or at any rate of coming to life again even if it had died along with the body. In that case it went either to a place under the earth and the sea or to the upper world in the sky, or rather between the sky and the earth.[1] The former place is regarded as the better of the two; it is a very good land, where, according to Hans Egede, there is 'lovely sunshine, excellent water, animals and birds in abundance.' To many it may seem strange that, unlike us, they should place their happiest region under the earth or the sea; but this, it seems to me, may easily have arisen from their having seen the heaven and the mountains reflected in the water, and believed that it was another world they saw. No doubt they have in process of time discovered that it is only a reflection, but the original belief in an under-world has maintained itself none the less. It is particularly characteristic that this under-world is placed under the water, and that there is much sunshine in it; for it must have been chiefly in the sunshine that they saw the reflection.
The other region, in the over-world, is colder; it is like the earth with its hills and valleys, and over it is arched the blue heaven. There the souls of the dead dwell in tents round a lake, and when the lake
- ↑ Compare Rink, Aarböger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1868, iii. p. 202.
