds in exhilarating even Odin himself by his merry jokes. He had never appeared in better spirits; had never seemed to sympathize more warmly with the happy court.
When the feast was ended and the last cups were drained in honor of Balder, some one proposed for the general amusement to try how far all these substances, vegetable or mineral, will be faithful to the oath they have sworn, when brought face to face with Balder. Beginning with the most inoffensive of them all, they throw at him a clod of earth; the clod of earth breaks into a cloud of dust before it touches him. Then they pour a pitcher of water over him and the water forms a cascade above him without wetting even his garments. They try to strike him with a hazel wand; the wand, slipping from the hand that holds it, breaks in two. Balder is amused by the game and encourages the bystanders to renew their attacks.
212s
Full Page Image -- Medium-Size
The skillful Uller shoots at him a pointless arrow, aiming, from excessive caution, only at his shoulder. The arrow passes at a distance of twenty feet from its aim and continues its flight through the air, like a bird in search of its prey beyond the clouds.
Ten other assailants meet the same fate, trying their luck with a fragment of rock and a heavy branch in the shape of a club. But the fragment was of stone and remembered the promise given to Frigg, and the club was cut from a tree and the tree remembered the promise given to Frigg.
Encouraged by so many reassuring trials, Freyr desired to try his magic sword, but for once the faithful sword was deaf to his orders. Thor brandished his hammer, but the hammer suddenly reversed its action and well nigh made him fall back upon his heels. Freyr’s sword and Thor’s hammer were both of iron and the iron remembered the promise given to Frigg.
Loki took care not to appear.
The sport was over, as it seemed, when suddenly the blind god Hoder, Balder’s own brother, was seen to advance, feeling his way, towards the bright god. Hoder held in his hand a small bunch of leaves, a bit of grass, at least it appeared such after the fearful instruments that had just been brought into play.
Immense laughter, a laughter such as the gods of Homer were in the habit of enjoying, broke out at the sight; Loki laughed till his sides shook and Hoder himself shared the general hilarity. But he drew nearer and nearer, shaking his bit of verdure in the air; then, almost tottering and having learnt from the bystanders in what direction he would have to turn, he threw the slender twig against Balder, using his full force, which was prodigious.
He hit Balder full in the chest and the god fell instantly. That bright light which was always shining around him became extinct; he closed his eyes, and lowered his beautiful brow deprived of its glory.....Balder was dead!
He had been struck by a bit of mistletoe. Frigg had addressed her prayers to the oak tree, but she had not thought of the mistletoe which grows on the oak tree; the mistletoe had given no promise to Frigg. Must we look here for a symbolic meaning? Did this mean, that the Druidical mistletoe was soon to triumph over the gods of Scandinavia? This could not be so, for at the time to which we have come, there was no trace left of the wise worship of the Druids of the first epoch; the Druids of the second epoch were fast losing their power, and the Scandinavian gods were daily increasing in popularity, even beyond the banks of the Rhine.
But we ought not to interrupt this account of Balder’s death, which is as poetical and as touching as the most famous fables of Greece. When blind Hoder, whose name must not be uttered, you remember, hears the cries of despair which break out all around him, and encircle him on all sides with maledictions, he is troubled and seriously distressed. Then, all of a sudden joining in the distressed cries of the Ases, he falls utterly overcome upon his brother’s body and denounces Loki as the author of this calamity. Loki has reproached him for being the only one who took no part in the amusements by which they thought to honor Balder, and he it was who had not only given him the fatal plant but who had also directed his arm. Loki was jealous of all the perfections of Balder and he hated him as much as the other gods loved him.
They look for Loki, but he has disappeared. No doubt he has tried to escape from the vengeance of the Ases by seeking refuge in the mountains among the giants, his natural allies, or perhaps in the deep sea, with the serpent Iormungandur.
And whilst they thus lament, inquire, and investigate, Balder’s soul is carried off by the black Alfs to Niflheim, the dark vestibule of hell.
Odin still cherished hopes that his dead son might be restored to him. Upon his order Her-mode, the messenger of the gods, mounts his horse Sleipner and goes to see Hela, but neither promises nor threats can move the dread goddess. Fate has decided, and Fate is above the gods, as the gods are above men.
Then Frigg herself goes to see the pale goddess. Frigg weeps and the merciless goddess is unable to keep her heart from softening when she sees the tears of such a mother. She says to her:—
“Let all created beings—mind, I say, all created beings!—give a tear to Balder, a tear such as you have’ shed in my presence, and Balder shall be restored to you!”
Frigg was unwilling to trust any one but herself with the effort to realize such hopes. Once more she went over the world, gathering around her all the races of men, one after the other, and as she mentioned the name of Balder, tears flowed from all eyes.
For three months she visited all the forests and all the mountains, the seas and the lakes and the animals that live in the waters and the mountains; and seas and lakes and mountains wept. She went even to the abode of the giants, the enemies of the gods, and her grief made the giants also weep; every tree wept and every rock wept.
Frigg thought her task was accomplished, and was filled with joy; but she heard that in the far East of Midgard there lived an old woman in the heart of a forest of iron trees. As she lived alone there, far from any beaten track, she had never become known to the intrepid traveller. Now, however, Frigg sought her out by steep paths, cut up with gullies and fierce torrents, and at last found her. When the mother told her pitiful tale, the iron trees wept, but the old woman would not weep.
217s
Full Page Image -- Medium-Size
They called her Thorck, and her heart was ten times as hard as her name.
“What do I care for your Balder?” she cried; “what do I care whether he is dead or alive? You have other sons; I have not one left me. Once I had four, and all four were my pride, my delight. They were so fair! They were so tall! Your son Thor killed every one of them. I wept much at that time. Now, it is all over. Look for tears elsewhere, I have no tears to give to other people’s sorrows!”
Frigg bowed down before her, begged her, conjured her, and even fell on her knees before her; but the old woman was inflexible. Balder had to remain a prisoner with Hela.
Some interpreters of Scandinavian runes have been of the opinion that the bereaved mother in the forest of iron trees was none other than Loki himself, changed into an old woman. That thought, however, is inadmissible. The Ases were beyond the reach of Hela, and Loki’s refusal would not have rendered void the unanimous vote of all Nature, when tears of pity and sympathy alone were to be given as votes. It is much more plausible to suppose, that Loki had induced Thorck to refuse by his counsels and by his enchantments; through him the heart of the old woman had’ become iron as well as the trees of the forest in which she lived. Thus Loki had twice caused the death of Balder!
It was at this time that a strange, almost incredible report was for the first time heard among men. The Druids whispered it cautiously into the ears of the initiated, and voices were said to utter it in the air during the night. This report, a terrible secret, a most unexpected revelation, stated that the gods were about to die! Thor would die, after seeing lightning become extinct in his hands; Odin himself would die, and so would the others. The fate of each one of them was depending on the fate of this fragile world over which they ruled, and this world had to perish because Balder had perished.
What? Should the Universe change back into chaos? Was there no all-powerful will that could arrest the process of destruction before it was too late? But where could such omnipotent will be found, now that the gods were no longer to be in existence?
Listen! listen to these verses from the Edda!
“Who is the most ancient among the gods?
“Alfader, that is, the universal father. He has always been and will ever be; he governs all things, both big and small; he has made the heavens, the earth and the gods. Odin created man, but Al-fader gave him his immortal soul!” Thus we come back to the pure essence of an only god, who is ever the same, whether his name be Teut, Esus, or Jehovah; the other gods are nothing but emanations proceeding from him, living symbols intended to live for a few thousand centuries—that is all.
“Do you hear? Do you understand now?
“Do you understand why the great ash tree Ygdrasil is continually gnawed at its root by a dragon? Why four famished stags feed upon its foliage? You understand? Well!
“But by what sign shall we recognize the approaching end of the gods—that which the Edda calls their twilight?
“The most important among all the sacred books of the North, a volume containing the prophecies of the divine sybil Vola, the Voluspa, will tell you.
“When the fatal moment draws near, their voice will cease to be able to utter the accustomed chants, and the luminous brightness radiating from their bodies will fade away little by little.
“When they leave their bath, their bodies will not dry at once, as they do now, but remain moist; drops of water will continually drip from them, and they will in this respect become like unto mortal men.
“In order to overcome these first symptoms of indisposition, the wife of the god Bragi, Iduna, will give them certain apples to eat, which she keeps in reserve. These apples will have the effect of strengthening them and of restoring to them a kind of fictitious youth for a few thousand years perhaps.
“One day, however, their eyes will begin to wink; the next morning, upon awaking, their eyelids will be found closed, and then they will turn red and blear.
“At table, when proceeding to their usual libations, their slightly tremulous hands will be unable to hold their cups steadily; some of the wine or the hydromel will escape and their garments will remain stained.
“Woe to them if a grain of dust adheres to these stained garments!
“Woe to them still more, if the wreaths of flowers or of jewels begin to fade and to wither on their brows!
“Finally, when the sweet perfumes which now are exhaled from their bodies, change into acrid and sickening odors, there will be nothing left for them but to make their last will.”
I am well convinced that this last phrase has been stealthily introduced into the Voluspa by some kind of criminal and fraudulent trick. The rest, however, is a faithful translation of the original text, as taken from the best authenticated editions.
222s
Full Page Image -- Medium-Size
“Then,” the prophecy continues, “then three sacred cocks, dwelling in the three principal worlds, will crow and reply to each other, announcing the Twilight of Greatness.
“Then, everything on earth will be in disorder and confusion; families will be at variance with each other, the claims of blood will no longer be acknowledged, and brothers will be arrayed against brothers.
“Adultery and incest, robbery and murder, will prevail among men, and the age will be an age of barbarism, an age of the sword, an age of tempests, an age of wolves!
“The wolves will be ready to devour the sun. Three long winters, with no summers between them, will cover the earth with snow and ice; the branches of the trees will give way under the immense burden; the sun will be darkened more and more; the moon will dissolve into vapor and the stars will go out; the mountains, shaking in their foundations, will be tossed to and fro like reeds in a river; the earth will reject all the plants, the trees, and the rocks which it now bears; the waters will cast the fish upon the shore and with them their algae, their corals, and even the bodies of shipwrecked men, hideous skeletons, whose rattling bones will chime in grimly with the warning of the rising flood.
“Then the sea will grow dark, and upon its waters there will be seen floating that monstrous ship made of the nails of dead men. At the rudder, Ymer, the giant, will stand, having been recalled to life for a time, in order to assist Loki in scaling the heavens by the way of Bifrost, the rainbow, at the head of the other Giants of the Frost.
“Then Surtur the Black will arrive from the southern regions, from the realm of fire, with all of his malignant demons, bearing torches and ready to set heaven and earth on fire.
“Then Hela, the pale goddess of death, will set free her prisoners, the wolf Fenris first of all, and march at the head of these monsters to assist the powers of the South.
“Then the gods will take up their arms; Odin will gather them around him, and with them the heroes from Walhalla; and the last battle will be fought.”
But Vola’s prophecy has to be fulfilled; the gods must perish, and the world with them.
Freyr dies in the flames of Surtur the Black; Thor succumbs to the deadly embrace and the poisonous bites of the great serpent Iormungandur; but, before dying, he kills it. Odin is torn to pieces by the wolf Fenris.
During the struggle, the heavens have been scaled and the genii of fire enter on horseback through the breach, while the giants shake the ash Ygdrasil, which writhes uttering long sighs, and at last falls with the heavenly vault which it has been upholding. The conquerors and the conquered alike are crushed under the ruins, and the world being set on fire by Surtur the Black, vanishes in smoke.
Thus the night of the gods has to succeed to the twilight of the gods.
“O you, spirits of the mountains, do you know whether anything will continue to exist?” asks the Voluspa, at the end of these mournful prophecies.
It must be admitted that this sombre and terrible conception is not without a certain poetic grandeur, a certain savage heroism, which we cannot help admiring. In these verses the Edda is in no way inferior to the most brilliant pictures drawn by Dante or by Milton, and more than once it approaches nearly to the Apocalypse. Thus, as the inspired Apostle saw a new heaven and a new earth, the Edda also announces the coming of a time, when a new earth, more favored and more perfect than ours, shall succeed the old earth.
“When the earth is thus broken to pieces and devoured by fire, what shall happen next?
“There will come forth from the sea another earth, more beautiful and more perfect.
“And will any of the gods survive?
“Balder will be revived and come forth from the place of departed spirits, to rule over the new world under the guidance of the imperishable Al-fader. Then will be the reign of Justice.”
The mythology of the Scandinavians embraces, as we have shown, among its symbols all the great phenomena of Nature, the continual struggle between the two opposite principles, creation and destruction. Being, besides, more complicated and more intelligent than the mythology of the Gauls and the Germans, it deserved to fill a large space in our work, and such a space we have accorded it cheerfully.
But why was it that the civilization introduced by Odin contributed as little as the philosophy of the Druids to the real well-being and the improvement of mankind? I think I see the reason.
In the eyes of the German as well as of the Scandinavian, God was only just and rigid. The rule of the God of Love had not yet begun. Perhaps Balder was to inaugurate it in that other world which the Edda announced.
Do you hear? Do you understand?
Amid all the incidents which were to mark the general conflagration, there is one which particularly recalls to our mind a great historical event. Alexander of Macedonia once questioned certain Celtic ambassadors and was told by them, that what they feared most upon earth, was the falling down of the sky.
This apparently lofty answer filled the young conqueror with admiration, and it is still admired by modern students of history. It was, however, in reality nothing more than a simple, naÏve rendering of one of their articles of faith; for all their prophetic books threatened them with the destruction of the heavens.
Another detail, the complete destruction of this globe of ours, after a series of fearful catastrophes, recalls to me, not exactly a great historical fact, but a simple game of my childhood, which may have been symbolic, nay, which may have come down to us from the Edda. This, however, I state with great hesitation.
Did you ever know one of the merriest games, which was once very much the fashion in city and country alike, when a firebrand, a burning stick, or a bunch of straw set on fire, was quickly passed from hand to hand? To prevent its going out, while you held it, you were bound to pass it as quickly as possible to your neighbor, repeating at the same time the expressive words: “The little fellow is still alive.” Your neighbor passed it to his neighbor and thus it travelled all around, always accompanied by the same, constant burden: “The little fellow is still alive!” This game was transformed during the Middle Ages, in the North, and especially in Bretagne, into the Torch Dance, as I have mentioned before. Now I imagine that this game, in some way or other, prefigured the universal conflagration that was to come, and the little fellow was the world.
228s
Full Page Image -- Medium-Size
But we must make haste to reach our great scientific discussion.
231s
Full Page Image -- Medium-Size
