Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/394

 366 Reviews.

Norns, dimly foreseen by the Gods. Foredoomed to perish, they yet prepare to fight ; and the bravest earthly warriors fall that they may join Odin's host.

But there are many signs accompanying Ragnarok which point us back to a more primitive age, when men did not speculate on fate, but found enough to think about in common fears and needs. These are the very signs which, paralleled as they are in other sources, have led some inquirers to see in Ragnarok the influence of Christian ideas. A common basis in custom is always a more satisfactory explanation of parallels in myth than the rather cowardly borrowing hypothesis which leaves so much to be assumed, and the parallels collected by Dr. Olrik, from races so far removed as the Tartars and the North American Indians, dis- credit the latter still further, since the wider a legend is spread the more likely is it to be indigenous wherever it is found.

The signs which Dr. Olrik considers of undoubted heathen origin are the swallowing of the sun by the wolf Fenri ; the great winter {finibul-vetr) ; the sinking of the earth into the sea \ the serpent bound in the sea ; the last fight of the gods and the fall of Odin ; the fire of Surt. To take one example only : the sun- devouring monster is common to the beliefs of many races. Dr. Olrik instances the dragon in Asia, the dog among the North American Indians, and the wolf of various European races. There can be no doubt whatever that we have here an example of a common myth grown from a common ritual connected with the eclipse. The savage mind, having no idea of causation in natural phenomena, is impressed with a fear that his efforts to help the sun in its struggle with the devourer may one day be unavailing. The great winter, for which Dr. Olrik finds a parallel in Persian mythology, is closely connected with the loss of the sun. The chained monster, whether wolf, snake, or man, is found among various races, notably Persians, Tartars, and Finns, and the very fact that all three are found in Norse mythology discredits the theory that the chained Satan of the Mediaeval Church is respon- sible for the bound Loki of the Edda.

Dr. Olrik attributes to Christian influence, among other features, the breaking loose of Loki and the coming of Balder (to both of which he assigns, however, an early date) ; and the burning of the world and the coming of the Mighty One, which occur only in Voluspd. In the case of the two latter points there is little doubt