The vast
ash Yggdrasil begins to shiver through all its height. The beatified
heroes of Valhalla, who have ever been on the watch for this dread era,
issue forth full of the old dauntless spirit of the North to meet the
dread agents of darkness and doom. Garm, the Moonhound, breaks loose,
and bays. "High bloweth Heimdall his horn aloft. Odin counselleth
Mimir's head." The battle joins. In short, the fiery baptism prophesied
in the dark scrolls of Stoic sage and Hebrew and Scandinavian scald
alike wraps the universe. The dwarfs wail in their mountain-clefts. All
is uproar and hissing conflagration.
"Dimmed's now the sun;
In ocean earth sinks;
From the skies are cast
The sparkling stars;
Fire-reek rageth
Around Time's nurse,
And flickering flames
With heaven itself shall play."
By "Time's nurse," in the foregoing lines from the "Voluspa," is meant
the Mundane Tree Yggdrasil, which shall survive unscathed, and wave
mournfully over the universal wreck. But in the "Edda" Hor tells
Gangler that "another earth shall appear, most lovely and verdant, with
pleasant fields, where the grain shall grow unsown. Vidar and Vali
shall survive. They shall dwell on the Plain of Ida, where Asgard
formerly stood.
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