In the beginning, when the beautiful and sunny world was first made, there stood, in the very midst of all its beauty, Mt. Ida—a mountain so high, so far away up among the snowy clouds, that its summit was lost in the shining light of the rays of the sun.
At its base, stretching away to the north, the south, the east, and the west, as far as even the eyes of the gods could reach, lay the soft, green valleys and the great, broad plain beyond. Encircling the whole great plain, and curling lovingly around in all the little bends and bays of the distant shore, lay the deep blue waters; and beyond the waters, hidden in the distant mists, rose the great mountains in which the frost giants dwelt.
On the top of Mt. Ida, the gods had built their shining city, Asgard; and from its golden gateway to the valley below was stretched the richly-colored, rainbow bridge, with its wonderful bars of red and yellow and blue, orange and green, indigo and purple.
And in this shining city, where the gods dwelt, there was no sorrow, no grief, no pain of any kind. Never was the sun’s light shut off by heavy clouds; never did the cruel lightnings flash, nor came their blights upon the harvest fields; never did the heavy rains fall, nor did the cold winds sweep down upon this shining city.
But alas, there came a time when a shadow fell upon this city that shone so like a golden cloud resting upon the mountain peak. For the Fates, the three cruel sisters, came and took up their abode at the foot of the wonderful tree of Life, whose roots were in the earth, and whose branches, reaching high above the shining city, protected it from the sun’s fierce heat and strong white light. And from that time even the gods themselves were no longer free from care and sorrow.
Envy sprang up among the children of the great god, Odin; sickness, and even death, fell upon them; and the frost giants waged war with them,—a war that would never cease in all the ages that were to come, until that day when the sun’s light went out forever, and the dark reign of Ragnarok fell upon the earth.
It was a beautiful earth that lay stretched out at the foot of Mt. Ida. The fields were rich with grain; the trees were loaded with fruits; the sun shone warm and bright; but there were no harvesters, no gatherers of the fruit, no children to run and frolic in the sunshine.
“The fair earth is desolate,” said Odin to himself, as he looked down from his golden temple. “There should be people there, not gods and goddesses like us here upon Mt. Ida, but beings less powerful than we, beings who can love and enjoy, and whose children shall fill the earth with their happy voices. And the care of all these beings shall be mine.”
As he spoke, he, the All Father, passed down the rainbow bridge, out into the rich, green valley below.
As he passed on beneath the trees, he saw standing together, their branches bending towards each other, a straight, strong Ash and a gentle, graceful Elm.
“From these trees,” said Odin to himself, “will I create the Earth people. The man I will name Ask, and the woman, Embla. It is a beautiful, sunny world: they should be very happy in it. How their children shall delight in the broad fields and the sunny slopes! And no harm shall come to them; for I, the All Father, will watch over them in all the age’s to come.”
At the base of Mt. Ida stood Ygdrasil, the wonderful tree of Life. Never before nor since was there another such a tree. It had never had a beginning; it had never been young.
Not even the oldest man, not even the gods themselves could say, “I remember when this great tree was a tender sapling, I remember when it sent forth its first tiny leaves, and how it rocked, and swayed, and shivered, and bent its timid head as the cold ice king swept over it.”
For there had never been a time since the beginning of the world when Ygdrasil had not stood there, tall and strong, one great root reaching down, down through the earth to the home of the dead, another stretching away, no one could tell how far, till it reached the home of the terrible giants, so fierce and cruel, so strong, and withal so wise, that even the gods themselves dreaded them and stood ever in terror of their approach.
And its branches? So broad, so far reaching, so numerous were these, that they spread themselves protectingly over the whole earth, their top-most leaves rustling and whispering together above the golden palace of the gods, far up on the summit of the cloud-hidden Ida.
Nor was this all. Hidden among the dense leaves lived a great white eagle. No one knew whence he came; no one had ever looked upon him; but there he sat, ages upon ages, singing forever the story of the creator of the earth and the wonderful deeds of the gods who dwell in the shining city of Asgard. The leaves of the tree sang sunset songs, and whispered to each other secrets, sometimes sad, sometimes gay, which even the gods, with all their wisdom, could not understand.
At the foot of the tree, away down at the end even of the deepest, farthest root, lay the Well of Wisdom. Its waters were black. Sometimes they were very bitter, and few there were who had the courage and the perseverance to search out the hiding-place of this wonderful spring. Then, too, it was guarded by a grim old giant, Memory, who so loved this well, and so dreaded the approach of man or god to its waters, that he would not allow them even to touch their lips to it, until they had sworn to surrender to him whatever thing was dearest in life to them.
This was a heavy price to pay for wisdom, and few there were who cared to pay it. “Will you give me your children?” “Will you give me your freedom?” “Will you give me your health?” “Will you give me your tongue, your ears, your eyes?” the old giant would ask of the mortals who came to drink of the waters of the Well of Wisdom.
And always, when the mortals heard these questions, they grew pale and trembled with fear. “Go back to your homes,” the old giant would thunder, “you desire wisdom it is true; but you are not willing to pay the price for it.” Then the mortals would hurry away, their hearts beating with fear, their ears ringing with the thunderous tones of the terrible giant, who, since the earth was made, had sat at the foot of Ygdrasil guarding the secrets from all the world.
ODIN, THE “ALL FATHER.”
As Odin looked down from his home in Asgard and saw the people he had made from the ash and the elm trees, he sighed to himself and said, “These are my children. It is I who created them. They are innocent and pure and sweet.”
“But, alas, how little they know of life. By and by there will come to them danger and sorrow. The Ice King, the cruel tyrant, will breathe upon them, and the harvests will shrivel before their eyes; the rivers will be frozen, the trees will be bare, and there will be no food for them. As the years roll on, little children will come; these children will grow into manhood and womanhood, and other little children will follow. They are but mortals. Sickness and death will be their share; for I could not make them like the gods.”
And as Odin thought of all these things his heart grew sad. Almost he wished he had not made these helpless beings from the ash and the elm. He looked down into the sunny valley, where as yet no sorrow nor suffering had come. “Poor children!” he sighed. “What a world of wisdom Odin must possess to protect and guide and teach these earth-people that he has made.”
Just then Ask and Embla paused and looked up towards the shining city; for the sigh from Odin’s heart had been so deep and long that the leaves of Ygdrasil had rustled, and a faint echo of it had swept even across the valley below.
“What is it that sweeps sometimes across the valley, and moves the trees and the leaves, and so gently fans our cheeks?” asked Embla.
“I often wonder,” answered Ask. “It is very pleasant. Perhaps it is a message from the good Odin who made us and who gave us this sunny valley to play in.”
Then on they ran, hand in hand, happy children as they were, and in a moment had forgotten all about it.
But Odin had not forgotten. “Frigg,” said he to his goddess wife, “it is granted to us as gods to possess great wisdom. Still there remain many things we do not know. Below in the valley there have sprung into being a man and a woman. They are like us, Frigg, but they are not very wise. They need our care, even as our own dear Baldur needed our care when he was a very little child. I shall go to the Giant Memory, who guards the Well of Wisdom, and he shall give me a draught from the wonderful water. Then shall I be the all-wise, all-loving All-Father these children of the valley need.”
“O, but the price this cruel Giant will ask of you!” sobbed Frigg.
“I would give my life for them,” answered Odin tenderly. Then he turned from her, passed down the rainbow bridge to the valley, entered the great black, gaping cave and groped his way along the cold, dark passages that led to the Well of Wisdom.
Three times the sun rose, three times the sun set. Then, just as the earth and the shining Asgard lay bathed in the rich, golden sunset light, Odin came forth again, passed up the rainbow bridge, and entered the great hall of the gods. “It is Odin,” cried Frigg.
Yes, it is Odin, the same Odin. But with a face so joyous, so radiant, so happy! For Odin had drank from the Well of Wisdom. The way had been dark; the struggle with the great Giant had been hard. But Odin had conquered; and now the joy that belongs always to the wise was his forevermore.
Away across the great sea of blue waters that curled about the shores of Midgard, the dwelling place of Odin’s earth-children, were the dark, frowning, rock-bound mountains, the castles of the terrible giants whom even the gods feared.
One of these giants, Vafthrudner, was known among them as the All-wise.
“He is our chief. He is wiser even than the gods of Asgard,” the giants sometimes would thunder across the wide blue sea. And indeed it was true; for none among the gods had yet been able to answer his questions; nor could they; neither could they ask of him one that he could not answer.
“We will bear the insolence of this giant no longer,” said Odin to Frigg. “I will go to him, and the race of giants shall know that at last Wisdom dwells not in Jotunheim but in the golden city of the gods,—the glorious, shining city of Asgard.”
“Who comes?” thundered Vafthrudner as Odin approached his mountain peak.
“It is I—a mere traveller. But as I chanced to be journeying through your country, I heard of your wonderful wisdom. In my own country, far away to the west, I too am accounted somewhat wise. Let us test each other and learn which of us is wiser.”
“Test each other! Learn which is wiser!” bellowed the great giant, his voice echoing and re-echoing across the sea, until the very walls of the golden hall upon Mt. Ida trembled and the earth-children in the valley below clung to each other in fear.
“Whichever one fails forfeits his life. You know that, I trust,” added Vafthrudner with a sneer.
“I know,” answered Odin quietly. “But let us begin. Night will come upon us, and I must reach my home while the Sun-god is still above us.”
“You will never see your home again; so it matters little whether we begin early or late. However, tell me, foolish, vain earth-child that you are, what river is it that flows between this home of the All-powerful giants and the home of the gods?”
“The name of that river is Ifing,” answered Odin. “And I can tell you more than that. Because it touches upon the shores of the city of the gods, the Ice King, Njord, has no power over it. His breath cannot freeze it. Year after year, Njord tries to imprison its sparkling waters that you giants may cross upon its crust and attack the shining city. But it will never freeze. You will never cross it. Asgard is forever safe.”
The giant dropped his mighty jaw. His eyes stared like great suns of fire. His terrible frame trembled. Down came his club upon the floor of his great castle.
Again Ask and Embla paled with fear as the valley shook beneath their feet.