and Egyptians, only, but every nation has had its system of mythology; and that of the ancient Norsemen is more simple, earnest, miraculous, stupendous and divine than any other mythological system of which we have record.
The myth is the oldest form of truth; and mythology is the knowledge which the ancients had of the Divine. The object of mythology is to find God and come to him. Without a written revelation this may be done in two ways: either by studying the intellectual, moral and physical nature of man, for evidence of the existence of God may be found in the proper study of man; or by studying nature in the outward world in its general structure, adaptations and dependencies; and truthfully it may be said that God manifests himself in nature.
Our Norse forefathers (for it is their religion we are to present in this volume) had no clearly-defined knowledge of any god outside of themselves and nature. Like the ancient Greeks, they had only a somewhat vague idea about a supreme God, whom the rhapsodist or skald in the Elder Edda (Hyndluljóð 43, 44) dare not name, and whom few, it is said, ever look far enough to see. In the language of the Elder Edda:
Then one is born
Greater than all;
He becomes strong
With the strengths of earth;
The mightiest king
Men call him,
Fast knit in peace
With all powers.
Then comes another
Yet more mighty;
