In the Days of Giants

THE oldest stories of every race of people tell about the Beginning of Things. But thevarious folk who first told them were so very different, the tales are so very old, and have changedso greatly in the telling from one generation to another, that there are almost as many accounts ofthe way in which the world began as there are nations upon the earth. So it is not strange that thepeople of the North have a legend of the Beginning quite different from that of the Southern, Eastern, and Western folk. This book is made of the stories told by the Northern folk, -the people who live in the land ofthe midnight sun, where summer is green and pleasant, but winter is a terrible time of cold andgloom; where rocky mountains tower like huge giants, over whose heads the thunder rolls andcrashes, and under whose feet are mines of precious metals. Therefore you will find the tales full ofgiants and dwarfs, -spirits of the cold mountains and dark caverns. You will find the hero to be Thor, with his thunderbolt hammer, who dwells in the happyheaven of Asgard, where All-Father Odin is king, and where Balder the beautiful makes springtimewith his smile. In the north countries, winter, cold, and frost are very real and terrible enemies; whilespring, sunshine, and warmth are near and dear friends. So the story of the Beginning of Things is astory of cold and heat, of the wicked giants who loved the cold, and of the good Æsir, who baskedin pleasant warmth. In the very beginning of things, the stories say, there were two worlds, one of burning heat andone of icy cold. The cold world was in the north, and from it flowed Elivâgar, a river of poisonouswater which hardened into ice and piled up into great mountains, filling the space which had nobottom. The other world in the south was on fire with bright flame, a place of heat most terrible. And in those days through all space there was nothing beside these two worlds of heat and cold. But then began a fierce combat. Heat and cold met and strove to destroy each other, as theyhave tried to do ever since. Flaming sparks from the hot world fell upon the ice river which flowedfrom the place of cold. And though the bright sparks were quenched, in dying they wroughtmischief, as they do to-day; for they melted the ice, which dripped and dripped, like tears from thesuffering world of cold. And then, wonderful to say, these chilly drops became alive; became a huge, breathing mass, a Frost-Giant with a wicked heart of ice. And he was the ancestor of all the giantswho came afterwards, a bad and cruel race. At that time there was no earth nor sea nor heaven, nothing but the icy abyss without bottom, whence Ymir the giant had sprung. And there he lived, nourished by the milk of a cow which theheat had formed. Now the cow had nothing for her food but the snow and ice of Elivâgar, and thatwas cold victuals indeed! One day she was licking the icy rocks, which tasted salty to her, when Ymirnoticed that the mass was taking a strange shape. The more the cow licked it, the plainer became theoutline of the shape.