Even were
some part of the matter of their myths taken from others, yet the
Norsemen have given their gods a noble, upright, great spirit,
and placed them upon a high level that is all their own. (8)
From the prose Edda the following all too brief statement of the
salient points of Norse belief is made up: -- "The first and
eldest of gods is hight Allfather; he lives from all ages, and
rules over all his realm, and sways all things great and small;
he smithied heaven and earth, and the lift, and all that belongs
to them; what is most, he made man, and gave him a soul that
shall live and never perish; and all men that are right-minded
shall live and be with himself in Vingolf; but wicked men fare to
Hell, and thence into Niithell, that is beneath in the ninth
world. Before the earth `'twas the morning of time, when yet
naught was, nor sand nor sea was there, nor cooling streams.
Earth was not found, nor Heaven above; a Yawning-gap there was,
but grass nowhere.' Many ages ere the earth was shapen was
Niflheim made, but first was that land in the southern sphere
hight Muspell, that burns and blazes, and may not be trodden by
those who are outlandish and have no heritage there.
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