{p. 147}

byrnie, and his spear Gungner, he advances against the Fenris-wolf” (the first comet).  “Thor stands by his side, but can give him no assistance, for he has his hands full in his struggle with the Midgard-serpent” (the second comet).  “Frey encounters Surt, and heavy blows are exchanged ere Frey falls.  The cause of his death is that he has not that good sword which he gave to Skirner.  Even the dog Garm,” (another comet), “that was bound before the Gnipa-cave, gets loose.  He is the greatest plague.  He contends with Tyr, and they kill each other.  Thor gets great renown by slaying the Midgard-serpent, but retreats only nine paces when he falls to the earth dead, poisoned by the venom that the serpent blows upon him.”

He has breathed the carbureted-hydrogen gas!

“The wolf swallows Odin, and thus causes his death; but Vidar immediately turns and rushes at the wolf, placing one foot on his nether jaw.

["On this foot he has the shoe, for which materials have been gathering through all ages, namely, the strips of leather which men cut off from the toes and heels of shoes; wherefore he who wishes to render assistance to the asas must cast these strips away.”]

This last paragraph, like that concerning the ship Naglfar, is probably the interpolation of some later age.  The narrative continues: 

“With one hand Vidar seizes the upper jaw of the wolf, and thus rends asunder his mouth.  Thus the wolf perishes.  Loke fights with Heimdal, and they kill each other. Thereupon Surt flings fire over the earth, and burns up all the world.”

This narrative is from the Younger Edda.  The Elder Edda is to the same purpose, but there are more allusions to the effect of the catastrophe on the earth

The eagle screams, And with pale beak tears corpses. . . .  Mountains dash together, {p. 148} Heroes go the way to Hel, And heaven is rent in twain. . . . All men abandon their homesteads When the warder of Midgard In wrath slays the serpent. The sun grows dark, The earth sinks into the sea, The bright stars From heaven vanish; Fire rages, Heat blazes, And high flames play ’Gainst heaven itself”

And what follow then?  Ice and cold and winter.  For although these things come first in the narrative of the Edda, yet we are told that “before these” things, to wit, the cold winters, there occurred the wickedness of the world, and the wolves and the serpent made their appearance.  So that the events transpired in the order in which I have given them.

     “First there is a winter called the Fimbul winter,”

     “The mighty, the great, the iron winter,"[1]

“’When snow drives from. all quarters, the frosts are so severe, the winds so keen, there is no joy in the sun. There are three such winters in succession, without any intervening summer.”

Here we have the Glacial period which followed the Drift.  Three years of incessant wind, and snow, and intense cold.