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568
CREATION.
If now we compare all the statements with those taken from
the Edda, their similarity or sameness is beyond all question :
blood with sea or water, flesh with earth, bone with stone, hair
with trees or grass,
are coupled together in the same way here.
What weighs more than anything
with me is the accordance of
brain and clouds with thoughts and clouds/ The brain is the
seat of thought, and as clouds pass over the sky, so we to
this day have them flit across the mind ; clouded brow we say
of a reflective pensive brooding one, and the Grimnismal 45 b
applies to the clouds the epithet harSmfrSagr, hard of mood. It
was quite
in the spirit of the Edda to make the skull do for
the sky, and the eyebrows for a castle ; but how could sky or
castle have furnished materials for the human frame ? That the
striking correspondence of the sun to the eye should be wanting
in the Edda, is the more surprising, as the sun, moon and stars
are so commonly spoken of as eyes (Superst. 614), and antiquity
appears even to have seen tongues in them, both of which points
fall to be discussed in Chap. XXII. ; meanwhile, if these enu
merations are found it incomplete, may be that there were plenty
more of such correspondences passing current. If Thorr flung
a toe into the sky as a constellation, there may also have been
tongues that represented stars.
The main difference between the Scandinavian view and all
the others is, as I said before, that the one uses the microcosm as
material for the macrocosm, and the other inversely makes the
universe contribute to the formation of man. There the whole
of nature is but the first man gone to pieces, here man is put
together out of the elements of nature. The first way of think
ing seems more congenial to the childhood of the world,
it is all
yeulx, des nues furent les pcnsees, du vent furent les allaines, des pierres furent les
oz, du saint esprit fu la vie,l& clarte du moude signifie Crist et sa creance. Saichez
que se il y a en 1 omme plus de limon de la terre, il sera paresceux en toutes manieres
; et se il y a plus de la mer, il sera sage ; et se il y a plus de soleil, il sera
il sera
beau ; et se il y a plus de nues, il sera pensis ; et se il y a plus du vent,
ireux et se il
; y a plus de pierre, il sera dur, avar et larron et se il
; y a plus de
saint esprit, il sera gracieux et ; se il y a plus de la clarte du monde, il sera beaux
et amez. These eight items are again somewhat different from the preceding,
though six are the same : earth, sea, cloud, wind, stone and sun the ; Holy Ghost
and the light of the world are peculiar, while veins, hair, tears, and motley eyes
are wanting. The champ damacien is ager plasmationis Ada3, qui dicitur ager
damascenus, conf. Fel. Fabri Evagator, 2, 341. [Is du monde the mistranslation
of a Germ. des mondes, the moon s ? Like the sun, it bestows beauty, and
that has nothing to do with Christ, who is however the. light of the world. TE.J