But we read a little further. Har is reciting to Ganglere the wonders of the heavenly land, and is describing its golden palaces, and its mixed population of dark and light colored races, and he says:
"Furthermore, there is a dwelling, by name Himinbjorg, which stands at the end of heaven, where the Bifrost bridge is united with heaven."
And then we read of Heimdal, one of the gods who was subsequently killed by the comet:
"He dwells in a place called Himinbjorg, near Bifrost. He is the ward," (warder, guardian,) "of the gods, and sits at the end of heaven, guarding the bridge against the mountain-giants. He needs less sleep than a bird; sees an hundred miles around him, and as well by night as by day. His teeth are of gold."
This reads something like a barbarian's recollection of a race that practiced dentistry and used telescopes. We know that gold filling has been found in the teeth of ancient Egyptians and Peruvians, and that telescopic lenses were found in the ruins of Babylon.
But here we have Bifrost, a bridge, but not a continuous structure, interrupted in places by water, reaching from Europe to some Atlantic island. And the island-people regarded it very much as some of the English look
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upon the proposition to dig a tunnel from Dover to Calais, as a source of danger, a means of invasion, a threat; and at the end of the island, where the ridge is united to it, they did what England will probably do at the end of the Dover tunnel: they erected fortifications and built a castle, and in it they put a ruler, possibly a sub-king, Heimdal, who constantly, from a high lookout, possibly with a field-glass, watches the coming of the turbulent Goths, or Gauls, or Gael, from afar off. Doubtless the white-headed and red-headed, hungry, breekless savages had the same propensity to invade the civilized, wealthy land, that their posterity had to descend on degenerate Rome.
The word Asas is not, as some have supposed, derived from Asia. Asia is derived from the Asas. The word Asas comes from a Norse word, still in use in Norway, Aas, meaning a ridge of high land.[1] Anderson thinks there is some connection between Aas, the high ridge, the mountain elevation, and Atlas, who held the world on his shoulders.
The Asas, then, were the civilized race who inhabited a high, precipitous country, the meeting-point of a number of ridges. Atlas was the king, or god, of Atlantis. In the old time all kings were gods. They are something more than men, to the multitude, even yet.