are very primitive myths of the shaping of man out of two
pieces of wood, of Night and Day as drivers of chariots and horses,
of the sun and moon fleeing from wolves, and so on. A more poetic
conception is the division of the world into Asgard, the garden of
the Aesir; Midgard, the world of man; and Utgard, the world outside.
In the first Odin has his seat Hlidskjalf; when he sits in it he can
see and understand whatever is happening in any part of the broad
world (is he the sun, then?). The third region is generally called
Joetunheim, the home of the giants, an icy region at the extreme part
of the habitable world. A bridge exists from the dwelling of men to
that of the gods; it is called Bifroest, and is the rainbow.

The gods have various places of meeting; but their principal seat is
under a great tree, the ash. Yggdrasil[6] is a tree worthy of the
gods; it is a world-tree; its roots extend to all the worlds; its
branches spread even over heaven. Under it is the fountain Mimir,
spring of wisdom, from which Odin drinks daily. Near it is the
dwelling of the Norns, fates or weird sisters, who establish laws and
uphold them by their judgments, and allot to every man his span of
life. They are named Urd the past, Verdandi the present, and Skuld
the future. Daily do they water the ash from the spring to keep its
leaves fresh, and help it to contend with its numerous foes, for a
great serpent is continually gnawing at its root, and it has also
other troubles. This myth of Yggdrasil is the apotheosis of Teutonic
tree-worship, and is richly suggestive.[7]

[Footnote 6: Yggdrasil=Odin's horse=the gallows. Is it the cross?]

[Footnote 7: Carlyle in his _Heroes_, p. 18, draws out the spiritual
significance of it and of Norse mythology generally.]

The Gods of the Eddas.--We now come to the gods of the system. Odin
is in the Eddas the founder of the world as now constituted. He has
displaced the old formless race of gods, and is the leader of a new
and vigorous race now ruling in their stead. The old scholars
rationalised Odin into a chief who had led a migration from Asia to
Norway in early times. He is the inventor of the art of writing by
runes and the founder of poetry; thus he has the aspect of a
culture-hero; that is to say, of a man of advanced views who, for the
benefits he conferred on his people, was exalted first to a hero and
then to a god. But the worship of Odin or Wodan is one of the
earliest things we know a