The lower culture all over the world ascribes disease or accident, madness, calamity, and death, to the agency of hostile powers lying { 209} in wait for man, and breaking in on his security. The violences of the elements, the hurricane, the flood, the earthquake, the volcanic eruption, are in the same way the work of giants towering in might above the common herd of the demons of air, water, or earth. The spirits of the evil dead, especially of powerful magic-men, Shamans, and the like, of malicious character, are potent for sickness and disaster. But in their unorganised ranks there is no controlling or directing force. Here and there some figure or group emerges into prominence. At the head of the demonic hosts of Babylonian mythology is a band of seven ruling spirits, perhaps the windy counterparts of the sun and moon and the five planets. In Egyptian story Set (or by his Greek name Typhon) is the evil opposite of the good Osiris whom he does to death; or it is the sun himself who is attacked in his nightly journey by the serpent Apap with his monstrous crew. Scandinavian mythology was full of these conflicts. The oppositions of light and darkness, storm and calm, warmth and cold, were felt with unusual vehemence. Over the motley multitude of powers infesting forest and field, the wind and the water, rose the giants of mountain and cataract, the furious blast, the curdling frost. The giants of the frost were evil powers, like the wolf Fenris, and the serpent Nidhogg, who lay beneath one of the roots of the mighty cosmic tree (in Niflheim, { 210} a second being among the frost-giants, and a third among the gods), for ever gnawing till the great world's end. Above them rose the dread goddess Hel, the "hollow," once, apparently, the name of the grave, and then of the power that ruled the gloomy underworld, the abode of those who had not fallen upon the battle-field. She, in her turn, was subordinated to Loki, once reckoned among the gods, capricious and tricky, who becomes the father of Hel, the wolf Fenris, and the Midgard snake, and leads the forces of evil for the destruction of the world. He compasses the death of Balder the fair, Odin perishes by the wolf, and Thor by the serpent; though god and wolf and serpent in their turn sink in common ruin. But the powers engaged in the strife are all superhuman; man has no share in the warfare, save when the warriors pass at death into the abode of the gods, and take their place beside them in the final conflict. Loki is no Devil, he does not tempt, or interfere with the children of earth; he does not affect their present conduct or future destiny.