Gylfe, who was, we are told, A king of Sweden in the ancient days, visited Asgard. He assumed the name of Ganglere, (the walker or wanderer). I quote from the "_Younger Edda, The Creation_": "Then asked Ganglere, 'What is the path from earth to heaven?'" The earth here means, I take it, the European colonies which surround the ocean, which in turn surrounds Asgard; heaven is the land of the godlike race, Asgard. Ganglere therefore asks what is, or was, in the mythological past, the pathway from Europe to the Atlantic island. {p. 379} "Har answered, laughing, 'Foolishly do you now ask. Have you not been told that the gods made a bridge from earth to heaven, which is called Bifrost? You must have seen it. It may be that you call it the rainbow. It has three colors, is very strong, and is made with more craft and skill than other structures. Still, however strong it is, it will break when the sons of Muspel come to ride over it, and then they will have to swim their horses over great rivers in order to get on.'" Muspel is the blazing South, the land of fire, of the convulsions that accompanied the comet. But how can Bifrost mean the rainbow? What rivers intersect a rainbow? "Then said Ganglere, 'The gods did not, it seems to me, build that bridge honestly, if it shall be able to break to pieces, since they could have done so if they had desired.' Then made answer Har: 'The gods are worthy of no blame for this structure. Bifrost is indeed a good bridge, but there is nothing in the world that is able to stand when the sons of Muspel come to the fight.'" Muspel here means, I repeat, the heat of the South. Mere heat has no effect on rainbows. They are the product of sunlight and falling water, and are often most distinct in the warmest weather. But we see, a little further on, that this bridge Bifrost was a real structure. We read of the roots of the ash-tree Ygdrasil, and one of its roots reaches to the fountain of Urd: Here the gods have their doomstead. The _Asas ride hither every day over Bifrost_, which is also called Asa-bridge." And these three mountain-chains going out to the different continents were the three roots of the tree Ygdrasil, the sacred tree of the mountain-top; and it is to this "three-pronged root of the world-mountain" that the {p. 380} Hindoo legends refer, (see page 238, _ante_): on its top was heaven, Olympus; below it was hell, where the Asuras, the comets, dwelt; and between was Meru, (Mero Merou,) the land of the Meropes, Atlantis. The _Asas_ were clearly a human race of noble and godlike qualities. The proof of this is that they perished in Ragnarok; they were mortal. They rode over the bridge every day going from heaven, the heavenly land, to the earth, Europe. We read on: "Kormt and Ormt, And the two Kerlaugs These shall Thor wade Every day, When he goes to judge Near the Ygdrasil ash; _For the Asa-bridge Burns all ablaze--_ The holy waters roar."