Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/145

 Rh dark sayings of the past; they turn to the old literature, discarded for a time. What was then more natural than to turn to the old formula of the Antichrist, with the signs and portents which were to announce the dread event to the terrified masses? The old imagery is revived under different circumstances, and thus a letter from the astrologers of Toledo is the form in which it now appears. The setting is somewhat different but the substance is the sameThe old Antichrist legend had meanwhile become thoroughly assimilated. The nations of the West knew it. It was known to the old Eddaic writer of the Völuspä, as has been shown by recent investigations. The Ragnarök and the Muspilli are evidently derived directly from the Antichrist Saga. The Doomsday of the so-called Saxon mythologv is the result of the Christian apocryphal teaching. The end of the world is introduced for the first time to the heathen nations. The Christian element is presented in a mythological form; only the names are altered, not the substance. Instead of a mythical, there is an astrological background, and at once we have the letter evolved out of the Antichrist legend. Suppose for one moment that the chain of evidence had broken, and that we found ourselves face to face with modern chapbooks and astrological prognostications, so absolutely identical in form with the Völuspä, what would be more natural that to assume that these two belong to one and the same old mythical European tradition, and that the chapbook must be the remnant of the old form of belief, so contrary to the modern notions of astronomy and of a "Doomsday"?

For this Antichrist legend, with the signs and wonders in it, is of a very complex origin. It is the growth of centuries, during which many of the features with which we are familiar in its European shape have been slowly added. Bousset and others have described the history of this growth, and have attempted to trace the various elements which enriched it to their primary source. Phrases from