Such notions may be regarded as traces of a purer religious dispensation—of the patriarchal. As an eminent northern writer elegantly observes[22]—“Thus sounds the voice of the northern prophetess, the Vala, to us obscure and indistinct, through the darkness of ages. It speaks of other times, other men and ideas; if fettered by the bonds of superstition, it longs after eternal light, and, though imperfectly, expresses that longing. We may also recognise some of those mighty minds of which Pindar speaks, as wandering eternally over earth and sea. In such sounds heaven and earth announce an Eternal Being, and at the same time their own mortality,—truths which no paganism has expressed more strongly than the Scandinavian. However darkly, still it does allude to the Mighty One on high, who is above all the deities of nature,—to one mightier than the mighty, whom it dares not name,—to that unknown God whom the Athenians also worshipped.” We may, however, doubt whether this notion of the One First Cause, dark as it is, was introduced by Odin into the north. In most of the relics which the ancient pagans have left us, we have traces of two religions, distinct from each other,—both from Asia, but not at the same period, or from the same region. The worship of Thor, for example, seems to be much more ancient than that of Odin; and perhaps before either was known—before the light of patriarchal truth was entirely departed from the north—the elementary form of worship, the most ancient and least debasing of all superstitions, prevailed. The three gods, Odin, Vilè and Vè, were not the only created beings. Besides Bergelmer and his wife, from whom sprung a new giant race, other offspring than the three deities resulted from the union of Bôrr with Bestla— The maid so good and fair Though born of giant race. From these sprung all the good, benevolent beings,—gods, goddesses, elves, Vanir, and spirits of air, of whom more in the proper place. All these were created before man. So also were the Duergar, or dwarfs. According to the prose Edda, they bred like maggots in Ymer’s dead body; but the Voluspa tells us that they were created by the gods from the blood and bones of that giant: Then went the gods To their exalted seats; The high and holy Then consulted Of them which Should form the dwarfs From the sea-giant’s blood, And his blue bones. Thus Modsogner is The chief become Of all the dwarfs; And after him Durin.