Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel, page 176

166 THE LEGENDS.

CHAPTER VI. OTHER LEGENDS OF THE CONFLAGRATION.

Tue first of these, and the most remarkable of all, is the legend of one of the Central American nations, preserved not by tradition alone, but committed to writing at some time in the remote past.

In the “Codex Chimalpopoca,” one. of the sacred books of the Toltecs, the author, speaking of the destruction which took place by fire, says :

“The third sun” (or era) “is called Quia-Tonatiuh, sun of rain, because there fell a rain of fire; all which existed burned ; and there fell a rain of gravel.”

“They also narrate that while the sandstone, which we now see scattered about, and the tetzontli (amygdaloide poreuse—trap or basaltic rocks), ‘boiled with great tumult, there also rose the rocks of yermilion color.’”

That is to say, the basaltic and red trap-rocks burst through the great cracks made, at that time, in the surface of the disturbed earth.

“Now, this was in the year Ce Tecpatl, One Flint, it was the day Nahui- Quiahuitl, Fourth Rain. Now, in this day, in which men were lost and destroyed in a rain of fire, they were transformed into goslings ; the sun itself was on fire, and everything, together with the houses, was consumed.” *

* “The North Americans of Antiquity,” p. 499.