Northern mythology

NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY. 127
Odin for elective affinity^ in the chymical acceptation.
According
to this system, Thor is not the thunder-storm,
but its profounder cause, electricity. By his name of
Auku-Thor (derived from auka, to eke, augment) is signified
an accumulation of electricity ; his belt must then
bear allusion to the electric condenser ;
his iron gloves are
conductors. The myth of Thorns journey to Griotunagard^
bears allusion to the diffusion of terrestrial magnetism
in the vegetable kingdom, while Hrungnir is petrifaction,
Freyia and Sif are carbon and oxygen. Thorns son,
Magni, is the magnet, and Mockurkalfi the magnetic
needle. In the story of the Origin of Poetry ^, Kvasir is
saccharine matter, Fialar and Galar, who slay him, putrefaction
and fermentation, by which saccharine matter is
decomposed ; Odlirserir is tension. Son vibration, Bodn
echo, Gilling dregs that are precipitated ;
his wife, who is
crushed by a millstone, tartar, Suttung spirituous di'ink,
and Gunnlod carbonic acid. Many of the illustrations
according to this system might be adduced as examples
that the idea is there, but that the application has failed,
and no wonder, as it gives credit to antiquity for a knowledge
of nature, which it neither had nor could have.
In this mode of explanation is comprised that which
may be termed the astronomical, as far as its object is to
show that the knowledge the ancients had of the sun, the
stars, and the division of the year, was applied mythically,
and constituted a part of the learning of their priests.
Traces of this mode are to be found in almost all mythologies,
as the contemplation of the heavenly bodies must
find its application in life, in determining the courses of
the year, in distinguishing particular days, and, by certain
significant
memory.
signs, in fixing the fugacious with time in the
Herewith may the arithmetic of the ancients be
1 Page 69. 2 page 40.