Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel

140 THE LEGENDS.

Born of Night a monster appears, a serpent, huge, terrible, speckled, flesh-devouring. With her is another comet, Typhaon ; they beget the Chimera, that breathes resistless fire, fierce, huge, swift. And Typhaon, associ ated with both these, is the most dreadful monster of all, born of Hell and sensual sin, a serpent, a fierce dragon, many-headed, with dusky tongues and fire gleaming ; sending forth dreadful and appalling noises, while mountains and fields rock with earthquakes ; chacs has come ; the earth, the sea boils; there is unceasing tumult and contention, and in the midst the monster, wounded and broken up, falls upon the earth ; the earth groans under his weight, and there he blazes and burns for a time in the mountain fastnesses and desert places, melting the carth with boundless vapor and glaring fire.

We will find legend after legend about this Typhon : he runs through the mythologies of different nations. And as to his size and his terrible power, they all agree. He was no earth-creature. He moyed in the air; he reached the skies :

* According to Pindar the head of Typhon reached to the stars, his eyes darted fire, his hands extended from the East to the W est, terrible ‘serpents were twined about the middle of his body, and one hundred snakes took the place of fingers on his hands. Between him and the gods

there was a dreadful war. Jupiter finally killed him with a flash of lightning, and buried him under Mount Etna.”

And there, smoking and burning, his great throes and writhings, we are told, still shake the earth, and threaten mankind :