n mythology with
well known Persian and Buddhist notions notions of a purely
fanciful and arbitrary character is too peculiar, apparently, to
admit of any other explanation.1 But the germs of thought and
imagination transplanted thus from the warm and gorgeous climes of
the East to the snowy mountains of Norway and the howling ridges
of Iceland, obtained a fresh development, with numerous
modifications and strange additions, from the new life, climate,
scenery, and customs to which they were there exposed. The
temptation to predatory habits and strife, the necessity for an
intense though fitful activity arising from their geographical
situation, the fierce spirit nourished in them by their actual
life, the tremendous phenomena of the Arctic world around them,
all these influences break out to our view in the poetry, and are
reflected by their results in the religion, of the Northmen.

From the flame world, Muspelheim, in the south, in which Surtur,
the dread fire king, sits enthroned, flowed down streams of heat.
From the mist world, Niflheim, in the north, in whose central
caldron, Hvergelmir, dwells the gloomy dragon Nidhogg, rose floods
of cold vapor. The fire and mist meeting in the yawning abyss,
Ginungagap, after various stages of transition, formed the earth.
There were then three principal races of beings: men, whose
dwelling was Midgard; Jotuns, who occupied Utgard; and the Asir,
whose home was Asgard. The Jotuns, or demons, seem to have been
originally personifications of darkness, cold, and storm, the
disturbing forces of nature, whatever is hostile to fruitful life
and peace. They were frost giants ranged in the outer wastes
around the habitable fields of men. The Asir, or gods, on the
other hand, appear to have been personifications of light, and
law, and benignant power, the orderly energies of the universe.
Between the Jotuns and the Asir there is an implacable contest.2
The rainbow, Bifrost, is a bridge leading from earth up to the
skyey dwelling place of the Asir; and their sentinel, Heimdall,
whose senses are so acute that he can hear the grass spring in the
meadows and the wool grow on the backs of the sheep, keeps
incessant watch upon it. Their chief deity, the father Zeus of the
Northern pantheon, was Odin, the god of war, who wakened the
spirit of battle by flinging his spear over the heads of the
people, its inaudible hiss from heaven being as the song of Ate
let loose on earth. Next in rank wa