Like its type, Yggdrasil, the Teutonic race seems to be
threading the earth with the roots of universal dominion, and, true to
hereditary instincts, it is belting the globe with its colonies,
planting it, as it were, with slips from the great Mundane Ash, and
throwing Bifroest bridges across oceans, in the shape of
telegraph-cables and steamships.
Asgard is a more homelike place than Olympus. Home and fireside, in
their true sense, are Teutonic institutions. Valhalla, the hall of
elect heroes, was appropriately shingled with golden shields. Guzzlers
of ale and drinkers of _lagerbier_ will be pleased to learn that this
Northern Valhalla was a sort of celestial beer-saloon, thus showing
that it was a genuine Teutonic paradise; for ale would surely be found
in such a region. In the "Prose Edda," Hor replies to Gangler--who is
asking him about the board and lodgings of the heroes who had gone to
Odin in Valhalla, and whether they had anything but water to drink--in
huge disdain, inquiring of Gangler whether he supposed that the
Allfather would invite kings and jarls and other great men, and give
them nothing to drink but water. How do things divine and supernatural,
when conceived of by man and cast in an earthly, finite mould,
necessarily assume human attributes and characteristics! Strong drinks,
the passion of the Northern races in all ages, are of course found in
their old mythic heaven, in their fabled Hereafter,--and even boar's
flesh also.
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