?"

V. "The Wolf will swallow the father of men; Vidar will avenge it. He
will cleave the Wolf's cold jaws in the battle."

(2) _Voeluspa_:

"A hag sits eastward in Ironwood and rears Fenri's children; one of
them all, in troll's shape, shall be the sun's destroyer. He shall
feed on the lives of death-doomed men; with red blood he shall redden
the seat of the Gods. The sunshine shall grow black, all winds will
be unfriendly in the after-summers.... I see further in the future
the great Ragnaroek of the Gods of Victory.... Heimdal blows loudly,
the horn is on high; Yggdrasil's ash trembles as it stands, the old
tree groans."

The following lines tell of the fire-giants and the various combats,
and the last section of the poem deals with a new world when Baldr,
Hoed and Hoeni are to come back to the dwelling-place of the Gods.

The whole points to a belief in the early destruction of the world
and the passing away of the old order of things. Whether the new
world which _Vafthrudnismal_ and _Voeluspa_ both prophesy belongs to
the original idea or not is a disputed point. Probably it does not;
at all events, none of the old Aesir, according to the poems, are
to survive, for Modi and Magni are not really Gods at all, Baldr,
Hoed and Vali belong to another myth, Hoeni had passed out of the
hierarchy by his exchange with Njoerd, and Vidar's origin is obscure.

* * * * *

_The Einherjar_, the great champions or chosen warriors, are intimately
connected with Ragnaroek. All warriors who fall in battle are taken
to Odin's hall of the slain, Valhalla. According to _Grimnismal_,
he "chooses every day men dead by the sword"; his Valkyries ride
to battle to give the victory and bring in the fallen. Hence Odin
is the giver of victory. Loki in _Lokasenna_ taunts him with giving
victory to the wrong side: "Thou hast never known how to decide the
battle among men. Thou hast often given victory to those to whom thou
shouldst not give it, to the more cowardly"; this, no doubt, was in
order to secure the best fighters for Valhalla. That the defeated
side sometimes consoled themselves with this explanation of a notable
warrior's fall is proved by the tenth-century dirge on Eirik Bloodaxe,
where Sigmund the Volsung asks in Valhalla: "Why didst thou take the
victory from him, if thou thoughtest him brave?" and Odin replies:
"Because it is uncertain when the grey Wolf will come to the seat
of the Gods." Th