CREATION AND DESTRUCTION.—The cosmogony of the Pentateuch was necessarily adopted by the Saxon converts; yet not so entirely as to exclude all the traditions of heathendom. In the mythology of the Northern nations, the creation of the world occupied an important place: its details are recorded in some of the most striking lays of the earlier Edda; and several of them appear unconsciously to have acted upon the minds of our Christian poets. The genius of the Anglosaxons does not indeed seem to have led them to the adoption of those energetic and truly imaginative forms of thought which the Scandinavians probably derived from the sterner natural features that surrounded them: the rude rocks and lakes of Norway and Sweden, the volcanoes, hot springs, ice plains and snow-covered mountains of Iceland, readily moulded the Northmen to a different train of thought from that which satisfied the dwellers in the marshlands of the Elbe and the fat plains of Britain. But as in the main it cannot be doubted that the heathendom of both races was the same, so even in many modes of expression we meet with a resemblance which can hardly be accidental. Like almost every other people, the Northmen considered a gigantic chaos to have preceded the world of order. While the giant Ymer lived, the earth was “without form and void.” Listen to the words of the Vaulu Spá, or Prophetess’s Song: Ár var alda When Ymer dwelt here, þar er Ýmir bygði: 'twas the dawn of time: vara sandr né sær cool streams were not, né svalar unnir: neither sands, nor seas: jörð fannsk æva earth was not né uppkiminn, nor o’er it heaven, gap var ginnunga, yawned the gap, en gras hvergi[763]. and grass was nowhere. The sons of Bur however, Oþinn, Vile and Ve, created the vast Midgard, or realm of earth: Sól skein sunnan The sun shone southward á salar steina on the stone halls, þá var grand gróin then was earth grown grœnum lauki[764]. with green produce. The constellations however as yet had no appointed course: Sól þat ne vissi But the sun knew not hvar hon sali átti, where her seat should be, máni þat ne vissi and the moon knew not hvat hann megins átti, what his might should be, stjörnur þat ne vissu planets knew not hvar þær staði áttu[765]. where their place should be. So the holy Gods went to council, and divided the seasons, giving names to night and noon and morning, to _undern_ and evening, that the years might be reckoned[766]. ----- Footnote 763: Vaulu Spá, st. 3. Footnote 764: Ibid. st. 4. Footnote 765: Ibid. st. 5. Footnote 766: Ibid. st. 6. -----