philosophers call _subjective_, that is to say, having no
existence except in the minds of those who believe in them; having
been created by man in his own image, with his own desires and
passions, stand in constant need of being recreated. They change as
the habits and temper of the race which adores them alter; they are
ever bound to do something fresh, lest man should forget them, and
new divinities usurp their place. Hence came endless avatars in
Hindoo mythology, reproducing all the dreamy monstrosities of that
passive Indian mind. Hence came Jove's adventures, tinged with all
the lust and guile which the wickedness of the natural man planted on
a hot-bed of iniquity is capable of conceiving. Hence bloody Moloch,
and the foul abominations of Chemosh and Milcom. Hence, too, Odin's
countless adventures, his journeys into all parts of the world, his
constant trials of wit and strength, with his ancient foes the Frost
Giants, his hair-breadth escapes. Hence Thor's labours and toils, his
passages beyond the sea, girt with his strength-belt, wearing his
iron gloves, and grasping his hammer which split the skulls of so
many of the Giant's kith and kin. In the Norse gods, then, we see the
Norseman himself, sublimed and elevated beyond man's nature, but
bearing about with him all his bravery and endurance, all his dash
and spirit of adventure, all his fortitude and resolution to struggle
against a certainty of doom which, sooner or later, must overtake him
on that dread day, the 'twilight of the gods', when the wolf was to
break loose, when the great snake that lay coiled round the world
should lash himself into wrath, and the whole race of the Aesirs and
their antagonists were to perish in internecine strife.

Such were the gods in whom the Norseman believed--exaggerations of
himself, of all his good and all his bad qualities. Their might and
their adventures, their domestic quarrels and certain doom, were sung