wards, to put
together, among several other books he wrote, a kind of Prose Synopsis
of the whole Mythology; elucidated by new fragments of traditionary
verse. A work constructed really with great ingenuity, native talent,
what one might call unconscious art; altogether a perspicuous clear
work, pleasant reading still: this is the _Younger_ or Prose _Edda_.
By these and the numerous other _Sagas_, mostly Icelandic, with the
commentaries, Icelandic or not, which go on zealously in the North to
this day, it is possible to gain some direct insight even yet; and see
that old Norse system of Belief, as it were, face to face. Let us forget
that it is erroneous Religion; let us look at it as old Thought, and try
if we cannot sympathize with it somewhat.

The primary characteristic of this old Northland Mythology I find to
be Impersonation of the visible workings of Nature. Earnest simple
recognition of the workings of Physical Nature, as a thing wholly
miraculous, stupendous and divine. What we now lecture of as Science,
they wondered at, and fell down in awe before, as Religion The dark
hostile Powers of Nature they figure to themselves as "_Jotuns_,"
Giants, huge shaggy beings of a demonic character. Frost, Fire,
Sea-tempest; these are Jotuns. The friendly Powers again, as
Summer-heat, the Sun, are Gods. The empire of this Universe is divided
between these two; they dwell apart, in perennial internecine feud.
The Gods dwell above in Asgard, the Garden of the Asen, or Divinities;
Jotunheim, a distant dark chaotic land, is the home of the Jotuns.

Curious all this; and not idle or inane, if we will look at the
foundation of it! The power of _Fire_, or _Flame_, for instance,
which we designate by some trivial chemical name, thereby hiding from
ourselves the essential character of wonder that dwells in it as in all
things, is with these old Northmen, Loke, a most swift subtle _Demon_,
of the brood of the Jotuns. The savages of the Ladrones Islands too (say
some Spanish voyagers) thought Fire, which they never had seen before,
was a devil or god, that bit you sharply when you touched it, and that
lived upon dry wood. From us too no Chemistry, if it had not Stupidity
to help it, would hide that Flame is a wonder. What _is_ Flame?--_Frost_
the old Norse Seer discerns to be a monstrous hoary Jotun, the Giant
_Thrym_, _Hrym_; or _Rime_, the old word now nearly obsolete here, but
still used in Scotland to signify hoar-frost. _Rime_ w