ies, and the suffering entailed by the long
cold winters when the sun never shines, made our ancestors contemplate
cold and ice as malevolent spirits; and it was with equal reason that
they invoked with special fervour the beneficent influences of heat
and light.

When questioned concerning the creation of the world, the Northern
scalds, or poets, whose songs are preserved in the Eddas and Sagas,
declared that in the beginning, when there was as yet no earth, nor
sea, nor air, when darkness rested over all, there existed a powerful
being called Allfather, whom they dimly conceived as uncreated as
well as unseen, and that whatever he willed came to pass.

In the centre of space there was, in the morning of time, a great
abyss called Ginnunga-gap, the cleft of clefts, the yawning gulf,
whose depths no eye could fathom, as it was enveloped in perpetual
twilight. North of this abode was a space or world known as Nifl-heim,
the home of mist and darkness, in the centre of which bubbled the
exhaustless spring Hvergelmir, the seething cauldron, whose waters
supplied twelve great streams known as the Elivagar. As the water of
these streams flowed swiftly away from its source and encountered
the cold blasts from the yawning gulf, it soon hardened into huge
blocks of ice, which rolled downward into the immeasurable depths of
the great abyss with a continual roar like thunder.

South of this dark chasm, and directly opposite Nifl-heim, the realm
of mist, was another world called Muspells-heim, the home of elemental
fire, where all was warmth and brightness, and whose frontiers were
continually guarded by Surtr, the flame giant. This giant fiercely
brandished his flashing sword, and continually sent forth great showers
of sparks, which fell with a hissing sound upon the ice-blocks in
the bottom of the abyss, and partly melted them by their heat.

"Great Surtur, with his burning sword,
Southward at Muspel's gate kept ward,
And flashes of celestial flame,
Life-giving, from the fire-world came."

Valhalla (J. C. Jones).

Ymir and Audhumla

As the steam rose in clouds it again encountered the prevailing cold,
and was changed into rime or hoarfrost, which, layer by layer, filled
up the great central space. Thus by the continual action of cold and
heat, and also probably by the will of the uncreated and unseen,
a gigantic creature called Ymir or Orgelmir (seething clay), the
personification of t