Flood and Fire.

All Hail!

The knowledge that Manu, who is the same as our Mannus, outlasted a great flood (see foregoing post) is well known in India today. This might well be the same flood to begin with which the Northmen believed had killed off the ettins in the North (see Snorri Sturluson, Eddda, Gylfaginning 7), and which would seem to be marked in Bēowulf, lines 1687 to 1698, and belike also 112 to 114. But as we have already marked that the Northmen have formenged gods, men and ettins in their tales about the early days, they do not have much to say about how men outlived it. Indeed, they came to believe that the first men were made after it.

Now if we look to the Greeks we will gain new insight.

As Ranulph Higden of Chester in his Polychronicon well wrote (awending John Trevisa):

“Auctours telleþ þat Grees with þe prouinces þerof is lady of kyngdoms, norice of knyȝthode and of chiualrie, moder of philosofie, fynder and mayster of art and sciens,...”.

Already in king Ælfred's day the Greek tale of the Flood was becoming known. Thus in his awending of Paulus Orosius' Seven Books of History Against the Pagans Book I, chapitle 6:

“Ær ðæm þe Rome burh getimbred wære eahta hund wintra, and tyn gearan, ricsode Ambictio, se cyning, in Athena Creca byrig. He wæs se þridda cyning, þe æfter Cicrope, þæm cyning, ricsade, þe ærest wæs þære burge cyning. On þæs Ambictiones tide wurdon swa mycele wæter-flod geond ealle world – and þæh mæst in Thasalia, Creca byrig, ymb þa beorgas, þe man hæt Parnasus, þær se cyning Theuhaleon ricsode, - þæt forneah eall þæt folc forwearð. And se cyninge Theuhaleon ealle þa þe to him mid scypum oðflugon to þæm beorgum, he hi þær onfengc, and hi þær afedde. Be þæm Theuhaleon wæs gecweden, swilce mon bispel sæde, þæt he wære mon-cynnes tydriend, swa swa Noe wæs.”ᚩ

Deucalion, as we have already said, is the same as Mannus.

The Greeks, and many of the new belief from them, thought of themselves as having the flood of Deucalion's time behind them, and a great fire to look forward to many years ahead so that the framework for the wyrd of Middle Earth which mankind hath been dreeing now for many a long year is marked on the one hand by a great flood and on the other by a great fire to come. The Northmen would seem to have taken this up, we have already marked their belief in a flood, but they also looked forward to a world-burning (see Gylfaginning 4 “Sá er Surtr nefndr, er þar sitr á landsenda til landvarnar. Hann hefir loganda sverð, ok í enda veraldar mun hann fara ok herja ok sigra öll goðin ok brenna allan heim með eldi. ” And Gylfaginning 17 “Surtalogi brennir himin ok jörð” Gylf. 51, 53). The Old English words “brynewielm” “fyrbryne” “manbryne” would seem to show that our forefathers believed in a great fire to come as well. These great fires and great floods that beset mankind, are foreshadowed in the laws of ordeal wherein a man's guilt is found out by putting him into fire or water, the guilty being burnt and drowned. The Emperor Julian writeth to Maximus:

“πάντως οὐδὲ ὁ Ῥῆνος ἀδικεῖ τοὺς Κελτούς, ὃς τὰ μὲν νόθα τῶν βρεφῶν ὑποβρύχια ταῖς δίναις ποιεῖ, καθάπερ ἀκολάστου λέχους τιμωρὸς πρέπων· ὅσα δ᾿ ἂν ἐπιγνῷ καθαροῦ σπέρματος, ὑπεράνω τοῦ ὕδατος αἰωρεῖ, καὶ τῇ μητρὶ τρεμούσῃ πάλιν εἰς χεῖρας δίδωσιν, ὥσπερ ἀδέκαστόν τινα μαρτυρίαν αὐτῇ καθαρῶν καὶ ἀμέμπτων γάμων τὴν τοῦ παιδὸς σωτηρίαν ἀντιδωρούμενος. ”

“Certainly the Rhine does not mislead the Celts, for it sinks deep in its eddies their bastard infants, like a fitting avenger of an adulterous bed; but all those that it recognises to be of pure descent it supports on the surface of the water and gives them back to the arms of the trembling mother, thus rewarding her with the safety of her child as incorruptible evidence that her marriage is pure and without reproach.” Julian the Apostate, Letters (1923) Number 59 in Works vol. 3, lvs. 210-211.

And we call to mind here that the world in the North itself was put together by blending fire and water, albeit the latter had become ice (Gylfaginning 4), but this is all true of the Earth rather than of the world. The Greeks brooked κόσμος (cosmos), and the Romans brooked mundus, in the same wavering way as we brook the word world. And the Northmen might have made a mistake from this.  A hot south and a cold north is truly said of the northern half of the earth.

The times of great fire and great flood are, witherward marks upon a great wheel of time, the same as the months when the sun is in Leo, for fire, and in Aquarius, for water, in the lesser time-wheel of the year.  We only know of Celsus's work “A True Spell” (see Origen Cont. Cels. Book I, chap. 40: “Οὗτος οὖν ὁ καὶ τούτων καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν Ἑλλήνων σοφώτερος ἀκολούθως τῷ φάσκειν πάντ' εἰδέναι ἀληθῆ λόγον ἐπέγραψεν αὐτοῦ τὸ βιβλίον.” “This man, however, who is wiser than those already named, and than all the other Greeks, agreeably to his assertion of being acquainted with everything, inscribed upon his book the words, A True Discourse!”) from what Origen wrote Against Celsus (Κατὰ Κέλσου ). In Book IV, Chaptle 11 we read of the great wheel of time (χρόνων μακρῶν κύκλους) upon which a great floods (ἐπικλύσεις) and a great fires (ἐκπυρώσεις) are witherward marks through which the Earth, and the life upon it, would seem to have to go through:

11. Μετὰ ταῦτα βουλόμενος ἡμᾶς παραδεῖξαι μηδὲν παράδοξον μηδὲ καινὸν λέγειν περὶ κατακλυσμοῦ ἢ ἐκπυρώσεως, ἀλλὰ καὶ παρακούσαντας τῶν παρ' Ἕλλησιν ἢ βαρβάροις περὶ τούτων λεγομένων ταῖς ἡμετέραις πεπιστευκέναι περὶ αὐτῶν γραφαῖς, φησὶ ταῦτα· Ἐπῆλθε δ' αὐτοῖς καὶ ταῦτα ἐκείνων παρακούσασιν, ὅτι δὴ κατὰ χρόνων μακρῶν κύκλους καὶ ἄστρων ἐπανόδους τε καὶ συνόδους ἐκπυρώσεις καὶ ἐπικλύσεις συμβαίνουσι, καὶ ὅτι μετὰ τὸν τελευταῖον ἐπὶ Δευκαλίωνος κατακλυσμὸν ἡ περίοδος κατὰ τὴν τῶν ὅλων ἀμοιβὴν ἐκπύρωσιν ἀπαιτεῖ· ταῦτ' αὐτοὺς ἐποίησεν ἐσφαλμένῃ δόξῃ λέγειν ὅτι ὁ θεὸς καταβήσεται δίκην βασανιστοῦ πῦρ φέρων. 

After this, being desirous to show that it is nothing either wonderful or new which we state regarding floods or conflagrations, but that, from misunderstanding the accounts of these things which are current among Greeks or barbarous nations, we have accorded our belief to our own Scriptures when treating of them, he writes as follows: "The belief has spread among them, from a misunderstanding of the accounts of these occurrences, that after lengthened cycles of time, and the returns and conjunctions of planets, conflagrations and floods are wont to happen, and because after the last flood, which took place in the time of Deucalion, the lapse of time, agreeably to the vicissitude of all things, requires a conflagration and this made them give utterance to the erroneous opinion that God will descend, bringing fire like a torturer." (Awending Frederick Crombie, from Ante-Nicene Fathers,  Vol. 4.  Outlaid by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.))

Now Völuspá would seem to acknowledge that there is a wheel of elds or “ages” O.N. ‘aldir’ (o-f. (= s shortening of onefold=singular ) “öld” f.) and that as time goeth on and the eld draweth to its end and the great fire neighledgeth (=approaches) mankind becometh worse and worse (verse 44 in the Codex Regius and verses 37 & 38 in the Hauksbók, 45 in most outlaid draughts);

45.Bræðr munu berjask | ok at bönum verðask,
munu systrungar | sifjum spilla;
hart er í heimi, | hórdómr mikill,
skeggöld, skalmöld, | skildir ro klofnir,
vindöld, vargöld, | áðr veröld steypisk;
mun engi maðr | öðrum þyrma.

45. Brothers may fight | and fell each other,
may sisters' sons | kinship stain;
hard is in the home, | whoredom severe;
axe-age, sword-age, | shields cloven,
wind-age, wolf-age, | ere the world falls;
no men will | each other spare.

The Greeks and Romans knew this (see Hesiod Works and Days lines 109 to 201 where they speak of gold, silver, bronze and iron γενεά or kinds, and Ovid's Metamorphoses Book 1, lines 89 to 150 where we have gold, silver, bronze and iron ætates, elds) and in India today (see Vishnu Purana, Book 1 chapitle 3 and Book 6 chapitle 1 where they speakof Satya सत्य युग, Treta त्रेता युग, Dvapara द्वापर युग and Kali कली युग कलियुग (all named for throws of a dice) yugāni युगानि o-f. yugam युगम्) it is to be found. The new belief hath formenged it with its own thoughts about these things. It is worth the knowing here that the golden eld was linked by the Greeks with the life lived by the gods.  Also worth the knowing here is that the Northmen have overthrown things by saying that the gods were doomed. They had already fallen under the spell of the godless and have mistaken an  aldar rök (see Vafþrúðnismál 39), which is only the downfall of men (aldir)  for a tiva or ragna rök which is an unheard of downfall of the gods (rögn, n. pl. of regin).  The gods are forever.

“ὦ φίλτατ᾽ Αἰγέως παῖ, μόνοις οὐ γίγνεται
θεοῖσι γῆρας οὐδὲ κατθανεῖν ποτε.
τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα συγχεῖ πάνθ᾽ ὁ παγκρατὴς χρόνος.” 609

“Dearest son of Aegeus, to the gods alone old age and death never come, but everything else sinks into chaos from time which overpowers all.”

Thus sayeth Oedipus in Sophocles' play Oedipus at Colonus (awending Sir Richard Jebb). Even the Northmen do not kill off all the gods, Njörður for one is not killed, and the matched sons of Odin and Thor who mind me of three lots of the Dioscuri (Víðarr ok Váli, Baldr ok Höðr, Móði ok Magni).  Nothing is said of the gydene beyond Sól being eaten by a wolf and her daughter taking her stead (Gylfaginning 51 and 53). Another thing left unoutfolded by the Northern writings are where do the gods slain at ragna rök go? Balder went to Hel when he was slain long before ragna rök (Gylfaginning 49 and 53), but after ragna rök he cometh back to be a god again in heaven (Gylfaginning 53). What is to stop the slain gods and even ettins doing the same straightaway?

Why doth the gods allow this growth of evil as the world getteth old? Plato answereth this in the Politicus 269c to 270a, and 271d to 273e, but he sayeth the same thing twice and is maybe not as swuttle as he could be.   Yet answered along with it, is why the wonders that once were worked by the gods are done no more. Everything made of antimber cannot last forever and so, however long aits end might be put off, it cannot endlessly be put off. At the beginning of an eld the gods are keen to set things up aright and so take much moreof a hand in the things of men, but as the end draweth nigh they are less willing to, and at the last they may even choose to withold their help altogether. This is all in the same way as fathers and mothers look after their children while they are small much more than they look after the children when they have grown up. And grown ups might in their way, look upon those among them who are beyond healing in an unlike way to those they can help. Those beyond all healing will not be helped by legthening their life and therewith lengthening their time of pining (=torment; pain). They are helped either by not helping them at all and allowing them to die, or by speeding that death in some way. But to both of these things we cannot truly give the name of help. Doth thid mean the gods have fallen away from The Good? Not at all, for those that are beyond healing, death is the best that can be done for them. Death is anyway, not an end but a new beginning. The Greeks tell the tale found in Herodotus Histories (1.31) of Cleobis and Biton from which we can see a pining-less death was the best gift that the gods could bestow on a man. The belief underlying this being that the death of the body freed the deathless soul to go back to her true home with the gods.

Farewell.