Should the subduing talisman the Cross break, then will come the wild madness of the old champions, the insane Berserker rage of which the northern poets sing. The talisman is brittle, and the day will come when it will pitifully break. The old stone gods will rise from the long forgotten ruins and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes and Thor, leaping to life with his great hammer will crush the Gothic cathedrals.
Heinrich Heine, Jewish-German philosopher on the atavistic rise of old pagan beliefs in pre war Germany.