THE GERMANS AND CHRISTIAN!TV IT Woden on his throne of gold, surrounded by gods and goddesses. The Walkiiries, the divine messengers, "daughters of battle," warriors armed with buckler and lance, mounted on swift horses, traverse the field of battle, gathering the brave who have died in com- bat. They bear them to Walhalla, where they receive the reward of their courage. There they live in the presence of the gods, enjoying incessant banquets served by Walkiiries with mead and beer. In the depths of the earth, far away to the north, is Niffheim, an abyss sombre and frozen, the abode of storms; this is the dwelling of Loki, the god of evil, with his chil- dren, Fends, the fierce wolf, and Holla,1 the gocMes^ of death, half black, "who eats with the hunger of famine and never delights in what she has seized/* To this terrible retreat go those evil warriors who have per- mitted themselves to die of sickness or old age, Loki has been conquered by Woden and stretched on three sharp rocks where a serpent distils its venom on his head. But one day he will be delivered and will return with the giants and the evil spirits on the ship "made of the nails of the dead" to make war on the gods of Walhalla. The ash-tree Ygdrazil, the great tree that sustains the world, will be shattered; Walhalla will consume with fire, the gods will be overthrown (this is what they called the overshadowing of the gods); then a better earth will issue from the ocean with new gods.2 1 It is her name that has taken in German the moaning of hell. 2 No book is left from the ancient Germans regarding their religion. But the Scandinavian peoples (the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes) had a religion analogous to that of the Germans, and with this we are acquainted from the collection entitled The Edda (the grandmother) which was made in Iceland,