I. on his stormy passage from Denmark.

This type of demon haunted people's minds in Scandinavia, where,
though traditions of a flame demon (Loki) and the end of the world
by fire were imported, the popular belief seems to have been mainly
occupied with Frost giants, and the formidable Oegir, god of the
bleak sea east winds, preserved in our word awe (Anglo-Saxon ege),
and more directly in the name of our familiar demon, the Ogre,
so often slain in the child's Gladsheim. Loki (fire) was, indeed,
speedily relegated by the Æsir (gods) to a hidden subterraneous
realm, where his existence could only be known by the earthquakes,
geysers, and Hecla eruptions which he occasioned. Yet he was to come
forth at Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods. We can see a singular
blending of tropical and frigid zones--the one traditional, the other
native--in the Prose Edda. Thus:--'What will remain,' said Gangler,
'after heaven and earth and the whole universe shall be consumed,
and after all the gods and the homes of Valhalla and all mankind
shall have perished?' 'There will be many abodes,' replied Thridi,
'some good, some bad. The best place of all to be in will be Gimil,
in heaven; and all who delight in quaffing good drink will find a
great store in the hall called Brimir, which is also in heaven in the
region Okolni. There is also a fair hall of ruddy gold, (for) Sindri,
which stands on the mountains of Nida. In those halls righteous and
well-minded men shall abide. In Ná-strönd there is a vast and direful
structure with doors that face the north. It is formed entirely of the
backs of serpents, wattled together like wicker-work. But the serpents'
heads are turned towards the inside of the hall, and continually vomit
forth floods of venom, in which wade all those who commit murder or
who forswear themselves. As it is said in the Völuspá:--



She saw a hall
Far from the sun
In Náströnd standing,
Northward the doors look,
And venom-drops
Fall in through loopholes.
Formed is that hall
Of wreathed serpents.
There saw she wade
Through heavy streams
Men forsworn
And murderers.



These names for the heavenly regions and their occupants indicate
sunshine and fire. Gimil means fire (gímr): Brimir (brími, flame),
the giant, and Sindri (cinder), the dwarf, jeweller of the gods,
are raised to halls of gold. Nothing is said of a garden, or walking
therein 'in the cool of the day.' On the other hand, Ná-strönd means
Strand of the Dead, in that region whose 'doors face the north, far
from the sun,' we behold an inferno of extreme cold. Christianity
has not availed to give the Icelanders any demonic name suggestive of
fire. They speak of 'Skratti' (the roarer, perhaps our Old Scratch),
and 'Kolski' (the coal black one), but promise nothing so luminous
and comfortable as fire or fire-fiend to the evil-doer.

In the great Epic of the Nibelungen Lied we have probably the shape
in which the Northman's dream of Paradise finally cohered,--a
Rose-garden in the South, guarded by a huge Worm (water-snake,
or glittering glacial sea intervening), whose glowing charms, with
Beauty (Chriemhild) for their queen, could be won only by a brave
dragon-slaying Siegfried. In passing by the pretty lakeside home of
Richard Wagner, on my way to witness the Ammergau version of another
dragon-binding and paradise-regaining legend, I noted that the
old name of the (Starnberg) lake was Wurmsee, from the dragon that
once haunted it, while from the composer's window might be seen its
'Isle of Roses,' which the dragon guarded. Since then the myth of
many forms has had its musical apotheosis at Bayreuth under his wand.

England, partly perhaps on account of its harsh climate, once had the
reputation of being the chief abode of demons. A demoness leaving her
lover on the Continent says, 'My mother is calling me in England.' [48]
But England assigned them still higher latitudes; in christianising
Ireland, Iona, and other islands far north, it was preliminary to
expel the demons. 'The Clavie,' the 'Deis-iuil' of Lewis and other
Hebrides islands--fire carried round cattle to defend them from demons,
and around mothers not yet churched, to keep the babes from being
'changed'--show that the expulsion still goes on, though in such
regions Norse and christian notions have become so jumbled that it is
'fighting the devil with fire.' So in the Havamal men are warned to
invoke 'fire for distempers;' and Gudrun sings--



Raise, ye Jarls, an oaken pile;
Let it under heaven the lightest be.
May it burn a breast full of woes!
The fire round my heart its sorrows melt.



The last line is in contrast with the Hindu saying, 'the flame of
her husband's pyre cools the widow's breast.'

The characters of the Northern Heaven and Hell survive in the English
custom of burying the dead on the southern side of a church. How widely
this usage prevailed in Brand's time may be seen by reference to his
chapter on churchyards. The north side of the graveyard was set apart
for unbaptized infants and executed criminals, and it was permitted
the people to dance or play tennis in that part. Dr. Lee says that in
the churchyard at Morwenstow the southern portion only contains graves,
the north part being untenanted; as the Cornish believe (following old
traditions) that the north is the region of demons. In some parishes
of Cornwall when a baptism occurs the north door of the nave opposite
the font is thrown open, so that the devil cast out may retire to his
own region, the north. [49] This accords with the saying in Martin's
'Month's Mind'--ab aquilone omne malum.

Indeed, it is not improbable that the fact noted by White, in his
'History of Selborne,' that 'the usual approach to most country
churches is by the south,' indicated a belief that the sacred edifice
should turn its back on the region of demons. It is a singular instance
of survival which has brought about the fact that people who listen
devoutly to sermons describing the fiery character of Satan and his
abode should surround the very churches in which those sermons are
heard with evidences of their lingering faith that the devil belongs to
the region of ice, and that their dead must be buried in the direction
of the happy abodes of Brimir and Sindri,--Fire and Cinders!