Among the Norsemen, on the other hand, we find in their most ancient records a clearly expressed faith in the perishableness of all things; and we find this faith at every step that the Norsemen has taken. The origin of this faith we seek in vain; it conceals itself beneath the waters of the primeval fountains of their thoughts and aspirations. They regarded death as but the middle of a long life. They considered it cowardice to spare a life that is to return; they thought it folly to care for a world that must necessarily perish; while they knew that their spirits would be clothed with increased vigor in the other world. Happy were they who lived beneath the polar star, for the greatest fear that man knows, the fear of death, disturbed them not. They rushed cheerfully upon the sword; they entered the battle boldly, for, like their gods, who every moment looked forward to the inevitable Ragnarok, they knew that life could be purchased by a heroic death.
The very fact that the gods in the creation proceeded from the giant Ymer foreshadowed their destruction. The germ of death was in their nature from the beginning, and this germ would gradually develop as their strength gradually became wasted and consumed. That which is born must die, but that which is not born cannot grow old.
The gradual growth of this germ of death, and corresponding waste of the strength of the gods, is profoundly sketched throughout the mythology. The gods cannot be conquered, unless they make themselves weak; but such is the very nature of things, that they must do this. To win the charming Gerd, Frey must give away his sword, but when the great final conflict comes he has no weapon. In order that the Fenris-wolf may be chained, Tyr must risk his right hand, and he loses it. How shall he then fight in Ragnarok? Balder could not have died, had not the gods been blind and presumptuous; their thoughtlessness put weapons into the hands of their enemy. Hoder would never have thrown the fatal mistletoe, had not their own appointed game been an inducement to him to honor his brother. When Loke became separated from Odin, the death of the gods was a foregone conclusion.
The imperfection of nature is also vividly depicted in the Eddas. The sun was so scorching hot that the gods had to place a shield before it; the fire was so destructive that the gods had to chain it, in order that it might not bring ruin upon the whole world. Life, after the natural death, was not continued only in the shining halls of Valhal, but also in the subterranean regions among the shades of Hel.
Our old Gothic fathers, in the poetic dawn of our race, investigated the origin and beginning of nature and time. The divine poetic and imaginative spark in them lifted them up to the Eternal, to that wonderful secret fountain which is the source of all things. They looked about them in profound meditation to find the image and reflection of that glorious harmony which their soul in its heavenly flight had found, but in all earthly things they discovered strife and warfare. When the storms bent the pine trees on the mountain tops, and when the foaming waves rolled in gigantic fury against the rocky cliffs, the Norseman saw strife. When the growl of the bear and the howl of the wolf blended with the moaning of the winds and the roaring of the waters, he heard strife. In unceasing conflict with the earth, with the beasts and with each other, he saw men stand, conquer, and fall. If he lifted his weary eye toward the skies, he saw the light struggling with darkness and with itself. When light arose out of darkness, it was greeted with enthusiasm; when it sank again into darkness, its rays were broken and it dissolved in glimmering colors; and if he looked down into the heart of man, into his own breast, he found that all this conflict of opposing elements in the outward world did but faintly symbolize that terrible warfare pervading and shattering his whole being. Well might he long for peace, and can we wonder that this deep longing for rest and peace, which filled his heart in the midst of all his struggles,—can we wonder, we say, that his longing for peace found a grand expression in a final conflict through which imperishableness and harmony were attained?
This final conflict, this dissolution of nature’s and life’s disharmony, the Edda presents to us in the death of the gods, which is usually, as stated, called Ragnarok.
There is nothing more sublime in poetry than the description, in the Eddas, of Ragnarok. It is preceded by ages of crime and terror. The vala looks down into Niflheim,
There saw she wade
In the heavy streams
Men—foul murderers,