Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/94

 soner can; for divine power, and no other of the attributes of the Deity, can be deduced from the material world without a reference to the intellectual, to the human mind, and to the inspired writings. These philosophers have lowered the tone of religion by their evidences drawn from the material world; and their evidences do not, in strict reasoning, prove their conclusions.

Of the doctrine, institutions, and forms of the religion of Odin, we have but few memorials. There are two Eddas. The older Edda is that which was composed or compiled by Sæmund, and of it only three fragments are extant. The one is called the "Voluspa," or the Prophecy of Vola. In the Scotch words "spæ-wife," and in the English word "spy," we retain words derived from the same root, and with the same meaning, as the word "spa" of the Voluspa. The second fragment is called "Havamal," or the High Discourse; the third is the Magic, or Song of Odin. The Voluspa gives an account by the prophetess of the actions and operations of the gods; a description of chaos; of the formation of the world; of giants, men, dwarfs; of a final conflagration and dissolution of all things; and of the future happiness of the good, and punishment of the wicked. The Havamal is a collection of moral and economical precepts. The Song of Odin is a collection of stanzas in celebration of his magic powers. The younger Edda, composed 120 years after the older, by Snorro Sturleson, is a commentary upon the Voluspa; illustrating it in a dialogue between Gylfe, the supposed contemporary of Odin, under the assumed name of Ganglr, and three divinities,—Har (the High), Jafnhar (equal to the High), and Thriddi (the Third),—at Asgard (the abode of the gods, or the original Asiatic seat of Odin), to which Gylfe had gone to ascertain the cause of the superiority of the Asiatics. Both the Eddas