In Nastrond there were no demons and no Eumenides; to be sure, there was a Bigvor and a Sisvor, furies if you will have it so, watching at the gates of hell, with the help of Gaun, the formidable dog, but all three are forbidden to enter within. {187}The place of missing monsters is occupied by some of those whom Odin spared on the occasion of his first campaign against the giant sons of Ymer, and by the wolf Fenris, whom the Ases had treacherously captured. There are also two other wolves, convicted of having made an attempt upon the life of the Sun, and all of these monsters are firmly chained and appear rather as sufferers than as tormentors. One of these days, their iron chains will be loosened; one of these days heaven will turn cold and hell will melt, and--then, woe to the gods! Listen! The moment is drawing near when all these mysteries are to be solved. The hour is coming when _you shall hear, when you shall understand!_ But before uttering these last words, final and at the same time fatal words, we must mention an event which at that moment occurred in the open assembly of the gods, filling heaven and earth with amazement, with pity and horror. It must be acknowledged that so far the heavenly personages have appeared to be rather kindhearted and mild. Odin, in spite of his Druids and their demands for bloody sacrifices, seems to have been full of good intentions. The god Thor, with all his somewhat brutal ways, rendered great services to mankind; and the same hammer, which protected them against the giants, afterwards served, {188}without the aid of geometry, to mark the boundary lines of their respective properties. The golden-teethed god, Heimdall, gave most undoubted evidence of his devotion to the human race and of his self-denial in his visits to the Grandmother and the Great-grandmother, and so did the other gods. But we had good reasons for not going through the whole list of the Ases. For there is one whom we keep in reserve so that he may appear at the right hour, and that is Loki, the god of evil and the genius of destruction. Surpassing Odin himself in his magic skill, fair of form and features, a smile on his lips--thin lips, however, the Edda adds--and apparently possessed of the most jovial temper so as to make him a most agreeable person, Loki is in reality a compound of the most hideous vices. He is the representative of hatred and cruelty, of envy, hypocrisy, and perversity. In fact, he is our Satan, before the fall. If he had been king of hell, Miflheim and Nastrond would both have been filled with more tortures and more horrors than all the other hells which are known to men. And yet he was the god upon whom the dwellers in Walhalla counted for their entertainment, and whom they had surnamed the Clown!