Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/219

Rh CHAP. mischievous and malignant northern god Nay, even among the Teutonic people there linger to this day conceptions which represent Loki by turns as beneficent and hateful, as sun, fire, giant, and devil.

The Teutonic belief in the twilight or final extinction of the gods Character- is of itself evidence that the mythology of the German and Scandina- xeuton^ic vian nations belongs to a form of thought differing widely from that mytho- of the Hindu or the Greek. Even the myth of Prometheus does but say that Zeus should be put down, and a more righteous ruler set up in his place. But in the Teutonic legends Odin himself falls and Thor dies, and the body of the beautiful Baldur is consumed in the flames. In other words, these deities answer less to the Olympian gods than to the mortal Herakles or Perseus or Asklepios. But the links which connect the belief of the one race with that of the others may be traced readily enough. The Vedic gods, like the Hellenic, live for ever. Thus the Soma draught becomes in northern Europe the cup of honey mingled with the blood of Qvasir, the wisest of all beings, who during his life had gone about the world doing the work of Prometheus for the wTetched children of men.^ His wisdom, however, could not save him from the dwarfs Fialar and Galar, who, mingling his blood with honey, made a costly mead, the taste of which imparted the eloquence of the bard and the wisdom of the sage.^ In other respects the Teutonic deities exhibit the closest likeness to the Greek. The rapidly acquired strength and might of Zeus, Phoibos, and Hermes simply express the brief period needed to fill the heaven with light, to give to the sun its scorching heat, to the wind its irresistible force ; and the same idea is expressed by the myth of Vali, the son of Wuotan and Rind, who, when only a night old, comes with his hair untouched by a comb, like Phoibos Akersekomes, to take vengeance on Hodr for the death of Baldur, and again in the story of Magni, the son of larnsaxa, who, when three days old, rescued his father Thor as he lay crushed beneath the foot of the gigantic Hrungnir." There is the same agreement in the size of their bodies and in the power of their voices. The roaring of the waves and the crash of the thunder are louder than any din of mortal warfare or the cries of any earthly monsters ; and thus at once we have the gigantic size of Ares, and the roar of Poseidon louder than the noise of a myriad warriors in close conflict. Thus, also, as Here lays one hand on the earth and the other on the sea, so Thor drinks

' Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 295. * Ibid. 855. * Ibid. 298.