mon mythology. These are facts
which may be ignored but cannot be disputed, and the two sciences
of comparative grammar and comparative mythology, though but of
recent origin, rest on a foundation as sound and safe as that of
any of the inductive sciences." "For more than a thousand years the
Scandinavian inhabitants of Norway have been separated in language
from their Teutonic brethren on the Continent, and yet both have not
only preserved the same stock of popular stories, but they tell them,
in several instances, in almost the same words."

This resemblance, so strong in the early literature of nations
inhabiting countries which present much the same physical aspect and
have nearly the same climate, is not so marked when we compare the
Northern myths with those of the genial South. Still, notwithstanding
the contrast between Northern and Southern Europe, where these myths
gradually ripened and attained their full growth, there is an analogy
between the two mythologies which shows that the seeds from whence
both sprang were originally the same.

In the foregoing chapters the Northern system of mythology has been
outlined as clearly as possible, and the physical significance of
the myths has been explained. Now we shall endeavour to set forth the
resemblance of Northern mythology to that of the other Aryan nations,
by comparing it with the Greek, which, however, it does not resemble
as closely as it does the Oriental.

It is, of course, impossible in a work of this character to do more
than mention the main points of resemblance in the stories forming the
basis of these religions; but that will be sufficient to demonstrate,
even to the most sceptical, that they must have been identical at a
period too remote to indicate now with any certainty.

The Beginning of Things

The Northern nations, like the Greeks, imagined that the world
rose out of chaos; and while the latter described it as a vapoury,
formless mass, the former, influenced by their immediate surroundings,
depicted it as a chaos of fire and ice--a combination which is only
too comprehensible to any one who has visited Iceland and seen the
wild, peculiar contrast between its volcanic soil, spouting geysers,
and the great icebergs which hedge it round during the long, dark
winter season.

From these opposing elements, fire and ice, were born the first
divinities, who, like the first gods of the Greeks, were gigantic in
stature and uncouth in appeara