Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/203

 remodeled into the various forms which nature since has assumed. This living mass, Ymer, produces many beings like himself, frost-cold, stone-like, shapeless frost-giants and mountain giants (icebergs and mountains). In these forms evil is still predominant. All are allied to the world of cold and darkness. It is only the lower, the physical, world-life which moves in them.

But a better being, although of animal nature,—the cow Audhumbla—came into existence from the frozen vapor, as the nurse of Ymer. This power nourishes the chaotic world, and at the sane time calls forth by its refining agency—by licking the rime-clumps—a higher spiritual life, which unfolds itself through several links—through Bure, the bearing (father), and Bor, the born (son)—until it has gained power sufficient to overcome chaotic matter—to kill Ymer and his offspring. This conquering power is divinity itself, which now in the form of a trinity goes forth as a creative power—as spirit, will and holiness, in the brothers Odin, Vile and Ve. The spirit quickens, the will arranges, and holiness banishes the impure and evil. It is however only in the creation of the world that these three brothers are represented as coöperating. Vile and Ve are not mentioned again in the whole mythology. They are blended together in the all-embracing, all-pervading world-spirit Odin, who is the essence of the world, the almighty god.

This idea of a trinity appears twice more in the Norse mythology. In the gylfaginning of the Younger Edda, Ganglere sees three thrones, raised one above the other, and a man sitting on each of them. Upon his asking what the names of these lords might be, his guide answered: He who sitteth on the lowest throne is a king, and his name is Haar (the high or lofty one);