When the installation of the heavenly bodies had thus been agreed upon, Odin followed the example of all the Hercules of Egypt and of Greece, and began his benevolent career by freeing the earth of all the monsters by which it was infested. Ymer was the first to succumb to his blows, and after him, the other giants of the frost, “a race of evildoers,” adds the Edda. Evildoers? Whom did they aggrieve, I wonder? The complainants must have been the kraken, the griffins, and the serpents. The world had hardly come into existence and already the right of the stronger had established the doctrine: _Væ victis!_ Of all the giants of the frost a single one escaped. He must have been a married man, for his descendants became after a while so numerous as to trouble the Ases, that is to say, Odin and his companions, the other gods. After the giants, came the turn of land and sea monsters, who were almost as formidable as they themselves. In the general destruction two monsters {132}only survived: the wolf Fenris, with his fearful jaws, which enabled him to crush mountains and even to injure the sun, and the serpent Iormungandur, the great sea serpent of world-wide renown. Both these monsters were one day to aid the giants of the frost in avenging themselves on their conqueror. [Illustration: 152] Odin thought he had now nothing more to fear, and returned to the realms of light, there to enjoy his glory in peace and to revel in the delights of Walhalla. {133}One morning he came down to see how the world was coming on since he had reorganized it, and he found to his great joy, that the new creation was assuming a more pleasing appearance. Grass was growing in the plains, on the slopes of hills, and even at the bottom of the rivers and the sea; here and there trees of varied forms and shapes arose and gave variety to the monotonous horizon; some, crowding together in groups on the mountain side, seemed to whisper confidentially to each other, as the breeze was lightly agitating their foliage, while others stood together in countless hosts, stretching away over hill and dale as far as eye could reach, but silent and immovable, like an army which remains motionless, while the chiefs are deliberating. [Illustration: 153] Behind the green curtain of forests, deer, eland, and aurochs were bounding in herds, now and then showing their beautiful horns or their dark bushy brows at the opening of some clearing; goats were {134}climbing about on the rocks and venturing close to the brink of precipices; birds were singing in the groves, now swinging playfully on the supple branches of willows, and now darting suddenly on swift wings through the air; fish were gliding silently under the surface of the waters, which reflected their silvery sheen or broke in soft ripples, while butterflies and insects were sporting and buzzing around beautiful flowers. Odin smiled; the artist was pleased with his work.