Leviathan(25)
“You really believe that?” Connor asked. He searched Thor's open eyes. “Do you really believe that there's going to be a last battle between good and evil?”
“Yes,” Thor answered, “and I believe in more than that. I believe that if a man is a man, he will live his life for good, making war with evil. Because that is part of the battle to come.”
Connor was silent. Unmoving.
“My ancestors called it Ragnarok,” Thor continued, leaning forward. The table and chair creaked beneath his weight. “It was to be the last battle on the earth between good and evil. According to tradition, it would begin with a winter three years long. Then there would be a collapse of morality, with greed ruling the hearts of men. And finally, a great falling away of faith with men's hearts turning to selfishness and all manner of sin.” He paused, frowning. “It is the Nordic representation of Armageddon.”
Connor's eyes narrowed. He was silent.
“In truth,” Thor continued, “the entire Scandinavian mythology, and many other mythologies of the North, can be traced to Celtic roots, which can in turn be traced to the Hittites or other Mesopotamian tribes that immigrated into the North in 1500 B.C., fleeing the occupation of Israel in Canaan. Tribes that knew well the story of the Hebrew God and the Serpent.”
“And how can you know this?”
“By discipline, and by applying my mind to history,” Thor replied with a smile. “I learned long ago that the North was settled by the Asiatic ‘Broadheads' who immigrated across Europe during the late Stone Age or early Iron Age. Tribes that eventually crossed the sea to settle Norway in the first century.”
“Yeah,” replied Connor, “but the tribes who settled Norway in the first century were pretty distant descendants of the tribes who immigrated to Britain in 1500 B.C., Thor. It seems like they would have had a hard time remembering the stories of the Old Testament or the Hittites or whatever. A thousand years is a long time for people to remember anything.”
“Memory lives longer than man,” Thor replied steadily. “Superstition survives stone monuments. Look at Stonehenge. The people who built it, and even the altar itself, are gone. But the superstition remains. I tell you the truth; the original beliefs of the tribes who settled Europe in 1500 B.C. were remembered by their descendants, though in altered form. And what the Vikings passed by oral tradition closely paralleled the Hebrew cosmology and even pieces of the long-vanished Hittite mythology.”
Connor grunted. “Give me an example.'‘
“Like Thor himself, the Norse god of thunder who fought with an iron hammer to defend Asgard from evil. Is it any coincidence that the Hittites also had a god of thunder, named Tarku, who fought with an iron hammer to defend heaven and hurled lightning from his hand?” He stared intently. “An ancient Hittite image carved in stone at Tel-Engidi reveals Tarku of the Hittites waving his hammer over slain horses, bringing them back to life. In Norse mythology, Thor also waves his hammer over his goats, bringing them to life. I tell you, this is no coincidence.”
Connor had never really thought about it, and he was faintly surprised that he had never come across anything like it before since he had read widely and enjoyed reading. But this was an alien theory to him, as alien as anything he had ever heard.
“And there is more.” Thor held forth like a schoolteacher starved from teaching. “You will remember that Satan was the fallen angel who deceived man into betraying God. While Loki, the evil god of Norse mythology who deceived man into rebelling against Odin, the father of all Norse gods, is only a parallel of Satan. The Norse story of man's rebellion is only a reflection of the Old Testament story of Eden.
“Loki told man that he could become immortal if he would find true life by submitting to his unrestrained passions. And this is the argument Satan used in the Garden of Eden, and an enduring tenant of mythology. In almost all societies of the ancient world, a battle between immortal good and evil is recorded, with man caught between the two forces, destined to serve one or the other.”
Connor's gaze was concentrated. “And that's what makes you think there's good and evil, Thor? And that a man should choose between them?”
“It is part of what makes me believe,” Thor said, thoughtfully stroking his red beard. “A man must believe what is reasonable to believe. He must open his mind and see.”
“Well,” Connor began, “I don't think that a lot of people actually see this kind of thing, Thor.”
“The past suffers the present,” Thor replied, abruptly grim. “Men try to change history to agree with their needs, but truth does not change. Neither truth, nor heroism, nor courage. Today, men say that we live in an age without good or evil; therefore, we live in an age without heroes. They say that a man should live only for himself, for whatever is right in his own eyes. They say the age of heroes has passed.”