268 JOHN FRASER. 
by the might of Surt, the heat-sender, produced a giant man, Ymer, the 
first of the evil race of giants. In a similar manner appeared a cow, 
which gave milk to Ymer. This cow, by licking the salt from the ice- 
- rocks, produced first the hair of a man’s head, then the head, and in the 
evening a perfect man, Bure; his son Bor, married the giantess Best-la, 
and she bore three sons—Spirit (Odin), Will (Vile), and Holiness (Ve); 
these three slew Ymer; out of his body they made the world; for, his 
flesh became the land, his blood the ocean, his bones the rochs, his hair 
the forests; his skull became the vault of the sky, and in it they set red- 
hot flakes from Muspel-heim to be the sun, moon, and stars. Odin him- 
self became the father of the gods who rule heaven and earth. One day, 
as three of the gods were walking by the sea shore, they found there two 
trees, an ash and an elm; the first god, Odin, gave to the trees breath, 
Heener gave them feeling, and Loder gave them blood and the image of 
the gods; and thus these trees became a man anda woman, Ask and Embla 
—the progenitors of the human race. 
These Scandinavian gods and goddesses dwell in Asgard, but each has 
a separate location there. From his seat on high, Odin looks down on the 
nine worlds, and in his bright hall, Valhal, he assembles all men who 
have died in battle. In Asgard is the sacred fountain of Urd (‘the 
Past’), to which the gods repair daily over the rainbow bridge, ‘ Bifrost’; 
everything placed in this fountain becomes white as the film of an egg-. 
shell. 
At the time when Ymer was slain, only two of his race escaped—a man 
andawoman. From them came the later giants, who carried on constant 
warfare against the gods. The chief of these giants is Loke, at one time 
a foster-brother of Odin. One of his three children is Hel, the goddess 
of death; her domain is in the lower world; it has nine abodes, one below 
another; and in the lowest is her palace called ‘Anguish.’ All who diea 
straw death—of sickness or old age—go to her. 
The brightest and most beautiful of all the gods is Balder ; he dwells 
in a mansion called ‘ Broad-shining-splendour ’ (Breid-ablik), into which 
no unclean thing can ever enter. Him Loke hates and at last kills by 
fraud. For this deed Loke was bound to a rock, and was tortured by the 
venom from a serpent’s mouth falling on his face. This causes him to 
shriek with pain, and then the writhing of his body shakes the earth. 
Balder’s death brought on a terrible war between the gods and the 
giants, in which war of Ragnarok gods, men, and giants all perished; 
thereafter appeared a new and better world, a new earth, a new sea, @ 
new sun, with brightness, peace, and beauty over all. There came also 
