"But when at length he had quelled it, after having smitten it with blows, the monster _fell down_, lamed, and _huge Earth groaned_. But the _flame_ from the lightning-blasted monster _flashed forth in the mountain hollows_, hidden and rugged, when he was stricken, and _much was the vast earth burnt and melted by the boundless vapor_, like as pewter, heated by the art of youths, and by the well-bored melting-pit, or iron, which is the hardest of metals, subdued in the dells of the mountain by blazing fire, melts in the sacred earth, beneath the hands of Vulcan. So, I wot, _was earth melted in the glare of burning fire_. Then, troubled in spirit, he hurled him into wide Tartarus."[1] Here we have a very faithful and accurate narrative of the coming of the comet: [1. "Theogony."] {p. 140} Born of Night a monster appears, a serpent, huge, terrible, speckled, flesh-devouring. With her is another comet, Typhaon; they beget the Chimæra, that breathes resistless fire, fierce, huge, swift. And Typhaon, associated with both these, is the most dreadful monster of all, born of Hell and sensual sin, a serpent, a fierce dragon, many-headed, with dusky tongues and fire gleaming; sending forth dreadful and appalling noises, while mountains and fields rock with earthquakes; chaos has come; the earth, the sea boils; there is unceasing tumult and contention, and in the midst the monster, wounded and broken up, _falls upon the earth_; the earth groans under his weight, and there he blazes and burns for a time in the mountain fastnesses and desert places, melting the earth with boundless vapor and glaring fire. We will find legend after legend about this Typhon he runs through the mythologies of different nations. And as to his size and his terrible power, they all agree. He was no earth-creature. He moved in the air; he reached the skies: "According to Pindar the head of Typhon reached to the stars, his eyes darted fire, his hands extended from the East to the West, terrible serpents were twined about the middle of his body, and one hundred snakes took the place of fingers on his hands. Between him and the gods there was a dreadful war. Jupiter finally killed him with a flash of lightning, and buried him under Mount Etna." And there, smoking and burning, his great throes and writhings, we are told, still shake the earth, and threaten mankind: And with pale lips men say, 'To-morrow, perchance to-day, Encelidas may arise! "' {p. 141} CHAPTER IV. RAGNAROK THERE is in the legends of the Scandinavians a marvelous record of the coming of the Comet. It has been repeated generation after generation, translated into all languages, commented on, criticised, but never understood. It has been regarded as a wild, unmeaning rhapsody of words, or as a premonition of some future earth catastrophe. But look at it!