but rather as one of the old Giants, supernatural and hostile indeed
to man, but simple and easily deceived by a cunning reprobate, whose
superior intelligence he learns to dread, for whom he feels himself
no match, and whom, finally, he will receive in Hell at no price. We
shall have to notice some other characteristics of this race of
giants a little further on, but certainly no greater proof can be
given of the small hold which the Christian Devil has taken of the
Norse mind, than the heathen aspect under which he constantly
appears, and the ludicrous way in which he is always outwitted.

We have seen how our Lord and the saints succeeded to Odin and his
children in the stories which told of their wanderings on earth, to
warn the wicked, or to help the good; we have seen how the kindliness
and helpfulness of the ancient goddesses fell like a royal mantle
round the form of the Virgin Mary. We have seen, too, on the other
hand, how the procession of the Almighty God degenerated into the
infernal midnight hunt. We have now to see what became of the rest of
the power of the goddesses, of all that might which was not absorbed
into the glory of the blessed Virgin. We shall not have far to seek.
No reader of early medieval chronicles and sermons, can fail to have
been struck with many passages which ascribe majesty and power to
beings of woman's sex. Now it is a heathen goddess as _Diana_;
now some half-historical character as _Bertha_; now a mythical
being as _Holda_; now _Herodias_; now _Satia_; now _Domina Abundia_,
or _Dame Habonde_ [16].

A very short investigation will serve to identify the two ancient
goddesses Frigga and Freyja with all these leaders of a midnight
host. Just as Odin was banished from day to darkness, so the two
great heathen goddesses, fused into one 'uncanny' shape, were