from the
sky, and the earth violently shaken. The Wolf (Fenrir), the awful Midgard
Serpent, Loki, and Hela come to battle with the gods. The great Ash-tree
will shake with fear. The Wolf (Fenrir) breaks loose, and opens his
enormous mouth. The lower jaw reaches to the earth, and the upper to
heaven. The Midgard Serpent, by the side of the Wolf, vomits forth floods
of poison. Heaven is rent in twain, and Surtur and the sons of Muspell
ride through the breach. These are the children of Light and Fire, who
dwell in the South, and who seem to belong neither to the race of gods nor
to that of giants, but to a third party, who only interfere at the close
of the conflict. While the battle goes on between the gods and the giants
they keep their effulgent bands apart on the field of battle. Meantime
Heimdall--doorkeeper of the gods--sounds his mighty trumpet, which is
heard through the whole universe, to summon the gods to conflict. The
gods, or AEsir, and all the heroes of Valhalla, arm themselves and go to
the field. Odin fights with the Wolf; Thor with the Midgard Serpent, whom
he kills, but being suffocated with the floods of venom dies himself. The
Wolf swallows Odin, but at that instant Vidar sets his foot on its lower
jaw, and laying hold of the upper jaw tears it apart. He accomplishes this
because he has on the famous shoe, the materials of which have been
collecting for ages, it being made of the shreds of shoe-leather which are
cut off in making shoes, and which, on this account, the religious
Scandinavians were careful to throw away. Loki and Heimdall fight and kill
each other. After this Surtur darts fire over the whole earth, and the
whole universe is consumed. But then comes the restitution of all things.
There will rise out of the sea a new heaven and a new earth. Two gods,
Vidar and Vali, and two human beings, a man and woman, survive the
conflagration, and with their descendants occupy the heavens and earth.
The suns of Thor come with their father's hammer and put an end to war.
Baldur, and Hodur, the blind god, come up from Hell, and the daughter of
the Sun, more beautiful than its mother, occupies its place in the skies.

Sec. 4. The Gods of Scandinavia.

We can give no better account of the Norse pantheon than by extracting the
passages from the prose Edda, which describe the gods. We take the
translation in Mallet's Northern Antiquities:--

"OF ODIN.

"'I must now ask thee,' said Gangler, '