Northern mythology

136 NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY.
ice-bergs and rocks ; and the ever active course of life^ in
which men were there engaged, transformed the sluggish,
half-shimbcring gods of the East, absorbed in contemplation,
into beings that rode on the wings of the storm,
and, in the raging battle, gathered men to them, to reward
tliem in another world with combats and death, from
which tlicy rose again to life, and with the aliments known
to the natives of the North as the most nutritive, and by
which they were strengthened to begin the combat anew^
Every closer consideration of Northern life, of the people^s
constant warfare with nature and with foes, renders it
easily conceivable, that Odin, however Buddhistic he may
originally have been, must under a Northern sky be transformed
into a Valfather^ ; that the Northern man, to whom
death was an every-day matter, must have a Valhall, and
that the idea of a state of happiness without battle, of
quiet without disquiet, must be for ever excluded.
After
all, in explaining the Eddas, it does not seem necessary to
resort to other mythologies, though a comparison with
them is always valuable, and highly interesting, when it
shows an analogy between them and the myths of the
North.
To arrive at a satisfactory explanation of the Northern
myths, it is necessary to commence with the signification
of the mythic names. Verbal illustration must precede
every other ; when that fails, the rest is almost always defective.
The names of the gods are, as Grimm observes,
in themselves significant, bearing an allusion
to their nature^.
But in this investigation, difficidties sometimes
arise, as it is generally the oldest words of a language,
that form the ground-work, and all etymology is, moreover,
exposed to much caprice. The illustration of myths
will also be greatly prejudiced, if we yield to a blind guess
1 Page 19. - Page 15.
3 Deutsche Mythologie, p. 201, 1st edit.