351 
Journal , v. 165. Mr. Haigh’s article is a very fine study). Obscure general 
ideas, kosmogonical and otherwise, will frequently become luminous when 
illustrated by original manners and customs often their material counter- 
parts. 
3. Askr, the First Man. 
Grimm identifies Isco, the second son of Mannus, with Askr ; and Alenin, 
A.D. 735 — 804. “ still uses the expression, son of the ash-tree, as synonymous 
with man ” (Prof. Max Muller, Lectures on the Science of Language, ii. 503). 
According to Hesiod, “ the men of the third or brazen age had sprung from 
the ash-tree ; that is to say, they were giants who had descended from the 
wood-crowned hills, with brazen weapons and spears of asli-wood ” (Bunsen, 
God in History, ii. 24). In the Norse kosmogony “ the earth brings forth 
the first pair of human beings as man and wife, under the likeness of the 
hard ash-tree and the soft alder. The gods endow them with intelligence 
and strength, and deliver them from the giants, or destructive agencies of - 
nature” (Ibid. 407). Cf. Homer, “ Thou art not sprung of oak or rock, 
whereof old tales tell ” ( Od . xix. 163, apud Butcher and Lang). So Virgil 
speaks of “ gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata ” (sEn., viii. 315). 
The kosmos is an ash-tree, Yggdrasil ; and men are its children. 
4. “ The Gods who possess the Wide Heaven .” 
The bright divinities of Asaheim and Vanaheim, occupants of the ethereal 
and aerial expanse (vide sup. secs. 9, 10), exactly correspond with the 
Homeric “ gods who possess the wide heaven,” a standing formula (vide 
Ilias, xx. 299 ; Od. i. 67 ; iv. 378 ; v. 169 ; vi. 150, etc.), expressive of the 
light-powers; Zeus, the ‘‘Bright,” Here, the “ Gleaming,” Athene, the 
*• JDawn,” Artemis, the “ Pure-and-sound-one,” Apollo, and others ; and light 
physical is inseparably connected in idea with light mental, so that Athene 
is the wisdom of Zeus, and Apollo the manifested splendour of his will 
exhibited in harmonious action. Precisely similar are the Indian possessors 
of the bright heaven, the inhabitants of the Vedic Asaheim (vide Zoroaster, 
c. 19, etc.). Bunsen well observes that the earlier Eddaic lays “constantly 
betray a reference to the climate of Central Asia ” (God. in History, ii. 
494). 
5. The Ocean Stream and Under-iuorld. 
The Norse view of the earth as surrounded by the ocean-stream, is exactly 
in accordance with the Homeric ; and the concept of Helheim and Nifiheini 
in many respects resembles the Homeric Under-world, except that, in 
accordance with a northern climate, in the Norse Under-worlti, cold is a 
prominent evil, whilst naturally it is not a feature in the Greek myth, which 
also, moulded by a more refined taste, is free from those bizarre symbolical 
representations that harmonize with the genius of India and Scandinavia, 
and also of many non- Aryan nations. The hell-hound Garmr, the “Swallower,” 
the Vedic Sarvari, “ Darkness-of-night,” the Greek Kerberos, and whose 
earliest appearance is in a dual form, as the two dogs of Yama, is a 
prominent feature in both the Greek and the Norse myth. The dog-myth 
is exceedingly interesting and instructive ; the animal was held in the 
highest esteem by the Eastern Aryans, both Indie and lranic, and the 
Yama-dogs, guardians of the ways from and to the Under-world (a dog being 
the natural symbol of a way-guardian) were at first dogs-of-light, friendly to 
the good. They gradually became more awful and strange in form, being 
“four-eyed” (i.e., the flow of light to the four quarters), and at length 
sinking with the sun to the Under-world, they change into a dog or dogs of 
