higher beliefs. Even were some part of the matter of their myths taken from others, yet the Norsemen have given their gods a noble, upright, great spirit, and placed them upon a high level that is all their own.[1] From the prose Edda the following all too brief statement of the salient points of Norse belief is made up:—“The first and eldest of gods is hight Allfather; he lives from all ages, and rules over all his realm, and sways all things great and small; he smithied heaven and earth, and the lift, and all that belongs to them; what is most, he made man, and gave him a soul that shall live and never perish; and all men that are right-minded shall live and be with himself in Vingólf; but wicked men fare to Hell, and thence into Niflhell, that is beneath in the ninth world. Before the earth ‘’twas the morning of time, when yet naught was, nor sand nor sea was there, nor cooling streams. Earth was not found, nor Heaven above; a Yawning-gap there was, but grass nowhere.’ Many ages ere the earth was shapen was Niflheim made, but first was that land in the southern sphere hight Muspell, that burns and blazes, and may not be trodden by those who are outlandish and have no heritage there. Surtr sits on the border to guard the land; at the end of the world he will fare forth, and harry and overcome all the gods and burn the world with fire. Ere the races were yet mingled, or
- ↑ To all interested in the subject of comparative mythology, Andrew Lang’s two admirable books, Custom and Myth (1884, 8vo) and Myth, Ritual, and Religion (2 vols., crown 8vo, 1887), both published by Longmans, London, may be warmly recommended.
