Once more caresses had their hoped-for effect...................109 He did his best to help everybody across........................110 Fnvolous and ill-mannered deities...............................110 The dauntless pirates will end by wearing white night-caps......113 The great Northern Tempest .....................................115 The German Druids gave way......................................118 Iormungondur, the great sea serpent.............................121 The giant Ymer has been born....................................123 The first men had been born with a telescope in their pocket?...127 Ymer was the first to succumb...................................128 After the giants came the turn of land and sea monsters.........129 The new creation was assuming a more pleasing appearance........132 Deer, eland, and aurochs were bounding in herds.................133 Incessantly a tiny squirrel comes and goes......................136 A vulture perching upon the loftiest top of the sacred tree.....137 Thor’s weighty hammer Mjoïner...................................139 The good Freyr seated at Odin’s table...........................141 Portrait of Freyr...............................................142 Bragi and the beautiful Freya ..................................147 Return of the eagle with the three precious vessels.............150 Balder, the bright god..........................................153 The wolf Fenris.................................................156 Converse with each other by significative glances...............159 They were the Norns.............................................160 He took counsel with the Norns..................................162 “To Egir, the seas and navigation”..............................164 Gefione took her four sons and changed them into oxen...........165 Jarl, the noble.................................................171 The Valkyrias ..................................................175 Beautiful nymphs of carnage.....................................176 A very mammoth of a boar........................................180 Feast in Scandinavian Paradise..................................181 Hela, the pale goddess..........................................185 “Balder, fair Balder, is going to die”..........................189 Loki succeeds in exhilarating even Odin himself.................191 Balder is amused by the game....................................192 When the mother told her pitiful tale the iron trees wept.......197 The three sacred cocks announcing the Twilight of Greatness.....202 The death of the gods...........................................208 My VIIIth chapter is thus changed into a cenotaph...............211 I like to glean a little where scholars have reaped.............214