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44 INTEODUCnON.
abodes of the Gods and the splendors of Yalhalla,
wMcli lie describes at length, then speaks of the
mythic World-Tree Yggdrasill, and adds many-
other cosmological explanations."
3. VaffruSnismdl
—
Vafihrudnir's Song, relates
the contest between Odin and the Jotun Vafthrdd-
nir. Many cosmological questions are here pro-
pounded. Odin asks concerning the Creation of the
Earth, the Origin of the Sun and Moon, Day and
Night, Summer and "Winter, &c., also the Jotuns,
the Yanir, arid the things beyond the Twilight of
the Gods.*
The language, the narration, the train of thought,
are extremely simple. The Jotun loses in the con-
test, as a matter of course.
In their clothing the two latter belong to the
cycle of Odinic Myths, although they are strictly
cosmogonical in their subjects. It is thus with
many of the poems, that they are in some respects
quite independent, yet are in some manner con-
nected with others in groups.
\* The poems relating to Baldur's death are of
a general character, for as Baldur is himself " the
Band in the Wreath of Valhalla," the central life
of all Asgard, so do the lays in which his death is
foretold or lamented, have a direct reference to the
Fall of the Gods and of the mythic Universe. In
them the background is always the Twilight of the
* The final destruction of the world and regeneration of the
Gods and men in the Old-Norse Mythology is called Eagna-rokkr
—the Twilight of the Gods.