Odin 103 



to a god of the sky. But the character in which the 

 Norse Odin comes before us is certainly that of a god 

 of the storm. So that, looked upon in this aspect, we 

 may say that he and Thor divide between them the 

 wilder phenomena of nature. Thor is the god of the 

 thunderstorm ; and his business is to fight against the 

 embodiments of frost and snow, the giants who haunt 

 the mountains and woods. Odin, as the storm wind, 

 travels with unequalled swiftness over land and sea ; 

 his breath stirs up in men the excitement of battle, the 

 love of carnage. We know that in every language the 

 ideas of battle and of storm are confused ; people talk 

 of the storm of battle and the battle of the elements. 



Thus much for the original character of Odin. It 

 is quite natural that this being should have become the 

 favourite god of the Vikings, who had so much to do 

 with both kinds of storms. Thor might be supposed to 

 stay at home in Norway, to fight with tlie frost-giants 

 there, and to look after the interests of his special 

 clients, the yeomen-farmers, at home. But that new 

 race of adventurers, the Vikings, had a right, if any one 

 had, to claim the protection of Odin. In their hands 

 there grew up a more elaborate mythology concerning 

 this God than had been known of before. 



Let us realise once again the scenery in which the 

 greater part of the Edda poetry and mythology took 

 their final forms. Tlie regions of immense mountains 

 and of vast tracts of ice and snow liad been left behind ; 

 and the descendants of the Vikings, who composed the 

 later Edda poems, the most elaborate and most beauti- 

 ful of the series, found themselves in the storm-vexed 

 islands of the Orkneys or Shetlands. There are many 



