wisdom, all the stores of traditional lore, all that could be learnt
by what may be called rule of thumb, was ascribed to them. One
sympathises too with them, and almost pities them as the
representatives of a simple primitive race, whose day is past and
gone, but who still possessed something of the innocence and virtue
of ancient times, together with a stock of old experience, which,
however useful it might be as an example to others, was quite useless
to help themselves. They are the old Tories of mythology, as opposed
to the Aesir, the advanced liberals. They can look back and say what
has been, but to look forward to say what will be and shall be, and
to mould the future, is beyond their ken. True as gold to the
traditional and received, and worthless as dross for the new and
progressive. Such a nature, when unprovoked, is easy and simple; but
rouse it, and its exuberant strength rises in a paroxysm of rage,
though its clumsy awkward blows, guided by mere cunning, fail to
strike the slight and lissom foe who waits for and eludes the stroke,
until his reason gives him the mastery over sheer brute force which
has wearied itself out by its own exertions.[31]

This race, and that of the upstart Aesir, though almost always at
feud, still had their intervals of common intercourse, and even
social enjoyment. Marriages take place between them, visits are paid,
feasts are given, ale is breached, and mirth is fast and furious.
Thor was the worst foe the giants ever had, and yet he met them
sometimes on good terms. They were destined to meet once for all on
that awful day, 'the twilight of the gods', but till then, they
entertained for each other some sense of mutual respect.

The Trolls, on the other hand, with whom mankind had more to do, were
supposed to be less easy tempered, and more systematically malignant,