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/92

 scholars, and wrote the most of their books in Latin; but those ponderous tomes make their authors fools in folios in the light of modern historical knowledge. They studied by that kind of lamp that illuminates a small spot on the table, but leaves the whole room dark. A more careful and enlightened study of our early literature has of course given the death-blow to so prosaic an interpretation of the Norse mythology as the purely historical one is.

Then we are met by the so-called ethical interpretation of mythology, seeking its origin in man's peculiar nature, especially in a moral point of view. The advocates of this theory claim that mythology is a mere fiction created to satisfy man's spiritual, moral, and emotional nature. The gods according to this interpretation represent man's virtues and vices, emotions, faculties of mind and muscle, etc., personified. Odin, they say, is wisdom; Balder is goodness; Thor is strength; Heimdal is grace, etc. Again: Thor is the impersonation of strength and courage; the giants represent impotent sloth and arrogance; the conflicts between Thor and the giants are a struggle going on in the human breast. And again: the mischief-maker Loke instigated the blind Hoder to kill the good Balder; Nanna, Balder's wife, took her husband's death so much to heart, that she died of grief; Hoder is afterwards slain by Odin's son Vale; all nature weeps for Balder, but still he is not released from Hel (hell). That is, physical strength with its blind earthly desires (Hoder), guided by sin (Loke), unconsciously kills innocence, (Balder). Love (Nanna) dies broken-hearted; reflection (Vale) is aroused and subdues physical strength (Hoder); but innocence (Balder) has vanished from the world to remain in Hel's regions until the earth is regenerated, after Ragnarok. The ethical interpretation makes the gods the faculties of the spirit, and the giants the facul