IN a former paper in the Dublin University Magazine (Oct. 1870), will be found a sketch of the early history of the Æsir, their primal abode in Asia, their forced emigration thence under their pontiff chief, to whom was afterwards assigned the style and power of the god, Odin, whose worship he superintended, the progress of the emigrants westwards, and their settlement in Sweden. The author of the Edda assuming all this as well known to his readers, informed them that Gylfa, the sorcerer King of Sweden, at the time of the descent of the Æsir, paid a visit in disguise to the chiefs of the new-comers, in order to test their powers whether of a secular or spiritual nature. In this introduction Snorro copied the plan of the "Vaftrudnis-mal," which he had before him in the Elder Edda, merely changing the personages. In the original, Odin, as Gangrad, went to sound a gigantic genius; in the copy a mere king, endowed with a knowledge of magic, tries the abilities of Odin and his people.

The Æsir having a supernatural knowledge of Gylfa's designs, lay spells on his senses, and instead of the rough, unfinished quarters of the intruders, he finds a succession of regal halls of amazing height, and covered with golden bucklers. splendid rooms are filled with parties of noble-looking folk, some carous

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ing, some employed at games of skill, and others at military exercises. He takes notice of one man near the entrance occupying his leisure with flinging into the air and catching seven straight-bladed and sharppointed swords, and allowing no one of them to bite the dust. Contrary to ancient custom this prestigeateur asks the visitor his name and business. He announces himself as a traveller in search of knowledge, Gangler by name, and demands in his turn, who are these three lords sitting on thrones, one placed above the other.

"He on the lowest throne (answers his guide) is King Har (Sublime), the one next above him is called Jafnhar (Peer of Sublime). the highest is Tredia (the Third). Har next demands Gangler's business, and, having learned it, welcomes him to Asgard, and invites him to meat and drink. "Not for that I come," said Gangler, "but to meet a more able man than myself, who can instruct me." "Your object shall be attained," rejoined Har. "Stand as you are, and propose your questions."

The framers of the Norse Mythology were not distinguished by attention to correctness of locality, or probability of incidents, after obtaining any data they might demand. Gylfa was a mortal man though a magician. He is said to have visited Asgard; but that city was in Asia,

and at the time of his visit, the Æsir, its rulers, were somewhere in Sweden. We may put the heavenly Asgard out of question, for even the composers of myths nowhere related the visit of a mere mortal to heaven before his death. But all pagan myths being either corruptions of the truths revealed to Adam, or wild inventions of unphilosophical minds, it is useless to expect causation or consistence in them. If Har and Jafnhar and Tredia were not added by Snorro, or some other Christian poet, they embodied a dim tradition of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, which many believe to have been revealed to our first parents. It is well if the answer given to Gangler's next question was not tampered with by the Christian compiler. He asked who was the first or the most ancient of the gods, and the following explanations were given by the three crowned beings, whom the commentators are puzzled to particularise.

"Him we call Alfader, but in the ancient tongue he has twelve names. He enjoys eternal life, and governs the world, great things as well as small. He formed Heaven, Earth, and Air. He made man and gave him a soul, which shall never die, even after the body has crumbled into dust. All just men shall live for ever with him in a place called The Ancient, or the Palace of Love and Friendship. But the wicked shall descend to Hela (death), and thence to Niflheim (cloud home), the dwelling of the reprobate, which is placed in the ninth world."

The answer to the next question sadly jars on the understanding after this fine exposition. Q. "Where was the Alfader before the earth and men were created?" A. "With the Frost Giants." Now the Frost Giants stood in the same relation to the Æsir or beneficent gods as the Persian demons, the Jins and Deevs to the genii of Orosmanes the Powerful and Good Principle, and what

business could the Aifader have among these evil beings? The Manichean system of good and evil influences co-existing, and either unable to bring the other into complete subjection, pervades the Norse Mythology, and in divers places Sæmund and Sturlesson introduced greater confusion and inconsistency, by leavening it with some revealed truths. The occasional investing of Odin, himself a created being, with attributes of the Creator, is a case in point.

Proceeding with the information dealt out to Gangler, we find that in the centre of the inferior world was a great pool, from which issued the following rivers-" Anguish, Enemy to Joy, Abode of Death, Perdition, Vacancy, Tempest, Whirlwind, Roaring, Howling, Abyss." These were flowing long before the earth was formed. Their direction was northwards, and as they advanced farther from their source, they finally froze, and the fount being inexhaustible, fresh bodies of the undesirable waters washed the masses of ice, and congealed around them. The world, or primal chaos, was not however, left trusting to this mighty mass of ice, the rivers which augmented it, and the pool which supplied the poisonous streams. Farther to the south was a world of fire, under the charge of the great power Surtur, and at first it would seem as if the antagonistic things were too much divided to have any effect on each other. But as the huge heap of ice enlarged itself, it gradually narrowed the great abyss which separated Hell from Surtur's domain, and sparkles and loose brands from his flaming world came in contact with the pestilent vapours which floated over the icy mass. Drops of water being thus produced, they united and formed the substance of the first created being, the giant Ymer. In the Edda this wonder is said to have been wrought "by the power of Him who

governed," but it is very probable that these words were interpolated by the Christian scribe. Ymer, after the usual stretch of nine days devoted to wonder at himself and everything round him, a world of fire in the south, a world of wretched solid coldness in the north, and an apparently bottomless abyss in his neighbourhood (his lodging must have been on the frozen slabs), began to find ennui creeping over him, and slept away as much of his time as he could. During a trance a young giant and giantess issued from his left arm-pit, and others from the soles of his feet. Loneliness was thus banished, and, better still, the colony were under no fear of starving. The cow Adumla came to life in the same mode as the giant. She supported her own life by licking the hoar frost and the salt off the rock, and rivers of milk which ran from her four teats supported the giants. So says the story, as told by Snorro, but the inventor ought to have accounted for the presence of the rocks. Up to the birth of the giant there was nothing to be found but a body of flame on the south, a body of icc on the north, and a chasm between, at the bottom of which there might or might not be heard the gushing of the terrible hell-rivers and the ever-raging

storms.

The Evil Giant race have come into being, and what sort of a world would ensue under their management must ever remain a mystery, as a better race soon arose to push them from their ice-slabs. The cow peristed in licking one particular slab or rock, and persisted to some purpose too, for a complete being, of supernatural qualities, issued on the third day from the spot on which she had been exercising. This was the god Buri (Producer) whose son Bor (Produced), being wedded to Beltsa, a maid of the giant race, three sons, Odin, Vili, and Ve, blessed the union.

This marriage did not establish concord between the giants and the godlike descendants of Buri. The three sons of Bor, viz., Odin, Vili, and Ve, seizing on Ymer, otherwise Ergelmer or Chaos, slew him, haled his body into the Central Void (Ginnungagap), and formed earth, sea, air, and the heavenly bodies, out of his corporation. His bones furnished the rocks, his flesh the arable land, his hair the herbage, his brains the clouds, and his blood was sufficient to furnish fluid for rivers, lakes, and the all-encircling sea. It also served the good purpose of drowning all Ymer's race, one only excepted, Bergelmer by name. This lucky giant found an opportunity to construct a skiff, and make his escape. If Sæmund or Snorro did not invent this giant, he must have owned his existence to a confused tradition of Noah and his Ark. Bergelmer's wife must also have been saved, for the giant race were continued. The three sons of Noah furnished the idea of the first three Norse gods, as well as of the three sons of Saturn in classic mythology, if the mystery of the Holy Trinity, in a misty and degraded form, did not originate it. We could pass the construction of the globe with indifference, but the formation of the great empyrean vault from the skull of Ymer is too much for us; and, indeed, its support by the four dwarfs, Austri, Vestri, Northri, Suthri, standing at the four cardinal points of the flat earth, has little of the sublime about it. The shining bodies in the great cupola above were volumes of flame wrested from Muspelheim (the fiery world in the south), and projected upwards by the hands of the giant sons of Bor. Before that, as is revealed in the VOLUSPA, "The sun knew not her palace, nor the moon his powers, nor the stars their appointed places." The earth, as fashioned by Odin and his brothers, was flat, with a bristling ridge of rocks round it, a

defence against the Jotuns or giants. Round this defence went the restless sea, which was again enclosed by another circle of rocks, Jotunheim, or the Home of the Giants. This is our own impression, as the learned are not agreed on the subject. The notion, however, receives strength from the escape of Bergelmer in a ship from the newly-created earth. He evidently did not embark to reland on the unfriendly soil. So his destination must have been the rough outside refuge aforesaid. If this theory is not approved of, no other habitation seems to have been at the disposal of the giants but the great heap of ice on the north outside the earth. For it must be borne in mind that the earth was made and suspended (we are left in ignorance as to how the last operation was performed) in the Great Void of Ginnungagap, between the flaming world of Muspelheim on the south, and the immense mounds of ice on the north.

We can trace in the Jotuns of the Scandinavian myths, and the Titans of those of Greece and Rome, and the Egyptian Typhon and his partisans, relics of the traditions which were rife among Noah's immediate descendants, concerning the rebel angels, and perhaps the antediluvian giants, the offspring of the sons of Seth and the daughters of Cain. Of course the classic poets and the Norse Scalds fashioned on the traditional truths a varied embroidery of their own invention.

The earth is as yet without inhabitants, and it was not the interest of the beneficent THREE to leave a scene fitted for the enjoyment of rational and sentient beings, useless and joyless. Walking by the shore one day, they found thrown on the strand a splinter of ashwood, and another of alder, and taking these finds in hand, they formed therefrom a man and woman. Life and a soul were communicated by Odin; reason and movement by Vili; and the senses

and their uses by Ve. The man continued to bear the name of the tree (Aske), from which he had his substance; the woman that of Embla (alder), and in the beginning they and their progeny enjoyed lives full of happiness on the earth-a dim remembrance of the Mosaic Paradise. It is not easy to ascertain from the text whether the place assigned to them, Midgard, was a strong fortress in the centre of the earth, or the whole surface of the land, with its bristling defence of rock, inside the ocean rim. The creation of man, body and soul, by a creature only a degree or so higher in being, is not very intelligible, but students of the Edda must get round such obstacles as well as they can.

The management of space and locality by the Scalds, is not very intelligible, and Sæmund and Snorro took but little trouble to clear away the obscurity which prevailedamong their authorities. The Great Ashtree (Iggdrasil), springing up through Midgard, is so high that Asgard, the habitation constructed by Odin for himself and his family (we hear no more about his brothers), and the other members of the Æsir population, is shadowed by its branches. So far that is intelligible, so is the throwing out of one root below the earth into the inferior region of death, Hela; and so is the pushing out of another under the abode of the giants, whether they dwelt among the heaps of northern ice or among the rocks which confine the outer sea.

But far from being easily understood is the position of the third root-viz., under or in the neighbourhood of Asgard. If this heavenly city is not on the upper or convex side of the blue vault it must be very little below it, and, certainly, just under the topmost boughs of Iggdrasil. Now the position of a tree's root up among its branches, conveys at best a discordant and unsightly image.

There is another unsatisfactory