Tales out of school

by Frank R. Stockton

This wonderful tree bore the name of Ygdrasil. Its branches overshadowed the whole world; its top supported the sky, and its roots went so far down that no one could find the end. This tree was the home of Odin and his gods, and there they stayed, except when business called them elsewhere.

This is the way the gods found out what was going on in the world, while they were having a good time in Ygdrasil. Two ravens were always flying to and fro through the Universe, and, once a day, they would perch on Odin’s shoulders and tell him the news. A little squirrel darted swiftly up and down the tree, and picked up all the scraps of gossip it could. Near the top of the tree a great eagle kept perpetual watch, and on the very topmost branch perched a vulture; and these birds, which could see to the horizon on every side cried out, and flapped their wings when any strange thing happened.

Besides all these there was the watch-god, Heimdall. His sight and hearing were marvelous. He could hear the grass grow in the fields, and hear the wool grow on the backs of the sheep. He could not only watch a fly from the one end of the world to the other, but could count the spots on its wings, and the joints in its little legs, if it was at the opposite side of the universe from himself. He could see the smallest atom that moved at the bottom of the ocean. And, what was the most astonishing of all, he could see in the darkest night as well as in the brightest day.

It is a pity this god is not living now, for he could describe to us the bottom of the ocean, and tell us if there is an open sea at the North Pole, and an icy continent at the South Pole, and a great many things we want very much to know, and have not been able to find out.

THE YOUNG GOD JARL.

This Heimdall had golden teeth. He had also a son, named Jarl, who was a very famous god. When he was only a child he could give heavy blows with a great club, and swim like a fish, and ride on horseback as swiftly as the wind. And he understood the language of birds and beasts, and could converse with them.

There were some very queer things about these gods. We might suppose these powerful beings would be perfectly formed, but they were not. Heimdall, as we have seen, had false teeth; Tyr had but one hand; Widar was dumb; Hoder was blind; and the great Odin himself had but one eye. And it seems, too, that they did not know everything there was to be known, as the following story will show you.

There lived in the world, in those days, a very wise man, named Kvasir. He noticed how much trouble men had in expressing their thoughts in any way but speech. If one wanted to send a message to another he could only make a rude drawing on a piece of stone to represent what he wanted to say, or paint it in certain colors that stood for certain things. There was not much of this done, for not only was this process troublesome, but it was easy to misunderstand these messages; and they caused a great deal of confusion, and many quarrels, and much fighting. Kvasir wanted to remedy this; and, after a great deal of hard study, and many experiments he invented the art of writing. He also invented poetry. He called his verses runes, and he wrote them on beech bark, which he made into tablets.

The gods had never thought of doing anything like this.