Page 203 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

of Chile say quite explicitly that ‘the flood was the result of volcanic
eruptions accompanied by violent earthquakes.’ The Mam Maya of
24
Santiago Chimaltenango in the western highlands of Guatemala retain
memories of ‘a flood of burning pitch’ which, they say, was one of the
instruments of world destruction. And in the Gran Chaco of Argentina,
25
the Mataco Indians tell of ‘a black cloud that came from the south at the
time of the flood and covered the whole sky. Lightning struck and
thunder was heard. Yet the drops that fell were not like rain. They were
like fire ...’
26

A monster chased the sun

There is one ancient culture that perhaps preserves more vivid memories
in its myths than any other; that of the so-called Teutonic tribes of
Germany and Scandinavia, a culture best remembered through the songs
of the Norse scalds and sages. The stories those songs retell have their
roots in a past which may be much older than scholars imagine and
which combine familiar images with strange symbolic devices and
allegorical language to recall a cataclysm of awesome magnitude:

In a distant forest in the east an aged giantess brought into the world a whole
brood of young wolves whose father was Fenrir. One of these monsters chased the
sun to take possession of it. The chase was for long in vain, but each season the
wolf grew in strength, and at last he reached the sun. Its bright rays were one by
one extinguished. It took on a blood red hue, then entirely disappeared.

Thereafter the world was enveloped in hideous winter. Snow-storms descended
from all points of the horizon. War broke out all over the earth. Brother slew
brother, children no longer respected the ties of blood. It was a time when men
were no better than wolves, eager to destroy each other. Soon the world was going
to sink into the abyss of nothingness.

Meanwhile the wolf Fenrir, whom the gods had long ago so carefully chained up,
broke his bonds at last and escaped. He shook himself and the world trembled.
The ash tree Yggdrasil [envisaged as the axis of the earth] was shaken from its
roots to its topmost branches. Mountains crumbled or split from top to bottom,
and the dwarfs who had their subterranean dwellings in them sought desperately
and in vain for entrances so long familiar but now disappeared.

Abandoned by the gods, men were driven from their hearths and the human race
was swept from the surface of the earth. The earth itself was beginning to lose its
shape. Already the stars were coming adrift from the sky and falling into the
gaping void. They were like swallows, weary from too long a voyage, who drop
and sink into the waves.

The giant Surt set the entire earth on fire; the universe was no longer more than

Folklore in the Old Testament, p. 101.
24
25 Maya History and Religion, p. 336.
26 The Mythology of South America, pp. 140-2.

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