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SUKTK. 825
the heathen imagination, like the promise of the Messiah to the
Jews. 1
The world s destruction and its renewal succeed each other in
rotation ; and the interpenetration of the notions of time and
space, world and creation, with which I started, has been proved.
Further, as the time-phenomena of the day and the year were
conceived of as persons, so were the space-phenomena of the
world and its end (Halja, Hades, Surtr).
1 Martin Hammerich om Eagnaroks-mythen, Copenh. 1836, argues plausibly
that the twilight of the gods and the new kingdom of heaven are the expression of
a spiritual monotheism opposed, though as yet imperfectly, to the prevailing Odinic
paganism. But then there are renovated gods brought on the scene a giinli too,
though fewer than in AsgarS, and there is nothing to shew their subordination to
the mighty One. Still less do I think the author entitled to name this new god
fimbultyr, a term that in the whole of the Edda occurs bat once (Saem. 9 b ),and then
seems to refer to Oftinn. Others have ventured to identify the word fimbul- (which
like the prefix irman-, heightens the meaning of a word, as in fimbulfambi, fimbul-
Jjulr, fimbulvetr, fimbullioft, as well as fimbultyr) with the AS. fifel (p. 239) ; to
tuis also I cannot assent, as fifill itself occurs in ON., and is cited by Biorn as
the name of a plant.