Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/222

190 BOOK self, and also the race of the gods or ^sir, the self-existent beings,^ who dwell in Asgard or Aither, while the middle air, between the upper and under worlds, the d^p of the Greeks on which Zeus looks down, is Vanaheim, the home of the Vanir, or spirits of the breathing wind.^ To this race belong Fre}T and Freya, the deities of beauty and love, "the children of Mordur, the sea-god who dwells in the sea-city (Noatun), and whose spouse, Skadi (Elster ?) is the daughter of the giant Thiassi, for he is indeed himself the shore." «

Odin as The idea of the composite nature of man must have preceded ofianr^°'^ the rise of the myth which assigns the creation of the soul to Odin, of the mind to Hahnir, of the blood and outward complexion to Lodur. This Hahnir is probably the same word as hahn, the cock, " in its wider import the bird, the animal belonging to the air ; " * and thus possibly the framers of this theogony may have intended to set forth their belief that a Trinity, consisting of Ether, Air, and Fire, was concerned in the creation of man, Lodur being certainly fire, and in fact only another form of Loki, the shining god. But we approach the regions of pure mythology when we read that when Odur sets forth on his wanderings, his bride, the beautiful Freya,'' sheds gold-gleaming tears — " an image of the bright gleams shooting across the rugged morning sky"^ From these parents springs Hnossa, the jewel, the world under the aspect of beauty, while Frigga, as the wife of Odin, doubtless only another form of Odur, is the mother of Jord, the earth, in the character of the nourishing Demeter.

The end of But all this visible Kosmos is doomed to undergo a catastrophe, the^sir. ^i^g results of which will be not its destruction but its renovation. The whole world will be consumed by fire, kindled by Lodur {der Lodernde, the glowing god), the Loki who brought about the death

place the four dwarfs — Nordri, Sudri, world of the light elves ; Mannaheim, Austri, Vestri. These are probably a name for Midgard, the world of man ; the growth of an artificial system like and belowthe earth plain, Svartalfaheim, that which assigned twelve labours to the land of the dark elves, and Hel- Herakles. For an excellent summary heim, the abode of Hel. Below all of Norse mythology see Brown, Re- lies Niflheim, the dwelling of the ligion and Mytholoi^y of the Aryans of serpent Nidhogr, who gnaws the world- Northern Ettrop., § II. tree Yggdrasil, Jotunhcim lying beyond

> From the root as, to be ; the word the ocean-stream which surrounds Mid- is thus simply another form of Wcsen. gard. ' The original form of the word ' Bunsen, God in History, ii. 487. iEsir connects it immediately with * Ibid. Atman as a name of Brahman, and the * For the several changes through Latin animus, &c. — Bunsen, God in which the names Freyr and Freya have History, ii. 4S6. Besides Asgard and passed, see Grimm, D. M. 276, &c. Vanaheim, we have Ljosalfaheim, the * Bunsen, God in History, ii. 491.