The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 15, January, 1859 by Various
page 30 of 318 (09%)
page 30 of 318 (09%)
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Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods! Odin mounts his war-steed. The vast
ash Yggdrasil begins to shiver through all its height. The beatified heroes of Valhalla, who have ever been on the watch for this dread era, issue forth full of the old dauntless spirit of the North to meet the dread agents of darkness and doom. Garm, the Moonhound, breaks loose, and bays. "High bloweth Heimdall his horn aloft. Odin counselleth Mimir's head." The battle joins. In short, the fiery baptism prophesied in the dark scrolls of Stoic sage and Hebrew and Scandinavian scald alike wraps the universe. The dwarfs wail in their mountain-clefts. All is uproar and hissing conflagration. "Dimmed's now the sun; In ocean earth sinks; From the skies are cast The sparkling stars; Fire-reek rageth Around Time's nurse, And flickering flames With heaven itself shall play." By "Time's nurse," in the foregoing lines from the "Voluspa," is meant the Mundane Tree Yggdrasil, which shall survive unscathed, and wave mournfully over the universal wreck. But in the "Edda" Hor tells Gangler that "another earth shall appear, most lovely and verdant, with pleasant fields, where the grain shall grow unsown. Vidar and Vali shall survive. They shall dwell on the Plain of Ida, where Asgard formerly stood. Thither shall come the sons of Thor, bringing with them their father's mallet. Baldur and Hödur shall also repair thither from the abode of Death. There shall they sit and converse together, and call to mind their former knowledge and the perils they underwent." |
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