CHAP. II.
altars. In this Promethean legend alone we seem to have a glimpse of that future twilight of the gods which is so prominent a characteristic of Northern mythology. But the fact that Odin and Zeus are alike described as sentenced to the same doom, sufficiently proves the common origin of Greek and Teutonic mythology. The greater prominence of this catastrophe in the northern traditions may be due to the deeper gloom of the northern climate; but the result was rendered inevitable by the human character imparted to the gods. No one has surveyed the whole field of popular tradition with the accuracy of Grimm : and Grimm lays it down that all nations have clothed their gods in human shape, and only by way of exception in those of animals. On this fact, he asserts, are founded their incarnations, or appearances to men, their twofold sex, their intermarrying with mankind, and also the deification of certain men. The gods of the whole Aryan world eat, drink, and sleep; but beings who eat, drink, and sleep must die. The northern mythology kept this notion before the people with startling clearness; the southern disguised it and practically put it out of sight, but it was there nevertheless. The Olympian gods feast on ambrosia and are refreshed by nectar, as Indra and Agni are invigorated by the Soma juice; but they can be wounded and suffer pain, they may hunger and thirst; and to the Norse mind the inference was oppressively plain. The beautiful Baldur has his yearly death and resurrection ; but the time will come when the great enemy of the gods will be let loose and Asgard shall be desolate. This enemy is Loki, the fire-god, whose release just before the coming on of the twilight of the gods is in close agreement with the release of the chained Prometheus, by whom the sway of Zeus is to be brought to an end. The writhings of the fettered Loki make the earth quake just as it is shaken in the case of Prometheus; but while the Greek Titan excites our deepest sympathy, the Edda presents Loki as a hateful monster. For the reason of this we need go no further than the use to which fire is put in the Greek myth. The northern Odin is the all-father, from whom men may expect substantial justice; in the Promethean tradition Zeus is an arbitrary tyrant, with a special hatred for mankind. The latter are in a state of abject misery until they receive the boon of fire. The giver of it thus becomes their friend; and his deliverance is associated with the triumph of righteousness over wrong. But it would perhaps be difficult to determine how far the purely spiritual colouring thrown over the myth is not due to the mighty genius of Æschylus. Nor is it a hard task to imagine a Prometheus in whom we should see simply a counterpart of the
