The Elder Edda says, speaking of the Fenris-wolf: 

“It feeds on the bodies Of men, when they die The seats of the gods It stains with red blood.”

[1.  “Norse Mythology,” p. 444.]

{p. 149}

This probably refers to the iron-stained red clay cast down by the Comet over a large part of the earth; the “seats of the gods” means the home of the god-like race, which was doubtless covered, like Europe and America, with red clay; the waters which ran from it must have been the color of blood.

     “The Sunshine blackens
     In the summers thereafter,
     And the weather grows bad.”

In the Younger Edda (p. 57) we are given a still more precise description of the Ice age: 

“Replied Har, explaining, that as soon as the streams, that are called Elivogs” (the rivers from under ice), “had came so far that the venomous yeast” (the clay?) “which flowed with them hardened, as does dross that runs from the fire, then it turned” (as) “into ice.  And when this ice stopped and flowed no more, then gathered over it the drizzling rain that arose from the venom” (the clay), “and froze into rime” (ice), “and one layer of ice was laid upon another clear into the Ginungagap.”

Ginungagap, we are told,[1] was the name applied in the eleventh century by the Northmen to the ocean between Greenland and Vinland, or America.  It doubtless meant originally the whole of the Atlantic Ocean.  The clay, when it first fell, was probably full of chemical elements, which rendered it, and the waters which filtered through it, unfit for human use; clay waters are, to this day, the worst in the world.

“Then said Jafnhar:  ’All that part of Ginungagap that turns to the north’ (the north Atlantic) ’was filled with thick and heavy ice and rime, and everywhere within were drizzling rains and gusts.  But the south part of Ginungagap was lighted up by the glowing sparks that flew out of Muspelheim.’”

[1.  “Norse Mythology,” p. 447.]

{p. 150}

The ice and rime to the north represent the age of ice and snow.  Muspelheim was the torrid country of the south, over which the clouds could not yet form in consequence of the heat—­Africa.

But it can not last forever.  The clouds disappear; the floods find their way back to the ocean; nature begins to decorate once more the scarred and crushed face of the world.  But where is the human race?  The “Younger Edda” tells us: 

“During the conflagration caused by Surt’s fire, a woman by the name of Lif and a man named Lifthraser lie concealed in Hodmimer’s hold, or forest.  The dew of the dawn serves them for food, and so great a race shall spring from them, that their descendants shall soon spread over the whole earth."[1]

The “Elder Edda” says: 

     “Lif and Lifthraser
     Will lie hid
     In Hodmimer’s-holt;
     The morning dew
     They have for food. 
     From them are the races descended.”