TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

320 CONDITION OF GODS.
but, for all that, they are regarded as subject to the encroach
ments of age, so that there are always some young and some old
gods ; in particular, Odinn or Wuotan is pictured everywhere as an
old greybeard (conf. the old god, p. 21), Thorr as in the full
strength of manhood, Balder as a blooming youth. The gods grow
hdrir ok gamlir (hoar and old), Sn. 81. Freyr has at tannfe
(tooth-fee) presented him at his teething, he is therefore imagined
as growing up. In like manner Uranos and Kronos appear as old,
Zeus (like our Donar) and Poseidon as middle aged, Apollo, Her
mes and Ares as in the bloom of youth. Growth and age, the
increase and decline of a power, exclude the notion of a strictly
eternal, immutable, immortal being ; and mortality, the termination,
however long delayed, of gods with such attributes, is a necessity
(see Suppl.).
Epithets expressing the power, the omnipotence, of the reigning
gods have been specified, pp. 21-2. A term peculiar to ON. poetry
is #mregin, Seem. 2S a 50 a 51 a 52 b , #mheilog go l a ; it is of
the same root as gina, OHG. kinan, hiare, and denotes minima
ampla, late dominantia, conf. AS. ginne grund, Beow. 3101. Jud.
131, 2. ginne rice, Caxlm. 15, 8. ginfaest, firmissimus 176, 29.
ginfresten god, terrae dominus 211, 10. garsecges gin, oceani
amplitude 205, 3.
The Homeric peia (= paSuo*;, Goth. raj?izo) beautifully ex
presses the power of the gods ; whatever they do or undertake
conies easy to them, their life glides along free from toil, while
mortal men labour and are heavy laden : 6eol peia Jeooi/re?, II. 6,
138. Od. 4, 805. 5, 122. When Aphrodite wishes to remove her
favourite Alexander from the perils of battle, TOV 8 e^pjra^
A<f>poSin) peia pd\\ wo- re eos, II. 3, 381 ; the same words are
applied to Apollo, when he snatches Hector away from Achilles 20,
443. The wall so laboriously built by the Greeks he overturns peia
fid\a, as a boy at play would a sand-heap 15, 362. With a mere
breath (irvotfj\ blowing a little (rjica /uaAa ijrvj-aa-d), Athene turns
away from Achilles the spear that Hector had thrown 20, 440 (see
Suppl.). Berhta also blows (p. 276), and the elves breathe (ch.
XVII), on people.
The sons of men grow up slowly and gradually, gods attain
their full size and strength directly after birth. No sooner had