When the symbolism of this diluvian legend is unravelled, one perceives at once the real meaning of the allegory. The giant Ymir typifies the primitive rude organic _matter_, the blind cosmical forces, in their chaotic state, before they received the intelligent impulse of the Divine Spirit which set them into a regular motion dependent on immovable laws. The progeny of Bur are the “sons of God,” or the minor gods mentioned by Plato in the _Timæus_, and who were intrusted, as he expresses it, with the creation of men; for we see them taking the mangled remains of Ymir to the Ginnunga-gap, the chaotic abyss, and employing them for the creation of our world. His blood goes to form oceans and rivers; his bones, the mountains; his teeth, the rocks and {151} cliffs; his hair, the trees, etc.; while his skull forms the heavenly vault, supported by four pillars representing the four cardinal points. From the eyebrows of Ymir was created the future abode of man—Midgard. This abode (the earth), says the _Edda_, in order to be correctly described in all its minute particulars, must be conceived as _round as a ring_, or as a disk, floating in the midst of the Celestial Ocean (Ether). It is encircled by Yörmungand, the gigantic Midgard or Earth Serpent, holding its tail in its mouth. This is the mundane snake, matter and spirit, combined product and emanation of Ymir, the gross rudimental matter, and of the spirit of the “sons of God,” who fashioned and created all forms. This emanation is the astral light of the Kabalists, and the as yet problematical, and hardly known, æther, or the “hypothetical agent of great elasticity” of our physicists. How sure the ancients were of this doctrine of man’s trinitarian nature may be inferred from the same Scandinavian legend of the creation of mankind. According to the _Völuspa_, Odin, Hönir, and Lodur, who are the progenitors of our race, found in one of their walks on the ocean-beach, two sticks floating on the waves, “powerless and without destiny.” Odin breathed in them the breath of life; Hönir endowed them with soul and motion; and Lodur with beauty, speech, sight, and hearing. The man they called _Askr_—the ash,[271] and the woman _Embla_—the alder. These first men are placed in Midgard (mid-garden, or Eden) and thus inherit, from their creators, matter or inorganic life; mind, or soul; and pure spirit; the first corresponding to that part of their organism which sprung from the remains of Ymir, the giant-matter, the second from the _Æsir_, or gods, the descendants of Bur, and the third from the _Vanr_, or the representative of pure spirit.