In comparing the Greek mythology with the Norse, it was stated, that the Norse has a theoktonic myth, while the Greek lacks the final act of the grand drama. The Greeks knew of no death of the gods; their gods were immortal. And yet, what were they but an ideal conception of the forms of life? And this life with all its vanity, pomp and glory, the Greek loved so dearly, that he thought it must last forever. He imagined an everlasting series of changes. But what will then the final result be? Shall the thundering Zeus forever continue to thunder? Shall the faithless Aphrodite forever be unfaithful? Shall Typhon forever go on with his desolations? Shall the sinner continue to sin forever, and shall the world continue without end to foster and nourish evil? These are questions that find no satisfactory answer in the Greek mythology. Among the Norsemen, on the other hand, we find in their most ancient records a clearly expressed faith in the perishableness of all things; and we find this faith at every step that the Norsemen has taken. The origin of this faith we seek in vain; it conceals itself beneath the waters of the primeval fountains of their thoughts and aspirations. They regarded death as but the middle of a long life. They considered it cowardice to spare a life that is to return; they thought it folly to care for a world that must necessarily perish; while they knew that their spirits would be clothed with increased vigor in the other world. Happy were they who lived beneath the polar star, for the greatest fear that man knows, the fear of death, disturbed them not. They rushed cheerfully upon the sword; they entered the battle boldly, for, like their gods, who every moment looked forward to the inevitable Ragnarok, they knew that life could be purchased by a heroic death. The very fact that the gods in the creation proceeded from the _giant_ Ymer foreshadowed their destruction. The germ of death was in their nature from the beginning, and this germ would gradually develop as their strength gradually became wasted and consumed. That which is born must die, but that which is not born cannot grow old.