This peculiarity we shall find running through the literature, the character, and the mind of the two nations. The North is misty, undefined, illimited; the Greek is clear as crystal, sharp and angular, on every side. Its conceptions are never vague, but are tangible, real, and human. Thus with the Greek, a vast ocean, like that they know, encircles the whole earth, and fixes its bounds and the limits which man shall not pass; the Northerns compassed it about with a vast serpent of immense size, which bounded infinity and space, time and eternity, thereby mirroring, in some degree, as it were, the ancient symbol for time and space without end, the snake biting his own tail, the circle with no one beginning nor end. The heaven of the Greeks is the summit of one of their own mountains, known to every peasant and inhabitant. Accessible only to the gods, there they live, as unconcernedly as though the earth were not. Thor, and Odin, and Freia live in the 'Shining Walhalla,' whither go the souls of brave and good warriors. Their way thither is over the heavenly bridge, the many-colored rainbow, thrown over between heaven and earth for the passage of the happy souls. And there in this dim, ghostly Walhalla they sit like the Grecian gods, and drink mead instead of ambrosia and nectar. They do not share in the earthly vices of the Southern gods. Thor never begat such a progeny as Jupiter.
Repose is also, as hinted at, a characteristic of Southern mythology, while action, assisted by supernatural agencies, is the feature of the Northern deities. Thus Jupiter sits majestic and silent upon Olympus and nods his head, and the whole earth shakes. He is human in his character, but of an ideal and superior human nature—man immensely magnified. The gods of Norway are also human, but they are, in themselves, mere men. What makes them gods is the magic power which is joined with them, a mere adjunct not forming a part of them. They toil and act like men—they are never still. Thor bears the hammer, the emblem of physical strength, energy, and activity. He can at a draught half drain the sea, and cause the tides to rise and ebb; he can lift the serpent that surrounds the world; he can wrestle with Death himself, and almost come off victorious. The giants are his mortal enemies, and against them he wages war and bears deadly hatred, as Jupiter against the Titans. None but the warrior, who has fought long and well, enjoys the long dreamt-of mead of Walhalla. A death on one's own bed is almost as ignominious as that of the coward. The straw-death (strödod) they will endeavor to avoid by opening their own veins and bleeding to death, and as the warm life-blood pours forth, they sing triumphant death-songs, and see the portals gradually open to receive them, and Braga the Scald, seated at the gate with his magic-sounding harp, his fingers running through the golden strings, and in such ecstasies they give up the ghost. The Greek dies in a more quiet, philosophical, and practical manner. He does not fear the shame of a warm and soft bed. Achilles, and Ajax, and Diomed, are not the only inmates of Elysium. Socrates, and Plato, and Homer, Apelles and Zeuxis, are all there too. The poet and the philosopher, the painter and the sculptor, rank as high through pen, pencil, and chisel, as the warrior by his blade and his bloody exploits. Art, in the North, finds no existence, and strikes no sympathizing chord in the bosoms of the sturdy Northmen. Art, to be perfect, requires a distinctness of conception, and an assimilation to human nature in its subjects, entirely at variance with the dim, mysterious character of the Scandinavian imagination. Painting is a thing utterly unknown, and sculpture, where found, deals in shapeless blocks and huge, massive, ill-proportioned forms, analogous to the primitive Egyptian art. In the Northern mythology and legendary history, minstrels play an important part. They are as indispensable as the Welsh bards, though not invested with the same authority as they. At the table of the gods, Braga strikes his wonderful harp and chants the triumphal hymns of dead warriors as they enter the Walhalla. Round the boards of the rougher Vikings, among the muscular, sun-browned champions, hardened to blood and strife, the minstrel is ever present, and as the huge cups pass around the long line, they sing the triumphs and praises of their hosts. They are like the old Grecian minstrels; like Phemius and Demodocus, they chant old memories of great sea-kings and champions, legends of magic elves and dwarfs, and wondrous and often touchingly beautiful stories of love and passion. The vague impressions of music seem to harmonize marvelously with the Northern nature. It is wild and weird in its character, for much of it, with the innumerable ballads of those days, have reached us from father to son, and vividly recall the times whence they date, and the men whose characters they mirror. There is often a magic element connected with their music. The music of the elves is like that of the sirens and of Orpheus, often irresistible. Through many of their ballads runs the same legendary undertone. A maiden's song moves the king's heart, and one by one he offers in vain every gift in his power, to the very half of his kingdom, and ends by placing a crown of gold upon her head, and seating her beside him on his throne as his lawful queen. The story of the two sisters, one ugly and one beautiful, reappears in the North in various forms. The younger and more lovely of the two is murdered, and the elder is to wed her bride-groom. Pilgrims who meet with the body, make a lyre from the bones, and string it with the golden hair of the maiden, and as they play at the bridal, each string tells its tale of horror in turn, while the unhappy sister sinks under these inanimate accusations.
In the Greek myths we find none of these mysterious elements. The supernatural creations we meet with are innumerable, and no less strange in themselves. But there is nothing in Polyphemus, in Circe, in the Sirens, beyond their physical natures, which can make us look beyond ourselves to understand and fully sympathize with them. Once fully grasp their superhuman endowments, and you feel they act like men on a large scale. Not so with the Northern supernatural beings. In themselves they approach nearer to men, and are but little above them in endowments and character, but it is their mode of action which makes them superior to us; their divinity and power lie not in themselves, but in the agents, visible and mysterious, that they employ. They are not like Jupiter, omnipotent. They are brought to a stand quite as often as more humble mortals. Thor, without his hammer, is no longer Thor himself. His trusty Mjölner is more to him than the thunderbolt of Zeus to the Grecian father of the gods. The eagle and thunderbolt of Jove, the ægis of Minerva, the girdle of Venus and Mercury's wands, are mere emblems of what powers their own natures give them. With the Northern deities their whole strength lies in the possession of these. Without them they are powerless, and in spite of all their might, they are often obliged to call on one another for assistance, and sometimes even stand in need of mortal aid. We may, perhaps, consider the Grecian gods as mere personifications and idealities, but those of the North are essentially real. They are the creations of a powerful but vague imagination, forms which resemble a Norwegian mountain, distinct in itself by its glittering snows and icy rocks, but which shrouds its head in a perpetual mist, except when some adverse wind with its indiscreet blowing, displays it in all its nakedness, and plain though grand reality.
Analogous to the story of Circe and Ulysses is a myth which forms the foundation of some of the most beautiful and pathetic ballads of Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The mountain king bears to his cavern in the hill-side a fair maiden, and with him
'For eight long years, I ween, she lived in the mountain there,
And sons full seven she bore him, and eke a daughter fair.'
And here the resemblance ceases, and the Northern legend assumes a more beautiful tone. The maiden longs for her mother and her old home, and goes from the mountain king with the promise not to mention her seven sons. She tells her tale, however, and the elf-king straightway appears, and strikes her till the life-blood flows. She then says:
'Farewell, dear father, and farewell, dear mother, too,
Farewell, my sister dear, and dear brother, farewell to you.
Farewell, thou lofty heaven, and the fresh, green earth, farewell!
Now wend I to the mountain where the mountain king doth dwell.'
And so they ride to the mountain, through the long, wild, black wood, the mother weeping bitter tears, while the elf-king smiles. Her little daughter reaches her a golden chair:
'Oh! rest thee, my poor mother, so sad and woe-begone.'
She takes the foaming mead in her hand,