THE MEDIAEVAL MIND 73 



obscurity of the unfathomable past. It is then to 

 the literature of Norway and Iceland that we 

 must look for the purest example of Teutonic 

 mythology. 



The most striking feature of the Norse legends is 

 their similarity to those of the Greeks. Odin is a 

 mixture of Zeus and Prometheus; Thor is Zeus in 

 another aspect, with attributes of the Roman Mars 

 superadded. Greeks and Teutons were branches of 

 the one great Northern race, and racial character is 

 reflected in beliefs drawn originally, perhaps, from 

 a common source. But the different environment 

 modified the different branches of the race by natural 

 selection, affected their outlook on life, and moulded the 

 mythology in which that outlook found its most charac- 

 teristic expression. With the same vigour and freedom 

 and joy in life and adventure as the Greeks, the Norse- 

 men had less sense of soft beauty and grace, and a 

 sterner, somewhat sadder outlook on the problems of 

 the world. The Greek gods had conquered the Titans 

 once for all. Thor and Odin wage perpetual war on 

 the giants of Jotunheim. The Greek gave little 

 thought to the edge of the world dropping down into 

 Tartarus, where sunless Cronos dwells. But the 

 Scandinavian is for ever preoccupied with the icy 

 barrier, closer to his threshold, beyond which lie the 

 gulfs of chaos. 



In the early cosmogonies, the world is the body of 

 the giant Hymir, his skull is the heaven, his brains the 

 clouds, his blood the sea. The stars are sparks from 

 the great primordial fiery chaos. Then, as in Greece, 

 there are myths of nature. Thor, the thunder-god, 

 may be taken as the ideal of the Norse races homely, 



