This peculiarity we shall find running through the literature, the character, and the mind of the two nations. The North is misty, undefined, illimited; the Greek is clear as crystal, sharp and angular, on every side. Its conceptions are never vague, but are tangible, real, and human. Thus with the Greek, a vast ocean, like that they know, encircles the whole earth, and fixes its bounds and the limits which man shall not pass; the Northerns compassed it about with a vast serpent of immense size, which bounded infinity and space, time and eternity, thereby mirroring, in some degree, as it were, the ancient symbol for time and space without end, the snake biting his own tail, the circle with no one beginning nor end. The heaven of the Greeks is the summit of one of their own mountains, known to every peasant and inhabitant. Accessible only to the gods, there they live, as unconcernedly as though the earth were not. Thor, and Odin, and Freia live in the 'Shining Walhalla,' whither go the souls of brave and good warriors. Their way thither is over the heavenly bridge, the many-colored rainbow, thrown over between heaven and earth for the passage of the happy souls. And there in this dim, ghostly Walhalla they sit like the Grecian gods, and drink mead instead of ambrosia and nectar. They do not share in the earthly vices of the Southern gods. Thor never begat such a progeny as Jupiter. Repose is also, as hinted at, a characteristic of Southern mythology, while action, assisted by supernatural agencies, is the feature of the Northern deities. Thus Jupiter sits majestic and silent upon Olympus and nods his head, and the whole earth shakes. He is human in his character, but of an ideal and superior human nature--man immensely magnified. The gods of Norway are also human, but they are, in themselves, _mere_ men. What makes them gods is the magic power which is joined with them, a mere adjunct not forming a part of them. They toil and act like men--they are never still. Thor bears the hammer, the emblem of physical strength, energy, and activity. He can at a draught half drain the sea, and cause the tides to rise and ebb; he can lift the serpent that surrounds the world; he can wrestle with Death himself, and almost come off victorious. The giants are his mortal enemies, and against them he wages war and bears deadly hatred, as Jupiter against the Titans. None but the warrior, who has fought long and well, enjoys the long dreamt-of mead of Walhalla. A death on one's own bed is almost as ignominious as that of the coward. The straw-death (_stroedod_) they will endeavor to avoid by opening their own veins and bleeding to death, and as the warm life-blood pours forth, they sing triumphant death-songs, and see the portals gradually open to receive them, and Braga the Scald, seated at the gate with his magic-sounding harp, his fingers running through the golden strings, and in such ecstasies they give up the ghost. The Greek