74 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



fearless, steadfast ; with a slow brain perhaps, but 

 judgment sound at the last. 



In a later age, when the advance of Christianity 

 threw the shadow of inevitable fate over the heathen 

 gods, the old nature myth of the death of Balder 

 became the symbolic tragedy of all death. Heaven 

 and earth and gods are to pass away, in one great 

 fight on the ramparts of Asgard, when the powers of 

 chaos overwhelm the world and the twilight of the gods 

 descends. The gods fight on the side of reason, 

 hopelessly, knowing that chaos wins, but fearlessly, 

 with steady courage the glorification of Teutonic 

 self-will and inward freedom of the individual soul. 

 In the Viking age there rose a vision of Balder coming 

 again, and a new heaven and a new earth. But this 

 may be but a reflection of the Christian Apocalypse ; 

 the day of pagan myths was over. 



But still the spirit of the North survives in the 

 Sagas, the epics of heroes and heroic kings. Olaf 

 Tryggvason is the ideal Norseman tall, golden-haired, 

 excelling in sport and terrible in war, eager, glad and 

 kind. All Norway owns his sway, and, at his bidding, 

 turns to the White Christ. The Sagas are direct, 

 convincing ; free from unreality or absurdity ; thrill- 

 ing with the voice of the sea and the call of battle. 

 Their occasional supernaturalism conjures up visions 

 of trolls, portents and second sight; it is restrained, 

 almost modern in tone ; quite different in spirit from 

 the tissue of childish marvels and morbid asceticism 

 which characterize the contemporary lives of Southern 

 pseudo-Christian saints, heroes of the bewildered 

 cross-bred Mediterranean peoples. 



The heathen faiths had vanished. But the genius 



