Norse mythology; or, The religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpretedAnderson, Rasmus Björn
Religion
Norse mythology; or, The religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted
Anderson, Rasmus Björn
Mythology, Norse; Northmen -- Religion; Old Norse literature; Tales, Medieval
Then comes another
Yet more mighty;
_But him dare I not
Venture to name._
Few further may look
Than to where Odin
To meet the wolf goes.
Odin goes to meet the Fenriswolf in Ragnarok (the twilight of the gods;
that is, the final conflict between all good and evil powers); but now
let the reader compare the above passage from the Elder Edda with the
following passage from the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the
Apostles:
Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ Hill and said: Ye men of
Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious; for
as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this
inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly
worship, him declare I unto you.
It was of this same _unknown God_ that one of the ancient Greek poets
had said, that in him we live and move and have our being. Thus did the
Greeks find Jehovah in the labyrinth of their heathen deities; and when
we claim that the Norse mythology is more _divine_ than any other system
of mythology known, we mean by this assertion, that the supreme God is
mentioned and referred to oftener, and stands out in bolder relief in
the Norseman’s heathen belief, than in any other.
It is a noticeable fact that long before Christianity was introduced or
had even been heard of in Iceland, it is recorded that Ingemund the Old,
a heathen Norseman, bleeding and dying, prayed God to forgive Rolleif,
his murderer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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