Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel

386 CONCLUSIONS.

paradise. In his prayers the penitent inhis confession says to this day :

“T am wholly without doubt in the existence of the Mazdayagnian faith ; in the coming of the resurrection of the latter body ; in the stepping over the bridge Chinvat ; as well as in the continuance of paradise.” *

The bridge and the land are both indestructible.

Over the midst of the Moslem hell stretches the bridge Es-Sirat, “finer than a hair and sharper than the edge of a sword.”

In the Lyke-Wake Dirge of the English north-country, they sang of

“The Brig of Dread Na braider than a thread.”

In Borneo the passage for souls to heaven is across a long tree ; it is scarcely practicable to any except those who have killed a man,

In Burmah, among the Karens, they tie strings across the rivers, for the ghosts of the dead to pass over to their graves.

In Java, a bridge leads across the abyss to the dwellingplace of the gods; the evil-doers fall into the depths below.

Among the Esquimaux the soul crosses an awful gulf over a stretched rope, until it reaches the abode of “ the great female evil spirit below” (beyond ?) “the sea.”

The Ojibways cross to paradise on a great snake, which serves as a bridge.

The Choctaw bridge is a slippery pine-log.

The South American Manacicas cross on a wooden bridge.

Among many of the American tribes, the Milky Way is the bridge to the other world.

* Poor, “Sanskrit Literature,” p. 151.