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/442

 elements of fire and water. The Eddas are not clear on this point, but an affirmative answer seems to be suggested in the fact that the better part of every being is preserved.

The good among men find their reward in Gimle; for he that made man gave him a soul, which shall live and never perish, though the body shall have mouldered away or have been burnt to ashes; and all that are righteous shall dwell with him in the place called Gimle, says the Younger Edda. The dwarfs have their Sindre, and their golden hall on the Nida-mountains; and the giant has his shining drinking hall, Brimer, but it is situated in Okolner (not cool), where there is no more frost.

The Elder Edda seems to point out two places of punishment for men. Giants and dwarfs are not punished, for they act blindly, they have no free will. But the wicked of mankind go to Naastrand and wade in streams of serpent-venom, and thence they appear to be washed down into Hvergelmer, that horrible old kettle, where their bodies are torn by Nidhug, the dragon of the uttermost darkness.

There is a day of judgment. The good and bad are separated. The god, whom the Edda dare not name, is the judge. The Younger Edda once calls him Allfather, for he is to the new world what Odin was to the old. He was before the beginning of time, and at the end of time he enters upon his eternal reign.

The reward is eternal. Is the punishment also eternal? When light and darkness (Balder and Hoder) can live peaceably together,—when darkness can resolve itself into light,—cannot then the evil be dissolved in the good; cannot the eternal streams of goodness wash away the evil? We think so, and the Edda seems to justify us in this thought; at least the Elder Edda seems to