“Hugin and Munin
  Each down take their flight
  Earth’s fields over.”

Nobler birds, these dark ravens of the Northern Jove, than the bolt-bearing eagle of his Grecian brother.  So much deeper, more significant, and musical are the myths of the stern, dark, and tender North than those of the bright and fickle South!

Notwithstanding that Valhalla was full of invincible heroes, and that the celestial city of Asgard was the abode of the chief gods, still it had a watchman who dwelt in a tower at the end of the Bridge Bifroest.  Heimdall was his name, and he was endowed with the sharpest ear and eye that ever warder possessed.  He could hear grass and wool grow with the utmost distinctness.  The AEsir, notwithstanding their supreme position, had need of such a warder, with his Gjallar-horn, mightier than the Paladin Astolfo’s, that could make the universe reecho to its blast.  The truth was, over even the high gods of Asgard hung a Doom which was mightier than they.  It was necessary for them to keep watch and ward, therefore, for evil things were on their trail.  There were vast, mysterious, outlying regions beyond their sway:  Niflheim or Mistland, Muspellheim or Flameland, and Joetunheim, the abode of the old earth-powers, matched with whom, even Thor, the strongest of the Asen, was but a puny stripling.  Over this old Scandinavian heaven, as over all ethnic celestial abodes, the dark Destinies lorded it with unquestioned sway.  From the four corners of the world, at last, were to fly the snow-flakes of the dread Fimbul, Winter, blotting the sun, and moaning and drifting night and day.  Three times was Winter to come and go, bringing to men and gods “a storm-age, a wolf-age.”  Then cometh Ragnaroek, the Twilight of the Gods!  Odin mounts his war-steed.  The vast ash Yggdrasil begins to shiver through all its height.  The beatified heroes of Valhalla, who have ever been on the watch for this dread era, issue forth full of the old dauntless spirit of the North to meet the dread agents of darkness and doom.  Garm, the Moonhound, breaks loose, and bays.  “High bloweth Heimdall his horn aloft.  Odin counselleth Mimir’s head.”  The battle joins.  In short, the fiery baptism prophesied in the dark scrolls of Stoic sage and Hebrew and Scandinavian scald alike wraps the universe.  The dwarfs wail in their mountain-clefts.  All is uproar and hissing conflagration.

  “Dimmed’s now the sun;
  In ocean earth sinks;
  From the skies are cast
  The sparkling stars;
  Fire-reek rageth
  Around Time’s nurse,
  And flickering flames
  With heaven itself shall play.”

By “Time’s nurse,” in the foregoing lines from the “Voluspa,” is meant the Mundane Tree Yggdrasil, which shall survive unscathed, and wave mournfully over the universal wreck.  But in the “Edda” Hor tells Gangler that “another earth shall appear, most lovely and verdant, with pleasant fields, where the grain shall grow unsown.  Vidar and Vali shall survive.  They shall dwell on the Plain of Ida, where Asgard formerly stood.  Thither shall come the sons of Thor, bringing with them their father’s mallet.  Baldur and Hoedur shall also repair thither from the abode of Death.  There shall they sit and converse together, and call to mind their former knowledge and the perils they underwent.”