The fortress burns
Broken my heart
I leave this world
All gods are gone
— Blind Guardian, "Valhalla"
King Olaf crossed himself and said:
"I know that Odin the Great is dead;
Sure is the triumph of our Faith,
The one-eyed stranger was his wraith."
"I know that Odin the Great is dead;
Sure is the triumph of our Faith,
The one-eyed stranger was his wraith."
— King Olaf, The Saga Of King Olaf, "The Wraith of Odin" (by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
"The days of our kind are numberèd. The one God comes to drive out the many gods. The spirits of wood and stream grow silent. It's the way of things. Yes... it's a time for men, and their ways."
—Merlin, Excalibur
"To you nature seems something hostile; you have made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece, and out of me a demon. You can only exorcise and curse me, or slay yourselves in bacchantic madness before my altar. And if ever one of you has had the courage to kiss my red mouth, he makes a barefoot pilgrimage to Rome in penitential robes and expects flowers to grow from his withered staff, while under my feet roses, violets, and myrtles spring up every hour, but their fragrance does not agree with you. Stay among your northern fogs and Christian incense; let us pagans remain under the debris, beneath the lava; do not disinter us. Pompeii was not built for you, nor our villas, our baths, our temples. You do not require gods. We are chilled in your world."
"Eons agone, these lands were rife with gods and their adherents. What befell this pantheon? Alas. 'Tis the nature of beasts to forget, and of Gods to be forgotten. Mayhap they left. Mayhap they slept. Mayhap they devoured and were devoured in turn. Those few who remained spread roots, spun webs, molded this world to meet them and theirs. 'Twere a land of many Gods once. Hundreds. Now..."
—Haro, Cult of the Lamb
