Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel

RAGNAROK. 151

way not indicated; Vidar and Vale are their names. They, too, had probably taken refuge in some cavern.

* Neither the sea nor Surt’s fire had harmed them, and

they dwell on the plains of Ida, where Asgard was before.

Thither come also the.sons of Thor, Mode, and Magne, and they have Mjolner. Zhen come Balder and Hoder Jrom Hel.”

Mode and Magne are children of Thor; they belong to the godlike race. They, too, have escaped. Mjolner is Thor’s hammer. Balder is the Sun; he has returned from the abode of death, to which the comet consigned him. MHoder is the Night.

All this means that the fragments and remnants of humanity reassemble on the plain of Ida—the plain of Vigrid—where the battle was fought. They possess the works of the old civilization, represented by Thor’s hammer ; and the day and night once more return after the long midnight blackness.

And the Vala looks again upon a renewed and rejuvenated world :

“She sees arise The second time, From the sea, the earth, Completely green. The cascades fall, The eagle soars, From lofty mounts Pursues its prey.”

It is once more the glorious, the sun-lighted world ; the world of flashing seas, dancing streams, and green leaves ; with the eagle, high above it all,

“Batting the sunny ceiling of the globe With his dark wings ;” while “The wild cataracts leap in glory.”