Note 558:1 — APPENDIX C.

"The Sun," said Gaugler, "speeds at such a rate as if she feared that some one was pursuing her for her destruction." "And well she may," replied Har, "for he that seeks her is not far behind, and she has no way to escape but to run before him." "And who is he," asked Gaugler, "that causes her this anxiety?" "It is the Wolf Sköll," answered Har, "who pursues the Sun, and it is he that she fears, for he shall one day overtake and devour her." (Scandinavian Prose Edda. See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 407). This Wolf is, as we have said, a personification of Night and Clouds, we therefore have the almost universal practice among savage nations of making noises at the time of eclipses, to frighten away the monsters who would otherwise devour the Sun.