Our Pagan narrator calls the end of the world the time when "'...the frost giants fare loose...,'" then, remembering that he addresses a Christian priest, the time when "the angel blows his battle horn.'" (p. 186) It is all the same, really, isn't it, at least from some points of view? Our version, based not on myth but on science, is the heat death of the universe, which definitely will not occur in our lifetimes. (On the other hand, there are imminent, localized versions like a nuclear war, an ecological catastrophe or a cometary strike.)
The narrator continues:
"One reason I hearken to your preaching is that I know the White Christ will conquer Thor. I know Iceland is going to be Christian ere long, and it seems best to range myself on the winning side." (ibid.)
People support the winning side either because it does not matter or because they do not care which side wins. But sometimes it does matter and we do care. CS Lewis, anticipating James Blish's Black Easter, imagined God saying:
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Kaor, Paul!
Sometimes, in Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS, we can find similar thoughts. This is part of what the Lady Galadriel said in Book II, Chapter VII of LOTR: "He [Celeborn] has dwelt in the West since the days of dawn, and I have dwelt with him years uncounted, for ere the fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin I passed over the mountains, and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat."
And of course we both know of how Dominic Flandry thought of himself, despite his many triumphs, of fighting his own long defeat, striving to, at best, postpone the Long Night.
Ad astra! Sean
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