With most of these we have little acquaintance. A few of the Light Elves are to be found in the palaces of the Asyniar; but none of Muspel’s sons do we encounter. Of the Vanir in general, we know little; but half a dozen of the race are venerated or esteemed in Asgard. Utgard and its sons were well known, from their intercourse, whether hostile, or friendly, with the Aser; and still better known is Asgard. The land of the Black Elves was frequently visited by men and gods. The realms of Hela were but once visited by living feet,—by those of Hermod.[39] Of men we can mention such only as came into contact with beings of a higher or lower nature. Most of these classes, therefore, may be dismissed with a few general observations. Details respecting _individuals_, in most of these classes, will be found under the names of the chief Aser, or gods. Whether the Aser were gods, or mortals only, or men who had been deified, has been long and zealously disputed. Each party gives elaborate reasons for its own hypothesis, and they have been convincing to itself if not to others. On a subject which requires the aid of the imagination to understand it, and to which speculation only can be applied, this diversity was inevitable. Within the last twenty years, however, a more careful examination of the pagan monuments of antiquity, and a more extended acquaintance with the religious systems of other people, have led to the conclusion that the Aser, like the Vaner, never existed on earth, and that they are purely mythologic. There is certainly much reason for the conclusion. The satisfactory way in which functions of the deities have been resolved into physical qualities may well fortify it. Still there are difficulties—we think insuperable ones—to be removed. The account which, in the former volume of this work[40], we have given of Odin, Niord, Freyr, and Baldur, will scarcely countenance the hypothesis. The circumstances which attended Odin’s progress; those which accompanied and followed his arrival in the north; his temporal even more than his spiritual policy; his extraordinary success; the thrones which he established; the sons whom he left; the universal anxiety of the northern princes—even those of Saxony—to claim him as their ancestor, and an ancestor too only a few generations removed from them[41]; afford, we think, evidence enough of his mortal career. Nor should we overlook the fact that both Saxo Grammaticus and Snorro Sturleson,—the former well acquainted with the tradition and history of his country; the latter most deeply versed in the religion and literature of the Scythian conquerors—contended for the mortal character of the Aser. In their days, this was not a new interpretation of the subject: ascend the stream of time as far as we can, and still we find that Odin and his pontiff-chiefs were regarded as men whom credulity had deified. Such was the opinion of Adam of Bremen in the eleventh century; of the biographer of St.