The “throne of Thor” or “Smaller Chariot,” was the name given to Polaris (Ursa Minor) by the early Danes and Icelanders and their descendants still call it the “Litli Vagn,” the little wagon. The Finns, apparently alone among the northern nations of Europe in this conception, named Ursa Minor, Vähä Otawa, the Little Bear. They, however, termed Polaris, Taehti, “the star at the top of the heavenly mountain.”
It is striking how clearly, in Scandinavia, the Middle is associated with a sacred mountain and tree, the world axis, a heavenly city, an enthroned central god, and with Polaris, Ursa Major and the idea of eternal circumpolar rotation expressed by the wain eternally wheeled around the throne of Thor. To any one imbued with the ideas set forth above, the signification of the Scandinavian, Druidic, New Year festival, the name for which was “the wheel” (yule, yeol, yeul, hjol, hiugl, hjul), must clearly appear as the date on which the complete circuit of the Ursæ around the [pg 474] pole, was ceremonially registered. It is obvious that this could best be expressed by a circle being drawn around the swastika or cross, to which the fourth arm would be added, completing thus the registration of the four seasons, marked by the opposite positions assumed by the Ursæ at nightfall. It is well known that the wheel-cross, swastika, triskeles and S-figure constitute, with the winding serpent and the tau, named Thor's hammer, the main symbols of ancient Scandinavia (see fig. [13], p. [29] and fig. [38], p. [119]). I venture to point out how obviously Thor's hammer symbolizes the union of the Above and Below, the heaven represented by the horizontal line resting on the perpendicular support, symbolizing the sacred pole, column, mountain and tree intimately associated with Polaris, the world axis.
As a suggestion only, I venture to point out how, the old Norse name for star being tjara and for tree=tar, the rôle of the tree in Druidic cult would be fully accounted for, the initiated only being aware that it was but a rebus symbol of the secret or hidden star-god Polaris.
It can readily be seen how natural or artificial elevations and erected stones, trees, staffs or poles must have been used as means of determining the positions of the Ursæ at the public celebration of the Yule festival and that the ceremony of kindling of new fire was observed at the time when the “wheel” was supposed to begin its new annual revolution.
Reflection clearly shows that pole-star worship must have taken a stronger hold upon the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia and their descendants, the seafaring Vikings, than upon any other nation. We are compelled to admit that the recognition that Polaris formed the centre of axial rotation and the middle of the sky, would have impressed itself most profoundly upon observers stationed in the latitude where winter darkness prevailed and the pole-star appeared to be nearly overhead. Under such conditions the association of the opposite positions of the Septentriones with directions in space, i. e., the cardinal points, would be most striking.
What is more: the re-appearance of the sun, after the long darkness of a northern winter, must have established the idea of a fixed relationship between certain positions of Ursa Major and the solstitial position of the sun. It may indeed be said that the observation of the solstices and equinoxes was forced upon the inhabitants of the north as nowhere else on the globe and that it [pg 475] may perhaps be therefore designated as the birthplace of primitive astronomy.
The origin of the idea of an all-pervading duality and the chains of association which linked Light and the Sun to air and water, and to the male element, whilst Darkness and the Nocturnal Heaven became connected with earth, fire and woman, are clearly accounted for in the circumpolar regions only, where the year divides itself into a period of light in which independent and roaming out-door life was possible, and a period of darkness during which family life, in underground fire-lit dwellings, was compulsory. If fathomed, the mind of the Eskimo to-day may possibly reveal the germs of identical associations of ideas, for it would seem as though existence in the polar regions would infallibly stamp them indelibly upon the consciousness of all living creatures, until they unconsciously pervaded their entire being and even affected the structural organization of the human brain.[135]
The tendency to believe that the human race must have spent its infancy near the pole and received there an intellectual stamp, which could not have been conveyed to it so clearly in any other latitude, is undoubtedly encouraged by the opinion of various authorities, that “all forms of life must have originated at the pole, this having been the first habitable portion of our world.” This view is exhaustively treated in William Fairfield Warren's “Paradise Found, the cradle of the human race at the North Pole” (Boston, 1885), to which I refer the reader and which contains much valuable data which I would have incorporated in the present investigation had I had earlier access to the volume. It would seem as though Warren's conclusions were in perfect accord with the conclusions arrived at by some leading palæontologists, geologists and botanists, concerning the distribution of life on the globe. These are conveniently summarized in the article on “Distribution” in the Encyclopædia Britannica, from which the following detached excerpts are made for the benefit of the reader.
“The general result arrived at is that the great northern continents [pg 476] represent the original seat of mammalian life and the regions of its highest development.... The tertiary fauna of North America, compared with that of Europe, exhibits proofs of a former communication between the two northern continents both in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, but always, probably, in rather high latitudes. This is indicated both by the groups which appear to have originated in one continent and then to have passed across to the other and also by the entire absence from America of many important groups which abounded in Europe (and vice versa) indicating that the communication between the two hemispheres was always imperfect and of limited duration.... On the other hand, the marked continuity of the Northern Flora (with only a gradual east and west change in the arctic regions, but with an increased divergency southwards) requires it to be treated as a whole, although it has long been divided into that of the old and new world by the severance of North America from Northern Asia and by the barrier to an interchange of vegetation in the upheaval of the Rocky Mountain range. The old and new world divisions of the flora which, no doubt, began to diverge from the mere influence of distance, have now had that divergence immensely increased by isolation.... Large American genera (of the intermediate flora) have sent off offsets into Eastern Asia which, gradually diminishing in number of species and sometimes slightly modifying their character, have spread over the whole of Asia and invaded almost every part of Europe.... With regard to the arctic alpine flora, Hooker found that, estimating the whole arctic flora at 762 species, arctic East America possessed 379 of which 269 are common to Scandinavia. Of the whole flora 616 species are found in arctic Europe and of these 586 are Scandinavian and this leads Hooker to the striking observation that ‘the Scandinavian flora is present in every latitude of the globe and is the only one that is so.’ According to Bentham, Scandinavia, which would, according to older rules, have been termed the centre of creation for the arctic regions, may now be termed the chief centre of preservation within the arctic circle owing, perhaps, to its more broken conformation and partly to that warmer climate ... which was, during the glacial period a means of preservation of some colder species which were everywhere expelled or destroyed.... We may infer that, towards the close of the Tertiary epoch, the continuous circumpolar land was covered with [pg 477] a vegetation also largely composed of identical plants, but adapted to a warmer climate. As the climate became less warm there would commence a migration southwards which would result in the modified descendants of these plants being now blended with the vegetation of central Europe and the United States. As the glacial period gradually advanced, the tropical plants will have retreated from both sides towards the equator followed in the rear by the temperate productions and these by the arctic. When the climate of the earth again ameliorated, the migration took place in a reverse direction and in this way mountain ranges became the havens of refuge for the fragments of the original arctic flora which were exterminated on the lowlands. An indication of the great antiquity of the arctic alpine flora is afforded by the fact of its absence in the comparatively modern volcanic mountains of France.... If it be granted that the polar area was once occupied by the Scandinavian flora and that the cold of the glacial epoch did drive this vegetation downwards ... in arctic America ... where there was a free southern extension and dilatation of land for the same Scandinavian plants to occupy, these would multiply enormously in individuals....”
The following remarkable results of recent botanical research will be found to be of profound interest to investigators and to support the foregoing conclusions. Amongst the many important discoveries of hitherto undescribed species of plants, made by the distinguished botanists Mr. Stephen Sommier and Dr. Emile Levier during their expedition in the Caucasus mountains, in 1890, was that of a species of fungus named Exobasidium discoideum Ell., which was found growing on the Rhododendron flaro L. This fungus was submitted to Prof. P. Magnus of Berlin, who pronounced it to be the identical Exobasidium which has been found growing on the Azalea viscosa L. in New Jersey, U. S. A. The following is the authoritative statement of Prof. P. Magnus which appears in Messrs. S. Sommier and E. Levier's Enumeratorio plantarum caucas: acta horti petropolitani, vol. XVI. St. Petersburg, 1899.