Northern mythology

NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY. 205
between summer and winter^ light and darkness. Thor
no more thunders, but his strength and courage pervade
nature as Modi and Magni. Freyia with her sensual pleasure
is no more, but Hoenir, the unperishing sensitive
faculty, continues to operate in the new human race.
Earth^s former creatures live now in heaven. As individual
heroes could be renewed and regenerated here on
earth, so were chosen bands of warriors assembled in Valhall,
for the purpose of continuing, while the earthly age
lasted, the best of earthly occupations ; but even in life
there was something higher than warfare— peace; battle
itself shall, therefore, cease with the great battle of nature,
and all the gods be assembled in Gimli, the abode of
peace and innocence. Over this a new heaven will be
spread, where the benignant and protecting elves will
watch over mankind as of old in earthly life. Even dwarfs
and giants shall all live in peace. The Mighty One shall
come from above and sit in judgement; there shall be an
eternal separation between good and evil, which had previously
been confounded. An everlasting reward shall
await the good, everlasting torment the evil. Beyond this
no eye may see.
Illustration.—Ragnarock, the darkness or ticiligJit of
the gods (from regin, gen. pi. ragna, deus, potestas, and
rockr, twilight^ darkness). That wolves pursued and would
swallow up the sun and moon, is a general figure to express
the eclipse of the heavenly bodies. The solar wolf
has also been explained to be a parhelion ^ Egdir, the
eagle, and Fialar, and the other two cocks ^, do not strictly
belong to Ragnarock, but to the previous state of the
world. What they signify is extremely obscure, or, rather,
unknown. Who the two brothers are, whose sons shall
inhabit Vindheim^, is quite uncertain : some suppose them
to be Thor and Baldur. Gimli is the clear, bright heaven ;
1
Lex. Mythol. p. 414, note. - Page 78. ^ Page 83.