CHA P. The Edda ends with another description of this final period, which presents it to us in a more detailed shape. III. "Snow will rush from all the quarters of the world. Three winters without a summer will be followed by three others, and The powerful one will then come For the divine judgment. The strong one from the realms above, Who governs all things. He brings the sentence, And determines the causes. He appoints the sacred destinies Which will be fulfilled. Then will come the dim And flying dragon; The fierce serpent from below The mountains of Nida, He hovers over the plain; Nidhoggr, over the dead. Now the earth shall be swallowed up. A hall will be seen to stand, Far From the sun, In Nastrondo. Its doors behold the north. Poison-drops distil Within from its windows. The abode is woven round With serpent thorns. There, over rapid rivers, The perjured And the assassins; And they who pull the ear Nidhoggr will there gnaw The wolf will tear them. Knowest thou what is coming? Voluspa, ap. Barth. p. 599-601. The same events are mentioned in the Vafthrudnismal, Edd. Sem. p. 28-33. vens. then wars will pervade the whole world. Brother, father, son, CHAP. will perish by each other's hands. The wolf will devour the III. sun; another, the moon. The stars will fall from heaven. The earth trembles. Mountains and trees are torn up. The sea rushes over the earth. Midgard the great serpent hastens over it. The ship made of the nails of dead men floats. The giant Hrymer is its pilot. The wolf Fenris opens his enormous mouth; the lower jaw touching the earth; the upper, the heaThe serpent breathes poison over heaven, and the Sons of Muspell ride forward: Surtur leads them. Before him, behind him, a glowing fire spreads. His sword radiates like the sun. From their course the bridge of heaven is broken. They move towards a plain, and Fenris and Midgard follow. There Loke and Hrymer meet them with all the infernal genii. The hosts of the sons of Muspell glitter round. Heimdal sounds vehemently his tremendous trumpet to awaken the gods. Odin consults. The ash Ygdrasil trembles. Every thing in heaven and earth is in fear. The gods and heroes arm. Odin, with his golden helmet, moves against Fenris. Thor as sails Midgard. Frey falls beaten down by Surtur. The dog Garmer attacks Tyr, and both perish. Thor kills the serpent, but dies also. And the wolf devours Odin. Vidar seizes the monster's jaws, and at last rends them asunder. Loke and Heimdal slay each other. Surtur then darts his flames over all the earth, and the whole world is consumed." 58 THESE traditions correspond with the idea mentioned in the beginning of this work, that the barbaric nations of Europe have sprung from the branches of more civilised states. ALLEGORY, disturbed imagination, mysticism, and perverted reasoning, have added to these traditions many wild and absurd tales, whose meaning we cannot penetrate. The formation of Nifl-heim, or hell, from whose rivers came frozen vapours; and Muspeil-heim, or the world of fire, from which lightning and flames issued. The gelid vapours melting from the heat into drops: one of these becoming the giant Ymer 59, and another, the cow Ædumla, to nourish him; who by licking off the rocks their salt and hoar frost, became a beautiful being, from whose son Bore, their Odin, and the gods proceeded 60; while from the feet of the wicked 58 Edda, last chapter, p. 347-350. It then proceeds to describe the new world. 59 Edda, Hist. Tert. p. 288. 6 Edda, Hist. Quart. 289. III. CHAP. Ymer sprang the Giants of the Frost. The sons of Bore slay ing Ymer, and so much blood issuing from his wounds as to drown all the families of the Giants of the Frost, excepting one, who was preserved in his 61 bark. The re-creation of the earth from the flesh of Ymer; his perspiration becoming the seas; his bones the mountains; his hair the vegetable races; his brains the clouds; and his head the heavens, 62 All these display that mixture of reasoning to account for the origin of things; of violent allegory to express its deductions; of confused tradition, and distorting fancy, which the mythologies of all nations have retained. WE have already remarked, that the general term used by the Anglo-Saxons to express the deity in the abstract was God, which also implied the Good. This identity of phrase carries the imagination to those primeval times, when the Divine Being was best known to his creatures by his gracious attributes, was the object of their love, and was adored for his beneficence. But when they departed from the pure belief of the first æras, and bent their religion to suit their habits, new reasonings, and their wishes, then systems arose, attempting to account for the production of things, without his preceding eternity or even agency, and to describe his own origination and destruction. Hence the Northmen cosmogonists taught the rising of the world of frost from the north, and of the world of fire from the south; the forming by their united agency a race of evil beings through Ymer, and of deities through the cow Ædumla; a warfare between the divine and the wicked race; the death of Ymer; the fabrication of the earth and heaven out of his body; and the final coming of the powers of the world of fire to destroy all things, and even the deities themselves. The mixture of materialism, atheism, and superstition visible in these notions, shows the divergency of the human mind from its first great truths, and its struggles to substitute its own phantoms and perverted reasonings instead. All polytheism and mythology 61 Edda, Hist. Quin. p. 290. He was called Bergelmer. III. seem to be an attempted compromise between scepticism CHA P. and superstition: the natural process of the mind beginning to know, resolved to question, unattending to its ignorance, and solving its doubts by its fancies, or concealing them by its allegories. THE most formidable feature of the ancient religion of the Anglo-Saxons, as of all the Teutonic nations, was its separation from the pure and benevolent virtues of life, and its indissoluble union with war and violence. It condemned the faithless and the perjured; but it represented their Supreme Deity as the father of combats and slaughter, because those were his favourite children who fell in the field of battle. To them he assigned the heavenly Valhall and Vingolfa, and promised to salute them after their death as his heroes. 63 This tenet sanctified all the horrors of war, and connected all the hopes, energies, and passions of humanity with its continual prosecution. As the nation advanced in its active intellect, it began to be dissatisfied with its mythology. Many indications exist of this spreading alienation 64, which prepared the Northern mind for the reception of the nobler truths of Christianity, though at first averse from them. 63 Edda, Hist. Duod. p. 304. 64 Bartholin has collected some instances which are worth the attention of those who study the history of human nature. One warrior says, that he trusted more to his strength and his arms than to Thor and Odin. Another exclaims: "I believe not in images and demons. I have travelled over many places, and have met giants and monsters, but they never conquered me. Therefore I have hitherto trusted to my own strength and courage." To a Christian who interrogated him, one of these fighters boasted, that he knew no religion, but relied on his own powers. For the same reason a father and his sons refused to sacrifice to the idols. When the king of Norway asked Gaukathor of what religion he was, he answered, "I am neither Christian nor heathen; neither I nor my companions have any other religion than to trust to ourselves and our good fortune, which seem to be quite sufficient for us." Many others are recorded to have given similar answers; despising their idols, yet not favouring Christianity. Another is mentioned as taking rather a middle path. "I do not wish to revile the gods; but Freya seems to me to be of no importance. Neither she nor Odin are any thing to us." See Bartholin de Caus. p. 79-81. С НА Р. IN CHAP. IV. On the Menology and Literature of the PAGAN SAXONS. N their computation of time, our ancestors reckoned by nights instead of days, and by winters instead of years. Their months were governed by the revolution of the moon. They began their year from the day which we celebrate as Christmas-day', and that night they called Moedrenech, or mother night, from the worship or ceremonies, as Bede imagines, in which, unsleeping, they spent it. In the common years, they appropriated three lunar months to each of the four seasons. When their year of thirteen months occurred, they added the superfluous month to their summer season, and by that circumstance had then three months of the name of Lida, which occasioned these years of thirteen months to be called Tri-Lidi. The names of their months were these: Liuli, or æftepa Leola, answering to our January. February. Rehd monath Eostup monath Tri-milchi Lida Lida Weips, or Wenden monath Palig monath. Wyntyp fylleth April. May. October. Bloth monath Liuli, or æppa Leola (before Leol) November. December. THEY divided the year into two principal parts, summer and winter. The six months of the longer days were applied to the summer portion, the remainder to winter. Their winter season began at their month pyntýr fýlleth, or October. The full moon in this month was the era or 1 The Francs began the year in the autumnal season; for Alcuin writes to Charlemagne: "I wonder why your youths begin the legitimate year from the month of September." Oper. p. 1496. |