Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and GravelDonnelly, Ignatius
Science
Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and Gravel
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Comets; Drift
"The brothers quarreled, and finally came to blows, the former using
the horns of a stag, the latter the wild rose. He of the weaker
weapon was very naturally discomfited and sorely wounded. Fleeing for
life, the blood gushed from him at every step, and as it fell _turned
into flint-stones_. The victor returned to his grandmother in the
_far east_, and established his lodge on _the borders of the great
ocean_, whence the sun comes. In time he became _the father of
mankind_, and special guardian of the Iroquois. The earth was at
first arid and sterile, but he destroyed the gigantic frog which had
swallowed all the waters, and guided the torrents into smooth streams
and lakes. The woods he stocked with game; and, having learned from
the great tortoise who supports the world how to make fire, taught
his children, the Indians, this indispensable art. . . . Sometimes
they spoke of him as the sun, but this is only figuratively."[1]
Here we have the light and darkness, the sun and the night, battling
with each other; the sun fights with a younger brother, another
luminary, the comet; the comet is broken up; it flies for life, the
red blood (the red clay) streaming from it, and _flint-stones_
appearing on the earth wherever the blood (the clay) falls. The
victorious sun re-establishes himself in the east. And then the myth
of the sun merges into the legends concerning a great people, who
were the fathers of mankind who dwelt "in the east," on the borders
of the great eastern ocean, the Atlantic. "The earth was at first
arid and sterile," covered with _débris_ and stones; but the
returning sun, the White One, destroys the gigantic frog, emblem of
cold and water, the great snows and ice-deposits; this
[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 184.]
{p. 175}
frog had "swallowed all the waters," that is to say, the falling
rains had been congealed in these great snow-banks and glaciers; the
sun melts them, and kills the frog; the waters pour forth in deluging
floods; Manibozho "guides the torrents into smooth streams and
lakes"; the woods return, and become once more full of animal life.
Then the myth again mixes up the sun and the sun-land in the east.
From this sun-land, represented as "a tortoise," always the emblem of
an island, the Iroquois derive the knowledge of "how to make fire."
This coming of the monster, his attack upon and conquest of the sun,
his apparent swallowing of that orb, are all found represented on
both sides of the Atlantic, on the walls of temples and in great
earth-mounds, in the image of a gigantic serpent holding a globe in
its mouth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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