And what follow then? Ice and cold and winter. For although these things come first in the narrative of the Edda, yet we are told that "before these" things, to wit, the cold winters, there occurred the wickedness of the world, and the wolves and the serpent made their appearance. So that the events transpired in the order in which I have given them.
"First there is a winter called the Fimbul winter,"
"The mighty, the great, the iron winter,"[1]
"'When snow drives from. all quarters, the frosts are so severe, the winds so keen, there is no joy in the sun. There are three such winters in succession, without any intervening summer."
Here we have the Glacial period which followed the Drift. Three years of incessant wind, and snow, and intense cold.
The Elder Edda says, speaking of the Fenris-wolf:
"It feeds on the bodies
Of men, when they die
The seats of the gods
It stains with red blood."
[1. "Norse Mythology," p. 444.]
{p. 149}
This probably refers to the iron-stained red clay cast down by the Comet over a large part of the earth; the "seats of the gods" means the home of the god-like race, which was doubtless covered, like Europe and America, with red clay; the waters which ran from it must have been the color of blood.
"The Sunshine blackens
In the summers thereafter,
And the weather grows bad."