To the south of this yawning gulf there was a region of flame, and to the north an abode icecold and dark. Torrents of venom flowed from the north into the gulf and filled it with ice, but the fire came from the south, and, falling upon the ice, melted it. From the melted drops there arose the giant Ymir, who, wicked himself, had a wicked family of frost-giants. A cow was also formed from the melted ice, and she not only fed the giants with her milk, but out of the stones covered with salt and hoar-frost licked a man of strength and beauty, whose son became the father of Odin, Vili and Ve. These three slew Ymir, and out of his flesh they formed the earth; from his blood the seas and waters, from his bones the mountains, from his hair the trees, from his skull the heavens, from his brains the floating clouds, and from his eyebrows a wall round the earth to guard them from the giant sons of Ymir, whose anger they feared.

The old religion of the Scandinavians, who are a branch of the great German family, is contained in two books known as the 'Eddas,' a word thought to mean Great-Grandmother or Ancestress.

The

Elder Edda contains the old mythic poems, and the Younger or Prose Edda such pagan legends as that just quoted, mixed with later ideas.

the Alfadir, is therein thus spoken of:

Odin,

Gangleri began his speech: "Who is first or eldest of all gods?" Har said, "He hight Alfadir (is called All-Father) in our tongue, but in the old Asgard (or abode of the gods) he had twelve

names.

'Odin is named Alfadir because he is the father of all the gods, and also Valfadir (Choosing Father) because he chooses for his sons all who fall in combat, for whose abode he has prepared Valhalla' (Hall of the Chosen).

The old Norsemen spoke of death as Heimgang: that is, 'home-going,' a thought always beautiful and tender, but still more so as coming from these wild rovers of the 'homeless sea.'

Greek legend: from the Theogony, or 'Origin of the Gods,' said by some to be one of the works of Hesiod, an ancient poet. The Greek priests and wise men revered it greatly.

In the beginning there was huge and formless

Chaos, from whom came Gaia, the broad-bosomed earth, and Tartarus, dark and dim, below the earth. Then appeared beautiful Eros, or Love. From Chaos also came night and darkness, from these ether and day, whilst the earth gave birth to Uranus, the all-surrounding, starry heaven, and to the mountains and the sea. Then Gaia and Uranus married, and from them sprang demigods and men.

When you know more of the ancient peoples who worked out their thoughts about earth, sky and living things in such varied shape, and have learned amidst what different scenery each lived; how Frost and Fire had fierce unending battle, and the Ice-Giant his hearthless home where the hardy Norsemen dwelt; how sunshine and shadow made beautiful the well-wooded land of mountains. and streams in the bright south where the Greeks dwelt; you will understand why one legend should impress us by its rugged grandeur and another enchant us with its stately grace.

CHAPTER III.

CREATION AS TOLD BY SCIENCE.

You have been taught that the earth is one of a number of planets (so called from a Greek word meaning to wander) which, with other bodies, travel round the sun, he being the centre of what is called the solar system (from Latin sol, the sun). Astronomy primers will tell you that every star is a sun, the centre of a solar system, and that our sun appears so large and bright because he is the star nearest to us.

It is believed that the particles of matter which compose the solar system (and what has now to be said applies to the formation of every other solar system) were once in a gas-like state, and in the vast space over which they were spread, so distant from one another as to be at rest. In the course of countless ages the immense mass became cooler through radiation, or loss of heat into space, and the particles were drawn closer to

gether, and brought into a spinning motion, so that they became a huge self-shining, highlyheated mass, somewhat ball-shaped. The motion was quickened as the particles became more united, but when the force which swept them past the centre of the entire mass was greater than the force which dragged them towards it, rings of the outermost portion were thrown off one by one, which continued the wheel-like motion of the

mass from which they had been cast. Each ring became broken at the points where the particles had clustered thickest, and these fragments, still spinning, gathered each round its centre, and threw off rings in like manner.

The huge ball in the centre of the whole became the sun, the ring fragments became the planets with their twofold motion, one top-like, the other round the sun, and the rings cast from them became their moons; each of these bodies being in a molten state. In the case of Saturn not only were eight moons formed, but there remain revolving round him the rings which so add to his beauty as an object in the telescope, and which are said to be made up of countless bodies.