CHAP.
of the Hesiodic ages. Such a classification we find in the relations of the Jotun or giants, who are conquered by Odin as the
Titans are overthrown by Zeus ; and this sequence forms part of
a theogony which, like that of Hesiod, begins with chaos. From
this chaos the earth emerged, made by the gods out of the blood and
bones of the giant Ymir, whose name denotes the dead and barren
sea. This being is sprung from the contact of the frozen with the
heated waters, the former coming from Niflheim, the region of deadly
cold at the northern end of the chaotic world, the latter from
Muspelheim, the domain of the devouring fire. The Kosmos so
brought into existence is called the " Bearer of God " — a phrase
which finds its explanation in the world-tree Yggdrasil, on which
Odin himself hangs, like the Helene Dendritis of the Cretan
legend : —
I know that I hung On a wind-rocked tree Nine whole nights, With a spear wounded, And to Odin offered, Myself to myself, On that tree, Of which no one knows From what root it springs.'
This mighty tree, which in Odin's Rune Song becomes a veritable tree of knowledge, and whose roots are undermined by Hel or death and by the Hrimthursen or frost-giants, rises into Asgard, the highest heavens where the gods dwell, while men have their abode in Mid- gard, the middle garden or earth, embraced by its branches.
The giant Ymir was nourished by the four streams which flowed Genealogy from the treasure of moisture, the cow Audhumla,^ which belongs to Zoroastrian not less than to Teutonic mythology, and is there found with the meaning both of cow and earth.' This earth afforded salt, without which no life can be vigorous, and from Audhumla, as she fed on the salt of the blocks of ice, there came forth a perfect man, Buri, the fashioner of the world, whose son, Bor,* had as his wife Besla, or Bettla,^ the daughter of the giant Bolthorn, the root or kernel of the earth. From Buri « proceeded apparently Odin him-
1 "Odin's Rune Song," Thorpe's the active and passive meanings of the Translation of Samuud's Edda, p. 340. Greek i^opos in compound words. ye may compare with the " Bearer of * Bunsen thinks that the original God," the names Atlas and Christo- form of this name was Beidsla, a word phoros. _ perhaps denoting desire or longing, and
- This is the cow beneath whose thus answering to the Kama of Vedic
udder the Dawn maiden hides herself and the Eros of the Hesiodic theogony, in the Norse story of the Two Step- while it is reflected also in the Teutonic Sisters. — Dasent. Gubernatis, Zoolo- Wunsch or Wish.
gical Mythology, i. 224. « The children of Buri educe order Bunsen, God tn History, ii. 483. out of Chaos, and at the four ends of
- The two names would answer to the world thus brought into shape they
