The three giant maidens are the three Fates--the sisters,--Past, Present and Future. They came from giant land, which in this place typifies the first mixed cause of all things; they came at the moment when the golden age was disappearing; they stand upon the very edge of its existence, at once the bringers and the avengers of evil. "The golden age ceased when gold was invented," is an old saying. "After the golden age, time begins," is another, or, in the words of a German proverb, "To the happy no hour strikes." And now let us see what sort of looking world these giants, gods, men, dwarfs and fateful maids whom Har has been talking about were living in. "Round without," Har says so; but a _flat_ round. The outmost circle a frozen region full of frost giants; inside that circle, the sea; in the middle of the sea, the earth in which men live, called Midgard, and made out of Ymir's eyebrows; in the midst of the earth Asgard, the city of the gods. It seems to be rather a disputed point whether or not Asgard was on the top of a hill. Heavenly mountains are mentioned in the _Edda_, but they are placed at the edge of heaven under one end of the rainbow, not at all near Asgard, if Asgard was in the middle of the earth. However, to make the city more conspicuous we have placed it on the summit of a hill in the picture of the Scandinavian World which stands at the beginning of this chapter, and here remark that this picture must not be looked at exactly in a geographical light even from a Scandinavian point of view. It is rather an expression of ideas than of places, for we have tried to figure by it what is said about the great World Tree Yggdrassil and its three roots. "That ash," says Har, which was indeed the earth-bearer, "is the greatest and best of all trees." Its branches spread over the whole world and even reach above heaven. It has three roots, very wide asunder. One of them goes down to Ginnungagap. The frost giants live over it, and over this root is a deep well which we shall hear more of by-and-bye. In the picture this root could not be shown, but the branches which encircle the ice region are supposed to spring from it. Another root extends to Niflheim, the old roaring cauldron lies under it, a great snake called Nidhögg gnaws it night and day as the old lay says. "Yggdrasil's ash suffers greater hardship than men know of. Nidhögg tears it." Under this root also lies Helheim, a home of the dead. The third root is in heaven: gods and men live under it, in Asgard and Midgard; the giant fate-sisters also live under it, at the top of the Rainbow's arch in their palace very beauteous, which stands by the Holy Urda Fount. They water the tree every day with the holy water, so that ever "it stands green over Urda's Fount." These maidens are called Norns;--they fix the destinies of men, Har says; "but besides them," he adds, "there are a great many other norns--indeed, for each man that is born there is a norn to decide his fate."