SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY. The genuine and older Scan dinavian mythology, which, in regard to wild imagination, sublime con ceptions, a rough vigour, and a naive simplicity sometimes approaching the ludicrous, will hear comparison with those of the Hindus, the Greeks, or Romans; and which, from the extensive influence it has exercised on all nations of Gothic and Teutonic descent, has a peculiar interest for them, is to be found in the Edda,a word meaning great grand mother, or rather ancestress, probably used to indicate that the cycle of poems, to which the name is given, had a more remote origin. As we have stated in the preceding article [SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE], the Edda consists of two parts—the elder Edda, a cycle of poems, and the younger or prose Edda, which is chiefly a compendium of the elder, with occasional extracts from it.
The Scandinavian mythology comes to us, not in the shape of a religious system, so much as the poetical expression of some of the worshippers. It does not approach a system even so much as Heaiod's Theogony ; for it has to he gathered from various poems or frag ments of poems, of which some are manifestly of much greater anti quity than others. Some, no doubt, are of a period anterior to the Christian era ; but as all were collected at a long subsequent period, it is probable that the belief in the destruction of the world and its renovation may have been derived from Christian sources. Thus the Edda presents in the very beginning the germs of one all-destroying catastrophe, of a creation which by necessity involves the final destruc tion of the universe, with a promise of a resurrection and a happier existence. This destruction has been long foretold.
The history of the Creation by the Asar has little resemblance to that of Christianity. In every creation by the heathen gods, the mate rial stuff is always in existence. In the Asar creation, the world becomes a living organism. Nature is not a rude mass, she is dead, but an organised whole, that is ever penetrated by a super human life. When this idea, which approaches to the pantheistic, is expressed in a poetically-material manner, we may compare it with other mythologies, in Sehich, like it, giants, Titans, Cyclops, the original dwellers in Chaos, embody the unrestrained force of the elements till subjected to the might of a higher and regulating power. There is
also the peculiarity of accepting the principle of evil as the first ence, to counteract which the principle of good was formed, or rather descended, for Odin's mother was a daughter of the giants.
In the beginning was a chaos. On the north was Niflheim, cold, dark, and foggy ; on the south, Muspelheim, warm and light ; betwixt these two was Ginnunga-gap, in which contended the ice and frost of Niflheim, the light and heat of Muspelhcim, and into which flowed twelve streams called Elivagar, which were poisonous, issuing from the fountain livergelmir. This water, hardened by the frost, by degrees filled the gap ; was again gradually melted by the warmer south ; and the heat thus imparted at length produced Ymir, a being of enormous size and malignant disposition. Ymir fell asleep, and under his left nrm grew a male and female; from his right hand and foot a six headed giant. These were the progenitors of the race of giants. The ice continued to melt, and a cow, Audhumbla, was produced, by whom Ymir was nourished from its four milk-stream:: (the four elements). The cow, Audhumbla, licked the icy saltstones, and on the evening of the first day arose the hair of a man, on the second his head, and on the third the complete man, handsome, large, and strong. Ho was named Buri, and had a son (no mother is mentioned) called &Sr, who took to wife a daughter of the giant lkilthorn, and had by her Odin (or Odhin, the Woden of the Saxons), Vali, and Vu—the first of the Asar. three having Blain Ymir, carried the body to Ginnungagap, and with it therein formed the world : the blood became water ; the flesh, earth ; the bones, mountains ; the teeth, pebbles; the hair, gross, trees, and other vegetation ; the skull, the firmament; the brains, thrown into the air, became clouds ; and of the eyebrows were made a wall of defence against the frost-giants. This round flat world was called Midgard, and was encircled by a deep ocean (sometimes typified by a vast serpent), outside of which was .liitunhcim, the abode of the giants. With sparks of hot cinders from Muspelheim were formed sun, moon, stars, lightning, and meteors; and their courses were pre scribed, thus forming night and day, and the seasons.