第41章 LETTER VIII.(4)

The undeveloped reasoning faculty is prone to attach an undue value and meaning to the forms of things,and the infancy of a nation's mind is always more ready to worship the MANIFESTATIONS of a Power,than to look beyond them for a cause.Was it not natural then that these northerns,dwelling in daily communion with this grand Nature,should fancy they could perceive a mysterious and independent energy in her operations,and at last come to confound the moral contest man feels within him,with the physical strife he finds around him,to see in the returning sun--fostering into renewed existence the winter-stifled world--even more than a TYPE of that spiritual consciousness which alone can make the dead heart stir;to discover even more than an ANALOGY between the reign of cold,darkness,and desolation,and the still blanker ruin of a sin-perverted soul?But in that iron clime,amid such awful associations,the conflict going on was too terrible--the contending powers too visibly in presence of each other,for the practical,conscientious Norse mind to be content with the puny godships of a Roman Olympus.Nectar,Sensuality,and Inextinguishable Laughter were elements of felicity too mean for the nobler atmosphere of their Walhalla;and to those active temperaments and healthy minds,--invigorated and solemnized by the massive mould of the scenery around them,--Strength,Courage,Endurance,and above all Self-sacrifice--naturally seemed more essential attributes of divinity than mere elegance and beauty.And we must remember that whilst the vigorous imagination of the north was delighting itself in creating a stately dreamland,where it strove to blend,in a grand world-picture--always harmonious,though not always consistent--the influences which sustain both the physical and moral system of its universe,an undercurrent of sober Gothic common sense induced it--as a kind of protest against the too material interpretation of the symbolism it had employed--to wind up its religious scheme by sweeping into the chaos of oblivion all the glorious fabric it had evoked,and proclaiming--in the place of the transient gods and perishable heaven of its Asgaard--that One undivided Deity,at whose approach the pillars of Walhalla were to fall,and Odin and his peers to perish,with all the subtle machinery of their existence;while man--himself immortal--was summoned to receive at the hands of the Eternal All-Father the sentence that waited upon his deeds.It is true this purer system belonged only to the early ages.As in the case of every false religion,the symbolism of the Scandinavian mythology lost with each succeeding generation something of its transparency,and at last degenerated into a gross superstition.But traces still remained,even down to the times of Christian ascendency,of the deep,philosophical spirit in which it had been originally conceived;and through its homely imagery there ran a vein of tender humour,such as still characterises the warm-hearted,laughter-loving northern races.Of this mixture of philosophy and fun,the following story is no bad specimen.[Footnote:The story of Thor's journey has been translated from the Edda both by the Howitts and Mr.Thorpe.]

Once on a time the two OEsir,Thor,the Thunder god,and his brother Lopt,attended by a servant,determined to go eastward to Jotunheim,the land of the giants,in search of adventures.Crossing over a great water,they came to a desolate plain,at whose further end,tossing and waving in the wind,rose the tree tops of a great forest.After journeying for many hours along its dusty labyrinths,they began to be anxious about a resting-place for the night."At last,Lopt perceived a very spacious house,on one side of which was an entrance as wide as the house itself,and there they took up their night-quarters.At midnight they perceived a great earthquake;the ground reeled under them and the house shook.

"Then up rose Thor and called to his companions.They sought about,and found a side building to the right,into which they went.Thor placed himself at the door;the rest went and sat down further in,and were very much afraid.

"Thor kept his hammer in his hand,ready to defend them.

Then they heard a terrible noise and roaring.As it began to dawn,Thor went out,and saw a man lying in the wood not far from them;he was by no means small,and he slept and snored loudly.Then Thor understood what the noise was which they heard in the night.He buckled on his belt of power,by which he increased his divine strength.At the same instant the man awoke,and rose up.It is said that Thor was so much astonished that he did not dare to slay him with his hammer,but inquired his name.He called himself Skrymer.'Thy name,'said he,'I need not ask,for I know that thou art Asar-Thor.

But what hast thou done with my glove?'

"Skrymer stooped and took up his glove,and Thor saw that it was the house in which they had passed the night,and that the out-building was the thumb."Here follow incidents which do not differ widely from certain passages in the history of Jack the Giant Killer.