The earthly and the vegetative elements were already joined in the trees, Ask and Embla, when the gods came and changed them into the first human pair. Each of the three gods gave them separate gifts. From Lodur they received _la_, that is the blood, and _laeti_, that is the power of intentional movement inherent in the blood, which attributes have been considered by all peoples as the characteristics that distinguish animal from vegetable life. Lodur gave them further the god-image, _liter goda_, by the power of which man’s earthly substance receives the form in which it appears to the senses. The Germanic race, like the Hellenes and the Romans, believed that the gods had human form, so that this form originally belonged to the gods. To the Germanic hierologists and bards man was formed _in effigiem deorum_ and possessed in his nature a _liter goda_, a god image in the literal sense of the word. This image may for a short time be separated from the other human elements, so that a person may assume the appearance of another without changing his spiritual identity. The soul, _odr_, is the gift of Höner, while the spirit, _önd_, is the contribution of Odin. Earthly death consists in the separation of the higher elements, spirit, soul and _liten_, which form a unity for themselves, from the lower elements and a removal of the former to Hades. The lower elements, the earthly, the vegetal and the animal, continue in the grave for a longer or shorter time to co-operate and form a certain unity, which, from the higher elements, retain something of the living man’s personality and qualities. This lower unity is the ghost, the wraith, which usually sleeps during the day in the grave, but in the night might wake either spontaneously or by other people’s prayers and sorcery. The ghost possesses the nature of the deceased; it is good and benevolent, or evil and dangerous, according to his disposition. Because animal and vegetal elements form part of his nature, he is tormented by a craving for nourishment if he wakes from his slumber. These conceptions of a dualistic life after death, common among the Veda-Aryans, as well as among the heathen Norsemen, were closely allied with the idea of cremation. _Agni_, the god of fire, removed the dead man to a better world, while the coarser body, with its faults and defects, was consumed by the flames.