32 Arctic and Antarctic Exploration [part i 
to undo what he himself had ruled. So Hela held her 
prey until the twilight of the Gods, when the old order 
passed away. 
The Norsemen arrived in the Scandinavian peninsula, 
as we have seen, a century or two before the Christian 
era, and the whole body of their beliefs and legends, 
comprised in the Eddas, was written down mainly in the 
14th century, so their gradual conception and evolution 
occupied several centuries. The lives of these people 
were passed in a hard struggle with Nature, in wild ad- 
ventures by fjord and forest, and in constant warfare. 
The gods and giants seemed very near to them, to some 
even visible in those young days of the world. In the 
black clouds rolling down from the ice-f jells they saw the 
mighty Thor followed by the hosts of Asgard, just as 
they heard his pealing thunder. In the clang of battle 
the Val maidens, sweeping through the air on their 
celestial steeds, were realities. The temples and sacri- 
ficial ceremonies of the Norsemen were sacred. The 
seat-posts with deities carved on the ends, generally 
Odin and Thor, were the most venerated possessions of 
the chiefs. 
As time passed, the districts along the coasts and in 
the more accessible parts of the interior rapidly became 
populous. Constant strife necessitated chiefs and leaders, 
but the people loved their freedom, and the right of 
speaking and voting in their assemblies. A free race, 
divided into many communities by the obstacles of 
Nature, continued to work out its destinies, and to 
multiply on the isles and fjords until the crowded state 
of their homes and the wild spirit of adventure drove 
them to the building of ships and the search for new 
homes beyond sea. 
It is the proud boast of their descendants that the 
Norsemen were the first people who definitely abandoned 
the coast, and sailed boldly over the open sea. They 
crossed the North Sea to Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, 
and even Ireland, probably as early as the 6th century. 
They were also established in the Lofoten Islands and on 
the borders of Finmarken in those early days. There 
the tales of their folk-lore seemed to lure them further 
into the Arctic wilds. The fishermen of Vsero and Rost, 
