gates of Hel's (death's) dominions. There he found Balder, seated on
a throne: he told Hel that all things in the world were grieving for
the absence of Balder, the sun. At last, after some delays and
obstructions, Balder returns, and the whole world rejoices.

And what more is needed to prove the original unity of the human
race, and the vast antiquity of these legends, than the fact that we
find the same story, and almost the same names, occurring among the
white-haired races of Arctic Europe, and the dark-skinned people of
Egypt, Phœnicia, and India. The demon Set, or Seb, of one,
comes to us as the Surt of another; the Baal of one is the Balder of
another; Isis finds Osiris ruling the underworld as Hermod found
Balder on a throne in Hel, the realm of death.

The celebration of the May-day, with its ceremonies, the May-pole,
its May-queen, etc., is a survival of the primeval thanksgiving with
which afflicted mankind welcomed the return of the sun from his long
sleep of death. In Norway,[2] during the middle ages, the whole scene
was represented in these May-day festivals: One man represents
summer, he is clad in green leaves the other represents winter; he is
clad in straw, fit picture of the

[1. "Nome Mythology," p. 288.

2. Ibid., p. 291.]

{p. 241}

misery of the Drift Age. They have each a large company of attendants
armed with staves; they fight with each other until winter (the age