This apparently lofty answer filled the young {207}conqueror with admiration, and it is still admired by modern students of history. It was, however, in reality nothing more than a simple, naïve rendering of one of their articles of faith; for all their prophetic books threatened them with the destruction of the heavens. Another detail, the complete destruction of this globe of ours, after a series of fearful catastrophes, recalls to me, not exactly a great historical fact, but a simple game of my childhood, which may have been symbolic, nay, which may have come down to us from the Edda. This, however, I state with great hesitation. Did you ever know one of the merriest games, which was once very much the fashion in city and country alike, when a firebrand, a burning stick, or a bunch of straw set on fire, was quickly passed from hand to hand? To prevent its going out, while you held it, you were bound to pass it as quickly as possible to your neighbor, repeating at the same time the expressive words: “_The little fellow is still alive_.” Your neighbor passed it to his neighbor and thus it travelled all around, always accompanied by the same, constant burden: “The little fellow is still alive!” This game was transformed during the Middle Ages, in the North, and especially in Bretagne, into the Torch Dance, as I have mentioned before. {208}Now I imagine that this game, in some way or other, prefigured the universal conflagration that was to come, and _the little fellow_ was the world. [Illustration: 228] But we must make haste to reach our great scientific discussion. [Illustration: 231] VIII. {211}_How the Gods of India live only for a Kalpa, that is, for the Time between one World and another.--How the God Vishnu was One-eyed.--How Celts and Scandinavians believed in Metempsychosis, like the Indians.--How Odin, with his Emanations, came forth from the God Buddha.--About Mahabarata and Ramayana.--Chronology.--The World’s Age.--Comparative Tables.--Quotations.--Supporting Evidence.--A Cenotaph._ My reader has had a lucky escape. Determined as I was to fathom in this chapter the true origin of the Scandinavian religion, and inspired by the zeal of a recent convert, I had collected and compared every document that could aid me in proving the Oriental descent of the priests of Odin as well as of the other Druids. I {212}thought it was a beautiful doctrine, and especially an entirely new one. When I finished my chapter, which I thought was exceedingly well done, I read it to Doctor Rosahl, expecting, I must confess, to be warmly congratulated.