Teutonic Mythology

 

INTRODUCTION.


A. THE ANCIENT ARYANS.


1.


THE WORDS GERMAN AND GERMANIC.


ALREADY at the beginning of the Christian era the name Germans was
applied by the Romans and Gauls to the many clans of people whose main
habitation was the extensive territory east of the Rhine, and north of
the forest-clad Hercynian Mountains. That these clans constituted one
race was evident to the Romans, for they all had a striking similarity
in type of body; moreover, a closer acquaintance revealed that their
numerous dialects were all variations of the same parent language, and
finally, they resembled each other in customs, traditions, and religion.
The characteristic features of the physical type of the Germans were
light hair, blue eyes, light complexion, and tallness of stature as
compared with the Romans.


Even the saga-men, from whom the Roman historian Tacitus gathered the
facts for his German ia'an invaluable work for the history of
civilisation'knew that in the so-called Svevian Sea, north of the German
continent, lay another important part of Germany, inhabited by Sviones,
a people divided into several clans. Their kinsmen on the continent
described them as rich in weapons and fleets, and in warriors on land
and sea (Tac., Germ., 44). This northern sea-girt portion of Germany is
called Scandinavia'Scandeia by other writers of the Roman Empire; and
there can be no doubt that this name referred to the peninsula


which, as far back as historical monuments can be found, has been
inhabited by the ancestors of the Swedes and the Norwegians. I therefore
include in the term Germans the ancestors of both the Scandinavian and
Gothic and German (tyske) peoples. Science needs a sharply - defined
collective noun for all these kindred branches sprung from one and the
same root, and the name by which they make their first appearance in
history would doubtless long since have been selected for this purpose
had not some of the German writers applied the terms German and Deutsch
as synonymous. This is doubtless the reason why Danish authors have
adopted the word "Goths" to describe the Germanic nations. But there is
an important objection to this in the fact that the name Goths
historically is claimed by a particular branch of the family'that
branch, namely, to which the East and West Goths belonged, and in order
to avoid ambiguity, the term should be applied solely to them. It is
therefore necessary to re-adopt the old collective name, even though it
is not of Germanic origin, the more so as there is a prospect that a
more correct use of the words German and Germanic is about to prevail in
Germany itself, for the German scholars also feel the weight of the
demand which science makes on a precise and rational terminology.


 Viktor Rydberg styles his work Researches in Germanic Mythology, but
after consultation with the Publishers, the Translator decided to use
the word Teutonic instead of Germanic both in the title and in the body
of the work. In English, the words German, Germany, and Germanic are
ambiguous.. The Scandivanians and Germans have the words Tyskland, tysh,
Deutschland deutsch, when they wish to refer to the present Germany, and
thus it is easy for them to adopt the words Germnan and Germanisk to
describe the Germanic or Teutonic peoples collectively. The English
language applies the above word Dutch not to Germany, but to Holland,
and it is necessary to use the words German and Germany in translating
deutsch, Deutschland, tysk, and Tyskland. Teutonic has already been
adopted by Max Müller and other scholars in England and America as a
designation of all the kindred branches sprung from one and the same
root, and speaking dialects of the same original tongue. The words
Teuton, Teutonic, and Teutondom also have the advantage over German and
Germanic that they are of native growth and not borrowed from a foreign
language. In the following pages, therefore, the word Teutonic will be
used to describe Scandivanians, Germans, Anglo-Saxons, &c.,
collectively, while German will line used exclusively in regard to
Germany proper.' TRANSLATOR.


2.


THE ARYAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.


It is universally known that the Teutonic dialects are related to the
Latin, the Greek, the Slavic, and Celtic languages, and that the kinship
extends even beyond Europe to the tongues of Armenia, Irania, and India.
The holy books ascribed to Zoroaster, which to the priests of Cyrus and
Darius were what the Bible is to us; Rigveda's hymns, which to the
people dwelling on the banks of the Ganges are God's revealed word, are
written in a language which points to a common origin with our own.
However unlike all these kindred tongues may have grown with the lapse
of thousands of years, still they remain as a sharply-defined group of
older and younger sisters as compared with all other language groups of
the world. Even the Semitic languages are separated therefrom by a
chasmn so broad and deep that it is hardly possible to bridge it.


This language-group of ours has been named in various ways. It has been
called the Indo-Germanic, the Indo-European, and the Aryan family of
tongues. I have adopted the last designation. The Armenians, Iranians,
and Hindoos I call the Asiatic Aryans; all the rest I call the European
Aryans.


Certain it is that these sister-languages have had a common mother, the
ancient Aryan speech, and that this has had a geographical centre from
which it has radiated. (By such an ancient Aryan language cannot, of
course, be meant a tongue stereotyped in all its inflections, like the
literary languages of later times, but simply the unity of those
dialects which were spoken by the clans dwelling around this centre of
radiation.) By comparing the grammatical structure of all the daughters
of this ancient mother, and by the aid of the laws hitherto discovered
in regard to the transition of sounds from one language to another,
attempts have been made to restore this original tongue which many
thousand years ago ceased to vibrate. These attempts cannot, of course,
in any sense claim to reproduce an image corresponding to the lost
original as regards syntax and inflections. Such a task would be as
impossible as to reconstruct, on the basis of all the now spoken
languages derived from the Latin, the dialect used in Latium. The
purpose is simply to present as faithful an idea of the ancient tongue
as the existing means permit.


In the most ancient historical times Aryan-speaking people were found
only in Asia and Europe. In seeking for the centm and the earliest
conquests of the ancient Aryan language, th scholar may therefore keep
within the limits of these two con tinents, and in Asia he may leave all
the eastern and the most c the southern portion out of consideration,
since these extensiv regions have from prehistoric times been inhabited
by Mongolian and allied tribes, and may for the present be regarded as
the cradle of these races. It may not be necessary to remind the reader
that the question of the original home of the ancient Aryan tongue is
not the same as the question in regard to the cradle of the Caucasian
race. The white race may have existed, and may have been spread over a
considerable portion of the old world, before a language possessing the
peculiarities belonging to the Aryan bad appeared; and it is a known
fact that southern portions of Europe, such as the Greek and Italian
peninsulas, were inhabited by white people before they were conquered by
Aryans.


3.


THE HYPOTHESIS CONCERNING THE ASIATIC ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS.


When the question of the original home of the Aryan language and race
was first presented, there were no conflicting opinions on the main
subject. All who took any interest in the problem referred to Asia as
the cradle of the Aryans. Asia had always been regarded as the cradle of
the human race. In primeval time, the yellow Mongolian, the black
African, the American redskin, and the fair European had there tented
side by side. From some common centre in Asia they had spread over the
whole surface of the inhabited earth. Traditions found in the
literatures of various European peoples in regard to an immigration from
the East supported this view. The progenitors of the Romans were said to
have come from Troy. The fathers of the Teutons were reported to have
immigrated from Asia, led by Odin. There was also the original home of
the domestic animals and of the cultivated plants. And when the
startling discovery was made that the sacred books of the Iranians and
Hindoos were written in languages related to


Compare O. Schrader, Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte (1883).


the culture languages of Europe, when these linguistic monuments
betrayed a wealth of inflections in comparison with which those of the
classical languages turned pale, and when they seemed to have the stamp
of an antiquity by the side of which the European dialects seemed like
children, then what could be more natural than the following conclusion:
The original form has been preserved in the original home; the farther
the streams of emigration got away from this home, the more they lost on
the way of their language and of their inherited view of the world that
is, of their mythology, which among the Hindoos seemed so original and
simple as if it had been watered by the dews of life's dawn.


To begin with, there was no doubt that the original tongue itself, the
mother of all the other Aryan languages, had already been found when
Zend or Sanscrit was discovered. Fr. v. Schlegel, in his work published
in 1808, on the Language and Wisdom of the Hindoos, regarded Sanscrit as
the mother of the Aryan family of languages, and India as the original
honie of the Aryan family of peoples. Thence, it was claimed, colonies
were sent out in prehistoric ages to other parts of Asia and to Europe;
nay, even missionaries went forth to spread the language and religion of
the mother-country among other peoples. Schlegel's compatriot Link
looked upon Zend as the oldest language and mother of Sanscrit, and the
latter he regarded as the mother of the rest; and as the Zend, in his
opinion, was spoken in Media and surrounding countries, it followed that
the highlands of Media, Armenia, and Georgia were the original home of
the Aryans, a view which prevailed among the leading scholars of the
age, such as Anquetil-Duperron, Herder, arid Heeren, and found a place
in the historical text-books used in the schools from 1820 to 1840.


Since Bopp published his epoch-making Comparative Grammar the illusion
that the Aryan mother-tongue had been discovered had, of course,
gradually to give place to the conviction that all the Aryan languages,
Zend and Sanscrit included, were relations of equal birth. This also
affected the theory that the Persians or Hindoos were the original
people, and that the cradle of our race was to be sought in their homes.


On the other hand, the Hindooic writings were found to contain evidence
that, during the centuries in which the most of the Rigveda songs were
produced, the Hindooic Aryans were possess only of Kabulistan and
Pendschab, whence, either expelling subjugating an older black
population, they had advanced towa the Ganges. Their social condition
was still semi-nomadic, at least in the sense that their chief property
consisted in herds, and the feuds between the clans had for their object
the plundering of su possessions from each other. Both these facts
indicated that the Aryans were immigrants to the Indian peninsula, but
not the aborigines, wherefore their original home must be sought
elsewhere The strong resemblance found between Zend and Sanscrit, and
whi makes these dialects a separate subdivision in the Ayran family
languages, must now, since we have learned to regard them
sister-tongues, be interpreted as a proof that the Zend people Iranians
and the Sanscrit people or Hindoos were in ancient times one people with
a common country, and that this union must have continued to exist long
after the European Aryans were parted from them and had migrated
westwards. When, then, the question wa asked where this Indo-Iranian
cradle was situated, the answer wa thought to be found in a chapter of
Avesta, to which the German scholar Rhode had called attention already
in 1820. To him seemed to refer to a migration from a more northerly and
colder country. The passage speaks of sixteen countries created by th
fountain of light and goodness, Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda), and o sixteen
plagues produced by the fountain of evil, Ahrimnan (Angra Mainyn), to
destroy the work of Ormuzd. The first country wa a paradise, but Ahriman
ruined it with cold and frost, so that it had ten months of winter and
only two of summer. The second country, in the name of which Sughda
Sogdiana was recognised was rendered uninhabitable by Ahriman by a pest
which destroyed the domestic animals. Ahriman made the third (which, by
the way, was recognised as Merv) impossible as a dwelling on account of
never-ceasing wars and plunderings. In this manner thirteen other
countries with partly recognisable names are enumerated as created by
Ormuzd, and thirteen other plagues produced by Ahriman. Rhode's view,
that these sixteen regions were stations in the migration of the
Indo-Iranian people from their original country became universally
adopted, and it was thought that the track of the migration could now be
followed back through Persis, Baktria, and Sogdiana, up to the first
region created by Ormuzd, which, accordingly, must have been situated in
the interior highlands of Asia, around the sources of the Jaxartes and
Oxus. The reason for the emigration hence was found in the statement
that, although Ormuzd had made this country an agreeable abode, Ahriman
had destroyed it with frost and snow. In other words, this part of Asia
was supposed to have had originally a warmer temperature, which suddenly
or gradually became lower, wherefore the inhabitants found it necessary
to seek new homes in the West and South.


The view that the sources of Oxus and Jaxartes are the original home of
the Aryans is even now the prevailing one, or at least the one most
widely accepted, and since the day of Rhode it has been supported and
developed by several distinguished scholars. Then Julius v. Klaproth
pointed out, already in 1830, that, among the many names of various
kinds of trees found in India, there is a single one which they have in
common with other Aryan peoples, and this is the name of the birch.
India has many kinds of trees that do not grow in Central Asia, but the
birch is found both at the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes, and on the
southern spurs of the Himalaya mountains. If the Aryan Hindoos
immigrated from the highlands of Central Asia to the regions through
which the Indus and Ganges seek their way to the sea, then it is
natural, that when they found on their way new unknown kinds of trees,
then they gave to these new names, but when they discovered a tree with
which they had long been acquainted, then they would apply the old
familiar name to it. Mr. Lassen, the great scholar of Hindooic
antiquities, gave new reasons for the theory that the Aryan Hindoos were
immigrants, who tbrough the western pass of Hindukush and through
Kabulistan came to Pendschab, and thence slowly occupied the Indian
peninsula. That their original home, as well as that of their Iranian
kinsmen, was that part of the highlands of Central Asia pointed out by
Rhode, he found corroborated by the circumstance, that there are to be
found there, even at the present time, remnants of a people, the
so-called Tadchiks, who speak Iranian dialects. According to Lassen,
these were to be regarded as direct descendants of the original Aryan
people, who remained in the original home, while other parts of the same
people migrated to Baktria or Persia and became Iranians, or migrated
down to Pendschab and became Hindoos, or migrated to Europe and became
Celts, Greco-Italians, Teutons, and Slays. Jacob Grimm, whose name will
always be mentioned with honour as the great pathfinder in the field of
Teutonic antiquities, was of the same opinion; and that whole school of
scientists who were influenced by romanticism and by the philosophy of
Schelling made haste to add to the real support sought for the theory in
ethnological and philological facts, a support from the laws of natural
analogy and from poetry. A mountain range, so it was said, is the
natural divider of waters. From its fountains the streams flow in
different directions and irrigate the plains. In the same manner the
highlands of Central Asia were the divider of Aryan folk-streams, which
through Baktria sought their way to the plains of Persia, through the
mountain passes of Hindukush to India, through the lands north of the
Caspian Sea to the extensive plains of modern Russia, and so on to the
more inviting regions of Western Europe. The sun rises in the east, ex
oriente lux; the-highly gifted race, which was to found the European
nations, has, under the guidance of Providence, like the sun, wended its
way from east to west. In taking a grand view of the subject, a mystic
harmony was found to exist between the apparent course of the sun and
the real migrations of people. The minds of the people dwelling in
Central and Eastern Asia seemed to be imbued with a strange instinctive
yearning. The Aryan folk-streams, which in prehistoric times deluged
Europe, were in this respect the forerunners of the hordes of Huns which
poured in from Asia, and which in the fourth century gave the impetus to
the Teutonic migrations and of the Mongolian hordes which in the
thirteenth century invaded our continent. The Europeans themselves are
led by this same instinct to follow the course of the sun: they flow in
gre at numbers to America, and these folk-billows break against each
other on the coasts of the Pacific Ocean. "At the breast of our Asiatic
mother," thus exclaimed, in harmony with the romantic school, a scholar
with no mean linguistic attainments "at the breast of our Asiatic
mother, the Aryan people of Europe have rested; around her as their
mother they have played as children. There or nowhere is the playground;
there or nowhere is the gymnasium of the first physical and intellectual
efforts on the part of the Aryan race."


The theory that the cradle of the Aryan race stood in Central Asia near
the sources of the Indus and Jaxartes had hardly been contradicted in
1850, and seemed to be secured for the future by the great number of
distinguished and brilliant names which had given their adhesion to it.
The need was now felt of clearing up the order and details of these
emigrations. All the light to be thrown on this subject had to come from
philology and from the geography of plants and animals. The first author
who, in this manner and with the means indicated, attempted to furnish
proofs in detail that the ancient Aryan land was situated around the
Onus river was Adolphe Pictet. There, he claimed, the Aryan language had
been formed out of older non-Aryan dialects. There the Aryan race, on
account of its spreading over Baktria and neighbouring regions, had
divided itself into branches of various dialects, which there, in a
limited territory, held the same geographical relations to each other as
they hold to each other at the present time in another and immuensely
larger territory. In the East lived the nomadic branch which later
settled in India in the East, too, but farther north, that branch herded
their flocks, which afterwards became the Iranian and took possession of
Persia. West of the ancestors of the Aryan Hindoos dwelt the branch
which later appears as the Greco-Italians, and north of the latter the
common progenitors of Teutons and Slays had their home. In the extreme
West dwelt the Celts, and they were also the earliest emigrants to the
West. Behind them marched the ancestors of the Teutons and Slays by a
more northern route to Europe. The last in this procession to Europe
were the ancestors of the Greco-Italians, and for this reason their
languages have preserved more resemblance to those of the Indo-Iranians
who migrated into Southern Asia than those of the other European Aryans
. For this view Pictet gives a number of reasons. According to him, the
vocabulary common to more or less of the Aryan branches preserves names
of minerals, plants, and animals which are found in those latitudes, and
in those parts of Asia which he calls the original Aryan country.


The German linguist Schleicher has to some extent discussed the same
problem as Pictet in a series of works published in the fifties and
sixties. The same has been done by the famous GermanEnglish scientist
Max Müller. Sehleicher's theory, briefly stated, is


the following. The Aryan race originated in Central Asia. There, in the
most ancient Aryan country, the original Aryan tongue was spoken for
many generations. The people multiplied and enlarged their territory,
and in various parts of the country t.hey occupied, the language assumed
various forms, so that there were developed at least two different
languages before the great migrations began. As the chief cause of the
emigrations, Schleicher regards the fact that the primitive agriculture
practised by the Aryans, including the burning of the forests,
impoverished the soil and had a bad effect on the climate. The
principles he laid down and tried to vindicate were: (1) The farther
East an Aryan people dwells, the more it has preserved of the
peculiarities of the original Aryan tongue. (2) The farther West an
Aryan-derived tongue and daughter people are found, the earlier this
language was separated from the mother-tongue, and the earlier this
people became separated from the original stock. Max Müller holds the
common view in regard to the Asiatic origin of the Aryans. The main
difference between him and Schleicher is that Müller assumes that the
Aryan tongue originally divided itself into an Asiatic and an European
branch. He accordingly believes that all the Aryan-European tongues amid
all the Aryan-European peoples have developed from the same European
branch, while Schleicher assumes that in the beginning the division
produced a Teutonic and LettoSlavic branch on the one hand, and an
Indo-Iranian, Greco-Italic, and Celtic on the other.


This view of the origin of the Aryans bad scarcely met with any
opposition when we entered the second half of our century. We might add
that it had almost ceased to be questioned. The theory that the Aryans
were cradled in Asia seemed to be established as an historical fact,
supported by a mass of ethnographical, linguistic, and historical
arguments, and vindicated by a host of brilliant scientific names.


4.


THE HYPOTHESIS CONCERNING THE EUROPEAN ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS.


In the year 1854 was heard for the first time a voice of doubt. The
sceptic was an English ethnologist, by name Latham, who had spent many
years in Russia studying the natives of that country. Latham was
unwilling to admit that a single one of the many reasons given for the
Asiatic origin of our family of languages was conclusive, or that the
accumulative weight of all the reasons given amounted to real evidence.
He urged that they who at the outset had treated this question had lost
sight of the rules of logic, and that in explaining a fact it is a
mistake to assume too many premises. The great fact which presents
itself and which is to be explained is this: There are Aryans in Europe
and there are Aryans in Asia. The major part of Aryans are in Europe,
and here the original language has split itself into the greatest number
of idioms. From the main Aryan trunk in Europe only two branches extend
into Asia. The northern branch is a new creation, consisting of Russian
colonisation from Europe ; the southern branch, that is, the
Iranian-Hindooic, is, on the other hand, prehistoric, but was still
growing in the dawn of history, and the branch was then growing from
West to East, from Indus toward Ganges. When historical facts to the
contrary are wanting, then the root of a great family of languages
should naturally be looked for in the ground which supports the trunk
and is shaded by the crown, and not underneath the ends of the
farthest-reaching branches. The mass of Mongolians dwell in Eastern
Asia, and for this very reason Asia is accepted as the original home of
the Mongolian race. The great mass of Aryans live in Europe, and have
lived there as far back as history sheds a ray of light. Why, then, not
apply to the Aryans and to Europe the same conclusions as hold good in
the case of the Mongolians and Asia' And why not apply to ethnology the
same principles as are admitted unchallenged in regard to the geography
of plants and animals' Do we not in botany and zoology seek the original
home and centre of a species where it shows the greatest vitality, the
greatest power of multiplying and producing varieties' These questions,
asked by Latham, remained for some time unanswered, but finally they led
to a more careful examination of the soundness of the reasons given for
the Asiatic hypothesis.


The gist of Latham's protest is, that the question was decided in
favour of Asia without an examination of the other possibility, and that
in such an examination, if it were undertaken, it would appear at the
very outset that the other possibility'that is, the European origin of
the Aryans'is more plausible, at least from the standpoint of methodology.


This objection on the part of an English scholar did not even produce
an echo for many years, and it seemed to be looked upon simply as a
manifestation of that fondness for eccentricity which we are wont to
ascribe to his nationality. He repeated his protest in 1862, but it
still took five years before it appeared to have made any impression. In
1867, the celebrated linguist Whitney came out, not to defend Latham's
theory that Europe is the cradle of the Aryan race, but simply to clear
away the widely spread error that the science of languages had
demonstrated the Asiatic origin of the Aryans. As already indicated, it
was especially Adolphe Pictet who had given the first impetus to this
illusion in his great work Origines indo-européennes. Already, before
Whitney, the Germans Weber and Kuhn had, without attacking the Asiatic
hypothesis, shown that the most of Pictet's arguments failed to prove
that for which they were intended. Whitney now came and refuted them all
without exception, and at the same time he attacked the assumption made
by Rhode, and until that time universally accepted, that a record of an
Aryan emigration from the highlands of Central Asia was to be found in
that chapter of Avesta which speaks of the sixteen lands created by
Ormuzd for the good of man, but which Ahriman destroyed by sixteen
different plagues. Avesta does not with a single word indicate that the
first of these lands which Ahriman destroyed with snow and frost is to
be regarded as the original home of the Iranians, or that they ever in
the past emigrated from any of them. The assumption that a migration
record of historical value conceals itself within tbis geographical
mythological sketch is a mere conjecture, and yet it was made the very
basis of the hypothesis so confidently built upon for years about
Central Asia as the starting-point of the Aryans.


The following year, 1868, a prominent German linguist'Mr. Benfey'came
forward and definitely took Latham's side. He remarked at the outset
that hitherto geological investigations had found the oldest traces of
human existence in the soil of Europe, and that, so long as this is the
case, there is no scientific fact which can admit the assumption that
the present European stock has immigrated from Asia after the quaternary
period. The mother-tongues of many of the dialects which from time
immemona1 have been spoken in Europe may just as well have originated on
this continent as the mother-tongues of the Mongolian dialects now
spoken in Eastern Asia have originated where the descendants now dwell.
That the Aryan mother-tongue originated in Europe, not in Asia, Benfey
found probably on the following grounds: In Asia, lions are found even
at the present time as far to the north as ancient Assyria, and the
tigers make depredations over the highlands of Western Iran, even to the
coasts of the Caspian Sea. These great beasts of prey are known and
named even among Asiatic people who dwell north of their habitats. If,
therefore, the ancient Aryans had lived in a country visited by these
animals, or if they had been their neighbours, they certainly would have
had names for them; but we find that the Aryan Hindoos call the lion by
a word not formed from an Aryan root, and that the Aryan Greeks borrowed
the word lion (l i V l e w n ) from a
Semitic language. (There is, however, division of opinion on this
point.) Moreover, the Aryan languages have borrowed the word camel, by
which the chief beast of burden in Asia is called. The home of this
animal is Baktria, or precisely that part of Central Asia in the
vicinity of which an effort has been made to locate the cradle of the
Aryan tongue. Benfey thinks the ancient Aryan country has been situated
in Europe, north of the Black Sea, between the mouth of the Danube and
the Caspian Sea.


Since the presentation of this argument, several defenders of the
European hypothesis have come forward, among them Geiger, Cuno, Friedr.
Müller, Spiegel, Pösche, and more recently Schrader and Penka.
Schrader's work, Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichie, contains an
excellent general review of the history of the question, original
contributions to its solution, and a critical but cautious opinion in
regard to its present position. In France, too, the European hypothesis
has found many adherents. Geiger found, indeed, that the cradle of the
Aryan race was to be looked for much farther to the west than Benfey and
others had supposed. His hypothesis, based on the evidence furnished by
the geography of plants, places the ancient Aryan land in Germany. The
cautious Schrader, who dislikes to deal with conjectures, regards the
question as undecided, but he weighs the arguments presented by the
various sides, and reaches the conclusion that those in favour of the
European origin of the Aryans are the stronger, but that they are not
conclusive.


Schrader himself, through his linguistic and historical investigations,
has been led to believe that the Aryans, while they still were one
people, belonged to the stone age, and had not yet become acquainted
with the use of metals.


5.


THE ARYAN LAND OF EUROPE.


On one point'and that is for our purpose the most important one ' the
advocates of both hypotheses have approached each other. The leaders of
the defenders of the Asiatic hypothesis have ceased to regard Asia as
the cradle of all the dialects into which the ancient Aryan tongue has
been divided. While they cling to the theory that time Aryan inhabitants
of Europe have immigrated from Asia, they have well ' nigh entirely
ceased to claim that these peoples, already before their departure from
their Eastern home, were so distinctly divided linguistically that it
was necessary to imagine certain branches of the race speaking Celtic,
others Teutonic, others, again, Greco-Italian, even before they came to
Europe. The prevailing opinion among the advocates of the Asiatic
hypothesis now doubtless is, that the Aryans who immigrated to Europe
formed one homogeneous mass, which gradually on our continent divided
itself definitely into Celts, Teutons, Slays, and Greco-Italians. The
adherents of both hypotheses have thus been able to agree that there has
been a European-Aryan country. And the question as to where it was
located is of the most vital importance, as it is closely connected with
the question of the original home of the Teutons, since the ancestors of
the Teutons must have inhabited this ancient European-Aryan country.


Philology has attempted to answer the former question by comparing all
the words of all the Aryan - European languages. The attempt has many
obstacles to overcome ; for, as Schrader has remarked, the ancient words
which to-day are common to all or several of these languages are
presumably a mere remnant of the ancient European-Aryan vocabulary.
Nevertheless, it is possible to arrive at important results in this
manner, if we draw conclusions from the words that remain, but take care
not to draw conclusions from what is wanting. The view gained in this
manner is, briefly stated, as follows


The Aryan country of Europe has been situated in latitudes where snow
and ice are common phenomena. The people who have emigrated thence to
more southern climes have not forgotten either the one or the other name
of those phenomena. To a comparatively northern latitude points also the
circumstance that the ancient European Aryans recognised only three
seasons'winter, spring, and summer. This division of the year continued
among the Teutons even in the days of Tacitus. For autumn they had no name.


Many words for mountains, valleys, streams, amid brooks common to all
the languages show that the European-Aryan land was not wanting in
elevations, rocks, and flowing waters. Nor has it been a treeless plain.
This is proven by many names of trees. The trees are fir, birch, willow,
elm, elder, hazel, and a beech called bhaga, which means a tree with
eatable fruit. From this word bhaga is derived the Greek F h
g óV the Latin fagus, the German Buche, and the Swedish bok. But
it is a remarkable fact that the Greeks did not call the beech but the
oak F h g óV , while the Romans called the beech fagus.
From this we conclude that the European Aryans applied time word bhaga
both to the beech and the oak, since both bear similar fruit; but in
some parts of the country the name was particularly applied to the
beech, in others to the oak. The beech is a species of tree which
gradually approaches the north. On the European continent it is not
found east of a line drawn from Königsberg across Poland and Podolia to
Crimea. This leads to the conclusion that the Aryan country of Europe
must to a great extent have been situated west of this line, and that
the regions inhabited by the ancestors of the Romans, and north of them
b the progenitors of the Teutons, must be looked for west of this
botanical line, and between the Alps and the North Sea.


Linguistic comparisons also show that the Aryan territory of Europe was
situated near an ocean or large body of water. Scandinavians, Germans,
Celts, and Romans have preserved a common name for the ocean'the Old
Norse mar, the Old High German mari the Latin mare. The names of certain
sea-animals are also common to various Aryan languages. The Swedish
hummer (lobster) corresponds to the Greek Kauár o V , and
the Swedish säl (seal) to the Greek s e l a c o
V .


In the Aryan country of Europe there were domestic animals' cows,
sheep, and goats. The horse was also known, hut it is uncertain whether
it was used for riding or driving, or simply valued on account of its
flesh and milk. On the other hand, the ass was not known, its domain
being particularly the plains of Central Asia. The bear, wolf, otter,
and beaver certainly belonged to the fauna of Aryan Europe. The European
Aryans must have cultivated at least one, perhaps two kinds of grain;
also flax, the name of which is preserved in the Greek l ín
o n (linen), the Latin linum, and in other languages.


The Aryans knew the art of brewing mead from honey. That they also
understood the art of drinking it even to excess may be taken for
granted. This drink was dear to the hearts of the ancient Aryans, and
its name has been faithfully preserved both by the tribes that settled
near the Ganges, and by those who emigrated to Great Britain. The
Brahmin by the Ganges still knows this beverage as madhu, the Welchman
has known it as meda, the Lithuanian as mnedus; and when the Greek
Aryans came to Southern Europe and became acquainted with wine, they
gave it the name of mead (m e q n ).


It is not probable that the European Aryans knew bronze or iron, or, if
they did know any of the metals, had any large quantity or made any
daily use of them, so long as they linguistically formed one homogeneous
body, and lived in that part of Europe which we here call the Aryan
domain. The only common name for metal is that which we find in the
Latin aes (copper), in the Gothic aiz, and in the Hindooic áyas. As is
known, the Latin aes, like the Gothic aiz, means both copper and bronze.
That the word originally meant copper, and afterwards came to signify
bronze, which is an alloy of copper and tin, seems to be a matter of
course, and that it was applied only to copper and not to bronze among
the ancient Aryans seems clear not only because a common name for tin is
wanting, but also for the far better and remarkable reason particularly
pointed out by Schrader, that all the Aryan European languages, even
those which are nearest akin to each other and are each other's
neighbours, lack a common word for the tools of a smith and the
inventory of a forge, and also for the various kinds of weapons of
defence and attack. Most of all does it astonish us, that in respect to
weapons the dissimilarity of names is so complete in the Greek and Roman
tongues. Despite this fact, the ancient Aryans have certainly used
various kinds of weapons'the club, the hammer, the axe, the knife, the
spear, and the crossbow. All these weapons are of such a character that
they could be made of stone, wood, and horn. Things more easily change
names when the older materials of which they were made give place to
new, hitherto unknown materials. It is, therefore, probable that the
European Aryans were in the stone age, and at best were acquainted with
copper before and during the period when their language was divided into
several dialects.


Where, then, on our continent was the home of this Aryan European
people in the stone age' Southern Europe, with its peninsulas extending
into the Mediterranean, must doubtless have been outside of the
boundaries of the Aryan land of Europe. The Greek Aryans have immigrated
to Hellas, and the Italian Aryans are immigrants to the Italian
peninsula. Spain has even within historical times been inhabited by
Iberians and Basques, and Basques dwell there at present. If, as the
linguistic monuments seem to prove, the European Aryans lived near an
ocean, this cannot have been the Mediterranean Sea. There remain the
Black and Caspian Sea on the one hand, the Baltic and the North Sea on
the other. But if, as the linguistic monuments likewise seem to prove,
the European Aryans for a great part, at least, lived west of a
botanical hue indicated by the beech in a country producing fir, oak,
elm, and elder, then they could not have been limited to the treeless
plains which extend along the Black Sea from the mouth of the Danube,
through Dobrudscha, Bessarabia, and Cherson, past the Crimea. Students
of early Greek history do not any longer assume that the Hellenic
immigrants found their way through these countries to Greece, but that
they came from the north-west and followed the Adriatic down to Epirus;
in other words, they came the same way as the Visigoths under Alarik,
and the Eastgoths under Theodoric in later times. Even the Latin tribes
came from the north. The migrations of the Celts, so far as history
sheds any light on the subject, were from the north and west toward the
south and east. The movements of the Teutonic races were from north to
south, and they migrated both eastward and westward. Both prehistoric
and historic facts thus tend to establish the theory that the Aryan
domain of Europe, within undefinable limits, comprised the central and
north part of Europe; and as one or more seas were known to these
Aryans, we cannot exclude from the limits of this knowledge the ocean
penetrating the north of Europe from the west.


On account of their undeveloped agriculture, which compelled them to
depend chiefly on cattle for their support, the European Aryans must
have occupied an extensive territory. Of the mutual position and of the
movemnents of the various tribes within this territory nothing can be
stated, except that sooner or later, but already away back in
prehistoric times, they must have occupied precisely the position in
which we find them at the dawn of history and which they now hold. The
Aryan tribes which first entered Gaul must have lived west of those
tribes which became the progenitors of the Teutons, and the latter must
have lived west of those who spread an Aryan language over Russia. South
of this line, but still in Central Europe, there must have dwelt another
body of Aryans, the ancestors of the Greeks and Romans, the latter west
of the former. Farthest to the north of all these tribes must have dwelt
those people who afterwards produced the Teutonic tongue.


B. ANCIENT TEUTONDOM (GERMANIEN).


6.


THE GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION OF ANCIENT TEUTONDOM. THE STONE AGE OF
PREHISTORIC TEUTONDOM.


The northern position of the ancient Teutons necessarily had the effect
that they, better than all other Aryan people, preserved their original
race-type, as they were less exposed to mixing with non-Aryan elements.
In the south, west, and east, they had kinsmen, separating them from
non-Aryan races. To the north, on the other hand, lay a territory which,
by its very nature, could be but sparsely populated, if it was inhabited
at all, before it was occupied by the fathers of the Teutons. The
Teutonic type, which doubtless also was the Aryan in general before much
spreading and consequent mixing with other races had taken place, has,
as already indicated, been described in the following manner: Tall,
white skin, blue eyes, fair hair. Anthropological science has given them
one more mark'they are dolicocephalous, that is, having skulls whose
anterioposterior diameter, or that from the frontal to the occipital
bone, exceeds the transverse diameter. This type appears most pure in
the modern Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and to some extent the Dutch; in
the inhabitants of those parts of Great Britain that are most densely
settled by Saxon and Scandinavian emigrants; and in the people of
certain parts of North Germany. Welcker's craniological measurements
give the following figures for the breadth and length of Teutonic skulls:


Swedes and Hollanders....75'71
 

Icelanders and Danes....76'71
 

Englishmen....76'73
Holsteinians....77'71
 

Hanoverians, (The vicinity of Jena, Bonn, and Cologne)....77'72
 

Hessians....79'72
 

Swabians....79'73
 

Bavarians....80'74
 

Thus the dolicocephalous form passes in Middle and Southern Germany
into the brachycephalous. The investigations made at the suggestion of
Virchow in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria, in regard to
blonde and brunette types, are of great interest. An examination of more
than nine million individuals showed the following result:


Germany 31.80% blonde, 14.05% brunette, 54.15% mixed.
 

Austria 19.79% blonde, 23.17 % brunette, 57.04 % mixed.
 

Switzerland 11.10% blonde, 25.70 % brunette, 61.40% mixed.
 

Thus the blonde type has by far a greater number of representatives in
Germany than in the southern part of Central Europe, though the latter
has German-speaking inhabitants. In Germany itself the blonde type
decreases and the brunette increases from north to south, while at the
same time the dolicocephalous gives place to the brachycephalous.
Southern Germany has 25 % of brunettes, North Germany only 7%


If we now, following the strict rules of methodology which Latham
insists on, bear in mind that the cradle of a race- or language-type
should, if there are no definite historical facts to the contrary,
especially be looked for where this type is most abundant and least
changed, then there is no doubt that the part of Aryan Europe which the
ancestors of the Teutons inhabited when they developed the Aryan tongue
into the Teutonic must have included the coast of the Baltic and the
North Sea. This theory is certainly not contradicted, but, on the other
hand, supported by the facts so far as we have any knowledge of them.
Roman history supplies evidence that the same parts of Europe in which
the Teutonic type predominates at the present time were Teutonic already
at the beginning of our era, and that then already the Scandinavian
peninsula was inhabited by a North Teutonic people, which, among their
kinsmen on the Continent, were celebrated for their wealth in ships and
warriors. Centuries must have passed ere the Teutonic colonisation of
the peninsula could have developed into so much strength'centuries
during which, judging from all indications, the transition from the
bronze to the iron age in Scandinavia must have taken place. The
painstaking investigations of Montelius, conducted on the principle of
methodology, have led him to the conclusion that Scandinavia and North
Germany formed during the bronze age one common domain of culture in
regard to weapons and implements. The manner in which the other domains
of culture group themselves in Europe leaves no other place for the
Teutonic race than Scandinavia and North Germany, and possibly
Austria-Hungary, which the Teutonic domain resembles most. Back of the
bronze age lies the stone age. The examinations, by v. Düben, Gustaf
Retzius, and Virchow, of skeletons found in northern graves from the
stone age prove the existence at that time of a race in the North which,
so far as the characteristics of the skulls are concerned, cannot be
distinguished from the race now dwelling there. Here it is necessary to
take into consideration the results of probability reached by
comparative philology, showing that the European Aryans were still in
the stone age when they divided themselves into Celts, Teutons, &c., and
occupied separate territories, and the fact that the Teutons, so far
back as conclusions may be drawn from historical knowledge, have
occupied a more northern domain than their kinsmen. Thus all tends to
show that when the Scandinavian peninsula was first settled by
Aryans'doubtless coming from the South by way of Denmark'these Aryans
belonged to the same race, which, later in history, appear with a
Teutonic physiognomy and with Teutonic speech, and that their
immigration to and occupation of the southern parts of the peninsula
took place in the time of the Aryan stone age.


For the history of civilisation, and particularly for mythology, these
results are important. It is a problem to be solved by comparative
mythology what elements in the various groups of Aryan myths may be the
original common property of the race while the race was yet undivided.
The conclusions reached gain in trustworthiness the further the Aryan
tribes, whose myths are compared, are separated from each other
geographically. If, for instance, the Teutonic mythology on the one hand
and the Asiatic Aryan (Avesta and Rigveda) on the other are made the
subject of comparative study, and if groups of myths are found which are
identical not only in their general character and in many details, but
also in the grouping of the details and the epic connection of the
myths, then the probability that they belong to an age when the
ancestors of the Teutons and those of the Asiatic Aryans dwelt together
is greater, in the same proportion as the probability of an intimate and
detailed exchange of ideas after the separation grows less between these
tribes on account of the geographical distance. With all the certainty
which it is possible for research to arrive at in this field, we may
assume that these common groups of myths'at least the centres around
which they revolve-originated at a time when the Aryans still formed, so
to speak, a geographical and linguistic unity'in all probability at a
time which lies far back in a common Aryan stone age. The discovery of
groups of myths of this sort thus sheds light on beliefs and ideas that
existed in the minds of our ancestors in an age of which we have no
information save that which we get from the study of the finds. The
latter, when investigated by painstaking and penetrating archćological
scholars, certainly give us highly instructive information in other
directions. In this manner it becomes possible to distinguish between
older and younger elements of Teutonic mythology, and to secure a basis
for studying its development through centuries which have left us no
literary monuments.


II.


A. MEDIĆAL MIGRATION SAGAS. THE LEARNED SAGA IN REGARD TO THE
EMIGRATION FROM TROY ASGARD.


7.


THE SAGA IN HEIMSKRINGLA AND THE PROSE EDDA.


In the preceding pages we have given the reasons which make it appear
proper to assume that ancient Teutondom, within certain indefinable
limits, included the coasts of the Baltic and the North Sea, that the
Scandinavian countries constituted a part of this ancient Teutondom, and
that they have been peopled by Teutons since the days of the stone age.


The subject which I am now about to discuss requires an investigation
in reference to what the Teutons themselves believed, in regard to this
question, in the earliest times of which we have knowledge. Did they
look upon themselves as aborigines or as immigrants in Teutondom' For
the mythology, the answer to this question is of great weight. For
pragmatic history, on the other hand, the answer is of little
importance, for whatever they believed gives no reliable basis for
conclusions in regard to historical facts. If they regarded themselves
as aborigines, this does not hinder their having immigrated in
prehistoric times, though their traditions have ceased to speak of it.
If they regarded themselves as immigrants, then it does not follow that
the traditions, in regard to the immigration, contain any historical
kernel. Of the former we have an example in the case of the Brahmins and
the higher castes in India: their orthodoxy requires them to regard
themselves as aborigines of the country in which they live, although
there is evidence that they are immigrants. Of the latter the Swedes are
an example: the people here have been taught to believe that a greater
or less portion of the inhabitants of Sweden are descended from
immigrants who, led by Odin, are supposed to have come here about one
hundred years before the birth of Christ, and that this immigration,
whether it brought many or few people, was of the most decisive
influence on the culture of the country, so that Swedish history might
properly begin with the moment when Odin planted his feet on Swedish soil.


The more accessible sources of the traditions in regard to Odin's
immigration to Scandinavia are found in the Icelandic works,
Heimskringla and the Prose Edda. Both sources are from the same time,
that is, the thirteenth century, and are separated by more than two
hundred years from the heathen age in Iceland.


We will first consider Heimskringla's story. A river, by name
Tanakvisl, or Vanakvisl, empties into the Black Sea. This river
separates Asia from Europe. East of Tanakvisl, that is to say, then in
Asia, is a country formerly called Asaland or Asaheim, and the chief
citadel or town in that country was called Asgard. It was a great city
of sacrifices, and there dwelt a chief who was known by the namne Odin.
Under him ruled twelve men who were high-priests and judges. Odin was a
great chieftain and conqueror, and so victorious was he, that his men
believed that victory was wholly inseparable from him. If he laid his
blessing hand on anybody's head, success was sure to attend him. Even if
he was absent, if called upon in distress or danger, his very name
seemed to give comfort. He frequently went far away, and often remained
absent half-a-year at a time. His kingdom was then ruled by his brothers
Vile and Ve. Once he was absent so long that the Asas believed that he
would never return. Then his brothers married his wife Frigg. Finally he
returned, however, and took Frigg back again.


The Asas had a people as their neighbours called the Vans. Odin made
war on the Vans, but they defended themselves bravely. When both parties
had been victorious and suffered defeat, they grew weary of warring,
made peace, and exchanged hostages. The Vans sent their best son Njord
and his son Frey, and also Kvaser, as hostages to the Asas; and the
latter gave in exchange Honer and Mimir. Odin gave Njord and Frey the
dignity of priests. Frey's sister, too, Freyja, was made a priestess.
The Vans treated the hostages they had received with similar
consideration, and created loner a chief and judge. But they soon seemed
to discover that Honer was a stupid fellow. They considered themselves
cheated in the exchange, and, being angry on this account, they cut off
the head, not of Honer, but of his wise brother Mimir, and sent it to
Odin. He embalmed the head, sang magic songs over it, so that it could
talk to him and tell him many strange things.


Asaland, where Odin ruled, is separated by a great mountain range from
Tyrkland, by which Heimskringla means Asia Minor, of which the
celebrated Troy was supposed to have been the capital. In Tyrkland, Odin
also had great possessions. But at that time the Romans invaded and
subjugated all lands, and many rulers fled on that account from their
kingdoms. And Odin, being wise and versed in the magic art, and knowing,
therefore, that his descendants were to people the northern part of the
world, he left his kingdom to his brothers Vile and Ve, and migrated
with many followers to Gardarike, Russia. Njord, Frey, and Freyja, and
the other priests who had ruled under him in Asgard, accompanied him,
and sons of his were also with him. From Gardarike he proceeded to
Saxland, conquered vast countries, and made his sons rulers over them.
From Saxland he went to Funen, and settled there. Seeland did not then
exist. Odin sent the maid Gefion north across the water to investigate
what country was situated there. At that time ruled in Svithiod a chief
by name Gylfe. He gave Gefion a ploughland, and, by the help of four
giants changed into oxen, Gefion cut out with the plough, and dragged
into the sea near Funen that island which is now called Seeland. Where
the land was ploughed away there is now a lake called Logrin. Skjold,
Odin's son, got this land, and married Gefion. And when Gefion informed
Odin that Gylfe possessed a good land, Odin went thither, and Gylfe,
being unable to make resistance, though he too was a wise man skilled in
witchcraft and sorcery, a peaceful compact was made, according to which
Odin acquired a vast territory around Logrin; and in Sigtuna he
established a great temple, where sacrifices henceforth were offered
according to the custom of the Asas. To his priests he gave
dwellings'Noatun to Njord, Upsala to Frey, Himminbjorg to Heimdal,
Thrudvang to Thor, Breidablik to Balder, &c. Many new sports came to the
North with Odin, and he and the Asas taught them to the people. Among
other things, he taught them poetry and runes. Odin himself always
talked in measured rhymes. Besides, he was a most excellent sorcerer. He
could change shape, make his foes in a conflict blind and deaf; he was a
wizard, and could wake the dead. He owned the ship Skidbladner, which
could be folded as a napkin. He had two ravens, which he had taught to
speak, and they brought him tidings from all lands. He knew where all
treasures were hid in the earth, and could call them


As much land as can be ploughed in a day.


forth with the aid of magic songs. Among the customs he introduced in
the North were cremation of the dead, the raising of mounds in memory of
great men, the erection of bauta-stones in commemoration of others; and
he introduced the three great sacrificial feasts'for a good year, for
good crops, and for victory. Odin died in Svithiod. When he perceived
the approach of death, he suffered himself to be marked with the point
of a spear, and declared that he was going to Gudheim to visit his
friends and receive all fallen in battle. This the Swedes believed. They
have since worshipped him in the belief that he had an eternal life in
the ancient Asgard, and they thought he revealed himself to them before
great battles took place. On Svea's throne he was followed by Njord, the
progenitor of the race of Ynglings. Thus Heimskringla. We now pass to
the Younger Edda, which in its Foreword gives us in the style of that
time a general survey of history and religion.


First, it gives from the Bible the story of creation and the deluge.
Then a long story is told of the building of the tower of Babel. The
descendants of Noah's son, Ham, warred against and conquered the sons of
Sem, and tried in their arrogance to build a tower which should aspire
to heaven itself. The chief manager in this enterprise was Zoroaster,
and seventy-two master-masons and joiners served under him. But God
confounded the tongues of these arrogant people so that each one of the
seventy-two masters with those under him got their own language, which
the others could not understand, and then each went his own way, and in
this manner arose the seventy-two different languages in the world.
Before that time only one language was spoken, and that was Hebrew.
Where they tried to build the tower a city was founded and called
Babylon There Zoroaster became a king and ruled over many Assyrian
nations, among which he introduced idolatry, arid which worshiped him as
Baal. The tribes that departed with his master-workmen also fell into
idolatry, excepting the one tribe which kept the Hebrew language. It
preserved also the original and pure faith. Thus, while Babylon became
one of the chief altars of heathen worship, the island Crete became
another. There was


 A translation of the Younger or Prose Edda was edited by R. B.
Anderson and published by S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago, in 1881.


born a man, by name Saturnus, who became for the Cretans and
Macedonians what Zoroaster was for the Assyrians. Saturnus' knowledge
and skill in magic, and his art of producing gold from red-hot iron,
secured him the power of a prince on Crete; and as he, moreover, had
control over all invisible forces, the Cretans and Macedonians believed
that he was a god, and he encouraged them in this faith. He had three
sons'Jupiter, Neptunus, and Plutus. Of these, Jupiter resembled his
father in skill and magic, and he was a great warrior who conquered many
peoples. When Saturnus divided his kingdom among his sons, a feud arose.
Plutus got as his share hell, and as this was the least desirable part
he also received the dog named Cerberus. Jupiter, who received heaven,
was not satisfied with this, but wanted the earth too. He niade war
against his father, who had to seek refuge in Italy, where he, out of
fear of Jupiter, changed his name and called himself Njord, and where he
became a useful king, teaching the inhabitants, who lived on nuts and
roots, to plough and plant vineyards.


Jupiter had many sons. From one of them, Dardanus, descended in the
fifth generation Priamus of Troy. Priamus' son was Hektor, who in
stature and strength was the foremost man in the world. From the Trojans
the Romans are descended; and when Rome had grown to be a great power it
adopted many laws and customs which had prevailed among the Trojans
before them. Troy was situated in Tyrkland, near the centre of the
earth. Under Priamus, the chief ruler, there were twelve tributary
kings, and they spoke twelve languages. These twelve tributary kings
were exceedingly wise men; they received the honour of gods, and from
them all European chiefs are descended. One of these twelve was called
Munon or Mennon. He was married to a daughter of Priamus, and had with
her the son Tror, "whom we call Thor ". He was a very handsome man , his
hair shone fairer than gold, and at the age of twelve he was full-grown,
and so strong that he could lift twelve bear-skins at the same time. He
slew his foster-father and foster-mother, took possession of his
foster-father's kingdom Thracia, "which we call Thrudheim," and
thenceforward he roamed about the world, conquering berserks, giants,
the greatest dragon, and other prodigies. In the North he met a
prophetess by name Sibil (Sibylla), "whom we call Sif," and her he
married. In the twentieth generation froni this Thor, Vodin descended, "
whom we call Odin," a very wise and well-informed man, who married
Frigida, "whom we call Frigg ".


At that time the Roman general Pompey was making wars in the East, and
also threatened the empire of Odin. Meanwhile Odin and his wife had
learned through prophetic inspiration that a glorious future awaited
them in the northern part of the world. He therefore emigrated from
Tyrkland, and took with him many people, old and yOung, men and women,
and costly treasures. Wherever they came they appeared to the
inhabitants more like gods than men. And they did not stop before they
came as far north as Saxland. There Odin remained a long time. One of
his sons, Veggdegg, he appointed king of Saxland. Another son, Beldegg,
"whom we call Balder," he made king in Westphalia. A third son, Sigge,
became king in Frankland. Then Odin proceeded farther to the north and
came to Reidgothaland, which is now called Jutland, and there took
possession of as much as he wanted. There he appointed his son Skjold as
king; then he came to Svithiod.


Here ruled king Gylfe. When he heard of the expedition of Odin and his
Asiatics he went to nieet them, and offered Odin as much land and as
much power in his kingdom as he might desire. One reason why people
everywhere gave Odin so hearty a welcome and offered him land and power
was that wherever Odin and his men tarried on their journey the people
got good harvests and abundant crops, and therefore they believed that
Odin and his men controlled the weather amid the growing grain. Odin
went with Gylfe up to the lake "Logrin" and saw that the land was good;
and there he chose as his citadel the place which is called Sigtuna,
founding there the same institutions as had existed in Troy, and to
which the Turks were accustomed. Then he organised a council of twelve
men, who were to make laws and settle disputes. From Svithiod Odin went
to Norway, and there made his son Sćming king. But the ruling of
Svithiod he had left to his son Yngve, from whom the race of Ynglings
are descended. The Asas and their sons married the women of the land of
which they had taken possession, and their descendants, who preserved
the language spoken in Troy, multiplied so fast that the Trojan language
displaced the old tongue and became the speech of Svithiod, Norway,
Denmark, and Saxland, and thereafter also of England.


The Prose Edda's first part, Gylfaginning, consists of a collection of
mythological tales told to the reader in the form of a conversation
between the above-named king of Sweden, Gylfe, and the Asas. Before the
Asas had started on their journey to the North, it is here said, Gylfe
had learned that they were a wise and knowing people who had success in
all their undertakings. And believing that this was a result either of
the nature of these people, or of their peculiar kind of worship, he
resolved to investigate the matter secretly, and therefore betook
himself in the guise of an old man to Asgard. But the foreknowing Asas
knew in advance that he was coming, and resolved to receive him with all
sorts of sorcery, which might give him a high opinion of them. He
finally came to a citadel, the roof of which was thatched with golden
shields, and the hall of which was so large that he scarcely could see
the whole of it. At the entrance stood a man playing with sharp tools,
which he threw up in the air and caught again with his hands, and seven
axes were in the air at the same time. This man asked the traveller his
name. The latter answered that he was named Ganglere, that he had made a
long journey over rough roads, and asked for lodgings for the night. He
also asked whose the citadel was. The juggler answered that it belonged
to their king, and conducted Gylfe into the hail, where many people were
assembled. Some sat drinking, others amused themselves at games, and
still others were practising with weapons. There were three high-seats
in the hall, one above the other, and in each high-seat sat a man. In
the lowest sat the king; and the juggler informed Gylfe that the king's
name was Har; that the one who sat next above him was named Jafnhar; and
that the one who sat on the highest throne was named Thride (ţridi). Har
asked the stranger what his errand was, and invited him to eat and
drink. Gylfe answered that he first wished to know whether there was any
wise man in the hall. Har replied that the stranger should not leave the
hall whole unless he was victorious in a contest in wisdom. Gylfe now
begins his questions, which all concern the worship of the Asas, and the
three men in the high-seats give him answers. Already in the first
answer it appears that the Asgard to which Gylfe thinks he has come is,
in the opinion of the author, a younger Asgard, and presumably the same
as the author of Heimskringla places beyond the river Tanakvisl, but
there had existed an older Asgard identical with Troy in Tyrkland,
where, according to Heimskringla, Odin had extensive possessions at the
time when the Romans began their invasions in the East. When Gylfe with
his questions had learned the most important facts in regard to the
religion of Asgard, and had at length been instructed concerning the
destruction and regeneration of the world, he perceived a mighty
rumbling and quaking, and when he looked about him the citadel and hall
had disappeared, and he stood beneath the open sky. He returned to
Svithiod and related all that he had seen and heard among the Asas; but
when he had gone they counselled together, and they agreed to call
themselves by those names which they used in relating their stories to
Gylfe. These sagas, remarks Gylfaginning, were in reality none but
historical events transformed into traditions about divinities. They
described events which had occurred in the older Asgard' that is to say,
Troy. The basis of the stories told to Gylfe about Thor were the
achievements of Hektor in Troy, and the Loki of whom Gylfe had heard
was, in fact, none other than Ulixes (Ulysses), who was the foe of the
Trojans, and consequently was represented as the foe of the gods.


Gylfaginning is followed by another part of the Prose Edda called
Bragaroedur (Brage's Talk), which is presented in a similar form. On
Lessö, so it is said, dwelt formerly a man by name Ćgir. He, like Gylfe,
had heard reports concerning the wisdom of the Asas, and resolved to
visit them. He, like Gylfe, comes to a place where the Asas receive him
with all sorts of magic arts, and conduct him into a hall which is
lighted up in the evening with shining swords. There he is invited to
take his seat by the side of Brage, and there were twelve high-seats in
which sat men who were called Thor, Njord, Frey, &c., and women who were
called Frigg, Freyja, Nanna, &c. The hall was splendidly decorated with
shields. The mead passed round was exquisite, and the talkative Binge
instructed the guest in the traditions concerning the Asas' art of
poetry. A postscript to the treatise warns young skalds not to place
confidence in the stories told to Gylfe and Ćgir. The author of the
postscript says they have value only as a key to the many metaphors
which occur in the poems of the great skalds, but upon the whole they
are deceptions invented by the Asas or Asiamen to make people believe
that they were gods. Still, the author thinks these falsifications have
an historical kernel. They are, he thinks, based on what happened in the
ancient Asgard, that is, Troy. Thus, for instance, Ragnarok is
originally nothing else than the siege of Troy; Thor is, as stated,
Hektor; the Midgard-serpent is one of the heroes slain by Hektor; the
Fenris-wolf is Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who slew Priam (Odin); and
Vidar, who survives Ragnarok, is Ćneas.


8.


THE TROY SAGA IN HEIMSKRINGLA AND THE PROSE EDDA (continued).


The sources of the traditions concerning the Asiatic immigration to the
North belong to the Icelandic literature, and to it alone. Saxo's
Historia Danica, the first books of which were written toward the close
of the twelfth century, presents on this topic its own peculiar view,
which will be discussed later. The Icelandic accounts disagree only in
unimportant details; the fundamental view is the same, and they have
flown froni the same fountain vein. Their contents may be summed up thus:


Among the tribes who after the Babylonian confusion of tongues
emnigrated to various countries, there was a body of people who settled
and introduced their language in Asia Minor, which in the sagas is
called Tyrkland; in Greece, which in the sagas is called Macedonia; and
in Crete. In Tyrkland they founded the great city which was called Troy.
This city was attacked by the Greeks during the reign of the Trojan king
Priam. Priam descended from Jupiter and the latter's father Saturnus,
and accordingly belonged to a race which the idolaters looked upon as
divine. Troy was a very large city; twelve languages were spoken there,
and Priam had twelve tributary kings under him. But however powerful the
Trojans were, and however bravely they defended themselves under the
leadership of the son of Priam's daughter, that valiant hero Thor, still
they were defeated. Troy was captured and burned by the Greeks, and
Priam himself was slain. Of the surviving Trojans two parties emigrated
in different directions. They seem in advance to have been well informed
in regard to the quality of foreign lands; for Thor, the son of Priam's
daughter, had made extensive expeditions in which he had fought giants
and monsters. On his journeys he had even visited the North, and there
he had met Sibil, the celebrated prophetess, and married her. One of the
parties of Trojan emigrants embarked under the leadership of Ćneas for
Italy, and founded Rome. The other party, accompanied by Thor's son,
Loride, went to Asialand, which is separated from Tyrkland by a mountain
ridge, and from Europe by the river Tanais or Tanakvisl. There they
founded a new city called Asgard, and there preserved the old customs
and usages brought from Troy. Accordingly, there was organised in
Asgard, as in Troy, a council of twelve men, who were high priests and
judges. Many centuries passed without any political contact between the
new Trojan settlements in Rome and Asgard, though both well remembered
their Trojan origin, and the Romans formed many of their institutions
after the model of the old fatherland. Meanwhile, Rome had grown to be
one of the mightiest empires in the world, and began at length to send
armies into Tyrkland. At that time there ruled in Asgard an exceedingly
wise, prophetic king, Odin, who was skilled in the magic arts, and who
was descended in the twentieth generation from the above-mentioned Thor.
Odin had waged many successful wars. The severest of these wars was the
one with a neighbouring people, the Vans; but this had been ended with
compromise and peace. In Tyrkland, the old niother country, Odin had
great possessions, which fell into the hands of the Romans. This
circumstance strengthened him in his resolution to emigrate to the north
of Europe. The prophetic vision with which he was endowed had told him
that his descendants would long flourish there. So he set out with his
many sons, and was accompanied by the twelve priests and by many people,
but not by all the inhabitants of the Asa country and of Asgard. A part
of the people remained at home; and among them Odin's brothers Vile and
Ve. The expedition proceeded through Gardarike to Saxland; then across
the Danish islands to Svithiod and Norway. Everywhere this great
multitude of migrators was well received by the inhabitants. Odin's
superior wisdom and his marvellous skill in sorcery, together with the
fact that his progress was everywhere attended by abundant harvests,
caused the peoples to look upon him as a god, and to place their thrones
at his disposal He accordingly appointed his sons as kings in Saxland,
Denmark, Svithiod, and Norway. Gylfe, the king of Svithiod, submitted to
his superiority and gave him a splendid country around Lake Mćler to
rule over. There Odin built Sigtuna, the institutions of which were an
imitation of those in Asgard and Troy. Poetry and many other arts came
with Odin to the Teutonic lands, and so, too, the Trojan tongue. Like
his ancestors, Saturnus and Jupiter, he was able to secure divine
worship, which was extended even to his twelve priests. The religious
traditions which he scattered among the people, and which were believed
until the introduction of Christianity, were misrepresentations spun
around the memories of Troy's historical fate and its destruction, and
around the events of Asgard.


9.


SAXO'S RELATION OF THE STORY OF TROY.


Such is, in the main, the story which was current in Iceland in the
thirteenth century, and which found its way to Scandinavia through the
Prose Edda and Heimskringla, concerning the immigration of Odin and the
Asas. Somewhat older than these works is Historia Danica, by the Danish
chronicler Saxo. Sturlason, the author of Heimskringla, was a lad of
eight years when Saxo began to write his history, and be (Sturlason) had
certainly not begun to write history when Saxo had completed the first
nine books of his work, which are based on the still-existing songs and
traditions found in Denmark, and of heathen origin. Saxo writes as if he
were unacquainted with Icelandic theories concerning an Asiatic
immigration to the North, and he has not a word to say about Odin's
reigning as king or chief anywhere in Scandinavia. This is the more
remarkable, since he holds the same view as the Ice-landers and the
chroniclers of the Middle Ages in general in regard to the belief that
the heathen myths were records of historical events, and that the
heathen gods were historical persons, men changed into divinities; and
our astonishment increases when we consider that he, in the heathen
songs and traditions on which he based the first part of his work,
frequently finds Odin's name, and consequently could not avoid
presenting him in Danish history as an important character. In Saxo, as
in the Icelandic works, Odin is a human being, and at the same time a
sorcerer of the greatest power. Saxo and the Icelanders also agree that
Odin came from the East. The only difference is that while the Icelandic
hypothesis makes him rule in Asgard, Saxo locates his residence in


Byzantium, on the Bosphorus; but this is not far from the ancient Troy,
where the Prose Edda locates his ancestors. From Byzantium, according to
Saxo, the fame of his magic arts and of the miracles he performed
reached even to the north of Europe. On account of these miracles he was
worshipped as a god by the peoples, and to pay him honour the kings of
the North once sent to Byzantium a golden image, to which Odin by magic
arts imparted the power of speech. It is the myth about Mimir's head
which Saxo here relates. But the kings of the North knew him not only by
report; they were also personally acquainted with him. He visited
Upsala, a place which "pleased him much ". Saxo, like the Heimskrimigla,
relates that Odin was absent from his capital for a long time; and when
we examine his statements on this point, we find that Saxo is here
telling in his way the myth concerning the war which the Vans carried on
successfully against the Asas, and concerning Odin's expulsion from the
mythic Asgard, situated in heaven (Hist. Dan., pp. 42-44; vid. No. 36).
Saxo also tells that Odin's son, Balder, was chosen king by the Danes
"on account of his personal merits and his respect-commanding qualities
". But Odin himself has never, according to Saxo, had land or authority
in the North, though he was there worshipped as a god, and, as already
stated, Saxo is entirely silent in regard to immigration of an Asiatic
to Scandinavia any people under the leadership of Odin.


A comparison between him and the Icelanders will show at once that,
although both parties are Euhemerists, and make Odin a man changed into
a god, Saxo confines himself more faithfully to the popular myths, and
seeks as far as possible to turn them into history; while the
Icelanders, on the other hand, begin with the learned theory in regard
to the original kinship of the northern races with the Trojans and
Romans, and around this theory as a nucleus they weave about the same
myths told as history as Saxo tells.


10.


THE OLDER PERIODS OF THE TROY SAGA.


How did the belief that Troy was the original home of the Teutons
arise' Does it rest on native traditions' Has it been inspired by sagas
and traditions current among the Teutons them-selves, and containing as
kernel "a faint reminiscence of an immigration from Asia" or is it a
thought entirely foreign to the heathen Teutonic world, introduced in
Christian times by Latin scholars' These questions shall now be considered.


Already in the seventh century'that is to say, more than five hundred
years before Heimskringla and the Prose Edda were written'a Teutonic
people were told by a chronicler that they were of the same blood as the
Romans, that they had like the Romans emigrated from Troy, and that they
had the same share as the Romans in the glorious deeds of the Trojan
heroes. This people were the Franks. Their oldest chronicler, Gregorius,
bishop of Tours, who, about one hundred years before that time'that is
to say, in the sixth century'wrote their history in ten books, does not
say a word about it. He, too, desires to give an account of the original
home of the Franks (Hist. Franc., ii. 9), and locates it quite a
distance from the regions around the lower Rhine, where they first
appear in the light of history; but still not farther away than to
Pannonia. Of the coming of the Franks from Troy neither Gregorius knows
anything nor the older authors, Sulpicius Alexander and others, whose
works he studied to find information in regard to the early history of
the Franks. But in the middle of the following century, about 650, an
unknown author, who for reasons unknown is called Fredegar, wrote a
chronicle, which is in part a reproduction of Gregorius' historical
work, but also contains various other things in regard to the early
history of the Franks, and among these the statenient that they
emigrated from Troy. He even gives us the sources from which he got this
information. His sources are, according to his own statement, not
Frankish, not popular songs or traditions, but two Latin authors' the
Church father Hieronymus and the poet Virgil. If we, then, go to these
sources in order to compare Fredegar's statenient with his authority, we
find that Hieronymus once names the Franks in passing, but never refers
to their origin from Troy, and that Virgil does not even mention Franks.
Nevertheless, the reference to Virgil is the key to the riddle, as we
shall show below. What Fredegar tells about the emigration of the Franks
is this: A Frankish king, by name Priam, ruled in Troy at the time when
this city was conquered by the cunning of Ulysses. Then the Franks
emigrated, and were afterwards ruled by a king named: Friga. Under his
reign a dispute arose between them, and they divided themselves into two
parties, one of which settled in Macedonia, while the other, called
after Friga's name Frigians (Phrygians), migrated through Asia and
settled there. There they were again divided, amid one part of them
migrated under king Francio into Europe, travelled across this
continent, and settled, with their women and children, near the Rhine,
where they began building a city which they called Troy, and intended to
organise in the manner of the old Troy, but the city was not completed.
The other group chose a king by name Turchot, and were called after him
Turks. But those who settled on the Rhine called themselves Franks after
their king Francio, and later chose a king named Theudemer, who was
descended from Priam, Friga, and Francio. Thus Fredegar's chronicle.


About seventy years later another Frankish chronicle saw the light of
day'the Gesta regum Francorum In it we learn more of the emigration of
the Franks fromn Troy. Gesta regum Francorum (i.) tells the following
story: In Asia lies the city of the Trojans called Ilium, where king
Ćneas formerly ruled. The Trojans were a strong and brave people, who
waged war against all their neighbours. But then the kings of the Greeks
united and brought a large army against Ćneas, king of the Trojans.
There were great battles and much bloodshed, and the greater part of the
Trojans fell. Ćneas fled with those surviving into the city of Ilium,
which the Greeks besieged and conquered after ten years. The Trojans who
escaped divided themselves into two parties. The one under king Ćneas
went to Italy, where he hoped to receive auxiliary troops. Other
distinguished Trojans becamne the leaders of the other party, which
numbered 12,000 men. They embarked in ships and came to the banks of the
river Tanais. They sailed farther and came within the s of Pannonia,
near the Moeotian marshes (navigantes pervenerunt intra terminos
Pannoniarum juxta Moeotidas paludes), where they founded a city, which
they called Sicambria, where they remained many years and became a
mighty people. Then came a time when the Roman emperor Valentinianus got
into war with that wicked people called Alamanni (also Alani). He led a
great army against them. The Alamanni were defeated, and fled to the
Moeotian marshes. Then said the emperor, "If anyone dares to enter those
marshes and drive away this wicked people, I shall for ten years make
him free from all burdens ". When the Trojans heard this they went,
accompanied by a Roman army, into the marshes, attacked the Alamanni,
and hewed them down with their swords. Then the Trojans received from
the emperor Valentinianus the name Franks, which, the chronicle adds, in
the Attic tongue means the savage (feri), "for the Trojans had a defiant
and indomitable character ".


For ten years afterwards the Trojans or Franks lived undisturbed by
Romnan tax-collectors; but after that the Roman emperor demanded that
they should pay tribute. This they refused, and slew the tax-collectors
sent to them. Then the emperor collected a large army under the command
of Aristarcus, and strengthened it with auxiliary forces from many
lands, and attacked the Franks, who were defeated by the superior force,
lost their leader Priam, and had to take flight. They now proceeded
under their leaders Markomir, Priam's son, and Sunno, son of Antenor,
away from Sicainbria through Germany to the Rhine, and located there.
Thus this chronicle.


About fifty years after its appearance'that is, in the time of
Charlemagne, and, to be more accurate, about the year 787'the well-known
Longobardian historian Paulus Diaconus wrote a history of the bishops of
Metz. Among these bishops was the Frank Arnulf, from whom Charlemagne
was descended in the fifth generation. Arnulf had two sons, one of whom
was named Ausgisel, in a contracted form Ausgis. When Paulus speaks of
this be remarks that it is thought that the name Ansgis comes from the
father of Ćneas, Anchises, who went froni Troy to Italy; and he adds
that according to evidence of older date the Franks were believed to be
descendants of the Trojans. These evidences of older date we have
considered above'Fredegar's Chronicle and Gesta regum Francorum.
Meanwhile this shows that the belief that the Franks were of Trojan
descent kept spreading with the lapse of time. It hardly needs to be
added that there is no good foundation for the derivation of Ansgisel or
Ansgis from Anchises. Ausgisel is a genuine Teutonic name. (See No. 123
concerning Ausgisel, the emigration chief of the Teutonic myth.)


We now pass to the second half of the tenth century, and there we find
the Saxon chronicler Widukind. When he is to tell the story of the
origin of the Saxon people, he presents two conflicting accounts. The
one is from a Saxon source, from old native traditions, which we shall
discuss later; the other is from a scholastic source, and claims that
the Saxons are of Macedonian descent. According to this latter account
they were a remnant of the Macedonian army of Alexander the Great,
which, as Widukind had learned, after Alexander's early death, had
spread over the whole earth. The Macedonians were at that time regarded
as Hellenicised Trojans. In this connection I call the reader's
attention to Fredegar's Chronicle referred to above, which tells that
the Trojans, in the time of king Friga, disagreed among themselves, and
that a part of them emnigrated and settled in Macedonia. In this manner
the Saxons, like the Franks, could claim a Trojan descent; and as
England to a great extent was peopled by Saxon conquerors, the same
honour was of course claimed by her people. In evidence of this, and to
show that it was believed in England during the centuries immediately
following Widukind's time, that the Saxons and Angles were of Trojan
blood, I will simply refer here to a pseudo-Sibylline manuscript found
in Oxford and written in very poor Latin. It was examined by the French
scholar Alexandre (Excursus ad Sibyllina, p. 298), and in it Britain is
said to be an island inhabited by the survivors of the Trojans (insulam
reliquiis Trojanorum inha bitatam). In another British pseudo-Sibylline
document it is stated that the Sibylla was a daughter of king Priam of
Troy; and an effort has been made to add weight and dignity to this
document by incorporating it with the works of the well-known Church
historian Beda, and thus date it at the beginning of the eighth century,
but the manuscript itself is a compilation from the time of Frederik
Barbarossa (Excurs ad Sib., p. 289). Other pseudo-Sibylline documents in
Latin give accounts of a Sibylla who lived and prophesied in Troy. I
make special mention of this fact, for the reason that in the Foreword
of the Prose Edda it is similarly stated that Thor, the son of Priam's
daughter, was married to Sibil (Sibylla).


Thus when Franks and Saxons had been made into Trojans' the former into
full-blooded Trojans and the latter into Hellenicised Trojans - it could
not take long before their northern kinsmen received the same descent as
a heritage. In the very nature of things the beginning must be made by
those Northmen who became the conquerors and settlers of Normandy in the
midst of " Trojan"


Franks. About a hundred years after their settlement there they
produced a chronicler, Dudo, deacon of St. Quentin. I have already shown
that the Macedonians were regarded as Hellenicised Trojans. Together
with the Hellenicising they had obtained the name Danai, a term applied
to all Greeks. In his Norman Chronicle, which goes down to the year 996,
Dudo relates (De moribus et gestis, &c., lib. i.) that the Norman men
regarded themselves as Danai, for Danes (the Scandinavians in general)
and Danai was regarded as the same race name. Together with the Normans
the Scandinavians also, from whom they were descended, accordingly had
to be made into Trojans. And thus the matter was understood by Dudo's
readers ; and when Robert Wace wrote his rhymed chronicle, Roman de Rou,
about the northern conquerors of Normandy, and wanted to give an account
of their origin, he could say, on the basis of a common tradition:


"When the walls of Troy in ashes were laid, And the Greeks exceedingly
glad were made, Then fled from flames on the Trojan strand The race that
settled old Denmark's land And in honour of the old Trojan reigns, The
People called themselves the Danes".


I have now traced the scholastic tradition about the descent of the
Teutonic races from Troy all the way froni the chronicle where we first
find this tradition recorded, down to the time when Are, Iceland's first
historian, lived, and when the Icelander Sćmund is said to have studied
in Paris, the samne century in which Sturlason, Heimskringla's author,
developed into manhood. Saxo rejected the theory current among the
scholars of his time, that the northern races were Danni-Trojans. He
knew that Dudo in St. Quentin was the authority upon which this belief
was chiefly based, and he gives his Danes an entirely different origin,
quanquam Dudo, rerum Aquitanicarum scriptor, Danos a Danais ortos
nuncupatosque recenseat. The Icelanders, on the other hand, accepted and
continued to develop the belief, resting on the authority of five
hundred years, concerning Troy as the starting-point for the Teutonic
race and in Iceland the theory is worked out and systematised as we have
already seen, and is made to fit in a frame of the history of the world.
The accounts given imi Heimskringla arid the Prose Edda in regard to the
emigration from Asgard form the natural denouement of an era which had
existed for centuries, and in which the events of antiquity were able to
group themselves around a common centre. All peoples and families of
chiefs were located around the Mediterranean Sea, and every event and
every hero was connected in some way or other with Troy.


In fact, a great part of the lands subject to the Roman sceptre were in
ancient literature in some way connected with the Trojan war and its
consequences: Macedonia and Epirus through the Trojan emigrant Helenus;
Illyria and Venetia through the Trojan emigrant Antenor; Rhetia and
Vindelicia through the Amazons, allies of the Trojans, from whom the
inhabitants of these provinces were said to be descended (Servius ad
Virg., i. 248) Etruria through Dardanus, who was said to have emigrated
from there to Troy; Latium and Campania through the Ćneids Sicily, the
very home of the Ćnean traditions, through the relation between the
royal families of Troy and Sicily; Sardinia (see Sallust); Gaul (see
Lucanus arid Ammnianus Marcellinus); Carthage through the visit of Ćneas
to Dido; and of course all of Asia Minor. This was not all. According to
the lost Argive History by Anaxikrates, Scaniandrius, son of Hektor and
Andromache, came with emigrants to Scythia and settled on the banks of
the Tanais; and scarcely had Germany become known to the Romans, before
it, too, became drawn into the cycle of Trojan stories, at least so far
as to make this country visited by Ulysses on his many journeys and
adventures (Tac., Germ.). Every educated Greek and Roman person's fancy
was filled from his earliest school-days with Troy, and traces of
Dardanians and Danaians were found everywhere, just as the English in
our time think they have found traces of the ten lost tribes of Israel
both in the old and in the new world.


In the same degree as Christianity, Church learning, and Latin
manuscripts were spread among the Teutonic tribes, there were
disseminated among them knowledge of and an interest in the great Trojan
stories. The native stories telling of Teutonic gods and heroes received
terrible shocks from Christianity, but were rescued in another form on
the lips of the people, and continued in their new guise to command
their attention arid devotion. In the class of Latin scholars which
developed among the Christianised Teutons, the new stories learned froni
Latin literature, telling of Ilium, of the conflicts between Trojans and
Greeks, of migrations, of the founding of colonies on foreign shores and
the creating of new empires, were the things which especially stimulated
their curiosity and captivated their fancy. The Latin literature which
was to a greater or less extent accessible to the Teutonic priests, or
to priests labouring among the Teutons, furnished abundant materials in
regard to Troy both in classical and pseudo-classical authors. We need
only call attention to Virgil and his commentator Servius, which became
a mine of learning for the whole middle age, and among pseudo-classical
works to Dares Phrygius' Historia de Excidio Trojć (which was believed
to have been written by a Trojan and translated by Cornelius Nepos !),
to Dictys Cretensis' Ephemeris belli Trojani (the original of which was
said to have been Phoenician, and found imi Dictys' alleged grave after
an earthquake in the time of Nero !), and to " Pindari Thebani," Epitome
Iliados Homeri.


Before the story of the Trojan descent of the Franks had been created,
the Teuton Jordanes, active as a writer in the middle of the sixth
century, had already found a place for his Gothic fellow-countrymen in
the events of the great Trojan epic. Not that he made the Goths the
descendants either of the Greeks or Trojans. On the contrary, lie
maintained the Goths' own traditions in regard to their descent and
their original home, a matter which I shall discuss later. But according
to Orosius, who is Jordanes' authority, the Goths were the same as the
Getć, and when the identity of these was accepted, it was easy for
Jordanes to connect the history of the Goths with the Homeric stories. A
Gothic chief marries Priam's sister and fights with Achilles and Ulysses
(Jord., c. 9), and Ilium, having scarcely recovered from the war with
Agamemnon, is destroyed a second time by Goths (c. 20).


11.


THE ORIGIN OF THE STORY IN REGARD TO THE TROJAN DESCENT OF THE FRANKS.


We must now return to the Frankish chronicles, to Fredegar's and Gesta
regum Francorum, where the theory of the descent from Troy of a Teutonic
tribe is presented for the first time, and thus renews the agitation
handed down from antiquity, which attempted to make all ancient history
a system of events radiating from Troy as their centre. I believe I am
able to point out the sources of all the statements made in these
chronicles in reference to this subject, amid also to find the very
kernel out of which the illusion regarding the Trojan birth of the
Franks grew.


As above stated, Fredegar admits that Virgil is the earliest authority
for the claim that the Franks are descended from Troy. Fredegar's
predecessor, Gregorius of Tours, was ignorant of it, aud, as already
shown, the word Franks does not occur anywhere in Virgil. The discovery
that be nevertheless gave information about the Franks and their origin
must therefore have been made or known in the time intervening between
Gregorius' chronicle and Which, then, passage Virgil's Inedegar's.can be
the in poems in which the discoverer succeeded in finding the proof that
the Franks were Trojans' A careful examination of all the circumstances
connected with the subject leads to the conclusion that the passage is
in Ćneis, lib. i., 242 ff.:


"Antenor potuit, mediis clapsus Achivis, Illyricos penetrare sinus
atque intima tutus Regna Liburnorum, et fonteim superare Timavi Unde per
ora novem vasto eum rnurmere montis It mare proruptum, et pelago premit
arva sonanti. Hic tamen ille urbem Patavi sedesque locavit Teucrorum."


"Antenor, escaped from amidst the Greeks, could with safety penetrate
the Illyrian Gulf and the inmost realms of Liburnia, and overpass the
springs of Timavus, whence, through nine mouths, with loud echoing from
tIme mountain, it bursts away, a sea impetuous, and sweeps the fields
with a roaring deluge. Yet there he built the city of Padua and
established a Trojan settlement."


The nearest proof at hand, that this is really the passage which was
interpreted as referring to the ancient history of the Franks, is based
on the following circumstances


Gregorius of Tours had found in the history of Sulpicius Alexaminder
accounts of violent conflicts, on the west bank of the Rhine, between
the Romans and Franks, the latter led by the chiefs Markomir and Sunno
(Greg., Hist., ii. 9).


From Gregorius, Gesta regum Francorum has taken both these names
According to Gesta, the Franks, under the command of Markomir amid
Sunno, emigrate from Pannonia, near the Moeotian marshes, amid settle on
the Rhine. The supposition that they had


lived in Pannonia before their coming to the Rhine, the author ( Gesta
had learned from Gregorius. In (Gesta, Markomir is made son of the
Trojan Priam, and Sunno a son of the Trojan Antenor.


From this point of view, Virgil's account of Antenor's and hi Trojans'
journey to Europe from fallen Tray refers to the emigration of the
father of the Frankish chief Sunno at the head of a trib of Franks. And
as Gesta's predecessor, the so-called Fredegar, appeals to Virgil as his
authority for this Frankish emigration, an as the wanderings of Antenor
are nowhere else mentioned by th Roman poet, there can be no doubt that
the lines above quoted were the very ones which were regarded as the
Virgilian evidence in regard to a Frankish emigration from Troy. But how
did it conic to be regarded as an evidence'


Virgil says that Antenor, when he had escaped the Achivians, succeeded
in penetrating Illymricos sinus, the very heart of Illyria, The name
Illyricum served to designate all the regions inhabited by kindred
tribes extending from the Alps to the mouth of the Danube and from the
Danube to the Adriatic Sea and Hćmus (cp. Marquardt Röm. Staatsrerwalt,
295). To Illyricum belonged the Roman provinces Dalmatia, Pannonia, and
Moesia, and the Pannonians were an Illyrian tribe. In Pannonia Gregorius
of Tours had located the Franks in early times. Thus Antenor, with his
Trojans, on their westward journey, traverses the same regions from
which, according to Gregorius, the Franks had set out for the Rhine.


Virgil also says that Antenor extended his journeys to the Liburnian
kingdoms (regna Liburnorum). From Servius' commen' tarv on this passage,
the middle age knew that the Liburnian kingdoms were Rhetia and
Vindelicia (Rhetia Vindelici ipsi sunt Liburni). Rhetia and Vindelicia
separate Pannonia from the Rhine. Antenor, accordingly, takes the same
route toward the West as the Franks must have taken if they came from
Pannonia to the Rhine.


Virgil then brings Antenor to a river, which, it is true, is called
Timavus, but which is described as a mighty stream, coming thundering
out of a mountainous region, where it has its source, carrying with it a
mass of water which the poet compares with a sea, forming before it
reaches the sea a delta, the plains of which are deluged by the billows,
and finally emptying itself by many outlets into the ocean. Virgil says
nine; but Servius interprets this as meaning many: "finitus est numerus
pro infinito".


We must pardon the Frankish scribes for taking this river to be the
Rhine ; for if a water-course is to be looked for in Europe west of the
land of the Liburnians, which answers to the Virgilian description, then
this must be the Rhine, on whose banks the ancestors of the Franks for
the first time appear in history.


Again, Virgil tells us that Antenor settled near this river and founded
a colony'Patavium'on the low plains of the delta. The Salian Franks
acquired possession of the low and flat regions around the outlets of
the Rhine (Insula Batavorum) about the year 287, and also of the land to
the south as far as to the Scheldt ; arid after protracted wars the
Romans had to leave them the control of this region. By the very
occupation of this low country, its conquerors might properly be called
Batavian Franks. It is only necessary to call attention to the
similarity of the words Patavi arid Batavi, in order to show at the same
time that the conclusion could scarcely be avoided that Virgil had
reference to the immigration of the Franks when he spoke of the
wanderings of Anitenor, the more so, since from time out of date the
pronunciation of tire initials B and P have been interchanged by tire
Germans. In tire conquered territory the Franks founded a city
(Amurinan. Marc., xvii. 2, 5).


Thus it appears that the Franks were supposed to have migrated to the
Rhine under the leadership of Antenor. The first Frankish chiefs
recorded, after their appearance there, are Markomir and Sunno. Frorii
this the conclusion was drawn that Sunno was Anterior's son ; and as
Markomir ought to be the son of some celebrated Trojan chief, he was
made the son of Priam. Thus we have explained Fredegar's statement that
Virgil is his authority for the Trojan descent of these Franks. This
seemed to be established for all time.


The wars fought around the Moetian marshes between the emperor
Valentinianus, the Alamanni, and the Franks, of which Gesta speaks, are
riot wholly inventions of the fancy. The historical kernel in this
confused semi-mythical narrative is that Valentinianus really did fight
with the Alamanni, amid that the Franks for sonic time were allies of
the Romans, amid came into conflict with those sariie Alamanni (Ammian..
Marc., libs. xxx., xxxi.). But the scene of these battles was not the
Moeotian marshes and Pannonia, as Gesta supposes, but the regions on the
Rhine.


The unhistorical statement of Gregorius that the Franks came from Pan
nonia is based only on the fact that Frankish warriors for some time
formed a. Sicambra cohors, which about the year 26 was incorporated with
the Roman troops stationed in Pannonia and Thracia. The cohort is
believed to have remained in Hungary and formed a colony, where Buda now
is situated. Gesta makes Pannonia extend from the Moeotian marshes to
Tanais, since, according to Gregorius and earlier chroniclers, these
waters were the boundary between Europe and Asia, and since Asia was
regarded as a synonym of the Trojan empire. Virgil had called the Trojan
kingdom Asia Postquam res Asiec Priamique evertere gentem, &c. (Ćneid,
iii. 1).


Thus we have exhibited the seed out of which the fable about the Trojan
descent of the Franks grew into a tree spreading its branches over all
Teutonic Europe, in the same manner as the earlier fable, which was at
least developed if not born in Sicily, in regard to the Trojan descent
of the Romans had grown into a tree overshadowing all the lands around
the Mediterranean, and extending one of its branches across Gaul to
Britain and Ireland. The first son of the Britons, "Brutus," was,
according to Galfred, great-grandson of Ćneas, and migrated from Alba
Longa to Ireland.


So far as the Gauls are concerned, the incorporation of Cis-Alpine Gaul
with the Roman Empire, and the Romanising of the Gauls dwelling there,
had at an early day made way for the belief that they had the same
origin and were of the same blood as the Romans. Consequently they too
were Trojans. This view, encouraged by Roman politics, gradually found
its way to the Gauls on the other side of the Rhine ; and even before
Cćsar's time the Roman senate had in its letters to the Ćduans, often
called them the " brothers and kinsmen" of the Romans (fratres
consanguineique'Cćsar, Dc Bell. Gall., i. 33, 2). Of the Avernians
Lucanus sings (i. 427) Averni ... ausi Latio se fingere fratres,
sanguine ab Iliaco populi.


Thus we see that when the Franks, having made themselves masters of the
Romanised Gaul, claimed a Trojan descent, then this was the repetition
of a history of which Gaul for many centuries previously had been the
scene. After the Frankish conquest


the population of Gaul consisted for the second time of two
nationalities unlike in language and customs, and now as before it was a
political measure of no slight importance to bring these two
nationalities as closely together as possible by the belief in a common
descent. The Roman Gauls and the Franks were represented as having been
one people in the time of the Trojan war. After the fall of the comnion
fatherland they were divided into two separate tribes, with separate
destinies, until they refound each other in the west of Europe, to dwell
together again in Gaul. This explains how it came to pass that, when
they thought they had found evidence of this view in Virgil, this was at
once accepted, and was so eagerly adopted that the older traditions in
regard to the origin and migrations of the Franks were thrust aside and
consigned to oblivion. History repeats itself a third time when the
Normans conquered and became masters of that part of Gaul which after
them is called Normandy. Dudo, their chronicler, says that they regarded
themselves as being ex Antenore progenitos, descendants of Antenor. This
is sufficient proof that they had borrowed from the Franks the tradition
in regard to their Trojan descent.


12.


WHY ODIN WAS GIVEN ANTENOR'S PLACE AS LEADER OF THE TROJAN EMIGRATION.


So long as the Franks were the only ones of the Teutons who claimed
Trojan descent, it was sufficient that the Teutonic-Trojan immigration
had the father of a Frankish chief as its leader. But in the same degree
as the belief in a Trojan descent spread among the other Teutonic tribes
and assumed the character of a statement equally important to all the
Teutonic tribes, the idea would naturally present itself that the leader
of the great immigration was a person of general Teutonic importance.
There was no lack of names to choose from. Most conspicuous was the
mythical Teutonic patriarch, whom Tacitus speaks of and calls Mannus
(Germania, 2), the grandson of the goddess Jord (Earth). There can be no
doubt that he still was remembered by this (Mann) or some other name
(for nearly all Teutonic mythic persons have several names), since he
reappears in the beginning of the fourteenth century in Heinrich
Frauenlob as Mennor, the patriarch of the German people and German
tongue. But Mannus had to yield to another universal Teutonic mythic
character, Odin, and for reasons which we shall now present.


As Christianity was gradually introduced among the Teutonic peoples,
the question confronted them, what manner of beings those gods had been
in whom they and their ancestors so long had believed. Their Christian
teachers had two answers, and both were easily reconcilable. The common
answer, and that usually given to the converted masses, was that the
gods of their ancestors were demons, evil spirits, who ensnared men in
superstition in order to become worshipped as divine beings. The other
answer, which was better calculated to please the noble-born Teutonic
families, who thought themselves descended from the gods, was that these
divinities were originally human persons'kings, chiefs, legislators,
who, endowed with higher wisdom and secret knowledge, made use of these
to make people believe that they were gods, and worship them as such.
Both answers could, as stated, easily be reconciled with each other, for
it was evident that when these proud and deceitful rulers died, their
unhappy spirits joined the ranks of evil demons, and as demons they
continued to deceive the people, in order to maintain through all ages a
worship hostile to the true religion. Both sides of this view we find
current among the Teutonic races through the whole middle age. The one
which particularly presents the old gods as evil demons is found in
popular traditions from this epoch. The other, which presents the old
gods as mortals, as chiefs and lawmakers with magic power, is more
commonly reflected in the Teutonic chronicles, and was regarded among
the scholars as the scientific view.


Thus it followed of necessity that Odin, the chief of the Teutonic
gods, and from whom their royal houses were fond of tracing their
descent, also must have been a wise king of antiquity and skilled in the
magic arts, and information was of course sought with the greatest
interest in regard to the place where he had reigned, and in regard to
his origin. There were two sources of


 " Mennor der erste was genant, Dem dintische rede got tet
bekant."Later on in this work we shall discuss the traditions of the
Mannussaga found in Scandinavia and Germany.


investigation in reference to this matter. One source was the treasure
of mythic songs and traditions of their own race. But what might be
history in these seemed to the students so involved in superstition and
fancy, that not much information seemed obtamable from them. But there
was also another source, which in regard to historical trustworthiness
seemed incomparably better, and that was the Latin literature to be
found in the libraries of the convents. During centuries when the
Teutons had employed no other art than poetry for preserving the memory
of the life and deeds of their ancestors, the Romans, as we know, had
had parchment and papyrus to write on, and had kept systematic annals
extending centuries back. Consequently this source must be more
reliable. But what had this source'what had the Roman annals or the
Roman literature in general to tell about Odin' Absolutely nothing, it
would seem, inasmuch as the name Odin, or Wodan, (does not occur in any
of the authors of the ancient literature. Put this was only an apparent
obstacle. The ancient king of our race, Odin, they said, has had many
names'one name among one people, and another among another, and there
can be no doubt that he is the same person as the Romans called Mercury
and the Greeks Hermes.


The evidence of the correctness of identifying Odin with Mereurv and
Hermes the scholars might have found in Tacitus' work on Germany, where
it is stated in the ninth chapter that the chief god of the Germans is
the same as Mercury among the Romans. But Tacitus was almost unknown in
the convents and schools of this period of the middle age. They could
not use this proof, but they had another and completely compensating
evidence of the assertion.


Originally the Romans did not divide time into weeks of seven days.
Instead, they had weeks of eight days, and the farmer worked the seven
days and went on the eighth to the market. But the week of seven days
had been in existence for a very long time among certain Semitic
peoples, and already in the time of the Roman republic many Jews lived
in Rome and in Italy. Through them the week of seven days became
generally known. The Jewish custom of observing the sacredness of the
Sabbath, the first day of the week, by abstaining from all labour, could
not fail to be noticed by the strangers among whom they dwelt. The Jews
bad, however, no special name for each day of the week. But the
Oriental, Egyptian, and Greek astrologers and astronomers, who in large
numbers sought their fortunes in Rome, did more than the Jews to
introduce the week of seven days among all classes of the metropolis,
and the astrologers had special names for each of the seven days of the
week. Saturday was the planet's and the planet-god Saturnus' day;
Sunday, the sun's; Monday, the moon's; Tuesday, Mars'; Wednesday,
Mercury's; Thursday, Jupiter's; Friday, Venus' day. Already in the
beginning of the empire these names of the days were quite common in
Italy. The astrological almanacs, which were circulated in the name of
the Egyptian Petosiris among all families who had the means to buy them,
contributed much to bring this about. From Italy both the taste for
astrology and the adoption of the week of seven days, with the
above-mentioned names, spread not only into Spain and Gaul, but also
into those parts of Germany that were incorporated with the Roman
Empire, Germania superior and inferior, where the Romanising of the
people, with Cologne (Civitas Ubiorum) as the centre, made great
progress. Teutons who had served as officers and soldiers in the Roman
armies, and were familiar with the everyday customs of the Romans, were
to be found in various parts of the independent Teutonic territory, and
it is therefore not strange if the week of seven days, with a separate
name given to each day, was known and in use more or less extensively
throughout Teutondom even before Christianity had taken root east of the
Rhine, and long before Rome itself was converted to Christianity. But
from this introduction of the seven-day week did not follow the adoption
of the Roman names of the days. The Teutons translated the names into
their own language, and in so doing chose among their own divinities
those which most nearly corresponded to the Roman. The translation of
the names is made with a discrimination which seems to show that it was
made in the Teutonic country, governed by the Romans, by people who were
as familiar with the Roman gods as with their own. ln that land there
must have been persons of Teutonic birth who officiated as priests
before Roman altars. The days of the sun and moon were permitted to
retain their names. They were called Sunday and Monday. The day of the
war-god Mars became the day of the war-god Tyr, Tuesday. The day of
Mercury became Odin's day,


Wednesday. The day of the lightning-armed Jupiter became tIme day of
the thundering Thor, Thursday. The day of the goddess of love Venus
became that of the goddess of love Freyja, Friday. Saturnus, who in
astrology is a watery star, and has his house in the sign of the
waterman, was anmong the Romans, and before them among the Greeks and
Chaldćans, the lord of the seventh day. Among the North Teutons, or, at
least, among a part of them, his day got its name from laug, which
means a bath, and it is worthy of notice in this connection that the
author of the Prose Edda's Foreword identifies Saturnus with the sea-god
Njord.


Here the Latin scholars had what seemed to them a complete proof that
the Odin of which their stories of the past had so much to tell was'and
was so recognised by their heathen ancestors'the same historical person
as the Romans worshipped by the name Mercury.


At first sight it may seem strange that Mercury and Odin were regarded
as identical. We are wont to conceive Hermes (Mercury) as the Greek
sculptors represented him, the ideal of beauty and elastic youth, while
we imagine Odin as having a contemplative, mysterious look. And while
Odin in the Teutonic mythology is the father and ruler of the gods,
Mercury in the Roman has, of course, as the son of Zeus, a high rank,
but his dignity does not exempt him from being the very busy messenger
of the gods of Olympus. But neither Greeks nor Romans nor Teutons
attached much importance to such circumstances in the specimens we have
of their comparative mythology. The Romans knew that the same god among
the same people might be represented differently, and that the local
traditions also sometimes differed in regard to the kinship and rank of
a divinity. They therefore paid more attention to what Tacitus calls vis
numinis' that is, the significance of the divinity as a symbol of
nature, or its relation to the affairs of the community and to human
culture. Mercury was the symbol of wisdom and intelligence; so was Odin.
Mercury was the god of eloquence; Odin likewise. Mercury had introduced
poetry and song among men; Odin also. Mercury had taught men the art of
writing; Odin had given them the runes. Mercury did not hesitate to
apply cunning when it was needed to


 Saturday is in the North called Löverdag, Lördag'that is, Laugardag=
bathday. 'TR.


secure him possession of something that he desired; nor was Odin
particularly scrupulous in regard to the means. Mercury, with wings on
his hat and on his heels, flew ever the world, and often appeared as a
traveller among men; Odin, the ruler of the wind, did the same. Mercury
was the god of martial games, and still he was not really the war-god;
Odin also was the chief of martial games and combats, but the war-god's
occupation he had left to Tyr. In all important respects Mercury and
Odin, therefore re.. sembled each other.


To the scholars this must have been an additional proof that this, in
their eyes, historical chief, whom the Romans called Mercury and the
Teutons Odin, had been one and the same human person, who had lived in a
distant past, and had alike induced Greeks, Romans, and Goths to worship
him as a god. To get additional and more reliable information in regard
to this Odin-Mercury than what the Teutonic heathen traditions could
impart, it was only necessary to study and interpret correctly what
Roman history had to say about Mercury.


As is known, somne mysterious documents called the Sibylline books were
preserved in Jupiter's temple, on the Capitoline Hill, in Rome. The
Roman State was the possessor, and kept the strictest watch over them,
so that their contents remained a secret to all excepting those whose
position entitled them to read them. A college of priests, men in high
standing, were appointed to guard them and to consult them when
circumstances demanded it. The common opinion that the Roman State
consulted them for information in regard to the future is incorrect.
They were consulted only to find out by what ceremonies of penance and
propitiation the wrath of the higher powers might be averted at times
when Rome was in trouble, or when prodigies of one kind or another had
excited the people and caused fears of impending misfortune. Then the
Sibylline books were produced by the properly-appointed persons, and in
some line or passage they found which divinity was angry and ought to be
propitiated. This done, they published their interpretation of the
passage, but did not make known the words or phrases of the passage, for
the text of the Sibylline books must not be known to the public. The
books were written in the Greek tongue.


The story telling how these books came into the possession of the Roman
State through a woman who sold them to Tarquin' according to one version
Tarquin the Elder, according to another Tarquin the Younger'is found in
Roman authors who were well known and read throughout the whole middle
age. The woman was a Sibylla, according to Varro the Erythreian, so
called from a Greek city in Asia Minor; according to Virgil the Cumćan,
a prophetess from Cumć in southern Italy. . Both versions could easily
be harnionised, for Cumć was a Greek colony from Asia Minor; and we read
in Servius' commentaries on Virgil's poems that the Ervthreian Sibylla
was by many regarded as identical with the Cumćan. From Asia Minor she
was supposed to have come to Cumć.


In western Europe the people of the middle age claimed that there were
twelve Sibyllas: the Persian, the Libyan, the Delphian, the Cimmerinean,
the Erythreian, the Samian, the Cumćan, the Hellespontian or Trojan, the
Phrygian and Tiburtinian, and also the Sibylla Europa and the Sibylla
Agrippa. Authorities for the first ten of these were the Church father
Lactantius and the West Gothic historian Isodorus of Sevilla. The last
two, Europa and Agrippa, were simply added in order to make the number
of Sibyllas equal to that of the prophets and the apostles.


But the scholars of the middle ages also knew from Servius that the
Cumćan Sibylla was, in fact, the same as the Erythreian; and from the
Church father Lactantius, who was extensively read in the middle ages,
they also learned that the Erythreian was identical with the Trojan.
Thanks to Lactantius, they also thought they could determine precisely
where the Trojan Sibylla was born. Her birthplace was the town
Marpessus, near the Trojan Mount Ida. From the same Church father they
learned that the real contents of the Sibylline books had consisted of
narrations concerning Trojan events, of lives of the Trojan kings, &c.,
and also of prophecies concerning the fall of Troy and other coming
events, and that the poet Homer in his works was a mere plagiator, who
had found a copy of the books of the Sibylla, had recast and falsified
it, and published it in his own name in the form of heroic poems
concerning Troy.


This seemed to establish the fact that those books, which the woman
from Cumć had sold to the Roman king Tarquin, were written by a Sibylla
who was born in the Trojan country, and that the books which Tarquin
bought of her contained accounts and prophecies'accounts especially in
regard to the Trojan chiefs and heroes afterwards glorified in Homer's
poems. As the Romans came from Troy, these chiefs and heroes were their
ancestors, and in this capacity they were entitled to the worship which
the Romans considered due to the souls of their forefathers. From a
Christian standpoint this was of course idolatry; and as the Sibyllas
were believed to have made predictions even in regard to Christ, it
might seem improper for them to promote in this manner the cause of
idolatry. But Lactantius gave a satisfactory explanation of this matter.
The Sibylla, he said, had certainly prophesied truthfully in regard to
Christ; but this she did by divine compulsion and in moments of divine
inspiration. By birth and in her sympathies she was a heathen, and when
under the spell of her genuine inspirations, she proclaimed heathen and
idolatrous doctrines.


In our critical century all this may seem like mere fancies. But
careful examinations have shown that an historical kernel is not wanting
in these representations. And the historical fact which lies back of all
this is that the Sibylline hooks which were preserved in Rome actually
were written in Asia Minor in the ancient Trojan territory; or, in other
words, that the oldest known collection of so-called Sibylline oracles
was made in Marpessus, near the Trojan mountain Ida, in the time of
Solon. From Marpessus the collection came to the neighbouring city
Gergis, and was preserved in the Apollo temple there; from Gergis it
came to Cumć, and from Cumć to Rome in the time of the kings. How it
came there is not known. The story about the Cumćan woman and Tarquin is
an invention, and occurs in various forms. It is also demonstrably an
invention that the Sibylline books in Rome contained accounts of the
heroes in the Trojan war. On the other hand, it is absolutely certain
that they referred to gods and to a worship which in the main were
unknown to the Romans before the Sibylline books were introduced there,
and that to these books must chiefly be attributed the remarkable change
which took place in Roman mythology during the republican centuries. The
Roman mythology, which from the beginning had but few gods of clear
identity with the Greek, was especially during this epoch enlarged, and
received gods and goddesses who were worshipped in Greece and in the
Greek and Hellenised part of Asia Minor where the Sibylline books
originated. The way this happened was that whenever the Romans in
trouble or distress consulted the Sibylline books they received the
answer that this or that Greek-Asiatic god or goddess was angry and must
be propitiated. In connection with the propitiation ceremonies the god
or goddess was received in the Roman pantheon, and sooner or later a
temple was built to him; and thus it did not take long before the Romans
appropriated the myths that were current in Greece concerning these
borrowed divinities. This explains why the Roman mythology, which in its
oldest sources is so original and so unlike the Greek, in the golden
period of Roman literature comes to us in an almost wholly Greek attire;
this explains why Roman and Greek mythology at that time might be
regarded as almost identical. Nevertheless the Romans were able even in
the later period of antiquity to discriminate between their native gods
and those introduced by the Sibylline books. The former were worshipped
according to a Romnan ritual, the latter according to a Greek. To the
latter belonged Apollo, Artemis, Latona, Ceres, Hermes-Mercury,
Proserpina, Cybile, Venus, and Esculapius; and that the Sibylline books
were a Greek-Trojan work, whose original home was Asia Minor and the
Trojan territory, was well known to the Romans. When the temple of the
Capitoline Jupiter was burned down eighty-four years before Christ, the
Sibylline books were lost. But the State could not spare them. A new
collection had to be made, and this was mainly done by gathering the
oracles which could be found one by one in those places which the Trojan
or Erythreian Sibylla had visited, that is to say, in Asia Minor,
especially in Erythrć, and in Ilium, the ancient Troy.


So far as Hermes-Mercury is concerned, the Roman annals inform us that
he got his first lectisternium in the year 399 before Christ by order
from the Sibylline books. Lectisternium was a sacrifice: the image of
the god was laid on a bed with a pillow under the left arm, and beside
the image was placed a table and a meal, which as a sacrifice was
offered to the god. About one hundred years before that time,
Hermes-Mercury had received his first temple in Rome.


Hermes-Mercury seemed, therefore, like Apollo, Venus, Esculapius, and
others, to have been a god originally unknown to the Romans, the worship
of whom the Trojan Sibylla had recommended to the Romans.


This was known to the scholars of the middle age. Now, we must bear in
mind that it was as certain to them as an undoubted scientific fact that
the gods were originally men, chiefs, and heroes, and that the deified
chief whom the Romans worshiped as Mercury, and the Greeks as Hermes,
was the same as the Teutons called Odin, and from whom distinguished
Teutonic families traced their descent. We must also remember that the
Sibylla who was supposed to have recommended the Romans to worship the
old king Odin-Mercurius was believed to have been a Trojan woman, and
that her books were thought to have contained stories about Troy's
heroes, in addition to various prophecies, and so this manner of
reasoning led to the conclusion that the gods who were introduced in
Rome through the Sibylline books were celebrated Trojans who had lived
and fought at a time preceding the fall of Troy. Another inevitable and
logical conclusion was that Odin had been a Trojan chief, and when he
appears in Teutonic mythology as the chief of gods, it seemed most
probable that he was identical with the Trojan king Priam, and that
Priam was identical with Hermes-Mercury.


Now, as the ancestors of the Romans were supposed to have emigrated
from Troy to Italy under the leadership of Ćneas, it was necessary to
assume that the Romans were not the only Trojan emigrants, for, since
the Teutons worshipped Odin-Priamus-Hermes as their chief god, and since
a number of Teutonic families traced their descent from this Odin, the
Teutons, too, must have emigrated from Troy. But, inasmuch as the
Teutonic dialects differed greatly from the Roman language, the Trojan
Romans and the Trojan Teutons must have been separated a very long time.


They must have parted company immediately after the fall of Troy and
gone in different directions, and as the Romans had taken a southern
course on their way to Europe, the Teutons must have taken a northern.
It was also apparent to the scholars that the Romans had landed in
Europe many centuries earlier than the Teutons, for Rome had been
founded already in 754 or 753 before Christ, but of the Teutons not a
word is to be found in the annals before the period immediately
preceding the birth of Christ. Consequently, the Teutons must have made
a halt somewhere on their journey to the North. This halt must have been
of several centuries' duration, and, of course, like the Romans, they
must have founded a city, and from it ruled a territory in commemoration
of their fallen city Troy. In tnat age very little was known of Asia,
where this Teutonic-Trojan colony was supposed to have been situated,
but, both from Orosius and, later, from Gregorius of Tours, it was known
that our world is divided into three large divisions' Asia, Europe, and
Africa'and that Asia and Europe are divided by a river called Tanais.
And having learned from Gregorius of Tours that the Teutonic Franks were
said to have lived in Pannonia in ancient times, and having likewise
learned that the Moeotian marshes lie east of Pannonia, and that the
Tanais empties into these marshes, they had the course marked out by
which the Teutons had come to Europe'that is, by way of Tanais and the
Moeotian marshes. Not knowing anything at all of importance in regard to
Asia beyond Tanais, it was natural that they should locate the colony of
the Teutonic Trojans on the banks of this river.


I think I have now pointed out the chief threads of the web of that
scholastic romance woven out of Latin convent learning concerning a
Teutonic emigration from Troy and Asia, a web which extends from
Fredegar's Frankish chronicle, through the following chronicles of the
middle age, down into Heimskringla and the Foreword of the Younger Edda.
According to the Fraiikish chronicle, Gesta regum Francorum, the
emigration of the Franks from the Trojan colony near the Tanais was
thought to have occurred very late ; that is, in the time of
Valentinianus I., or, in other words, between 364 and 375 after Christ.
The Icelandic authors very well knew that Teutonic tribes had been far
into Europe long before that time, and the reigns they had constructed
in regard to the North indicated that they must have emigrated from the
Tanais colony long before the Franks. As the Roman attack was the cause
of the Frankish emigration, it seemed probable that these
world-conquerors had also caused the earlier emigration from Tanais; and
as Pompey's expedition to Asia was the most celebrated of all the
expeditions made by the Romans in the East'Pompey even entered Jerusalem
and visited its Temple' it was foumid most convenient to let the Asas
emigrate in the time of Pompey, but they left a remnant of Teutons near
the Tanais, under the rule of Odin's younger brothers Vile and Ve, in
order that this colony might continue to exist until the emigration of
the Franks took place.


Finally, it should be mentioned that the Trojan migration saga, as born
and developed in antiquity, does not indicate by a single word that
Europe was peopled later than Asia, or that it received its population
from A.sia. The immigration of the Trojans to Europe was looked upon as
a return to their original homes. Dardanus, the founder of Troy, was
regarded as the leader of an emigration from Etruria to Asia (Ćneid,
iii. 165 ff., Serv. Comm.). As a rule the European peoples regarded
themselves in antiquity as autochtones, if they did not look upon
themselves as immigrants from regions within Europe to the territories
they inhabited in historic times.


13.


THE MATERIALS OF THE ICELANDIC TROY SAGA.


We trust the facts presented above have convinced the reader that the
saga concerning the immigration of Odin and the Asas to Europe is
throughout a product of the convent learning of the middle ages. That it
was born and developed independently of the traditions of the Teutonic
heathendom shall be made still more apparent by the additional proofs
that are accessible in regard to this subject. It may, however, be of
some interest to first dwell on sonic of the details in the Heimskringla
and in the Younger Edda and point out their source.


It should be borne in mind that, according to the Younger Edda, it was
Zoroaster who first thought of building the Tower of Babel, and that in
this undertaking he was assisted by seventy-two master-masons. Zoroaster
is, as is well known, another form for the Bactrian or Iranian name
Zarathustra, the name of the prophet and religious refornier who is
praised on every page of Avesta's holy books, and who in a prehistoric
age founded the religion which far down in our own era has been
confessed by the Persians, and is still confessed by their descendants
in India, and is marked by a most serious and moral view of the world.
In the Persian and in the classical literatures this Zoroaster has
naught to do with Babel, still less with the Tower of Babel. But already
in the first century of Christianity, if not earlier, traditions became
current which made Zoroaster the founder of all sorcery, magic, and
astrology (Plinius, Hist. Nat., xxx. 2); and as astrology particularly
was supposed to have had its centre and base in Babylon, it was natural
to assume that Babel had been the scene of Zoroaster's activity. The
Greek-Roman chronicler Ammianus Marcellinus, who lived in the fourth
century after Christ, still knows that Zoroaster was a man from Bactria,
not from Babylon, but he already has formed the opinion that Zoroaster
had gotten niuch of his wisdom from the writings of the Babylonians. In
the Church fathers the saga is developed in this direction, and from the
Church fathers it got into the Latin chronicles. The Christian historian
Orosius also knows that Zoroaster was from Bactria, but lie already
connects Zoroaster with the history of Nineveh and Babylon, and niakes
Ninus make war against him and conquer him. Orosius speaks of him as the
inventor of sorcery and the magic arts. Gregorius of Tours told in his
time that Zoroaster was identical with Noah's grandson, with Chus, the
son of Ham, that this Chus went to the Persians, and that the Persians
called him Zoroaster, a name supposed to mean "the living star ".
Gregorius also relates that this Zoroaster was the first person who
taught nien the arts of sorcery and led them astray into idolatry, and
as he knew the art of making stars and fire fall from heaven, men paid
him divine worship. At that time, Gregorius continues, men desired to
build a tower which should reach to heaven. But God confused their
tongues and brought their project to naught. Nimrod, who was supposed to
have built Babel, was, according to Gregorius, a son of Zoroaster.


If we compare this with what the Foreword of the Younger Edda tells,
then we find that there, too, Zoroaster is a descendant of Noah's son
Chain and the founder of all idolatry, and that he himself was
worshipped as a god. It is evident that the author of the Foreword
gathered these statements from some source related to Gregorius'
history. Of the 72 master-masons who were said to have helped Zoroaster
in building the tower, and from whom the 72 languages of the world
originated, Gregorius has nothing to say, but the saga about these
builders was current everywhere during the middle ages. In the earlier
Anglo-Saxon literature there is a very naďve little work, very
characteristic of its age, called "A Dialogue between Saturn and
Solomon," in which Saturnus tests Solomon's knowledge and puts to him
all sorts of biblical questions, which Solomon answers partly from the
Bible and partly from sagas connected with the Bible. Among other things
Saturnus informs Solomon that Adam was created out of various elements,
weighing altogether eight pounds, and that when created he was just 116
inches long. Solomon tells that Shem, Noah's son, had thirty sons, Chain
thirty, and Japhet twelve' making 72 grandsons of Noah; and as there can
be no doubt that it was the author's opinion that all the languages of
the world, thought to be 72, originated at the Tower of Babel, and were
spread into the world by these 72 grandsons of Noah, we here find the
key to who those 72 master-masons were who, according to the Edda,
assisted Zoroaster in building the tower. They were accordingly his
brothers. Luther's contemporary, Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, who, in his
work Dv occulta Philosophia, gathered numerous data in regard to the
superstition of all ages, has a chapter on the power and sacred meaning
of various numbers, and says in speaking of the number 72 : " The number
72 corresponds to the 72 languages, the 72 elders in the synagogue, the
72 commentators of the Old Testament, Christ's 72 disciples, God's 72
names, the 72 angels who govern the 72 divisions of the Zodiac, each
division of which corresponds to one of the 72 languages ". This
illustrates sufficiently how widespread was the tradition in regard to
the 72 master-masons during the centuries of the middle ages. Even
Nestor's Russian chronicle knows the tradition. It continued to enjoy a
certain authority in the seventeenth century. An edition of Sulpicius
Severus' Opera Omnia, printed in 1647, still considers it necessary to
point out that a certain commentator had doubted whether the number 72
was entirely exact. Aniong the doubters we find Rudbeck in his Atlantica.


What the Edda tells about king Saturnus and his son, king Jupiter, is
found in a general way, partly in the Church-father Lactantius, partly
in Virgil's commentator Servius, who was known and read during the
middle age. As the Edda claims that Saturnus knew the art of producing
gold from the molten iron, and that no other than gold coins existed in
his time, this must be considered an interpretation of the statement
made in Latin sources that Saturnus' was the golden age'aurea secula,
aurea regna. Among the Romans Saturnus was the guardian of treasures,
and the treasury of the Romans was in the temple of Saturnus in the Forum.


The genealogy found in the Edda, according to which the Trojan king
Priam, supposed to be the oldest and the proper Odin, was descended in
the sixth generation from Jupiter, is taken fromn Latin chronicles.
Herikon of the Edda, grandson of Jupiter, is the Roman-Greek
Erichtonius; the Edda's Lamedon is Laomedon. Then the Edda has the
difficult task of continuing the genealogy through the dark centuries
between the burning of Troy and the younger Odin's immigration to
Europe. Here the Latin sources naturally fail it entirely, and it is
obliged to seek other aid. It first considers the native sources. There
it finds that Thor is also called Lorride, Indride, and Vingthor, and
that he had two soils, Mode and Magne; but it also finds a genealogy
made about the twelfth century, in which these different names of Thor
are applied to different persons, so that Lorride is the son of Thor,
Indride the son of Lorride, Vingthor the son of Indride, &c. This mode
of making genealogies was current in Iceland in the twelfth century, and
before that time among the Christian Anglo-Saxons. Thereupon the Edda
continues its genealogy with the names Bedvig, Atra, Itrman, Heremod,
Skjaldun or Skold, Bjćf, Jat, Gudolf, Fjarlaf or Fridleif, and finally
Odin, that is to say, the younger Odin, who had adopted this name after
his deified progenitor Hermes-Priam. This whole genealogy is taken from
a Saxon source, and can be found in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle name for
name. From Odin the genealogy divides itself into two branches, one from
Odin's son, Veggdegg, and another from Odin's son, Beldegg or Balder.
The one branch has the names Veggdegg, Vitrgils, Ritta, Heingest. These
names are found arranged into a genealogy by the English Church
historian Beda, by the English chronicler Nennius, and in the
Anglo-Saxon chronicle. From one of these three sources the Edda has
taken them, and the only difference is that the Edda must have made a
slip in one place and changed the name Vitta to Ritta. The other branch,
which begins with Balder or Beldegg, embraces eight names, which are
found in precisely the same order in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle.


In regard to Balder, the Edda says that Odin appointed him king in
Westphalia. This statement is based on the tradition that Balder was
known among the heathen Germans and Scandinavians by the name Fal
(Palm., see No. 92), with its variation Fol. In an age when it was
believed that Sweden got its name from a king Sven, Götaland from a king
Göt, Danmark from a king Dan, Angeln from a king Angul, the Franks from
a duke Francio, it might be expected that Falen (East- and West-Phalia)
had been named after a king Fal. That this name was recognised as
belonging to Balder not only in Germany, but also in Scandinavia, I
shall give further proof of in No. 92.


As already stated, Thor was, according to the Edda, married to Sibil,
that is to say, the Sibylla, and the Edda adds that this Sibil is called
Sif in the North. In the Teutonic mythology Thor's wife is the goddess
Sif. It has already been mentioned that it was believed in the middle
age that the Cumćan or Erythreian Sibylla originally came from Troy, and
it is not, therefore, strange that the author of the Younger Edda, who
speaks of the Trojan descent of Odin and his people, should marry Thor
to the most famous of Trojan women. Still, this marriage is not invented
by the author. The statement has an older foundation, and taking all
circumstances into consideration, may be traced to Germany, where Sif,
in the days of heathendom, was as well known as Thor. To the northern
form Sif corresponds the Gothic form Sibba, the Old English Sib, the Old
Saxon Sibbia, and the Old High German Sibba, and Sibil, Sibilla, was
thought to be still another form of the sanie name. The belief, based on
the assumed fact that Thor's wife Sif was identical with the Sibylla,
explains a phenomenon not hitherto understood in the saga-world and
church sculpture of the middle age, and on this point I now have a few
remarks to make.


In the Norse mythology several goddesses or discs have, as we know,
feather ' guises, with which they fly through space. Freyja has a
falcon-guise; several discs have swan-guises (Volundarkv. Helreid.
Brynh., 6). Among these swan-maids was Sif (see No. 123). Sif could
therefore present herself now in human form, and again in the guise of
the most beautiful swimming bird, the swan.


A legend, the origin of which may be traced to Italy, tells that when
the queen of Saba visited king Solomon, she was in one place to cross a
brook. A tree or beam was thrown across as a bridge. The wise queen
stopped, and would not let her foot touch the beam. She preferred to
wade across the brook, and when she was asked the reason for this, she
answered that in a prophetic vision she had seen that the time would
come when this tree would be made into a cross on which the Saviour of
the world was to suffer.


The legend came also to Germany, but here it appears with the addition
that the queen of Saba was rewarded for this piety, and was freed while
wading across the brook from a bad blemish. One of her feet, so says the
German addition, was of human form, but the other like the foot of a
water-bird up to the moment when she took it out of the brook. Church
sculpture sometimes in the middle age represented the queen of Saba as a
woman well formed, except that she had one foot like that of a
water-bird. How the Germans came to represent her with this blemish,
foreign to the Italian legend, has not heretofore been explained,
although the influence of the Greek-Roman mythology on the legends of
the Romance peoples, aiid that of the Teutonic mythology on the Teutonic
legends, has been traced in numerous instances.


During the middle ages the queen of Saba was called queen Seba, on
account of the Latin translation of the Bible, where she is styled
Regina Seba, and Seba was thought to be her name. The name suggested her
identity, on the one hand, with Sibba, Sif, whose swan-guise lived in
the traditions ; on the other hand, with Sibilla, and the latter
particularly, since queen Seba had proved herself to be in possession of
prophetic inspiration, the chief characteristic of the Sibylla. Seba,
Sibba, and Sibilla were in the popular fancy blended into one. This
explains how queen Seba among the Germans, but not among the Italians,
got the blemish which reminds us of the swan-guise of Thor's wife Sibba.
And having come to the conclusion that Thor was a Trojan, his wife Sif
also ought to be a Trojan woman. And as it was known that the Sibylla
was Trojan, and that queen Seba was a Sibylla, this blending was almost
inevitable. The Latin scholars found further evidence of the correctness
of this identity in a statement drawn origin ally from Greek sources to
the effect that Jupiter had had a Sibylla, by name Lamia, as mistress,
and had begotten a daughter with her by name Herophile, who was endowed
with her mother's gift of prophecy. As we know, Mercury corresponds to
Odin, and Jupiter to Thor, in the names of the days of the week. It thus
follows that it was Thor who stood in this relation to the Sibylla.


The character of the anthropomorphosed Odin, who is lawgiver and king,
as represented in Heimskringla and the Prose Edda, is only in part based
on native northern traditions concerning the heathen god Odin, the ruler
of heaven. This younger Odin, constructed by Christian authors, has
received his chief features from documents found in the convent
libraries. When the Prose Edda tells that the chief who proceeded from
Asgard to Saxland and Scandinavia did not really bear the name Odin, but
had assumed this name after the elder and deified Odin-Priam of Troy, to
niake people believe that he was a god, then this was no new idea.
Virgil's commentator, Servius, remarks that ancient kings very
frequently assumed names which by right belonged only to the gods, amid
he blames Virgil for making Saturnus come from the heavenly Olympus to
found a golden age in Italy. This Saturnus, says Servius, was not a god
from above, but a mortal king from Crete who had taken the god Saturnus'
name. The manner in which Saturnus, on his arrival in Italy and the
vicinity of Rome, was received by Janus, the king ruling there, reminds
us of the manner in which Odin, on his arrival in Svithiod, was received
by king Gylfe. Janus is unpretentious enough to leave a portion of his
territory and his royal power to Saturnus, and Gylfe makes the same
concessions to Odin. Saturnus thereupon introduces a higher culture
among the people of Latium, and Odin brings a higher culture to the
inhabitants of Scandinavia. The Church father Lactantius, like Servius,
speaks of kings who tried to appropriate the name and worship of the
gods, and condemns them as foes of truth and violators of the doctrines
of the true God.


In regard to one of them, the Persian Mithra, who, in the middle age,
was confounded with Zoroaster, Tertulianus relates that he (Mithra), who
knew in advance that Christianity would come, resolved to anticipate the
true faith by introducing sonic of its customs. Thus, for example,
Mithra, according to Tertulianus, introduced the custom of blessing by
laying the hands on the head or the brow of those to whom he wished to
insure prosperity, and he also adopted among his mysteries a practice
resembling the breaking of the bread in the Eucharist. So far as the
blessing by the laying on of hands is concerned, Mithra especially used
it in giving courage to the men whom he sent out as soldiers to war.
With these words of Tertulianus it is interesting to compare the
following passage in regard to Odin in the Heimskringla " It was his
custom when he sent his men to war, or on some errand, to lay his hands
on their head and give them bjannak ". Bjannak is not a Norse word, not
even Teutonic, and there has been uncertainty in regard to its
significance. The well-known Icelandic philologist, Vigfusson, has, as I
believe, given the correct definition of the word, having referred it to
the Scottish word bannock and the Gaelic bangh, which means bread.
Presumably the author of Heimskringla has chosen this foreign word in
order riot to wound the religious feelings of readers with a native
term, for if bjannak really means bread, and if the author of
Heimskringla desired in this way to indicate that Odin, by the aid of
sacred usages, practised in the Christian cult'that is, by the laying on
of hands and the breaking of bread'had given his warriors the assurance
of victory, then it lay near at hand to modify, by the aid of a foreign
word for bread, the impression of the disagreeable similarity between
the heathen and Christian usages. But at the seine time the complete
harmony between what Tertulianus tells about Mithra and Heimskringla
about Odin is manifest.


What Heimnskringla tells about Odin, that his spirit could leave the
body and go to far-off regions, and that his body lay in the meantime as
if asleep or dead, is told, in the middle age, of Zoroaster and of
Hermes-Mercurius. New Platonian works had told much about an originally
Egyptian god, whom they associated with the Greek Hermes and called
Hermes-Trismegistus'that is, the thrice greatest and highest. The name
Hermes-Trismegistus became known through Latin authors even to the
scholars in the middle age convents, amid, as a matter of course, those
who believed that Odin was identical with Hermes also regarded him as
identical with Hermes-Trismegistus. When Gylfe sought Odin amid his men
he came to a citadel which, according to the statenient of the
gatekeeper, belonged to king Odin, but when he had entered the hall he
there saw not one throne, but three thrones, the one above the other,
and upon each of the thrones a chief. When Gylfe asked the names of
these chiefs, he received an answer that indicates that none of the
three alone was Odin, but that Odin the sorcerer, who was able to turn
mnen's vision, was present in them all. One of the three, says the door'
keeper, is named Hár, the second Jafnhár, and the one on the highest
throne is ţriđi. It seems to me probable that what gave rise to this
story was the surname " the thrice-highest," which in the middle age was
ascribed to Mercury, and, consequently, was regarded as one of the
epithets which Odin assumed. The names Third and High seem to point to
the phrase " the thrice-highest".


It was accordingly taken for granted that Odin had appropriated this
name in order to anticipate Christianity with a sort of idea of trinity,
just as Zoroaster, his progenitor, had, under the name Mithra, in
advance imitated the Christian usages.


The rest that Heimskringla and the Younger Edda tell about the king
Odin who immigrated to Europe is mainly taken from the stories embodied
in the mythological songs and traditions in regard to the god Odin who
ruled in the celestial Valhal. Here belongs what is told about the war
of Odin and the Asiatics with the Vans. In the myth, this war was waged
around the walls built by a giant around the heavenly Asgard (Völusp.,
25). The citadel in which Gylfe finds the triple Odin is decorated in
harmony with the Valhal described by the heathen skalds. The men who
drink and present exercises in arms are the einherjes of the myth. Gylfe
himself is takeii from the mythology, but, to all appearances, lie did
not play the part of a king, but of a giant, dwelling in Jotunheim. The
Fornmanna sagas make him a descendant of Fornjótr, who, with his sons,
Hléir, Logi, and Kári, and his descendants, Jökull , Snćr, Geitir, &c.,
doubtless belong to Jotunheim. When Odin and the Asas had been made
immigrants to the North, it was quite natural that the giants were made
a historical people, and as such were regarded as the aborigines of the
North'an hypothesis which, in connection with the fable about the
Asiatic emigration, was accepted for centuries, arid still has its
defenders. The story that Odin, when lie perceived death drawing near,
marked himself with the point of a spear, has its origin in the words
which a heathen song lays on Odin's lips : " I know that I hung on the
wind-tossed tree nine nights, by my spear wounded, given to Odin, myself
given to myself" (Havam., 138).


14.


THE RESULT OF THE FOREGOING INVESTIGATIONS.


Herewith I close the examination of the sagas in regard to the Trojan
descent of the Teutons, and in regard to the immigration of Odin and his
Asia-men to Saxland, Denmark, and the Scandinavian peninsula. I have
pointed out the seed from which the sagas grew, the soil in which the
seed could be developed, and how it gradually grew to be what we find
these sagas to be in Heimskringla and the Younger Edda. I have shown
that. they do not belong to the Teutonic heathendom, but that they were
born, as it were of necessity, in a Christian time, among Teutons
converted to Christianity, and that they are throughout the work of the
Latin scholars in the middle age. The assumption that they concealed
within themselves a tradition preserved for centuries among the Teutons
themselves of an ancient emigration from Asia is altogether improbable,
and is completely refuted by the genuine migration sagas of Teutonic
origin which were rescued from oblivion, and of which I shall give an
account below. In my opinion, these old and genuine Teutonic migration
sagas have, from a purely historical standpoint, but little more claim
than the fables of the Christian age in regard to Odin's emigration from
Asia to be looked upon as containing a kernel of reality. This must in
each case be carefully considered. But that of which they furnish
evidence is, how entirely foreign to the Teutonic heathens was the idea
of an immigration from Troy or Asia, and besides, they are of great
interest on account of their connection with what the myths have to say
imi regard to the oldest dwellingplaces, history, and diffusion of the
human race, or at least of the Teutonic part of it.


As a rule, all the old migration sagas, no matter from what race they
spring, should be treated with the utmost caution. Large portions of the
earth's surface may have been appropriated by various races, not by the
sudden influx of large masses, but by a gradual increase of the
population and consequent moving of their boundaries, and there need not
have been any very remarkable or memorable events in connection
therewith. Such an expansion of the territory may take place, and be so
little remarked by the people living around the centre, that they
actually do not need to be aware of it, and much less do they need to
remember it in sagas and songs. That a few new settlers year by year
exteiid the boundaries of a race has no influence on the imagination,
and it can continue generation after generation, and produce as its
finial result an immense expansion, and yet the separate generations may
scarcely have been conscious of the change in progress. A people's
spreading over new territory may be compared with the movement of the
hour-hand on a clock. It is not perceptible to the eye, and is only
realised by continued observation.


In many instances, however, immigrations have taken place in large
masses, who have left their old abodes to seek new homes. Such
undertakings are of themselves worthy of being remembered, and they are
attended by results that easily cling to the memory. But even in such
cases it is surprising how soon the real historical events either are
utterly forgotten or blended with fables, which gradually, since they
appeal more to the fancy, monopolise the interest. The conquest and
settlement of England by Saxon and Scandinavian tribes'and that, too, in
a time when the art of writing was known ' is a most remarkable instance
of this. Hengist, under whose command the Saxons, according to their own
immigration saga, are said to have planted their feet on British soil,
is a saga-figure taken from mythology, and there we shall find him later
on (see No. 123). No wonder, then, if we discover in mythology those
heroes under whose leadership the Longobardians and Goths believed they
had emigrated from their original Teutonic homes.


B. REMINISCENCES IN THE POPULAR TRADITIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES OF THE
HEATHEN MIGRATION SAGA.


15.


THE LONGOBARDIAN MIGRATION SAGA.


What there still remains of migration sagas from the middle ages, taken
from the saga-treasure of the Teutons themselves, is, alas! but little.
Among the Franks the stream of national traditions early dried up, at
least among the class possessing Latin culture. Among the Longobardians
it fared better, and among them Christianity was introduced later.
Within the ken of Roman history they appear in the first century after
Christ, when Tiberius invaded their boundaries.


Tacitus speaks of them with admiration as a small people whose paucity,
he says, was balanced by their unity and warlike virtues, which rendered
them secure in the midst of the numerous and mighty tribes around them.
The Longobardians dwelt at that time in the most northern part of
Germany, on the lower Elbe, probably in Luneburg. Five hundred years
later we find them as rulers in Pannonia, whence they invade Italy. They
had then been converted to Christianity. A hundred years after they had
become settled in North Italy, one of their Latin scholars wrote a
little treatise, De Origine Longobardorum, which begins in the following
manner: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Here begins the oldest
history of our Longobardian people. There is an island called Skadan,
far in the north. There dwelt many peoples. Among them was a little
people called the Vinnilians, and among the Vinnilians was a woman by
name Gambara. Gambara had two sons: one by name Ibor, the other named
Ajo. She and these sons were the rulers among the Vinnilians. Then it
came to pass that the Vandals, with their dukes Ambri and Assi, turned
against the Vinnilians, and said to them: 'Pay ye tribute unto us. If ye
will not, then arm yourselves for war!' Then made answer Ibor and Ajo
and their mother Gambara: 'It is better for us to arm ourselves for war
than to pay tribute to the Vandals'. When Ambri and Assi, the dukes of
the Vandals, heard this, they addressed themselves to Odin (Gođan) with
a prayer that he should grant them victory. Odin answered and said:
'Those whom I first discover at the rising of the sun, to them I shall
give vie tory'. But at the same time Ibor and Ajo, the chiefs of the
Vinnilians, and their mother Gambara, addressed themselves to Frigg
(Frea), Odin's wife, beseeching her to assist them. Then Frigg gave the
advice that the Vinnilians should set out at the rising of the sun, and
that the women should accompany their husbands and arrange their hair so
that it should hang like a beard under their chins. When the sky cleared
and the sun was about to rise, Frigg, Odin's wife, went to the couch
where her husband was sleeping and directed his face to the east (where
the Vinnilians stood), and then she waked him. And as he looked up he
saw the Vinnilians, and observed the hair hanging down from the faces of
their women. And then said he: 'What long-beards are they'' Then said
Frigg to Odin:


'My lord, as you now have named them, you must also give them victory!'
And he gave them victory, so that they, in accordance with his resolve,
defended themselves well, and got the upper hand. From that day the
Vinnilians were called Longobardians' that is to say, long-beards. Then
the Longobardians left their country and came to Golaida, and thereupon
they occupied Aldonus, Anthaib, Bainaib, and Burgundaib."


In the days of Charlemagne the Longobardians got a historian by name
Paulus Diaconus, a monk in the convent Monte Cassino, and he was himself
a Longobardian by birth. Of the earliest history of his people he
relates the following: The Vinnilians or Longobardians, who ruled
successfully in Italy, are of Teutonic descent, and came originally from
the island Scandinavia. Then he says that he has talked with persons who
had been in Scandinavia, and from their reports he gives some facts,
from which it is evident that his informants had reference to Scania
with its extensive coast of lowlands and shallow water. Then he
continues: "When the population on this island had increased beyond the
ability of the island to support them, they were divided into three
parts, and it was determined by lot which part should emigrate from the
native land amid seek new homes. The part whose destiny it became to
leave their native land chose as their leaders the brothers Ibor and
Ajo, who were in the bloom of manhood and were distinguished above the
rest. Then they bade farewell to their friends and to their country, and
went to seek a land in which they might settle. The mother of these two
leaders was called Gambara, who was distinguished among her people for
her keen understanding and shrewd advice, and great reliance was placed
on her prudence in difficult circumstances." Paulus makes a digression
to discuss many remarkable things to be seen in Scandinavia: the light
summer nights and the long winter nights, a maelstrom which in its
vortex swallows vessels and sometimes throws them up again, an animal
resembling a deer hunted by the neighbours of the Scandinavians, the
Scritobinians (the Skee Finns), and a cave in a rock where seven men in
Roman clothes have slept for centuries (see Nos. 79-81, and No. 94).
Then he relates that the Vinnilians left Scandinavia and came to a
country called Scoringia, and there was fought the aforesaid battle, in
which, thanks to Frigg's help, the Vinnilians conquered the Vandals, who
demanded tribute from them. The story is then told how this occurred,
and how the


 The snow-skate, used so extensively in the north of Europe, is called
Ski in the Norse, and I have taken the liberty of introducing this word
here and spelling it phonetically'skee, pl. skees. The words snow-shoes,
snow-skates, hardly describe sufficiently these skees used by the Finns,
Norsernen, and Icelanders. Compare the English word skid, the drag
applied to a coachwheel.'TR.


Vinnilians got the name Longobardians in a manner corresponding with
the source already quoted, with the one addition, that it was Odin's
custom when he awoke to look out of the window, which was open, to the
east toward the rising sun. Paulus Diaconus finds this Longobardian
folk-saga ludicrous, not in itself, but because Odin was, in the first
place, he says, a man, not a god. In the second place, Odin did not live
among the Teutons, but among the Greeks, for he is the same as the one
called by the Romans Mercury. In the third place, Odin-Mercury did not
live at the time when the Longobardians emigrated from Scandinavia, but
much earlier. According to Paulus, there were only five generations
between the emigration of the Longobardians and the time of Odoacer.
Thus we find in Paulus Diaconus the ideas in regard to Odin-Mercury
which I have already called attention to. Paulus thereupon relates the
adventures which happened to the Longobardians after the battle with the
Vandals. I shall refer to these adventures later on. They belong to the
Teutonic mythology, and reappear in mythic sources (see No. 112), but in
a more original from, and as events which took place in the beginning of
time in a conflict between the Asas and Vans on the one hand, and lower
beings on the other hand; lower, indeed, but unavoidable in connection
with the wellbeing of nature and man. This conflict resulted in a
terrible winter and consequent famine throughout the North. In this
mythological description we shall find Ajo and Ibor, under whose
leadership the Longobardians emigrated, and Hengist, under whom the
Saxons landed in Britain.


It is proper to show what form the story about the Longobardian
emigration had assumed toward the close of the twelfth century in the
writings of the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus. The emigration took
place, he says, at a time when a Danish king, by name Snö, ruled, and
when there occurred a terrible famine. First, those starving had
resolved to kill all the aged and all children, but this awful resolve
was not carried out, thanks to a good and wise woman, by name Gambaruc,
who advised that a part of the people should emigrate. This was done
under the leadership of her sons Aggo and Ebbo. The emigrants came first
to Blekingia (Blekinge), then they sailed past Moringia (Möre) and came
to Gutland, where they had a contest with the Vandals, and by the aid of
the goddess Frigg they won the victory, and got the name Longobardians.
From Gutland they sailed to Rugen, and thence to the German continent,
and thus after many adventures they at length became masters of a large
part of Italy.


In regard to this account it must be remarked that although it contains
many details not found in Paulus Diaconus, still it is the same
narrative that has come to Saxo's knowledge. This Saxo also admits, and
appeals to the testimony of Paulus Diaconus. Paulus' Gambara is Saxo's
Gambaruc; Ajo and Ibor are Aggo and Ebbo. But the Longobardian monk is
not Saxo's only source, and the brothers Aggo and Ebbo, as we shall
show, were known to him from purely northern sources, though not as
leaders of the Longobardians, but as mythic characters, who are actors
in the great winter which Saxo speaks of.


The Longobardian emigration saga'as we find it recorded in the seventh
century, and then again in the time of Charlemagne' contains
unmistakable internal evidence of having been taken from the people's
own traditions. Proof of this is already the circumstance, that although
the Longobardians had been Christians for nearly 200 years when the
little book De Origine Longobardorum appeared, still the long-banished
divinities, Odin and Frigg, reappear and take part in the events, not as
men, but as divine beings, and in a manner thoroughly corresponding with
the stories recorded in the North concerning the relations between Odin
and his wife. For although this relation was a good and tender one,
judging from expressions in the heathen poems of the North (Völusp., 51;
Vafthr., 1-4), and although the queen of heaven, Frigg, seems to have
been a good mother in the belief of the Teutons, this does not hinder
her from being represented as a wily person, with a will of her own
which she knows how to carry out. Even a Norse story tells how Frigg
resolves to protect a person whom Odin is not able to help; how she and
he have different favourites among men, and vie with each other in
bringing greater luck to their favourites. The story is found in the
prose introduction to the poem "Grimnismál," an introduction which in
more than one respect reminds us of the Longobardian emigration saga. In
both it is mentioned how Odin from his dwelling looks out upon the world
and observes what is going on. Odin has a favourite by name Geirrod.
Frigg, on the other hand, protects Geirrod's brother Agnar. The man and
wife find fault with each other's proteges. Frigg remarks about Geirrod,
that he is a prince, "stingy with food, so that be lets his guests
starve if they are many ". And the story goes on to say that Geirrod, at
the secret command of Odin, had pushed the boat in which Agnar was
sitting away from shore, and that the boat had gone to sea with Agnar
and had not returned. The story looks like a parable founded on the
Longobardian saga, or like one grown in a Christian time out of the same
root as the Longobardian story. Geirrod is in reality the name of a
giant, and the giant is in the myth a being who brings hail and frost.
He dwells in the uttermost North, beyond the mythical Gandvik
(Thorsdrapa, 2), and as a mythical winter symbol he corresponds to king
Snö in Saxo. His "stinginess of food when too many guests come" seems to
point to lack of food caused by the unfavourable weather, which
necessitated emigrations, when the country became over-populated. Agnar,
abandoned to the waves of the sea, is protected, like the Longobardians
crossing the sea, by Frigg, and his very name, Agnar, reminds us of the
names Aggo, Acho, and Agio, by which Ajo, one of the leaders of the
Longobardians, is known. The prose introduction has no original
connection with Grimnismál itself, and in the form in which we now have
it, it belongs to a Christian age, and is apparently from an author
belonging to the same school as those who regarded the giants as the
original inhabitants of Scandinavia, and turned winter giants like
Jökull, Snćr, &c., into historical kings of Norway.


The absolutely positive result of the Longobardian narratives written
by Longobardian historians is that the Teutonic race to which they
belonged considered themselves sprung, not from Troy or Asia, but from
an island, situated in the ocean, which washes the northern shores of
the Teutonic continent, that is to say, of Germany.


16.


THE SAXON AND SWABIAN MIGRATION SAGA.


From the Longobardians I now pass to the great Teutonic group of
peoples comprised in the term the Saxons. Their historian, Widukind, who
wrote his chronicle in the tenth century, begins by telling what he has
learned about the origin of the Saxons. Here, he says, different
opinions are opposed to each other. According to one opinion held by
those who knew the Greeks and Romans, the Saxons are descended from the
remnants of Alexander the Great's Macedonian army; according to the
other, which is based on native traditions, the Saxons are descended
from Danes and Northmen. Widukind so far takes his position between
these opinions that he considers it certain that the Saxons had come iii
ships to the country they inhabited on the lower Elbe and the North Sea,
and that they landed in Hadolaun, that is to say, in the district
Hadeln, near the mouth of the Elbe, which, we may say in passing, still
is distinguished for its remarkably vigorous population, consisting of
peasants whose ancestors throughout the middle ages preserved the
communal liberty in successful conflict with the feudal nobility.
Widukind's statement that the Saxons crossed the sea to Hadeln is found
in an older Saxon chronicle, written about 860, with the addition that
the leader of the Saxons in their emigration was a chief by name Hadugoto.


A Swabian chronicle, which claims that the Swabians also came from the
North and experienced about the same adventures as the Saxons when they
came to their new home, gives from popular traditions additional details
in regard to the migration and the voyage. According to this account,
the emigration was caused by a famine which visited the Northland
situated on the other side of the sea, because the inhabitants were
heathens who annually sacrificed twelve Christians to their gods. At the
time when the famine came there ruled a king Rudolph over that region in
the Northland whence the people emigrated. He called a convention of all
the most noble men in the land, and there it was decided that, in order
to put an end to the famine, the fathers of families who had several
sons should slay them all except the one they loved most. Thanks to a
young man, by name Ditwin, who was himself included in this dreadful
resolution, a new convention was called, and the above resolution was
rescinded, and instead, it was decided to procure ships, and that all
they who, according to the former resolution, were doomed to die, should
seek new homes beyond the sea. Accompanied by their female friends, they
embarked, and they had not sailed far before they were attacked by a
violent storm, which carried them to a Danish harbour near a place, says
the author, which is called Slesvik. Here they went ashore, and to put
an end to all discussion in regard to a return to the old dear
fatherland, they hewed their ships into pieces. Then they wandered
through the country which lay before them, and, together with much other
booty, they gathered 20,000 horses, so that a large number of the men
were able to ride on horseback. The rest followed the riders on foot.
Armed with weapons, they proceeded in this mariner through the country
ruled by the Danes, and they came to the river Alba (Elbe), which they
crossed; after which they scattered themselves along the coast. This
Swabian narrative, which seems to be copied from the Saxon, tells, like
the latter, that the Thuringians were rulers in the land to which the
immigrants came, and that bloody battles had to be fought before they
got possession of it. Widukind's account attempts to give the Saxons a
legal right, at least to the landing-place and the immediate vicinity.
This legal right, he says, was acquired in the following manner. While
the Saxons were still in their ships in the harbour, out of which the
Thuringians were unable to drive them, it was resolved on both sides to
open negotiations, and thus an understanding was reached, that the
Saxons, on the condition that they abstained from plundering and murder,
might remain and buy what they needed and sell whatever they could. Then
it occurred that a Saxon man, richly adorned with gold and wearing a
gold necklace, went ashore. There a Thuringian met him and asked him:
"Why do you wear so much gold around your lean neck '" The youth
answered that he was perishing from hunger, and was seeking a purchaser
of his gold ornaments. "How much do you ask '" inquired the Thuringian.
"What do you bid'" answered the Saxon. Near by was a large sand-hill,
and the Thuringian said in derision: " I will give you as niuch sand as
you can carry in your clothes ". The Saxon said he would accept this
offer. The Thuringian filled the skirts of his frock with sand; the
Saxon gave him his gold ornaments and returned to the ships. The
Thuringians laughed at this bargain with contempt, and the Saxons found
it foolish; but the youth said : " Go with me, brave Saxons, and I will
show you that my foolishness will be your advantage ". Then he took the
sand he had bought and scattered it as widely as possible over the
ground, covering in this manner so large an area that it gave the Saxons
a fortified camp. The Thuringians sent messengers and complained of
this, but the Saxons answered that hitherto they had faithfully observed
the treaty, and that they had not taken more territory than they had
purchased with their gold. Thus the Saxons got a firm foothold in the land.


Thus we find that the sagas of the Saxons and the Swabians agree with
those of the Longobardians in this, that their ancestors were supposed
to have come from a northern country beyond the Baltic. The Swabian
version identifies this country distinctly enough with the Scandinavian
peninsula. Of an immigration from the East the traditions of these
tribes have not a word to say.


17.


THE FRANKISH MIGRATION SAGA.


We have already stated that the Frankish chronicles, unlike those of
the other Teutonic tribes, wholly ignore the traditions of the Franks,
and instead present the scholastic doctrine concerning the descent of
the Franks from Troy and the Moeotian marshes. But I did not mean to say
that we are wholly without evidence that another theory existed among
the Franks, for they, too, had traditions in harmony with those of the
other Teutonic tribes. There lived in the time of Charlemagne and after
him a Frankish man whose name is written on the pages of history as a
person of noble character and as a great educator in his day, the abbot
in Fulda, later archbishop in Mayence, Hrabanus Maurus, a scholar of the
distinguished Aleuin, the founder of the first library and of the first
large convent school in Germany. The fact that he was particularly a
theologian and Latinist did not prevent his honouring and loving the
tongue of his fathers and of his race. He encouraged its study and use,
and he succeeded in bringing about that sermons were preached in the
churches in the Teutonic dialect of the church-goers. That a Latin
scholar with so wide a horizon as his also was able to comprehend what
the majority of his colleagues failed to understand'viz., that sonie
value should be attached to the customs of the fathers and to the old
memories from heathen times'should not surprise us. One of the proofs of
his interest in this matter lie has given us in his treatise De
invocatione linguarum, in which he has recorded a Runic alphabet, and
added the information that it is the alphabet used by the Northmen and
by other heathen tribes, and that songs and formulas for healing,
incantation, and prophecy are written with these characters. When
Hrabanus speaks of the Northmen, he adds that those who speak the German
tongue trace their descent from the Northmen. This statement cannot be
harmonised with the hypothesis concerning the Asiatic descent of the
Franks and other Teutons, except by assuming that the Teutons on their
immigration from Asia to Europe took a route so far to the north that
they reached the Scandinavian peninsula and Denmark without touching
Germany and Central Europe, and then came from the North to Germany. But
of such a view there is not a trace to be found in the middle age
chronicles. The Frankish chronicles make the Franks proceed from
Pannonia straight to the Rhine. The Icelandic imitations of the
hypothesis make Odin and his people proceed from Tanais to Saxland, and
found kingdoms there before he comes to Denmark and Sweden. Hrabanus has
certainly not heard of any such theory. His statement that all the
Teutons came from the North rests on the same foundation as the native
traditions which produced the sagas in regard to the descent of the
Longobardians, Saxons, and Swabians from the North. There still remains
one trace of the Frankish migration saga, and that is the statement of
Paulus Diaconus, made above, concerning the supposed identity of the
name Ansgisel with the name Anchises. The identification is not made by
Paulus himself, but was found in the Frankish source which furnished him
with what he tells about the ancestors of Charlemagne, and the Frankish
source, under the influence of the hypothesis regai the Trojan descent
of the Franks, has made an emigration leader mentioned in the popular
traditions identical with the Trojan Anchises. This is corroborated by
the Ravenna geographer, who also informs us that a certain Anschis,
Ansgisel, was a Teutonic emigration leader, and that he was the one
under whose leadership the Saxon tribes left their old homes. Thus it
appears that, according to the Frankish saga, the Franks originally
emigrated under the same chief as the Saxons. The character and position
of Ansgisel in the heathen myth will be explained in No. 123.


JORDANES ON THE EMIGRATION OF THE GOTHS, GEPIDĆ, AND HERULIANS. THE
MIGRATION SAGA OF THE BURGUNDIANS. TRACES OF AN ALAMANNIC MIGRATION SAGA.


The most populous and mighty of all the Teutonic tribes was during a
long period the Gothic, which carried victorious weapons over all
eastern and southern Europe and Asia Minor, and founded kingdoms between
the Don in the East and the Atlantic ocean and the Pillars of Hercules
in the West and South. The traditions of the Goths also referred the
cradle of the race to Scandinavia. Jordanes, a Romanised Goth, wrote in
the sixth century the history of his people. In the North, he says,
there is a great ocean, and in this ocean there is a large island called
Scandza, out of whose loins our race burst forth like a swarm of bees
and spread over Europe. In its capacity as cradle of the Gothic race,
and of other Teutonic tribes, this island Scandza is clearly of great
interest to Jordanes, the more so since he, through his father Vamod or
Alano-Vamut, regarded himself as descended from the same royal family as
that from which the Amalians, the famous royal family of the East Goths,
traced their ancestry. On this account Jordanes gives as coniplete a
description of this island as possible. He first tells what the Greek
and Roman authors Claudius Ptolemy and Pomponius Mela have written about
it, but he also reports a great ninny things which never before were
known in literature, unless they were found in the lost Historia
Gothorum by Cassiodorus'things which either Jordanes himself or
Cassiodorus had learned from Northmen who were members of the large
Teutonic armies then in Italy. Jordanes also points out, with an air of
superiority, that while the geographer Ptolemy did not know more than
seven nations living on the island Scandza, he is able to enumerate many
more. Unfortunately several of the Scandinavian tribe-names given by him
are so corrupted by the transcriber that it is useless to try to restore
them. It is also evident that Jordanes himself has had a confused notion
of the proper geographical or political application of the names. Some
of them, however, are easily recognisable as the names of tribes in
various parts of Sweden and Norway, as, for instance, Vagoth,
Ostrogothć, Finnaithć (in habitants of Finved), Bergio, Hallin,
Raumaricii, Ragnaricii, Rani He gives us special accounts of a
Scandinavian people, which he calls sometimes Svehans and sometimes
Svethidi, and with these words there is every reason to believe that he
means the Swedes in the wider or more limited application of this term.
This is what he tells about the Svehans or Svethidi: The Svehans are in
connection with the Thuringians living on the continent, that Teutonic
people which is particularly celebrated for their excellent horses. The
Svehans are excellent hunters, who kill the animals whose skins through
countless hands are sent to the Romans, and are treasured by them as the
finest of furs. This trade cannot have made the Svehans rich. Jordanes
gives us to understand that their economnical circumstances were not
brilliant, but all the more brilliant were their clothes. He says they
dressed ditissime. Finally, he has been informed that the Svethidi are
superior to other races in stature and corporal strength, and that the
Danes are a branch of the Svethidi. What Jordanes relates about the
excellent horses of the Swedes is corroborated by the traditions which
the Icelanders have preserved. The fact that so many tribes inhabited
the island Scandza strengthens his conviction that this island is the
cradle of many of the peoples who made war on and invaded the Roman
Empire. The island Scandza, he says, has been officina gentium, vagina
nationum'the source of races, the mother of nations. And thence'he
continues, relying on the traditions and songs of his own people'the
Goths, too, have emigrated. This emigration occurred under the
leadership of a chief named Berig, and he thinks he knows where they
landed when they left their ships, and that they, like the
Longobardians, on their progress came in conflict with the Vandals
before they reached the regions north of the Black Sea, where they
afterwards founded the great Gothic kingdom which flourished when the
Huns invaded Europe.


The saga current among the Goths, that they had emigrated from
Scandinavia, ascribed the same origin to the Gepidć. The Gepidć were a
brave but rather sluggish Teutonic tribe, who shared the fate of the
Goths when the Huns invaded Europe, and, like the Goths, they cast off
the Hunnish yoke after the death of Attila. The saga, as Jordanes found
it, stated that when the ancestors of the Goths left Scandza, the whole
number of the emigrants did not fill more than three ships. Two of them
came to their destination at the same time; but the third required more
time, and therefore the first-comers called those who arrived last
Gepanta (possibly Gepaita), which, according to Jordanes, means those
tarrying, or the slow ones, and this name changed in course of time into
Gepidć. That the interpretation is taken from Gothic traditions is
self-evident.


Jordanes has heard a report that even the warlike Teutonic Herulians
had come to Germany from Scandinavia. According to the report, the
Herulians had not emigrated voluntarily from the large island, but had
been driven away by the Svethidi, or by their descendants, the Danes.
That the Herulians themselves had a tradition concerning their
Scandinavian origin is corroborated by history. In the beginning of the
sixth century, it happened that this people, after an unsuccessful war
with the Longobardians, were divided into two branches, of which the one
received land from the emperor Anastasius south of the Danube, while the
other made a resolve, which has appeared strange to all historians,
viz., to seek a home on the Scandinavian peninsula. The circumstances
attending this resolution make it still more strange. When they had
passed the Slays, they came to uninhabited regions'uninhabited,
probably, because they had been abandoned by the Teutons, and had not
yet been occupied by the Slays. In either case, they were open to the
occupation of the Herulians; but they did not settle there. We
misunderstand their character if we suppose that they failed to do so
from fear of being disturbed in their possession of them. Among all the
Teutonic tribes none were more distinguished than the Herulians for
their indomitable desire for war, and for their rash plans. Their
conduct furnishes evidence of that thoughtlessness with which the
historian has characterised them. After penetrating the wilderness, they
came to the landmarks of the Varinians, and then to those of the Panes.
These granted the Herulians a free passage, whereupon the adventurers,
in ships which the Panes must have placed at their disposal, sailed over
the sea to the island "Thule," and remained there. Procopius, the East
Romnan historian who records this (De Bello Coth., ii. 15), says that on
the immense island Thule, in whose northern part the midnight sun can be
seen, thirteen large tribes occupy its inhabitable parts, each tribe
having its own king.


Excepting the Skee Finns, who clothe themselves in skins and live from
the chase, these Thulitic tribes, he says, are scarcely to be
distinguished from the people dwelling farther south in Europe. One of
the largest tribes is the Gauts (the Götar). The Herulians went to the
Gauts and were received by them.


Some decades later it came to pass that the Herulians remaining in
South Europe, and dwelling in Illyria, were in want of a king. They
resolved to send messengers to their kinsmen who had settled in
Scandinavia, hoping that some descendant of their old royal family might
be found there who was willing to assume the dignity of king among them.
The messengers returned with two brothers who belonged to the ancient
family of rulers, and these were escorted by 200 young Scandinavian
Herulians.


As Jordanes tells us that the Herulians actually were descended from
the great northern island, then this seems to me to explain this
remarkable resolution. They were seeking new homes in that land which in
their old songs was described as having belonged to their fathers. In
their opinion, it was a return to the country which contained the ashes
of their ancestors. According to an old middle age source, Vita
Sigismundi, the Burgundians also had old traditions about a Scandinavian
origin. As will be shown further on, the Burgundian saga was connected
with the same emigration chief as that of the Saxons and Franks (see No.
123).


Reminiscences of an Alamannic migration saga can be traced in the
traditions found around the Vierwaldstädter Lake. The inhabitants of the
Canton Schwitz have believed that they originally came from Sweden. It
is fair to assume that this tradition in the form given to it in
literature has suffered a change, and that the chroniclers, on account
of the similarity between Sweden and Schwitz, have transferred the home
of the Alamannic Switzians to Sweden, while the original popular
tradition has, like the other Teutonic migration sagas, been satisfied
with the more vague idea that the Schwitzians came from the country in
the sea north of Germany when they settled in their Alpine valleys. In
the same regions of Switzerland popular traditions have preserved the
memory of an exploit which belongs to the Teutonic mythology, and is
there performed by the great archer Ibor (see No. 108), and as he
reappears in the Longobardian tradition as a migration chief, the
possibility lies near at hand, that he originally was no stranger to the
Alamannic migration saga.


19.


THE TEUTONIC EMIGRATION SAGA FOUND IN TACITUS.


The migration sagas which I have now examined are the only ones
preserved to our time on Teutonic ground. They have come down to us from
the traditions of various tribes. They embrace the East Goths, West
Goths, Longobardians, Gepidć, Burgundians, Herulians, Franks, Saxons,
Swabians, and Alamannians. And if we add to these the evidence of
Hrabanus Maurus, then all the German tribes are enibraced in the
traditions. All the evidences are unanimous in pointing to the North as
the Teutonic cradle. To these testimonies we must, finally, add the
oldest of all'the testimony of the sources of Tacitus from the time of
the birth of Christ and the first century of our era.


The statements made by Tacitus in his masterly work concerning the
various tribes of Germany and their religion, traditions, laws, customs,
and character, are gathered from men who, in Germany itself, had seen
and heard what they reported. Of this every page of the work bears
evidence, and it also proves its author to have been a man of keen
observation, veracity, and wide knowledge. The knowledge of his
reporters extends to the myths and heroic songs of the Teutons. The
latter is the characteristic means with which a gifted people, still
leading their primitive life, makes compensation for their lack of
written history in regard to the events and exploits of the past. We
find that the man he interviewed had informed himself in regard to the
contents of the songs which described the first beginning and the most
ancient adventures of the race, and he had done this with sufficient
accuracy to discover a certain disagreement in the genealogies found in
these songs of the patriarchs and tribe heroes of the Teutons'a
disagreement which we shall consider later on. But the man who had done
this had heard nothing which could bring him, and after him Tacitus, to
believe that the Teutons had immigrated from some remote part of the
world to that country which they occupied immediately before the birth
of Christ'to that Germany which Tacitus describes, and in which he
embraces that large island in the North Sea where the seafaring and
warlike Sviones dwelt. Quite the contrary. In his sources of information
Tacitus found nothing to hinder him from assuming as probable the view
he expresses'that the Teutons were aborigines, autochthones, fostered on
the soil which was their fatherland. He expresses his surprise at the
typical similarity prevailing among all the tribes of this populous
people, and at the dissimilarity existing between them on the one hand,
and the non-Teutonic peoples on the other; and he draws the conclusion
that they are entirely unmixed with other races, which, again,
presupposes that the Teutons from the most ancient times have possessed
their country for themselves, and that no foreign element has been able
to get a foothold there. He remarks that there could scarcely have been
any immigrations from that part of Asia which was known to him, or from
Africa or Italy, since the nature of Germany was not suited to invite
people from richer and more beautiful regions. But while Tacitus thus
doubts that non-Teutonic races ever settled in Germany, still he has
heard that people who desired to exchange their old homes for new ones
have come there to live. But these settlements did not, in his opinion,
result in a mixing of the race. Those early immigrants did not come by
land, but in fleets over the sea ; and as this sea was the boundless
ocean which lies beyond the Teutonic continent and was seldom visited by
people living in the countries embraced in the Roman empire, those
immigrants must themselves have been Teutons. The words of Tacitus are
(Germ., 2): Germnanos indigenas crediderim minimeque aliarum gentium.
adventibus et hospitiis mixtos, quia nec terra olim sed classibus
advehebantur qui mutare sedes qućrebant, et immensus ultra atque ut sic
dixerim, adversus Oceanus raris ab orbe nostro navibus aditur. "I should
think that the Teutons themselves are aborigines, and not at all mixed
through immigrations or connection with non-Teutonic tribes. For those
desiring to change homes did not in early times come by land, but in
ships across the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean'a sea seldom
visited by ships from the Roman world." This passage is to be compared
with, and is interpreted by, what Tacitus tells when he, for the second
time, speaks of this same ocean in chapter 44, where he relates that in
the very midst of this ocean lies a laud inhabited by Teutonic tribes,
rich not only in men and arias, but also in fleets (prćter viros armaque
elassibus valeut), and having a stronger and better organisation than
the other Teutons. These people formed several communities (civitates).
He calls them the Sviones, and describes their ships. The conclusion to
be drawn from his words is, in short, that those immigrants were
Northmen belonging to the same race as the continental Teutons. Thus
traditions concerning immigrations from the North to Germany have been
current among the continental Teutons already in the first century after
Christ.


But Tacitus' contribution to the Teutonic migration saga is not limited
to this. In regard to the origin of a city then already ancient and
situated on the Rhine, Asciburgium (Germ., 3), his reporter had heard
that it was founded by an ancient hero who had come with his ships from
the German Ocean, and had sailed up the Rhine a great distance beyond
the Delta, and had then disembarked and laid the foundations of
Asciburgium. His reporter had also heard such stories about this ancient
Teutonic hero that persons acquainted with the Greek-Roman traditions
(the Romans or the Gallic neighbours of Asciburgium) had formed the
opinion that the hero in question could be none else than the Greek
Ulysses, who, in his extensive wanderings, had drifted into the German
Ocean and thence sailed up the Rhine. In weighing this account of
Tacitiis we must put aside the Roman-Gallic conjecture concerning
Ulysses' visit to the Rhine, and confine our attention to the fact on
which this conjecture is based. The fact is that around Asciburgium a
tradition was current concerning an ancient hero who was said to have
come across the northern ocean with a host of immigrants and founded the
above-named city on the Rhine, and that the songs or traditions in
regard to this ancient hero were of such a character that they who knew
the adventures of Ulysses thought they had good reason for regarding him
as identical with the latter. Now, the fact is that the Teutonic
mythology has a hero who, to quote the words of an ancient Teutonic
document, "was the greatest of all travellers," and who on his journeys
met with adventures which in sonic respects remind us of Ulysses'. Both
descended to Hades; both travelled far and wide to find their beloved.
Of this mythic hero and his adventures see Nos. 96-107, and No. 107
about Asciburgium in particular.


It lies outside the limits of the present work to investigate whether
these traditions contain any historical facts. There is need of caution
in this respect, since facts of history are, as a rule, short-lived
among a people that do not keep written annals. The historical songs and
traditions of the past which the Scandinavians recorded in the twelfth
century do not go further back in time than to the middle of the ninth
century, and the oldest were already mixed with stories of the
imagination. The Hellenic historical records fromn a pre-literary time
were no older; nor were those of the Romans. The question how far
historically important emigrations from the Scandinavian peninsula and
Denmark to Germany have taken place should in my opinion be considered
entirely independent of the old migration traditions if it is to be
based on a solid foundation. If it can be answered in the affirmative,
then those immigrations must have been partial returns of an Aryan race
which, prior to all records, have spread from the South to the
Scandinavian countries. But the migration traditions themselves clearly
have their firmest root in myths, and not in historical memories ; and
at all events are so closely united with the myths, and have been so
transformed by song and fancy, that they have become useless for
historical purposes. The fact that the sagas preserved to our time make
nearly all the most important and most numerous Teutonic tribes which
played a part in the destiny of Southern Europe during the Empire
emigrants from Scandinavia is calculated to awaken suspicion.


The wide diffusion this belief has had among the Teutons is
sufficiently explained by their common mythology'particularly by the
myth concerning the earliest age of man or of the Teutonic race. As this
work of mine advances, I shall find opportunity of presenting the
results of my investigations in regard to this myth. The fragments of it
must, so to speak, be exhumed from various mounds, and the proofs that
these fragments belong together, and once formed a unit, can only be
presented as the investigation progresses. In the division "The Myth
concerning the Earliest Period and the Emigrations from the North," I
give the preparatory explanation and the general résumé (Nos. 20-43).
For the points which cannot there be demonstrated without too long
digressions the proofs will be presented in the division "The Myth
concerning the Race of Ivalde" (Nos. 96-123).


III.


THE MYTH CONCERNING THE EARLIEST PERIOD AND THE EMIGRATIONS FROM THE NORTH.


20.


THE CREATION OF MAN. THE PRIMEVAL COUNTRY. SCEF THE BRINGER OF CULTURE.


The human race, or at least the Teutonic race, springs, according to
the myth, from a single pair, and has accordingly had a centre from
which their descendants have spread over that world which was embraced
by the Teutonic horizon. The story of the creation of this pair has its
root in a myth of ancient Aryan origin, according to which the first
parents were plants before they became human beings. The Iranian version
of the story is preserved in Bundehesh, chap. 15. There it is stated
that the first human pair grew at the time of the autumnal equinox in
the form of a rheum ribes with a single stalk. After the lapse of
fifteen years the bush had put forth fifteen leaves. The man and woman
who developed in and with it were closely united, forming one body, so
that it could not be seen which one was the man and which one the woman,
and they held their hands close to their ears. Nothing revealed whether
the splendour of Ahuramazda'that is to say, the soul'was yet in them or
not. Then said Ahuramazda to Mashia (the man) and to Mashiana (the
woman): "Be human beings; become the parents of the world !" And from
being plants they got the form of human beings, and Ahuramazda urged
them to think good thoughts, speak good words, and do good deeds. Still,
they soon thought an evil thought and became sinners. The rheum ribes
from which they sprang had its own origin in seed from a primeval being
in human form, Gaya Maretan (Gayomert), which was created from
perspiration (cp. Vafthrudnersmal, xxxiii. 1-4), but was slain by the
evil Angra Mainyu. Bundehesh then gives an account of the first
generations following Mashia and Mashiana, and explains how they spread
over the earth and became the first parents of the human race.


The Hellenic Aryans have known the myth concerning the origin of man
from plants. According to Hesiodus, the men of the third age of the
world grew from the ash-tree (e k m e l e w
n ) compare the Odyssey, xix. 163.


From this same tree came the first man according to the Teutonic myth.
Three asas, mighty and worthy of worship, came to Midgard (at húsi,
Völusp., 16; compare Völusp., 4, where Midgard is referred to by the
word salr) and found a landi Ask and Embla. These beings were then "of
little might" (litt megandi) and "without destiny" (örlögslausir); they
lacked önd, they lacked óđr, they had no lá or lćti or litr goa, but
Odin gave them önd, Honer gave them óđr, Loder gave them lá and litr
gođa. In reference to the meaning of these words I refer my readers to
No. 95, simply noting here that litr gođa, hitherto defined as "good
colour" (gor litr), signifies "the appearance (image) of gods ". From
looking like trees Ask and Embla got the appearance which before them
none but the gods had assumed. The Teutons, like the Greeks and Romans,
conceived the gods in the image of men.


Odin's words in Havamál, 43, refer to the same myth. The passage
explains that when the Asa-god saw the modesty of the new-made humnan
pair he gave them his own divine garments to cover them. When they found
themselves so beautifully adorned it seems to indicate the awakening
sense of pride in the first human pair. The words are: "In the field
(velli at) I gave my clothes to the two wooden men (tveim tremönnum).
Heroes they seemed to themselves when they got clothes. The naked man is
embarrassed."


Both the expressions á landi and velli at should be observed. That the
trees grew on the ground, and that the acts of creating and clothing
took place there is so self-evident that these words would be
meaningless if they were not called for by the fact that the authors of
these passages in Havamál and Völuspá had in their minds the ground
along the sea, that is, a sea-beach. This is also clear from a tradition
given in Gylfaginning, chapter 9, according to which the three asas were
walking along the sea-beach (med sćvarströndu) when they found Ask and
Embla, and created of them the first human pair.


Thus the first human pair were created on the beach of an ocean. To
which sea can the myth refer' The question does not concern the ancient
Aryan time, but the Teutonic antiquity, not Asia, but Europe; and if we
furthermore limit it to the Christian era there can be but one answer.
Germany was bounded in the days of Tacitus, and long before his dine, by
Gaul, Rhoetia, amid Pannonia on the west and south, by the extensive
territories of the Sarmatians and Dacians on the east, and by the ocean
on the north. The so-called German Ocean, the North Sea and the Baltic,
was then the only body of water within the horizon of the Teutons, the
only one which in the days of Jordanes, after the Goths long had ruled
north of the Black Sea, was thought to wash the primeval Teutonic
strands. The myth must therefore refer to the German Ocean. It is
certain that the s of this ocean where the myth has located the creation
of the first human pair, or the first Teutonic pair, was regarded as the
centre from which their descendants spread over mnore and more
territory. Where near the North Sea or the Baltic was this centre located.


Even this question can be answered, thanks to the mythic fragments
preserved. A feature common to all well-developed mythological systems
is the view that the human race in its infancy was under the special
protection of friendly divinities, and received from them the doctrines,
arts, amid trades without which all culture is impossible. The same view
is strongly developed among the Teutons. Anglo-Saxon documents have
rescued the story telling how Ask's and Embla's descendants received the
first blessings of culture from the benign gods. The story has come to
us through Christian hands, which, however, have allowed enough of the
original to remain to show that its main purpose was to tell us how the
great gifts of culture came to the human race. The saga names the land
where this took place. The country was the most southern part of the
Scandinavian peninsula, and especially the part of it ing on the western
sea. Had these statements come to us only from northern sources, there
would be good reason for doubting their originality and general
application to the Teutonic tribes. The Icelandic-Norwegian middle-age
literature abounds in evidence of a disposition to locate the events of
a myth and the exploits of mythic persons in the author's own land and
town. But in this instance there is no room for the suspicion that
patriotism has given to the southernmost part of the Scandinavian
peninsula a so conspicuous prominence in the earliest history of the
myth. The chief evidence is found in the traditions of the Saxons in
England, and this gives us the best clue to the unanimity with which the
sagas of the Teutonic continent, from a time prior to the birth of
Christ far down in the middle ages, point out the great peninsula in the
northern sea as the land of the oldest ancestors, in conflict with the
scholastic opinion in regard to an emigration from Troy. The region
where the myth locate the first dawn of human culture was certainly also
the place which was regarded as the cradle and centre of the race.


The non-Scandinavian sources in question are: Beowulf's poem,
Ethelwerdus, Willielmus Malmesburiensis, Simeon Dunelmensis, and
Matthćus Monasteriensis. A closer examination of them reveals the fact
that they have their information from three different sources, which
again have a common origin in a heathen myth. If we bring together what
they have preserved of the story we Oct the following result :


One day it came to pass that a ship was seen sailing near the coast of
Scedeland or Scani,' and it approached the land without being propelled
either by oars or sails. The ship came to the sea-beach, and there was
seen lying in it a little boy, who was sleeping with his head on a sheaf
of grain, surrounded by treasures and tools, by glaives and coats of
mail. The boat itself was stately and beautifully decorated. Who he was
and whence he came nobody had any idea, but the little boy was received
as if he had been a kinsman, and he received the most constant and
tender care. As he came with a sheaf of grain to their country the
people called him Scef, Sceaf. (The Beowulf poem calls him Scyld, son of
Sceaf, and gives Scyld the son Beowulf, which origin ally was another
name of Scyld.) Scef grew up among this people, became their benefactor
and king, and ruled most honourably for niany years. He died far
advanced in age. In accord-alice with his own directions, his body was
borne down to the


 Geijer has partly indicated its significance in Svea Bikes Häfder,
where he says "The tradition anent Sceaf is remarkable, as it evidently
has reference to the introduction of agriculture, and shows that it was
first introduced in the most southern part of Scandinavia".


' The Beowulf poem has the name Scedeland (Scandia): compare the name
Skâdan in De origine Longobordorum. Ethelwerd writes : " Ipse Skef cum
uno dromone advectus est in insulam Oceani, quć dicitur Scani, armis
circumdatus," &c.


'' Matthćus Westmonast translates this name with frumenti manipulus, a
sheaf.


strand where he had landed as a child. There in a little harbour lay
the same boat in which he had come. Glittering from hoarfrost and ice,
and eager to return to the sea, the boat was waiting to receive the dead
king, and around him the grateful and sorrowing people laid no fewer
treasures than those with which Scef had come. And when all was finished
the boat went out upon the sea, and no one knows where it landed. He
left a son Scyld (according to the Beowulf poem, Beowulf son of Scyld),
who ruled after him. Grandson of the boy who came with the sheaf was
Healfdene'Halfdan, king of the Danes (that is, according to the Beowulf
poem).


The myth gives the oldest Teutonic patriarchs a very long life, in the
same manner as the Bible in the case of Adam and his descendants. 'They
lived for centuries (see below). The story could therefore make the
culture imitroduced by Scef spread far and wide during his own reign,
arid it could make his realm increase with the culture. According to
scattered statements traceable to the Scef-saga, Denmark, Angeln, and at
least the northern part of Saxland, have been populated by people who
obeyed his sceptre. In the North Götaland and Svealand were subject to him.


The proof of this, so far as Denmark is concerned, is that, according
to the Beowulf poem, its first royal family was descended from Scef
through his son Scyld (Skjold). In accordance herewith, Danish and
Icelandic genealogies make Skjold the progenitor of the first dynasty in
Denmark, and also make him the ruler of the land to which his father
came, that is, Skane. His origin as a divinely-born patriarch, as a hero
receiving divine worship, arid as the ruler of the original Teutonic
country, appears also in Fornmannasögur, v. 239, where lie is styled
Skáninga go the god of the Scanians.


Matthćus Westmonast. informs us that Scef ruled in Angeln. According to
the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, the dynasty of Wessex came from Saxland, and
its progenitor was Scef.


If we examine the northern sources we discover that the Scef myth still
may be found in passages which have been unnoticed, and that the tribes
of the far North saw in the boy who came with the sheaf and the tools
the divine progenitor of their celebrated dynasty in Upsala. This can be
found in spite of the younger saga-geological layer which the hypothesis
of Odin's and his Trojan Asas' immigration has spread over it sinice the
introduction of Christianity. Scef's personality comes to the surface,
we shall see, as Skefill and Skelfir.


In the Fornalder-sagas, ii. 9, amid in Flateyarbók, i. 24, Skelfir is
mentioned as family patriarch and as Skjold's father, the progenitor of
the Skjoldungs. There can, therefore, be no doubt that Scef, Scyld's
father, and through him the progenitor of the Skjoldungs, originally is
the same as Skelfir, Skjold's father, and progenitor of the Skjoldungs
in these Icelandic works.


But he is not only the progenitor of the Skjoldungs, but also of the
Ynglings. The genealogy beginning with him is called in the Flateyarbók,
Skilfinga ćtt edr skjoldunga ćtt. The Younger Edda also (i. 522) knows
Skelfir, and says he was a famous king whose genealogy er köllut
skilvinga ćtt. Now the Skilfing race in the oldest sources is precisely
the same as the Yngling race both from an Anglo-Saxon and from a heathen
Norse standpoint. The Beowulf poem calls the Swedish kings scilfingas,
and according to Thjodulf, a kinsman of the Ynglings and a kinsman of
the Skilfing, Skilifinga niđr, ir, are identical (Ynglingatal, 30). Even
the Younger Edda seems to be aware of this. It says in the passage
quoted above that the Skilfing race er i Austrvegum. In the Thjodulf
strophes Austrvegar means simply Svealand, and Austrkonungur means
Swedish king.


Thus it follows that the Scef who is identical with Skelfir was in the
heathen saga of the North the common progenitor of the Ynglinga and of
the Skjoldunga race. From his dignity as original patriarch of the royal
families of Sweden, Denmark, Angeln, Sax-land, and England, he was
displaced by the scholastic fiction of the middle ages concerning the
immigration of Trojan Asiatics under the leadership of Odin, who as the
leader of the immigration also had to be the progenitor of the most
distinguished families of tIne immigrants. This view seems first to have
been established in England after this country had been converted to
Christianity and conquered by the Trojan immigration hypothesis. Wodan
is there placed at the head of the royal genealogies of the chronicles,
excepting in Wessex, where Scef is allowed to retain his old position,
and where Odin must coiitent himself with a secondary place in the
genealogy. But in the Beowulf poem Scef still retains his dignity as
ancient patriarch of the kings of Denmark.


From England this same distortion of the myth comes to the North in
connection with the hypothesis concerning the immigra tion of the "
Asiamen, " and is there finally accepted in the most unconcerned manner,
without the least regard to the mythic records which were still well
known . Skjold, Scef's son, is without any hesitation changed into a son
of Odin (Ynglingasaga, 5 ; Foreword to Gylfag., 11). Yngve, who as the
progenitor of the Ynglings is identical with Scef, and whose very name,
perhaps, is or has been conceived as an epithet indicating Scef's tender
age when lie came to the coast of Scandia'Yngve-Scef is confounded with
Frey, is styled Yngve-Frey after the appellation of the Vanagod Ingunar
Frey, and he, too, is called a son of Odin (Foreword to Gylfag., c. 13),
although Frey in the myth is a son of Njord and belongs to another race
of gods than Odin. The epithet with which Are Frode in his Schedć
characterises Yngve, viz., Tyrkiakonungr, Trojan king, proves that the
lad who came with the sheaf of grain to Skane is already in Are changed
into a Trojan.


21.


SCEF THE AUTHOR OF CULTURE IDENTICAL WITH HEIMDAL-RIG, THE ORIGINAL
PATRIARCH.


But in one respect Are Frode or his authority has paid attention to the
genuine mythic tradition, and that is by making the Vana-gods the
kinsmen of the descendants of Yngve. This is correct in the sense that
Scef-Yngve, the son of a deity transformed into a man, was in the myth a
Vana-god. Accordingly every member of the Yngling race and every
descendant of Scef may be styled a son of Frey (Freys áttungr), epithets
applied by Thjodulf in Ynglingatal in regard to the Upsala kings. They
are gifts from the Vana-gods - the implements which point to the opulent
Njord, and the grain sheaf which is Frey's symbol'which Scef-Yngve
brings with him to the ancient people of Scandia, and his rule is
peaceful and rich in blessings.


Scef-Yngve comes across the ocean. Vanaheim was thought to be situated
on the other side of it, in the sanie direction as Ćgir's palace in the
great western ocean and in the outermost domain of Jormunigrund (see
93). This is indicated in Lokasenna, 34, where Loki in Ćgir's hall says
to the Van Njord : " You were sent from here to the East as a hostage to
the gods" (Ţu vart o ustr hedangisl um sendr at godum). Thus Njord's
castle Noatun is situated in the West, on a strand outside of which the
swans sing (Gylfag., 23). In the faded memory of Scef, preserved in the
saga of the Lower Rhine and of the Netherlands, there comes to a
poverty-stricken people a boat in which there lies a sleeping youth. The
boat is, like Scef's, without sails or oars, but is drawn over the
billows by a swan. From Gylfaginning, 16, we learn that there are myths
telling of the origin of the swans. They are all descended from that
pair of swans which swim in the sacred waters of Urd's fountain. Thus
the descendants of these swans that sing outside of the Vana-palace
Noatun and their arrival to the shores of Midgard seem to have some
connection with the coming of the Van Scef and of culture.


The Vans most prominent in the myths are Njord, Frey, and Heimdal.
Though an Asa-god by adoption, Heimdal is like Njord and Frey a Vana-god
by birth and birthplace, and is accordingly called both áss and vanr
(Thrymnskv., 15). Meanwhile these three divinities, definitely named
Vans, are only a few out of many. The Vans have constituted a numerous
clan, strong enough to wage a victorious war against the Asas (Völusp.).
Who among them was Scef-Yngve' The question can be answered as follows:


(1) Of Heimdal, and of him alone among the gods, it is related that he
lived for a time among men as a man, and that he performed that which is
attributed to Scef'that is, organised and elevated hunian society and
became the progenitor of sacred families in Midgard.


(2) Rigsthula relates that the god Heimdal, having assumed the name
Rig, begot with an earthly woman the son Jarl-Rig, who in turn became
the father of Konr-Rig. Konr-Rig is, as the very name indicates and as
Vigfusson already has pointed out, the first who bore the kingly name.
In Rigsthula the Jarl begets the king, as in Ynglingasaga the judge
(Dómarr) begets the first king. Rig is, according to Ynglingasaga, ch.
20, grandfather to Dan, who is a Skjoldung. Heimdal-Rig is thins the
father of the progenitor of the Skjoldungs, and it is the story of the
divine origin of the Skjoldungs Rigsthula gives us when it sings of
Heimdal as Jarl's father amid the first king's grandfather. Bitt the
progenitor of the Skjoldungs is, according to both Anglo-Saxon and the
northern sources above quoted Scef Thus Heimdal and Scef are identical.
These proofs are sufficient. More can be presented, and the identity
will be established by the whole investigation.


As a tender boy, Heimdal was sent by the Vans to the southern shores of
Scandinavia with the gifts of culture. Hyndla's lay tells how these
friendly powers prepared the child for its important mission, after it
was born in the outermost s of the earth (viđ jarđar ţraum), in a
wonderful manner, by nine sisters (Hyndla's Lay, 35 ; Heimdallar Galdr.,
in the Younger Edda; compare No. 82, where the ancient Aryan root of the
myth concerning Heimdal's nine mothers is pointed out).


For its mission the child had to be equipped with strength, endurance,
and wisdom. It was given to drink jarđar magn scalkaldr sćr and Sonar
dreyri. It is necessary to comnpare these expressions with Urđar magn,
svalkaldr seer and Sónar dreyri in Guđrunarkvida, ii. 21, a song written
in Christian times, where this reminiscence of a triple heathen-mythic
drink reappears as a potion of forgetfulness allaying sorrow. The
expression Sónar dreyri shows that the child had tasted liquids froni
the subterranean fountains which water Yggdrasil and sustain the
spiritual and physical life of the universe (cp. Nos. (63 and 93). Són
contains the mead of inspiration and wisdom. In Gylfaginning, which
quotes a satire of late origin, this name is given to a jar in which
Suttung preserves this valuable liquor, but to the heathen skalds Són is
the name of Mimir's fountain, which contains the highest spiritual
gifts, and around whose rush-ed edge the reeds of poetry grow (Eilif
Gudrunson, Skaldskaparmál). The child Heimndal has, therefore, drunk
from Mimir's fountain. Jarđar magn (the earth's strength) is in reality
the same as Urđar magn, the strength of the water in Urd's fountain,
which keeps the world-tree ever green and sustains the physical life of
creation (Völusp.). The third subterranean fountain is Hvergelmer, with
hardening liquids. From Hvergelmer comes the river Sval, and the
venom-cold Elivogs (Grimner's Lay, Gylfaginning). Svalkaldar sćr, cool
sea, is an appropriate designation of this fountain.


When the child has been strengthened in this manner for its great
mission, it is laid sleeping in the decorated ship, gets the grain-sheaf
for its pillow, and numerous treasures are placed around it. It is
certain that there were not only weapons and (ornaments, but also
workmen's tools among the treasures. It should be borne in mind that the
gods made on the plains of Ida not only ornaments, but also tools
(tangir skópu ok tol görđu). Evidence is presented in No. 82 that
Scef-Heimdal brought the fire-auger to primeval man who until that time
had lived without the blessings produced by the sacred fire.


The boy grows up among the inhabitants on the Scandian coast, and, when
he has developed into manhood, human culture has germinated under his
influence and the beginnings of classes in society with distinct
callings appear. In Rigsthula, we find himn journeying along " green
paths, from house to house, in that land which his presence has blessed
". Here he is called Rigr'it is true of him as of nearly all
mythological persons, that he has several names'but the introduction to
the poem informs us that the person so called is the god Heimdal
(einhverr. af asum sá er Heimdallr het). The country is here also
described as situated near the sea. Heimdal journeys framm mum
sjofarströndu. Culture is in complete operation. The people are settled,
they spin and weave, perform handiwork, and are smiths, they plough and
bake, and Heimdal has instructed them in runes. Different homes show
different customs and various degrees of wealth, but happiness prevails
everywhere. Heimdal visits Ai's and Edda's unpretentious home, is
hospitably received, and remains three days. Nine months thereafter the
son Träl (thrall) is born to this family. Heimdal then visits Ave's and
Amma's well-kept and cleanly house, and nine months thereafter the son
Karl (churl) is born in this household. Thence Rig betakes himself to
Fađir's and Mođir's elegant home. There is born, nine months later, the
son Jarl. Thus the three Teutonic classes'the thralls, the freemen, aiid
the nobility'have received their divimie sanction from Heimdal-Rig, and
all three have been honoured with divine birth.


In the account of Rig's visit to the three different homes lies the
mythic idea of a common fatherhood, an idea which must not be left out
of sight when human heroes are described as sons of gods in the
mythological and heroic sagas. They are sons of the gods and, at the
same time, from a genealogical standpoint, men. Their pedigree, starting
with Ask and Embla, is not interrupted by the intervention of the
visiting god, nor is there developed by this intervention a half-divine,
half-human middle class or bastard clan. The Teutonic patriarch Mannus
is, according to Tacitus, the son of a god and the grandson of the
goddess Earth. Nevertheless he is, as his name indicates, in the full
physical sense of the word, a man, and besides his divine father he has
had a human father. They are the descendants of Ask and Embla, men of
all classes and conditions, whom Völuspa's skald gathered around the
seeress when she was to present to them a view of the world's
development and commanded silence with the formula: " Give ear, all ye
divine races, great and small, sons of Heimdal ". The idea of a common
fatherhood we find again in the question of Fađir's grandson, as we
shall show below. Through him the families of chiefs get the right of
precedence before both the other classes. Thor becomes their progenitor.
While all classes trace their descent from Heimdal, the nobility trace
theirs also from Thor, and through him from Odin.


Heimdal-Rig's and Fađir's son, begotten with Móđir, inherits in
Rigsthula the name of the divine co-father, and is called Rig Jarl.
Jarl's son, Kon, gets the same name after he has given proof of his
knowledge in the runes introduced among the children of men by Heimdal,
and has even shown himself superior to his father in this respect. This
view that the younger generation surpasses the older points to the idea
of a progress in culture among men, during a time when they live in
peace and happiness protected by Heimdal's fostering care and sceptre,
but must not be construed into the theory of a continued progress based
on the law and nature of things, a theory alike strange to the Teutons
and to the other peoples of antiquity. Heimdal-Rig's reign must be
regarded as the happy ancient age, of which nearly all mythologies have
dreamed. Already in the next age following, that is, that of the second
patriarch, we read of men of violence who visit the peaceful, and under
the third patriarch begins the "knife-age, and axe-age with cloven
shields," which continues through history and receives its most terrible
development before Ragnarok.


The more common mythical names of the persons appearing in Rigsthula
are not mentioned in the song, not even Heimdal's. In strophe 48, the
last of the fragment, we find for the first time words which have the
character of names'Danr and Danpr. A crow sings from the tree to Jarl's
son, the grandson of Heimdal, Kon, saving that peaceful amusement (kyrra
fugla) does not become him longer, but that he should rather mount his
steed and fight against men; and the crow seeks to awaken his ambition
or jealousy by saying that "Dan and Danp, skilled in navigating ships
and wielding swords, have more precious halls and a better freehold than
you ". The circumstance that these names are mentioned makes it
possible, as shall be shown below, to establish in a more satisfactory
manner the connection between Rigsthula and other accounts which are
found in fragments concerning the Teutonic patriarch period.


The oldest history of man did not among the Teutons begin with a
paradisian condition. Some time has elapsed between the creation of Ask
and Embla, and Heimdal's coming among men. As culture begins with
Heimdal, a condition of barbarism must have preceded his arrival. At all
events the first generations after Ask and Embla have been looked upon
as lacking fire; consequently they have been without the art of the
smith, without metal implements, and without knowledge of agriculture.
Hence it is that the Vana-child comes across the western sea with fire,
with implements, and with the sheaf of grain. But the barbarous
condition may have been attended with innocence and goodness of heart.
The manner in which the strange child was received by the inhabitants of
Scandia's coast, and the tenderness with which it was cared for
(diligenti animo, says Ethelwerd) seem to indicate this.


When Scef-Heimdal had performed his mission, and when the beautiful
boat in which he came had disappeared beyond the western horizon, then
the second mythic patriarch-age begins.


22.


HEIMDAL'S SON BORGAR-SKJOLD, THE SECOND PATRIARCH.


Ynglingasaga, ch. 20, contains a passage which is clearly connected
with Rigsthula or with some kindred source. The passage mentions three
persons who appear in Rigsthula, viz., Rig, Danp, and Dan, and it is
there stated that the ruler who first possessed the kingly title in
Svithiod was the son of a chief, whose name was Judge (Dómarr), and
Judge was married to Drott (Drótt), the daughter of Danp.


That Domar and his royal son, the latter with the epithet Dyggvi, "the
worthy," "the noble," were afterwards woven into the royal pedigree in
Ynglingasaga, is a matter which we cannot at present consider. Vigfusson
(Corpus Poet. Boy.) has already shown the mythic symbolism and
unhistorical character of this royal pedigree's Visburr, the priest, son
of a god; of DómaldrDómvaldr, the legislator ; of Dómarr, the judge and
of Dyggvi, the first king. These are not historical Upsala kings, but
personified myths, symbolising the development of human society on a
religious basis into a political condition of law culminating in royal
power. It is in short the same chain of ideas as we find in Rigsthula,
where Heimdal, the son of a god and the founder of culture, becomes the
father of the Jarl-judge, whose son is the first king. Dómarr, in the
one version of the chain of ideas, corresponds to Rig Jarl in the other,
and Dyggvi corresponds to Kon. Heimdal is the first patriarch, the
Jarl-judge is the second, and the oldest of kings is the third.


Some person, through whose hands Ynglingasaga has passed before it got
its present form in Heimskringla, has understood this correspondence
between Dómarr and Rig-Jarl, and has given to the former the wife which
originally belonged to the latter. Rigsthula has been rescued in a
single manuscript. This manuscript was owned by Arngrim Jonsson, the
author of Supplementum Historiec Norvegia, and was perhaps in his time,
as Bugge (Norr. Fornkv.) conjectures, less fragmentary than it now is.
Arngrim relates that Rig Jarl was married to a daughter of Danp, lord of
Danpsted. Thus the representative of the Jarl's dignity, like the
representative of the Judge's dignity in Ynglingasaga, is here married
to Danp's daughter.


In Saxo, a man by name Borgar (Borcarus'Hist. Dan., 336-354) occupies
an important position. He is a South Scandinavian chief, leader of
Skane's warriors (Borcarus cum Scanico equitatu, p. 350), but instead of
a king's title, he holds a position answering to that of the jarl.
Meanwhile he, like Skjold, becomes the founder of a Danish royal
dynasty. Like Skjold he fights beasts and robbers, and like him he wins
his bride, sword in hand. Borgar's wife is Drott (Drotta, Drota), the
same name as Danp's daughter. Skjold's son Gram and Borgar's son Halfdan
are found on close examination (see below) to be identical with each
other, and with king Halfdan Berggram in whomn the names of both are
united. Thus we find:


(1) That Borgar appears as a chief in Skane, which in the myth is the
cradle of the human race, or of the Teutonic race. As such he is also
mentioned in Script, rev. Dan. (pp. 16-19, 154), where he is called
Burgarus and Borgardus.


(2) That he has performed similar exploits to those of Skjold, the son
of Scef-Heimdal.


(3) That he is not clothed with kingly dignity, but has a son who
founds a royal dynasty in Denmark. This corresponds to Heimdal's son Rig
Jarl, who is not himself styled king, but whose son becomes a Danish
king and the progenitor of the Skjoldungs.


(4) That he is married to Drott, who, according to Ynglingasaga, is
Danp's daughter. This corresponds to Heimdal's son Rig Jarl, who takes a
daughter of Danp as his wife.


(5) That his son is identical with the son of Skjold, the progenitor of
the Skjoldungs.


(6) That this son of his is called Halfdan, while in the Anglo-Saxon
sources Scef, through his son Scyld (Skjold), is the progenitor of
Denmark's king Healfdene.


These testimonies contain incontestible evidence that Skjold, Borgar,
and Rig Jarl are names of the same mythic person, the son of the ancient
patriarch Heimdal, and himself the second patriarch, who, after Heimdal,
determines the destiny of his race. The name Borgarr is a synonym of
Skjöldr. The word Skjöldr has from the beginning had, or has in the
lapse of past ages acquired, the meaning "the protecting one," "the
shielding one," and as such it was applied to the common defensive
armour, the shield. Borgarr is derived from bjarga (past. part. borginn;
cp. borg), and thus has the same meaning, that is, "the defending or
protecting one ". From Norse poetry a multitude of examples can be given
of the paraphrasing of a name with another, or even several others, of
similar meaning.


The second patriarch, Heimdal's son, thus has the names Skjold, Borgar,
and Rig Jarl in the heathen traditions, and those derived therefrom. In
German poems of the middle age (" Wolfdieterich," "König Rather," and
others) Borgar is remembered by the name Berchtung, Berker, and Berther.
His mythic character as ancient patriarch is there well preserved. He is
der grise mann, a Teutonic Nestor, wears a beard reaching to the belt,
and becomes 250 years old.


He was fostered by a king Auzius, the progenitor of the Amelungs (the
Amalians). The name Anzius points to the Gothic ansi (Asagod). Borgar's
fostering by "the white Asa-god" has accordingly not been forgotten.
Among the exercises taught him by Auzius are daz werfen mit dem messer
und schissen zu dem zil (compare Rig Jarl's exercises, Rigsthula, 35).
Like Borgar, Berchtung is not a king, but a very noble and
greatly-trusted chief, wise and kind, the foster-father and counsellor
of heroes and kings. The Norse saga places Borgar, and the German saga
places Berchtung, in close relation to heroes who belong to the race of
Hildings. Borgar is, according to Saxo, the stepfather of Hildeger;
Berchtung is, according to "Wolfdieterich," Hildebrand's ancestor. Of
Hildeger Saxo relates in part the same as the German poem tells of
Hildebrand. Berchtung becomes the foster-father of an Amalian prince;
with Borgar's son grows up as foster-brother Hamal (Helge Hund., 2; see
Nos. 29, 42), whose name points to the Amalian race. The very name
Borgarr, which, as indicated, in this form refers to bjarga, may in an
older form have been related to the name Berchter, Berchtung.


23.


BORGAR-SKOLD'S SON HALFDAN, THE THIRD PATRIARCH. The Identity of Gram,
Halfdan Berggram, and Halfdan Borgarson.


In the time of Borgar and his son, the third patriarch, many of the
most important events of the myth take place. Before I present these,
the chain of evidence requires that I establish clearly the names
applied to Borgar in our literary sources. Danish scholars have already
discovered what I pointed out above, that the kings Gram Skjoldson,
Halfdan Berggram, and Halfdan Borgarson mentioned by Saxo, and referred
to different generations, are identical with each other and with Halfdan
the Skjoldung and Halfdan the Old of the Icelandic documents. The
correctness of this view will appear from the following parallels: 


 The first nine books of Saxo formn a labyrinth constructed out of
myths related as history, hut the thread of Ariadne seems to be wanting.
On this account it might be supposed that Saxo had treated the rich
mythical materials am his command in an arbitrary and unmethodical
manner; and we must bear in mind that these mythic materials were far
more abundant in his time than they


1st


Saxo: Gram, slays king Sictrugus, and marries Signe, daughter of
Sumblus, king of the Finns.


Hyndluljod: Halfdan Skjoldung slays king Sigtrygg, and marries Almveig
with the consent of Eymund.


Prose Edda: Halfdan the Old slays king Sigtrygg, and marries Alveig,
daughter of Eyvind.


Fornald. S. : Halfdan the Old slays king Sigtrygg, and marries Alfny,
daughter of Eymund.


were in the following centuries, when they were to be recorded by the
Icelandic authors. This supposition is however, wrong. Saxo has examined
his sources methodically and with scrutiny, and has handled them with
all due reverence, when he assumed the desperate task of constructing,
by the aid of the mythic traditions and heroic poems at hand, a
chronicle spanning several centuries'a chro. nicle in which fifty to
sixty successive rulers were to be brought upon the stage


and off again, while myths and heroic traditions embrace but few
generations, and most mythic persons continue to exist through all ages.
In the very nature of the case, Saxo was obliged, in order to solve this
problem, to put his material on the rack; but a thorough study of the
above-mentioned books of his history shows that he treated the
delinquent with consistency. The simplest of the rules he followed was
to avail himself of the polyonomy with which the myths and heroic poems
are overloaded, and to do so in the following manner:


Assume that a person in the mythic or heroic poems had three or four
uames or epithets (he may have had a score). We will call this person A,
and the different forms of his name A', A", A"'. Saxo's task of
producing a chain of events running through many centuries forced him to
consider the three names A', A", and A"' as originally three persons,
who had performed certain similar exploits, and therefore had, in course
of time, been confounded with each other, and blended by the authors of
myths and stories into one person A. As best he can, Saxo tries to
resolve this mythical product, composed, in his opinion, of historical
elennents, and to distribute the exploits attributed to A between A',
A", and A"'. It may also be that one or more of the stories applied to A
were found more or less varied in different sources. In such cases he
would report the same stories with slight variations about A', A", and
A''' The similarities remaining form one important group of indications
which he has furnished to guide us, but which can assure us that our
investigtition is in the right course only when corroborated by
indications belonging to other groups, or corroborated by statements
preserved in other sources.


But in the events which Saxo in this manner relates about A', A", and
A"', other persons are also mentioned. We will assume that in the myths
and heroic poems these have been named B and C. These, too, have in the
songs of the skalds had several names and epithets. B has also been
called B', B", B"'. C has also been styled C', C", C"'. Out of this one
subordinate person B, Saxo, by the aid of the abundance of names, makes
as many subordinate Persons-B', B", and B"''as he made out of the
original chief person A'that


2^nd 


Saxo : Gram, son of Skjold, is the progenitor of the Skjoldungs.


Hyndluljod: Halfdan Skjoldtung, son or descendant of Skjold, is the
progenitor of the Skjoldungs, Ynglings, Odlungs, &c.


Prose Edda: Halfdan the Old is the progenitor of the Hildings,
Ynglings, Odlungs, &c.


Saxo: Halfdan Borgarson is the progenitor of a royal family of Denmark.


3rd


Saxo :Gram uses a club as a weapon. He kills seven brothers and nine of
their half'brothers.


Saxo : Halfdan Berggram uses an oak as a weapon. He kills seven brothers.


Saxo : Halfdan Borgarson uses an oak as a weapon. He kills twelve brothers.


is, the chief persons A', A", and A"'. Thus also with C, and in this
way we get


the following analogies:


A' is to B' and C' as


A" ,, B" ,, C" and as


A"' ,, B"' ,, C"'.


By comparing all that is related concerning these nine names, we are
enabled gradnally to form a more or less correct idea of what the
original myth has contained in regard to A, B, and C. If it then
happens'as is often the case'that two or more of the names A.', B', C',
&c., are found in Icelandic or other documents, and there belong to
persons whose adventures are in some respects the same, and in other
respects are made clearer and more complete, by what Saxo tells about
A', A", and A"', &c., then it is proper to continue the investigation in
the direction thus started. If, then, every new stein brings forth new
confirmations from various sources, and if a myth thus restored easily
dovetails itself into an epic cycle of myths, and there forms a
necessary link in the chain of events, then the investigation has
produced the desired result.


An aid in the investigation is not unfrequently the circumstance that
the names at Saxo's disposal were not sufficient for all points in the
ahove scheme. We then find analogies which open for us, so to speak,
short cuts'for instance, as follows:


A' is to B' and C' as


A' ,, B' ,, C" and as


A'" ,, B" ,, C'.


The parallels given in the text above are a concrete example of the
above scheme. For we have seen' A = Halfdan, trebled in A' = Gram, A"
Halfdan Beggram, A"' = Halfdan Borgarson. B = Ebbo (Ebur, Ibor, Jöfurr),
trebled in B'= Henricus, B"= Ebbo, B"'= Sivarus, C doubled in C' =
Svipdag, and C"= Ericus.


4th


Saxo: Gram secures Groa and slays Henricus on his wedding-day.


Saxo: Halfdan Berggram marries Sigrutha, after having slain Ebbo on his
wedding-day.


Saxo Halfdan Borgarson marries Guritha, after having killed Sivarus on
his wedding-day.


5th


Saxo : Gram, who slew a Swedish king, is attacked in war by Svipdag.


Saxo: Halfdan Bcrggram, who slew a Swedish king, is attacked by Ericas.


Combined Sources Svipdag is the slain Swedish king's grandson
(daughter's son).


Saxo : Ericus is the son of the daughter of the slain Swedish king.


These parallels are sufficient to show the identity of Gram Skjoldson,
Halfdan Berggram, and Halfdan Borgarson. A closer analysis of these
sagas, the synthesis possible on the basis of such an analysis, and the
position the saga (restored in this manner) concerning the third
patriarch, the son of Skjold-Borgar, and the grandson of Heimdal,
assumes in the chain of mythic events, gives complete proof of this
identity.


24.


HALFDAN'S ENMITY WITH ORVANDEL AND SVIPDAG (cp. No. 33).


Saxo relates in regard t(m Gram that he carried away the royal daughter
Groa, though she was already bound to another man, and that he slew her
father, whereupon he got into a feud with Svipdag, an irreconcilably
bitter foe, who fought against him with varying success of arias, and
gave himself no rest until he had taken Gram's life and realm. Gram left
two sons, whom Svipdag treated in a very different manner. The one named
Guthornius (Gud hormr who was a soii of Groa, he received into his good
graces. To the other, named Hadingus, Hading, or Hadding, and who was a
son of Signe, he transferred the deadly hate lie had cherished towards
the father. The cause of the hatred of Svipdag against Gram, and which
could not he extinguished in his blood, Saxo does not mention but this
point is cleared up by a comparison with other sources. Nor does Saxo
mention who the person was from whom Grain robbed Groa, but this, too,
we learn in another place.


The Groa of the myth is mentioned in two other places: in Groagalder
and in Gylfaginning. Both sources agree in representing her as skilled
in good, healing, harm-averting songs ; both also in describing her as a
tender person devoted to the members of her family. In Gylfaginning she
is the loving wife who forgets every-thing in her joy that her husband,
the brave archer Orvandel, has been saved by Thor from a dangerous
adventure. In Groagalder she is the mother whose love to her son
conquers death and speaks consoling and protecting words from the grave.
Her husband is, as stated, Orvandel ; her son is Svipdag.


If we compare the statements in Saxo with those in Groagalder and
Gylfaginning we get the following result


Saxo : King Sigtrygg has a daughter Groa.


Gylfaginning : Groa is married to the brave Orvandel.


Groagalder: Groa has a son Svipdag.


Saxo : Groa is robbed by Gram-Halfdan.


Saxo : Hostilities on account of the robbing of the


Hyndluljod : woman. Gram-Halfdan kills Groa's


Skaldskapmal: father Sigtrygg.


Saxo: With Gram-Halfdan Groa has the son Gudhorm. Gram-Halfdan is
separated froma Groa. He courts Signe (Almveig in Hyndluljod; Alveig in
Skaldskaparmal), daughter of Sumbel, king of the Finns.


Groagalder : Groa with her son Svipdag is once more with her first
husband. Groa dies. Svipdag's father Orvandel marries a second time.
Before her death Groa has told Svipdag that lie, if need requires her
help, must go to her grave and wake her out of the sleep of death.


The stepmother gives Svipdag a task which he thinks surpasses his
strength. He then goes to his mother's grave. From the grave Groa sings
protectiiig incantations over her son.


Saxo: Svipdag attacks Gram-Halfdan. After several conflicts he succeeds
in conquering him and gives him a deadly wound. Svipdag pardons the soii
Gram-Halfdan has had with Groa, but persecutes his son with Signe (Alveig).


In this connection we find the key to Svipdag's irreconcilable conflict
with Gram'Halfdan. He must revenge himself on him on his father's and
mother's account. He must avenge his mother's disgrace, his grandfather
Sigtrygg's death, and, as a further investi' gation shows, the murder
also of his father Orvandel. We also find why he pardons Gudhorm : he is
his own half-brother and Groa's son.


Sigtrygg, Groa, Orvandel, and Svipdag have in the myth belonged to the
pedigree of the Ynglings, and hence Saxo calls Sigtrygg king in
Svithiod. Concerning the Ynglings, Ynglingasaga remarks that Yngve was
the name of everyone who in that time was the head of the family (Yngl.,
p. 20). Svipdag, the favourite hero of the Teutonic mythology, is
accordingly celebrated in song under the name Yngve, and also under
other names to which I shall refer later, when I am to give a full
account of the myth concerning him.


25.


HALFDAN'S IDENTITY WITH MANNUS IN "GERMANIA".


With Gram-Halfdan the Teutonic patriarch period ends. The human race
had its golden age under Heimdal, its copper age under Skjold-Borgar,
and the beginning of its iron age under Halfdan. The Skilfinga-Ynglinga
race has been named after HeimdalSkelfir himself, and he has been
regarded as its progenitor. His son Skjold-Borgar has been considered
the founder of the Skjoldungs. With Halfdan the pedigree is divided into
three through his stepson Yngve-Svipdag, the latter's half-brother
Gudhorm, and Gudhorm's half-brother Hading or Hadding. The war between
these three'a continuation of the feud beween Halfdan and Svipdag'was
the subject of a cycle of songs sung throughout Teutondom, songs which
continued to live, though greatly changed with the lapse of time, on the
lips of Germans throughout the middle ages (see Nos. 36-43).


Like his father, Halfdan was the fruit of a double fatherhood, a
(divine amid a human. Saxo was aware of this double fatherhood, and
relates of his Halfdan Berggram that he, although the son of a human
prince, was respected as a son of Thor, and honoured as a god among that
people who longest remained heathen ; that is to say, the Swedes (Igitur
apud sveones tantus haberi ri coepit, ut magni Thor filitus existimatus,
divinis a populo honoribus donaretur ac publico dignus libamine
censeretur). In his saga, as told by Saxo, Thor holds his protecting
hand over Halfdan like a father over his son.


It is possible that both the older patriarchs originally were regarded
rather as the founders and chiefs of the whole human race than of the
Teutons alone. Certain it is that the appellation Teutonic patriarch
belonged more particularly to the third of the series. We have a
reminiscence of this in Hyndluljod, 14-16. To the question, " Whence
canie the Skjoldungs, Skilfings, Andlungs, and Ylfings, and all the
free'born and gentle-born ' "the song answers by pointing to "the
foremost among the Skjolduugs "'Sigtrygg's slayer Halfdan'a statement
which, after the memory of the myths had faded and become confused, was
magnified in the Younger Edda into the report that he was the father of
eighteen sons, nine of which were the founders of the heroic families
whose names were at that time rediscovered in the heathen-heroic songs
then extant.


According to what we have now stated in regard to Halfdan's
genealogical position there can no longer be any doubt that he is the
same patriarch as the Mannus mentioned by Tacitus in Germania, ch. 2,
where it is said of the Germans : " In old songs they celebrate Tuisco,
a god born of Earth (Terra; compare the goddess Terra Mater ch. 40), and
his son Mannus as the source and founder of the race. Mannus is said to
have had three sons, after whose names those who dwell nearest the ocean
are called Ingćvonians (Ingavones), those who dwell in the centre
Hermionians (Hermiones, Herminones), and the rest Istćvonians
(Istavones)." Tacitus adds that there were other Teutonic tribes, such
as the Marsians, the Gambrivians, the Svevians, and the Vandals, whose
names were derived from other heroes of divine birth.


Thus Mannus. though human, amid the source and founder of the Teutonic
race, is also the soii of a god. The mother of his divine father is the
goddess Earth, mother Earth. In our native myths we rediscover this
goddess'polyonomous like nearly all mythic beings'in Odin's wife Frigg,
also called Fjorgyn and only The Hlodyn As sons of her and Odin or
(Völusp.) and Balder (Lokasenna) are definitely mentioned.


In regard to the goddess Earth (Jord), Tacitus states (ch. 40), as a
characteristic trait that she is believed to take a lively interest arid
active part in the affairs of men and nations (vain intervenire rebus
hominum, invehi populis arbitrantur), and lie informs us that she is
especially worshipped by the Longobardians and some of their neighbours
near the sea. This statement, compared with the emigration saga of the
Longobardians (No. 15), confirms the theory that the goddess Jord, who,
in the days of Tacitus, was celebrated in song as the mother of Mannus'
divine father, is identical with Frigg. In their emigration saga the
Longobardians have great faith in Frigg, and trust in her desire and
ability to intervene when the fate of a nation is to be decided by arms.
Nor are they deceived in their trust in her ; she is able to bring about
that Odin, without considering the consequences, gives the Longobardians
a new name; and as a christening present was in order, and as the
Longobardians stood arrayed against the Vandals at the moment when they
received their new name, the gift could be no other than victory over
their foes. Tacitus' statement, that the Longobardians were one of the
races who particularly paid worship to the goddess Jord, is found to be
imitiniately connected with, and to be explained by, this tradition,
which continued to be reniembered among the Longobardians long after
they became converted to Christianity, down to the time when Origo
Longobardorum was written.


Tacitus calls the goddess Jord Nertlius. Vigfusson (and before him J.
Grimm) and others have seen in this name a feminine version of Njördr.
Nor does any other explanation seem possible. The existence of such a
form is not more surprising than that we have in Freyja a feniinine form
of Frey, and in Fjorgyn-Frigg a feminine form of Fjörgynr. In our mythic
documents neither Frigg nor Njord are of Asa race. Njord is, as we know,
a Van. Frigg's father is Fjörgynr (perhaps the sanie as Parganya in the
Vedic songs), also called Annarr, Ánarr, and Ónarr, and her mother is
Narve's daughter Night. Frigg's high position as Odin's real and lawful
wife, as the queen of the Asa world, and as mother of the chief gods
Thor and Balder, presupposes her to be of the noblest birth which the
myth could bestow on a being born outside of time Asa clan, and as tIme
Vans conic next after the Asas in the mythology, and were united with
them from the beginning of time, as hostages, by treaty, by marriage, a
ncl by adoption, probability, if no other proof could be found, would
favour the theory that Frigg is a goddess of the race of Vans, and that
her father Fjörgyn is a clan-chief among the Vans. This view is
corroborated in two ways. The cosmogony makes Earth and Sea sister and
brother. The same divine mother Night (Nat), who hears the goddess Jord,
also bears a son Uđr, Unnr, the ruler of the sea, also called Auđr
(Rich), the personifcation of wealth. Both these names are applied among
the gods to Njord alone as the god of navigation, commerce, and wealth.
(In reference to wealth compare the phrase auđigr sem Njörđr as Njord.)
Thus Frigg is Njord's sister. This explains the attitude given to Frigg
in the war between the Asas and Vans by Völuspa, Saxo, and the author of
Ynglingasaga, where the tradition is related as history. In the form
given to this tradition in Christian times amid in Saxo's hands, it is
disparaging to Frigg as Odin's wife ; but the pith of Saxo's narrative
is, that Frigg in the feud between the Asa.s and Vans did not side with
Odin but with the Vans, and contributed towards making the latter lords
of Asgard. When the purely heathen documents (Völusp., Vafthr., Lokas.)
describe her as a tender wife and mother, Frigg's taking part with tIme
Vans against her owii husband can scarcely be explained otherwise than
by the Teutonic principle, that the duties of the daughter and sister
are above the wife's, a view plainly presented in Saxo (p. 353), and
illustrated by Gudrun's conduct toward Atle.


Thus it is proved that the god who is the father of the Teutonic
patriarch Mannus is himself the son of Frigg, the goddess of earth, and
must, according to the mythic records at hand, be either Thor or Balder.
The name given him by Tacitus, Tuisco, does not determine which of the
two. Tuisco has the form of a patronymic adjective, and reappears in the
Norse Tívi an old name of Odin, related to D i óV , divus,
and devas, froni which all the sons of Odin arid gods of Asgard received
the epithet tívar. But in the songs learned by Saxo in regard to time
northern race-patriarch and his divine father, his place is occupied by
Thor, not by Balder, and " "Jord's son " is in Norse poetry an epithet
particularly applied to Thor.


Mannus has three sons. So has Halfdan. While Mannus has a son Ingćvo,
Halfdan has a stepson Yngve, Inge (Svipdag). The sccoiid son of Mannus
is named Hermio. Halfdan's son with Groa is called Guđhormr. The second
part of this name has, as Jessen has already poiiited out, nothing to do
with ormr. It may be that the name should be divided Gud' hormr, and
that hormr should be referred to Hermio. Mannus' third son is Istćvo.
The Celtic scholar Zeuss has connected this name with that of the Gothic
(more properly Vandal) heroic race Azdingi, and Grimni has again
connected Azdingi with Hazdiggo (Haddingr). Halfdan's third son is in
Saxo called Hadingus. Whether the comparisons made by Zeuss and Grimm
are to the point or not (see further, No. 43) makes but little
difference here. It nevertheless remains as a result of the
investigation that all that is related by Tacitus about the Teutonic
patriarch Mannus has its counterpart in the question concerning Halfdan,
and that both in the myths occupy precisely the same place as sons of a
god and as founders of Teutonic tribes and royal families. The pedigrees
are:


 

_Tacitus.
_

 

Tivi and the goddess Jord.


 

|


 

Tivi's son (Tiusco).


 

|


 

Mannus, progenitor of the Tentonic tribes.


 

|                 |                 |


 

Ingćvo.       Hermio.       Istćvo.


	

 

_Norse documents.
_

 

Tivi= Odin and the goddess Jord.


 

|


 

Tivi's son Thor.


 

|


 

Halfdan, progenitor of the royal families.


 

|                   |                   |


 

Yngve.      Guđhormnr.     Hadding.


26.


THE SACRED RUNES LEARNED FROM HEIMDAL.


The mythic ancient history of the human race and of the Teutons may, in
accordance with the analysis above given, be divided into the following
epochs :'(l) From Ask and Embla's creation until Heimdal's arrival (2)
from Heimdal's arrival until his departure; (3) the age of
Skjold-Borgar; (4) Halfdan's tinie; (5) The time of Halfdan's sons. And
now we will discuss the events of the last three epochs.


In the days of Borgar the moral condition of men grows worse, and an
event in nature takes place threatening at least the northern part of
the Teutonic world with destruction. The myth gives the causes of both
these phenomena. The moral degradation has its cause, if not wholly, yet
for the greater part, in the activity among men of a female being from
the giant world. Through her men become acquainted with the black ait,
the evil art of sorcery, which is the opposite of the wisdom drawn from
Mimir's holy fountain, the knowledge of runes, and acquaintance with the
application of nature's secret forces for good ends (see Nos. 34, 35).


The sacred knowledge of runes, the " "fimbul'songs," the white art,
was, according to the myth, originally in the possession of Mimir. Still
he did not have it of himself, but got it from the subterranean
fountain, which he guarded beneath the middle root of the world-tree
(see No. 63) a fountain whose veins, together with tIme deepest root of
the world'tree. extends to a depth which not even Odin's thought can
penetrate (Havam., 138). By self' sacrifice in his youth Odin received
from Bestla's brother (Mimir; see No. 88) a drink from the precious
liquor of this fountain and nine fimbul'songs (Havam., 140 ; cp.
Sigrdr., 14), which were the basis of time divine magic, of the
application of the power of the word and of the rune over spiritual and
natural forces, in prayer, in sacrifices and in other religious acts, in
investigations, in the practical affairs of life, in peace amid in war
(Havam., 144 ff ; Sigrdr., 6 ff). The character amid purpose of these
songs are clear from the fact that at the head is placed " help's
fimbul'song," which is able to allay sorrow aiid cure diseases (Havam.,
146).


In the hands of Odin they are a means for the protection of the power
of time Asa'gods, and enable them to assist their worshippers in danger
and distress. To these beloing the fimbul-song of the runes of victory ;
and it is of no little interest that we, in Havamál, 156, find w hat
Tacitus tells about the barditus of the Germans, the shield'song with
which they went to meet their foes'a song which Ammianus Paulus himself
has heard, and of which he gives a vivid description. When time Teutonic
forces advanced to battle the warriors raised their shields up to a
level with time upper lip, so that time round of time shield formed a
soit of sounding-board for their song. This began in a low voice and
preserved its subdued colour, but the sound gradually increased, and at
a distance it resembled the roar ot the breakers of the sea. Tacitus
says that the Teutons predicted time result of the battle from the
impression the song as a whole made upon themselves it might sound in
their ears in such a manner that they thereby became more terrible to
their enemies, or in such a manner that they were overcome by despair.
The above-mentioned strophe of Havamál gives us an explanation of this
the warriors were roused to confidence if they, in the harmony of time
subdued song increasing in volume, seemed to perceive Valfather's voice
blended with their own. The strophe makes Odin say Ef cc seed til
orrostu leiŢa langvini, undir randir cc gel, en ţeir meţ ríki heilir
hildar til, heilir hildi frá'" If I am to lead those to battle whom I
have long held in friendship, then I sing under their shields. With
success they go to the conflict, and successfully they go out of it."
Völuspa also refers to time shield-son, in 47, where it makes the
storm-giant, Hrymr, advancing against the gods, "lift his shield before
him" (hefiz lind fyrir) an expression which certainly has another
significance than that of unnecessarily pointing out that lie has a
shield for protection. Time runes of victory were able to arrest weapons
in their flight and to make those whom Odin loved proof against
sword-edge and safe against ambush (Havam., 148, 150). Certain kinds of
runes were regarded as producing victory and were carved on the hilt and
on the blade of the sword, and while they were carved Tyr's name was
twice named (Sigrdr., 6).


Another class of runes (brimrúnar, Sigrdr., 10; Havam., 150) controlled
the elements, purified the air from evil beings (Havam., 155), gave
power over wind and waves for good purposes' as, for instance, when
sailors in distress were to be rescued'or power over time flames when
they tlmreatened to destroy human dwellings (Havam., 152). A third kind
of runes (málrúnar) gave speech to the mute and speechless, even to
those whose lips were sealed in death (see No. 70). A fourth kind of
runes could free the limbs from bonds (Havam., 149). A fifth kind of
runes protected against witchcraft (Havam., 151). A sixth kind of runes
(ölránar) takes time strength froni the love -potion prepared by another
imman's wife, amid from every treachery mingled therein (Sigrdr., 7, 8).
A seventh kind (bjargrúnar and limrúnar) helps in childbirth and heals
wounds. Aim eighth kind gives wisdom and knowledge (hugrúnar, Sigrdr.,
13 ; cp. Havam., 159). A ninth kind extinguishes enmity aimd hate, and
produces friendship and love (Havam., 153, 161). Of great value, and a
great honour to kings and chiefs, was the possession of healing runes
and healing hands ; and that certain noble-born families inherited the
power of these runes was a belief which has been handed down even to our
time. There is a distinct consciousness that the runes of this kind were
a gift of the blithe gods. In a strophe, which sounds as if it were
taken from an ancient hymn, the gods are beseechied for runes of wisdom
arid healing:" Hail to the gods Hail to the goddesses Hail to the
bounteous Earth (the goddess Jord). Words and wisdom give unto us, and
healing hands while we live ." (Sigrdr., 4).


In ancient times arrangements were made for spreading the knowledge of
the good runes among all kinds of beings. Odin taught them to his own
clan ; Dáinn taught them to the Elves Dvalinn among the dwarfs ; Ásvinr
(see No. 88) among the giants (Havam., 143). Even the last-named became
participators in the good gift, which, mixed with sacred mead, was sent
far and wide, and it has since been among the Asas, among the Elves,
among the wise Vans, and among the children of men (Sigrdr., 18). The
above-named Dvalinn, who taught the runes to his clan of ancient
artists, is the father of daughters, who, together with discs of Asa and
Vana birth, are in possession of bjargrúnar, and employ them in the
service of man (Fafnism., 13).


To men the beneficent runes came through the same god who as a child
came with the sheaf of grain and the tools to Scandia. Hence the belief
current among the Franks and Saxons that the alphabet of the Teutons,
like the Teutons themselves, was of northern origin. Rigsthula expressly
presents Heimdal as teaching runes to the people whom he blessed by his
arrival in Midgard. The noble - born are particularly his pupils in
runic lore. Of Heimdal's grandson, the son of Jarl Borgar, named
Kon-Halfdan, it is said:

En Konr engr
kunni runar,
ćfinrunar
ok alldrrunar.
Meir kunni hann
mönnum bjarga
eggjar deyfa,
ćgi legia,
klök nam fugla,
kyrra ellda,
sćva ok svfia,
sorgir lćgia.
 	But Kon the young
taught himself runes,
runes of eternity
and runes of earthly life.
Then he taught himself
men to save,
the sword'edge to deaden,
the sea to quiet,
bird-song to interpret,
fires to extinguish,
to soothe and comfort,
sorrows to allay.


The fundaniental character of this rune-lore beams distinctly the stamp
of nobility. The runes of eternity united with those of the earthly life
can scarcely have any other reference than to the heathen doctrines
concerning religion and morality. These were looked upon as being for
all time, and of equal importance to the life hereafter. Together with
physical runes with magic power' that is, runes that gave their
possessors power over the hostile forces of nature'we find runes
intended to serve the cause of sympathiy and mercy.


27.


SORCERY THE REVERSE OE THE SACRED RUNES. GULLVEIG-HEIđR, THE SOURCE OF
SORCERY. THE MORAL DETERIORATION OF THE ORIGINAL MAN.


But already in the beginning of time evil powers appear for the purpose
of opposing and ruining the good influences from the world of gods upon
mankind. Just as Heimdal, "the fast traveller," proceeds from house to
house, forming new ties in society and giving instruction in what is
good and useful, thus we soon find a messenger of evil wandering about
between the houses in Midgard, practising the black art and stimulating
the worst passions of the human soul. The messenger comes from the
powers of frost, the enemies of creation. It is a giantess, the daughter
of the giant Hrimnir (Hyndlulj., 32), known aniong the gods as Gulveig
and by other names (see Nos. 34, 35), but on her wanderings on earth
called Heir. "Heid they called her (Gulveig) when she came to the
children of men, the crafty, prophesying vala, who practised sorcery
(vitti ganda), practised the evil art, caused by witchcraft misfortunes,
sickness, and death (leikin, see No. 67), and was always sought by bad
women." Thus Völuspa describes her. The important position Heid occupies
in regard to the corruption of ancient man, and the consequences of her
appear-ance for the gods for man, amid for nature (see below), have led
Völuspa's author, in spite of his general poverty of words, to describe
her with a certain fulness, pointing out among other things that she was
the cause of the first war in the world. That the time of her appearance
was during the life of Borgar and his son shall be demonstrated below.


In connection with this moral corruption, and caused by the same powers
hostile to the world, there occur in this epoch such disturbances in
nature that the original home of man and culture'nay, all Midgard'is
threatened with destruction on account of long, terrible winters. A
series of connected myths tell of this. Ancient artists'forces at work
in the growth of nature'personifications of the same kind as Rigveda's
Ribhus, that had before worked in harmony with the gods, become, through
the influence of Loki, foes of Asgard, their work becoming as harniful
as it before was beneficent, and seek to destroy what Odin had created
(see Nos. 111 and 112). Idun, with her life-renewing apples, is carried
by Thjasse away from Asgard to the northernmost wilderness of the world,
and is there concealed. Freyja, the goddess of fertility, is robbed and
falls into the power of giants. Frey, the god of harvests, falls sick.
The giant king Snow and his kinsmen ţorri (Black Frost), Jökull (the
Glacier), &c., extend their sceptres over Scandia.


Already during Heimdal's reign, after his protégé Borgar had grown up,
something happens which forebodes these terrible times, but still has a
happy issue.


28A.


HEIMDAL AND THE SUN-DIS (Dis = goddess).


In Saxo's time there was still extant a myth telling bow Heimdal, as
the ruler of the earliest generation, got himself a wife. The myth is
found related as history in Historia Danica, pp. 335-337. Changed into a
song of chivalry in middle age style, we find it on German soil in the
poem concerning king Ruther.


Saxo relates that a certain king Alf undertook a perilous journey of
courtship, and was accompanied by Borgar. Alf is the more noble of the
two; Borgar attends him. This already points to the fact that the mythic
figure which Saxo has changed into a historical king must be Heimdal,
Borgar's co-father, his ruler and fosterer, otherwise Borgar himself
would be the chief person in his country, and could not be regarded as
subject to anyone else. Alf's identity with Heimdal is corroborated by
"King Ruther," and to a degree also by the description Saxo makes of his
appearance, a description based on a definite mythic prototype. Alf,
says Saxo, had a fine exterior, and over his hair, though he was young,
a so remarkably white splendour was diffused that rays of light seemed
to issue from his silvery locks (cujus etiam insignem candore cćsariem
tantus comć decor asperierat, ut argenteo crine nitere putaretur). The
Heimdal of the myth is a god of light, and is described by the colour
applied to pure silver in the old Norse literature to distinguish it
from that which is alloyed; he is hvíti áss (Gylfag., 27) and hvítastr
ása (Thrymskvida, 5); his teeth glitter like gold, and so does his
horse. We should expect that the maid whom Alf, if he is Heimdal,
desires to possess belongs like himself to the divinities of light. Saxo
also says that her beauty could make one blind if she was seen without
her veil, and her name Alfhild belongs, like Alfsol, Hild, Alfhild
Solglands, Svanhild Guldfjćder, to that class of names by which the
sun-dises, mother and daughter, were transferred from mythology to
history. She is watched by two dragons. Suitors who approach her in vain
get their heads chopped off and set up on poles (thus also in " King
Ruther "). Alf conquers the guarding dragons; but at the advice of her
mother Alfhild takes flight, puts on a man's clothes and armour, and
becomes a female warrior, fighting at the head of other Amazons. Alf and
Borgar search for and find the troop of Amazons amid ice and snow. It is
conquered and flies to "Finnia ". Alf and Borgar pursue them thither.
There is a new conflict. Borgar strikes the helmet from Alfhild's head.
She has to confess herself conquered, and becomes AIf's wife.


In interpreting the mythic contents of this story we must remember that
the lad who came with the sheaf of grain to Scandia needed the help of
the sun for the seed which he brought with him to sprout, before it
could give harvests to the inhabitants. But the saga also indicates that
the sun-dis had veiled herself, and made herself as far as possible
unapproachable, and that when Heimdal had forced himself into her
presence she fled to northern ice-enveloped regions, where the god and
his foster-son, sword in hand, had to fetch her, whereupon a happy
marriage between him and the sun-dis secures good weather and rich
harvests to the land over which he rules. At the first glance it might
seem as if this myth had left no trace in our Icelandic records. This
is, however, not the case. Its fundamental idea, that the sun at one
time in the earliest ages went astray from southern regions to the
farthest north and desired to remain there, but that it was brought back
by the might of the gods who created the world, and through them
received, in the same manner as Day and Night, its course defined and
regularly established, we find in the Völuspa strophe, examined with so
great acumen by Julius Hoffory, which speaks of a bewilderment of this
kind on the part of the sun, occurring before it yet "knew its proper
sphere," and in the following strophe, which tells how the all-holy gods
thereupon held solemn council and so ordained the activity of these
beings, that time can be divided and years be recorded by their course.
Nor is the marriage into which the sun-dis entered forgotten.
Skaldskaparmal quotes a strophe from Skule Thorsteinson where Sol  is
called Glenr's wife. That he whom the skald characterises by this
epithet is a god is a matter of course. Glenr signifies "the shining
one," and this epithet was badly chosen if it did not refer to "the most
shining of the Asas," hvítastr ása'that is, Heimdal.


The fundamental traits of "King Ruther" resemble Saxo's story. There,
too, it is a king who undertakes a perilous journey of courtship and
must fight several battles to win the wondrous fair maiden whose
previous suitors had had to pay for their eagerness by having their
heads chopped off and fastened on poles. The king is accompanied by
Berter, identical with Berchtung-Borgar, but here, as always in the
German story, described as the patriarch and adviser. A giant,
Vidolt'Saxo's Vitolphus, Hyndluljod's Viđlfr'accompanies Ruther and
Berter on the journey; and when Vitolphus in Saxo is mentioned under
circumstances which show that he accompanied Borgar on a warlike
expedition, and thereupon saved his son Halfdan's life, there is no room
for doubt that Saxo's saga and "King Ruther" originally flowed from the
same mythic source. It can also be demonstrated that the very name
Ruther is one of those epithets which belong to Heimdal. The Norse Hrútr
is, according to the Younger Edda (i. 588, 589), a synonym of


 Sol is feminine in the Teutonic tongues.'TR.


Heimdali, and Heimdali is another form of Heimdall (Isl., i. 231). As
Hrútr means a ram, and as Heimdali is an epithet of a ram (see Younger
Edda, i. 589), light is thrown upon the bold metaphors, according to
which "head," "Heimdal's head," and "Heimdal's sword" are synonyms
(Younger Edda, i. 100, 264; ii. 499). The ram's head carries and is the
ram's sword. Of the age of this animal symbol we give an account in No.
82. There is reason for believing that Heimdal's helmet has been
conceived as decorated with ram's horns. A strophe quoted in the
Younger Edda (i. 608) mentions Heimdal's helmet, and calls the sword the
fylir of Heimdal's helmet, an ambiguous expression, which may be
interpreted as that which fills Heimdal's helmet; that is to say,
Heimdal's head, but also as that which has its place on the helmet.
Compare the expression fyllr hilmis stóls as a metaphor for the power of
the ruler.


28B.


LOKI CAUSES ENMITY BETWEEN THE GODS AND THE ORIGINAL ARTISTS (THE
CREATORS OF ALL THINGS GROWING). THE CONSEQUENCE IS THE FIMBUL-WINTER
AND EMIGRATIONS.


The danger averted by Heimdal when he secured the sun-dis with bonds of
love begins in the time of Borgar. The corruption of nature and of man
go hand in hand. Borgar has to contend with robbers (pugiles and
piratć), and among them the prototype of pirates ' that terrible
character, remembered also in Icelandic poetry, called Rođi (Saxo,
Hist., 23, 354). The moderate laws given by Heimdal had to be made more
severe by Borgar (Hist., 24, 25).


While the moral condition in Midgard grows worse, Loki carries out in
Asgard a cunningly-conceived plan, which seems to be to the advantage of
the gods, but is intended to bring about the ruin of both the gods and
man. His purpose is to cause enmity


 That some one of the gods has worn a helmet with such a crown can he
seen on one of the golden horns found near Gallehuus. There twice occurs
a being wearing a helmet furnished with long, curved, sharp pointed
horns. Near him a ram is drawn, and in his hand he has something
resembling a staff which ends in a circle, and possibly is intended to
represent Heimdal's horn. between the original artists themselves and
between them and the gods.


Among these artists the sons of Ivalde constitute a separate group.
Originally they enjoyed the best relations to the gods, and gave them
the best products of their wonderful art, for ornament and for use.
Odin's spear Gungnir, the golden locks on Sif's head, and Frey's
celebrated ship Skidbladner, which could hold all the warriors of Asgard
and always had favourable wind, but which also could be folded as a
napkin and be carried in one's pocket (Gylfaginning), had all come from
the workshop of these artists.


Ivalda synir

gengu i ardaga

Seidbladni at skapa,

scipa bezt,

scirom Frey,

nytom. Njardar bur.

     
     
(Grimnismal.)


	

The sons of Ivalde
went in ancient times
to make Skidbladner,
among ships the best,
for the shining Frey,

Njord's useful son.


Another group of original artists were Sindre and his kinsmen, who
dwelt on Nida's plains in the happy domain of the lower world (Völusp.,
Nos. 93, 94). According to the account given in Gylfagiuning, ch. 37,
Loki meets Sindre's brother Brok, and wagers his head that Sindre cannot
make treasures as good as the above-named gifts from Ivalde's sons to
the Asas. Sindre then made in his smithy the golden boar for Frey, the
ring Draupner for Odin, from which eight gold rings of equal weight drop
every ninth night, and the incomparable hammer Mjolner for Thor. When
the treasures were finished, Loki cunningly gets the gods to assemble
for the purpose of deciding whether or not he has forfeited his head.
The gods cannot, of course, decide this without at the same time passing
judgment on the gifts of Sindre and those of Ivalde's sons, and showing
that one group of artists is inferior to the other. And this is done.
Sindre's treasures are preferred, and thus the sons of Ivalde are
declared to be inferior in comparison. But at the same time Sindre
fails, through the decision of the gods, to get the prize agreed on.
Both groups of artists are offended by the decision.


Gylfaginning does not inform us whether the sons of Ivalde accepted the
decision with satisfaction or anger, or whether any noteworthy
consequences followed or not. An entirely similar judgment is mentioned
in Rigveda (see No. 111). The judgmacnt there has the most important
consequences: hatred toward the artists who were victorious, and toward
the gods who were the judges, takes possession of the ancient artist who
was defeated, and nature is afflicted with great suffering. That the
Teutonic mythology has described similar results of the decision shall
be demonstrated in this work.


Just as in the names Alveig and Almveig, Bil-röst and Bif-röst,
Arinbjörn and Grjótbjörn, so also in the name Ivaldi or Ivaldr, the
latter part of the word forms the permanent part, corresponding to the
Old English Valdere, the German Walther, the Latinised Waltharius. The
former part of the word may change without any change as to the person
indicated: Ivaldi, Allvaldi, Ölvaldi, Auđvaldi, may be names of one and
the same person. Of these variations Ivaldi and Allvaldi are in their
sense most closely related, for the prefixed Í (Iđ) and All may
interchange in the language without the least change in meaning. Compare
all-líkr, ílikr, and idlikr; all-lítill and ilitill; all-nóg, ígnog, and
idgnog. On the other hand, the prefixes in Ölvaldi and Auđvaldi produce
different meanings of the compound word. But the records give most
satisfactory evidence that Olvaldi and Auđvaldi nevertheless are the
same person as Allvaldi (Ivaldi). Thjasse's father is called in
Harbardsljod (19) Allvaldi; in the Younger Edda (i. 214) Ölvaldi and
Auđvaldi. He has three sons, Ide, Gang, also called Urner (the
Grotte-song), and the just-named Thjasse, who are the famous ancient
artists, "the sons of Ivalde" (Ivalda synir). We here point this out in
passing. Complete statement and proof of this fact, so important from a
mythological standpoint, will be given in Nos. 113, 114, 115.


Nor is it long before it becomes apparent what the consequences are of
the decision pronounced by the Asas on Loki's advice upon the treasures
presented to the gods. The sons of


 Elsewhere it shall be shown that the heroes mentioned in the middle
age poetry under the names Valdere, Walther, Waitharius manufortis, and
Valthere of Vaskasten are all variations of the name of the same mythic
type changed into a human hero, and the same, too, as Ivalde of the
Norse documents (see No. 123).


Ivalde regarded it as a mortal offence, born of the ingratitude of the
gods. Loki, the originator of the scheme, is caught in the snares laid
by Thjasse in a manner fully described in Thjodolf's poem "Haustlaung,"
and to regain his liberty he is obliged to assist him (Thjasse) in
carrying Idun away from Asgard. Idun, who possesses "the Asas' remedy
against old age," and keeps the apples which symbolise the ever -
renewing and rejuvenating force of nature, is carried away by Thjasse to
a part of the world inaccessible to the gods. The gods grow old, and
winter extends its power more and more beyond the limits prescribed for
it in creation. Thjasse, who before was the friend of the gods, is now
their irreconcilable foe. He who was the promoter of growth and the
benefactor of nature'for Sif's golden locks, and Skidbladner, belonging
to the god of fertility, doubtless are symbols thereof'is changed into
"the mightiest foe of earth," dolg ballastan vallar (Haustl., 6), and
has wholly assumed the nature of a giant.


At the same tinie, with the approach of the great winter, a terrible
earthquake takes place, the effects of which are felt even in heaven.
The myth in regard to this is explained in No. 81. In this explanation
the reader will find that the great earthquake in primeval time is
caused by Thjasse's kinswomen on his mother's side (the
Grotte-song)'that is, by the giantesses Fenja and Menja, who turned the
enormous world-mill, built on the foundations of the lower world, and
working in the depths of the sea, the prototype of the mill of the
Grotte-song composed in Christian times; that the world-mill has a
möndull, the mill-handle, which sweeps the uttermost rim of the earth,
with which handle not only the mill-stone but also the starry heavens
are made to whirl round; and that when the mill was put in so violent a
motion by the angry giantesses that it got out of order, then the starry
constellations were also disturbed. The ancient terrible winter and the
inclination of the axis of heaven have in the myth been connected, and
these again with the close of the golden age. The mill had lip to this
time ground gold, happiness, peace, and good-will among men; henceforth
it grinds salt amid dust.


The winter must of course first of all affect those people who
inhabited the extensive Svithiod north of the original country and over
which another kinsman of Heimdal, the first of the race of Skilfings or
Ynglings, ruled. This kinsman of Heimdal has an important part in the
mythology, and thereof we shall give an account in Nos. 89, 91, 110,
113-115, and 123. It is there found that he is the same as Ivalde, who,
with a giantess, begot the illegitimate children Ide, Urner, and
Thjasse. Already before his sons he became the foe of the gods, and from
Svithiod now proceeds, in connection with the spreading of the
fimbul-winter, a migration southward, the work at the same time of the
Skilfings and the primeval artists. The list of dwarfs in Völuspa has
preserved the record of this in the strophe about the artist migration
from the rocks of the hall (Salar steinar) and from Svarin's mound
situated in the north (the Völuspa strophe quoted in the Younger Edda;
cp. Saxo., Hist., 32, 33, and Helg. Hund., i. 31, ii. to str. 14). The
attack is directed against aurvanga sjöt, the land of the clayey plains,
and the assailants do not stop before they reach Jöruxalla, the Jara
plains, which name is still applied to the south coast of Scandinavia
(see No. 32). In the pedigree of these emigrants' ţeir er sóttu frá
Salar steina (or Svarins haugi) aurvanga sjöt til Jöruvalla' occur the
names Álfr and Yngvi, who have Skilfing names; Fjalarr, who is Ivalde's
ally and Odin's enemy (see No. 89); Finnr, which is one of the several
names of Ivalde himself (see No. 123); Frosti, who symbolises cold;
Skirfir, a name which points to the Skilfings; and Virfir, whom Saxo
(Hist. Dan., 178, 179) speaks of as Huyrvillus, and the Icelandic
records as Virvill amid Vifill (Fornalders. ii. 8; Younger Edda, i.
548). In Fornalders. Vifill is an emigration leader who married to
Loge's daughter Eymyrja (a metaphor for fire'Younger Edda, ii. 570),
betakes himself from the far North and takes possession of an island on
the Swedish coast. That this island is Oland is clear from Saxo, 178,
where Huyrvillus is called Holandić princeps. At the same time a
brother-in-law of Virfir takes possession of Bornholm, and Gotland is
colonised by Thjelvar (Thjálfi of the myth), who is the son of Thjasse's
brother (see Nos. 113, 114, 115). Virfir is allied with the sons of
Finnr (Fyn' Saxo, Hist., 178). The saga concerning the emigration of the
Longobardians is also connected with the myth about Thjasse and his
kinsmen (see Nos. 112-115).


From all this it appears that a series of emigration and colonisation
tales have their origin in the myth concerning the fimbul-winter caused
by Thjasse and concerning the therewith connected attack by the
Skilfings and Thjasse's kinsmen on South Scandinavia, that is, on the
clayey plains near Jaravall, where the second son of Heimdal,
Skjold-Borgar, rules. It is the remembrance of this migration from north
to south which forms the basis of all the Teutonic middle-age migration
sagas. The migration saga of the Goths, as Jordanes heard it, makes them
emigrate from Scandinavia under the leadership of Berig. (Ex hac igitur
Scandza insula quasi officina gentium aut certe velut vagina nationum
cumn rege suo Berig Gothi quondam memorantur egressi'De Goth. Orig., c.
4. Meminisse debes, me de Scndzć insulć gremnio Gothos dixisse egressos
cum Berich suo rege'c. 17.) The name Berig, also written Bench and
Berigo, is the same as the German Berker, Berchtung, and indicates the
same person as the Norse Borgarr. With Berig is connected the race of
the Amalians; with Borgar the memory of Hamal (Amala), who is the
foster-brother of Borgar's son (cp. No. 28 with Helge Hund., ii.). Thus
the emigration of the Goths is in the myth a result of the fate
experienced by Borgar and his people in their original country. And as
the Swedes constituted the northernmost Teutonic branch, they were the
ones who, on the approach of the fimbul-winter, were the first that were
compelled to surrender their abodes and secure more southern
habitations. This also appears from saga fragments which have been
preserved; and here, but not in the circumstances themselves, lies the
explanation of the statements, according to which the Swedes forced
Scandinavian tribes dwelling farther south to emigrate. Jordanes (c. 3)
claims that the Herulians were driven from their abode in Scandza by the
Svithidians, and that the Danes are of Svithidian origin'in other words,
that an older Teutonic population in Denmark was driven south, and that
Denmark was repeopled by emigrants from Sweden. And in the Norse sagas
themselves, the centre of gravity, as we have seen, is continually being
moved farther to the south. Heimdal, under the name Scef-Skelfir, comes
to the original inhabitants in Scania. Borgar, his son, becomes a ruler
there, but founds, under the name Skjold, the royal dynasty of the
Skjoldungs in Denmark. With Scef and Skjold the Wessex royal family of
Saxon origin is in turn connected,, and thus the royal dynasty of the
Goths is again connected with the Skjold who emigrated from Scandza, and
who is identical with Borgar. And finally there existed in Saxo's time
mythic traditions or songs which related that all the present Germany
came under the power of the Teutons who emigrated with Borgar; that, in
other words, the emigration from the North carried with it the hegemony
of Teutonic tribes over other tribes which before them inhabited
Germany. Saxo says of Skjold-Borgar that omnem Alamannorum gentem
tributaria ditione perdomuit; that is, "he made the whole race of
Alamanni tributary ". The name Alamanni is in this case not to be taken
in an ethnographical but in a geographical sense. It means the people
who were rulers in Germany before the immigration of Teutons from the North.


From this we see that migration traditions remembered by Teutons
beneath Italian and Icelandic skies, on the islands of Great Britain and
on the German continent, in spite of their wide diffusion and their
separation in time, point to a single root: to the myth concerning the
primeval artists and their conflict with the gods; to the robbing of
Idun and the fimbul-winter which was the result.


The myth miiakes the gods themselves to be seized by terror at the fate
of the world, amid Mimir makes arrangements to save all that is best and
purest on earth for an expected regeneration of the world. At the very
beginning of the fimbul-winter Mimner opens in his subterranean grove of
immortality an asylum, closed against all physical and spiritual evil,
for the two children of men, Lif and Lifthrasir (Vafthr., 45), who are
to be the parents of a new race of men (see Nos. 52, 53). The war begun
in Borgar's time for the possession of the ancient country continues
under his son Halfdan, who reconquers it for a time, invades Svithiod,
and repels Thjasse and his kinsmen (see Nos. 32, 33).


29.


EVIDENCE THAT HALFDAN IS IDENTICAL WITH HELGE HUNDINGSBANE.


The main outlines of Halfdan's saga reappear related as history, and
more or less blended with foreign elements, in Saxo's accounts of the
kings Gram, Halfdan Berggram, and Halfdan Borgarson (see No. 23).
Contributions to the saga are found in Hyndluljod (str. 14, 15, 16) and
in Skaldskaparmal (Younger Edda, i. 516 if.), in what they tell about
Halfdan Skjoldung and Halfdan the Old. The juvenile adventures of the
hero have, with some modifications, furnished the materials for both the
songs about Helge Hundingsbane, with which Saxo's story of Helgo
Hundingicida (Hist., 80-110) and Volsungasaga's about Helge Sigmundson
are to be compared. The Grotte-song also (str. 22) identifies Helge
Hundingsbane with Halfdan.


For the history of the origin of the existing heroic poems from mythic
sources, of their relation to these and to each other, it is important
to get the original identity of the hero-myth, concerning Halfdan and
the heroic poems concerning Helge Hundingsbane, fixed on a firm
foundation. The following parallels suffice to show that this Helge is a
later time's reproduction of the mythic Halfdan:

Halfdan-Gram, sent on a warlike expedition, meets Groa, who is mounted
on horseback and accompanied by other women on horseback (Saxo, 26, 27).


The meeting takes place in a forest (Saxo, 26).


Halfdan-Gram is on the occasion completely wrapped in the skin of a
wild beast, so that even his face is concealed (Saxo, 26)


Conversation is begun between Halfdan-Gram and Groa. Halfdan pretends
to be a person who is his brother-at-arms (Saxo, 27).


Groa asks Halfdan-Gram:


Quis, rogo, vestrum dirigit agmen, quo duce signa bellica fertis'
(Saxo, 27.)


Halfdan-Gram invites Groa to accompany him. At first invitation is
refused (Saxo, 27).


Groa's father had already given her hand to another (Saxo, 26).


Halfdan-Gram explains that this rival ought not to cause them should
not cause them to fear to fear (Saxo, 28).


Halfdan-Gram makes war on Groa's father, on his rival, and on the
kinsmen of the latter (Saxo, 32).


Halfdan-Gram slays Groa's father and betrothed, and and suitors, and
many heroes who belonged to his circle of kinsmen or were subject to him
(Saxo, 32).


Halfdan-Gram marries Groa (Saxo, 33).


Halfdan-Gram conquers a conquers Ring's sons king Ring (Saxo, 32).


Borgar's son has defeated and slain king Hun ding (Saxo, 362; cp. Saxo,
337).


Halfdan - Gram has felled Svarin and many of his brothers. Svarin was
viceroy under Groa's father (Saxo, 32).


Halfdan-Grain is slain by Svipdag, who is armed with an is armed with
an Asgard weapon compared with other sources. See Nos. 33, 98, 101, 103).


Halfdan- Berggram's father is slain by his brother Frode, who took his
took his kingdom (Saxo, 320).


Halfdan Berggram and his brother were in their childhood protected by
Regno (Saxo, 320).


Halfdan Berggram and his brother burnt Frode to death in his house
(Saxo, 323).


Halfdan Berggramn as a youth left the kingdom to his brother and went
warfaring (Saxo,320 ff.).


During Halfdan's absence Denmark is attacked by an enemy, who conquers
his brother in three battles and slays him in a fourth (Saxo, 325).


Halfdan, the descendant of Scef and Scyld, becomes the father of Rolf
(Beowulf poem).


Halfdan had a son with his own sister Yrsa (Grotte-song, 22: mon Yrsu
sonr vid Halfdanna hefna Froda; sa mun hennar hcitinn vcrţa börr oc bróţir).


	Helge Hundingsbane, sent on a warlike expedition, meets Sig-run, who
is mounted on horseback and is accompanied by other women on horseback
(Helge Hund., i. 16;Volsunga--saga, c. 9).


The meeting takes place in a forest (Vols., c. 9).


Helge is on the occasion disguised. He speaks frá úlfidi "from a wolf
guise" (Helge Hund., i. 16), which expression finds its interpretation
in Saxo, where Halfdan appears wrapped in the skin of a wild beast.


Conversation is begun be-tween Helge and Sigrun. Helge pretemids to be
a person who is his foster-brother (Helge Hund., ii. 6).


Sigrun asks Helge:


Hverir lata fijota fley vi backa, hvar hermegir heimna eigud'' (Helge
Hund., ii. 5.)


Helge invites Sigrun to ac-company him. At first the invi-tation is
rebuked (Helge Hund., i. 16, 17).


Sigrun's father had already promised her to another (Helge Hund., i. 18).


Helge explains that this rival should not cause them to fear (Helge
Hund., i., ii.).


Helge makes war on Sigrun's father, on his rival, and on the kinsmen of
the latter (Helge Hund., i, ii.).


Helge kills Sigrun's father and suitors, and many heroes who were the
brothers or allies of his rival (Helge Hund., ii.)


Helge marries Sigrun (Helge Hund., i. 56)


Helge conquers Ring's sons (Helge Hund., i 52).


Helge has slain king Hunding, and thus gotten the name Hundingsbane
(Helge Hund., i. 10).


Helge's rival and the many brothers of the latter dwell around Svarin's
grave-mound. They are allies or subjects of Sigrun's father.


Helge is slain by Dag, who is armed with an Asgard weapon (Helge Hund.,
ii.).


Helge's father was slain by slain by his brother Frode, who took his
took his kingdom (Rolf Krake's saga).


Helge and his brother were brother were in their childhood in their
childhood protected by Regin (Rolf Krake's saga).


Helge and his brothers burnt Frode to death in his house (Rolf Krake's
saga).


Helge Hundingsbane as a youth left the kingdom to his brother and went
warfaring (Saxo, 80).


During Helge Hundings-bane's absence Denmark is attacked by an enemy,
who conquers his brother in three battles and slays him in a fourth
(Saxo, 82).


Helge Hundingsbane the father of Rolf (Saxo, 83 compare Rolf Krake's saga).


Helge Hundingsbane bad a son with his own sister Ursa (Saxo, 82). The
son was Rolf (compare Rolf Krake's saga).


A glance at these parallels is sufficient to remove every doubt that
the hero in the songs concerning Helge Hundingsbane is originally the
same mythic person as is celebrated in the song or songs from which Saxo
gathered his materials concerning the kings, Gram Skjoldson, Halfdan
Berggram, and Halfdan Borgarson. It is the ancient myth in regard to
Halfdan, the son of Skjold-Borgar, which myth, after the introduction of
Christianity in Scandinavia, is divided into two branches, of which the
one continues to be the saga of this patriarch, while the other utilises
the history of his youth and tranforms it into a new saga, that of Helge
Hundingsbane. In Saxo's time, and long before him, this division into
two branches had already taken place. How this younger branch, Helge
Hundingsbane's saga, was afterwards partly appropriated by the
all-absorbing Sigurdsaga and became connected with it in an external and
purely genealogical manner, and partly did itself appropriate (as in
Saxo) the old Danish local tradition about Rolf, the illegitimate son of
Halfdan Skjoldung, and, in fact, foreign to his pedigree; how it got
mixed with the saga about an evil Frode and his stepsons, a saga with
which it formerly had no connection ;'all these are questions which I
shall discuss fully in a second part of this work, and in a separate
treatise on the heroic sagas. For the present, my task is to show what
influence this knowledge of Halfdan and Helge Hundingsbane's identity
has upon the interpretation of the myth concerning the antiquity of the
Teutons.


30.


HALFDAN'S BIRTH AND THE END OF THE AGE OF PEACE. THE FAMILY NAMES
YLFING, HILDING, BUDLUNG.


The first strophes of the first song of Helge Hundingsbane distinguish
themselves in tone and character and broad treatment from the
continuation of the song, and have clearly belonged to a genuine old
mythic poem about Halfdan, and without much change the compiler of the
Helge Hunbingsbane song has incorporated them into his poem. They
describe Halfdan's (" Helge Hundingsbane's ") birth. The real niythic
names of his parents, Borgar and Drott, have been retained side by side
with the names given by the compiler, Sigmund and Borghild.


Ár var alda,

hnigo heilog votn

ţat yr arar gullo,

af himinfjollum;

ţá hafţi Helga

inn hugom stora

Borghildr borit

i Bralundi.

Nott varţ i bee,

nornir qvomo,

ţer er auţlingi

aldr um scopo ;

ţann baţo fylci

frćgstan verţa

oc buţlanga

beztan ticcia.

Snero ţer af afli

aurlaugţátto,

ţa er Borgarr braut

i Brálundi;

ţer um greiddo

gullin simo

oc und manasal

miţian festo.

ţer austr oc vestr

enda fálo:

ţar átti lofdungr

land a milli;

brá nipt Nera

a nordrvega

einni festi

ey baţ hon halda.

Etti var at angri

Ylfinga niţ

oc ţeirre meyio

yr nunuţ fćddi;

hrafn gvaţ at hrafni

'sat a hám meiţi

andvanr áto :'

"Ec veit noceoţ !


	

It was time's morning,

eagles screeched,
holy waters fell
from the heavenly mountains.
Then was the mighty
Helge born
by Borghild
in Bralund.

It was night,
norns came,
they who did shape
the fate of the nobleman
they proclaimed him
best among Budlungs,
and most famed
among princes.

With all their might the threads
of fate they twisted,
when Borgar settled
in Bralund
of gold they made
the warp of the web,
and fastened it directly
'neath the halls of the moon.

In the east and west
they hid the ends:
there between
the chief should rule
Nere's  kinswoman
northward sent
one thread and bade it
hold for ever.

One cause there was
of alarm to the Yngling (Borgar),
and also for her
who bore the loved one.
Hungry cawed
raven to raven
in the high tree:
"Hear what I know


Urd, the chief goddess of fate. See the treatise "Mythen cm Underjorden ".


"Stendr i brynio

burr Sigmundar,

dćgrs eins gamall,

nu er dagr kominn;

hversir augo

sem hildingar,

sa er varga vinr,

viţ scolom teitir.

Drótt ţotti sa

dauglingr vera

quado meţ gumnom

god-ár kominn;

sialfr gece visi

or vig ţrimo

ungom fćra

itrlauc grami.


	

"In coat of mail

stands Sigmund's son,
one day old,
now the day is come;
sharp eyes of the Hildings
has he, and the wolves'
friend he becomes,
"We shall thrive."

Drott, it is said, saw
In him a dayling,
saying, "Now are good seasons
come among men";
to the young lord
from thunder-strife
came the chief himself
with a glorious flower.


Halfdan's (" Helge Hundingsbane's ") birth occurs, according to the
contents of these strophes, when two epochs meet. His arrival announces
the close of the peaceful epoch and the beginning of an age of strife,
which ever since has reigned in the world. His significance in this
respect is distinctly manifest in the poem. The raven, to whom the
battle-field will soon be as a well-spread table, is yet suffering from
hunger (andvanr átu) but from the high tree in which it sits, it has on
the day after the birth of the child, presumably through the window,
seen the newcomer, and discovered that he possessed "the sharp eyes of
the Hildings," and with prophetic vision it has already seen him clad in
coat of mail. It proclaims its discovery to another raven in the same
tree, and foretells that theirs and the age of the wolves has come: "We
shall thrive ".


The parents of the child heard and understood what the raven said.
Among the runes which Heimdal, Borgar's father, taught him, and which
the son of the latter in time learned, are the knowledge of bird-speech
(Konr ungr klök nam fugla'Rigsthula, 43, 44). The raven's appearance in
the song of Helge Hundings


'Dayling = bright son of day or light.


bane is to be compared with its relative the crow in Rigsthula; the one
foretells that the new-born one's path of life lies over battlefields,
the other urges the grown man to turn away from his peaceful amusements.
Important in regard to a correct understanding of the song and
characteristic of the original relation of the strophes quoted to the
myth concerning primeval time, is the circumstance that Halfdan's ("
Helge Hundingsbane's ") parents are not pleased with the prophecies of
the raven; on the contrary they are filled with alarm. Former
interpreters have been surprised at this. It has seemed to them that the
prophecy of the lad's future heroic and blood-stained career ought, in
harmony with the general spirit pervading the old Norse literature, to
have awakened the parents' joy and pride. But the matter is explained by
the mythic connection which makes Borgar's life constitute the
transition period from a happy and peaceful golden age to an age of
warfare. With all their love of strife and admiration for warlike deeds,
the Teutons still were human, and shared with all other people the
opinion that peace and harmony is something better and more desirable
than war and bloodshed. Like their Aryan kinsmen, they dreamed of
primeval Saturnia regna, and looked forward to a regeneration which is
to restore the reign of peace. Borgar, in the myth, established the
community, was the legislator and judge. He was the hero of peaceful
deeds, who did not care to employ weapons except against wild beasts and
robbers. But the myth had also equipped him with courage and strength,
the necessary qualities for inspiring respect and interest, and had
given him abundant opportunity for exhibiting these qualities in the
promotion of culture and the maintenance of the sacredness of the law.
Borgar was the Hercules of the northern myth, who fought with the
gigantic beasts and robbers of the olden time. Saxo (Hist., 23) has
preserved the traditions which tell how he at one time fought breast to
breast with a giant bear, conquering him and bringing him fettered into
his own camp.


As is well known, the family names Ylfings, Hildings, Budlungs, &c.,
have in the poems of the Christian skalds lost their specific
application to certain families, and are applied to royal and princely
warriors in general. This is in perfect analogy with the Christian
Icelandic poetry, according to which it is proper to take the name of
any viking, giant, or dwarf, and apply it to any special viking, giant,
or drawf, a poetic principle which scholars even of our time claim can
also be applied in the interpretation of the heathen poems. In regard to
the old Norse poets this method is, however, as impossible as it would
be in Greek poetry to call Odysseus a Peleid, or Achilleus a Laertiatid,
or Prometheus Hephćstos, or Hephćstos Dćdalos. The poems concerning
Helge Hundingsbane are compiled in Christian times from old songs about
Borgar's son Halfdan, and we find that the patronymic appellations
Ylfing, Hilding, Budlung, and Lofdung are copiously strewn on "Helge
Hundingsbane". But, so far as the above-quoted strophes are concerned,
it can be shown that the appellations Ylfing, Hilding, and Budlung are
in fact old usage and have a mythic foundation. The German poem
"Wolfdieterich und Sabin" calls Berchtung (Borgar) Potelung'that is,
Budlung the poem "Wolfdieterich" makes Berchtung the progenitor of the
Hildings, and adds: "From the same race the Ylfings have come to us
"'von dem selbe geslehte sint uns die wilfinge kumen (v. 223).


Saxo mentions the Hilding Hildeger as Halfdan's half-brother, and the
tradition on which the saga of Asmund Kćmpebane is based has done the
same (compare No. 43). The agreement in this point between German,
Danish, and Icelandic statements points to an older source common to
them all, and furnishes an additional proof that the German Berchtung
occupied in the mythic genealogies precisely the same place as the Norse
Borgar.


That Thor is one of Halfdan's fathers, just as Heimdal is one of
Borgar's, has already been pointed out above (see No. 25). To a divine
common fatherhood point the words: "Drott, it is said, saw in him (the
lad just born) a dayling (son of a god of light), a son divine ". Who
the divine partner-father is is indicated by the fact that a storm has
broken out the night when Drott's son is born. There is a thunder-strife
vig ţrimo, the eagles screech, and holy waters fall from the heavenly
mountains (from the clouds). The god of thunder is present, and casts
his shadow over the house where the child is born.


31.


HALFDAN'S CHARACTER. THE WEAPON-MYTH.


The myths and heroic poems are not wanting in ideal heroes, who are
models of goodness of heart, justice, and the most sensitive nobleness.
Such are, for example, the Asa-god Balder, his counterpart among heroes,
Helge Hjorvardson, Beowulf, and, to a certain degree also, Sigurd
Fafnesbane. Halfdan did not belong to this group. His part in the myth
is to be the personal representative of the strife-age that came with
him, of an age when the inhabitants of the earth are visited by the
great winter and by dire mimisfortunes, when the demoralisation of the
world has begun along with disturbances in nature, and when the words
already are applicable, " hart er i heimi" (hard is the world). Halfdan
is guilty of the abduction of a woman'the old custom of taking a maid
from her father by violence or cunning is illustrated in his saga. It
follows, however, that the myth at the same time embellished him with
qualities which made him a worthy Teutonic patriarch, and attractive to
the hearers of the songs concerning him. These qualities are, besides
the necessary strength and courage, the above-mentioned knowledge of
runes, wherein he even surpasses his father (Rigsth.), great skaldic
gifts (Saxo, Hist., 325), a liberality which makes him love to strew
gold about him (Helge Hund., i 9), and an extraordinary, fascinating
physical beauty'which is emphasised by Saxo (Hist., 30), and which is
also evident from the fact that the Teutonic myth makes him, as the
Greek myth makes Achilleus, on one occasion don a woman's attire, and
resemble a valkyrie in this guise (Helge Hund., ii.). No doubt the myth
also described him as the model of a faithful foster-brother in his
relations to the silent Hamal, who externally was so like him that the
one could easily be taken for the other (cp. Helge Hund., ii. 1, 6). In
all cases it is certain that the myth made the foster-brotherhood
between Halfdan and Hamal the basis of the unfailing fidelity with which
Hamal's descendants, the Amalians, cling to the son of Halfdan's
favourite Hadding, and support his cause even amid the most difficult
circumstances (see Nos. 42, 43). The abduction of a woman by Halfdan is
founded in the physical interpretation of the myth, and can thus be
justified. The wife he takes by force is the goddess of vegetation,
Groa, and he does it because her husband Orvandel has made a compact
with the powers of frost (see Nos. 33, 38, 108, 109).


There are indications that our ancestors believed the sword to be a
later invention than the other kinds of weapons, and that it was from
the beginning under a curse. The first and most important of all
sword-smiths was, according to the myth, Thjasse, who accordingly is
called fadir mörna, the father of the swords (Haustlaung, Younger Edda,
306). The best sword made by him is intended to make way for the
destruction of the gods (see Nos. 33, 98, 101, 103). After various
fortunes it comes into the possession of Frey, but is of no service to
Asgard. It is given to the parents of the giantess Gerd, and in Ragnarok
it causes the death of Frey.


Halfdan had two swords, which his mother's father, for whom they were
made, had buried in the earth, and his mother long kept the place of
concealment secret from him. The first time he uses one of them he slays
in a duel his noble half-brother Hildeger, fighting on the side of the
Skilfings, without knowing who he is (cp. Saxo, Hist., 351, 355, 356,
with Asmund Kćmpebane's saga). Cursed swords are several times mentioned
in the sagas.


Halfdan's weapon, which he wields successfully in advantageous
exploits, is, in fact, the club (Saxo, Hist., 26, 31, 323, 353). That
the Teutonic patriarch's favourite weapon is the club, not the sword;
that the latter, later, in his hand, sheds the blood of a kinsman; and
that he himself finally is slain by the sword forged by Thjasse, and
that, too, in conflict with a son (the step-son Svipdag'see below), I
regard as worthy of notice from the standpoint of the views cherished
during some of the centuries of the Teutonic heathendom in regard to the
various age and sacredness of the different kinds of weapons. That the
sword also at length was looked upon as sacred is plain from the fact
that it was adopted and used by the Asa-gods. In Ragnarok, Vidar is to
avenge his father with a hjörr and pierce Fafuer's heart (Völuspa).


Hjörr may, it is true, also mean a missile, but still it is probable
that it, in Vidar's hand, means a sword. The oldest and most sacred
weapons were the spear, the hammer, the club, and the axe. The spear
which, in the days of Tacitus, and much later, was the chief weapon both
for foot-soldiers and cavalry in the Teutonic armies, is wielded by the
Asa-father himself, whose Gunguer was forged for him by Ivalde's sons
before the dreadful enmity between the gods and them had begun. The
hammer is Thor's most sacred weapon. Before Sindre


 Proofs of Thjasse's original identity with Volund are given in Nos.
113-115.


forged one for him of iron (Gylfaginning), lie wielded a hammer of
stone. This is evident from the very name hamarr, a rock, a stone. The
club is, as we have seen, the weapon of the Teutonic patriarch, and is
wielded side by side with Thor's hammer in the conflict with the powers
of frost. The battle-axe belonged to Njord. This is evident from the
metaphors found in the Younger Edda, p. 346, and in Islend. Saga, 9. The
mythological kernel in the former metaphor is Njördr klauf Herjan's
hurir, i.e., "N cleaved Odin's gates" (when the Vans conquered Asgard);
in the other the battle - axe is called Gaut's meginhurdar galli, i.e.,
"the destroyer of Odin's great gate ". The bow is a weapon employed by
the Asa-gods Hödr and Ullr, but Balder is slain by a shot from the bow,
and the chief archer of the myth is, as we shall see, not an Asa-god,
but a brother of Thjasse. (Further discussion of the weapon-myth will be
found in No. 39.)


32.


HALFDAN'S CONFLICTS INTERPRETED AS MYTHS OF NATURE. THE WAR WITH THE
HEROES FROM SVARIN'S MOUND. HALFDAN'S MARRIAGE WITH DISES OF VEGETATION.


In regard to the significance of the conflicts awaiting Halfdan, and
occupying his whole life, when interpreted as myths of nature, we must
remember that he inherits from his father the duty of stopping the
progress southward of the giant-world's wintry agents, the kinsmen of
Thjasse, and of the Skilfing (Yngling) tribes dwelling in the north. The
migration sagas have, as we have seen, shown that Borgar and his people
had to leave the original country and move south to Denmark, Saxland,
and to those regions on the other side of the Baltic in which the Goths
settled. For a time the original country is possessed by the conquerors,
who, according to Völuspa, "from Svarin's Mound attacked and took
(sótti) the clayey plains as far as Jaravall ". But Halfdan represses
them. That the words quoted from Völuspa really refer to the same mythic
persons with whom Halfdan afterwards fights is proved by the fact that
Svarin and Svarin's Mound are never named in our documents except in
connection with Halfdan's saga. In Saxo it is Halfdan Gram who slays
Svarin and his numerous brothers; in the saga of "Helge Hundingsbane" it
is again Halfdan, under the name Helge, who attacks tribes dwelling
around Svarin's Mound, and conquers them. To this may be added, that the
compiler of the first song about Helge Hundingsbane borrowed from the
saga-original, on which the song is based, names which point to the
Völuspa strophe concerning the attack on the south Scandinavian plains.
In the category of names, or the genealogy of the aggressors, occur, as
has been shown already, the Skilfing names Alf and Yngve. Thus also in
the Helge-song's list of persons with whom the conflict is waged in the
vicinity of Svarin's Mound. In the Völuspa's list Moinn is mentioned
among the aggressors (in the variation in the Prose Edda); in the
Helge-song, strophe 46, it is said that Helge-Halfdan fought á
Móinsheimom against his brave foes, whom he afterwards slew in the
battle around Svarin's Mound. In the Völuspa's list is named among the
aggressors one Haugspori, "the one spying from the mound"; in the
Helge-song is mentioned Sporvitnir, who from Svarin's Mound watches the
forces of Helge-Halfdan advancing. I have already (No. 28B) pointed out
several other names which occur in the Völuspa list, and whose
connection with the myth concerning the artists, frost-giants, and
Skilfings of antiquity, and their attack on the original country, can be
shown.


The physical significance of Halfdan's conflicts and adventures is
apparent also from the names of the women, whom the saga makes him
marry. Groa (grow), whom he robs and keeps for some time, is, as her
very name indicates, a goddess of vegetation. Signe-Alveig, whom he
afterwards marries, is the same. Her name signifies "the nourishing
drink ". According to Saxo she is the daughter of Sumblus, Latin for
Sumbi, which means feast, ale, mead, and is a synonym for Ölvaldi,
Ölmódr, names which belonged to the father of the Ivalde sons (see No. 123).


According to a well-supported statement in Forspjallsljod (see No.
123), Ivalde was the father of two groups of children. The mother of one
of these groups is a giantess (see Nos. 113, 114, 115). With her he has
three sons, viz., the three famous artists of antiquity'Ide, Gang-Urnir,
and Thjasse. The mother of the other group is a goddess of light (see
No. 123). With her he has daughters, who are goddesses of growth, among
them Idun and Signe-Alveig. That Idun is the daughter of Ivalde is clear
from Forspjallsljod (6), álfa ćttar Iţunni héto Ivallds ellri yngsta barna.


Of the names of their father Sumbl, Ölvaldi, Ölmódr, it may be said
that, as nature-symbols, "öl" (ale) and "mjöd" (mead), are in the
Teutonic mythology identical with somna and somamadhu in Rigveda and
haoma in Avesta, that is, they are the strength-developing, nourishing
saps in nature. Mimir's subterranean well, from which the world-tree
draws its nourishment, is a mead-fountain. In the poem "Haustlaung" Idun
is called Ölgefn; in the same poem Groa is called Ölgefion. Both
appellations refer to goddesses who give the drink of growth and
regeneration to nature and to the gods. Thus we here have a family, the
names and epithets of whose members characterise them as forces, active
in the service of nature and of the god of harvests. Their names and
epithets also point to the family bond which unites them. We have the
group of names, Ivaldi, Ii, Iunn, and the group, Ölvaldi (Ölmódr),
Ölgefn, and Ölgefion, both indicating members of the same family.
Further on (see Nos. 113, 114, 115) proof shall be presented that Groa's
first husband, Orvandel the brave, is one of Thjasse's brothers, and
thus that Groa, too, was closely connected with this family.


As we know, it is the enmity caused by Loki between the Asa-gods and
the lower serving, yet powerful, divinities of nature belonging to the
Ivalde group, which produces the terrible winter with its awful
consequences for man, and particularly for the Teutonic tribes. These
hitherto beneficent agents of growth have ceased to serve the gods, and
have allied themselves with the frost-giants. The war waged by Halfdan
must be regarded from this standpoint. Midgard's chief hero, the real
Teutonic patriarch, tries to reconquer for the Teutons the country of
which winter has robbed them. To be able to do this, be is the son of
Thor, the divine foe of the frost-giants, and performs on the of Midgard
a work corresponding to that which Thor has to do in space and in
Jotunheim. And in the same manner as Heimdal before secured favourable
conditions of nature to the original country, by uniting the sun-goddess
with himself through bonds of love, his grandson Halfdan now seeks to do
the same for the Teutonic country, by robbing a hostile son of Ivalde,
Orvandel, of his wife Groa, the growth'giver, and thereupon also of
Alveig, the giver of the nourishing sap. A symbol of nature may also be
found in Saxo's statement, that the king of Svithiod, Sigtrygg, Groa's
father, could not be conquered unless Halfdan fastened a golden ball to
his club (Hist., 31). The purpose of Halfdan's conflicts, the object
which the norns particularly gave to his life, that of reconquering from
the powers of frost the northernmost regions of the Teutonic territory
and of permanently securing them for culture, and the difficulty of this
task is indicated, it seems to me, in the strophes above quoted, which
tell us that the norns fastened the woof of his power in the east and
west, and that he from the beginning, and undisputed, extended the
sceptre of his rule over these latitudes, while in regard to the
northern latitudes, it is said that Nere's kinswoman, the chief of the
norns (see Nos. 57-64, 85), cast a single thread in this direction and
prayed that it might hold for ever:


ţer austr oc vestr enda fâlo, ţar átti lofdungr land a milli; brá nipt
Nera a nordrvega einni festi, ey baţ hon halda.


The norns' prayer was heard. That the myth made Halfdan proceed
victoriously to the north, even to the very starting-point of the
emigration to the south caused by the fimbul-winter, that is to say, to
Svarin's Mound, is proved by the statements that he slays Svarin and his
brothers, and wins in the vicinity of Svarin's Mound the victory over
his opponents, which was for a time decisive. His penetration into the
north, when regarded as a nature-myth, means the restoration of the
proper change of seasons, and the rendering of the original country and
of Svithiod inhabitable. As far as the hero, who secured the "giver of
growth" and the "giver of nourishing sap," succeeds with the aid of his
father Thor to carry his weapons into the Teutonic lands destroyed by
frost, so far spring and summer again extend the sceptre of their reign.
The songs about Helge Hundingsbane have also preserved from the myth the
idea that Halfdan and his forces penetrating northward by land and by
sea are accompanied in the air by "valkyries," "goddesses from the
south," armed with helmets, coats of mail, and shining spears, who fight
the forces of nature that are hostile to Halfdan, and these valkyries
are in their very nature goddesses of growth, from the manes of whose
horses falls the dew which gives the power of growth back to the earth
and harvests to men. (Cp. HeIg. Hund., i 15, 30; ii., the prose to v. 5,
12, 13, with Helg. Hjörv., 28.) On this account the Swedes, too, have
celebrated Halfdan in their songs as their patriarch and benefactor, and
according to Saxo they have worshipped him as a divinity, although it
was his task to check the advance of the Skilfings to the south.


Doubtless it is after this successful war that Halfdan performs the
great sacrifice mentioned in Skaldskaparmal, ch. 64, in order that he
may retain his royal power for three hundred years. The statement should
be compared with what the German poems of the middle ages tell about the
longevity of Berchtung-Borgar and other heroes of antiquity. They live
for several centuries. But the response Halfdan gets from the powers to
whom he sacrificed is that he shall live simply to the age of an old
man, and that in his family there shall not for three hundred years be
born a woman or a fameless man.


33.


REVIEW OF THE SVIPDAG MYTH AND ITS POINTS OF CONNECTION WITH THE MYTH
ABOUT HALFDAN (cp. No. 24).


When Halfdan secured Groa, she was already the bride of Orvandel the
brave, and the first son she bore in Halfdan's house was not his, but
Orvandel's. The son's name is Svmpdag. He develops into a hero who, like
Halfdan himself, is the most brilliant and most beloved of those
celebrated in Teutonic songs. We have devoted a special part of this
work to him (see Nos. 96-107). There we have given proofs of various
mythological facts, which I now already must incorporate with the
following series of events in order that the epic thread may not be wanting:


(a) Groa bears with Halfdan the son Guthorm (Saxo, Hist. Dan., 34).


(b) Groa is rejected by Halfdan (Saxo, Hist. Dan., 33). She returns to
Orvandel, and brings with her her own and his son Svipdag.


(e) Halfdan marries Signe-Alveig (Hyndluljod, 15; Prose Edda, i. 516;
Saxo, Hist., 33), and with her becomes the father of the son Hadding
(Saxo, Hist. Dan., 34).


(d) Groa dies, and Orvandel marries again (Grógaldr, 3). Before her
death Groa has told her son that if he needs her help he must go to her
grave and invoke her (Grógaldr, 1).


(e) It is Svipdag's duty to revenge on Halfdan the disgrace done to his
mother and the murder of his mother's father Sigtrygg. But his
stepmother bids Svipdag seek Menglad, "the one loving ornaments"
(Grógaldr, 3).


(f) Under the weight of these tasks Svipdag goes to his mother's grave,
bids her awake from her sleep of death, and from her he receives
protecting incantations (Grógaldr, 1).


(g) Before Svipdag enters upon the adventurous expedition to find
Menglad, he undertakes, at the head of the giants, the allies of the
Ivaldesons (see Fjölsvinsm, 1, where Svipdag is called Ţursaţjoar
sjólr), a war of revenge against Halfdan (Saxo, 33 ff., 325; cp. Nos.
102, 103). The host of giants is defeated, and Svipdag, who has entered
into a duel with his stepfather, is overcome by the latter. Halfdan
offers to spare his life and adopt him as his son. But Svipdag refuses
to accept life as a gift from him, and answers a defiant no to the
proffered father-hand. Then Halfdan binds him to a tree and leaves him
to his fate (Saxo, Hist., 325 ; cp. No. 103).


(h) Svipdag is freed from his bonds through one of the incantations
sung over him by his mother (Grógaldr, 10).


(i) Svipdag wanders about sorrowing in the land of the giants.
Gevarr-Nökkve, god of the moon (see Nos. 90, 91), tells him how he is to
find an irresistible sword, which is always attended by victory (see No.
101). The sword is forged by Thjasse, who intended to destroy the world
of the gods with it; but just at the moment when the smith had finished
his weapon he was surprised in his sleep by Mimir, who put him in chains
and took the sword. The latter is now concealed in the lower world (see
Nos. 98, 101, 103).


(j) Following Gevarr-Nökkve's directions, Svipdag goes to the
northernmost edge of the world, and finds there a descent to the lower
world; he conquers the guard of the gates of Hades, sees the wonderful
regions down there, and succeeds in securing the sword of victory (see
Nos. 53, 97, 98, 101, 103, 112).


(k) Svipdag begins a new war with Halfdan. Thor fights on his son's
side, but the irresistible sword cleaves the hammer Mjolner; the Asa-god
himself must yield. The war ends with Halfdan's defeat. He dies of the
wounds he has received in the battle (see Nos. 101, 103; cp. Saxo,
Hist., 34).


(l) Svipdag seeks and finds Menglad, who is Freyja who was robbed by
the giants. He liberates her and sends her pure and undefiled to Asgard
(see Nos. 96, 98, 100, 102).


(m) Idun is brought back to Asgard by Loki. Thjasse, who is freed from
his prison at Mimir's, pursues, in the guise of an eagle, Loki to the
walls of Asgard, where he is slain by the gods (see the Eddas).


(n) Svipdag, armed with the sword of victory, goes to Asgard, is
received joyfully by Freyja, becomes her husband, and presents his sword
of victory to Frey. Reconciliation between the gods and the Ivalde race.
Njord marries Thjasse's daughter Skade. Orvandel's second son Ull,
Svipdag's half-brother (see No. 102), is adopted in Valhal. A sister of
Svipdag is married to Forsete (Hyndluljod, 20). The gods honour the
memory of Thjasse by connecting his name with certain stars
(Harbardsljod, 19). A similar honour had already been paid to his
brother Orvandel (Prose Edda).


From this series of events we find that, although the Teutonic
patriarch finally succumbs in the war which he waged against the
Thjasse-race and the frost-powers led by Thjasse's kinsmen, still the
results of his work are permanent. When the crisis had reached its
culminating point; when the giant hosts of the fimbulwinter had received
as their leader the son of Orvandel, armed with the irresistible sword;
when Halfdan's fate is settled; when Thor himself, Midgard's veorr
(Völusp.), the mighty protector of earth arid the human race, must
retreat with his lightning hammer broken into pieces, then the power of
love suddenly prevails and saves the world. Svipdag, who, under the
spell of his deceased mother's incantations from the grave, obeyed the
command of his stepmother to find and rescue Freyja from the power of
the giants, thereby wins her heart and earns the gratitude of the gods.
He has himself learned to love her, and is at last compelled by his
longing to seek her in Asgard. The end of the power of the fimbul-winter
is marked by Freyja's and Idun's return to the gods by Thjasse's death,
by the presentation of the invincible sword to the god of harvests
(Frey), by the adoption of Thjasse's kinsmen, Svipdag, Ull, and Skade in
Asgard, and by several marriage ties celebrated in commemoration of the
reconciliation between Asgard's gods and the kinsmen of the great artist
of antiquity.


34.


THE WORLD WAR. ITS CAUSE. THE MURDER OF GULLVEIG-HEIDR. THE VOICE OF
COUNSEL BETWEEN THE ASAS AND THE VANS.


Thus the peace of the world and the order of nature might seem secured.
But it is not long before a new war breaks out, to which the former may
be regarded as simply the prelude. The feud, which had its origin in the
judgment passed by the gods on Thjasse's gifts, and which ended in the
marriage of Svipdag and Freyja, was waged for the purpose of securing
again for settlement and culture the ancient domain and Svithiod, where
Heimdal had founded the first community. It was confined within the
limits of the North Teutonic peninsula, and in it the united powers of
Asgard supported the other Teutonic tribes fighting under Half-dan. But
the new conflict rages at the same time in heaven and in earth, between
the divine clans of the Asas and the Vans, and between all the Teutonic
tribes led into war with each other by Halfdan's sons. From the
standpoint of Teutonic mythology it is a world war; and Völuspa calls it
the first great war in the world' folevig fyrst i heimi (str. 21, 25).


Loki was the cause of the former prelusive war. His feminine
counterpart and ally Gullveig-Heidr, who gradually is blended, so to
speak, into one with him, causes the other. This is apparent from the
following Völuspa strophes:


Str. 21. ţat man hon folevig fyrst i heimi er Gullveig geirum studdu oc
i haull Hárs hana brendo.


Str. 22. ţrysvar brendo ţrysvar borna opt osialdan ţo hon en lifir.


Str. 23. Heia hana heto hvars til husa com vólo velspá vitti hon ganda
sei hon, kuni seid hon Leikin, e var hon angan illrar brudar.


Str. 24. ţá gengo regin oll a raukstola ginheilog god oc um ţat gettuz
hvart scyldo esir afra gialda eţa scyldo goin aull gildi ciga.


Str. 25. Eleyge Odin oc ifole um seáut ţat var en folevig fyrst i
heimi. Brotin var borvegr borgar asa knatto vanir vigspa vollo sporna.


The first thing to be established in the interpretation of these
strophes is the fact that they, in the order in which they are found in
Codex Regius, and in which I have given them, all belong together and
refer to the same mythic event'that is, to the origin of the great world
war. This is evident from a comparison of strophe 21 with 25, the first
and last of those quoted. Both speak of the war, which is called fólkvig
fyrst í heimi. The former strophe informs us that it occurred as a
result of, and in connection with, the murder of Gulveig, a murder
committed in Valhal itself, in the hail of the Asa-father, beneath the
roof where the gods of the Asaclan are gathered around their father. The
latter strophe tells that the first great war in the world produced a
separation between the two god-claus, the Asas and Vans, a division
caused by the fact that Odin, hurling his spear, interrupted a
discussion between them; and the strophe also explains the result of the
war: the bulwark around Asgard was broken, and the Vans got possession
of the power of the Asas. The discussion or council is explained in
strophe 24. It is there expressly emphasised that all the gods, the Asas
and Vans, regin oll, godin aull, solemnly assemble and seat themselves
on their raukstola to counsel together concerning the murder of
Gullveig-Heidr. Strophe 23 has already described who Gulveig is, and
thus given at least one reason for the hatred of the Asas towards her,
and for the treatment she receives in Odin's ball. It is evident that
she was in Asgard under the name Gulveig, since Gulveig was killed and
burnt in Valhal; but Midgard, the abode of man, has also been the scene
of her activity. There she has roamed about under the name Heidr,
practising the evil arts of black sorcery (see No. 27) and encouraging
the evil passions of mankind: ć var hon angan illrar bruar. Hence
Gulveig suffers the punishment which from time immemorial was
established among the Aryans for the practice of the black art; she was
burnt. And her mysteriously terrible and magic nature is revealed by the
fact that the flames, though kindled by divine hands, do not have the
power over her that they have over other agents of sorcery. The gods
burn her thrice; they pierce the body of the witch with their spears,
and hold her over the flames of the fire. All is in vain. They cannot
prevent her return and regeneration. Thrice burned and thrice born, she
still lives.


After Völuspa has given an account of the vala who in Asgard was called
Gullveig and on earth Heir, the poem speaks, in strophe 24, of the
dispute which arose among the gods on account of her murder. The gods
assembled on and around the judgment seats are divided into two parties,
of which the Asas constitute the one. The fact that the treatment
received by Gulveig can become a question of dispute which ends in
enmity between the gods is a proof that only one of the god-clans has
committed the murder; and since this took place, not in Njord's, or
Frey's, or Freyja's halls, but in VaIhal, where Odin rules and is
surrounded by his sons, it follows that the Asas must have committed the
murder. Of course, Vans who were guests in Odin's hall might have been
the perpetrators of the murder; but, on the one hand, the poem would
scarcely have indicated Odin's ball as the place where Gulveig was to be
punished, unless it wished thereby to point out the Asas as the doers of
the deed; and, on the other hand, we cannot conceive the murder as
possible, as described in Völuspa, if the Vans were the ones who
committed it, and the Asas were Gulveig's protectors; for then the
latter, who were the lords in Valhal, would certainly not have permitted
the Vans quietly and peaceably to subject Gulveig to the long torture
there described, in which she is spitted on spears and held over the
flames to be burnt to ashes.


That the Asas committed the murder is also corroborated by Völuspa's
account of the question in dispute. One of the views prevailing in the
consultation and discussion in regard to the matter is that the Asas
ought to afrád gjalda in reference to the murder committed. In this afrá
gjalda we meet with a phrase which is echoed in the laws of Iceland, and
in the old codes of Norway and Sweden. There can be no doubt that the
phrase has found its way into the language of the law from the popular
vernacular, and that its legal significance was simply more definite and
precise than its use in the vernacular. The common popular meaning of
the phrase is to pay compensation. The compensation may be of any kind
whatsoever. It may be rent for the use of another's field, or it may be
taxes for the enjoyment of social rights, or it may be death and wounds
for having waged war. In the present instance, it must mean compensation
to be paid by the Asas for the slaying of Gullveig-Heidr. As such a
demand could not be made by the Asas themselves, it must have been made
by the Vans and their supporters in the discussion. Against this demand
we have the proposition from the Asas that all the gods should gildi
eiga. In regard to this disputed phrase at least so much is clear, that
it must contain either an absolute or a partial counter-proposition to
the deniand of the Vans, and its purpose must be that the Asas ought
not'at least, not alone'to pay the compensation for the murder, but that
the crime should be regarded as one in reference to which all the gods,
the Asas and the Vans, were a like guilty, and as one for which they all
together should assume the responsibility.


The discussion does not lead to a friendly settlement. Something must
have been said at which Odin has become deeply offended, for the
Asa-father, distinguished for his wisdom and calmness, hurls his spear
into the midst of those deliberating'a token that the contest of reason
against reason is at an end, and that it is to be followed by a contest
with weapons. The myth concerning this deliberation between Asas and
Vans was well known to Saxo, and what he has to say about it (Hist., 126
if.), turning myth as usual into history, should be compared with
Völuspa's account, for both these sources complement each other.


The first thing that strikes us in Saxo's narrative is that sorcery,
the black art, plays, as in Völuspa, the chief part in the chain of
events. His account is taken from a mythic circumstance, mentioned by
the heathen skald Kormak (sei Yggr til Rindar' Younger Edda, i. 236),
according to which Odin, forced by extreme need, sought the favour of
Rind, and gained his point by sorcery and witchcraft, as he could not
gain it otherwise. According to Saxo, Odin touched Rind with a piece of
bark on which he had inscribed magic songs, and the result was that she
became insane (Rinda . . . quam Othinus cortice carminibus adnotato
contingens lymphanti similem reddidit). In immediate connection herewith
it is related that the gods held a council, in which it was claimed that
Odin had stained his divine honour, and ought to be deposed from his
royal dignity (dii . . . Othinum variis majestatis detrimentis
divinitatis gloriam. maculasse cernentes, collegio suo submocendum
duxerunt'Hist., 129). Among the deeds of which his opponents in this
council accused him was, as it appears from Saxo, at least one of which
he ought to take the consequences, but for which all the gods ought not
to be held responsible (. . . ne vet ipsi, alieno crimine implicati,
insontes nocentis crimine punirentur'Hist., 129; in omnium caput unius
culpam recidere putares, Hist., 130). The result of the deliberation of
the gods is, in Saxo as in Völuspa, that Odin is banished, and that
another clan of gods than his holds the power for some time. Thereupon
he is, with the consent of the reigning gods, recalled to the throne,
which he henceforth occupies in a brilliant manner. But one of his first
acts after his return is to banish the black art and its agents from
heaven and from earth (Hist., 44).


Thus the chain of events in Saxo both begins and ends with sorcery. It
is the background on which both in Saxo and in Völuspa those events
occur which are connected with the dispute between the Asas and Vans. In
both the documents the gods meet in council before the breaking out of
the enmity. In both the question turns on a deed done by Odin, for which
certain gods do not wish to take the responsibility. Saxo indicates this
by the words: Ne vel ipsi, alieno crimine implicati, innocentes nocentis
crimine punirentur. Völuspa indicates it by letting the Vans present,
against the proposition that godin öll skyldu gildi eiga, the claim that
Odin's own clan, and it alone, should afrá gjalda. And while Völuspa
makes Odin suddenly interrupt the deliberations and hurl his spear among
the deliberators, Saxo gives us the explanation of his sudden wrath. He
and his clan had slain and burnt Gulveig-Heid because she practised
sorcery and other evil arts of witchcraft. And as he refuses to make
compensation for the murder and demands that all the gods take the
consequences and share the blame, the Vans have replied in council, that
he too once practised sorcery on the occasion when he visited Rind, and
that, if Gulveig was justly burnt for this crime, then he ought justly
to be deposed from his dignity stained by the same crime as the ruler of
all the gods. Thus Völuspa's and Saxo's accounts supplement and
illustrate each other.


One dark point remains, however. Why have the Vans objected to the
killing of Gulveig-Heid' Should this clan of gods, celebrated in song as
benevolent, useful, and pure, be kindly disposed toward the evil and
corrupting arts of witchcraft' This cannot have been the meaning of the
myth. As shall be shown, the evil plans of Gulveig-Heid have
particularly been directed against those very Vana-gods who in the
council demand compensation for her death. In this regard Saxo has in
perfect faithfulness toward his mythic source represented Odin on the
one hand, and his opponents among the gods on the other, as alike
hostile to the black art. Odin, who on one occasion and under peculiar
circumstances, which I shall discuss in connection with the Balder myth,
was guilty of the practice of sorcery, is nevertheless the declared
enemy of witchcraft, and Saxo makes him take pains to forbid and
persecute it. The Vans likewise look upon it with horror, and it is this
horror which adds strength to their words when they attack and depose
Odin, because he has himself practised that for which he has punished
Gulveig.


The explanation of the fact is, as shall be shown below, that Frey, on
account of a passion of which he is the victim (probably through
sorcery), was driven to marry the giant maid Gerd, whose kin in that way
became friends of the Vans. Frey is obliged to demand satisfaction for a
murder perpetrated on a kinswoman of his wife. The kinship of blood
demands its sacred right, and according to Teutonic ideas of law, the
Vans must act as they do regardless of the moral character of Gulveig.


35.


GULLVEIG-HEIDR. HER IDENTITY WITH AURBODA, ANGRBODA, HYRROKIN. THE MYTH
CONCERNING THE SWORD GUARDIAN AND FJALAR.


The duty of the Vana-deities becomes even more plain, if it can be
shown that Gulveig-Heid is Gerd's mother; for Frey, supported by the
Vana-gods, then demnands satisfaction for the murder of his own
mother-in-law. Gerd's mother is, in Hyndluljod, 30, called Aurboda, and
is the wife of the giant Gymer:


Freyr atti Gerdi, Hon vor Gymis dottir, iotna ćttar ok Aurbodu.


It can, in fact, be demonstrated that Aurboda is identical with
Gulveig-Heid. The evidence is given below in two divisions.


(a) Evidence that Gulveig-Heid is identical with Angerboda, "the
ancient one in the Ironwood"; (b) evidence that Gulveig-HeidAngerboda is
identical with Aurboda, Gerd's mother.


(a) Gulveid-Heid identical with Angerboda. Hyndluljod, 40, 41, says: ol
ulf Loki vid Angrbodu, (enn Sleipni gat vid Svadilfara); eitt ţotti
skars allra feikna.zst ţat var brodur fra Byleistz komit. Loki af hiarta
lindi brendu, fann hann haalfsuidinn hugstein konu; yard Loptr kvidugr
af konu illri; ţadani er aa folldu fiagd hvert komit.


From the account we see that an evil female being (ill kona) had been
burnt, but that the flames were not able to destroy the seed of life in
her nature. Her heart had not been burnt through or changed to ashes. It
was only half-burnt (hálfsvidinn hugsteinn), and in this condition it
had together with the other remains of the cremated woman been thrown
away, for Loki finds and swallows the heart.


Our ancestors looked upon the heart as the seat of the life principle,
of the soul of living beings. A number of linguistic phrases are founded
on the idea that goodness and evil, kindness and severity, courage and
cowardice, joy and sorrow, are connected with the character of the
heart; sometimes we find hjarta used entirely in the sense of soul, as
in the expression hold ok hjarta, soul and body. So long as the heart in
a dead body had not gone into decay, it was believed that the principle
of life dwelling therein still was able, under peculiar circumstances,
to operate on the limbs and exercise an influence on its environment,
particularly if the dead person in life had been endowed with a will at
once evil and powerful. In such cases it was regarded as important to
pierce the heart of the dead with a pointed spear (cp. Saxo, Hist., 43,
and No. 95).


The half-burnt heart, accordingly, contains the evil woman's soul, and
its influence upon Loki, after he has swallowed it, is most remarkable.
Once before when he bore Sleipner with the giant horse Svadilfare, Loki
had revealed his androgynous nature So he does now. The swallowed heart
redeveloped the feminine in him (Loki lindi af brendu hjarta). It
fertilised him with the evil purposes which the heart contained. Loki
became the possessor of the evil woman (kvidugr. af konu illri), and
became the father of the children froni which the trolls (flagd) are
come which are found in the world. First among the children is mentioned
the wolf, which is called Fenrir, and which in Ragnarok shall cause the
death of the Asa- father. To this event point Njord's words about Loki,
in Lokasenna, str. 33: ass ragr er hefir born of borit. The woman
possessing the half-burnt heart, who is the mother or rather the father
of the wolf, is called Angerboda (ól ulf Loki vi Angrbodu). N. M.
Petersen and other mythologists have rightly seen that she is the same
as "the old one," who in historical times and until Ragnarok dwells in
the Ironwood, and "there fosters Fenrer's kinsmen" (Völuspa, 39), her
own offspring, which at the close of this period are to issue from the
Iron-wood, and break into Midgard and dye its citadels with blood
(Völuspa, 30).


The fact that Angerboda now dwells in the Ironwood, although there on a
former occasion did not remain more of her than a half-burnt heart,
proves that the attempt to destroy her with fire was unsuccessful, and
that she arose again in bodily form after this cremation, and became the
mother and nourisher of were-wolves. Thus the myth about Angerboda is
identical with the myth about Gulveig-Heid in the two characteristic points


   1. Unsuccessful burning of an evil woman.
      
   2. Her regeneration after the cremation.
       

These points apply equally to Gulveig-Heid and to Angerboda, "the old
one in the Ironwood ". The myth about Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda, as it was
remnembered in the first period after the introduction of Christianity,
we find in part recapitulated in Helgakvida Hundingsbane, i. 37-40,
where Sinfjotle compares his opponent Gudmund with the evil female
principle in the heathen mythology, the vala imi question, and where
Gudmund in return compares Sinfjotle with its evil masculine principle,
Loki.


Sinfjotle says:


ţu vart vaulra I Varinseyio, scollvis kona bartu scrauc saman; ţu vart,
en sceţa, scass valkgria, autul, amátlig at Alfaudar ; mundo einherjar
allir beriaz, svevis koua, um sakar ţinar. Nio atta viţ a neri Sagu ulfa
alna cc var einn faţir ţeirra.


Gudmund's answer begins:


Fadir varattu fenirisulfa...


The evil woman with whom one of the two heroes compares the other is
said to be a vala, who has practised her art partly on Varin's Isle,
partly in Asgard at Alfather's, and there she was the cause of a war in
which all the warriors of Asgard took part. This refers to the war
between the Asas and Vans. It is the second feud among the powers of Asgard.


The vala must therefore be Gulveig-Heid of the myth, on whose account
the war between the Asas and Vans broke out, according to Völuspa. Now
it is said of her in the lines above quoted, that she gave birth to
wolves, and that these wolves were fenrisulfar ". Of Angerboda we
already know that she is the mother of the real Fenris'wolf, and that
she, in the Ironwood, produces other wolves which are called by Fenrer's
name (Fenris kindir'Völuspa). Thus the identity of Gulveig-Heid and
Angerboda is still further established by the fact that both the one and
the other is called the mother of the Fenris family.


The passage quoted is not the only one which has preserved the memory
of Gulveig-Heid as mother of the were-wolves. Volsungasaga (c. ii. 8)
relates that a giantess, Hrímnir's daughter, first dwelt in Asgard as
the maid-servant of Frigg, then on earth, and that she, during her
sojourn on earth, became the wife of a king, and with him the mother and
grandmother of were-wolves, who infested the woods and murdered men. The
fantastic and horrible saga about these were-wolves has, in Christian
times and by Christian authors, been connected with the poems about
Helge Hundingsbane and Sigurd Fafnersbane. The circumstance that the
giantess in question first dwelt in Asgard and thereupon in Midgard,
indicates that she is identical with Gulveig-Heid, and this identity is
confirmed by the statement that she is a daughter of the giant Hrímnir.


The myth, as it has come down to our days, knows only one daughter of
this giant, and she is the same as Gimlveig-Heid. Hyudluljod states that
Heidr is Hrimnir's daughter, and mentions no sister of hers, but, on the
other hand, a brother Hrossţiofr (Heidr ok Hrorsţiofr Hrimnis
kinidar'Hyndl., 30). In allusion to the cremation of Gulveig-Heid fire
is called in Thorsdrapa Hrimmis drósar lyptisylgr, "the lifting drink of
Hrimner's daughter," the drink which Heid lifted up on spears had to
drink. Nowhere is any other daughter of Hrimner mentioned. And while it
is stated in the above-cited strophe that the giantess who caused the
war in Asgard and became the mother of fenriswolves was a vala on
Varin's Isle (vaulva i Varinseyio), a comparison of Helgakv.. Hund., i.
26, with Volsungasaga, c. 2, shows that Varin's Isle and Varin's Fjord
were located in that very country, where Hrimner's daughter was supposed
to have been for some time the wife of a king and to have givemi birth
to were-wolves.


Thus we have found that the three characteristic points' unsuccessful
cremation of an evil giantess, her regeneration after the cremation, the
same woman as mother of the Fenrer race' are common to Gulveig'Heid and
Angerboda. Their identity is apparent from various other circumstances,
but may be regarded as completely demonstrated by the proofs given.
Gulveig's activity in anitiquity as the founder of the diabolical magic
art, as one who awakens man's evil passions and produces strife in
Asgard itself, has its complement in Angemboda's activity as the mother
and nourisher of that class of beings in whose members witchcraft,
thirst for blood, and hatred of the gods are personified. Tine activity
of the evil principle has, in the great epic of the myth, formed a
continuity spanning all ages, amid this continuous thread of evil is
twisted from the treacherous deeds of Gulveig and Loki, the feminine and
the masculine representatives of the evil principhe. Both appear at the
dawn of mankind : Loki has already at the beginning of time secured
access to Alfather (Lokasenna, 9), and Gulveig deceives the sons of men
already in the time of Heimdal's son Borgar. Loki entices Idun from the
secure grounds of Asgard, and treacherously delivers her to the powers
of frost ; Gulveig, as we shall see, plays Freyja into the hands of the
giants. Loki plans enmity between the gods and the forces of nature,
which hitherto had been friendly, and which have their personal
representatives in Ivalde's sons ; Gulveig causes the war between the
Asas and Vans. The interference of both is interrupted at the close of
the mythic age, when Loki is chained, and Gulveig, in the guise of
Angerboda, is aii exile in the Ironwood. Before this they have for a
time been blended, so to speak, into a single being, in which the
feminine assuming masculineness, and the masculine effemninated, bear to
tine world an offspring of foes to tine gods and to creation. Both
finally act their paints in the destruction of the world. Before that
crisis comes Aingerboda has fostered that host of "sons of world-ruin"
which Loki is to lead to battle, and a magic sword which sine has kept
in tIne Ironwood is given to Surt, in whose hand it is to be the death
of Frey, the lord of harvests (see Nos. 89, 98, 101, 103).


That the woman whno in antiquity, in various guises, visited Asgard and
Midgard was believed to have had her home in tine Ironwood of the East
during the historical age down to Ragnarok


 In Völuspa the wood is called both Jarnvidr Gaglvidr (Cod. Reg.), and
Gulgvidr (Cod. Hank.). It may be that we here have a fossil word
preserved in Völuspa meaning metal. Perhaps the wood was a copper or
bronze forest before it became an iron wood. Compare ghalgha, ghalghi
(Fick., ii. .578) metal, which, again, is to be compared with c
a l koV = copper, bronze.


is explained by what Saxo says'viz., that Odin, after his return and
reconciliation with the Vans, banished the agents of the black art both
from heaven and from earth. Here, too, the connection between
Gulveig-Heid and Angerboda is manifest. The war between the Asas and
Vans was caused by the burning of Gulveig by the former. After the
reconciliation with the Asas this punishment cannot again be inflicted
on the regenerated witch. The Asas must allow her to live to tine end of
time; but both the clans of gods agree that she must not show her face
again in Asgard or Midgard. The myth concerning the banishment of the
fatuous vala to the Ironwood, and of the Loki progeny which she there
fosters, has been turned into history by Jordanes in his De Goth.
Origine, ch. 24, where it is stated that a Gothic king compelled the
suspected valas (haliorunas) found among his people to take their refuge
to the deserts in the East beyond the Moeotian Marsh, where they mixed
with tine wood-sprites, and this became the progenitors of the Huns. In
this manner the Christian Goths got from their mythic traditions an
explanation of the source of the eastern hosts of horsemen, whose ugly
faces and barbarous manners seemed to them to prove an other than purely
human origin. The vala Gulveig-Heid and her like become in Jordanes
these haliorunć; Lake and the giants of the Ironwood become these
wood-sprites the Asa-god who caused the banishment becomes a king, son
of Gandaricus Magnus (the great ruler of the Gandians, Odin), and Loki's
and Angerboda's wonderful progeny beconne the Huns.


Stress should be laid on the fact that Jordanes and Saxo have in tine
same manner preserved the tradition that Odin and the Asas, after making
peace and becoming reconciled with the Vans, do not apply the
death-penalty and burning to Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda and her kith and
kin, but, instead, sentence them to banishment from the domains of gods
and en That the tradition preserved in Saxo amid Jordanes corresponded
with the myth is proved by the fact that we there rediscover
Gulveig-Heid-Amigerboda with her offspring in tine Ironwood, which was
thought to be situated in the utmost East, far away from the human
world, and that she remains there undisturbed until the destruction of
the world. The reconciliation between tine Asas and Vans has, as this
conclusively shows, been based on an admission on the part of the Asas
that the Vans had a right to find fault with amid demand satisfaction
for the murder of Gulveig-Heid. Thus the dispute which caused the war
between Asas and Vans was at last decided to the advantage of the
latter, while they on their part, after being satisfied, reinstate Odin
in his dignity as universal ruler and father of the gods.


(b) Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda identical with Aurboda.


In the Ironwood dwells Angerboda, together with a giant, who is gygjar
hirdir, the guardian and watcher of the giantess. He has charge of her
remarkable herds, and also guards a sword brought to the Ironwood. This
vocation has given him the epithet Egther (Egţerr'Völuspa), which means
sword-guardian. Saxo speaks of him as Egtherus, an ally of Finns,
skilled in magic, and a chief of Bjarmians, equally skilful in magic
(cp. Hist., 248, 249, with Nos. 52, 53). Bjarmians and Finns are in Saxo
made the heirs of the wicked inhabitants of Jotunheim. Vilkinasaga knows
him by the name Etgeir, who watches over precious implements in Isung's
wood. Etgeir is a corruption of Egther, and Isung's wood is a
reminiscence of Isarnvidr, Isarnho, the Ironwood. In the Vilkinasaga he
is the brother of Vidolf. According to Hyndluljod, all the valas of the
myth come from Vidolf. As Gulveig-Heid- Angerboda is the chief of all
valas, and the teacher of the arts practised by the valas, this
statement in Hyndluljod makes us think of her particularly; and as
Hrimnir's daughter has been born and burnt several timnes, she may also
have had several fathers. Among them, then, is Vidolf, whose character,
as described by Saxo, fits well for such a daughter. He is a master in
sorcery, and also skilful in the art of medicine. But the medical art he
practises in such a tnanner that those who seek his help receive from
him such remedies as do harm instead of good. Only by threats can he be
made to do good with his art (Hist., 323, 324). The statemnent in
Vilkinasaga compared with that in Hyndluljod seems therefore to point to
a near kinship between Angerboda and her sword-guard. She appears to be
the daughter of his brother.


In Völuspa's description of the approach of Ragnarok, Egther,
Angerboda's shepherd, is represented as sitting on a mound'like
Aurboda's shepherd in Skirnisför'and playing a harp, happy over that
which is to happen. That the giant who is hostile to the gods, and who
is the guardian of the strange herds, does not play an idyl on the
strings of his harp does not need to be stated. He is visited by a being
in the guise of the red cock. The cock, says Völuspa, is Fjalarr (str.
44). What the heathen records tell us about Fjalar is the following:


(a) He is the same giant as the Younger Edda (i. 144 ff.) calls
Utgard-Loki. The latter is a fire - giant, Loge's, the fire's ruler
(Younger Edda, 152), the cause of earthquakes (Younger Edda, 144), and
skilled in producing optical delusions. Fjalar's identity with
Utgard-Loki is proved by Harbardsljod, str. 26, where Thor, on his way
to Fjalar, meets with the same adventures as, according to the Younger
Edda, lie met with on his way to Utgard-Loke.


(b) He is the same giant as the one called Suttung. The giant from whom
Odin robs the skaldic mead, and whose devoted daughter Gunlad he causes
bitter sorrow, is called in Havamál sometimes Fjalar and sometimes
Suttung (cp. strs. 13, 14, 104, 105).


(c) Fjalar is the son of the chief of the fire-giants, Surtr, and
dwells in the subterranean dales of the latter. A full account of this
imi No. 89. Here it will suffice to point out that when Odin flies out
of Fjalar's dwelling with the skaldic mead, it is "from Surt's deep
dales" that he "flying bears" the precious drink (hinn er Surts or
sökkdölum farmagnur fljúgandi bar, a strophe by Eyvind, quoted in the
Younger Edda, p. 242), and that this drink while it remained with Fjalar
was "the drink of Surt's race" Sylgr Surts ćttar, Fornms., iii. 3).


(d) Fjalar, with Froste, takes part in the attack of Thjasse's kinsmen
and the Skilfings from Svarin's Mound against "the land of the clayey
plains, to Jaravall" (Völuspa, 14, 15 ; see Nos. 28, 32). Thins he is
allied with the powers of frost, who are foes of the gods, and who seek
to conquer the Teutonic domain. The approach of the fimbul-winter was
also attended by an earthquake (see Nos. 28, 81).


When, therefore, Völuspa makes Fjalar on his visit to the
sword-guardian in the Ironwood appear in the guise of the red cock, then
this is in harmony with Fjalar's nature as a fire'giant and as a son of
Surt.


 In Bragerćdur's pseudo-mythic account of the Skaldic mead (Younger
Edda, 216 ff.) the name Fjalarr also appears. In regard to tire value of
this account, see tire investigation in No. 89.


Sat ţar a haugi oc sló haurpo gygjar hirţir gladr Egţer. Gol um hanom i
galgviţi fagrraudr hani sa er Fjalar heitir (Völusp., 41).


The red cock has from time immemorial been the symbol of fire as a
destructive power. That what Odin does against Fjalar'when he robs him
of the mead, which in the myth is the most precious of all drinks, and
when he deceived his daughter'is calculated to awaken Fjalar's thirst
for revenge and to bring about a satisfaction sooner or later, lies in
the very spirit of Teutonic poetry and ethics, especially since Odin's
act, though done from a good motive, was morally reprehensible. What
Fjalar's errand to Angerboda's sword-guard was appears from the fact
that when the last war between the gods and their enemies is fought a
short time afterwards, Fjalar's father, the chief of the fire-giants,
Surt, is armed with the best of the mythical weapons, the sword which
had belonged to a valtivi, one of the gods of Asgard (Völusp., 50), and
which casts the splendour of the sun upon the world. The famous sword of
the myth, t.hat which Thjasse finished with a purpose hostile to the
gods (see No. 87 and elsewhere), the sword concealed by Mimir (see Nos.
87, 98, 101), the sword found by Svipdag (see Nos. 89, 101, 103), the
sword secured through him by Frey, the one given by Frey to Gymer and
Aurboda in exchange for Gerd,'this sword is found again in the Ragnarok
conflict, wielded by Surt, and causes Frey's death (Völuspa), it having
been secured by Surt's son, Fjalar, in the Ironwood from Angerboda's
sword-guard.


Gulli keypta leztu Gym is dotturoc seldir ţitt sva sverţ; Enn er
Muspells synir ria myreviţ yfir veizta ţu ţu, vesall, hve ţa vegr
(Lokas., 42).


This passage not only tells us that Frey gave his sword in exchange for
Gerd to the parents of the giantess, Gymer and Aurboda, but also gives
us to understand that this bargain shall cause his death in Ragnarok.
This bride-purchase is fully described in Skirnismal, in which poem we
learn that the gods most unwillingly part with the safety which the
incomparable sword secured to Asgard. They yield in order to save the
life of the harvest-god, who was wasting away with longing and anxiety,
but not until the giants had refused to accept other Asgard treasures,
among them the precious ring Draupner, which the Asa-father once laid on
the pulseless breast of his favourite son Balder. At the approach of
Ragnarok, Surt's son, Fjahar, goes to the Ironwood to fetch for his
father the sword by which Frey, its former possessor, is to fall. The
sword is then guarded by Angerboda's shepherd, and consequently belongs
to her. In other words, the sword which Aurboda enticed Frey to give her
is now found in the possession of Angerboda. This circumstance of itself
is a very strong reason for their identity. If there were no other
evidence of their identity than this, a sound application of methodology
would still bid us accept this identity rather than explain the matter
by inventing a new, nowhere-supported myth, and thus making the sword
pass from Aurboda to another giantess.


When we now add the important fact in the disposition of this matter,
that Aurboda's son-in-law, Frey, demands, in behalf of a near kinsman,
satisfaction from the Asas when they had killed and burnt
Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda, then it seems to me that there can be no doubt
in regard to the identity of Aurboda and Angerboda, the less so, since
all that our mythic fragments have to tell us about Gymer's wife
confirms tlne theory that she is the same person. Aurboda has, like
Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda, practised the arts of sorcery: she is one of the
valas of the evil giant world. This is told to us in a strophe by the
skald Refr, who calls her "Gymer's primeval cold vala" (ursvöl Gymnis
völva'Younger Edda, i. 326, 496). She might be called "primeval cold"
(ursvöl) from the fact that the fire was not able to pierce her heart
and change it to ashes, in spite of a threefold burning. Under all
circumstances, the passage quoted informs us that she is a vala.


But have our mythic fragments preserved any allusion to show that
Aurboda, like Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda. ever dwelt among the gods in
Asgard ' Asgard is a place where giants are refused admittance.
Exceptions fromn this prohibition must have been very few, and the myths
must have given good reasons for them. We k-now in regard to Loki's
appearance in Asgard, that it is based on a promise given to him by the
Asa-father in time's morning ; and the promise was sealed with blood
(Lokasenna, 9). If, now, this Aurboda, who, like Angerboda, is a vala of
giant race, and, like Angerboda, is the owner of Frey's sword, and, like
Angerboda, is a kinswoman of the Vans'if now this same Aurboda, in
further likeness with Angerboda, was one of the certainly very few of
the giant class who was permitted to enter within the gates of Asgard,
then it must be admitted that this fact absolutely confirms their identity.


Anrboda did actually dwell in Asgard. Of this we are assured by the
poem " Fjölsvinsmal ". There it is related that when Svipdag came to the
gates of Asgard to seek and find Menglad-Freyja, who was destined to be
his wife (see Nos. 96, 97), he sees Menglad sitting on a hill surrounded
by goddesses, whose very names, Eir, Bjöört, Blid, and Frid, tell us
that they are goddesses of lower or higher rank. Eir is an asynja of the
healing art (Younger Edda, i. 114). Björt, Blid, and Frid are the dises
of splendour, benevolence, and beauty. They are mighty beings, and can
give aid in distress to all who worship them (Fjolsv., 40). But in the
midst of this circle of dises, who surround Menglad, Svipdag also sees
Aurboda (Fjolsv., 38).


Above them Svipdag sees Mimir's tree'the world-tree (see No. 97),
spreading its all-embracing branches, on which grow fruits which soothe
kelisjukar konur and lighten the entrance upon terrestrial life for the
children of men (Fjolsv., 22). Menglad-Freyja is, as we know, the
goddess of love and fertility, and it is Frigg s and her vocation to
dispose of these fruits for the purposes for which they are intended.


The Volsungasaga has preserved a record concerning these fruits, and
concerning the giant-daughter who was admitted to Asgard as a
maid-servant of the goddesses. A king and queen had long been married
without getting any children. They beseeched the gods for an heir. Frigg
heard their prayers and sent them in the guise of a crow the daughter of
the giant Hrimner, a giantess who had been adopted in Asgard as Odin's
wish'may ". Hrimner's daughter took an apple with her, and when the
queen had eaten it, it was not long before she perceived that her wish
would come to pass (Volsungasaga, pp. 1, 2). Hrimner's daughter is, as
we know, Gulveig-Heid.


Thus the question whether Aurboda ever dwelt in Asgard is answered in
the affirmative. We have discovered her, though she is the daughter of a
giant, in the circle around Menglad-Freyja, where she has occupied a
subordinate position as maid-servant. At the same time we have found
that Gulveig-Heid has for some time had an occupation in Asgard of
precisely the same kind as that which belongs to a dis serving under the
goddess of fertility. Thus the similarity between Aurboda and
Gulveig-Heid is not confined to the fact that they, although giantesses,
dwelt in Asgard, but they were employed there in the same manner.


The demonstration that Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda is identical with Aurboda
may now be regarded as completed. Of the one as of the other it is
related that she was a vala of giant-race, that she nevertheless dwelt
for some time in Asgard, aiid was there employed by Frigg or Freyja in
the service of fertility, and that she possessed the sword, which had
formerly belonged to Frey, and by which Frey is to fall. Aurboda is
Frey's mother-in-law, consequently closely related to him ; and it must
have been in behalf of a near relation that Frey and Njord demnanded
satisfaction from the Asas when the latter slew Gulveig-Heid. Under such
circumstances it is utterly impossible from a methodological standpoint
to regard them otherwise than identical. We must consider that nearly
all mythic characters are polyonomous, and that the Teutonic mythology
particularly, on account of its poetics, is burdened with a
highly-developed polyonomy.


But of Gulveig-Heid's and Aurboda's identity there are also other
proofs which, for the sake of completeness, we will riot omit.


So far as the very names Gulveig and Aurboda are concerned the one can
serve as a paraphrase of the other. The first part of the name Aurboda,
the aur of many significations may be referred to eyrir, pl. aurar,
which nieans precious metal, and is thought to be borrowed from the
Latin aurum (gold). Thus Gull and Aur correspond. In tIme same manner
veig in Gulveig can correspond to boda Aurboda. Veig means a fermenting
liquid; boda has two significations. It can be the feminine form of
bodi, meaning fer'menting water, froth, foam. No other names compounded
with boa occur in Norse literature than Aurboa and Angrboda.


Ynglingasaga  (ch. 4) relates a tradition that Freyja kendi fyrst med
Asum seid, that Freyja was the first to practise sorcery in Asgard.
There is no doubt that the statement is correct. For we have seen that
Gulveig-Heid, the sorceress and spreader of sorcery in antiquity,
succeeded in getting admission to Asgard, and that Aurboda is mentioned
as particularly belonging to the circle of serving dises who attended
Freyja. As this giantess was so zealous in spreading her evil arts among
the inhabitants of Midgard, it would be strange if the myth did not make
her, after she had gained Freyja's confidence, try to betray her into
practising the same arts. Doubtless Voluspa and Saxo have reference to
Guiveig~Heid-Aurboda when they say that Freyja, through some treacherous
person among her attendants, was delivered into the hands of the giants.


In his historical account relating how Freyja (Syritha) was robbed from
Asgard and came to the giants but was afterwards saved from their power,
Saxo (Hist., 331; cp. No. 100) tells that a woman, who was secretly
allied with a giant, had succeeded in ingratiating herself in her
favour, and for sonie time performed the duties of a maid-servant at her
borne; but this she did in order to entice her in a cunning manner away
froni her safe home to a place where the giant lay in ambush and carried
her away to the recesses of his mountain country. (Gigas fćminam
subornat, quć cum obtenta virginis familiaritate, ejus aliquamdiu
pedissequam egisset, hanc tandem a paternis procul penatibus, qućsita
callidius digres' sione, reduxit; quam ipse max irruens in arctiora
montauć erepidi' nis septa devexit.) Thus Saxo informs us that it was a
woman among Freyja's attendants who betrayed her, and that this woman
was allied with the giant world, which is hostile to the gods, while she
held a trusted servant's place with the goddess. Aurboda is the only
woman connected with the giants in regard to whom our mythic records
inform us that she occupied such a position with Freyja; and as
Aurboda's character and part, played in the


 Ynglingasaga is the opening chapters of Snorre Sturlason's
Heimskringla (see No. 7). R. B. Anderson now has in press an English
translation of the whole Heimskringla, to be issued in the course of the
winter (1889), in four volumes, by John C. Nimmo, London.


epic of the myth, correspond with such an act of treason, there is no
reason for assuming the mere possibility, that the betrayer of Freyja
may have been some one else, who is neither mentioned nor known.


With this it is important to compare Voluspa, 26, 27, which not only
mentions the fact that Freyja came into the power of the giants through
treachery, but also informs us how the treason was punished:


ţa gengo regin oll A ráukstola, ginheilog god oc um ţat gettuz hverir
hefi lopt alt levi blandit eţa ett iotuns Oţs mey gefna ţorr ein ţar va
ţrungin modi, hann sialdan sitr er hann slict um fregn.


These Voluspa lines stand in Codex Regius in immediate connection with
the above-quoted strophes which speak of GulveigHeid and of the war
caused by her between the Asas and Vans. They inform us that the gods
assembled to hold a solemn counsel to find out "who had filled all the
air with evil," or "who had delivered Freyja to the race of giants" ;
and that the person found guilty was at once slain by Thor, who grew
most angry.


Now if this person is Gulveig-Aurboda, then it follows that she
received her death-blow from Thor's hammer, before the Asas made in
common the unsuccessful attempt to change her body into ashes. We also
find elsewhere in our mythic records that an exceedingly dangerous woman
met with precisely this fate. There she is called Hyrrokin. A strophe by
Thorbjorn Disarskald, preserved in the Younger Edda, states that
Hyrrokin was one of the giantesses slain by Thor. But the very
appellation Hyrrokin, which must be an epithet of a giantess known by
seine other more common name, indicates that some effort worthy of being
remembered in the myth had been made to burn her, but that the effort
resulted in her being smoked (rökt) rather than that she was burnt; for
the epithet Hyrrokin means the "fire-smoked ". For those familiar with
the contents of the myth, this epithet was regarded as plain enough to
indicate who was meant. If it is not, therefore, to be looked upon as an
unhappy and misleading epithet, it must refer to the thrice in vain
burnt Gulveig. All that we learn about Hyrrokin confirms her identity
with Aurboda. In the symnbolic-allegorical work of art, which toward the
close of the tenth century decorated a hall at Hjardarholt, and of which
I shall give a fuller account elsewhere, the storm which from the land
side carried Balder's ship out on the sea is represented by the giantess
Hyrrokin. In the same capacity of storm-giantess carrying sailors out
upon the ocean appears Gymer's wife, Aurboda, in a poem by Refr:


Fćrir björn, ţar er bára brestr, undinna festa, Opt i Ćgis kjopta
úrsvöl Gymis völva.


"Gymer's ancient-cold vala often carries the ship amid breaking billows
into the jaws of Ćgir." Gymer, Aurboda's husband, represents in the
physical interpretation of the myth the east wind coming from the
Ironwood. From the other side of Eystrasalt (the Baltic) Gymer sings his
song (Ynglingasaga, 36) ; and the same gale belongs to Aurboda, for
Ćgir, into whose jaws she drives the ships, is the great open western
ocean. That Aurboda represents the gale from the east finds its natural
explanation in her identity with Angerboda "the old," who dwells in the
Ironwood in the uttermost east. "Austr byr hin alldna i iarnviţi (Völusp.).


The result of the investigation is that Gullveig-Heidr, Aurboda, and
Angrboa are different names for the different hypostases of the
thrice-born and thrice-burnt one, and that Hyrrokin, "the firesmoked,"
is an epithet common to all these hypostases.


36.


THE WORLD WAR (continued). THE BREACH OF PEACE BETWEEN ASAS AND VANS.
FRIGG, SKADE, AND ULL IN THE CONFLICT. THE SIEGE OF ASGARD. THE
VAFERFLAMES. THE DEFENCE AND SURROUNDINGS OF ASGARD. THE VICTORY OF THE
VANS.


When the Asas had refused to give satisfaction for the murder of
Gulveig, and when Odin, by hurling his spear, had indicated that the
treaty of peace between him and the Vans was broken, the latter leave
the assembly hall and Asgard. This is evident from the fact that they
afterwards return to Asgard and attack the citadel of the Asa clan. The
gods are now divided into two hostile camps: on the one side Odin and
his allies, among whom are Heimdal (see Nos. 38, 39, 40) and Skade; on
the other Njord, Frigg (Saxo, Hist., 42-44), Frey, Ull (Saxo, Hist.,
130, 131), and Freyja and her husband Svipdag, besides all that clan of
divinities who were not adopted in Asgard, but belong to the race of
Vans and dwell in Vanaheim.


So far as Skade is concerned the breach between the gods seems to have
furnished her an opportunity of getting a divorce from Njord, with whom
she did not live on good terms. According to statements found in the
myths, Thjasse's daughter and he were altogether too different in
disposition to dwell in peace together. Saxo (Hist., 53 ff.) and the
Younger Edda (p. 94) have both preserved the record of a song which
describes their different tastes as to home and surroundings. Skade
loved Thrymheim, the rocky home of her father Thjasse, on whose
snow-clad plains she was fond of running on skees and of felling wild
beasts with her arrows; but when Njord had remained nine days and nine
nights among the mountains he was weary of the rocks and of the howling
of wolves, and longed for the song of swans on the sea-strand. But when
Skade accompanied hini thither she could not long endure to be awakened
every morning by the shrieking of sea-fowls. In Grimnismal, 11, it is
said that Skade "now" occupies her father's "ancient home" in Thrymheim,
but Njord is not there iiamed. In a strophe by Thord Sjarekson (Younger
Edda, 262) we read that Skade never became devoted to the Vana-god (nama
snotr una godbrúdr Vani), and Eyvind Skaldaspiller relates in
Haleygjatal that there was a time when Odin dwelt i Manhei mum together
with Skade, and begat with her many sons. With Manheimar is meant that
part of the world which is inhabited by man; that is to say, Midgard and
the lower world, where are also found a race of menskim menn (see Nos.
52, 53, 59, 63), and the topographical counterpart of the word is
Asgardr. Thus it must have been after his banishment from Asgard, while
he was separated from Frigg and found refuge somewhere in Manheimar,
that Odin had Skade for his wife. Her epithet in Grimnismal, skír
brúdrgoa, also seems to indicate that she had conjugal relations with
more than one of the gods.


While Odin was absent and deposed as ruler of the world, Ull has
occupied so important a position among the ruling Vans that, according
to the tradition preserved in Saxo, they bestowed upon him the task and
honour which until that time had belonged to Odin (Dii . . . Ollerum
quendam non soluma in regni, sed etiam in divinitatis infulas
subrogavere'Hist., 130). This is explained by the fact that Njord and
Frey, though valtivar and brave warriors when they are invoked, are in
their very nature gods of peace and promoters of wealth and agriculture,
while Ull is by nature a warrior. He is a skilful archer, excellent in a
duel, and hefir hermanns atgervi (Younger Edda, i. 102), Also, after the
reconciliation between the Asas and Vans, Thor's stepson Ull has held a
high position in Asgard, as is apparently corroborated by Odin's words
in Grimnismal, 41 (Ullar hylli ok allra góa).


From the mythic accounts in regard to the situation and environment of
Asgard we may conclude that the siege by the Vans was no easy task. The
home of the Asas is surrounded by the atmospheric ocean, whose strong
currents make it difficult for the mythic horses to swim to it (see Nos.
65, 93). The bridge Bifrost is not therefore superfluous, but it is that
connection between the lower worlds and Asgard which the gods daily use,
and which must be captured by the enemy before the great cordon which
encloses the shining halls of the gods can be attacked. The wall is
built of "the limbs of Lerbrimer" (Fjolsv., 1), and constructed by its
architect in such a manner that it is a safe protection against
mountain-giants and frost-giants (Younger Edda, 134). In the wall is a
gate wondrously made by the artist-brothers who are sons of "Solblinde"
(Valgrind'Grimnism., 22; ţrymgjöll'Fjölsvimsm., 10). Few there are who
understand the lock of that gate, and if anybody brings it out of its
proper place in the wall-opening where it blocks the way for those who
have no right to enter, then the gate itself beconies a chain for him
who has attempted such a thing (Porn yr su grind, enn ţat fáir vito, hor
hve er i lás um lokin' Grimn., 22. Fjöturr fastr,. verdr vid faranda
hvern er hana hefr frá hlidi'Fjölsv., 10).


Outside of the very high Asgard cordon and around it there flows a
rapid river (see below), the moat of the citadel. Over the eddies of the
stream floats a dark, shining, ignitible mist. If it is kindled it
explodes in flames, whose bickering tongues strike their victims with
unerring certainty. It is the vaferloge, "the bickering flame," "the
quick fire," celebrated in ancient songs'vafrlogi, cafreyi, skjótbrinni.
It was this fire which the gods kindled around Asgard when they saw
Thjasse approaching in eagle guise. In it their irreconcilable foe burnt
his pinions, and fell to the around. "Haustlaung," Thjodolf's poem, says
that when Thjasse approached the citadel of the gods "the gods raised
the quick fire and sharpened their javelins "'Hófu skjót; en skófu
sköpt; ginnregin brinna. The "quick fire," skjót-brinni, is the vaferloge.


The material of which the ignitible mist consists is called "black
terror-gleam ". It is or odauccom; that is to say, ofdauecoat ognar
ljoma (Fafn., 40) (cp. myrckvan vafrloga'Skirn., 8, 9; Fjolsv., 31). It
is said to be "wise," which implies that it consciously aims at him for
whose destruction it is kindled.


How a water could be conceived that evaporates a dark ignitible mist we
find explained in Thorsdrapa. The thunder-storm is the storm of the
vaferfire," and Thor is the "ruler of the chariot of the vaferfire-storm
" (vafr-eyda hreggs húfstjóri). Thus the thundercloud comitains the
water that evaporates a dark material for lightning. The dark metallic
colour which is peculiar to the thunder-cloud was regarded as coming
from that very material which is the black terror-gleam" of which
lightning is formed. When Thor splits the cloud he separates the two
component parts, the water and the vafermist; the former falls down as
rain, the latter is ignited and rushes away in quick, bickering, zigzag
flames'the vaferfires. That these are "wise' was a common Aryan belief.
They do not proceed blindly, but know their mark and never miss it.


The river that foams around Asgard thus has its source in the
thunder-clouds; not as we find them after they have been split by Thor,
but such as they are originally, swollen with a celestial water that
evaporates vafermist. All waters'subterranean, terrestrial, and
celestial'have their source in that great subterranean fountain
Hvergelmer. Thence they come and thither they return (Grimn., 26; see
Nos. 59, 63, 33).


 The author of Bragarćdur in the Younger Edda has understood this
passage to mean that the Asas, when they saw Thjasse approaching,
carried out a lot of shavings, which were kindled (!).


Hvergelmer's waters are sucked up by the northern root of the
world-tree ; they rise through its trunk spread into its branches and
leaves, and evaporate from its crown into a water-tank situated on the
top of Asgard, Eikţyrnir, in Grimnismal, str. 26, symbolised as a "stag
" who stands on the roof of Odin's hall and out of whose horns the
waters stream down into Hvergelmer. Eikthyrnir is the great celestial
water-tank which gathers and lets out the thunder-cloud. In this tank
the Asgard river has its source, and hence it consists not only of
foaming water but also of ignitible vafermists. In its capacity of
discharger of the thunder-cloud, the tank is called Eikthyrrnir, the
oak-stinger. Oaks struck by lightning is no unusual occurrence. The oak
is, according to popular belief based on observation, that tree which
the lightning most frequently strikes.


But Asgard is not the only citadel which is surrounded by vafermists.
These are also found enveloping the home where dwelt the storm-giant
Gymer and the storm-giantess Aurboda, the sorceress who knows all of
Asgard's secrets, at the time when Frey sent Skirner to ask for the hand
of their daughter Gerd. Epics which in their present form date from
Christian times make vaferflames burn around castles, where goddesses,
pricked by sleep-thorns, are slumbering. This is a belief of a later age.


To get over or through the vaferflame is, according to the myth,
impossible for anyone who has not got a certain mythical horse to
ride'probably Sleipner, the eight-footed steed of the Asa-father, which
is the best of all horses (Grimn., 44). The quality of this steed, which
enables it to bear its rider unscathed through the vaferflame, makes it
indespensable when this obstacle is to be overcome. When Skirner is to
go on Frey's journey of courtship to Gerd, he asks for that purpose mar
ţann er mic um myrckvan beri visan vafrloga, and is allowed to ride it
on and for the journey (Skim., 5, 9).


 In the same poem the elf-artist, Dáinn, and the " dwarf "-artist,
Dvalinn, are symbolised as stags, the wanderer Ratr (see below) as a
squirrel, the wolf-giant Grofvitner's sons as serpents, the bridge
Bifrost as a fish (see No. 93), &c. Fortunately for the comprehension of
our mythic records such svmbolising is confined to a few strophes in the
poem named, and these strophes appear to have belonged originally to an
independent song which made a speciality of that sort of symbolism, and
to have been incorporated in Grimnismal in later times.


This horse must accordingly have been in the possession of the Vans
when they conquered Asgard, an assumption confirmed by what is to be
stated below. (In the great epic Sigurd's horse Grane is made to inherit
the qualities of this divine horse.)


On the outer side of the Asgard river, and directly opposite the Asgard
gate, lie projecting ramparts (forgardir) to protect the drawbridge,
which from the opening in the wall can be dropped down across the river
(see below). When Svipdag proceeded toward Menglad's abode in Asgard, he
first came to this forgarir (Fjöls., i. 3). There he is hailed by the
watch of the citadel, and thence he gets a glimpse over the gate of all
the glorious things which are hid behind the high walls of the citadel.
Outside the river Asgard has fields with groves and woods (Younger Edda,
136, 210).


Of the events of the wars waged around Asgard, the mythic fragments,
which the Icelandic records have preserved, give us but very little
information, though they must have been favourite themes for the heathen
skaldic art, which here had an opportunity of describing in a
characteristic manner all the gods involved, and of picturing not only
their various characters, but also their various weapons, equipments,
and horses. In regard to the weapons of attack we must remember that
Thor at the outbreak of the conflict is deprived of the assistance of
his splendid hammer : it has been broken by Svipdag's sword of victory
(see Nos. 101, 103)'a point which it was necessary for the myth to
assume, otherwise the Vans could hardly be represented as conquerors.
Nor do the Vans have the above-mentioned sword at their disposal: it is
already in the power of Gymer and Aurboda. The irresistible weapons
which in a purely mechanical manner would have decided the issue of the
war, were disposed of in advance in order that the persons themnselves,
with their varied warlike qualities, might get to the foreground and
decide the fate of the conflict by heroism or prudence, by prescient
wisdom or by blind daring. In this war the Vans have particularly
distimiguished themselves by wise and well calculated undertakings. This
we learn from Völuspa, where it makes the final victors conquer Asgard
through vígspá, that is, foreknowledge applied to warlike ends (str..
26). The Asas, as we might expect from Odin's brave sons, have
especially distinguished themselves by their strength and courage. A
record 26; see Nos. 59, 63, 33). Hvergelmer's waters are sucked up by
the northern root of the world-tree; they rise through its trunk, spread
into its branches and leaves, and evaporate from its crown into a
water-tank situated on the top of Asgard, Eikţyrnir, in Grimnismal, str.
26, symbolised as a "stag " who stands on the roof of Odin's hall and
out of whose horns the waters stream down into Hvergelmer. Eikihyrnir is
the great celestial water-tank which gathers and lets out the
thunder-cloud. In this tank the Asgard river has its source, and hence
it consists not only of foaming water but also of ignitible vafermists.
In its capacity of discharger of the thunder-cloud, the tank is called
Eikthyrnir, the oak-stinger. Oaks struck by lightning is no unusual
occurrence. The oak is, according to popular belief based on
observation, that tree which the lightning most frequently strikes.


But Asgard is not the only citadel which is surrounded by vafermists.
These are also found enveloping the home where dwelt the storm-giant
Gymer and the storm-giantess Aurboda, the sorceress who knows all of
Asgard's secrets, at the time when Frey sent Skirner to ask for the hand
of their daughter Gerd. Epics which in their present form date from
Christian times make vaferflames burn around castles, where goddesses,
pricked by sleep-thorns, are slumbering. This is a belief of a later age.


To get over or through the vaferflame is, according to the myth,
impossible for anyone who has not got a certain mythical horse to
ride'probably Sleipner, the eight-footed steed of the Asa-father, which
is the best of all horses (Grimn., 44). The quality of this steed, which
enables it to bear its rider unscathed through the vafer-flame, makes it
indespeasable when this obstacle is to be overcome. When Skirner is to
go on Frey's journey of courtship to Gerd, he asks for that purpose mar
ţann er mic um myrckvan beri visan vafrloga, and is allowed to ride it
on and for the journey (Skirn., 8, 9).


 In the same poem the elf-artist, Dáinn, and the "dwarf "-artist,
Dvalinn, are symbolised as stags, the wanderer Ratr (see below) as a
squirrel, the wolf-giant Grafvitner's sons as serpents, the bridge
Bifrost as a fish (see No. 93), &c. Fortunately for the comprehension of
our mythic records such symbolising is confined to a few strophes in the
poem namned, and these strophes appear to have belonged originally to an
independent song which made a speciality of that sort of symbolism, and
to have been incorporated in Grimnismal in later times.


This horse must accordingly have been in the possession of the Vans
when they conquered Asgard, an assumption confirmed by what is to be
stated below. (In the great epic Sigurd's horse Grane is made to inherit
the qualities of this divine horse.)


On the outer side of the Asgard river, and directly opposite the Asgard
gate, lie projecting ramparts (forgarđir) to protect the drawbridge,
which from the opening in the wall can be dropped down across the river
(see below). When Svipdag proceeded toward Menglad's abode in Asgard, he
first came to this forgarđir (Fjöls., i. 3). There he is hailed by the
watch of the citadel, and thence he gets a glimpse over the gate of all
the glorious things which are hid behind the high walls of the citadel.
Outside the river Asgard has fields with groves and woods (Younger Edda,
136, 210).


Of the events of the wars waged around Asgard, the mythic fragments,
which the Icelandic records have preserved, give us but very little
information, though they must have been favourite themes for the heathen
skaldic art, which here had an opportunity of describing in a
characteristic manner all the gods involved, and of picturing not only
their various characters, but also their various weapons, equipments,
and horses. In regard to the weapons of attack we must remember that
Thor at the outbreak of the conflict is deprived of the assistance of
his splendid hammer : it has been broken by Svipdag's sword of victory
(see Nos. 101, 103)'a point which it was necessary for the myth to
assume, otherwise the Vans could hardly be represented as conquerors.
Nor do the Vans have the above-mentioned sword at their disposal : it is
already in the power of Gymer and Aurboda. The irresistible weapons
which in a purely mechanical manner would have decided the issue of the
war, were disposed of in advance in order that the persons themselves,
with their varied warlike qualities, might get to the foreground and
decide the fate of the conflict by heroism or prudence, by prescient
wisdom or by blind daring. In this war the Vans have particularly
distinguished themselves by wise and well calculated undertakings. This
we learn from Völuspa, where it makes the final victors conquer Asgard
through vígspá, that is, foreknowledge applied to warlike ends (str.
26). The Asas, as we might expect from Odin's brave sons, have
especially distinguished themselves by their strength and courage. A
record of this is found in the words of Thorbjorn Disarskald (Younger
Edda, 256) :


Pórr hefir Yggs med ed árum Ásgarđ of ţrek varđan.


"Thor with Odin's clan-men defended Asgard with indomitable courage."


But in number they must have been far inferior to their foes. Simply
the circumstance that Odin and his men had to confine themselves to the
defence of Asgard shows that nearly all other divinities of various
ranks had allied themselves with his enemies. The ruler of the lower
world (Mimir) and Honer are the only ones of whom it can be said that
they remained faithful to Odin; and if we can trust the Heimskringla
tradition, which is related as history and greatly corrupted, then Mimir
lost his life in an effort at mediation between the contending gods,
while he and Honer were held as hostages among the Vans (Yaglingas., ch. 4).


Asgard was at length conquered. Völuspa, str. 25, relates the final
catastrophe :


brotin var bordvegr borgar asa knatto vanir vigspa vollo sporna. Broken
was the bulwark of the asaburg;


Through warlike prudence were the Vans able its fields to tread.


Völuspa's words seem to indicate that the Vans took Asgard by strategy;
and this is confirmed by a source which shall be quoted below. But to
carry out the plan which chiefly involved the finding of means for
crossing the vaferflames kindled around the citadel and for opening the
gates of Asgard, not only cunning but also courage was required. The
myth has given the honour of this undertaking to Njord, the clan-chief
of the Vans and the commander of their forces. This is clear from the
above-quoted passage : Njorđr kla uf Herjans hurđir'" Njord broke Odin's
doors open," which should be compared with the poetical paraphrase for
battle-axe : Gauts megin-hurđar galli'"the destroyer of Odin's great
gate,"'a paraphrase that indicates that Njord burst the Asgard gate open
with the battle-axe. The conclusion which must be drawn from these
utterances is confirmed by an account with which the sixth book of Saxo
begins, and which doubtless is a fragment of the myth concerning the
conquest of Asgard by the Vans corrupted and told as history. The event
is transferred by Saxo to the reign of King Fridlevus


II. It should here be remarked that every important statement made by
Saxo about this Fridlevus, on a closer examination, is found to be taken
from the myth concerning Njord.


There were at that time twelve brothers, says Saxo, distinguished for
courage, strength, and fine physical appearance. They were "widely
celebrated for gigantic triumphs ". To their trophies and riches many
peoples had paid tribute. But the source from which Saxo received
information in regard to Fridlevus' conflict with them did not mention
more than seven of these twelve, and of these seven Saxo gives the
names. They are called Bjorn, Asbjorn, Gunbjorn, &c. In all the names is
found the epithet of the Asa-god Bjorn.


The brothers had had allies, says Saxo further, but at the point when
the story begins they had been abandoned by them, and on this account
they had been obliged to confine themselves on an island surrounded by a
most violent stream which fell from the brow of a very high rock, and
the whole surface of which glittered with raging foam. The island was
fortified by a very high wall (prćaltum vallum), in which was built a
remarkable gate. It was so built that the hinges were placed near the
ground between the sides of the opening in the wall, so that the gate
turning thereon could, by a movement regulated by chains, be lowered and
form a bridge across the stream.


Thus the gate is, at the same time, a drawbridge of that kind with
which the Germans became acquainted during the war with the Romans
already before the time of Tacitus (cp. Annal., iv 51, with iv. 47.
Within the fortification there was a most strange horse, and also a
remarkably strong dog, which formerly had watched the herds of the giant
Offotes. The horse was celebrated for his size and speed, and it was the
only steed with which it was possible for a rider to cross the raging
stream around the island fortress.


King Fridlevus now surrounds this citadel with his forces. These are
arrayed at some distance from the citadel, and in the beginning nothing
else is gained by the siege than that the besieged are hindered from
making sallies into the surrounding territory. The citadel cannot be
taken unless the above-mentioned horse gets into the power of Fridlevus.
Bjorn, the owner of the horse, makes sorties from the citadel, and in so
doing he did miot always take sufficient care, for on one occasion when
he was on the outer side of the stream, and had gone some distance away
from his horse, he fell into an ambush laid by Fridlevus. He saved
hiimself by rushing headlong over the bridge, which was drawn up behind
him, but the precious horse became Fridlevus' booty. This was of course
a severe loss to the besieged, and must have dimi-nished considerably
their sense of security. Meanwhile, Fridlevus was able to manage the
matter in such a way that the accident served rather to lull them into
increased safety. During the following night the brothers found their
horse, safe and sound, back on the island. Hence it must have swum back
across the stream. And when it was afterwards found that the dead body
of a man, clad in the shining robes of Fridlevus, floated on the eddies
of the stream, they took it for granted that Fridlevus himself had
perished in the stream.


But the real facts were as follows : Fridlevus, attended by a single
companion, had in the night ridden from his camp to the river. There his
companion's life had to be sacrificed, in order that the king's plan
might be carried out. Fridlevus exchanged clothes with the dead man,
who, in the king's splendid robes, was cast into the stream. Then
Fridlevus gave spur to the steed which he had captured, and rode through
the eddies of the stream. Having passed this obstacle safely, he set the
horse at liberty, climbed on a ladder over the wall, stole into the hall
where the brothers were wont to assemble, hid himself under a projection
over the hall door, listened to their conversation, saw them go out to
reconnoitre the island, and saw them return, secure in the conviction
that there was no danger at hand. Then he went to the gate and let it
fall across the stream. His forces had, during the night, advanced
toward the citadel, and when they saw the drawbridge down and the way
open, they stormed the fortress and captured it.


The fact that we here have a transformation of the myth, telling how
Njord at the head of the Vans conquered Asgard, is evident from the
following circumstances :


(a) The conqueror is Fridlevus. The most of what Saxo relates about
this Fridlevus is, as stated, taken from the myth about Njord, and told
as history.


(b) The brothers were, according to Saxo, originally twelve, which is
the well-established number of Odin's clansmen : his sons, and the
adopted Asa-gods. But when the siege in question takes place, Saxo finds
in his source only seven of the twelve mentioned as enclosed in the
citadel besieged by Fridlevus. The reason for the diminishing of the
number is to be found in the fact that the adopted gods'Njord, Frey, and
Ull'had left Asgard, and are in fact identical with the leaders of the
besiegers. If we also deduct Balder and Höđr, who, at the time of the
event, are dead and removed to the lower world, then we have left the
number seven given. The name Bjorn, which they all bear, is an Asa
epithet (Younger Edda, i. 553). The brothers have formerly had allies,
but these have abandoned theni (deficientibus a se sociis), and it is on
this account that they must confine themselves within their citadel. The
Asas have had the Vans and other divine powers as allies, but these
abandon them, and the Asas must defend themselves on their own fortified
ground.


(c) Before this the brothers have made themselves celebrated for
extraordinary exploits, amid have enjoyed a no less extraordinary power.
They shone on account of their giganteis triumphis'an ambiguous
expression which alludes to the mythic sagas concerning the victories of
the Asas over Jotunheim's giants (gigantes), and nations have submitted
to them as victors, and enriched them with treasures (trophćis gentium
celebres, spoliis locupletes).


(d) The island on which they are confined is fortified, like the Asa
citadel, by an immensely high wall (prćaltum vallum), and is surrounded
by a stream which is impassable unless one possesses a horse which is
found among the brothers. Asgard is surrounded by a river belt covered
with vaferflames, which cannot be crossed unless one has that single
steed which um myrckvan beri visan vafrloga, and this belongs to the Asas.


(e) The stream which roars around the fortress of the brothers comes ex
summis montium cacuminibus. The Asgard stream comes from the collector
of the thunder-cloud, Eikţynir', who stands on the summit of the world
of the gods. The kindled vaferflames, which did not suit an historical
narration, are explained by Saxo to be a spumeus candor, a foaming
whiteness, a shining froth, which in uniform, eddying billows everywhere
whirl on the surface of the stream (iota alvei tractu undis uniformiter
turbidatis spumeus ubique candor exuberat).


(f) The only horse which is able to run through the shining and eddying
foam is clearly one of the mythic horses. It is named along with another
prodigy from the animal kingdom of mythology, viz., the terrible dog of
the giant Offotes. Whether this is a reminiscence of Fenrir which was
kept for some time in Asgard, or of Odin's wolf-dog Freki, or of some
other saga-animal of that sort, we will not now decide.


(g) Just as Asgard has an artfully contrived gate, so has also the
citadel of the brothers. Saxo's description of the gate implies that any
person who does not know its character as a drawbridge, but lays violent
hands on the mechanism which holds it in an upright position, falls, and
is crushed under it. This explains the words of Fjölsvinnsmal about the
gate to that citadel, within which Freyja-Menglad dwells: Fjöturr fastr
verr vid faranda hvern, er hana hefr frá hlidi.


(h) In the myth, it is Njord himself who removes the obstacle, "Odin's
great gate," placed in his way. In Saxo's account, it is Fridlevus
himself who accomplishes the same exploit.


(i) In Saxo's narration occurs an improbability, which is explained by
the fact that he has transformed a myth into history. When Fridlevus is
safe across the streani, he raises a ladder against the wall and climbs
up on to it. Whence did he get this ladder, which must have been
colossal, since the wall he got over in this manner is said to be
prćaltum' Could he have taken it with him on the horse's back ' Or did
the besieged themselves place it against the wall as a friendly aid to
the foe, who was already in possession of the only means for crossing
the stream ' Both assumptions are alike improbable. Saxo hind to take
recourse to a ladder, for he could not, without damaging the
"historical" character of his story, repeat the myth's probable
description of the event. The horse which can gallop through the
bickering flame can also leap over the highest wall. Sleipner's ability
in this direction is demonstrated in the account of how it, with Hermod
in the saddle, leaps over the wall to Balder's high hail in the lower
world (Younger Edda, 178). The impassibility of the Asgard wall is
limited to mountain-giants and frost-giants; for a god riding Odin's
horse the wall was no obstacle. No doubt the myth has also stated that
the Asas, after Njord had leaped over the wall and sought out the
above-mentioned place of concealment, found within the wall their
precious horse again, which lately had become the booty of the enemy.
And where else should they have found it, if we regard the stream with
the bickering flames as breaking against the very foot of the wall'


Finally, it should be added, that our myths tell of no other siege than
the one Asgard was subjected to by the Vans. If other sieges have been
mentioned, they cannot have been of the same importance as this one, and
consequently they could not so easily have left traces in the mythic
traditions adapted to history or heroic poetry; nor could a historicised
account of a mythic siege which did not concern Asgard have preserved
the points here pointed out, which are in harmony with the story of the
Asgard siege.


When the citadel of the gods is captured, the gods are, as we have
seen, once more in possession of the steed, which, judging from its
qualities, must be Sleipner. Thins, Odin has the means of escaping from
the enemy after all resistance has proved impossible. Thor has his
thundering car, which, according to the Younger Edda, has room for
several besides the owner, and the other Asas have splendid horses
(Grimnism., Younger Edda), even though they are not equal to that of
their father. The Asas give up their thione of power, and the Vans now
assume the rule of the world.


37.


THE WORLD WAR (continued). THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFLICT FROM A
RELIGIOUS-RITUAL STANDPOINT.


In regard to the significance of the change of administration in the
world of' gods, Saxo has preserved a tradition which is of no small
interest. The circumstance that Odin and his sons had to surrender the
reign of the world did not imply that mankind should abandon their faith
in the old gods and accept a new religion. Hitherto the Asas and Vans
had been worshipped in common.


Now, when Odin was deposed, his name, honoured by the nations, was not
to be obliterated. The name was given to Ull, and, as if he really were
Odin, he was to receive the sacrifices and prayers that hitherto had
been addressed to the banished one (Hist., 130). The ancient faith was
to be maintained, and the shift involved nothing but the person; there
was no change of religion. But in connection with this information, we
also learn, from another statement in Saxo, that the myth concerning the
war between Asas and Vans was connected with traditions concerning a
conflict between various views among the believers in the Teutonic
religion concerning offerings and prayers. The one view was more ritual,
and demanded more attention paid to sacrifices. This view seenis to have
gotten the upper band after the banishment of Odin. It was claimed that
sacrifices and hymns addressed at the same time to several or all of the
gods, did not have the efficacy of pacifying and reconciling angry
deities, but that to each one of the gods should be given a separate
sacrificial service (Saxo, Hist., 43). The result of this was, of
course, an increase of sacrifices and a more highly-developed ritual,
which from its very nature might have produced among the Teutons the
same hierarchy as resulted from an excess of sacrifices among their
Aryan-Asiatic kinsmen. The correctness of Saxo's statement is fully
confirmed by strophe 145 in Havamál, which advocates the opposite and
incomaparably more moderate view in regard to sacrifices. This view
came, according to the strophe, from Odin's own lips. He is made to
proclaim it to the people "after his return to his ancient power ".


Betr'a er obeţit en se ofbloţit ey ser til gildis giuf; betrec en'
osennt enn se ofsóit. Sva ţundr urn reist fyr ţioţa raue, ţar huann up
um reis er hann aptr of kom.


The expression,ţar hann up urn reis, er hann apter of kom, refers to
the fact that Odin had for some time been deposed from the
administration of the world, but had returned, and that he then
proclaimed to the people the view in regard to the real value of prayers
and sacrifices which is laid down in the strophe. Hence it follows that
before Odin returned to his throne another more exacting doctrine in
regard to sacrifices had, according to the myth, secured prevalence.
This is precisely what Saxo tells us. It is difficult to repress the
question whether an historical reminiscence is not concealed in these
statements. May it not be the record of conflicting views within the
Teutonic religion'views represented in the myth by the Vana-gods on the
one side and the Asas on the other ' The Vana views, I take it,
represented tendencies which, had they been victorious, would have
resulted in hierarchy, while the Asa doctrine represented the tendencies
of the believers in the time-honoured Aryan custom of those who
maintained the priestly authority of the father of the family, and who
defended the efficacy of the simple hymns and sacrifices which from time
out of mind had been addressed to several or all of the gods in comnion.
That the question really has existed among the Teutonic peoples, at
least as a subject for reflection, spontaneously suggests itself in the
myth alluded to above. This myth has discussed the question, and decided
it in precisely the same manner as history has decided it among the
Teutonic races, among whom priestcraft and ritualism have held a far
less important position than among their western kinsmen, the Celts, and
their eastern kinsmen, the Iranians and Hindoos. That prayers on account
of their length, or sacrifices on account of their abundance, should
give evidence of greater piety and fear of God, and should be able to
secure a macre ready hearing, is a doctrine which Odin himself rejects
in the strophe above cited. He understands human nature, and knows that
when a man brings abundant sacrifices he has the selfish purpose in view
of prevailing on the gods to give a more abundant reward'a purpose
prompted by selfishness, not by piety.


38.


THE WORLD WAR (continued). THE WAR IN MIDGARD BETWEEN HALFDAN'S SONS.
GROA'S SONs AGAINST ALVEIG'S. LOKI'S APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE. HADDING'S
YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES.


The conflict between the gods has its counterpart in, and is connected
with, a war between all the Teutonic races, and the latter is again a
continuation of the feud between Halfdan and Svipdag. The Teutonic race
comes to tine front fighting under three racerepresentatives'(1)
Yagve-Svipdag, the son of Orvandel and Groa; (2) Gudhorm, the son of
Halfdan and Groa, consequently Svipdag's half-brother; (3) Hadding, the
son of Halfdan and Alveig (in Saxo called Signe, daughter of Sumbel),
consequently Gudhorm's half-brother.


The ruling Vans favour Svipdag, who is Freyja's husband and Frey's
brother-in-law. The banished Asas support Hadding from their place of
refuge. The conflict between the gods and the war between Halfdan's
successor and heir are woven together. It is like the Trojan war, where
the gods, divided into parties, assist the Trojans or assist the Danai.
Odin, Thor, and Heimdal interfere, as we shall see, to protect Hadding.
This is their duty as kinsmen; for Heimdal, having assumed human nature,
was the lad with the sheaf of grain who came to the primeval country and
became the father of Borgar, who begat the son Halfdan. Thor was
Halfdan's associate father; hence he too had duties of kinship toward
Hadding and Gudhorm, Halfdan's sons. The gods, on the other hand, that
favour Svipdag are, in Hadding's eyes, foes, and Hadding long refuses to
propitiate Frey by a demanded sacrifice (Saxo, Hist., 49, 50).


This war, simultaneously waged between the clans of the gods on the one
hand, and between the Teutonic tribes on the other, is what the seeress
mu Völuspa calls "the first great war in the world ". She not only gives
an account of its outbreak and events among the gods, but also indicates
that it was waged on the earth. Then'


sa hon valkyrior

vitt um komnar

gaurvar' at rida

til Goţjodar


	

saw she valkyries
far travelled
equipped to ride
to Goththjod.


Goththjod is the Teutonic people and the Teutonic country.


When Svipdag had slain Halfdan, and when the Asas were expelled, the
sons of the Teutonic patriarch were in danger of falling into the power
of Svipdag. Thor interested himself in their behalf; and brought Gudhorm
and Hadding to Jotunheim, where he concealed them with the giants Hafie
and Vagnhofde'Gudhorm in Hafle's rocky gard amid Hadding in Vagnhofde's.
In Saxo, who relates t.his story, the Asa-god Thor appears partly as
Thor deus and Thoro pugil, Halfdan's protector, whom Saxo himself
identifies as the god Thor (Hist., 324), and partly as Brac and Brache,
which name Saxo formed from Thor's epithet, Asa-Brayr. It is by the name
Brache that Thor appears as the protector of Halfdan's sons. The giants
Hafle and Vagnhofde dwell, according to Saxo, in "Svetia " probably,
since Jotunheim, the northernmost Sweden, and the most distant east were
called Sviţiod hinn kalda.


Svipdag waged war against Halfdan, since it was his duty to avenge the
disgrace of his mother Groa, and also that of his mother's father, and,
as shall be shown later, the death of his father Orvandel (see Nos. 108,
109). The revenge for bloodshed was sacred in the Teutonic world, amid
this duty he performed when he with his irresistible sword felled his
stepfather. But thereby the duty of revenge for bloodshed was
transferred to Halfdan's sons' less to Gudhorm, who is himself a son of
Groa, but with all its weight to Hadding, the son of Alveig, and it is
his bounden duty to bring about Svipdag's death, since Svipdag had slain
Halfdan. Connecting itself with Halfdan's robbery of Groa, the goddess
of growth, the red thread of revenge for bloodshed extends throughout
the great hero-saga of Teutonic mythology.


Svipdag makes an effort to cut the thread. He offers Gudhorm and
Hadding peace and friendship, and promises them kingship among the
tribes subject to him. Groa's son, Gudhorm, accepts the offer, and
Svipdag makes him ruler of the Danes; but Hadding sends answer that he
prefers to avenge his father's death to accepting favours from an enemy
(Saxo, Hist., 35, 36).


Svipdag's offer of peace and reconciliation is in harmony, if not with
his own nature, at least with that of his kinsmen, the reigning Vans. If
the offer to Hadding had been accepted, we might have looked for peace
in the world. Now the future is threatened with the devastations of war,
and the bloody thread of revenge shall continue to be spun if Svipdag
does not prevent it by overpowering Hadding. The myth may have contained
much information


 Filii Gram, Guthormus et Hadingus, quorum alterum Gro, alterum Signe
enixa est, Svipdagero Daniam obtinente, per educatorem suum. Brache nave
Svetiam deportati, Vegnophto et Haphlio gigantibus non solum alendi,
verum etiam defensandi traduntur (Saxo, Hist., 34).


about the efforts of the one camp to capture him and about con
trivances of the other to frustrate these efforts. Saxo has preserved a
pantial record thereof. Among those who plot against Hadding also Loki
(Lokerus'Saxo, Hist., 40, 41), the banished ally of Aurboda. His
purpose is doubtless to get into the favour of the reigning Vans.
Hadding is no longer safe in Vagnhofde's mountain home The lad is
exposed to Loki's snares. From one of these he is saved by the
Asa-father himself. There came, says Saxo, on this occasior a rider to
Hadding. He resembled a very aged man, one of whose eyes was lost
(grandćvus quidam altero orbus oculo). He placed Hadding in front of
himself on the horse, wrapped his mantle about him, and rode away. The
lad became curious and wanted to see whither they were going. Through a
hole in the mantle he got an opportunity of looking down, amid found to
his astonishment and fright that land and sea were far below the hoofs
of the steed. The rider niust have noticed his fright, for he forbade
him to look out any more.


The rider, the one-eyed old man, is Odin, and the horse is Sleipner,
rescued froni the captured Asgard. The place to which the lad is carried
by Odin is the place of refuge secured by the Asas during their exile i
Manheimum. In perfect harmony with the myths, Saxo refers Odin's exile
to the tinie preceding Hadding's juvenile adventures, and makes Odin's
return to power simultaneous with Hadding's great victory over his
enemies (Hist., 42-44). Saxo has also found in his sources that
sword-slain men, whom Odin chooses during "the first great war in the
world," cannot come to Valhal. The reason for this is that Odin is not
at that time the ruler there. They have dwelling-places and plains for
their warlike amusements appointed in the lower world (Hist., 51).


The regions which, according to Saxo, are the scenes of Hadding's
juvenile adventures lie on the other side of the Baltic down toward the
Black Sea. He is associated with " Curetians" and " Hellespontians,"
doubtless for the reason that the myth has referred those adventures to
the far east.


 The form Loki is also duplicated by the form Lokr. The latter is
preserved in the sense of '' effeminated man,'' found in myths
concerning" loke. Compare the phrase " veykr Loka with "hinn vegki Loki ".


The one-eyed old man is endowed with wonderful powers. When he landed
with the lad at his home, he sang over him prophetic incantations to
protect him (Hist., 40), and gave him a drink of the "most splendid
sort," which produced in Hadding enormous physical strength, and
particularly made him able to free himself from bonds and chains.
(Compare Havamal, str. 149, concerning Odin's freeing incantations by
which "fetters spring from the feet and chains from the hands ".) A
comparison with other passages, which I shall discuss later, shows that
the potion of which the old man is lord contains something which is
called "Leifner's flames," and that he who has been permitted to drink
it, and over whom freeing incantations have simultaneously been sung, is
able with his warm breath to free himself from every fetter which has
been put on his enchanted limbs (see Nos. 43, 96, 103).


The old man predicts that Hadding will soon have an opportunity of
testing the strength with which the drink and the magic songs have
endowed him. And the prophecy is fulfilled. Hadding falls into the power
of Loki. He chains him and threatens to expose him as food for a wild
beast'in Saxo a lion, in the myth presumably some one of the wolf or
serpent prodigies that are Loki's offspring. But when his guards are put
to sleep by Odin's magic song, though Odin is far away, Hadding bursts
his bonds, slays the beast, and eats, in obedience to Odin's
instructions, its heart. (The saga of Sigurd Fafuersbane has copied this
feature. Sigurd eats the heart of the dragon Fafner and gets wisdom
thereby.)


Thus Hadding has become a powerful hero, and his task to make war on
Svipdag, to revenge on him his father's death, and to recover the share
in the rulership of the Teutons which Halfdan had possessed, now lies
before him as the goal he is to reach.


Hadding leaves Vagnhofde's home. The latter's daughter, Hardgrep, who
had fallen in love with the youth, accompanies him. When we next find
Hadding he is at the head of an army. That this consisted of the tribes
of Eastern Teutondom is confirmed by documents which I shall hereafter
quote ; but it also follows from Saxo's narrative, although he has
referred the war to narrower limits than were given to it in the myth,
since he, constructing a Danish history from mythic traditions, has his
eves fixed chiefly on Denmark. Over the Scandian tribes and the Danes
rule, according to Saxo's own statement, Svipdag, and as his tributary
king in Denmark his half-brother Gudhorm. Saxo also is aware that the
Saxons, the Teutonic tribes of the German lowlands, on one occasion were
the allies of Svipdag (Hist., 34). From these parts of Teutondom did not
conne Hadding's friends, but his enemies; and when we add that the first
battle which Saxo mentions in this war was fought among the Curetians
east of the Baltic, then it is clear that Saxo, too, like the other
records to which I am coming later, has conceived the forces under
Haddiag's banner as having been gathered in the East. From this it is
evident that the war is one between the tribes of North Teutondom, led
by Svipdag and supported by the Vans on the one side, and the tribes of
East Teutondom, led by Hadding and supported by the Asas on the other.
But the tribes of the western Teutonic continent have also taken part in
the first great war of mankind. Gudhorm, whom Saxo makes a tributary
king in Yngve-Svipdag's most southern domain, Denmark, has in the mythic
traditions had a much greaten' empire, and has ruled over the tribes of
Western and Southern Teutondom, as shall be shown below.


39.


THE WORLD WAR (continued). THE POSITION OF THE DIVINE CLANS TO THE
WARRIORS.


The circumstance that the different divine clans had their favourites
in the different camps gives the war a peculiar character. The armies
see before a battle supernatural forms contending with each other in the
starlight, and recognise in them their divine friends and opponents
(Hist., 48). The elements are conjured on one and the other side for the
good or harm of the contending brother-tribes. When fog and pouring rain
suddenly darken the sky and fall upon Hadding's forces from that side
where the fylkings of the North are arrayed, then the one-eyed old man
comes to their rescue and calls forth dark masses of clouds from the
other side, which force back the rain-clouds and the fog (Hist., 53). In
these cloud-masses we must recognise the presence of the thundering
Thor, the son of the one-eyed old man.


Giants also take part in the conflict. Vagnhofde and Hardgrep,


the latter in a nian's attire, contend on the side of the foster-son
and the beloved Hadding (Hist., 45, 38). From Icelandic records we learn
that Hafle and the giantesses Fenja and Menja fight under Gudhorm's
banners. In the Grottesong (14, 15) these maids sing:


En vit siţan a Sviioţu framvisar tvćr i folk stigum; beiddum biornu, en
brutum skioldu gengum igegnum graserkiat lit. Steyptom stilli, studdum
annan, veittum goţum Guthormi lid.


That the giant Hafle fought on the side of Gudhorm is probable from the
fact that lie is his foster-father, and it is confirmed by the fact that
Thor paraphrased (Grett., 30) is called fangvinr Hafia, "he who wrestled
with Hafle ". Since Thor and Hafle formerly were friends'else the former
would not have trusted Gudhorm to the care of the latter'their
appearance afterwards as foes can hardly be explained otherwise than by
the war between Thor's protégé Hadding and Hafle's foster-son Gudhorm.
And as Had-ding's foster-father, the giant Vagnhofde, faithfully
supports the young chief whose childhood he protected, then the myth
could scarcely avoid giving a similar part to the giant Hafle, and thus
make the foster-fathers, like the foster-sons, contend with each other.
The heroic poems are fond of parallels of this kind.


When Svipdag learns that Hadding has suddenly made his appearance in
the East, and gathered its tribes around him for a war with Gudhornn, he
descends from Asgard and reveals himself in the primeval Teutonic
country on the Scandian peninsula, and requests its tribes to join the
Danes and raise the banner of war against Halfdan's and Alveig's son,
who, at the head of the eastern Teutons, is marching against their half-
brother Gudhorni. The friends of both parties among the gods, men and
giants, hasten to attach themselves to the cause which they have
espoused as their own, and Vagnhofde among the rest abandons his rocky
home to fight by the side of his foster-son and daughter.


This mythic situation is described in a hitherto unexplained strophe in
the Old English song concerning the names of the letters in the runic
alphabet. In regard to the rune which answers to I there is added the
following lines:


Ing väs ćrest mid Eástdenum geseven seegum od he siddan eást ofer' vćg
gevât. Vćn ćfter ran; ţus Heardingas ţone häle nerndon.


"Yngve (Inge) was first seen among the East-Danemen. Then be betook
himself eastward over the sea. Vagn hastened to follow: Thus the
Heardings called this hero."


The Heardings are the Haddings'that is to say, Hadding himself, the
kinsmen and friends who embraced his cause, and the Teutonic tribes who
recognised him as their chief. The Norse Haddingr is to the Anglo-Saxon
Hearding as the Norse haddr to the Anglo-Saxon hear'd. Vigfusson, and
before him J. Grimm, have already identified these forms.


Ing is Yngve-Svipdag, who, when he left Asgard, "was first seen among
the East-Danemen ". He calls Swedes and Danes to arms against Hadding's
tribes. The Anglo-Saxon strophe confirms the fact that they dwell in the
East, separated by a sea from the Scandian tribes. Ing, with his
warriors, "betakes himself eastward over the sea" to attack them. Thus
the armies of the Swedes and Danes go by sea to the seat of war. What
the authorities of Tacitus heard among the continental Teutons about the
mighty fleets of the Swedes may be founded on the heroic songs about the
first great war not less than on fact. As the army which was to cross
the Baltic must be regarded as Immensely large, so the myth, too, has
represented the ships of the Swedes as numerous, and in part as of
immense size. A confused record from the songs about the expedition of
Svipdag and his friends against the East Teutons, found in Icelandic
tradition, occurs in Fornald., pp. 406-407, where a ship called Gnod,
and capable of carrying 3000 men, is mentioned as belonging to a King
Asmund.


Odin did not want this monstrous ship to reach its destination, but
sank it, so it is said, in the Lessö seaway, with all its men and
contents. The Asmund who is known in the heroic sagas of heathen times
is a son of Svipdag and a king among the Sviones (Saxo, Hist., 44).
According to Saxo, he has given brilliant proofs of his bravery in the
war against Hadding, and fallen by the weapons of Vagnhofde and Hadding.
That Odin in the Icelandic tradition appears as his enemy thus
corresponds with the myth. The same Asmund may, as Gisle Brynjulfsson
has assumed, be meant in Grimnersmal (49), where we learn that Odin,
concealing himself under the name Jalk, once visited Asmund.


The hero Vagn, whom "the Haddings so called," is Hadding's
foster-father, Vagnhofde. As the word höfdi constitutes the second part
of a mythic name, the compound form is a synonym of that name which
forms the first part of the composition. Thins Svarthöfdi is identical
with Svartr, Surtr. In Hyndluljod, 33, all the mythical sorcerers
(seidberendr) are said to be sprung from Svarthöfdi. In this connection
we must first of all think of Fjalar, who is the greatest sorcerer in
mythology. The story about Thor's, Thjalfe's, and Loki's visit to him is
a chain of delusions of sight and hearing called forth by Fjalar, so
that the Asa-god and his companions always mistake things for something
else than they are. Fjalar is a son of Surtr (see No. 89). Thins the
greatest a gent of sorcery is descended from Surtr, Svartr, and, as
Hyndluljod states that all magicians of mythology have come of some
Svarthöfdi, Svartr and Svarthöfdi must be identical. And so it is with
Vagn and Vagnhöfdi; they are different names for the same person.


When the Anglo-Saxon rune-strophe says that Vang "made haste to follow"
after Ing had gone across the sea, then this is to be compared with
Saxo's statement (Hist., 45), where it is said that Hadding in a battle
was in greatest peril of losing his life, but was saved by the sudden
and miraculous landing of Vagnhofde, who came to the battle-field and
placed himself at his side. The Scandian fylkings advanced against
Hadding's; and Svipdag's son Asmund, who fought at the head of his men,
forced his way forward against Hadding himself, with his shield thrown
on his back, and with both his hands on the hilt of a sword which felled
all before it.


Then Hadding invoked the gods who were the friends of himself and his
race (Hadingo familiarium sibi numinum prćsidia postulante subito
Vagnophtus partibus ejus propugnatiurus advehitur), and then Vagnhofde
is brought (advehitur) by sonic one of these gods to the battle-field
and suddenly stands by Hadding's side, swinging a crooked sword 
against Asmund, while Hadding hurls his spear against him. This
statement in Saxo corresponds with and explains the old English
strophe's reference to a quick journey which Vagn made to help
Heardingas against Ing, and it is also illustrated by a passage in
Grimnismal, 49, which, in connection with Odin's appearance at Asmund's,
tells that he once by the name Kjalar "drew Kjalki " (mic heto Jale at
Asmundar, cnn ţa Kialar, er ec Kialka dró). The word amid name Kjálki,
as also Sledi, is used as a paraphrase of the word and name Vagn.' Thus
Odin has once "drawn Vagn" (waggon). The meaning of this is clear from
what is stated above. Hadding calls on Odin, who is the friend of him
and of his cause, and Odin, who on a former occasion has carried Hadding
on Sleipner's back through the air, now brings, in the same or a similar
manner, Vagnhofde to the battle-field, and places him near his
foster-son. This episode is also interesting froni the fact that we can
draw from it the conclusion that the skalds who celebrated the first
great war in their songs made the gods influence the fate of the battle,
not directly but indirectly. Odin mnight himself have saved his
favourite, arid he might have slain Svipdag's son Asmund with his spear
Gungner; but lie does not do so; instead, he brings Vagnhofde to protect
him. This is well calculated from an epic standpoint, while dii ex
machina, when they appear in person on the battle-field with their
superhuman strength, diminish the effect of the deeds of mortal heroes,
and deprive every distress in which they have taken part of its more
earnest significance. Homer never violated this rule without injury to
the honour either of his gods or of his heroes.


 Time crooked sword, as it appears from several passages in the sagas,
has long been regarded by our heatben ancestors as a foreign form of
weapon, used by the giants, but not by the gods or by the heroes of Midgard.


' Compare Fornald., ii. 118, where the hero of the saga cries to Gusi,
who comes running after him with " 2 hreina ok vagn "'Skrid du af
kjalka, Kyrr du hreina, seggr sidförull seg hvattu heitir !


40.


THE WORLD WAR (continued). HADDING'S DEFEAT. LOKI IN THE COUNCIL AND ON
THE BATTLE-FIELD. HEIMDAL THE PROTECTOR OF HIS DESCENDANT HADDING.


The first great conflict in which the warriors of North and West
Teutondom fight with the East Teutons ends with the complete victory of
Groa's sons. Hadding's fylkings are so thoroughly beaten and defeated
that he, after the end of the conflict, is nothing but a defenceless
fugitive, wandering in deep forests with no other companion than
Vagnhofde's daughter, who survived the battle and accompanies her
beloved in his wanderings in the wildernesses. Saxo ascribes the victory
won over Hadding to Loki. It follows of itself that, in a war whose
deepest root must be sought in Loki's and Aurboda's intrigues, and in
which the clans of gods on both sides take part, Loki should riot be
excluded by the skalds froni influence upon the course of events. We
have already seen that he sought to ruin Hadding while the latter was
still a boy. He afterwards appears in various guises as evil counsellor,
as an evil intriguer, and as a skilful arranger of the fylkings on the
field of battle. His purpose is to frustrate even'y effort to bring
about reconciliation, and by means of persuasion amid falsehoods to
increase the chances of enmity between Halfdan's descendants, in order
that they may mutually destroy each other (see below). His activity
among the heroes is tIme counterpart of his activity among the gods. The
merry, sly, cynical, blameworthy, annd profoundly evil Mefisto of the
Teutonic mythology is bound to bring about the ruin of' the Teutonic
people like that of the gods of the Teutons.


In the later Icelandic traditions he reveals himself as the evil
counsellor of princes in the forms of Blind ille, Blind bölvise (in Saxo
Bolvisus), Bikki; in the German and Old English traditions as Sibich,
Sifeca, Sifka. Bikki is a name-form borrowed froni Germany. The original
Norse Loki-epithet is Bekki, which means the foe," "tIme opponent ". A
closer examination shows that everywhere where this counsellor appears
his enterprises have originally been connected with persons who belong
to Borgar's race. He has wormed himself into the favour of both the
contending parties'as Blind ille with King Hadding'whereof Hromund
Greipson's saga has preserved a distorted record'as Bikke, Sibeke, with
King Gudhorm (whose identity with Jormunrek shall be established below).
As Blind bölvise he lies in waiting for and seeks to capture the young
"Helge Hundingsbane," that is to say, Halfdan, Hadding's father (Helge
Hund., ii.). Under his own name, Loki, he lies in waiting for and seeks
to capture the young Hadding, Halfdan's son. As a cunning general and
cowardly warrior he appears in the German saga-traditions, and there is
every reason to assume that it is his activity in the first great war as
the planner of Gudhorm's battle-line that in the Norse heathen records
secured Loki the epithets sagna hrćrir and sagna sviptir, the header of
the warriors forward and the leader of the warriors back'epithets which
otherwise would be both unfounded and in-comprehensible, but they are
found both in Thjodolf's poem Haustlamung, and in Eilif Gudrunson's
Thorsdrapa. It is also a noticeable fact that while Loki in the first
great battle which ends with Hadding's defeat determines the array of
the victorious army' for only on this basis can the victory be
attributed to him by Saxo'it is in the other great battle in which
Hadding is victorious that Odin himself determines how the forces of his
protégé are to be arranged, namely, in that wedge-form which after that
time and for many centuries following was the sacred and strictly
preserved rule for the battle-array of Teutonic forces. Thins the
ancient Teutonic saga has mentioned and conipared with one another two
different kinds of battle-arrays'the one invented by Loki and the other
invented by Odin.


During his wanderings in the forests of the East Hadding has had
wonderful adventures and passed through great trials. Saxo tells one of
these adventures. He amid Hardgrep, Vagnhofde's daughter, came late one
evening to a dwelling where they got lodgings for the night. The husband
was dead, but not vet buried. For the purpose of learning Hadding's
destiny, Hardgrep engraved speech-runes (see No. 70) cnn a piece of
wood, and asked Hadding to place it under the tongue of the dead one.
The latter would in this wise recover the power of speech and prophecy.
So it came to pass. But what the dead one sang in an awe-inspiring voice
was a curse on Hardgrep, who had compelled him to return froni life in
the lower world to life on earth, amid a prediction that an avenging
Niflheim demon would inflict punishment on her for what she had done. A
following night, when Hadding amid Hardgrep had sought shelter in a
bower of twigs and branches which they had gathered, there appeared a
gigantic hand groping under the ceiling of the bower. The frightened
Haddinng waked Hardgrep. She then nose in all her giant strength, seized
the mysterious hand, and bade Hadding cut it off with his sword. He
attempted to do this, but from the wounds he inflicted on the ghost's
hand there issued matter or venom more than blood, and the hand seized
Hardgrep with its iron claws and tore her into pieces (Saxo, Hist., 36 ff.).


When Hadding in this manner had lost his companion, he considered
himself abandoned by everybody; but the one-eyed old man had not
forgotten his favourite. He sent him a faithful helper, by name Liserus
(Saxo, Hist., 40). Who was Liserus in our mythology '


First, as to the name itself: in the very nature of the case it must be
the Latinising of some one of the mythological names or epithets that
Saxo found in the Norse records. But as no such root as lis or lis is to
be found in the old Norse language and as Saxo interchanges the vowels i
and y, we must regard Liserus as a Latinising of Lysir, " the shining
one," "the one giving light," "the bright one ". When Odin sent a helper
thins described to Hadding, it must have been a person belonging to
Odin's circle and subject to him. Such a person and described by a
similar epithet is hinn hvíti áss, hvitasir ása (Heimdal). In Saxo's
account, this shining messenger is particularly to oppose Loki (Hist.,
40). And in the myth it is the keen-sighted and faithful Heimdal who
always appears as the opposite of the cunning and faithless Loki. Loki
has to contend with Heimdal when the former tries to get possession of
Brisingamen, and in Ragnarok the two opponents kill each other.
Hadding's shining protector thus has the same pant to act in the heroic
saga as the whitest of the Asas in the mythology. If we miow add that
Heimdal is Hadding's progenitor, and on account of blood kinship owes
him special protection in a war in which all the gods have taken part
either for or against Halfdan's and Alveig's son, then we are forced by
every consideration to regard Liserus and Heinidal as identical (see
further, No. 82).


 Compare the double forms Trigo, Thrygir; Ivarus, Yvarus; Sibbo,
Sybbo; Siritha, syritha; Sivardus, Syvardus ; Hiberniu, Hybernia; Isora,
Ysora.


41.


THE WORLD WAR (continued). HADDING'S JOURNEY TO THE EAST.
RECONCILIATION BETWEEN THE ASAS AND VANS. "THE HUN WAR." HADDING RETURNS
AND CONQUERS. RECONCILIATION BETWEEN GROA'S DESCENDANTS AND ALVEIG'S.
LOKI's PUNISHMENT.


Sonic time later there has been a change in Hadding's affairs. He is no
longer the exile wandering about in the forests, but appears once niore
at the head of warlike hosts. But although lie accomplishes various
exploits, it still appears from Saxo's narrative that it takes a honing
tinie before he becomes strong enough to meet his enemies in a decisive
battle with hope of success. In the meanwhile he has succeeded in
accomplishing the revenge of his father and slaying Svipdag (Saxo,
Hist., 42)'this under circumstances which I shall explain below (No.
106). The proof that the hero-saga has left a long space of time between
the great battle lost by Hadding amid that in which he wins a decided
victory is that he, before this conflict is fought out, has slain a
young grandson (son's son) of Svipdag, that is, a son of Asmund, who was
Svipdag's son (Saxo, Hist., 46). Hadding was a mere boy when Svipdag
first tried to capture him. He is a man of years when he, through
decided successes on the battle-field, acquires and secures control of a
great part of tIne domain over which his father, the Teutonic patriarch,
reigned. Hence he must have spent considerable time in the place of
refuge which Odin opened for him, and under the protection of that
subject of Odin, called by Saxo Liserus.


In the time intervening important events have taken place in the world
of the gods. The two clans of gods, the Asas and Vans, have become
reconciled. Odin's exile hasted, according to Saxo, only ten years, amid
there is no reason for doubting the mythical correctness of this
statement. The reconciliation must have been demanded by the dangers
which them' enmity caused to the ad' ministration of the world. The
giants, whose purpose it is to destroy tIne world of man, became once
more dangerous to the earth on account of the war among the gods. During
this time they niade a desperate effort to conquer Asgard occupied by
the Vans. The memory of this expedition was preserved during the
Christian centuries in the traditions concerning the great Hun war. Saxo
(Hist., 231 if.) refers this to Frotho III.'s reign. What he relates
about this Frotho, son of .Fridlevus (Njord), is for the greatest part a
historicised version of the myth about the Vana-god Frey (see No. 102) ;
and every doubt that his account of the war of the "Huns" against Frotho
has its foundation in mythology, and belongs to the chain of events hero
discussed, vanishes when we learn that tIme attack of the Huns against
Frotho-Frey's power happened at a tinie when an old prophet, by name
Uggerus, "whose age was unknown, but exceeded every measure of human
life," lived in exile, and belonged to the number of Frotho's enemies.
Ugger'us is a Latinised form of Odin's name Yggr, and is the same mythic
character as Saxo before introduced on the scene as 'the old one-eyed
man," Had-ding's protector. Although he had been Frotho's enemy, the
aged Yggr comes to him and informs him what the "Huns" are plotting, and
thus Frotho is enabled to resist their assault.


When Odin, out of consideration for the common welfare of mankind and
the gods, renders the Vans, who had banished him, this services, and as
the latter are in the greatest need of the assistance of the mighty
Asa-father and his powerful sons in the conflict with the giant world,
then these facts explain sufficiently the reconciliation between the
Asas and the Vans. This reconciliation was also in order on account of
the bonds of kinship between them The chief hero of the Asas, Thor, was
the stepfather of Ull, the chief warrior of the Vans (Younger Edda, i.
252). The record of a friendly settlement between Thor and Ull is
preserved in a paraphrase, by which Thor' is described inn Thorsdrapa as
"gulli Ullar'," he who with persuasive words makes Ull friendly. Odin
was invited to occupy again the high-seat in Asgard, with all the
prerogatives of a patenfamilias and ruler (Saxo, Hist., 44). But time
dispute which caused the conflict between him and the Vans was at the
sanne time manifestly settled to the advantage of the Vans. They do not
assume in common the responsibility for the murder of Gulveig Angerboda.
She is banished to the Ironwood, but renmains there unharamed until
Ragnarok, and when the destruction of the world approaches, then Njord
shall leave the Asas threatened with


 Deseruit eum (Hun) quoque Uggerus vates, vir ćtatis incognitć et
supra humanum terminum prolixe; qui Frothonem transfugć titulo petens
quidquid a Hunis parabatur edocuit (Hist., 238).


the ruin they have themselves caused and return to the "wise Vans " (i
aldar rauc hann mun aptr coma heim med visom vaunom'Vafthr., 39). The
"Hun war" has supplied the answer to a question, which those believing
in the myths naturally would ask themselves. That question was: How did
it happen that Midgard was not in historical times exposed to such
attacks from the dwellers in Jotunheim as occurred in anitiquity, amid
at that tinie threatened Asgard itself with destruction ' The "Hun war"
was in the myth characterised by the countless lives lost by the enemy.
This we learn from Saxo. The sea, he says, was so filled with the bodies
of the slain that boats could hardly be rowed through the waves. In the
rivers their bodies formed bridges, and on land a person could make a
three days' journey on horseback without seeing anything but dead bodies
of the slain (Hist., 234, 240). And so the answer to the question was,
that the " Huni war" of antiquity had so weakened the giants in miuniber
and strength that they could not become so dangerous as they had been to
Asgard and Midgard formerly, that is, before the time immediately
preceding Ragnarok, when a new fimbul-winter is to set in, and when the
giaiit world shall rise again in all its ancient might. From the time of
the " Hun war" and until then, Thor's hammer is able to keep the growth
of the giants' race within certain limits, wherefore Thor in
Harbardsljod explains his attack on giants and giantesses with micil
mundi cit iotna, ef allir lifdi, vetr mandi manna undir Miţgarţi.


Hadding's rising star of success must be put in connection with the
reconciliation between the Asas amid Vans. The reconciled gods must lay
aside that seed of new feuds between them which is contained in the war
between Hadding, the favourite of the Asas, and Gudhorm, the favourite
of the Vans. The great defeat once suffered by Hadding must be balanced
by a corresponding victory, and then the contending kinsmen must be
reconiciled. And this happens. Hadding wins a great battle amid enters
upomi a secure reign in his part of Teutondonm. Then are tied new bomids
of kinship and friendship between the hostile races, so that the
Teutonic dynasties of chiefs may trace their descent both from Yngve
(Svipdag) and from Borgar's son Halfdan. Hadding and a surviving
grandson of Svipdag are united inn so tender a devotion to one another
that the latter, upon an unfounded report of the former's death, is
unable to survive him and takes his own life. And when Hadding learns
this, he does not care to live any longer either, but meets death
volutarily (Saxo, Hist., 59, 60).


After the reconciliation between the Asas and Vans they succeed in
capturing Loki. Saxo relates this in connection with Odin's return from
Asgard, and here calls Loki Mitothin. In regard to this name, we may,
without entering upon difficult conjectures concerning the first part of
the word, be sure that it, too, is taken by Saxo from the heathen
records in which he has found his account of the first great war, and
that it, in accordance with the rule for forming such epithets, must
refer to a mythic person who has had a certain relation with Odin, and
at the same time been his antithesis. According to Saxo, Mitothin is a
thoroughly evil being, who, like Aurboda, strove to disseminate the
practice of witchcraft in the world and to displace Odin. He was
compelled to take flight and to conceal himself from the gods. He is
captured and slain, but from his dead body arises a pest, so that he
does no less harni after than before his death. It therefore became
necessary to open his grave, cut his head off, and pierce his breast
with a sharp stick (Hist., 43).


These statements in regard to Mitothin's death seem at first glance not
to correspond very well with the mythic accounts of Loki's exit, and
thus give rooni for doubt as to his identity with the latter. It is also
clear that Saxo's narrative has been influenced by the medieval stories
about vampires and evil ghosts, and about the manner of preventing these
from doing harm to the living. Nevertheless, all that he here tells, the
beheading included, is founded on the mythic accounts of Loki. The place
where Loki is fettered is situated in the extreme part of the hell of
tIme wicked dead (see No. 78). The fact that he is relegated to the
realm of the dead, and is there chained in a subterranean cavern until
Ragnarok, when all the dead in the lower world shall return, has been a
sufficient reason for Saxo to represent him as dead and buried. That he
after death causes a pest corresponds with Saxo's account of
Ugarthilocus, who has his prison in a cave under a rock situated in a
sea, over which darkness broods for ever (the island Iyngvi in
Amsvartner's sea, where Loki's prison is'see No. 78). Thie hardy
sea-captain, Thorkil, seeks and finds him in his cave of torture, pulls
a hair from tIne beard on his chin and brings it with him to Denmark.
When this hair afterwards is exposed and exhibited, the awful exhalation
from it causes the death of several persons standing near (Hist., 432,
433). When a hair froni the beard of the tortured Loki (" a hair from
the evil one ") could produce this effect, then his whole body removed
to the kingdom of death must work even greater mischief, until measures
were taken to prevent it. In this connection it is to be remembered that
Loki, according to the Icelandic records, is the father of the feminine
demon of epidemics and diseases, of her who rules in Nifiheim, the home
of the spirits of disease (see No. 60), and that it is Loki's daughter
who rides the three-footed steed, which appears when an epidemic breaks
out (see No. 67). Thus Loki is, according to the Icelandic mythic
fragments, the cause of epideniics. Lakasenna also states that he lies
with a pierced body, although the weapon there is a sword, or possibly a
spear (pie a hiorvi scola binda god'Lakas., 49). That Mitothin takes
flight and conceals himself from the gods corresponds with the myth
about Loki. But that which finally and conclusively confirms the
identity of Loki and Mitothin is that the latter, though a thoroughly
evil being and hostile to the gods, is said to have risen through the
enjoyment of divine favour (cćlesti beneficio vegetatus). Among male
beings of his character this applies to Loki alone.


In regard to the statement that Loki after his removal to the kingdom
of death had his head separated from his body, Saxo here relates, though
in his own peculiar manner, what the myth contained about Loki's ruin,
which was a logical consequence of his acts and happened long after his
removal to the realm of death. Loki is slain in Ragnarok, to which he,
freed from his cave of torture in the kingdom of death, proceeds at the
head of the hosts of "the sons of destruction ". In the midst of tIme
conflict he seeks or is sought by his constant foe, Heimdal. The shining
god, the protector of Asgard, the original patriarch and benefactor of
man, contends here for the last time with the Satan of tIme Teutonic
mythology, and Heimdal and Loki mutually slay each other (Loki á orustu
vid Heimdall, ok verdr hvârr annars bani' Younger Edda, 192). In this
duel we learn that Heimdal, who fells his foe, was himself pierced or "
struck through " to death by a head (svá er sagt, at hann van' lostinn
manns höfdi i gögnum' Younger Edda, 264 ; hann var lostinn i hel mid
manns höfdi' Younger Edda, 100, ed. Res). When Heinmidal and Loki
mutually cause each other's death, this must mean that Loki's head is
that with which Heimdal is pierced after the latter has cut it off with
his sword and become the bane (death) of his foe. Light is thrown on
this episode by what Saxo tells about Loki's head. While the demon in
chains awaits Ragnarok, his hair and beard grow in such a manner that
"they in size and stiffness resemble horn-spears " (Ugarthilocus . . .
cujus olentes pili tam magni' tudine quam rigore cor'neas ćquaverant
hastas'Hist., 431, 432). And thus it is explained how the myth could
make his head act the part of a weapon. That amputated limbs continue to
live and fight is a peculiarity mentioned in other mythic sagas, and
should not surprise us in regard to Loki, the dragon-demon, the father
of the Midgard-serpent (see further, No. 82).


42.


HALFDAN AND HAMAL FOSTER-BROTHERS. THE AMALIANS FIGHT IN BEHALF OF
HALFDAN'S SON HADDING. HAMAL AND THE WEDGE-FORMED BATTLE-ARRAY. THE
ORIGINAL MODEL OF THE BRAVALLA BATTLE.


The mythic progenitor of the Amalians, Hamall, has already been
mentioned above as the foster-brother of the Teutonic patriarch, Halfdan
(Helge Hundingsbane). According to Norse tradition, Hannah's father,
Hagall, had been Halfdan's foster-father (Helge Hund., ii.), and thins
the devoted friend of Borgar. Thene being so close a relation between
the progenitors of these great hero-families of Teutonic mythology, it
is highly improbable that the Amalians did not also act an important
part in the first great world war, since all the Teutonic tribes, and
consequently surely their first families of mythic origin, took part in
it. In the ancient records of time North, we discover a trace which
indicates that the Amalians actually did fight on that side where we
should expect to find them, that is, on Hadding's, and that Hamal
himself was the field-commander of his fosterbrother. The trace is found
in the phrase fylkj'a Hamalt, occurring several places (Sig. Faf, ii. 23
; Har. Hardr, ch. 2; Fornalds. Saga, ii. 40; Fornm., xi. 304). The
phrase can only be explained in one way, " arranged tine battle-array as
Hamall first did it ". To Hamal has also been ascribed the origin of the
custom of fastening the shields close together along the ship's railing,
which appears from the following lines in Harald Hardrade's Saga, 63


Hamalt syndiz mér hömlur hildings vinir skilda.


We also learmi in our Norse records that fylkja Hamalt, "to draw up in
line of battle as Hamal did," means the same as svinfylkja, that is, to
arrange the battalions in the foriii of a wedge. Now Saxo relates
(Hist., 52) that Hadding's army was time first to draw time forces up in
this manner, and that an old man (Odin) whom he has taken on board on a
sea-journey had taught and advised him to do thiis.' Several centuries
later Odin, according to Saxo, taught this art to Harald Hildetand. But
tIme mythology has not made Odin teach it twice. The repetition has its
reason in the fact that Harald Hildetand, in one of tine rccords
accessible to Saxo, was a son of Halfdan Borgarson (Hist., 361;
according to other records a son of Borgar himself'Hist., 337), and
consequently a son of Hadding's father, the consequence of which is that
features of Hadding's saga have been inicorporated into the saga
produced in a later tinie concerning the saga-hero Harald Hildetand.
Thereby the Bravalla battle has obtained so universal and gigantic a
character. It has been turned into an arbitrarily written version of
time battle which ended in Hadding's defeat. Swedes, Goths, Norsemen,
Curians, and Esthionians here fight omi that side which, in the original
model of the battle, was represented by the hosts of Svipdag and Gudhorm
; Danes (few in number, according to Saxo), Saxons (according to Saxo,
time niain part of the army), Livonians, and Slays fight on tIme other
side. The fleets and armies are immense on both sides. Shield-maids
(amazons) occupy the position which in time original was held by the
giantesses Hardgrep,


 Compare the passage, Eirikr konungr fylkti svá lidi sinv, at rani
(the swine-snout) var á framan á fylkinganni, ok lukt allt útan med
skjaldbjorg, (Fornm., xi. 304), with the passage quoted in this
connection : hildingr fylkti Hamalt lidi miklu.


The saga of Sigurd Fafnersbane, which absorbed materials from all older
sagas, has also incorporated this episode. On a sea'journey Sigurd takes
on board a man who calls himself Hnikarr (a name of Odin). He advises
him to Fenja, and Menja. In the saga description produced in Christian
times the Bravalla battle is a ghost of the myth concerning the first
great war. Therefore the nannes of several of the heroes who take part
in the battle are an echo from the myth concerning the Teutonic
patriarchs and the great war. There appear Borgar and Behrgar the wise
(Borgar), Haddir (Hadding), Ruthar (Hrútr-Heimdal, see No. 28a), Od
(Odr, a surname of Freyja's husband, Svipdag, see Nos. 96-98, 100, 101),
Brahi (Brache, Asa-Bragr, see No. 102), Gram (Halfdan), and Ingi
(Yngve), all of which names we recognise from the patriarch saga, but
which, in the manner in which they are presented in the new saga, show
how arbitrarily the mythic records were treated at that time.


The myth has rightly described the wedge-shaped arrangement of the
troops as an ancient custom among the Teutons. Tacitus (Germ., 6) says
that the Teutons arranged their forces in the form of a wedge (acies per
cuneos componitur) , and Cćsar suggests the same (De Bell. Gall., i. 52
: Germani celeriter cx consuetudine sua phalanga facta . . .). Thus our
knowledge of this custom as Teutonic extends back to the time before the
birth of Christ. Possibly it was then already centuries old. The
Aryan-Asiatic kinsmen of the Teutons had knowledge of it, and the
Hindooic law-book, called Manus', ascribes to it divine sanctity and
divine origin. On the geographical line which unites Teutoadom with Asia
it was also in vogue. According to Ćlianus (De insir. ac., 18), the
wedge-shaped array of battle was known to the Scythians and Thracians.


The statement that Harald Hildetand, son of Halfdan Borgarson, learned
this arrangement of the forces from Odin many centuries after he had
taught the art to Hadding, does not disprove, but on the contrary
confirms, the theory that Hadding, son of Halfdan Borgarson, was not
only the first but also the only one who received this instruction from
the Asa-father. And as we now have side by side the two statements, that
Odin gave Hadding this means of victory, and that Hamal was the first
one who arranged his forces in the shape of a wedge, then it is all the
more necessary to assume that these statements belong together, and that
Hamal was Hadding s general, especially as we have already seen that
Hadding's and Hamal's families were united by the sacred ties which
connect foster-father with foster-son and foster-brother with
foster-brother.


43.


EVIDENCE THAT DIETERICH "OF BERN" IS HADDING. THE DIETERICH SAGA THUS
HAS ITS ORIGIN IN THE MYTH CONCERNING THE WAR BETWEEN MANNUS-HALFIIAN'S
SONS.


The appearance of Hamal and the Amalians on Hadding's side ma the great
world war becomes a certainty from the fact that we discover among the
descendants of the continental Teutons a great cycle of sagas, all of
whose events are more or less intimately connected with the mythic
kernel: that Amalian heroes with unflinching fidelity supported a prince
who already in the tender years of his youth had been deprived of his
share of his father's kingdom, and was obliged to take flight from the
persecution of a kinsman and his assistants to the far East, where he
remained a long time, until after various fortunes of war he was able to
return, conquer, and take possession of his paternal inheritance. And
for this he was indebted to the assistance of the brave Amalians. These
are the chief points in the saga cycle about Dieterich of Bern
(ţjódrekr, Thidrek, Theodericus), and the fortunes of the young prince
are, as we have thus seen, substantially the same as Hadding's.


When we compare sagas preserved by the descendants of the Teutons of
the Continent with sagas handed down to us from Scandinavian sources, we
must constantly bear in mind that the great revolution which the victory
of Christianity over Odinism produced in the Teutonic world of thought,
inasmuch as it tore down the ancient mythical structure and applied the
fragments that were fit for use as material for a new saga
structure'that this revolution required a period of more than eight
hundred years before it had conquered the last fastnesses of the Odinic
doctrine. On the one side of tbe slowly advancing s between the two
religions there developed and continued a changing and transformation of
the old sagas, the main purpose of which was to obliterate all that
contained too much flavour of heathendom and was incompatible with
Christianity; while, on the other side of the s of faith, the old mythic
songs, but little affected by the tooth of time, still continued to live
in their original form. Thus one might, to choose the nearest example at
hand, sing on the northern side of this faith-, where heathendom still
prevailed, about how Hadding, when the persecutions of Svipdag and his
half-brother Gudhorm compelled him to fly to the far East, there was
protected by Odin, and how he through him received the assistance of
Hrútr-Heimdall; while the Christians, on the south side of this , sang
of how Dieterich, persecuted by a brother and the protectors of the
latter, was forced to take flight to the far East, and how he was there
received by a mighty king, who, as he could no longer be Odin, must be
the mightiest king in the East ever heard of'that is, Attila'and how
Attila gave him as protector a certain Rüdiger, whose very name contains
an echo of Ruther (Heimdal), who could not, however, be the white
Asa-god, Odin's faithful servant, but must be changed into a faithful
vassal and " markgrave" under Attila. The Saxons were converted to
Christianity by fire and sword in the latter part of the eighth century.
In the deep forests of Sweden heathendom did not yield completely to
Christianity before the twelfth century. In the time of Saxo's father
there were still heathen communities in Smaland on the Danish . It
follows that Saxo must have received the songs concerning the ancient
Teutonic heroes in a far more original form than that in which the same
songs could be found in Germany.


Hadding means "the hairy one," "the fair-haired"; Dieterich (ţjódrekr)
means "the ruler of the people," "the great ruler ". Both epithets
belong to one and the same saga character. Hadding is the epithet which
belongs to him as a youth, before he possessed a kingdom; Dieterich is
the epithet which represents him as the king of many Teutonic tribes.
The Vilkinasaga says of him that he bad an abundant and beautiful growth
of hair, but that he never got a beard. This is sufficient to explain
the name Hadding, by which he was presumably celebrated in song among
all Teutonic tribes; for we have already seen that Hadding is known in
Anglo-Saxon poetry as Hearding, and, as we shall see, the continental
Teutons knew him not only as Dieterich, but also as Hartung. It is also
possible that the name "the hairy" has in the myth had the same purport
as the epithet "the fair-haired" has in the Norse account of Harald,
Norway's first ruler, and that Hadding of the myth was the prototype of
Harald, when the latter made the vow to let his hair grow until he was
king of all Norway (Harald Har fager's Saga, 4). The custom of not
cutting hair or beard before an exploit resolved upon was carried out
was an ancient one among the Teutons, and so common and so sacred that
it must have had foothold and prototype in the hero-saga. Tacitus
mentions it (Germania, 31); so does Paulus Diaconus (Hist., iii 7) and
Gregorius of Tours (v. 15).


Although it had nearly ceased to be heard in the German saga cycle,
still the name Hartung has there left traces of its existence. "Anhang
des Heldenbuchs" mentions King Hartung aus Reüssenlant; that is to say,
a King Hartung who came from some land in the East. The poem
"Rosengarten" (variant D; cp. W. Grimm, D. Heldensage, 139, 253) also
mentions Hartunc, king von Riuzen. A comparison of the different
versions of "Rosengarten" with the poem "Dieterichs Flucht" shows that
the name Hartung von Riuzen in the course of time becomes Hartnit von
Riuzen and Hertnit von Riuzen, by which form of the name the hero
reappears in Vilkinasaga as a king in Russia. If we unite the scattered
features contained in these sources about Hartung we get the following
main outlines of his saga:


(a) Hartung is a king and dwells in an eastern country (all the records).


(b) He is not, however, an independent ruler there, at least not in the
beginning, but is subject to Attila (who in the Dieterich's saga has
supplanted Odin as chief ruler in the East). He is Attila's man ("
Dieterichs Flucht").


(c) A Swedish king has robbed him of his land and driven him into exile.


(d) The Swedish king is of the race of elves, and the chief of the same
race as the celebrated Velint'that is to say, Volund (Wayland)'belonged
to (Vilkinasaga). As shall be shown later (see Nos. 105, 109), Svipdag,
the banisher of Hadding, belongs to the same race. He is Volund's nephew
(brother's son).


(e) Hartung recovers, after the death of the Swedish conqueror, his own
kingdom, and also conquers that of the Swedish king (Vilkinasaga).


All these features are found in the saga of Hadding. Thus the original
identity of Hadding and Hartung is beyond doubt. We also find that
Hartung, like Dieterich, is banished from his country; that he fled,
like him, to the East; that he got, like


him, Attila the king of the East as his protector; that he thereupon
returned, conquered his enemies, and recovered his kingdom. Hadding's,
Hartung's and Dieterich's sagas are, therefore, one and the same in root
and in general outline. Below it shall also be shown that the most
remarkable details are common to them all.


I have above (No. 42) given reasons why Hamal (Amala), the
foster-brother of Halfdan Borgarson, was Hadding's assistant and general
in the war against his foes. The hero, who in the German saga has the
same place under Dieterich, is the aged "master" Hildebrand, Dieterich's
faithful companion, teacher, and commander of his troops. Can it be
demonstrated that what the German saga tells about Hildebrand reveals
threads that connect him with the saga of the original patriarchs, and
that not only his position as Dieterich's aged friend and general, but
also his genealogy, refer to this saga ' And can a satisfactory
explanation be given of the reason why Hildebrand obtained in the German
Dieterich saga the same place as Hamal had in the old myth'


Hildebrand is, as his very name shows, a Hilding, like Hildeger who
appears in the patriarch saga (Saxo, Hist.,356-359). Hildeger was,
according to the tradition in Saxo, the half-brother of Halfdan
Borgarson. They bad the same mother Drot, but not the same father;
Hildeger counted himself a Swede on his father's side; Halfdan, Borgar's
son, considered himself as belonging to the South Scandinavians and
Danes, and hence the dying Hildeger sings to Halfdan (Hisi., 357):


Danica te tellus, me Sveticus edidit orbis.


In nearly all the names of members of this family, Hild- or -brand,
appears as a part of the compound word. All that the names appear to
signify is that their owners belong to the Hildiag race. Examples :'


1. Old High German: Herbrand ' Hildebrand ' Hadubrand.


2. Wolfdeiterich: Berchtung ' Herbrand ' Hildebrand.


3. Vilkinasaga: Hildebrand ' Alebrand.


4. A Popular Song about Hildebrand: Hildebrand ' The Younger Hildebrand.


5. Fundin Noregur: Hildir ' Hildebrand ' (a) Hildir (b) Herbrand.


6. Flateybook, i. 25: Hildir ' Hildebrand ' Vigbrand ' (a) Hildir (b)
Herbrand.


7. Asmund Kćmpbane's Saga: Hildebrand ' Helge ' Hildebrand.


Drot tibi maternum, quondam distenderat vber; Hay gentitrici tibi
pariter collacteus exto.


In the German tradition Hildebrand is the son of' Herbrand. The Old
High German fragment of the song, about Hildebrand's meeting with his
son Hadubrand, calls him Heribrantes sunu. Herbrand again is, according
to the poem "Wolfdieterich," Berchtung's son (concerning Berchtung, see
No. 6). In a Norse tradition preserved by Saxo we find a Hilding
(Hildeger) who is Borgar's stepson; in the Germami tradition we find a
Hilding (Herbrand) who is Borgar-Berchtung's son. This already shows
that the Gernian saga about Hildebrand was originally connected with the
patriarch saga about Borgar, Halfdan, and Halfdan's sons, and that the
Hildings from the beginning were akin to tIme Teutonic patriarchs.
Borgar's transformation froni stepfather to the father of a Hilding
shall be explained below.


Hildeger's saga and Hildebrand's are also related in subject niatter.
The fortunes of both the kinsmen are at the same time like each other
amid the antithesis of each other. Hildeger's character is profoundly
tragic; Hildebrand is happy and secure. Hildeger complains iii his
death-song in Saxo (cp. Asmund Kćmpebane's saga) that he has fought
within and slain his own beloved son. In the Old High German
song-fragment Hildebrand seeks, after his return from the East, his son
Hadubrand, who believed that his father was dead and calls Hildebrand a
deceiver, who has taken the dead man's name, and forces him to fight a
duel. The fragment ends before we learn the issue of the duel; but
Vilkinasaga and a ballad about Hildebrand have preserved the tradition
in regard to it. When the old "master" has demonstrated that his
Hadubrand is not yet equal to him in arms, father and son ride side by
side in peace and happiness to their home. Both the conflicts between
father and son, within the Hilding family, are pendants and each other's
antithesis. Hildeger, who passionately loves war and combat, inflicts in
his eagerness for strife a deep


 Compare in Asmund Kćmpebane's saga the words of the dying hero: dik
Drott of bar af Danmörku en mik sjálfan á Svidiodu.


wound in his own heart when he kills his own son. Hildebrand acts
wisely, prudently, and seeks to ward off and allay the son's love of
combat before the duel begins, and he is able to end it by pressing his
young opponent to his paternal bosom. On the other hand, Hildeger's
conduct toward his half-brother Halfdan, the ideal of a noble and
generous enemy, and his last words to his brother, who, ignorant of the
kinship, has given hini the fatal wound, and whose mantle the dying one
wishes to wrap himself in (Asmund Kćmpebane's saga), is one of the
touching scenes in the grand poems about our earliest ancestors. It
seems to have proclammed that blood revenge was inadmissible, when a
kinsman, without being aware of the kinship, slays a kinsman, and when
the latter before lie died declared his devotion to his slayer. At all
events we rediscover the aged Hildebrand as the teacher and protector of
the son of the same Halfdan who slew Hildeger, and not a word is said
about blood revenge between Halfdan's and Hildeger's descendants.


The kinship pointed out between the Teutonic patriarchs and the
Hildings has not, however, excluded a relation of subordination of the
latter to the former. In " Wolfdieterich" Hildebrand's father receives
land and fief from Dieterich's grandfather and carries his banner in
war. Hildebrand himself performs toward Dieterich those duties which are
due from a foster-father, which, as a rule, show a relation of
subordination to the real father of the foster-son. Among the kindred
families to which Dieterich and Hildebrand belong there was the same
difference of nank as between those to which Hadding and Hamal belong.
Hamal's father Hagal was Halfdan's foster-father, and, to judge from
this, occupied the position of a subordinate friend toward Halfdan's
father Borgar. Thus Halfdan and Hamal were foster-brothers, and from
this it follows that Hamal, if he survived Halfdan, was bound to assume
a foster-father's duties towards the latter's son Hadding, who was not
yet of age. Hamal's relation to Hadding is therefore entirely analagous
to Hildebrand's relation to Dieterich.


The pith of that army which attached itself to Dieterich are Amelungs,
Amalians (see " Biterolf ") ; that is to say, members of Hamal's race.
The oldest and most important hero, the pith of the pith, is old master
Hildebrand himself, Dieterich's foster-father and general. Persons who
in the German poems have names which refer to their Amalian birth are by
Hildebrand treated as members of a clan are treated by a clan-chief.
Thus Hildebrand brings from Sweden a princess, Amalgart, and gives her
as wife to a son of Amelolt serving among Dieterich's Amelungs, and to
Amelolt Hildebrand has already given his sister for a wife.


The question as to whether we find threads which connect the Hildebrand
of the German poem with the saga of the mythic patriarchs, and
especially with the Hamal (Amala) who appears in this saga, has now been
answered. Master Hildebrand has in the German saga-cycle received the
position and the tasks which originally belonged to Hamal, the
progenitor of the Amalians.


The relation between the kindred families'the patriarch family, the
Hilding family, and the Amal family'has certainly been just as
distinctly pointed out in the German saga- cycle as in time Norse before
the German met with a crisis, which to sonie extent confused the old
connection. This crisis came when Hadding-ţjódrekr of the ancient myth
was confounded with the historical king of the East Goths, Theoderich.
The East Goth Theoderich counted himself as belonging to the Anmal
family, which had grown out of tIme soil of the myth. He was, accordimig
to Jordanes (De Goth. Orig., 14), a son of Thiudemer, who traced his
ancestry to Amal (Hamal), son of Augis (Hagal). The result of the
confusion was:


(a) That Hadding-ţjódrekr became the son of Thiudemer, and that his
descent from the Teuton patriarchs was cut off.


(b) That Hadding-ţjódrekr himself became a descendant of Hamal, whereby
tIne distinction between this race of rulers'the line of Teutonic
patriarchs begun with Ruther Heimdal'together with the Amal family,
friendly but subject to the Hadding family, and the Hilding family was
partly obscured and partly abolished. Dieterich himself became an
"Amelung " like several of his heroes.


(c) That when Hamal thus was changed from an elder contemporary of
Hadding-ţjódrekr into his earliest progenitor, separated from him by
several generations of time, he could no longer serve as Dieterich's
foster-father and general; but this vocation had to be transferred to
master Hildebrand, who also in the myth must have been closely connected
with Hadding, and, together with Hamal, one of his chief and constant
helpers.


 The texts of Jordanes often omit the aspirate and write Eruli for
Heruli, &c. In regard to the name-form Amal, Closs remarks, in his
edition of 1886 : AMAL, sic. Ambr. cum Epit. et Pall, nisi quod hi Hamal
aspirate.


(d) That Borgar-Berchtung, who in the myth is the grandfather of
Hadding-ţjódrekr, must, as he was not an Amal, resign this dignity and
confine himself to being the progenitor of the Hildings. As we have
seen, he is in Saxo the progenitor of the Hilding Hildeger.


Another result of Hadding-ţjórekr's confusion with the historical
Theoderich was that Dieterich's kingdom, and the scene of various of his
exploits, was transferred to Italy: to Verona (Bern), Ravenna (Raben),
&c. Still the strong stream of the ancient myths became master of the
confused historical increments, so that the Dieterich of the saga has
but little in common with the historical Theoderich.


After the dissemination of Christianity, the hero saga of the Teutonic
myths was cut off from its roots in the mythology, and hence this
confusion was natural and necessary. Popular tradition, in which traces
were found of the historical Theoderich-Dieterich, was no longer able to
distinguish the one Dieterich from the other. A writer acquainted with
the chronicle of Jordanes took the last step and made Theoderich's
father Thiudemer the father of the mythic Hadding-ţjódrekr.


Nor did the similarity of names alone encourage this blending of the
persons. There was also another reason. The historical Theoderich had
fought against Odoacer. The mythic Haddingţjódrekr had warred with
Svipdag, the husband of Freyja, who also bore the name Ódr and Ottar
(see Nos. 96-100). The latter name-form corresponds to the English and
German Otter, the Old High German Otar, a name which suggested the
historical Otacher (Odoacer). The Dieterich and Otacher of historical
traditions became identified with ţjódrekr and Ottar of mythical traditions.


As the Hadding-ţjódrekr of mythology was in his tender youth exposed to
the persecutions of Ottar, and had to take flight froni them to the far
East, so the Dieterich of the historical saga also had to suffer
persecutions in his tender youth from Otacher, and take flight,
accompanied by his faithful Amalians, to a kingdom in the East.
Accordingly, Hadubrand says of his father Hildebrand, that, when he
betook himself to the East with Dieterich, fioh her' Otachres nîd, "he
fled from Otacher's hate ". Therefore, Otacher soon disappears from the
German saga-cycle, for SvipdagOttar perishes and disappears in the myth,
long before Hadding's victory and restoration to his father's power (see
No. 106.)


Odin and Heimdal, who then, according to the myth, dwelt in the East
and there became the protectors of Hadding, must, as heathen deities, be
removed from the Christian saga, and be replaced as best they could by
others. The famous ruler in the East, Attila, was better suited than
anyone else to take Odin's place, though Attila was dead before
Theoderich was born. RutherHeimdal was, as we have already seen, changed
into Rudiger.


The myth made Hadding dwell in tIme East for many years (see above).
The tea-year rule of the Vans in Asgard must end, and many other events
must occur before the epic connection of the myths permitted Hadding to
return as a victor. As a result of this, the saga of "Dieterich of Bern"
also lets him remain a long time with Attila. An old English song
preserved in the Exeter manuscript, makes Theodric remain ţrittig wintra
in exile at Mćringaburg. The song about Hildebrand and Hadubrand make
him remain in exile, sumarô enti wintrô sehstic, and Vilkinasaga makes
him sojourn in the East thirty-two years.


Mćringaburg of the Anglo-Saxon poem is the refuge which Odin opened for
his favourite, and where the former dwelt during his exile in the East.
Mćringaburg means a citadel inhabited by noble, honoured, and splendid
persons: compare the Old Norse mćringr. But the original meaning of
mćrr, Old German mâra, is "glittering" "shining" "pure," and it is
possible that, before mćringr received its general signification of a
famous, honoured, noble man, it was used in the more special sense of a
man descended from "the shining one," that is to say, froni Heimdal
through Borgar. However this may be, these "mćringar" have, in the
Anglo-Saxon version of the Hadding saga, had their antitheses in the
"baningar," that is, the men of Loki-Bicke (Bekki). This appears from
the expi'ession Bekka veóld Baningum, in Codex Exoniensis. The Banings
are no more than the Mćrings, an historical name. The interpretation of
the word is to be sought in the Anglo-Saxon bana, the English bane. The
Banings means " the destroyers," the corrupters," a suitable appellation
of those who follow the source of pest, time all-corrupting Loki. In
time Germani poems, Mćringaburg is changed to Meran, and
Borgar-Berchtung (Hadding's grandfather in the myth) is Duke of Meran.
It is his fathers who have gone to the gods that Hadding finds again
with Odin and Heimdal in the East.


Despite the confusion of the histomical Theoderich with the mythic
Hadding-ţjódrekr, a tradition has been handed down within the German
saga-cycle to the effect that "Dieterich of Bern" belonged to a
genealogy which Christianity had anathematised. Two of the German
Dieterich poems, "Nibelunge Noth" and Klage," refrain from mentioning
the ancestors of their hero. Wilhelm Grimm suspects that the reason for
this is that the authors of these poems knew something about Dieterich's
descent, which they could not relate without wounding Christian ears;
and he reminds us that, when in the Vilkinasaga Thidrek (Dieterich)
teases Högne (Hagen) by calling him the son of arm elf, Högne answers
that Thidrek has a still worse descent, as he is the son of the devil
himself. The matter, which in Grimm's eyes is mystical, is explained by
the fact that Hadding-ţjódrekr's father in the myth, Halfdan Borgarson,
was supposed to be descended from Thor, and in his capacity of a
Teutonic patriarch lie had received divine worship (see Nos. 23 and 30).
Anhang des Heldenbuchs says that Dieterich was the son of a "böser geyst ".


It has already been stated (No. 38) that Hadding from Odin received a
drink which exercised a wonderful influence upon his physical nature. It
made him recreatum vegetiori corporis firmitate, and, thanks to it and
to the incantation sung over him by Odin, he was able to free himself
from the chains afterwards put on him by Loki. It has also been pointed
out that this drink contained something called Leifner's or Leifin's
flames. There is every reason for assuming that these "flames" had the
effect of enabling the person who had partaken of the potion of
Leifner's flames to free himself from his chains with his own breath.
Groa (Groagalder, 10) gives her son Svipdag " Leifner's fires in order
that if he is chained, his enchanted limbs may be liberated (ek lćt der
Leifnis elda fyr kredinn legg). The record of the giving of this gift to
Hadding meets us in the German saga, in the form that Dieterich was able
with his breath to burn the fetters laid upon him (see "Laurin "), nay,
when lie became angry, he could breathe fire and make the cuirass of his
opponent red-hot. The traditiorn that Hadding by eating, on the advice
of Odin, the heart of a wild beast (Saxo says of a lion) gained
extraordinary strength, is also preserved in the form, that when
Dieterich was in distress, God sent him eines löwen kraffi von
herezenlichen zoren (" Ecken Ausfarth ").


Saxo relates that Hadding on one occasion was invited to descend into
the lower world and see its strange things (see No. 47). The heathen
lower world, with its fields of bliss and places of torture, became in
the Christian mind synonymous with hell. Hadding's descent to the lower
world, together with the mythic account of his journey through the air
on Odin's horse Sleipner, were remembered in Christian times in the form
that he once on a black diabolical horse rode to hell. This explains the
remarkable dénouement of the Dieterich saga; namely, that he, the
magnanimous and celebrated hero, was captured by the devil. Otto of
Friesingen (first half of the twelfth century) states that Theodoricus
vivus equo sedens ad inferos descendit. The Kaiser chronicle says that
"many saw that the devils took Dieterich and carried him into the
mountain to Vulcan ".


In Saxo we read that Hadding once while bathing had an adventure which
threatened him with the most direful revenge from the gods (see No.
106). Manuscripts of the Vilkinasaga speak of a fateful bath which
Thidrek took, and connects it with his journey to hell. While the hero
was bathing there came a black horse, the largest and stateliest ever
seen. The king wrapped himself in his bath towel and mounted the horse.
He found, too late, that the steed was the devil, and he disappeared for
ever.


Saxo tells that Hadding made war on a King Handuanus, who had concealed
his treasures in the bottom of a lake, and who was obliged to ransom his
life with a golden treasure of the same weight as his body (Hist., 41,
42, 67). Handuanus is a Latinised form of the dwarf name Andvanr,
Andvani. The Sigurd saga has a record of this event, and calls the dwarf
Andvari (Sig. Fafn., ii.) The German saga is also able to tell of a war
which Dieterich waged against a dwarf king. The war has furnished the
materials for the saga of "Laurin ". Here, too, the conquered
dwarf-king's life is spared, amid Dieterich gets possession of many of
his treasures.


In the German as in the Norse saga, Hadding-ţjódrekr's rival to secure
the crown was his brother, supported by Otacher-Ottar (Svipdag). The
tradition in regard to this, which agrees with the myth, was known to
the author of Anhang des Heldenbuchs. But already in an early day the
brother was changed into uncle on account of the intermixing of
historical reminiscences.


The brother's name in the Norse tradition is Gudhormr, in the German
Ermenrich (Ermanaricus). Ermenrich, Jörmunrekr means, like ţjódrekr, a
ruler over many people, a great king. Jordanes already has confounded
the mythic Jörmunrekr-Gudhormr with the historical Gothic King
Hermanaricus, whose kingdom was destroyed by the Huns, and has applied
to him the saga of Svanhild and her brothers Sarus (Sörli) and Ammius
(Hamdir), a saga which originally was connected with that of the mythic
Jörmunrek. The Sigurd epic, which expanded with plunder from all
sources, has added to the confusion by annexing this saga.


In the Roman authors the form Herminones is found by the side of
Hermiones as the name of one of the three Teutonic tribes which
descended from Mannus. It is possible, as already indicated, that -horm
in Gudhorm is connected with the form Hermio, and it is probable, as
already pointed out by several linguists, that the Teutonic irmin
(jörmun, Goth. airmana) is linguistically connected with the word
Hermino. In that case, the very names Gudhormr and Jörmunrekr already
point as such to the mythic progenitor of the Hermiones, Herminones,
just as Yngve-Svipdag's name points to the progenitor of the Ingvćones
(Ingćvones), and possibly also Hadding's to that of the Istćvones (see
No. 25). To the name Hadding corresponds, as already shown, the
Anglo-Saxon Hearding, the old German Hartung. The Hasdingi (Asdingi)
mentioned by Jordanes were the chief warriors of the Vandals (Goth.
Or'ig., 22), and there may be a mythic reason for rediscovering this
family name among an East Teutonic tribe (the Vandals), since Haddiag,
according to the myth, had his support among the East Teutonic tribes.
To the form Hasdingi (Goth. Hazdiggós) the words istćvones, istvćones,
might readily enough correspond, provided the vowel i in the Latin form
can be harmonised with a in the Teutonic. That the vowel i was an
uncertain element may be seen from the genealogy in Codex La Cava, which
calls Istćvo Ostius, Hostius.


As to geography, both the Roman and Teutonic records agree that the
northern Teutonic tribes were Ingćvones. In the myths they are
Scandiniavians and neighbours to the Ingćvones. In the Beowulf poem the
king of the Danes is called codor' Inguina, the protection of the
Ingćvones, and freâ Inguina, the lord of the Ingćvones. Tacitus says
that they live nearest to the ocean (Germ., 2); Pliny says that
Cimbrians, Teutons, and Chaucians were Ingćvones (Hist. Nat., iv. 28).
Pomponius Mela says that the land of the Cimbrians and Teutons was
washed by the Codan bay (iii. 3). As to the Hermiones and Istćvones, the
former dwelt along the middle Rhine, and of the latter, who are the East
Teutons of niythology, several tribes had already before the time of
Pliny pressed forward south of the Hermiones to this river.


The German saga-cycle has preserved the tradition that in the first
great battle in which Hadding-ţjódrekr measured his strength with the
North and West Tentons he suffered a great defeat. This is openly avowed
in the Dieterich poem "die Klage ". Those poems, on the other hand,
which out of sympathy for their hero give him victory in this battle ("
the Raben battle ") nevertheless in fact acknowledge that such was not
the case, for they niake him return to the East after the battle and
remain there many years, robbed of his crown, before he niakes his
second and successful attempt to regain his kingdom. Thus the "Raben
battle" corresponds to the mythic battle in which Hadding is defeated by
Ingćvones and Hermiones. Besides the "Raben battle" has from a Teutonic
standpoint a trait of universality, and the German tradition has upon
the whole faithfully, and in harmony with the myth, grouped the allies
and heroes of the hostile brothers. Dieterich is supported by East
Teutonic warriors, and by non-Teutonic people froni the East'from
Poland, Wallachia, Rnissia, Greece, &c.; Ermenrich, on the other hand,
by chiefs from Thuringia, Swabia, Hessen, Saxony, tIme Netherlands,
England, and the North, and, above all, by the Burgundians, who in the
genealogy in the St. Gaelen Codex are counted among the Hermiones, and
in the genealogy in the La Cava Codex are counted with the Ingćvones.
For the mythic descent of the Burgundian dynasty froni an uncle of
Svipdag I shall present evidence in my chapters on the Ivalde race.


The original identity of Hadding's and Dieterich's sagas, and their
descent from the myth concerning the earliest antiquity amid the
patriarchs, I now regard as demonstrated and established. The war
between Hadding-Dieterich and Gudhorm-Ermenrich is identical with the
conflict begun by Yngve-Svipdag between the tribes of the Ingćvones,
Hermiones, and Istćvones. It has also been demonstrated that Halfdan,
Gudhorm's, and Hadding's father, and Yngve-Svipdag's stepfather, is
identical with Mannus. One of the results of this investigation is,
therefore, that the songs about Mannus and his sons, ancient already in
the days of Tacitus, have, more or less influenced by the centuries,
continued to live far down in the middle ages, and that, not the songs
themselves, but the main features of their' contents, have been
preserved to our time, and should again be incorporated in our mythology
together with the myth in regard to the primeval tinie, the niain
outline of which has been restored, and the final episode of which is
the first great war in the world.


The Norse-Icelandic school, which accepted and developed the learned
hypothesis of the middle age in regard to the immigration of Odin and
his Asiamen, is to blame that the myth, in many respects important, in
regard to the olden time and its events in the world of gods and
men'among Aryan myths one of the most important, either from a
scientific or poetic point of view, that could be handed down to our
time'was thrust aside and forgotten. The learned hypothesis and the
ancient myth could not be harmonised. For that reason the latter had to
yield. Nor was there anything in this myth that particularly appealed to
the Norse national feeling, and so could claim mercy. Norway is not at
all named in it. Scania, Denmark, Svithiod (Sweden), and continental
Teutondom are the scene of the mythic events. Among the many causes
co-operating in Christian times, in giving what is now called "Norse
mythology" its present character, there is not one which has contributed
so much as the rejection of this myth toward giving "Norse mythology"
the stamp which it hitherto has borne of a narrow, illiberal town
mythology, which, built chiefly on the foundation of the Younger Edda,
is, as shall be shown in the presenit work, in many respects a
caricature of the real Norse, amid at the same time in its main outlines
Teutonic, mythology. In regard to the ancient Aryan elements in the myth
here presented, see Nos. 82 and 111.


II.


THE MYTH IN REGARD TO THE LOWER WORLD.


44.


MIDDLE AGE SAGAS WITH ROOTS IN THE MYTH CONCERNING THE LOWER WORLD.
ERIK VIDFORLE'S SAGA.


FAR down in Christian times there prevailed among the Scandinavians the
idea that their heathen ancestors had believed in the existence of a
place of joy, from which sorrow, pain, blemishes, age, sickness, and
death were excluded. This place of joy was called Ódáinsakr,
the-acre-of-the-not-dead, Jörd lifanda manna, the earth of living men.
It was situated not in heaven but below, either on the surface of the
earth or in the lower world, but it was separated froni the lands
inhabited by men in such a manner that it was not impossible, but
nevertheless exceeding perilous, to get there.


A saga from the fourteenth century incorporated in Flateybook, and with
a few textual modifications in Fornald. Saga, iii., tells the following:


Erik, the son of a petty Norse king, one Christmas Eve, made the vow to
seek out Odainsaker, and the fame of it spread over all Norway. In
conipany with a Danish prince, who also was named Erik, he betook
himself first to Miklagard (Constantinople), where the king engaged the
young men in his service, and was greatly benefited by their warlike
skill. One day the king talked with the Norwegian Erik about religion,
and the result was that the latter surrendered tIme faith of his
ancestors amid accepted baptisni. He told his royal teacher of the vow
he had taken to find Odinsaker,' "frá huorcum heyrdi vér sagt a voru
landi,"'and asked him if he knew where it was situated. The king
believed that Odainsaker was identical with Paradise, and said it lies
in the East beyond the farthest boundaries of India, but that no one was
able to get there because it was enclosed by a fire-wall, which aspires
to heaven itself. Still Erik was bound by his vow, and with his Danish
namesake he set out on his journey, after the king had instructed them
as well as he was able in regard to the way, and had given them a letter
of recommendation to the authorities and princes through whose
territories they had to pass. They travelled through Syria and the
immense and wonderful India, and came to a dark country where the stars
are seen all day long. After having traversed its deep forests, they saw
when it began to grow light a river, over which there was a vaulted
stone bridge. On the other side of the river there was a plain, from
which came sweet fragrance. Erik conjectured that the river was the one
called by the king in Miklagard Pison, and which rises in Paradise. On
the stone bridge lay a dragon with wide open mouth. The Danish prince
advised that they return, for he considered it impossible to conquer the
dragon or to pass it. But the Norwegian Erik seized one of his men by
one hand, and rushed with his sword in the other against the dragon.
They were seen to vanish between the jaws of the monster. With the other
companions the Danish prince then returned by the sanie route as he had
come, and after many years he got back to his native land.


When Erik and his fellow-countryman had been swallowed by the dragon,
they thought themselves enveloped in smoke; but it was scattered, and
they were unharmed, and saw before them the great plain lit up by the
sun and covered with flowers. There flowed rivers of honey, the air was
still, but just above the ground were felt breezes that conveyed the
fragrance of the flowers. It is never dark in this country, and objects
cast no shadow. Both the adventurers went far into the country in order
to find, if possible, inhabited parts. But the country seenied to be
uninhabited. Still they discovered a tower in the distance. They
continued to travel in that direction, and on conning nearer they found
that the tower was suspended in the air, without foundation or pillars.
A ladder led up to it. Within the tower there was a room, carpeted with
velvet, and there stood a beautiful table with delicious food in silver
dishes, and wine in golden goblets. There were also splendid beds. Both
the men were now convinced that they had come to Odainsaker, and they
thanked God that they had reached their destination. They refreshed
themselves and laid themselves to sleep. While Erik slept there came to
him a beautiful lad, who called him by name, and said he was one of the
angels who guarded the gates of Paradise, and also Erik's guardian
angel, who had been at his side when he vowed to go in search of
Odainsaker. He asked whether Erik wished to remain where he now was or
to return home. Erik wished to return to report what he had seen. The
angel informed him that Odainsaker, or jörd lifanda manna, where he now
was, was not the same place as Paradise, for to the latter only spirits
could come, and the hand of the spirits, Paradise, was so glorious that,
in comparison, Odainsaker seemed. like a desert. Still, these two
regions are on each other's s, and the river which Erik had seen has its
source in Paradise. The angel permitted the two travellers to remain in
Odainsaker for six days to rest themselves. Then they returned by way of
Miklagard to Norway, and there Erik was called vid-förli, the far-travelled.


In regard to Erik's genealogy, the saga states (Fornald. Saga, iii.
519) that his father's name was Thrand, that his aunt (mother's sister)
was a certain Svanhvit, and that he belonged to the race of Thjasse's
daughter Skade. Further on in the domain of the real myth, we shall
discover an Erik who belongs to Thjasse's family, and whose mother is a
swan-maid (goddess of growth). This latter Erik also succeeded in seeing
Odainsaker (see Nos. 102, 103).


45.


MIDDLE AGE SAGAS (continued). ICELANDIC SOURCES IN REGARD TO GUDMUND,
KING ON THE GLITTERING PLAINS.


In the saga of Hervor, Odainsaker is mentioned, and there without any
visible addition of Christian elements. Gudmund (Godmundr) was the name
of a king in Jotunheim. His home was called Grund, but the district in
which it was situated was called the Glittering Plains (Glćsisvellir).
He was wise and mighty, and in a heathen sense pious, and he and his men
became so old that they lived many generations. Therefore, the story
continues, the heathens believed that Odainsaker was situated in his
country. "That place (Odainsaker) is for everyone who comes there so
healthy that sickness and age depart, and no one ever dies there."


According to the saga-author, Jotunheim is situated north from
Halogaland, along the shores of Gandvik. The wise and mighty Gudmund
died after he had lived half a thousand years. After his death the
people worshipped him as a god, and offered sacrifices to him.


The same Gudmund is mentioned in Herrod's and Bose's saga as a ruler of
the Glittering Plains, who was very skilful in the magic arts. The
Glittering Plains are here said to be situated near Bjarmaland, just as
in Thorstein Bćarmagn's saga, in which king Gudmund's kingdom,
Glittering Plains, is a country tributary to Jotunheim, whose ruler is
Geirrod.


In the history of Olaf Trygveson, as it is given in Flateybook, the
following episode is incorporated. The Northman Helge Thoreson was sent
on a commercial journey to the far North on the coast of Finmark, but he
got lost in a great forest. There he met twelve red-clad young maidens
on horseback, and the horses' trappings shone like gold. The chief one
of the maidens was Ingeborg, the daughter of Gudmund on the Glittering
Plains. The young maidens raised a splendid tent and set a table with
dishes of silver and gold. Helge was invited to remain, and he stayed
three days with Ingeborg. Then Gudmund's daughters got ready to leave;
but before they parted Helge received from Ingeborg two chests full of
gold and silver. With these he returned to his father, but mentioned to
nobody how he had obtained them. The next Yule night there came a great
storm, during which two men carried Helge away, none knew whither. His
sorrowing father reported this to Olaf Trygveson. The year passed. Then
it happened at Yule that Helge came in to the king in the hall, and with
him two strangers, who handed Olaf two gold-plated horns. They said they
were gifts from Gudmund on the Glittering Plains. Olaf filled the horns
with good drink and handed them to the messengers. Mean. while he had
commanded the bishop who was present to bless the drink. The result was
that the heathen beings, who were Gudniund's messengers, cast the horns
away, and at the same time there was great noise and confusion in the
hall. The fire was extinguished, and Gudmund's men disappeared with
Helge, after having slain three of King Olaf's men. Another year passed.
Then there came to the king two men, who brought Helge with them, and
disappeared again. Helge was at that time blind. The king asked him many
questions, and Helge explained that he had spent most happy days at
Gudmund's; but King Olaf's prayers had at length made it difficult for
Gudmund and his daughter to retain him, and before his departure
Ingeborg picked his eyes out, mn order that Norway's daughters should
not fall in love with them. With his gifts Gudmund bad intended to
deceive King Olaf; but upon the whole Helge had nothing but good to
report about this heathen.


46.


MIDDLE AGE SAGAS (continued). SAXO CONCERNING THIS SAME GUDMUND, RULER
OF THE LOWER WORLD.


Saxo, the Danish historian, also knows Gudmund. He relates (Hist. Dan.,
viii.) that King Gorm had resolved to find a mysterious country in
regard to which there were many reports in the North. Incredible
treasures were preserved in that land. A certain Gemthus, known in the
traditions, dwelt there, but the way thither was full of dangers and
well-nigh inaccessible for mortals. They who had any knowledge of the
situation of the land insisted that it was necessary to sail across the
ocean surrounding the earth, leave sun and stars behind, and make a
journey sub Chao, before reaching the land which is deprived of the
light of day, and over whose mountains and valleys darkness broods.
First there was a perilous voyage to be made, and then a journey in the
lower world. With the experienced sailor Thorkillus as his guide, King
Gorm left Denmark with three ships and a numerous company, sailed past
Halogaland, and came, after strange adventures on his way, to
Bjarmaland, situated beyond the known land of the same name, and
anchored near its coast. In this Bjan'mia ulterior it is always cold; to
its snow-clad fields there comes no summer warmth, through its deep wild
forests flow rapid foaming rivers which well forth from the rocky
recesses, and the woods are full of wild beasts, the like of which are
unknown elsewhere. The inhabitants are monsters with whom it is
dangerous for strangers to enter into conversation, for from
unconsidered words they get power to do harm. Therefore Thorkillus was
to do the talking alone for all his companions. The place for anchoring
he had chosen in such a manner that they thence had the shortest journey
to Geruthus. In the evening twilight the travellers saw a man of unusual
size coming to meet them, and to their joy he gm'eeted them by name.
Thorkillus informed them that they should regard the coming of this man
as a good omen, for he was the brother of Geruthus, Guthmundus, a
friendly person and the most faithful protector in peril. When
Thorkillus had explained the perpetual silence of his companions by
saying that they were too bashful to enter into conversation with one
whose language they did not understand, Guthmundus invited them to be
his guests and led them by paths down along a river. Then they came to a
place where a golden bridge was built across the river. The Danes felt a
desire to cross the bridge and visit the land on the other side, but
Guthmundus warned them that nature with the bed of this stream has drawn
a line between the human and superhuman and mysterious, and that the
ground on the other side was by a sacred order proclaimed unlawful for
the feet of mortals. They therefore continued the march on that side of
the river on which they had hitherto gone, and so came to the mysterious
dwelling of Guthmundus, where a feast was spread before them, at which
twelve of his sons, all of noble appearance, and as many daughters, most
fair of face, waited upon them.


But the feast was a peculiar one. The Danes heeded the advice of
Thorkillus not to come into too close contact with their strange
table-companions or the servants, and instead of tasting the courses
presented of food and drink, they ate and drank of the provisions they
had taken with them from home. This they did because Thorkillus knew
that mortals who accept the courtesies here offered them lose all memory
of the past and remain for ever among "these non-human and dismal
beings". Danger threatened even those who were weak in reference to the
enticing loveliness of the daughters of Guthmundus. He offered King Gorm
a daughter in marriage. Gorm himself was prudent enough to decline the
honour; but four of his men could not resist the temptation, and had to
pay the penalty with the loss of their memory and with enfeebled minds.


 Cujus transeundi cupidos revocavit, doceas, eo alveo humana a
monstrosis rerum secrevisse naturam, nec mortalibus ultra fas esse
vestigiis.


One more trial awaited them. Guthmnundus mentioned to the king that he
had a villa, and invited Gorm to accompany hinn thither and taste of the
delicious fruits. Thorkillus, who had a talent for inventing excuses,
now found one for the king's lips. The host, though displeased with the
reserve of the guests, still continued to show them friendliness, and
when they expressed their desire to see the domain of Geruthus, he
accompanied them all to the river, conducted them across it, and
promised to wait there until they returned.


The land which they now entered was the home of terrors. They had not
gone very far before they discovered before them a city, which seemed to
be built of dark mists. Human heads were raised on stakes which
surrounded the bulwarks of the city. Wild dogs, whose rage Thorkillus,
however, knew how to calm, kept watch outside of the gates. The gates
were located high up in the bulwark, and it was necessary to climb up on
ladders in order to get to them. Within the city was a crowd of beings
horrible to look at and to hear, and filth and rottenness and a terrible
stench were everywhere. Further in was a sort of mountain-fastness. When
they had reached its entrance the travellers were overpowered by its
awful aspect, but Thorkillus inspired them with courage. At the same
tinie he warned them most strictly not to touch any of the treasures
that might entice their eyes. All that sight and soul can conceive as
terrible and loathsome was gathered within this rocky citadel. The
door-frames were covered with the soot of centuries, the walls were
draped with filth, the roofs were composed of sharp stings, the floors
were made of serpents encased in foulness. At the thresholds crowds of
monsters acted as doorkeepers and were very noisy. On iron benches,
surrounded by a hurdle-work of lead, there lay giant monsters which
looked like lifeless images. Higher up in a rocky niche sat the aged
Geruthus, with his body pierced and nailed to the rock, and there lay
also three women with their backs broken. Thorkillus explained that it
was this Geruthus whom the god Thor had pierced with a red-hot iron; the
women had also received their punishment from the same god.


When the travellers left these places of punishment they came to a
place where they saw cisterns of mead (dolia) in great numhers. These
were plated with seven sheets of gold, and above theni hung objects of
silver, round as to form, froni which shot numerous braids down into the
cisterns. Near by was found a gold-plated tooth of some strange animal,
and near it, again, there lay an immense horn decorated with pictures
and flashing with precious stones, and also an arm-ring of great size.
Despite the warnings, three of Gorm's men laid greedy bands on these
works of art. But the greed got its reward. The arm-ring changed into a
venomous serpent; the horn into a dragon, which killed their robbers;
the tooth became a sword, which pierced the heart of him who bore it.


The others who witnessed the fate of their comrades expected that they
too, although innocent, should nieet with some misfortune. But their
anxiety seemed unfounded, and when they looked about them again they
found the entrance to another treasury, which contained a wealth of
immense weapons, among which was kept a royal mantle, together with a
splendid head-gear and a belt, the finest work of art. Thorkillus
himself could not govern his greed when he saw these robes. He took hold
of the mantle, and thus gave the signal to the others to plunder. But
then the building shook in its foundations; the voices of shrieking
women were heard, who asked if these robbers were longer to be
tolerated; beings which hitherto had been lying as if half-dead or
lifeless started up and joined other spectres who attacked the Danes.
The latter would all have lost their lives had not their retreat been
covered by two excellent archers whom Gorm had with him. But of the men,
nearly three hundred in number, with whom the king had ventured into
this part of the lower world, there remained only twenty when they
finally reached the river, where Guthmundus, true to his promise, was
waiting for theni, and carried them in a boat to his own domain. Here he
proposed to them that they should remain, but as he could not persuade
them, he gave them presents amid let them return to their ships in
safety the same way as they had come.


47.


MIDDLE AGE SAGAS (continued). FJALLERUS AND HADINGUS (HADDING) IN THE
LOWER WORLD.


Two other Danish princes have, according to Saxo, been pernutted to see
a subterranean world, or Odainsaker. Saxo calls the one Fjallerus, and
makes him a sub-regent in Scania. The question who this Fjallerus was in
the mythology is discussed in another part of this work (see No. 92).
According to Saxo he wa banished from the realm by King Amlethus, the
son of Horven dillus, and so retired to Undensakre (Odainsaker), "a
place which is unknown to our people" (Hist. Dan., iv.)


The other of these two is King Hadingus (Hist. Dan., i.), the
above-mentioned Hadding, son of Halfdan. One winter's day while Hadding
sat at the hearth, there rose out of the ground the form of a woman, who
had her lap full of cowbanes, and showed them as if she was about to ask
whether the king would like to see that part of the world where, in the
midst of winter, so fresh flowers could bloom. Hadding desired this.
Then she wrapped him in her mantle and carried him away down into the
lower world. "The gods of the lower world," says Saxo, "must have
determined that he should be transferred living to those places, which
are not to be sought until after death." In the beginning the journey
was through a territory wrapped in darkness, fogs, and mists. Then
Hadding perceived that they proceeded along a path "which is daily trod
by the feet of walkers ". The path led to a river, in whose rapids
spears and other weapons were tossed about, and over which there was a
bridge. Before reaching this river Hadding had seen from the path he
travelled a region in which "a few" or "certain" (quidam), but very
noble beings (proceres) were walking, dressed in beautiful frocks and
purple mantles. Thence the woman brought him to a plain which glittered
as in sunshine (loca aprica, translation of "The Glittering Plains "),
and there grew the plants which she had shown him. This was one side of'
the river. On the other side there was bustle and activity. There
Hadding saw two armmes engaged in battle. They were, his fair guide
explained to him, the souls of warriors who had fallen in battle, and
now imitated the sword-games they had played on earth. Continuing their
journey, they reached a place surrounded by a wall, which was difficult
to pass through or to surmount. Nor did the woman make any effort to
enter there, either alone or with him: "It would not have been possible
for the smallest or thinnest physical being ". They therefore returned
the way they had come. But before this, and while they stood near the
wall, the woman denionstrated to Hadding by an experiment that the
walled place had a strange nature. She jerked the head off a chicken
which she had taken with her, and threw it over the wall, but the head
came back to the neck of the chicken, and with a distinct crow it
announced "that it had regained its life and breath ".


48.


MIDDLE AGE SAGAS (continued). A FRISIAN SAGA IN ADAM OF BREMEN.


The series of traditions above narrated in regard to Odainsaker, the
Glittering Plains, and their ruler Gudmund, and also in regard to the
neighbouring domains as habitations of the souls of the dead, extends,
so far as the age of their recording in writing is concerned, through a
period of considerable length. The latest cannot be referred to arm
earlier date than the fourteenth century; the oldest were put in writing
toward the close of the twelfth. Saxo began working on his history
between the years 1179 and 1186. Thus these literary evidences span
about two centuries, and stop near the threshold of heathendom. The
generation to which Saxo's father belonged witnessed the crusade which
Sigurd the Crusader made in Eastern Smaland, in whose forests the
Asa-doctrine until that time seenns to have prevailed, and the Odinic
religion is believed to have flourished in the more remote parts of
Sweden even in Saxo's own time.


We must still add to this series of documents one which is to carry it
back another century, and even more. This document is a saga told by
Adam of Bremen in De Situ Danice. Adam, or, perhaps, before him, his
authority Adalbert (appointed archbishop in the year 1043), has turned
the saga into history, and made it as credible as possible by excluding
all distinctly mythical elements. And as it, doubtless for this reason,
neither mentions a place which can be compared with Odainsaker or with
the Glittering Plains, I have omitted it among the literary evidences
above quoted. Nevertheless, it reminds us in its main features of Saxo's
account of Gorm's journey of discovery, and its relation both to it and
to the still older myth shall be shown later (see No. 94). In the form
in which Adam heard the saga, its point of departure has been located in
Friesland, not in Denmark. Frisian noblemen make a voyage past Norway up
to the farthest limits of the Artic Ocean, get into a darkness which the
eyes scarcely can penetrate, are exposed to a maelstrom which threatens
to drag them down ad Chaos, but finally come quite unexpectedly out of
darkness and cold to an island which, surrounded as by a wall of high
rocks, contains subterranean caverns, wherein giants lie concealed. At
the entrances of the underground dwellings lay a great number of tubs
and vessels of gold and other metals which "to mortals seem rare and
valuable ". As much as the adventurers could carry of these treasures
they took with them and hastened to their ships. But the giants,
represented by great dogs, rushed after them. One of the Frisians was
overtaken and torn into pieces before the eyes of the others. The others
succeeded, thanks to our Lord and to Saint Willehad, in getting safely
on board their ships.


49.


ANALYSIS OF THE SAGAS MENTIONED IN Nos. 44-48.


If we consider the position of the authcrs or recorders of these sagas
in relation to the views they present in regard to Odainsaker and the
Glittering Plains, then we find that they themselves, with or without
reason, believe that these views are from a heathen time and of heathen
origin. The saga of Erik Vidforle states that its hero had in his own
native land, and in his heathen environment, heard reports about
Odainsaker. The Miklagard king who instructs the prince in the doctrines
of Christianity knows, on the other hand, nothing of such a country. He
simply conjectures that the Odainsaker of the heathens must be the same
as the Paradise of time Christians, and the saga later makes this
conjecture turn out to be incorrect.


The author of Hervor's saga mentions Odainnsaker as a heathen belief,
and tries to give reasons why it was believed in heathen times that
Odainsaker was situated within the limits of Gudmund's kingdom, the
Glittering Plains. The reason is: "Gudmund and his men became so old
that they lived through several generations (Gudmund lived five hundred
years), and therefore the heathens believed that Odainsaker was situated
in his domain".


The man who compiled the legend about Helge Thoreson connects it with
the history of King Olaf Trygveson, and pits this first king of Norway,
who laboured for the introduction of Christianity, as a representative
of the new and true doctrine against King Gudmund of the Glittering
Plains as the representative of the heathen doctrine. The author would
not have done this if he had not believed that the ruler of the
Glittering Plains had his ancestors in heathendom.


The saga of Thorstein Bćarmagn puts Gudmund and the Glittering Plains
in a tributary relation to Jotunheim and to Geirrod, the giant, well
known in the mythology.


Saxo makes Gudmund Geirrod's (Geruthus') brother, and he believes he is
discussing ancient traditions when he relates Gormn's journey of
discovery and Hadding's journey to Jotunheim. Gorm's reign is referred
by Saxo to the period immediately following the reign of the mythical
King Snö (Snow) and time emigration of the Longobardians. Hadding's
descent to the lower world occurred, according to Saxo, in an antiquity
many centuries before King Snow. Hadding is,in Saxo, one of the first
kings of Denmark, the grandson of Skjold, progenitor of the Skjoldungs.


The saga of Erik Vidforle makes the way to Odainsaker pass through
Syria, India, and an unknown land which wants the light of the sun, and
where the stars are visible all day long. On the other side of
Odainsaker, and ing on it, lies the land of the happy spirits, Paradise.


That these last ideas have been influenced by Christianity would seem
to be sufficiently clear. Nor do we find a trace of Syria, India, and
Paradise as soon as we leave this saga and pass to the others, in the
chain of which it forms one of the later links. All the rest agree in
transferring to the uttermost North the land which must be reached
before the journey can be continued to the Glittering Plains and
Odainsaker. Hervor's saga says that the Glittering Plains and Odainsaker
are situated north of Halogaland, in Jotunheim; Herrod's and Bose's saga
states that they are situated in the vicinity of Bjarmaland. The saga of
Thorstein Bćarmagn says that they are a kingdom subject to Geirrod in
Jotunheim. Gorm's saga in Saxo says it is necessary to sail past
Halogaland north to a Bjarmia ulterior' in order to get to the kingdoms
of Gudmund and Geirrod. The saga of Helge Thoreson makes its hero meet
the daughters of Gudmund, the ruler of the Glittering Plains, after a
voyage to Finmarken. Hadding's saga in Saxo makes the Danish king pay a
visit to the unknown but wintry cold land of the "Nitherians," when he
is invited to make a journey to the lower world. Thus the older and
common view was that he who made the attempt to visit the Glittering
Plains and Odainsaker must first penetrate the regions of the uttermost
North, known only by hearsay.


Those of the sagas which give us more definite local descriptions in
addition to this geographical information all agree that the region
which forms, as it were, a foreground to the Glittering Plains and
Odainsaker is a land over which the darkness of night broods. As just
indicated, Erik Vidforle's saga claims that the stars there are visible
all day long. Gorm's saga in Saxo makes the Danish adventurers heave sun
and stars behind to continue the journey sub Chao. Darkness, fogs, and
mists envelop Hadding before he gets sight of the splendidly-clad
proceres who dwell down there, and the shining meadows whose flowers are
never visited by winter. The Frisian saga in Adam of Bremen also speaks
of a gloom which must be penetrated ere one reaches the land where rich
giants dwell in subterranean caverns.


Through this darkness one comes, according to the saga of Erik
Vidforle, to a plain full of flowers, delicious fragrances, rivers of
honey (a Biblical idea, but see Nos. 89, 123), and perpetual light. A
river separates this plain from the land of the spirits.


Through the same darkness, according to Gorm's saga, one comes to
Gudmund's Glittering Plains, where there is a pleasure-farm bearing
delicious fruits, while in that Bjarmaland whence the Glittering Plains
can be reached reign eternal winter and cold. A river separates the
Glittering Plains from two or niore other domains, of which at least one
is the home of departed souls. There is a bridge of gold across the
river to another region, "which separates that which is mortal from the
superhuman," and on whose soil a mortal being must not set his foot.
Further on one can pass in a boat across the river to a land which is
the place of punishment for the damned and a resort of ghosts.


Through the same darkness one comes, according to Hadding's saga, to a
subterranean land where flowers grow in spite of the winter which reigns
on the surface of the earth. The land of flowers is separated from the
Elysian fields of those fallen in battle by a river which hurls about in
its eddies spears and other weapons.


These statements from different sources agree with each othem' in their
main features. They agree that the lower world is divided into two niain
parts by a river, and that departed souls are found only on the farther
side of the river.


The other main part on this side the river thus has another purpose
than that of receiving the happy or damned souls of the dead. There
dwells, according to Gorm's saga, the giant Gudmund, with his sons and
daughters. There are also the Glittering Plains, since these, according
to Hervor's, Herrod's, Thorstein Bćarmagn's, and Helge Thoreson's sagas,
are ruled by Gudmund.


Some of the accounts cited say that the Glittering Plains are situated
in Jotunheim. This statement does not contradict the fact that they are
situated in the lower world. The myths mention two Jotunheims, and hence
the Eddas employ the plural form, Jotunheimar. One of the Jotunheims is
located on the surface of tIme earth in the far North and East,
separated from the Midgard inhabited by man by the uttermost sea or the
Elivogs (Gylfaginning, 8).


The other Jotunheim is subterranean. According to Vafthrudnismal (31),
one of the roots of the world-tree extends down "to the frost-giants ".
Urd and her sisters, who guard one of the fountains of Ygdrasil's roots,
are giantesses. Mimir, who guards another fountain in the lower world,
is called a giant. That part of the world which is inhabited by the
goddesses of fate and by Mimir is thus inhabited by giants, and is a
subterranean Jotunheim. Both these Jotunheims are connected with each
other. From the upper there is a path leading to the lower. Therefore
those traditions recorded in a Christian age, which we are here
discussing, have referred to the Arctic Ocean and the uttermost North as
the route for those who have the desire and courage to visit the giants
of the lower world.


When it is said in Hadding's saga that lie on the other side of the
subterranean river saw the shades of heroes fallen by the sword arrayed
in line of battle and contending with each other, then this is no
contradiction of the myth, according to which the heroes chosen on the
battle-field come to Asgard and play their warlike games on the plains
of the world of the gods.


In Völuspa (str. 24) we read that when the first "folk "-war broke out
in the world, the citadel of Odin and his clan was stormed by the Vans,
who broke through its bulwark and captured Asgard. In harmony with this,
Saxo (Hist., i.) relates that at the time when King Hadding reigned Odin
was banished from his power and lived for some time in exile (see Nos.
36-41).


It is evident that no great battles can have been fought, and that
there could not have been any great number of sword-fallen men, before
the first great. "folk "-war broke out in the world. Otherwise this war
would not have been the first. Thus Valhal has not before this war had
those hosts of einherjes who later ai'e feasted in Valfather's hall. But
as Odin, after the breaking out of this war, is banished from Valhal and
Asgard, and does not return before peace is made between the Asas and
Vans, then none of the einnherjes chosen by him could be received in
Valhal during the war. Hence it follows that the heroes fallen in this
war, though chosen by Odin, must have been referred to some other place
than Asgard (excepting, of course, all those chosen by the Vans, in case
they chose einherjes, which is probable, f(rr the reason that the
Vanadis Freyja gets, after the reconciliation with Odin, the right to
divide with him the choice of the slain). This other place can nowhere
else be so appropriately looked for as in the lower world, which we know
was destined to receive the souls of the dead. And as Hadding, who,
according to Saxo, descended to the lower world, is, according to Saxo,
the same Hadding during whose reign Odin was banished from Asgard, then
it follows that the statement of the saga, making him see in the lower
world those warlike games which else are practised on Asgard's plains,
far from contradicting the myth, on the contrary is a consequence of the
connection of the mythical events.


The river which is mentioned in Erik Vidforle's, Germ's, and Hadding's
sagas has its prototype in the mythic records. When Hermod on Sleipner
rides to tIme lower world (Gylfaginning, 10) he first journeys through a
dark country (compare above) and then comes to the river Gjöll, over
which there is the golden bridge called the Gjallar bridge. On the other
side of Gjöll is the Helgate, which leads to the realm of the dead. In
Gorm's saga the bridge across the river is also of gold, and it is
forbidden mortals to cross to the other side.


A subterranean river hurling weapons in its eddies is mentioned in
Völuspa, 33. In Hadding's saga we also read of a weapon-hurling river
which forms the boundary of the Elyseum of those slain by the sword.


In Vegtamskvida is mentioned an underground dog, bloody about the
breast, coming from Nifelhel, the proper place of punishment. In Gorm's
saga the bulwark around the city of the damned is guarded by great dogs.
The word "nifel" (nifl, the German Nebel), which forms one part of the
word Nifelhel, means mist, fog. In Gorm's saga the city in question is
most like a cloud of vapour (vaporanti maxime nubi simile).


Saxo's description of that house of torture, which is found within the
city, is not unlike Völuspa's description of that dwelling of torture
called Nastrand, In Saxo the floor of the house consists of serpents
wattled together, and the roof of sharp stings. In Völuspa the hall is
made of serpents braided together, whose heads from above spit venom
down on those dwelling there. Saxo speaks of soot a century old on the
door frames; Völuspa of ljórar, air-and smoke-openings in the roof (see
further Nos. 77 and 78).


Saxo himself points out that the Geruthus (Geirrödr) mentioned by him,
and his famous daughters, belong to the myth about the Asa-god Thor.
That Geirrod after his death is transferred to the lower world is no
contradiction to the heathen belief, according to which beautiful or
terrible habitations await the dead, not only of men but also of other
beings. Compare Gylfaginning, ch. 46, where Thor with one blow of his
Mjolner sends a giant nir undir' Niflhel (see further, No. 60).


As Mimir's and Urd's fountains are found in the lower world (see Nos.
63, 93), and as Mimir is mentioned as the guardian of Heimdal's horn and
other treasures, it might be expected that these circumstances would not
be forgotten in those stories from Christian times which have been cited
above and found to have roots in the myths.


When in Saxo's saga about Gorm the Danish adventurers had left the
horrible city of fog, they came to another place in the lower world
where the gold-plated mead-cisterns were found. The Latin word used by
Saxo, which I translate with cisterns of mead, is dolium.. In the
classical Latin this word is used in regard to wine-cisterns of so
immense a size that they were counted among the immovables, and usually
were sunk in the cellar floors. They were so large that a person could
live in such a cistern, and this is also reported as having happened.
That the word dolium still in Saxo's time had a similar meaning appears
from a letter quoted by Du Cange, written by Saxo's younger
contemporary, Bishop Gebhard. The size is therefore no obstacle to Saxo
's using this word for a wine-cistern to mean the mead-wells in the
lower world of Teutonic mythology. The question now is whether he
actually did so, or whether the subterranean dolia in question are
objects in regard to which our earliest mythic records have left us in
ignorance.


In Saxo's time, and earlier, the epithets by which the meadwells'Urd's
and Mimir's'and their contents are mentioned in mythological songs had
come to be applied also to those meadbuckets which Odin is said to have
emptied in the halls of the giant Fjalar or Suttung. This application
also lay near at hand, since these wells and these vessels contained the
same liquor, and since it originally, as appears from the meaning of the
words, was the liquor, and not the place where the liquor was kept, to
which the epithets Orćrir, Bon, and Son applied. In Havamál (107) Odin
expresses his joy that Orćrir has passed out of the possession of the
giant Fjalar and can be of use to the beings of the upper world. But if
we may trust Bragar. (ch. 5), it is the drink and not the empty vessels
that Odin takes with him to Valhal. On this supposition, it is the drink
and not one of the vessels which in Havamál is called Odrćrir. In
Havamál (140) Odin relates how he, through self-sacrifice and suffering,
succeeded in getting runic songs up from the deep, and also a drink
dipped out of Odrćrir. He who gives hini the songs and the drink, and
accordingly is the ruler of the fountain of the drink, is a man,
"Bolthorn's celebrated son ". Here again Odrćrer is one of the
subterranean fountains, and no doubt Mimir's, since the one who pours
out the drink is a man. But in Forspjalsljod (2) Urd's fountain is also
called Odrćrer (Odhrćrir Urdar'). Paraphrases for the liquor of poetry,
such as "Bodn's growing billow" (Einar Skalaglam) and "Son's reed-grown
grass edge" (Eihf Gudmason), point to fountains or wells, not to
vessels. Meanwhile a satire was composed before the time of Saxo and
Sturlason about Odin's adventure at Fjalar's, and the author of this
song, the contents of which the Younger Edda has preserved, calls the
vessels which Odin empties at the giant's Odhrćrir', Bodn, and Són
(Brogarćdur, 6). Saxo, who reveals a familiarity with the genuine
heathen, or supposed heathen, poems handed down to his time, may thus
have seen the epithets Odrćrir, Bon, and Són applied both to the
subterranean mead-wells and to a giant's mead-vessels. The greater
reason he would have for selecting the Latin dolium to express an idea
that cami be accommodated to both these objects.


Over these mead-reservoirs there hang, according to Saxo's description,
round-shaped objects of silver, which in close braids drop down and are
spread around the seven times gold-plated walls of the mead-cisterns. 


Over Mimir's and Urd's fountains hang the roots of the ash Ygdrasil,
which sends its root-knots and root-threads down into their waters. But
not only the rootlets sunk in the water, but also the roots from which
they are suspended, partake of the waters of the fountains. The norns
take daily from the water and sprinkle the stem of the tree therewith,
"and the water is so holy," says Gylfagianing (16), "that everything
that is put in the well (consequently, also, all that which the norns
daily sprinkle with the water) becomes as white as the membrane between
the egg and the egg-shell ". Also the root over Mimir's fountain is
sprinkled with its water (Völusp., Cod. R., 28), and this water, so far
as its colour is concerned, seems to be of the same kind as that in
Urd's fountain, for the latter is called hvítr aurr (Völusp., 18) and
the former runs in aurgum forsi upon its root of the world-tree
(Völusp., 28). The adjective aurigr, which describes a quality of the
water in Mimir's fountain, is formed from the noun aurr, with which the
liquid is described which waters the root over Urd's fountain.
Ygdrasil's roots, as far up as the liquid of the wells can get to them,
thus have a colour like that of "the membrane between the egg and the
egg-shell," and consequently recall both as to position, form, and
colour the round-shaped objects "of silver" which, according to Saxo,
hang down and are intertwined in the meadreservoirs of the lower world.


Mimir's fountain contains, as we know, the purest mead'the liquid of
inspiration, of poetry, of wisdom, of understanding.


Near by Ygdrasil, according to Völuspa (27), Heimdal's horn is
concealed. The seeress in Völuspa knows that it is hid "beneath the
hedge-o'ershadowing holy tree ".


 lnde digressis dolia septem zonis nureis circumligata panduntur,
quibus pensiles ex argento circuli crebros inseruerant nexus.


Veit hon Heimdallar hljod um fólgit undir heidvönum helgum badmi.


Near one of the mead-cisterns in the lower world Gorm's men see a horn
ornamented with pictures and flashing with precious stones.


Among the treasures taken care of by Mimir is the world's foremost
sword and a wonderful arm-ring, smithied by the same master as made the
sword (see Nos. 87, 98, 101).


Near the gorgeous horn Gorm's men see a gold-plated tooth of an animal
and an arm-ring. The animal tooth beconies a sword when it is taken into
the hand. Near by is a treasury filled with a large number of weapons
and a royal robe. Mimir is known in mythology as a collector of
treasures. He is therefore called Hoddmimir, Hoddropnir, Baugregin.


Thus Gorm and his men have on their journeys in the lower world seen
not only Nastrand's place of punishment in Nifelhel, but also the holy
land, where Mimir reigns.


When Gorm and his men desire to cross the golden bridge and see the
wonders to which it leads, Gudmund prohibits it. When they in another
place farther up desire to cross the river to see what there is beyond,
he consents and has them taken over in a boat. He does not deem it
proper to show them the unknown land at the golden bridge, but it is
within the limits of his authority to let them see the places of
punishment and those regions which contain the mead-cisterns and the
treasure chambers. The sagas call him the king on the Glittering Plains,
and as the Glittering Plains are situated in the lower world, he must be
a lower world ruler.


Two of the sagas, Helge Thoreson's and Gorm's, cast a shadow on
Gudmund's character. In the former this shadow does not produce
confusion or contradiction. The saga is a legend which represents
Christianity, with Olaf Trygveson as its apostle, in conflict with
heathenism, represented by Gudmund. It is therefore natural that the
latter cannot be presented in the most favourable light.


 The word biti = a tooth (cp. bite) becomes in the composition
leggbiti, the name of a sword.


Olaf destroys with his prayers the happiness of Gudmund's daughter. He
compels her to abandon her lover, and Gudmund, who is unable to take
revenge in any other manner, tries to do so, as is the case with so many
of the characters in saga and history, by treachery. This is demanded by
the fundamental idea and tendency of the legend. What the author of the
legend has heard about Gudmund's character from older sagamen, or what
he has read in records, he does not, however, conceal with silence, but
admits that Gudmund, aside from his heathen religion and grudge toward
Olaf Trygveson, was a man in whose home one might fare well and be happy.


Saxo has preserved the shadow, but in his narrative it produces the
greatest contradiction. Gudmund offers fruits, drinks, and embraces in
order to induce his guests to remain with him for ever, and he does it
in a tempting manner and, as it seems, with conscious cunning.
Nevertheless, line shows unlimited patience when the guests insult him
by accepting nothing of what he offers. When he comes down to the
sea-strand, where Gorm's ships are anchored, he is greeted by the leader
of the discoverers with joy, because he is "the most pious being and
man's protector in perils ". He conducts them in safety to his castle.
When a handful of them returns after the attempt to plunder the treasury
of the lower world, he considers the crime sufficiently punished by the
loss of life they have suffered, and takes them across the river to his
own safe home ; and when they, contrary to his wishes, desire to return
to their native land, he loads them with gifts and sees to it that they
get safely on board their ships. It follows that Saxo s sources have
described Gudmund as a kind and benevolent person. Here, as in the
legend about Helge Thoreson, the shadow has been thrown by younger hands
upon an older background painted in bright colours.


Hervor's saga says that he was wise, mighty, in a heathen sense pious
(" a great sacrificer"), and so honoured that sacrifices were offered to
him, and he was worshipped as a god after death. Herrod's saga says that
he was greatly skilled in magic arts, which is another expression for
heathen wisdom, for fimbul-songs, runes, and incantations.


The change for the worse which Gudmund's character seems in part to
have suffered is confirmed by a change connected with, and running
parallel to it, in the conception of the forces in those things which
belonged to the lower world of the Teutonic heathendom and to Gudmund's
domain, In Saxo we find an idea related to the antique Lethe myth,
according to which the liquids and plants which belong to the lower
world produce forgetfulness of the past. Therefore, Thorkil (Thorkillus)
warns his companions not to eat or drink any of that which Gudmund
offers them. In the Gudrun song (ii. 21, 22), and elsewhere, we meet
with the same idea. I shall return to this subject (see No. 50).


50.


ANALYSIS OF THE SAGAS MENTIONED IN Nos. 44-48. THE QUESTION IN REGARD
TO THE IDENTIFICATION OF ODAINSAKER.


Is Gudmund an invention of Christian times, although he is placed in an
environment which in general and in detail reflects the heathen
mythology' Or is there to be found in the mythology a person who has
precisely the same environment and is endowed with the same attributes
and qualities'


The latter form an exceedingly strange ensera ble, and can therefore
easily be recognised. Ruler in the lower world, and at the same time a
giant. Pious and still a giant. King in a domain to which winter cannot
penetrate. Within that domain an enclosed place, whose bulwark neither
sickness, nor age, nor death can surmount. It is heft to his power and
pleasure to give admittance to the mysterious meadows, where the
mead-cisterns of the lower world are found, and where the most precious
of all horns, a wonderful sword, and a splendid arm-ring are kept. Old
as the hills, but yet subject to death. Honoured as if he were not a
giant, but a divine being. These are the features which together
characterise Gudmund, and should be found in his mythological prototype,
if there is one. With these peculiar characteristics are united wisdom
and wealth.


The answer to the question whether a mythical original of this picture
is to be discovered will be given below. But before that we must call
attention to some points in the Christian accounts cited in regard to
Odainsaker.


Odainsaker is not made identical with the Glittering Plains, but is a
separate place on them, or at all events within Gudmund's domain. Thus
according to Hervor's saga. The correctness of the statement is
confirmed by comparison with Gorm's and Hadding's sagas. The former
mentions, as will be remembered, a place which Gudmund does not consider
himself authorised to show his guests, although they are permitted to
see other mysterious places in the lower world, even the mead-fountains
and treasure-chambers. To the unknown place, as to Balder's subterranean
dwelling, leads a golden bridge, which doubtless is to indicate the
splendour of the place. The subterranean goddess, who is Hadding's guide
in Hades, shows him both the Glittering Fields (loca aprica) and the
plains of the dead heroes, but stops with him near a wall, which is not
opened for them. The domain surrounded by the wall receives nothing
which has suffered death, and its very proximity seems to be enough to
keep death at bay (see No. 47).


All the sagas are silent in regard to who those beings are for whom
this wonderful enclosed place is intended. Its very name, A
crc-of-the-not-dead (Odainsakr), and The -field-of-the -living (Jörd
lifanda manna), however, makes it clear that it is not intended for the
souls of the dead. This Erik Vidforle's saga is also able to state,
inasmuch as it makes a definite distinction between Odainsaker and the
land of the spirits, between Odainsakr and Paradise. If human or other
beings are found within the bulwark of the place, they must have come
there as living beings in a physical sense; and when once there, they
are protected from perishing, for diseases, age, and death are excluded.


Erik Vidforle and his companion find on their journey on Odainsaker
only a single dwelling, a splendid one with two beds. Who the couple are
who own this house, and seem to have placed it at the disposal of the
travellers, is not stated. But in the night there came a beautiful lad
to Erik. The author of the saga has made him an angel, who is on duty on
the s between Odainsaker and Paradise.


The purpose of Odainsaker is not mentioned in Erik Vidforle's saga.
There is no intelligible connection between it and the Christian
environment given to it by the saga. The ecclesiastical belief knows an
earthly Paradise, that which existed in the beginning and was the home
of Adam and Eve, but that it is guarded by the angel with the flaming
sword, or, as Erik's saga expresses it, it is encircled by a wall of
fire. In the lower world the Christian Church knows a Hades and a hell,
but tIme path to them is through the gates of death; physically living
persons, persons who have not paid tribute to death, are not found
there. In the Christian group of ideas there is no place for Odainsaker.
An underground place for physically living people, who are there no
longer exposed to aging and death, has nothing to do in the economy of
the Church. Was there occasion for it among the ideas of the heathen
eschatology' The above-quoted sagas say nothing about the purposes of
Odainsaker. Here is therefore a question of importance to our subject,
and one that demands an answer.


51.


GUDMUND'S IDENTITY WITH MIMIR.


I dare say the most characteristic figure of Teutonic mythology is
Mimir, the lord of the fountain which bears his name. The liquid
contained in the fountain is the object of Odin's deepest desire He has
neither authority nor power over it. Nor does lie or anyone else of the
gods seek to get control of it by force. Instances are mentioned showing
that Odin, to get a drink from it, niust subject himself to great
sufferings and sacrifices (Völuspa, Cod. Reg., 28, 29; Havamál, 138-140;
Gylfag., 15), and it is as a gift or a loan that he afterwards receives
from Mimir the invigorating and soul-inspiring drink (Havamál, 140,
141). Over the fountain and its territory Mimir, of course, exercises
unlimited control, an authority which the gods never appear to have
disputed. He has a sphere of power which the gods recognise as
inviolable. The domain of his rule belongs to the lower world; it is
situated under one of the roots of the world-tree (Völuspa, 28, 29;
Gylfag., 15), and when Odin, from the world-tree, asks for the precious
niead of the fountain, he peers downward into the deep, and thence
brings up the runes (nysta ec niţr, nam cc up rrúnar'Havamál, 139).
Saxo's account of the adventure of Hotherus (Hist., pp. 113'115,
Müller's ed.) shows that there was thought to be a descent to Mimir's
land in the form of a mountain cave (specus), and that this descent was,
like the one to Gudmund's domain, to be found in tIme uttermost North,
where terrible cold reigns.


Though a giant, Mimir is the friend of the order of the world and of
the gods. He, like Urd, guards the sacred ash, the world-tree (Völuspa,
28), which accordingly also bears his name and is called Mimir's tree
(Mimameidr'Fjolsvinsm, 20; meidr Mima' Fjolsv., 24). The intercourse
between the Asa-father and him has been of such a nature that the
expression "Mimir's friend" (Mimsvinr'Sonatorrek, 22; Younger Edda, i.
238, 250, 602) could be used by the skalds as an epithet of Odin. Of
this friendship Ynglingasaga (ch. 4) has preserved a record. It makes
Mimir lose his life in his activity for the good of the gods, and makes
Odin embalm his head, in order that he may always be able to get wise
counsels from its lips. The song about Sigrdrifa (str. 14) represents
Odin as listening to the words of truth which come from Mimir's head.
Völuspa (str. 45) predicts that Odin, when Ragnarok approaches, shall
converse with Mimir's head; and, according to Gylfaginning (56), he,
immediately before the conflagration of the world, rides to Mimir's
fountain to get advice from the deep thinker for himself and his
friends. The firm friendship between Alfather and this strange giant of
the lower world was formed in time's morning while Odin was still young
and undeveloped (Hay., 141), and continued until the end of the gods and
the world.


Mimir is the collector of treasures. The same treasures as Gorm and his
men found in the land which Gudmund let them visit are, according to
mythology, in the care of Mimir. The wonderful horn (Völuspa, 28), the
sword of victory, and the ring (Saxo, Hist., 113, 114; cp. Nos. 87, 97,
98, 101, 103).


In all these points the Gudmund of the middle-age sagas and Mimir of
the mythology are identical. There still remains an important point. In
Gudmund's domain there is a splendid grove, an enclosed place, from
which weaknesses, age, and death are banished'a Paradise of the peculiar
kind, that it is not intended for the souls of the dead, but for certain
lifandi men, yet inaccessible to people in general. In the myth
concerning Mimir we also find such a grove.


52.


MIMIR'S GROVE. LIF AND LEIFTHRASER.


The grove is called after its ruler and guardian, Mimir's or
Treasure-Mimir's grove (Mimis holt'Younger Edda, Upsala Codex; Gylfag.,
58; Hoddmimis holt'Vafthrudnism, 45; Gylfag., 58).


Gylfaginning describes the destruction of the world and its
regeneration, and then relates how the earth, rising out of the sea, is
furnished with human inhabitants. "During the conflagration (i
Surtarloga) two persons are concealed in Treasure-Mimir's grove. Their
names are Lif (Lif) and Leifthraser (Leifţrasir), and they feed on the
morning dews. From them come so great an offspring that all the world is
peopled."


In support of its statement Gylfaginning quotes Vafthrudnersmal. This
poem makes Odin and the giant Vafthrudner (Vafţrúdnir) put questions to
each other, and among others Odin asks this question:


Fiolţ ec for, fiolţ ec freistaţac, fiolţ ec um reynda regin: hvat lifir
manna, ţa er inn mćra liţr fimbulvetr meţ firom'


"Much I have travelled, much I have tried, much I have tested the
powers. What human persons shall still live when the famous
fimbul-winter has been in the world '"


Vafthrudner answers:


Lif oc Leifţrasir, enn ţau leynaz muno i holti Hoddmimis;
morgindauggvar ţau ser at mat hafa enn ţadan af aldir alaz.


"Lif and Leifthraser (are still living); they are concealed in
HoddMimer's grove. They have morning dews for nourishment. Thence (from
Hodd-Mimir's grove and this buman pair) are born (new) races."


Gylfaginning says that the two human beings, Lif and Leifthraser, who
become the progenitors of the races that are to people the earth after
Ragnarok, are concealed during the conflagration of the world in
Hodd-Mimir's grove. This is, beyond doubt, in accordance with mythic
views. But mythologists, who have not paid sufficient attention to what
Gylfaginning's source (Vafthrudnersmal) has to say on the subject, have
from the above expression drawn a conclusion which implies a complete
misunderstanding of the traditions in regard to Hodd-Mimir's grove and
the human pair therein concealed. They have assumed that Lif and
Leifthraser are, like all other people living at that time, inhabitants
of the surface of the earth at the time when the conflagration of the
world begins. They have explained Mimir's grove to mean the world-tree,
and argued that when Surt's flames destroy all other mortals this one
human pair have succeeded in climbing upon some particular branch of the
world-tree, where they were protected from the destructive element.
There they were supposed to live on morning dews until the end of
Ragnarok, and until they could come down from their hiding-place in
Ygdrasil upon the earth which has risen from the sea, and there become
the progenitors of a more happy human race.


According to this interpretation, Ygdrasil was a tree whose trunk and
branches could be grasped by human bands, and one or more mornings, with
attendant morning dews, are assumed to have come and gone, while fire
and flames enveloped all creation, and after the sun had been swallowed
by the wolf and the stars had fallen from the heavens (Gylfag., 55;
Völusp., 54)! And with this terrible catastrophe before their eyes, Lif
and Leifthraser are supposed to sit in perfect unconcern, eating the
morning dews!


For the scientific reputation of mythical inquiry it were well if that
sort of investigations were avoided when they are not made necessary by
the sources themselves.


If sufficient attention had been paid to the above-cited evidence
furnished by Vafthrudnersmal in this question, the misunderstanding
might have been avoided, and the statement of Gylfaginning would not
have been interpreted to mean that Lif and Leifthraser inhabited Mimir's
grove only during Ragnarok. For Vafthrudnersmal plainly states that this
human pair are in perfect security in Mimir's grove, while a long and
terrible winter, a fimbul-winter, visits the earth and destroys its
inhabitants. Not until after the end of this winter do giants and gods
collect their forces for a decisive conflict on Vigrid's plains; and
when this conflict is ended, then comes the conflagration of the world,
and after it the regeneration. Anent the length of the fimbulwinter,
Gylfaginning (oh. 55) claims that it continued for three years "without
any intervening summer".


Consequently Lif and Leifthraser must have had their secure place of
refuge in Mimir's grove during the fimbul-winter, which precedes
Ragnarok. And, accordingly, the idea that they were there only during
Ragnarok, and all the strange conjectures based thereon, are unfounded.
They continue to remain there while the winter rages, and during all the
episodes which characterise the progress of the world towards ruin, and,
finally, also, as Gylfaginning reports, during the conflagration and
regeneration of the world.


Thus it is explained why the myth finds it of importance to inform us
how Lif and Leifthraser support themselves during their stay in Mimir's
grove. It would not have occurred to the myth to present and answer this
question had not the sojourn of the human pair in the grove continued
for some length of time. Their food is the morning dew. The morning dew
from Ygdrasil was, according to the mythology, a sweet and wonderful
nourishment, and in tIme popular traditions of the Teutonic middle age
the dew of the morning retained its reputation for having strange,
nourishing qualities. According to the myth, it evaporates from the
world-tree, which stands, ever green and blooming, over Urd's and
Mimir's sacred fountains, and drops thence "in dales" (Voluspa, 18, 28;
Gylfag., 16). And as the world-tree is sprinkled and gets its
life-giving sap from these fountains, then it follows that the liquid of
its nnorning dew is substantially the same as that of the subterranean
fountains, which contain the elixir of life, wisdom, and poesy (cp. Nos.
72, 82, and elsewhere).


At what time Mimir's grove was opened as an asylum for Lif and
iLeifthraser, whether this happened during or shortly before the
fimbul-winter, or perchance long before it, on this point there is not a
word in tIme passages quoted from Vafthrudnersmal. But by the following
investigation time problem shall be solved.


The Teutonic mythology has not looked upon the regeneration of the
world as a new creation. The life which in time's morning developed out
of chaos is not destroyed by Surt's flames, but rescues itself,
purified, for the coining age of the world. The world-tree survives the
conflagration, for it defies both edge and fire (Fjolsvinnsm, 20, 21).
The Ida-plains are not annihilated. After Ragnarok, as in the beginning
of time, they are the scene of the assemblings of the gods (Voluspa, 57;
cp. 7). Vanaheim is not affected by the destruction, for Njord shall in
aldar rauc (Vafthrudnersmal, 39) return thither "to wise Vans". Odin's
dwellings of victory remain, and are inhabited after regeneration by
Balder and Hodr (Völuspa, 59). The new sun is the daughter of the old
one, and was born before Ragnarok (Vafthr., 47), which she passes
through unscathed. The ocean does not disappear in Ragnarok, for the
present earth sinks beneath its surface (Voluspa, 54), and the new earth
after regeneration rises from its deep (Völuspa, 55). Gods survive
(Völuspa, 53, 56; Vafthr. 51; Gylfag., 58). Human beings survive, for
Lif and Leifthraser are destined to become the connecting link between
the present human race and the better race which is to spring therefrom.
Animals and plants survive'though the animals and plants on the surface
of the earth perish; but the earth risen from the sea was decorated with
green, and there is not the slightest reference to a new act of creation
to produce the green vegetation. Its cascades contain living beings, and
over them flies the eagle in search of his prey (Voluspa, 56; see
further, No. 55). A work of art from antiquity is also preserved in the
new world. The game of dice, with which the gods played in their youth
while they were yet free from care, is found again among the flowers on
the new earth (Voluspa, 8, 58; see further, No. 55).


If the regeneration had been conceived as a new creation, a wholly new
beginning of life, then the human race of the new era would also have
started from a new creation of a human pair. The myth about Lif and
Leifthraser would then have been unnecessary and superfluous. But the
fundamental idea is that the life of the new era is to be a continuation
of the present life purified and developed to perfection, and from the
standpoint of this fundamental idea Lif and Leifthraser are necessary.


The idea of improvement and perfection are most clearly held forth in
regard to both the physical and spiritual condition of the future world.
All that is weak and evil shall be redeemed (bauls mun allz
batna'Völuspa, 59). In that perfection of nature the fields unsown by
men shall yield their harvests. To secure the restored world against
relapse into the faults of the former, the myth applies radical
measures'so radical, that the Asa majesty himself, Valfather, must
retire from the scene, in order that his son, the perfectly blameless
Balder, may be the centre in the assembly of the chosen gods. But the
mythology would fail in its purpose if it did not apply equally radical
measures in the choice and care of the human beings who are to
perpetuate our race after Ragnarok; for if the progenitors have within
them the seed of corruption, it will be developed in their descendants.


Has the mythology forgotten to meet this logical claim' The demand is
no greater than that which is made in reference to every product of the
fancy of whatever age. I do not mean to say that a logical claim made on
the mythology, or that a conclusion which may logically be drawn from
the premisses of the mythology, is to be considered as evidence that the
claim has actually been met by the mythology, and that the mythology
itself has been developed into its logical conclusion. I simply want to
point out what the claim is, and in the next place I desire to
investigate whether there is evidence that the claim has been honoured.


From the standpoint that there must be a logical harmony in the
mythological system, it is necessary:


1. That Lif and Leifthraser when they enter their asylum, Mimir's
grove, are physically and spiritually uncorrupted persons.


2. That during their stay in Mimir's grove they are protected against:


(a) Spiritual degradation.


(b) Physical degradation.


(c) Against everything threatening their very existence.


So far as the last point (2c) is concerned, we know already from
Vafthrudnersmal that the place of refuge they received in the vicinity
of those fountains, which, with never-failing veins, nourish the life of
the world-tree, is approached neither by the frost of the fimbul-winter
nor by the flames of Ragnarok. This claim is, therefore, met completely.


In regard to the second point (2b), the above-cited mythic traditions
have preserved fronn the days of heathendom the memory of a grove in the
subterranean domain of Gudmund-Mimir, set aside for living men, not for
the dead, and protected against sickness, aging, and death. Thus this
claim is met also.


As to the third point (2a), all we know at present is that there, in
the lower world, is found an enclosed place, the very one which death
cannot enter, and from which even those mortals are banished by divine
command who are admitted to the holy fountains and treasure chambers of
the lower world, and who have been permitted to see the regions of bliss
and places of Punishment theme. It would therefore appear that all
contact between those who dwell there and those who take part in the
events of our world is cut off. The realms of Mimir and the lower world
have, according to the sagas'and, as we shall see later, according to
the myths themselves'now and then been opened to bold adventurers, who
have seen their wonders, looked at their remarkable fountains, their
plains for the amusement of the shades of heroes, and their places of
punishment of the wicked. But then'e is one place which has been
inaccessible to them, a field proclaimed inviolable by divine command
(Gorm's saga), a place surrounded by a wall, which can be entered only
by such beings as can pass through the smallest crevices (Hadding's
saga). But that this difficulty of entrance also was meant to exclude
the moral evil, by which the mankind of our age is stained, is not
expressly stated.


Thus we have yet to look and see whether the original documents from
the heathen times contain any statements which can shed light on this
subject. In regard to the point (1), the question it contains as to
whether the mythology conceived Lif and Leifthraser as physically and
morally undefiled at the time when they entered Minier's grove, can only
be solved if we, in the old records, can find evidence that a wise,
foreseeing power opened Mimir's grove as as asylum for them, at a time
when mankind as a whole had not yet become the prey of physical and
moral misery. But in that very primeval age in which time most of the
events of mythology are supposed to have happened, creation had already
become the victim of corruption. There was a time when the life of the
gods was happiness and the joy of youthful activity; the condition of
the world did not cause them anxiety, and, free from care, they amused
themselves with the wonderful dice (Völuspa, 7, 8). But the golden age
ended in physical and moral catastrophies. The air was mixed with
treacherous evil; Freyja, the


 Prodeuntibus murus aditu transcensuque difficilis obsistebat, quem
femina (the subterranean goddess who is Hadding's guide) nequicquam
transilire conata cum ne corrugati quidem exilitate proficeret (Saxo,
Hist. Dan., i. 51).


goddess of fertility and modesty, was treacherously delivered into the
hands of the frost giants; on the earth the sorceress Heid (Hei)
strutted about teaching the secrets of black magic, which was hostile to
the gods and hurtful to man. The first great war broke out in the world
(Völuspa, 21, 22, 26). The effects of this are felt down through the
historical ages even to Ragnarok. The corruption of nature culminates in
the fimbul-winter of the last days; the corruption of mankind has its
climax in "the axe- and knife-ages ". The separation of Lif and
Leifthraser from their race and confinement in Mimir's grove must have
occurred before the above catastrophies in time's beginning, if there is
to be a guarantee that the human race of the new world is not to inherit
and develop the defects and weaknesses of the present historical
generations.


53.


AT WHAT TIME DID LIF AND LEIFTHRASER GET THEIR PLACE OF REFUGE IN
MIMIR'S GROVE' THE ASMEGIR. MIMIR'S POSITION IN MYTHOLOGY. THE NUMINA OF
THE LOWER WORLD.


It is necessary to begin this investigation by pointing out the fact
that there are two versions of the last line of strophe 45 in
Vafthrudnersmal. The version of this line quoted above was'enn ţaan af
aldir alaz: "Thence (from Lif and Leifthraser in Mimir's grove) races
are born ". Codex Upsalensis has instead'ok ţar um alldr alaz: "And they
(Lif and Leifthraser) have there (in Mimir's grove) their abiding place
through ages ". Of course only the one of these versions can, from a
text-historical standpoint, be the original one. But this does not
hinder both from being equally legitimate from a mythological
standpoint, providing both date from a time when the main features of
the myth about Lif and Leifthraser were still remembered. Examples of
versions equally justifiable from a mythological standpoint can be cited
from other literatures than the Norse. If we in the choice between the
two versions pay regard only to the age of the manuscripts, then the one
in Codex Upsalensis, which is copied about the year 1300, has the
preference. It would, however, hardly be prudent to put the chief
emphasis on this fact. Without drawing any conclusions,


 S. Bugge, Sćmund. Edda, xxvi. Thorl. Jonsson's Edda, Snorra St., viii.


I simply point out the fact that the oldest version we possess of the
passage says that Lif and Leifthraser live through ages in Mimir's
grove. Nor is the other version much younger, so far as the manuscript
in which it is found is concerned, and from a mythological standpoint
that, too, is beyond doubt correct.


In two places in the poetic Edda (Vegtamskv, 7, and Fjolsvinnsm., 33)
occurs the word asmegir. Both times it is used in such a manner that we
perceive that it is a mythological terminus technicus having a definite,
limited application. What this application was is not known. It is
necessary to make a most thorough analysis of the passages in order to
find the signification of this word again, since it is of importance to
the subject which we are discussing. I shall begin with the passage in
Fjolsvinnsmal.


The young Svipdag, the hero in Grogalder and in Fjolsvinnsmal, is in
the latter poem represented as standing before the gate of a citadel
which he never saw before, but within the walls of which the maid whom
fate has destined to be his wife resides. Outside of the gate is a
person who is or pretends to be the gatekeeper, and calls himself
Fjolsvinn. He and Svipdag enter into conversation. The conversation
turns chiefly upon the remarkable objects which Svipdag has before his
eyes. Svipdag asks questions about them, and Fjolsvinn gives him
information. But before Svipdag came to the castle, within which his
chosen one awaits him, he has made a remarkable journey (alluded to in
Grogalder), and he has seen strange things (thus in str. 9, 11, 33)
which he compares with those which he now sees, and in regard to which
he also desires information from Fjolsvinn. When the questions concern
objects which are before him at the time of speaking, he employs, as the
logic of language requires, the present tense of the verb (as in strophe
35'segdu mer hvat ţat bjarg heitir, er ek sé brudi á). When he speaks of
what he has seen before and elsewhere, he employs the past tense of the
verb. In strophe 33 he says:


Segdu mér ţat, Pjölsvidr, er ek ţik fregna mun ok ek vilja vita; hverr
ţat gordi, er ek fyr gard sák innan asmaga'


"Tell me that which I ask of you, and which I wish to know, Fjolsvinn:
Who made that which I saw within the castle wall of the asmegir'" 


Fjolsvinn answers (str. 34)


Uni ok In, Ban ok Oni, Varr oh Vegdrasil, Don ok Un; Dellingr ok varar
liţsci alfr, loki.


"Une and Ire, Bare and Ore, Var and Vegdrasil, Dore and Ure, Delling,
the cunning elf, is watchman at the gate." ą


Thus Svipdag has seen a place where beings called 6smegir' dwell. It is
well enclosed and guarded by the elf Delling. The myth must have laid
great stress on the fact that the citadel was well guarded, since
Delling, whose cunning is especially emphasised, has been entrusted with
this task. The citadel must also have been distinguished for its
magnificence and for other qualities, since what Svipdag has seen within
its gates has awakened his


 Looking simply at the form, the strophe may also be translated in the
following manner : "Tell me, Fjolsvinn, what I ask of you, and what I
wish to know. Who of the asmegir made what I saw within the castle wall
'" Against this formal possibility there are, however, several
objections of facts. Svipdag would then be asking Fjolsvinn who had
mnade that which he once in the past had seen within a castle wall
without informing Fjolsvinn in regard to which particular castle wall he
has reference. It also presupposes that Svipdag knew that the asmegir
had made the things in question which were within the castle wall, and
that he only wished to complete his knowledge by finding out which one
or ones of the asmegir it was that had made theni. And finally, it would
follow from Fjolsvinn's answer that the dwarfs he enumerates are sons of
Asas. The formal possibility pointed out has also a formal probability
against it. The gen. pl. asmaga has as its nearest neighbour gard, not
hverr, and should therefore be referred to gard, not to hverr, even
though both the translations gave an equally satisfactory meaning so far
as the facts related are concerned ; but that is not the ease.


ą I follow the text in most of the manuscripts, of which Bugge has
given various versions. One mannscript has in the text, another in the
margin, Lidscialfr, written in one word (instead of liţsci alfr). Of
this Munch made Lidskjalfr. The dative to/ci from to/c, a gate (ep.
lu/ca to/ca, to close, enclose), has been interpreted as Lo/ci, and thus
made tine confusion complete.


astonishment and admiration, and caused him to ask Fjolsvinn about the
name of its builder. Fjolsvinu enumerates not less than eight
architects. At least three of these are known by name in other sources '
namely, the "dwarfs" Var (Sn. Edda, ii. 470, 553), Dore; and Ore. Both
the last-named are also found in the list of dwarfs incorporated in
Voluspa. Both are said to be dwarfs in Dvalin's group of attendants or
servants (í Dvalins lidi'Voluspa, 14).


The problem to the solution of which I am struggling on' namely, to
find the explanation of what beings those are which are called
asmegir'demands first of all that we should find out where the myth
located their dwelling seen by Svipdag, a fact which is of mythological
importance in other respects. This result can be gained, providing
Dvalin's and Delling's real home and the scene of their activity can be
determined. This is particularly important in respect to Delling, since
his office as gate-keeper at the castle of the asmegir demands that he
must have his home where his duties are required. To some extent this is
also true of Dvalin, since the field of his operations cannot have been
utterly foreign to the citadel on whose wonders his sub-artists laboured.


The author of the dwarf-list in Voluspa makes all holy powers assemble
to consult as to who shall create "the dwarfs," the artist-clan of the
mythology. The wording of strophe 10 indicates that on a being by name
Mosognir, Motsognir, was bestowed the dignity of chief  of the proposed
artist-clan, and that he, with the assistance of Dunn (Durinn), carried
out the resolution of the gods, and created dwarfs resembling men. The
author of the dwarf list must have assumed' That Modsogner was one of
the older beings of the world, for the assembly of gods here in question
took place in the morning of time before the creation was completed.


That Modsogner possessed a promethean power of creating.


That he either belonged to the circle of holy powers himself, or stood
in a close and friendly relation to them, since he carried out the
resolve of the gods.


Accordingly, we should take Modsogner to be one of the more remarkable
characters of the mythology. But either he is not


 ţar (in the assembly of the gods) var Modsognir mćstr um ordinn
dverga allra.


mentioned anywhere else than in this place'we look in vain for the name
Modsogner elsewhere'or this name is merely a skaldic epithet, which has
taken the place of a more common name, and which by reference to a
familiar nota characteristica indicates a mythic person well known and
mentioned elsewhere. It cannot be disputed that the word looks like an
epithet. Egilsson (Lex. Poet.) defines it as the mead-drinker. If the
definition is correct, then the epithet were badly chosen if it did not
refer to Mimir, who originally was the sole possessor of the mythic
mead, and who daily drank of it (Voluspa, 29'dreckr miód Mimir morgin
hverjan). Still nothing can be built simply on the definition of a name,
even if it is correct beyond a doubt. All the indices which are
calculated to shed light on a question should be collected and examined.
Only when they all point in the same direction, and give evidence in
favour of one and the same solution of the problem, the latter can be
regarded as settled.


Several of the "dwarfs" created by Modsogner are named in Voluspa,
11-13. Among them are Dvalin. In the opinion of the author of the list
of dwarfs, Dvalin must have occupied a conspicuous place among the
beings to whom he belongs, for he is the only one of them all who is
mentioned as having a number of his own kind as subjects (Voluspa, 14).
The problem as to whether Modsogner is identical with Mimir should
therefore be decided by the answers to the following questions: Is that
which is narrated about Modsogner also narrated of Mimir' Do the
statements which we have about Dvalin show that he was particularly
connected with Mimir and with the lower world, the realm of Mimir'


Of Modsogner it is said (Voluspa, 12) that he was mćstr ordinn dverga
allra: he became the chief of all dwarfs, or, in other words, the
foremost among all artists. Have we any similar report of Mimir'


The German middle-age poem, "Biterolf," relates that its hero possessed
a sword, made by Mimir the Old, Mime der alte, who was the most
excellent smith in the world. To be compared with him was not even
Wieland (Volund, Wayland), still less anyone else, with the one
exception of Hertrich, who was Mimir's co-labourer, and assisted him in
making all the treasures he produced:


Zuo siner (Mimir's) meisterschefte ich nieman kan gelichen in allen
fursten richen an einen, den ich nenne, daz man in dar bi erkenne: Den'
war Hertrich genant. Durch ir sinne craft so hćten sie geselleschaft an
werke und an allen dingen. (Biterolf, 144.)


Vilkinasaga, which is based on both German and Norse sources, states
that Mimir was an artist, in whose workshop the sons of princes and the
most famous smiths learned the trade of the smith. Among his apprentices
are mentioned Velint (Volund), Sigurd-Sven, and Eckihard.


These echoes reverberating far down in Christian times of the myth
about Mimir, as chief of smiths, we also perceive in Saxo. It should be
remembered what he relates about the imcomparable treasures which are
preserved in Gudmund-Mimir's domain, among which in addition to those
already named occur arma humanorum corporum habitu grandiora (i., p.
427), and about Mimingus, who possesses the sword of victory, and an
arm-ring which produces wealth (i. 113, 114). If we consult the poetic
Edda, we find Mimir mentioned as Hodd-Mimir, Treasure-Mimir (Vafthr.
45); as naddgofugr jotunn, the giant celebrated for his weapons
(Grogalder, 14); as Hoddrofnir, or Hodd-dropnir, the treasure-dropping
one (Sigrdr., 13); as Baugreginn, the king of the gold-rings (Solarlj.,
56). And as shall be shown hereafter, the chief smiths are in the poetic
Edda put in connection with Mimir as the one on whose fields they dwell,
or in whose smithy they work.


In the mythology, artistic and creative powers are closely related to
each other. The great smiths of the Rigveda hymns, the Ribhus, make
horses for Indra, create a cow and her calf, make from a single goblet
three equally good, diffuse vegetation over the fields, and make brooks
flow in the valleys (Rigveda, iv. 34, 9; iv. 38, 8; i 20 6, 110, 3, and
elsewhere). This they do although they are "mortals," who by their
merits acquire immortality. In the Teutonic mythology Sindre and Brok
forge from a pig skin Frey's steed, which looks like a boar, and the
sons of Ivalde forge from gold locks that grow like other hair. The ring
Draupnir, which the "dwarfs" Sindre and Brok made, possesses itself
creative power and produces every ninth night eight gold rings of equal
weight with itself (Skaldsk., 37). The "meaddrinker" is the chief and
master of all these artists. And on a closer examination it appears that
Mimir's mead-well is the source of all these powers, which in the
mythology are represented as creating, forming, and ordaining with wisdom.


In Havamal (138-141) Odin relates that there was a time when he had not
yet acquired strength and wisdom. But by self-sacrifice he was able to
prevail on the celebrated Bolthorn son, who dwells in the deep and has
charge of the mead-fountain there and of the mighty runes, to give him
(Odin) a drink from the precious mead, drawn from Odrćrir:


ţa nam ec frovaz

oc frodr vera

oc vaxa oc vet hafaz;

ord men' af ordi

orz leitadi,

verc mer af verki

vercs leitadi.


	

Then I began to bloom
and to be wise,
and to grow and thrive;
word came to me
from word,
deed came to me
from deed.


It is evident that Odin here means to say that the first drink which he
received from Mimir's fountain was the turning-point in his life; that
before that time he had not blossomed, had made no progress in wisdom,
had possessed no eloquence nor ability to do great deeds, but that he
acquired all this from the power of the mead. This is precisely the same
idea as we constantly meet with in Rigveda, in regard to the soma-mead
as the liquid from which the gods got creative power, wisdom, and desire
to accomplish great deeds. Odin's greatest and most celebrated
achievement was that he, with his brothers, created Midgard. Would it
then be reasonable to suppose that he performed this greatest and wisest
of his works before he began to develop fruit, and before he got wisdonu
and the power of activity' It must be evident to everybody that this
would be unreasonable. It is equally manifest that among the works which
he considered himself able to perform after the drink from Mimir's
fountain had given him strength, we must place in the front rank those
for which he is most celebrated: the slaying of the chaos-giant Yimir,
the raising of the crust of the earth, and the creation of Midgard. This
could not be said more clearly than it is stated in the above strophe of
Havamal, unless Odin should have specifically mentioned the works he
performed after receiving the drink. From Mimir's fountain and from
Mimir's hand Odin has, therefore, received his creative power and his
wisdom. We are thus also able to understand why Odin regarded this first
drink from Odrćrer so immensely important that he could resolve to
subject himself to the sufferings which are mentioned in strophes 138
and 139. But when Odin by a single drink from Mimir's fountain is
endowed with creative power and wisdom, how can the conclusion be
evaded, that the myth regarded Mimir as endowed with Promethean power,
since it makes him the possessor of the precious fountain, makes him
drink therefrom every day, and places him nearer to the deepest source
and oldest activity of these forces in the universe than Odin himself'
The given and more instantaneous power, thanks to which Odin was made
able to form the upper world, camne from the lower world and from Mimir.
The world-tree has also grown out of the lower world and is Mimir's
tree, and receives from his hands its value. Thus the creative power
with which the dwarf-list in Voluspa endowed the "mead-drinker" is
rediscovered in Mimir. It is, therefore, perfectly logical when the
mythology makes him its first smith and chief artist, and keeper of
treasures and the ruler of a group of dwarfs, underground artists, for
originally these were and remained creative forces personified, just as
Rigveda's Ribhus, who smithied flowers, and grass, and animals, and
opened the veins of the earth for fertilising streams, while they at the
same time made implements and weapons.


That Mimir was the profound counsellor and faithful friend of the Asas
has already been shown. Thus we discover in Mimir Modsogner's governing
position among the artists, his creative activity, and his friendly
relation to the gods.


Dvalin, created by Modsogner, is in the Norse sagas of the middle ages
remembered as an extraordinary artist. He is there said to have assisted
in the fashioning of the sword Tyrfing (Fornald. Saga, i. 436), of
Freyja's splendid ornament Brisingamen, celebrated also in Anglo-Saxon
poetry (Fornald. Saga, i. 391). In the Snofrid song, which is attributed
to Harald Fairhair, the drapa is likened unto a work of art, which rings
forth from beneath the fingers of Dvahin (hrynr fram ur Dvalin's
greip'Fornm. Saga, x. 208; Flat., i. 582). This beautiful poetical
figure is all the more appropriately applied, since Dvalin was not only
the producer of the beautiful works of the smith, but also sage and
skald. He was one of the few chosen ones who in time's morning were
permitted to taste of Mimir's mead, which therefore is called his drink
(Dvalin's drykkr'Younger Edda, i. 246).


But in the earliest antiquity no one partook of this drink who did not
get it from Mimir himself.


Dvalin is one of the most ancient rune-masters, one of those who
brought the knowledge of runes to those beings of creation who were
endowed with reason (Havamal, 143). But all knowledge of runes came
originally from Mimir. As skald and runic scholar, EDvalin, therefore,
stood in the relation of disciple under the ruler of the lower world.


The myth in regard to the runes (cp. No. 26) mentioned three
apprentices, who afterwards spread the knowledge of runes each among his
own class of beings. Odin, who in the beginning was ignorant of the
mighty and beneficent rune-songs (Havamal, 138-143), was by birth
Mimir's chief disciple, and taught the knowledge of runes among his
kinsmen, the Asas (Havamal, 143), and among men, his proteges
(Sigdrifm., 18). The other disciples were Dam (Dd.inn) and Dvalin
(Dvalinn). Dam, like Dvalin, is an artist created by Modsogner (Voluspa,
11, Hauks Codex). He is mentioned side by side with Dvalin, and like him
he has tasted the mead of poesy (munnvigg Dáins'Fornm. Saga, v. 209).
Dain and Dvalin taught the runes to their clans, that is, to elves and
dwarfs (Havamal, 143). Nor were the giants neglected. They learned the
runes from Asvir. Since the other teachers of runes belong to the clans,
to which they teach the knowledge of runes'" Odin among Asas, Dam among
elves, Dvalin among dwarfs "'there can be no danger of making a mistake,
if we assume that Asvidr was a giant. And as Mimir himself is a giant,
and as the name Asvidr (= Ásvinr) means Asa-friend, and as no
one'particularly no one among the giants'has so much right as Mimir to
this epithet, which has its counterpart in Odin's epithet, Minis vinr
(Mimir's friend), then caution dictates that we keep open the highly
probable possibility that Mimir himself is meannt by Asvidr.


All that has here been stated about Dvalin shows that the mythology has
referred him to a place within the domain of Mimir's activity. We have
still to point out two statements in regard to him. Sol is said to have
been his leika (Fornald., i. 475; Allvism., 17; Younger Edda, i. 472,
593). Leika, as a feminine word and referring to a personal object,
means a young girl, a maiden, whom one keeps at his side, and in whose
amusement one takes part at least as a spectator. The examples which we
have of the use of the word indicate that the leika herself, and the
person whose leika she is, are presupposed to have the same home.
Sisters are called leikur, since they live together. Parents can call a
foster-daughter their leika. In the neuter gender leika means a
plaything, a doll or toy, and even in this sense it can rhetorically be
applied to a person.


In the same manner as Sol is called Dvalin's leika, so the son of Nat
and Delling, Dag, is called leikr Dvalins, the lad or youth with whom
Dvalin amused himself (Fornspjal., 24).


We have here found two points of contact between the mythic characters
Dvalin and Delling. Dag, who is Dvalin's leikr, is Pelling's son.
Delling is the watchman of the castle of the asmegir, which Dvalin's
artists decorated.


Thus the whole group of persons among whom Dvahin is placed


'Mimir, who is his teacher; Sol, who is his leika; Dag, who is his
leikr; Nat, who is the mother of his leikr; Delling, who is the father
of his leikr'have their dwellings in Mimir's domain, and belong to the
subterranean class of the numina of Teutonic mythology.


From regions situated below Midgard's horizon, Nat, Sol, and Dag draw
their chariots upon the heavens. On the eastern of the lower world is
the point of departure for their regular journeys over the heavens of
the upper world (''the upper heavens," upphiminn'Völuspa, 3; Vafthr.,
20, and elsewhere; uppheimr'' Alvin., 13). Nat has her home and, as
shall be shown hereafter, liner birthplace in dales beneath the ash
Ygdrasil. There she takes her rest after the circuit of her journey has
been completed. In the lower world Sol and Nat's son, Dag, also have
their halls where they take their rest. But where Delhing's wife and son
have their dwellings there we should also look for Delling's own abode.


As the husband of Nat and the father of Dag, Delling occupies the same
place among the divinities of nature as the dawn and the glow of sunrise
among the phenomena of nature. And outside the doors of Delling, the
king of dawn, mythology has also located the dwarf ţjódreyrir (" he who
moves the people "), who sings songs of awakening and blessing upon the
world: "power to the Asas, success to the elves, wisdom to Hroptatyr"
(afi asom, enn alfum frama, hyggio Hroptaty'Havam., 160).


Unlike his kinsmen, Nat, Dag, and Sol, Delling has no duty which
requires him to be absent from home a part of the day. The dawn is
merely a reflection of Midgard's eastern horizon from Delling's
subterranean dwelling. It can be seen only when Nat leaves the upper
heaven and before Dag and Sol have come forward, and it makes no journey
around the world. From a mythological standpoint it would therefore be
possible to entrust the keeping of the castle of the asmegir to the elf
of dawn. The sunset-glow has another genius, Billing, and he, too, is a
creation of Modsogner, if the dwarf-list is correct (Voluspa, 12). Sol,
who on her way is pursued by two giant monsters in wolf-guise, is secure
when she comes to her forest of the Varns behind the western horizon
(til varna vidar'Grimn., 30). There in western halls (Vegtamskv., 11)
dwells Billing, the chief of the Varns (Billing veold Vernum'Cod. Exon.,
320). There rests his daughter Rind bright as the sun on her bed, and
his body-guard keeps watch with kindled lights and burning torches
(Havam., 100). Thus Billing is the watchman of the western boundary of
Mimir's domain, Delling of the eastern.


From this it follows:


That the citadel of the ásmegir is situated in Mimir's lower world, and
there in the regions of the elf of dawn.


That Svipdag, who has seen the citadel of the ásmegir, has made a
journey in the lower world before he found Menglad and secured her as
his wife.


The conclusion to which we have arrived in regard to the subterranean
situation of the citadel is entirely confirmed by the other passage in
the poetic Edda, where the asmegir are mentioned by this name. Here we
have an opportunity of taking a look withini their castle, and of seeing
the hall decorated with lavish splendour for the reception of an
expected guest.


Vegtamskvida tells us that Odin, being alarmed in regard to the fate of
his son Balder, made a journey to the lower world for the purpose of
learning from a vala what foreboded his favourite son. When Odin had
rode through Nifelhel and come to green pastures (foldvegr), he found
there below a hall decorated for festivity, and he asks the prophetess:


hvćim eru bekkir baugum sanir, flćt fagrlig


"For whom are the benches strewn with rings and the gold beautifully
scattered through the rooms'"


And the vala answers:


Her stćndr Balldri of bruggin miodr, skirar vćigar, liggr skiolldr yfir
ćn ásmegir I ofvćni.


"Here stands for Balder mead prepared, pttre drink; shields are
overspread, and the ásmegir are waiting impatiently."


Thus there stands in the lower world a hall splendidly decorated
awaiting Balder's arrival. As at other great feasts, the benches are
strewn (cp. breida bekki, stra bekki, bua bekki) with costly things, and
the pure wonderful mead of the lower world is already served as an
offering to the god. Only the shields which cover the mead-vessel need
to be lifted off and all is ready for the feast. Who or what persons
have, in so good season, made these preparations ' The vala explains
when she mentions the asmegir and speaks of their longing for Balder. It
is this longing which has found utterance in the preparations already
completed for his reception. Thus, when Balder gets to the lower world,
he is to enter the citadel of the asmegir and there be welcomed by a
sacrifice, consisting of the noblest liquid of creation, the
strength-giving soma-madhu of Teutonic mythology. In the old Norse
heathen literature there is only one more place where we find the word
ásmegir, and that is in Olaf Trygveson's saga, oh. 16 (Heimskringla).
For the sake of completeness this passage should also be considered, and
when analysed it, too, sheds much and important light on the subject.


We read in this saga that Jarl Hakon proclaimed throughout his kingdom
that the inhabitants should look after their temples and sacrifices, and
so was done. Jarl Hakon's hird-skald, named Einar Skalaglam, who in the
poem "Vellekla" celebrated his deeds and exploits, mentions his interest
in the heathen worship, and the good results this was supposed to have
produced for the jarl himself and for the welfare of his land. Einar says:


Ok herţarfir hverfa hlakkar móts til blóta, raudbríkar fremst rćkir
rikr, ásmegir, sliku. Nu grćr jörd sem adan, &c.


Put in prose: Ok herţarfir ásmegir hverfa til blóta; hlakkar móts
raudbríkar rikr rćkír fremst sliku. Nu grćr jörd sem ádan.


Translation: "And the ásmegir required in war, turn themselves to the
sacrificial feasts. The mighty promoter of the meeting of the red target
of the goddess of war has honour and advantage thereof. Now grows the
earth green as heretofore."


"There can be no doubt that "the ásmegir required in war refer to the
men in the territory ruled by Hakon, and that "the mighty promoter of
the meeting of the red target of the goddess of war" refers to the
warlike Hakon himself, and hence the meaning of the passage in its plain
prose form is simply this: "Hakon's men again devote themselves to the
divine sacrifices. This is both an honour and an advantage to Hakon, and
the earth again yields bountiful harvests."


To these thoughts the skald has given a garb common in poetry of art,
by adapting them to a mythological background. The persons in this
background are the ásmegir and a mythical being called "the promoter of
the red target," raudbríkar rćkir. The persons in the foreground are the
men in Hakon's realm and Hakon himself. The persons in the foreground
are permitted to borrow the names of the corresponding persons in the
background, but on the condition that the borrowed names are furnished
with adjectives which emphasise the specific difference between the
original mythic lenders and the real borrowers. Thus Hakon's subjects
are allowed to borrow the appellation ásmegir, but this is then
furnished with the adjective herţarfir (required in war), whereby they
are specifically distinguished from the ásmegir of the mythical
background, and Hakon on his part is allowed to borrow the appellation
raudbríkar rćkir (the promoter of the red target), but this appellation
is then furnished with the adjective phrase hlakkar móts (of the meeting
of the goddess of war), whereby Hakon is specifically distinguished from
the raudbríkar rćkir of the mythical background.


The rule also requires that, at least on that point of which the skald
happens to be treating, the persons in the mythological background
should hold a relation to each other which resembles, and can be
compared with, the relation between the persons in the foreground.
Hakon's men stand in a subordinate relation to Hakon himself; and so
must the asmegir stand in a subordinate relation to that being which is
called raudbríkar rćkir, providing tine skald in this strophe as in the
others has produced a tenable parallel. Hakon is, for his subjects, one
who exhorts them to piety and fear of the gods. Raudbríkar rćkir, his
counterpart in the mythological background, must have been the same for
his ásmegir. Hakon's subjects offer sacrifices, and this is an advantage
and an honour to Hakon, and the earth grows green again. In the
mythology the asmegir must have held some sacrificial feast, and
raudbríkar rćkir must have had advantage and honour, and the earth must
have regained its fertility. Only on these conditions is the figure of
comparison to the point, and of such a character that it could be
presented unchallenged to heathen ears familiar with the myths. It
should be added that Einar's greatness as a skald is not least shown by
his ability to carry out logically such figures of comparison. We shall
later on give other examples of this.


Who is, then, this raudbríkar rćkir, "the promoter of the red target" '


In the mythological language raudbrik (red target) can mean no other
object than the sun. Compare rodull, which is frequently used to
designate the sun. If this needed confirmation, then we have it
immediately at hand in the manner in which the word is applied in the
continuation of the paraphrase adapted to Hakon.


A common paraphrase for the shield is the sun with suitable adjectives,
and thus raudbrik is applied here. The adjective phrase is here hlakkar
móts, "of the meeting of the war-goddess" (that is, qualifying the red
target), whereby the red target (= sun), which is an attribute of the
mythic rćkir of the background, is changed to a shield, which becomes an
attribute of the historical rćkir of the foreground, namely Hakon jarl,
the mighty warrior. Accordingly, raudbríkar rćkir of the mythology must
be a masculine divinity standing in some relation to the sun.


This sun-god must also have been upon the whole a god of peace. Had he
not been so, but like Hakon a war-loving shield-bearer, then the
paraphrase hlakkar móts raudbríkar rćkir would equally well designate
him as Hakon, and thus it could not be used to designate Hakon alone, as
it then would contain neither a nota characteristica for him nor a
differentia specifica to distinguish him from the mythic person, whose
epithet raudbríkar rćkir he has been allowed to borrow.


This peaceful sun-god must have descended to the lower world and there
stood in the most intimate relation with the ásmegir referred to the
domain of Mimir, for he is here represented as their chief and leader in
the path of piety and the fear of the gods. The myth must have mentioned
a sacrificial feast or sacrificial feasts celebrated by the asmegir.
From this or these sacrificial feasts the peaceful sun-god must have
derived advantage and honour, and thereupon the earth must have regained
a fertility, which before that had been more or less denied it.


From all this it follows with certainty that raubrikar' rćkir of the
mythology is Balder. The fact suggested by the Vellekla strophe above
analysed, namely, that Balder, physically interpreted, is a solar
divinity, the mythological scholars are almost a unit in assuming to be
the case on account of the general character of the Balder myth. Though
Balder was celebrated for heroic deeds he is substantially a god of
peace, and after his descent to the lower world he is no longer
connected with the feuds and dissensions of the upper world. We have
already seen that he was received in the lower world with great pomp by
the ásmegir, who impatiently awaited his arrival, and that they
sacrifice to him that bright mead of the lower world, whose wonderfully
beneficial and bracing influence shall be discussed below. Soon
afterwards he is visited by Hermod. Already before Balder's funeral
pyre, Hermod upon the fastest of all steeds hastened to find him in the
lower world (Gylfag., 51, 52), and Hermod returns from him and Nanna
with the ring Draupnir for Odin, and with a veil for the goddess of
earth, Fjorgyn-Frigg. The ring from which other rings drop, and the veil
which is to beautify the goddess of earth, are symbols of fertility.
Balder, the sun-god, had for a long time before his death been
languishing. Now in the lower world he is strengthened with the bracing
mead of Mimir's domain by the asmegir who gladly give offerings, and the
earth regains her green fields.


Hakon's men are designated in the strophe as herţarfir ásmegir. When
they are permitted to borrow the name of the ásmegir, then the adjective
herţarfir, if chosen with the proper care, is to contain a specific
distinction between them and the mythological beings whose name they
have borrowed. In other words, if the real asmegir were of such a nature
that they could be called herţarfir, then that adjective would not serve
to distinguish Hakon's men from them. The word herţarfir means "those
who are needed in war," "those who are to be used in war ".
Consequently, the asmegir are beings who are not to be used in war,
beings whose dwelling, environment, and purpose suggest a realm of
peace, from which the use of weapons is banished.


Accordingly, the parallel presented in Einar's strophe, which we have
now discussed, is as follows:


 

Mythology


Peaceful beings of the lower world (ásmegir), at the instigation of
their chief, the sun-god Balder (raudbríkar rćkir) go to offer
sacrifices. The peaceful Balder is thereby benefited. The earth grows
green again.


ok asmegir, hverfa til blóta; raudbríkar rikr rćkir Na grćr jord scm ádan.


	

 

History


Warlike inhabitants of the earth (herţarfir ásmegir), at the
instigation of their chief, the shield's Balder, Hakon (hlakkar móts
raudbrikar rćkir), go to offer sacrifices, The shield's Balder is
thereby benefited. The earth grows green again.


ok herţarfir asmegir hverfa til blóta hlakkar móts raudbrikar rikr
rćkir fremst slika. Nu grćr jörd sem ádan.


In the background which Einar has given to his poetical paraphrase, we
thus have the myth telling how the sun-god Balder, on his descent to the
lower world, was strengthened by the somasacrifice brought him by the
ásmegir, and how he sent back with Hermod the treasures of fertility
which had gone with him and Nanna to the lower world, and which restored
the fertility of the earth.


To what category of beings do the ásmegir' then belong' We have seen
the word applied as a technical terni in a restricted sense. The
possibilities of application which the word with reference to its
definition supplies are:


(1) The word may be used in the purely physical sense of Asa-sons,
Asa-descendants. In this case the subterranean ásmegir would be by their
very descent members of that god-clan that resides in Asgard, and whose
father and clan-patriarch is Odin.


(2) The word can be applied to nien. They are the children of the
Asa-father in a double sense: the first human pair was created by Odin
and his brothers (Völusp., 16, 17; Gylfag., 9), and their offspring are
also in a moral sense Odin's children, as they are subject to his
guidance and care. He is Alfather, and the father of the succeeding
generations (allfadir, aldafadir). A word resemblinig ásmegir' in
character is ásasynir, and this is used in Allvismal, 16, in a manner
which shows that it does not refer to any of those categories of beings
that are called gods (see further, No. 62). The conception of men as
sons of the gods is also implied in the all mankind embracing phrase,
megir Heimdallar (Volusp, 1), with which the account of Rig-Heimdal's
journeys on the earth and visits to the patriarchs of the various
classes is connected.


Sol heitir med monnom, enn sunna med godum, kalla dvergar Dvalin's
leika eyglo iotnor, alfar fagra hvel alscir asa synir.


The true meaning of the word in this case is determined by the fact
that the asmegir belong to the dwellers in the lower world already
before the death of Balder, and that Balder is the first one of the Asas
and sons of Odin who becomes a dweller in the lower world. To this must
be added, that if asmegir meant Asas, Einar would never have called the
inhabitants of Norway, the subjects of jarl Hakon, herţarfir ásmegir,
for herţarfir the Asas are themselves, and that in the highest degree.
They constitute a body of more or less warlike persons, who all have
been "needed in conflict" in the wars around Asgard and Midgard, and
they all, Balder included, are gods of war and victory. It would also
have been malapropos to compare men with Asas on an occasion when the
former were represented as bringing sacrifices to the gods; that is, as
persons subordinate to them and in need of their assistance.


The asmegir are, therefore, human beings excluded from the surface of
the earth, from the mankind which dwell in Midgard, and are inhabitants
of the lower world, where they reside in a splendid castle kept by the
elf of dawn, Delling, and enjoy the society of Balder, who descended to
Hades. To subterranean human beings refers also Grimnismal, 21, which
says that men (mennzkir menn) dwell under the roots of Ygdrasil; and
Allvismal, 16 (to be compared with 18, 20, and other passages), and
Skirnersmal, 34, which calls them ásliţar, a word which Gudbrand
Vigfusson has rightly assumed to be identical with ásmegir.


Thus it is also demonstrated that the asmegir are identical with the
subterranean human persons Lif and Leifthraser and their descendants in
Mimir's grove. The care with which the mythology represents the citadel
of the asmegir kept, shown by the fact that the elf Delling, the
counterpart of Heimdal in the lower world, has been entrusted with its
keeping, is intelligible and proper when we know that it is of the
greatest importance to shield Lif and Leifthraser's dwelling from all
ills, sickness, age, and moral evil (see above). It is also a beautiful
poetic thought that it is the elf of the morning dawn'he outside of
whose door the song of


Cp. also Gylfag., 9, in regard to Odin: Ok fyrir ţvi ma hann heita
Allfodr, at hann er fadir alra godanna ok manna ok alls ţess, er af
honom ok hans krapti var fullgjört.


awakening and bliss is sung to the world'who has been appointed to
watch those who in the dawn of a new world shall people the earth with
virtuous and happy races. That the ásmegir in the lower world are
permitted to enjoy the society of Balder is explained by the fact that
Lif and Liefthraser and their offspring are after Ragnarok to acconnpany
Balder to dwell under his sceptre, and live a blameless life
corresponding to his wishes. They are to be his disciples, knowing their
master's commandments and having them written in their hearts.


We have now seen that the asmegir already before Balder's death dwell
in Mimir's grove. We have also seen that Svipdag on his journey in the
lower world had observed a castle, which he knew belonged to the
ásmegir. The mythology knows two fimbul-winters: the former raged in
tinie's morning, the other is to precede Ragnarok. The fornier occurred
when Freyja, the goddess of fertility, was treacherously delivered into
the power of the frost-giants and all the air was blended with
corruption (Volusp., 26); when there canine from the Elivogs stinging,
ice-cold arrows of frost, which put men to death and destroyed the
greenness of the earth (Foraspjallsljod) ; when King Snow ruled, and
there came ma the northern lands a famine which compelled the people to
emigrate to the South (Saxo, i. 415). Svipdag made his journey in the
lower world during the time preceding the first fimbulwinter. This
follows from the fact that it was he who liberated Freyja, the sister of
the god of the harvests, from the power of the frost-giants (see Nos.
96-102). Lif and Leifthraser were accordingly already at that time
transferred to Mimir's grove. This ought to have occurred before the
earth and her inhabitants were afflicted by physical and moral evil,
while there still could be found undefiled men to be saved for the world
to come; and we here find that the mythology, so far as the records make
it possible for us to investigate the matter, has logically met this
claim of poetic justice.


54.


THE IRANIAN MYTH CONCERNING MIMIR'S GROVE.


In connection with the efforts to determine the age of tIme Teutonic
myths, and their kinship with the other Aryan (Indo European)
mythologies, the fact deserves attention that the myth in regard to a
subterranean grove and the human beings there preserved for a future
regenerated world is also found among the Iranians, an Asiatic race akin
to the Teutons. The similarity between the Teutonic and Iranian
traditions is so conspicuous that the question is irresistible'Whether
it is not originally, from the standpoint of historical descent, one and
the samne myth, which, but little affected by time, has been preserved
by the Teutonic Aryans around the Baltic, and by the Iranian Aryans in
Baktria and Persia ' But the answer to the question requires the
greatest caution. The psychological similarity of races may, on account
of the limitations of the human fancy, and in the midst of similar
conditions and environments, create myths which resemble each other,
although they were produced spontaneously by different races in
different parts of the earth. This may happen in the same manner as
primitive implements, tools, and dwellings which resemble each other may
have been invented and used by races far separated from each other, not
by the one learning from the other how these things were to be made, nor
on account of a common descent in antiquity. The similarity is the
result of similar circumstances. It was the same want which was to be
satisfied; the same human logic found the manner of satisfying the want;
the same materials offered themselves for the accomplishment of the end,
and the same universal conceptions of form were active in the
development of the problems. Comparative mythology will never beconne a
science in the strict sense of this word before it ceases to build
hypotheses on a solitary similarity, or even on several or many
resemblances between mythological systems geographically separated,
unless these resemblances unite themselves and form a whole, a mythical
unity, and unless it appears that this mythical unity in turn enters as
an element into a greater complexity, which is similar in fundamental
structure and similar in its characteristic details. Especially should
this rule be strictly observed when we compare the myths of peoples who
neither by race nor language can be traced back to a prehistoric unity.
But it is best not to relax the severity of the rules even when we
compare the myths of peoples who, like the Teutons, the Iranians, and
the Rigveda-Aryans, have the same origin and same language; who through
centuries, and even long after their separation, have handed down from
generation to generation similar mythological conceptions and mythical
traditions. I trust that, as this work of mine gradually progresses, a
sufficient material of evidence for the solution of the above problem
will be placed in the hands of my readers. I now make a beginning of
this by presenting the Iranian myth concerning Jima's grove and the
subterranean human beings transferred to it.


In the ancient Iranian religious documents Jima is a holy and mighty
ancient being, who, however, does not belong to the number of celestial
divinities which surround the highest god, Ahuramazda, but must be
counted among "the mortals," to the oldest seers and prophets of
antiquity. A hymn of sacrifice, dedicated to the sacred mead, the liquid
of inspiration (homa, the soma and soma-nnadhu of the Rigveda-Aryans,
the last word being the same as our word mead), relates that Jima and
his father were the first to prepare the mend of inspiration for the
material world; that he, Jima, was the richest in honour of all who had
been born, and that he of all mortals most resembled the sun. In his
kingdom there was neither cold nor heat, neither frost nor drought,
neither aging nor death. A father by the side of his son resembled, like
the son, a youth of fifteen years. The evil created by the demons did
not cross the boundaries of Jima's world (The Younger Jasna, ch. 9).


Jima was the favourite of Ahuramazda, the highest god. Still he had a
will of his own. The first mortal with whonn Ahuramazda talked was Jima,
and he taught him the true faith, and desired that Jima should spread it
among the mortals. But Jima answered:


"I am not suited to be the bearer and apostle of the faith, nor am I
believed to be so" (Vendidad). [In this manner it is explained why the
true doctrine did not become known among men before the reformer
Zarathustra came, and why Jima, the possessor of the mead of
inspiration, nevertheless, was in possession of the true wisdom.]


It is mentioned (in Gôsh Jasht and Râm, Jasht) that Jima held two
beings in honour, which did not belong to Ahuramazda's celestial circle,
but were regarded as worthy of worship. These two were:


1. The cow (Gosh), that lived in the beginning of time, and whose
blood, when she was slain, fertilised the earth with the seed of life.


2. Vajush, the heavenly breeze. He is identical with the ruler of the
air and wind in Rigveda, the mighty god Vâyu- Vâta.


In regard to the origin and purpose of the kingdom ruled by Jima, in
which neither frost nor drought, nor aging nor death, nor moral evil,
can enter, Vendidad relates the following: 


 The outlines of the contents are given here from the interpretation
found in Hang-West's Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis
(London, 1878).


 

Avesta


21. A meeting was held with the holy angels of Ahuramazda, the creator.
To this meeting came, with the best men, Jima, the king rich in flocks.


22. Then said Ahuramazda to Jima: "Happy Jima Vîvan- ghana! In the
material world there shall come an evil winter, and consequently a hard,
killing frost."


23. From three places, O Jima, the cows should be driven to
well-enclosed shelters; whether they are in the wildernesses, or on the
heights of the mountains, or in the depths of the valleys.


24. Before the winter this land had meadows. Before that time the water
(the rain) was wont to flow over it, and the snow to melt; and there was
found, 0 Jima, in the material world, water-soaked places, in which were
visible the footprints of the cattle and their offspring.


25. Now give this enclosure (above, "the well-enclosed shelters") on
each of its four sides


the length of one . . . and bring thither the seed of your cattle, of
oxen, of men, of dogs, and of birds, and red blazing fires.


26. Gather water there in a canal, the length of one hathra. Place the
landmarks there on a gold-coloured spot, furnished with imperishable
nourishment. Put up a house there of mats and poles, with roof and walls.





29. There shall be no pride, no despondency, no sluggishness, no
poverty, no deceit, no dwarf-growths, no blemish . . . nor aught else of
those signs which are Angro-mainyush's curses put on men.


30. Make, in the uppermost part of that territory, nine bridges; in the
middle, six; in the lowest part, three. To the


bridges of the upper part you must bring seed of a thousand men and
women, to those of the middle the seed of six hundred, to those of the
lower, of three hundred... . And make a door in the enclosure, and a
selfluminous window on the inside.


33. Then Jima made the enclosure.


 


 





	

 

Zend


(as 21 Avesta) A meeting was held with the best men by Jima, the king,
the one rich in flocks. To this meeting came, with the holy angels,
Ahuramazda, the creator.


(as 22 Avesta) In the material world there shall come an evil winter,
consequently much snow shall fall on the highest mountains, on the tops
of the rocks.


(as 23 Avesta) From three places, O Jima, the cows should be driven to
well-enclosed shelters; whether they are in the wilderness, or on the
heights of the mountains, or in the depths of the valleys.


 





 


(as 25 Avesta) Now give the enclosure the length of one . . . on each
of its four sides as a dwelling for men, and give the same length to
each of the four sides as a field for the cows.





 


27. Bring thither seed of all men and women, who are the largest, best,
and most fair on this earth. Bring thither seed of all domestic animals
that are the largest, best, and fairest on this earth.


28. Bring thither seed of all plants which are the highest and most
fragrant on this earth. Bring thither seed of all articles of food which
are the best tasting and most fragrant on this earth. And make pairs of
them unceasingly, in order that these beings may have their existence in
the enclosures.


 


 


 





 


 


39. Which are those lights, thou just Ahuramazda, which give light in
the enclosures made by Jima'


40. Ahuramazda answered:


Once (a year) the stars and moon and the sun are there seen to rise and
set.


41. And they (who dwell within Jima's enclosures) think that one year
is one day. Every fortieth year two persons are born by two persons.
These persons enjoy the greatest bliss in the enclosures made by Jima.


42. Just creator! Who preached the pure faith in the enclosures which
Jima made' Ahuramazda answered: The bird Karshipta.


Jima's garden has accordingly been formed in connection with a terrible
winter, which, in the first period of time, visited the earth, and it
was planned to preserve that which is noblest and fairest and most
useful within the kingdoms of organic beings. That the garden is
situated in the lower world is not expressly stated in the above-quoted
passages from Vendidad; though this seems to be presupposed by what is
stated; for the stars, sun, and moon do not show themselves in Jima's
garden excepting after long, defined intervals'at their rising and
setting; and as the surface of the earth is devastated by tIme
unparalleled frost, and as the valleys are no more protected therefrom
than the mountains, we cannot without grave doubts conceive the garden
as situated in the upper world. That it is subterranean is, however,
expressly stated in Bundehesh, ch. 30, 10, where it is located under the
mountain Damkan; and that it, in the oldest period of the myth, was
looked upon as subterranean follows from the fact that the Jima of the
ancient Iranian records is identical with Rigveda's Jama, whose domain
and the scene of whose activities is the lower world, the kingdom of death.


As Jima's enclosed garden was established on account of the
fimbul-winter, which occurred in time's morning, it continues to exist
after the close of the winter, and preserves through all the historical
ages those treasures of uncorrupted men, animals, and plants which in
the beginning of time were collected there. The purpose of this is
mentioned in Minokhird, a sort of catechism of the legends and morals of
the Avesta religion. There it is said that after the conflagration of
the world, and in the beginning of the regeneration, the garden which
Jima made shall open its gate, and thence men, animals, and plants shall
once more fill the devastated earth.


The lower world, where Jima, according to the ancient Iranian records,
founded this remarkable citadel, is, according to Rigveda, Jama's
kingdom, and also the kingdom of death, of which Jama is king (Rigv., x.
16, 9; cp. i. 35, 6, and other passages). It is a glorious country, with
inexhaustible fountains, and there is the home of the imperishable light
(Rigv., ix. 7, 8; ix. 113, 8). Jama dwells under a tree "with broad
leaves ". There he gathers around the goblet of mead the fathers of
antiquity, and there he drinks with the gods (Rigv., x. 135,1).


Roth, and after him Abel Bergaigne (Religion Ved., i. 88 ff.), regard
Jama and Mann, mentioned in Rigveda, as identical There are strong
reasons for the assumption, so far as certain passages of Rigveda are
concerned; while other passages, particularly those which mention Mann
by the side of Bhriga, refer to an ancient patriarch of human descent.
If the derivation of the word Mimir, Mimi, pointed out by several
linguists, last by Müllenhoff (Deutsche Alt., vol. v. 105, 106), is
correct, then it is originally the same name as Manu, and like it is to
be referred to the idea of thinking, remembering.


What the Aryan-Asiatic myth here given has in common with the Teutonic
one concerning the subterranean persons in Mimir's grove can be
summarised in the following words:


The lower world has a ruler, who does not belong to the group of
immortal celestial beings, but enjoys the most friendly relations with
the godhead, and is the possessor of great wisdom. In his kingdom flow
inexhaustible fountains, and a tree grown out of its soil spreads its
foliage over his dwelling, where he serves the mead of inspiration,
which the gods are fond of and which he was the first to prepare. A
terrible winter threatened to destroy everything on the surface of the
earth. Then the ruler of the lower world built on his domain a
well-fortified citadel, within which neither destructive storms, nor
physical ills, nor moral evil, nor sickness, nor aging, nor death can
come. Thither he transferred the best and fairest human beings to be
found on earth, and decorated the enclosed garden with the niost
beautiful and useful trees and plants. The purpose of this garden is not
simply to protect the beings collected there during the great winter ;
they are to remain there through all historical ages. When these come to
an end, there comes a great conflagration and then a regeneration of the
world. The renewed earth is to be filled with the beings who have been
protected by the subterranean citadel. The people who live there have an
instructor in the pure worship of the gods and in the precepts of
morality, and in accordance with these precepts they are to live for
ever a just and happy life.


It should be added that the two beings whom the Iranian ruler of the
lower world is said to have honoured are found or have equivalents in
the Teutonic mythology. Both are there put in theogonic connection with
Mimir. The one is the celestial lord of the wind, Vayush, Rigveda's
Vayu-Vata. Vata is thought to be the same name as Wodan, Oinn (Zimmer.
Haupt's Zeitschr., 1875; cp. Mannhardt and Kaegi). At all events, Vata's
tasks are the same as Odin's. The other is the primeval cow, whose Norse
name or epithet, Audhumla is preserved in Gylfag., 6. Andhunla liberates
from the frost-stones in Chaos Bure, the progenitor of the Asa race, and
his son Bor is married to Mimir's sister Bestla, and with her becomes
the father of Odin (Havam., 140; Gylfag., 6).


55.


THE PURPOSE OF MIMIR'S GROVE IN THE REGENERATION OF THE WORLD.


We now know the purpose of Odainsakr, Mimir's land and Mimir's grove in
the world-plan of our mythology. We know who the inhabitants of the
grove are, and why they, though dwellers in the lower world, must be
living persons, who did not come there through the gate of death. They
must be living persons of flesh and blood, since the human race of the
regenerated earth must be the same.


Still the purpose of Mimir's land is not limited to being, through this
epoch of the world, a protection for the fathers of the future world
against moral and physical corruption, and a seminary where Balder
educates them in virtue and piety. The grove protects, as we have seen,
the ásmegir during Ragnarok, whose flames do not penetrate thither. Thus
the grove, and the land in which it is situated, exist after the flames
of Ragnarok are extinguished. Was it thought that the grove after the
regeneration was to continue in the lower world and there stand
uninhabited, abandoned, desolate, and without a purpose in the future
existence of gods, men, and things'


The last moments of the existence of the crust of the old earth are
described as a chaotic condition in which all elements are confused with
each other. The sea rises, overflows the earth sinking beneath its
billows, and the crests of its waves aspire to heaven itself (cp.
Völusp., 54, 2'Sigr fold i mar, with Hyndlulj., 42, 1-3'Haf gengr hridum
vid himinn sialfann, lidr lond yfir). The atmosphere, usurped by the
sea, disappears, as it were (loft bilar'Hyndlulj., 42, 4). Its snow and
winds (Hyndlulj., 42, 5-6) are blended with water and fire, and form
with them heated vapours, which "play" against the vault of heaven
(Völusp., 54, 7-8). One of the reasons why the fancy has made all the
forces and elements of nature thus contend and blend was doubtless to
furnish a sufficiently good cause for the dissolution and disappearance
of the burnt crust of the earth. At all events, the earth is gone when
the rage of the elements is subdued, and thus it is not impediment to
the act of regeneration which takes its beginning beneath the waves.


This act of regeneration consists in the rising from the depths of the
sea of a new earth, which on its very rising possesses living beings and
is clothed in green. The fact that it, while yet below the sea, could be
a home for beings which need air in order to breathe and exist, is not
necessarily to be regarded as a miracle in mythology. Our ancestors only
needed to have seen an air-bubble rise to the surface of the water in
order to draw the conclusion that air can be found under the water
without mixing with it, but with the power of pushing water away while
it rises to the surface. The earth rising from the sea has, like the old
earth, the necessary atmosphere around it. Under all circumstances, the
seeress in Voluspa sees after Ragnarok' upp koma audro sinni ior or ćgi
iţia grćna (str. 56).


The earth risen from the deep has mountains and cascades, which, from
their fountains in the fells, hasten to the sea. The waterfalls contain
fishes, and above them soars the eagle seeking its prey (Volusp., 56,
5-8). The eagle cannot be a survivor of the beings of the old earth. It
cannot have endured in an atmosphere full of fire and steam, nor is
there any reason why the mythology should spare the eagle among all the
creatures of the old earth. It is, therefore, of the same origin as the
mountains, the cascades, and the imperishable vegetation which suddenly
came to the surface.


The earth risen from the sea also contains human beings, namely, Lif
and Leifthraser, and their offspring. Mythology did not need to have
recourse to any hocus-pocus to get them there. The earth risen from the
sea had been the lower world before it came out of the deep, and a
paradise-region in the lower world had for centuries been the abode of
Lif and Leifthraser. It is more than unnecessary to imagine that the
lower world with this Paradise was duplicated by another with a similar
Paradise, and that the living creatures on the former were by some magic
manipulation transferred to the latter. Mythology has its miracles, but
it also has its logic. As its object is to be trusted, it tries to be as
probable and consistent with its premises as possible. It resorts to
miracles and magic only when it is necessary, not otherwise.


Among the mountains which rise on the new earth are found those which
are called Nida fjöll (Volusp., 62), Nide's mountains. The very name
Nide suggests the lower world. It means the "lower one ". Among the
abodes of Hades, mentioned in Völuspa, there is also a hall of gold on
Nide's plains (a Niţa vollom'str. 36), and from Solarljod (str. 56) we
learn'a statement confirmed by much older records'that Nide is identical
with Mimir (see No. 87). Thus, Nide's mountains are situated on Mimir's
fields. Völuspa's seeress discovers on the rejuvenated earth Nidhog, the
corpse-eating demon of the lower world, flying, with dead bodies under
his wings, away from the rocks, where he from time immemorial had had
his abode, and from which he carried his prey to Nastrands (Volusp.,
39). There are no more dead bodies to be had for him, and his task is
done. Whether the last line of Voluspa has reference to Nidhog or not,
when it speaks of some one "who must sink," cannot be determined.
Mullenhoff (Deutsche Alt.) assumes this to be the case, and he is
probably right; but as the text has hon (she) not han (he) [nu mun hon
seyquas], and as I, in this work, do not base anything even on the most
probable text emendation, this question is set aside, and the more so,
since Völuspa's description of the regenerated earth under all
circumstances shows that Nidhog has naught there to do but to fly thence
and disappear. The existence of Nide's mountains on the new earth
confirms the fact that it is identical with Mimir's former lower world,
and that Lif and Leifthraser did not need to move from one world to
another in order to get to the daylight of their final destination.


Völuspa gives one more proof of this.


In their youth, free from care, the Asas played with strange tablets.
But they had the tablets only í arladaga, in the earliest time (Völusp.,
8, 58). Afterwards, they must in some way or other have lost them. The
Icelandic sagas of the middle ages have remembered this game of tablets,
and there we learn, partly that its strange character consisted in the
fact that it could itself take part in the game and move the pieces, and
partly that it was preserved in the lower world, and that Gudmund-Mimir
was in the habit of playing with tablets (Fornalder Sagas, i. 443; iii.
391-392; iii. 626, &c. In the last passages the game is mentioned in
connection with the other subterranean treasure, the horn.) If, now, the
mythology had no special reason for bringing the tablets from the lower
world before Ragnarok, then they naturally should be found on the risen
earth, if the latter was Mimir's domain before. Völuspa (str. 58) also
relates that they were found in its grass:


ţar' muno eptir' undrsamligar gullnar' taylor i grasi finaz.


"There were the wonderful tablets found left in the grass (finaz eptir)."


Thus, the tablet-game was refound in the grass, in the meadows of the
renewed earth, having from the earliest time been preserved in Mimir's
realm. Lif and Leifthraser are found after Ragnarok on the earth of the
regenerated world, having had their abode there for a long time in
Mimir's domain. Nide's mountains, and Nidhog with them, have been raised
out of the sea, together with the rejuvenated eai'th, since these
mountains are located in Mimir's realm. The earth of the new era'the era
of virtue and bliss'have, though concealed, existed through thousands of
years below the sin-stained earth, as the kernel within the shell.


Remark.'Völuspa (str. 56) calls the earth rising from the sea ija grćna:


Sen' hon upp koma audro sinni iord or' aegi iţia graena.


The common interpretation is iţia graena, "the ever green" or very
green," and this harmonises well with the idea preserved in the sagas
mentioned above, where it was stated that the winter was not able to
devastate Gudmund-Mimir's domain. Thus the idea contained in the
expression Haddingjalands oskurna ax (see Nos. 72, 73) recurs in
Völuspa's statement that the fields unsown yield harvests in the new
earth. Meanwhile the composition idja-graena has a perfectly abnormal
appearance, and awakens suspicion. Mullenhoff (Deutsche Alt.) reads
idja, graena, and translates "the fresh, the green ". As a conjecture,
and without basing anything on the assumption, I may be permitted to
present the possibility that idja is an old genitive plural of idu, an
eddying body of water. Ia has originally had a j in the stem (it is
related to id and idi), and this j must also have been heard in the
inflections. From various metaphors in the old skalds we learn that they
conceived the fountains of the lower world as roaring and in commotion
(e.g., Odreris alda ţytr in Einar Skalaglam and Bodnar bara ter vaxa in
the same skald). If the conjecture is as correct as it seems probable,
then the new earth is characterised as "the green earth of the eddying
fountains," and the fountains are those famous three which water the
roots of the world-tree.


56.


THE COSMOGRAPHY. CRITICISM ON GYLFAGINNING'S COSMOGRAPHY.


In regard to the position of Ygdrasil and its roots in the universe,
there are statements both in Gylfaginning and in the ancient heathen
records. To get a clear idea, freed from conjectures and based in all
respects on evidence, of how the mythology conceived the world-tree and
its roots, is of interest not only in regard to the cosmography of the
mythology, to which Ygdrasil supplies the trunk and the main outlines,
but especially in regard to the mythic conception of the lower world and
the whole eschatology; for it appears that each one of the Ygdrasil
roots stands not alone above its particular fountain in the lower world
but also over its peculiar lower-world domain, which again has its
peculiar cosmological character and its peculiar eschatological end.


The first condition, however, for a fruitful investigation is that we
consider the heathen or heathen-appearing records by themselves without
mixing their statements with those of Gylfaginning. We must bear in mind
that the author of Gylfaginnig lived and wrote in the 13th century,
niore than 200 years after the introduction of Christianity in Iceland,
and that his statements accordingly are to be made a link in that chain
of documents which exist for the scholar, who tries to follow the fate
of the myths during a Christian period and to study their gradual
corruption and confusion.


This caution is the more important for the reason that an examination
of Gylfaginning very soon shows that the whole cosmographical and
eschatological structure which it has built out of fragmentary mythic
traditions is based on a conception wholly foreign to Teutonic
mythology, that is, on the conception framed by the scholars in Frankish
cloisters, and then handed down from chronicle to chronicle, that the
Teutons were descended from the Trojans, and that their gods were
originally Trojan chiefs and magicians. This "learned" conception found
its way to the North, and finally developed its most luxurious and
abundant blossoms in the Younger Edda preface and in certain other parts
of that work.


Permit me to present in brief a sketch of how the cosmography and
eschatology of Gylfaginning developed themselves out of this assumption
:'The Asas were originally men, and dwelt in the Troy which was situated
on the centre of the earth, and which was identical with Asgard (ţar
naest gerdu ţeir ser borg i midjum heimi, er kallat er Asgardr ; ţat
kollum ver Trója; ţar bygdu gudin ok aettir ţeirra ok gjördust ţudan af
morg lidindi ok greinir baedi a jord ok a lopti'ch. 9).


The first mythic tradition which supplies material for the structure
which Gylfaginning builds on this foundation is the bridge Bifrost. The
myth had said that this bridge united the celestial abodes with a part
of the universe situated somewhere below. Gylfaginning, which makes the
Asas dwell in Troy, therefore makes the gods undertake an enterprise of
the greatest boldness, that of building a bridge from Troy to the
heavens. But they are extraordinary architects and succeed (Gudin gjördu
bru til himins af jördu'ch. 13).


The second mythic tradition employed is Urd's fountain. The myth had
stated that the gods daily rode from their celestial abodes on the
bridge Bifrost to Urd's (subterranean) fountain. Thence Gylfaginning
draws the correct conclusion that A.sgard was supposed to be situated at
one end of the bridge and Urd's fountain near the other. But from
Gylfaginning's premises it follows that if Asgard-Troy is situated on
the surface of the earth Urd s fountain niust be situated in the
heavens, and that the Asas accordingly when they ride to Urd's fountain
must ride upward, not downward. The conclusion is drawn with absolute
consistency (" Hvern dag ria ćsir ţangat upp um Bifrost "'ch. 15).


The third mythic tradition used as material is the world-tree, which
went (down in the lower world) to Urd's fountain. According to Völuspa
(19), this fountain is situated beneath the ash Ygdrasil. The conclusion
drawn by Gylfaginning by the aid of its Trojan premises is that since
Urd's fountain is situated in the heavens, and still under one of
Ygdrasil's roots, this root must be located still further up in the
heavens. The placing of the root is also done with consistency, so that
we get the following series of wrong localisations :'Down on the earth,
Asgard-Troy; thence up to the heavens, the bridge Bifrost; above
Bifrost, Urd's fountain; high above Urd's fountain, one of Ygdrasil's
three roots (which in the mythology are all in the lower world).


Since one of Ygdrasil's roots thus had received its place far up in the
heavens, it became necessary to place a second root on a level with the
earth and the third one was allowed to retain its position in the lower
world. Thus was produced a just distribution of the roots among the
three regions which in the conception of the middle ages constituted the
universe, namely, the heavens, the earth, and hell.


In this manner two myths were made to do service in regard to one of
the remaining Ygdrasil roots. The one myth was taken from Völuspa, where
it was learned that Mimir's fountain is situated below the sacred
world-tree; the other was Grininismal (31), where we are told that
frost-giants dwell under one of the three roots. At the time when
Gylfaginning was written, and still later, popular traditions told that
Gudmund-Mimir was of giant descent (see the middle-age sagas narrated
above). From this Gylfaginning draws the conclusion that Mimir was a
frost-gin at, and it identifies the root which extends to the
frost-giants with the root that extends to Mimir's fountain. Thus this
fountain of creative power, of world-preservation, of wisdom, and of
poetry receives from Gylfaginning its place in the abode of the powers
of frost, hostile to gods and to men, in the land of the frost-giants,
which Gylfaginning regards as being Jotunheim, ing on the earth.


In this way Gylfaginning, with the Trojan hypothesis as its
starting-point, has gotten so far that it has separated from the lower
world with its three realms and three fountains Urd's realm and
fountain, they being transferred to the heavens, and Mimir's realm and
fountain, they being transferred to Jotunheim. In the mythology these
two realms were the subterranean regions of bliss, and the third,
Nifelhel, with the regions subject to it, was the abode of the damned.
After these separations were made, Gylfaginning, to be logical, had to
assume that the lower world of the heathens was exclusively a realm of
misery and torture, a sort of counterpart of the hell of the Church.
This conclusion is also drawn with due consistency, and Ygdrasil's third
root, which in the mythology descended to the well Hvergelmer and to the
lower world of the frost-giants, Nifelhel, Nifelheim, extends over the
whole lower world, the latter being regarded as identical with Nifelheim
and the places of punishment therewith connected.


This result carries with it another. The goddess of the lower world,
and particularly of its domain of bliss, was in the mythology, as shall
be shown below, the goddess of fate and death, Urd, also called Hel,
when named after the country over which she ruled. In a local sense, the
name Hel could be applied partly to the whole lower world, which rarely
happened, partly to Urd's and Mimir's realms of bliss, which was more
common, and Hel was then the opposite of Nifelhel, which was solely the
home of misery and torture. Proofs of this shall be given below. But
when the lower world had been changed to a sort of hell, the name Hel,
both in its local and in its personal sense, must undergo a similar
change, and since Urd (the real Hel) was transferred to the heavens,
there was nothing to hinder Gylfaginning from substituting for the queen
of the lower world Loki's daughter cast down into Nifelhel and giving
her the name Hel and the sceptre over the whole lower world.


This method is also pursued by Gylfaginning's author without
hesitation, although he had the best of reasons for suspecting its
correctness. A certain hesitancy might here have been in order According
to the mythology, the pure and pious Asa-god Balder comes to Hel, that
is to say, to the lower world, and to one of its realms of bliss. But
after the transformation to which the lower world had been subjected in
Gylfaginning's system, the descent of Balder to Hel must have meant a
descent to and a remaining in the world of misery and torture, and a
relation of subject to the daughter of Loki. This should have awakened
doubts in the mind of the author of Gylfaginning. But even here he had
the courage to be true to his premises, and without even thinking of the
absurdity in which he involves himself, he goes on and endows the sister
of the Midgard-serpent and of the Fenris-wolf with that perfect power
which before belonged to Destiny personified, so that the same gods who
before had cast the horrible child of Loki down into the ninth region of
Nifelhel are now compelled to send a minister-plenipotentiary to her
majesty to treat with her and pray for Balder's liberation.


But finally, there comes a point where the courage of consistency fails
Gylfaginning. The manner in which it has placed the roots of the
world-tree makes us first of all conceive Ygdrasil as lying horizontal
in space. An attempt to nnake this matter intelligible can produce no
other picture of Ygdrasil, in accord with the statements of
Gylfaginning, than the following:





 


 

The root over heaven and over Urd's fountain


	 


 

The root over Jotunheim and over Mimir's well


	

 

Ygdrasil's trunk


 

The root over the lower world and over Hvergelmer's fountain.


	 


But Gylfaginning is not disposed to draw this conclusion. On the
contrary, it insists that Ygdrasil stands erect on its three roots. How
we, then, are to conceive its roots as united one with the other and
with the trunk of this it very prudently leaves us in ignorance, for
this is beyond the range of human imagination.


The contrast between the mythological doctrine in regard to the three
Ygdrasil roots, and Gylfaginning's view of the subject may easily be
demonstrated by the following parallels:


 

The Eddic Mythology


1. Ygdrasil has three roots.


2. All three roots are subterranean.


3. To each root corresponds a fountain and a realm in the lower world.
The lower world consists of three realms, each with its fountain and
each with its root.


4. Under one of the subterranean roots dwells the goddess of death and
fate, Urd, who is also called Hel, and in her realm is Urd's fountain.


5. Under the other (subterranean) root dwells Mimir. In his realm is
Mimir's fountain and Mimir's grove, where a subterranean race of men are
preserved for the future world. This root may, therefore, be said to
stand over mennskir menn (Grimnersmal).


 





6. Under the third (subterranean) root dwell frost-giants. Under this
root is the well Hvergelmer, and the realm of the frost-giants is
Nifelhel (Nifelheim). Under Nifelhel are nine regions of torture.


 


7. The sister of the Midgardserpent and of the Fenris-wolf was cast by
the gods into the regions of torture under Nifelhel, and received the
rule over the places where the damned are punished.


8. The name Hel can be applied to the whole lower world, but means
particularly that region of bliss where Urd's fountain is situated, for
Urd is the personal Hel. The Lokedaughter in Nifelhel is her slave and
must obey her commands.


	

 

Gylfaginning


1. Ygdrasil has three roots.


2. One is in the lower world; a second stands over Jotunheim on a level
with the earth; a third stands over the heavens.


3. To each root corresponds a fountain and a realm; the realms are the
heavens, Jotunheim, and the lower world, which are located each under
its root.


4. Under one of the roots, that is the one which stands over heaven,
dwells Urd the goddess of fate, and there is Urd's fountain.





It is said that one of the roots stands over mennskir menn
(Grimnersmal). By this is meant, according to Gylfaginning, not the root
over Mimir's well, but the root over Urd's fountain, near which the Asas
hold their assemblies, for the Asas are in reality men who dwelt on
earth in the city of Troy.


6. Under the third (and only subterranean) root dwell the souls of
sinners and those who have died from sickness and age. Under this root
is the well Hvergelmer and the whole lower world. The lower world is
called Nifelhel or Nifelheim, and contains nine places of torture.


7. The sister of the Midgardserpent and of the Fenris-wolf was cast by
the gods into the regions of torture under Nifelhel, and received the
rule over the whole lower world, which consists of Nifelhel with the
nine regions of torture.


8. As Hel means the lower world, and as the sister of the
Midgard-serpent governs the whole lower world, she is meant by the
personal Hel.


Gylfaginning does not stop with the above results. It continues the
chain of its conclusions. After Hvergelmer has been selected by
Gylfaginning as the only fountain in the lower world, it should, since
the lower world has been made into a sort of hell, be a fountain of
bell, and in this respect easily recognised by the Christian conception
of the middle ages. In this new character Hvergelmer becomes the centre
and the worst place in Gylfaginning's description of the heathen
Gehenna. No doubt because the old dragon, which is hurled down into the
abyss (Revelation, chap. 20), is to be found in the hell-fountain of the
middle ages, Gylfaginning throws Nidhog down into Hvergelmer, which it
also fills with serpents and dead bodies found in Grimnismal (Str. 34,
35), where they have no connection with Hvergelmer. According to Völuspa
it is in Nastrands that Nidhog sucks and the wolf tears the dead bodies
(náir). Gylfaginning follows Voluspa in speaking of the other terrors in
Nastrands, but rejects Völuspa's statements about Nidhog and the wolf,
and casts both these beasts down into the Hvergelmer fountain. As shall
be shown below, the Hvergelmer of the mythology is the mother-fountain
of all waters, and is situated on a high plain in the lower world.
Thence its waters flow partly northward to Nifelheim, partly south to
the elysian fields of heathendom, and the waves sent in the latter
direction are shining, clear, and holy.


It was an old custom, at least in Iceland, that booths for the
accommodation of the visitors were built around a remote thing-stead, or
place for holding the parliament. Gylfaginning makes its Trojan Asas
follow the example of the Icelanders, and put up houses around the
thing-stead, which they selected near Urd's fountain, after they had
succeeded in securing by Bifrost a connection between Troy and heaven.
This done, Gylfaginning distributes as best it can' the divine halls and
abodes of bliss mentioned in the mythology between Troy on the earth and
the thing-stead in heaven.


This may be sufficient to show that Gylfaginning's pretended account of
the old mythological cosmography is, on account of its making Troy the
starting-point, and doubtless also to some extent as a result of the
Christian methods of thought, with which the author interpreted the
heathen myths accessible to him, is simply a monstrous caricature of the
mythology, a caricature which is continued, not with complacency and
assurance, but in a confused and contradictory manner, in the
eschatology of Gylfaginning.


My chief task will now be to review and examine all the passages in the
Elder Edda's mythological songs, wherein the words Hel and Nifelhel
occur, in order to find out in this manner in which sense or senses
these words are there employed, and to note at the same time all the
passages which may come in my way and which are of importance to the
myth concerning the lower world.


57.


THE WORD HEL IN LINGUISTIC USAGE.


The Norse Hel is the same word as the Gothic Halja, the Old High German
Hella, the Anglo-Saxon Hellia, and the English Hell. On account of its
occurrence with similar signification in different Teutonic tongues in
their oldest linguistic monuments, scholars have been able to draw the
conclusion that the word points to a primitive Teutonic Halja, meaning
lower world, lower world divinity. It is believed to be related to the
Latin oc-cul-ere, eel-are, clam, and to mean the one who "hides,"
"conceals," "preserves".


When the books of the New Testament were for the first time translated
into a Teutonic tongue, into a Gothic dialect, the translator, Ulfilas,
had to find some way of distinguishing with suitable words between the
two realms of the lower world mentioned in the New Testament, Hades and
Gehenna (g e e n n a ).


Hades, the middle condition, and the locality corresponding to this
condition, which contains both fields of bliss and regions of torture,
he translated with Halja, doubtless because the signification of this
word corresponded most faithfully with the meaning of the word Hades.
For Gehenna, hell, he used the borrowed word gaiainna.


The Old High German translation also reproduces Hades with the word
Hella. For Gehenna it uses two expressions compounded with Hella. One of
these, Hellawisi, belongs to the form which afterwards predominated in
Scandinavia. Both the compounds bear testimony that the place of
punishment in the lower world could not be expressed with Hella, but it
was necessary to add a word, which showed that a subterranean place of
punishment was meant. The same word for Gehenna is found among the
Christian Teutons in England, namely, Hellewite; that is to say, the
Hellia, that part of the lower world where it is necessary to do penance
(vite) for one's sins. From England the expression doubtless came to
Scandinavia, where we find in the Icelandic Hel-viti, in the Swedish
Hälvete, and in the Danish Helvede. In the Icelandic literature it is
found for the first time in Hallfred, the same skald who with great
hesitation permitted himself to be persuaded by Olaf Trygveson to
abandon the faith of his fathers.


Many centuries before Scandinavia was converted to Christianity, the
Roman Church had very nearly obliterated the boundary line between the
subterranean Hades and Gehenna of the New Testament. The lower world
had, as a whole, become a realm of torture, though with various
gradations. Regions of bliss were no longer to be found there, and for
Hel in the sense in which Ulfilas used Halja, and the Old High German
translation Hella, there was no longer room in the Christian conception.
In the North, Hel was therefore permitted to remain a heathen word, and
to retain its heathen signification as long as the Christian generations
were able or cared to preserve it. It is natural that the memory of this
signification should gradually fade, and that the idea of the Christian
hell should gradually be transferred to the heathen Hel. This change can
be pretty accurately traced in the Old Norse literature. It came slowly,
for the doctrine in regard to the lower world in the Teutonic religion
addressed itself powerfully to the imagination, and, as appears from a
careful examination, far from being indefinite in its outlines, it was,
on the contrary, described with the clearest lines and most vivid
colours, even down to the minutest details. Not until the thirteenth
century could such a description of the heathen Hel as Gylfaginning's be
possible and find readers who would accept it. But not even then were
the memories (preserved in fragments from the heathen days) in regard to
the lower world doctrine so confused, but that it was possible to
present a far more faithful (or rather not so utterly false) description
thereof. Gylfaginning's representation of the heathen Hades is based
less on the then existing confusion of the traditions than on the
conclusions drawn from the author's own false premises.


In determining the question, how far Hel among the heathen
Scandinavians has had a meaning identical with or similar to that which
Halja and Hella had among their Gothic and German kinsmen'that is to
say, the signification of a death-kingdom of such a nature that it could
not with linguistic propriety be used in translating Gehenna'we must
first consult that which really is the oldest source, the usage of the
spoken language in expressions where Hel is found. Such expressions show
by the very presence of Hel that they have been handed down from
heathendom, or have been formed in analogy with old heathen phrases. One
of these modes of speech still exists: i hjäl (slĺ ihjäl, svälta ihjäl,
frysa ihjäl, &c.), which is the Old Norse i Hel. We do not use this
expression in the sense that a person killed by a weapon, famine, or
frost is relegated to the abyss of torture. Still less could the
heathens have used it in that sense. The phrase would never have been
created if the word Hel had especially conveyed the notion of a place of
punishment. Already in a very remote age i Hel had acquired the abstract
meaning to death, but in such a manner that the phrase easily suggested
the concrete idea'the realm of death (an example of this will be given
below). What there is to be said about i Hel also applies to such
phrases as bida Heljar, to await Hel (death); buash til Heljar, to
become equipped for the journey to Hel (to be shrouded) ; liggja milli
heims oh Heljar, to lie between this world and Hel (between life and
death); liggja a Heljar ţremi, to lie on Hel's threshold. A funeral
could be called a Helfor (a Hel-journey); fatal illness Helsott
(Hel-sickness) ; the deceased could be called Helgengnir (those gone to
Hel). Of friends it is said that Hel (death) alone could separate them
(Fornm., vii. 233).


Thus it is evident that Hel, in the more general local sense of the
word, referred to a place common for all the dead, and that the word was
used without any additional suggestion of damnation amid torture in the
minds of those employing it.


58.


THE WORD HEL IN VEGTAMSKVIDA AND IN VAFTHRUDNERSMAL.


When Odin, according to Vegtamskvida, resolved to get reliable
information in the lower world in regard to the fate which threatened
Balder, he saddled his Sleipner and rode thither. On the way he took he
came first to Nifelhel. While he was still in Nifelhel, he met on his
way a dog bloody about the breast, which came from the direction where
that division of the lower world is situated, which is called Hel. Thus
the rider and the dog came from opposite directions, and the former
continued his course in the direction whence the latter came. The dog
turned, and long pursued Odin with his barking. Then the rider reached a
foldvegr, that is to say, a road along grass-grown plains. The way
resounded under the hoofs of the steed. Then Odin finally came to a high
dwelling, which is called Heljarrann or Heljar rann. The name of the
dwelling shows that it was situated in Hel, not in Nifelhel. This latter
realm of the lower world Odin now had had behind him ever since he
reached the green fields, and since the dog, evidently a watch of the s
between Nifelhel and Hel, had left him in


peace. The high dwelling was decorated as for a feast, and mead was
served. It was, Odin learned, the abode where the asmegir longingly
waited for the arrival of Balder. Thus Vegtamskvida:


2. Raeid hann (Odin) nidr ţaţan Niflhaeljar til, maetti hann hvaelpi
ţeim aer or haeliu kom.


3. Sa var blodugr urn briost framan oh galldrs fodur gol urn laengi.


4. Framm raeid Odinn, foldvaegr dundi, han horn at hafu Haeliar ranni.


7. Her standr Balldri of brugginn miodr. Oh asmegir i ofvaeno.


Vegtamskvida distinguishes distinctly between Nifelhel and Hel In Hel
is the dwelling which awaits the son of the gods, the noblest and most
pious of all the Asas. The dwelling, which reveals a lavish splendour,
is described as the very antithesis of that awful abode which, according
to Gylfaginning, belongs to the queen of the lower world.


In Vafthrudnersmal (43) the old giant says:

Fra iotna runom
oc allra goda
ec hann segia satt,
ţviat hvern hefi ec
heim um komit:
nio kom ec heima
fyr Niflhel nedan,
hinig deyja or Helio halir.
 	Of the runes of giants
and of all the gods
I can speak truly;
for I have been
in every world.
In nine worlds I came
below Nifelhel,
thither die "halir" from Hel.


Like Vegtamskvida, so Vafthrudnersmal also distinguishes distinctly
between Hel and Nifelhel, particularly in those most remarkable words
that thither, i.e., to Nifelhel and the regions subject to it, die
"halir" from Hel. Halir means men, human beings; applied to beings in
the lower world halir means dead men, the spirits of deceased human
beings (cp. Allvism., 18, 6; 20, 6; 26, 6; 32, 6; 34, 6, with 28, 3).
Accordingly, nothing less is here said than that deceased persons who
have come to the realm called Hel, may there be subject to a second
death, and that through this second death they come to Nifelhel. Thus
the same sharp distinction is here made between life in Hel and in
Nifelhel as between life on earth and that in Hel. These two
subterranean realms must therefore represent very different conditions.
What these different conditions are, Vafthrudnersmal does not inform us,
nor will I anticipate the investigation on this point; still less will I
appeal to Gylfaginning's assurance that the realms of torture lie under
Nifelhel, and that it is wicked men (vandir menn) who are obliged to
cross the from Hel to Nifelhel. So far it must be borne in mind that it
was in Nifelhel Odin met the bloody dog-demon, who barked at the
Asa-majesty, though he could not hinder the father of the mighty and
protecting sorceries from continuing his journey; while it was in Hel,
on the other hand, that Odin saw the splendid abode where the ásmegir
had already served the precious subterranean mead for his son, the just
Balder. This argues that they who through a second death get over the
from Hel to Nifelhel, do not by this transfer get a better fate than
that to which Hel invites those who have died the first death. Balder in
the one realm, the blood-stained kinsman of Cerberus in the other'this
is, for the present, the only, but not unimportant weight in the balance
which is to determine the question whether that -line which a second
death draws between Hel and Nifelhel is the boundary between a realm of
bliss and a realm of suffering, and in this case, whether Hel or
Nifelhel is the realm of bliss.


This expression in Vafthrudnersmal, hinig deyja or Helio halir, also
forces to the front another question, which, as long as it remains
unanswered, makes the former question more complicated. If Hel is a
realm of bliss, and if Nifelhel with the regions subject thereto is a
realm of unhappiness, then why do not the souls of the damned go at once
to their final destination, but are taken first to the realm of bliss,
then to the realm of anguish and pain, that is, after they have died the
second death on the boundary-line between the two' And if, on the
contrary, Hel were the realm of unhappiness and Nifelhel offered a
better lot, then why should they who are destined for a better fate,
first be brought to it through the world of torture, and then be
separated from the latter by a second death before they could gain the
more happy goal' These questions cannot be answered until later on.


59.


THE WORD HEL IN GRIMNERSMAL HVERGELMER'S FOUNTAIN AND ITS DEFENDERS.
THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN HEL AND NIFELHEL. THE WORD HELBLOTINN IN THORSDRAPA.


In Grimnersmal the word Hel occurs twice (str. 28, 31), and this poem
is (together with Gylfaginning) the only ancient record which gives us
any information about the well Hvergelmer under this name (str. 26 ff.).


From what is related, it appears that the mythology conceived
Hvergelmer as a vast reservoir, the mother-fountain of all the waters of
the world (ţadan eigo votn aull vega). In the front rank are mentioned a
number of subterranean rivers which rise in Hvergelmer, and seek their
courses thence in various directions. But the waters of earth and heaven
also come from this immense fountain, and after completing their
circuits they return thither. The liquids or saps which rise in the
world-tree's stem to its branches and leaves around Herfather's hall
(Valhal) return in the form of rain to Hvergelmer (Grimnersmal, 26).


Forty rivers rising there are named. (Whether they were all found in
the original text may be a subject of doubt. Interpolators may have
added from their own knowledge.) Three of them are mentioned in other
records'namely, Slir in Völuspa, 36, Gjöll in that account of Hermod's
journey to Hel's realm, which in its mann outlines was rescued by the
author of Gylfaginning (Gylfag., ch. 52), and Leiptr in Helge Hund., ii.
31'and all three are referred to in such a way as to prove that they are
subterranean rivers. Slid flows to the reahns of torture, and whirls
weapons in its eddies, presumably to hinder or frighten anybody from
attempting to cross. Over Gjöll there is a bridge of gold to Balder's
subterranean abode. Leiptr (which name means "the shining one ") has
clear waters, which are holy, and by which solemn oaths are sworn, as by
Styx. Of these last two rivers flowing out of Hvergelmer it is said that
they flow down to Hel (falla til Heljar, str. 28). Thus these are all
subterranean. The next strophe (29) adds four rivers'Kormt and Ormt, and
the two Kerlogar, of which it is said that it is over these Thor must
wade every day when he has to go to the judgment-seats of the gods near
the ash Ygdrasil. For he does not ride like the other gods when they
journey down over Bifrost to the thingstead near Urd's fountain. The
horses which they use are named in strophe 30, and are ten in number,
like the asas, when we subtract Thor who walks, and Balder and Hodr who
dwell in Hel. Nor must Thor on these journeys, in case he wished to take
the route by way of Bifrost, use the thunder-chariot, for the flames
issuing from it might set fire to the Asa-bridge and make the holy
waters glow (str. 29). That the thunder-chariot also is dangerous for
higher regions when it is set in motion, thereof Thjodolf gives us a
brilliant description in the poem Haustlaung. Thor being for this reason
obliged to wade across four rivers before he gets to Urd's fountain, the
beds of these rivers must have been conceived as crossing the paths
travelled by the god journeying to the thingstead. Accordingly they must
have their courses somewhere in Urd's realm, or on the way thither, and
consequently they too belong to the lower world.


Other rivers coming from Hvergelmer are said to turn their course
around a place called Hodd-goda (str. 27'ţer hverfa um Hodd-goda). This
girdle of rivers, which the mythology unites around a single place,
seems to indicate that this is a realm from which it is important to
shut out everything that does not belong there. The name itself,
Hodd-goda, points in the same direction. The word hodd means that which
is concealed (the treasure), and at the same time a protected sacred
place. In the German poem Heliand the word hord, corresponding to hodd,
is used about the holiest of holies in the Jerusalem temple. As we
already know, there is in the lower world a place to which these
references apply, namely, the citadel guarded by Delling, the elf of
dawn, and decorated by the famous artists of the lower world'a citadel
in which the asmegir and Balder'and probably Hodr too, since he is
transferred to the lower world, and with Balder is to return thence'
await the end of the historical time and the regeneration. The word goda
in Hodd-goda shows that the place is possessed by, or entrusted to,
beings of divine rank.


From what has here been stated in regard to Hvergelmer it follows that
the mighty well was conceived as situated on a high water-shed, far up
in a subterranean mountain range, whence those rivers of which it is the
source flow down in different directions to different realms of Hades.
Of several of these rivers it is said that they in their upper courses,
before they reach Hel, flow in the vicinity of mankind (gumnom naer'str.
28, 7), which naturally can have no other meaning than that the high
land through which they flow after leaving Hvergelmer has been conceived
as lying not very deep below the crust of Midgard (the earth).
Hvergelmer and this high land are not to be referred to that division of
the lower world which in Grimnersmal is called Hel, for not until after
the rivers have flowed through the mountain landscape, where their
source is, are they said to falla til Heljar.


Thus (1) there is in the lower world a mountain ridge, a high land,
where is found Hvergelmer, the source of all waters; (2) this mountain,
which we for the present nnay call Mount Hvergelmer, is the watershed of
the lower world, from which rivers flow in different directions; and (3)
that division of the lower world which is called Hel lies below one side
of Mount Hvergelmer, and thence receives many rivers. What that division
of the lower world which lies below the other side of Mount Hvergelmer
is called is not stated in Grimnersmal. But from Vafthrudnersmal and
Vegtamskvida we already know that Hel is bounded by Nifelhel. In
Vegtamskvida Odin rides through Nifelhel to Hel; in Vafthrudnersmal
halir die from Hel to Nifelhel. Hel and Nifelhel thus appear to be each
other's opposites, and to complement each other, and combined they form
the whole lower world. Hence it follows that the land on the other side
of the Hvergelmer mountain is Nifelhel.


It also seems necessary that both these Hades realms should in the
mythology be separated from each other not only by an abstract boundary
line, but also by a natural boundary'a mountain or a body of water'which
might prohibit the crossing of the boundary by persons who neither had a
right nor were obliged to cross. The tradition on which Saxo's account
of Gorm's journey to the lower world is based makes Gorm and his men,
when from Gudmund-Mimir's realm they wish to visit the abodes of the
damned, first cross a river and then come to a boundary which cannot be
crossed, excepting by scalae, steps on the mountain wall, or ladders,
above which the gates are placed, that open to a city "resembling most a
cloud of vapour" (vaporanti maxime nubi simile'i 425). This is Saxo's
way of translating the name Nifelhel, just as he in the story about
Hadding's journey to the lower world translated Glaesisvellir (the
Glittering Fields) with loca aprica.


In regard to the topography and eschatology of the Teutonic lower
world, it is now of importance to find out on which opposite sides of
the Hvergelmer mountain Hel and Nifelhel were conceived to be situated.


Nifl, an ancient word, related to nebula and n e F e
l h , means fog, mist, cloud, darkness. Nifelhel means that Hel
which is enveloped in fog and twilight. The name Hel alone has evidently
had partly a more general application to a territory embracing the whole
kingdom of death'else it could not be used as a part of the compound
word Nifelhel'partly a more limited meaning, in which Hel, as in
Vafthrudnersmal and Vegtamskvida, forms a sharp contrast to Nifelhel,
and from the latter point of view it is that division of the lower world
which is not enveloped in mist and fog.


According to the cosmography of the mythology there was, before the
time when "Yimir lived," Nifelheim, a world of fog, darkness, and cold,
north of Ginungagap, and an opposite world, that of fire and heat, south
of the empty abyss. Unfortunately it is only Gylfaginning that has
preserved for our time these cosmographical outlines, but there is no
suspicion that the author of Gylfaginning invented them. The fact that
his cosmographic description also mentions the ancient cow Audhumla,
which is nowhere else named in our mythic records, but is not utterly
forgotten in our popular traditions, and which is a genuine Aryan
conception, this is the strongest argument in favour of his having had
genuine authorities for his theo-cosmogony at hand, though he used them
in an arbitrary manner. The Teutons may also be said to have been
compelled to construct a cosmogony in harmony with their conception of
that world with which they were best acquainted, their own home between
the cold North and the warmer South.


Nifelhel in the lower world has its counterpart in Nifelheim in chaos.
Gylfaginning identifies the two (ch. 6 and 34). Forspjallsljod does the
same, and locates Nifelheim far to the north in the lower world (nordr
at Nifelheim'str. 26), behind Ygdrasil's farthest root, under which the
poem makes the goddess of night, after completing her journey around the
heavens, rest for a new journey. When Night has completed such a journey
and come to the lower world, she goes northward in the direction towards
Nifelheim, to remain in her hall, until Dag with his chariot gets down
to the western horizon and in his turn rides through the "home doors" of
Hades into the lower world.


From this it follows that Nifelhel is to be referred to the north of
the mountain Hvergelmer, Hel to the south of it. Thus this mountain is
the wall separating Hel from Nifelhel. On that mountain is the gate, or
gates, which in the Gorm story separates Gudmund-Mimir's abode from
those dwellings which resemble a "cloud of vapour," and up there is the
death boundary, at which "halir" die for the second time, when they are
transferred from Hel to Nifelhel.


The immense water-reservoir on the brow of the mountain, which stands
under Ygdrasil's northern root, sends, as already stated, rivers down to
both sides'to Nifelhel in the North and to Hel in the South. Of the most
of these rivers we now know only the names. But those of which we do
know more are characterised in such a manner that we find that it is a
sacred land to which those flowing to the South towards Hel hasten their
course, and that it is an unholy land which is sought by those which
send their streams to tIne north down into Nifelhel. The rivers Gjöll
and Leiptr fall down into Hel, and Gjöll is, as already indicated,
characterised by a bridge of gold, Leiptr by a shining, clear, and most
holy water. Down there in the South are found the mystic Hodd-goda,
surrounded by other Hel-rivers; Balder's and the asmegir's citadel
(perhaps identical with Hodd-goda) ; Mimir's fountain, seven times
overlaid with gold, the fountain of inspiration and of the creative
force, over which the "overshadowing holy tree" spreads its branches
(Voluspa), and around whose reed-wreathed edge the seed of poetry grows
(Eilif Gudrunson); the Glittering Fields, with flowers which never fade
and with harvests which never are gathered; Urd's fountain, over which
Ygdrasil stands for ever green (Völuspa), and in whose silver-white
waters swans swim; and the sacred thing-stead of the Asas, to which they
daily ride down over Bifrost. North of the mountain roars the
weapon-hurling Slid, and doubtless is the same river as that in whose
"heavy streams" the souls of nithings must wade. In the North solu
fjarri stands, also at Nastrands, that hall, the walls of which are
braided of serpents (Voluspa). Thus Hel is described as an Elysium,
Nifelhel with its subject regions as a realm of unhappiness.


Yet a few words about Hvergelmer, from and to which "all waters find
their way ". This statement in Grimnersmal is of course true of the
greatest of all waters, the ocean. The myth about ilvergelmer and its
subterranean connection with the ocean gave our ancestors the
explanation of ebb- and flood-tide. High up in the northern channels the
bottom of the ocean opened itself in a hollow tunnel, which led down to
the "kettle-roarer," "the one roaring in his basin" (this seems to be
the meaning of Hvergelmir: hverr = kettle; galm = Anglo-Saxon gealm, a
roaring). When the waters of the ocean poured through this tunnel down
into the Hades-well there was ebb-tide; when it returned water from its
superabundance there was flood-tide (see Nos. 79, 80, 81).


Adam of Bremen had heard this tunnel mentioned in connection with the
story about the Frisian noblemen who went by sea to the furthest north,
came to the land of subterranean giants, and plundered their treasures
(see No. 48). On the way up some of the ships of the Frisians got into
the eddy caused by the tunnel, and were sucked with terrible violence
down into the lower world.


Charlemagne's contemporary, Paul Varnefrid (Diaconus), relates in his
history of the Longobardians that he had talked with men who had been in
Scandinavia. Among remarkable reports which they gave him of the regions
of the far north was also that of a maelstrom, which swallows ships, and
sometimes even casts them up again (see Nos. 15, 79, 80, 81).


 "Et ecce instabilis Oceani Euripus, ad initia quaedam fontis sui
arcana recurrens, infelices nautas jam desperatos, immo de morte sola
cogitantes, vehementissimo impetu traxit ad Chaos. Hanc dicunt esse
voraginem abyssi, illud profundum, in quo fama est omnes maris recursus,
qui decrescere videntur, absorberi et denuo remnovi, quod fluctuatio
dici solet" (De situ Daniae, ed. Mad., p. 159).


Between the death-kingdom and the ocean there was, therefore, one
connecting link, perhaps several. Most of the people who drowned did not
remain with Ran. Ćgir's wife received them hospitably, according to the
Icelandic sagas of the middle age. She had a hail in the bottom of the
sea, where they were welcomed and offered sess ok rekkju (seat and bed).
Her realm was only an ante-chamber to the realms of death (Kormak,
Sonatorrek).


The demon Nidhog, which by Gylfaginning is thrown into Hvergelmer, is,
according to the ancient records, a winged dragon flying about, one of
several similar monsters which have their abode in Nifelhel and those
lower regions, and which seek to injure that root of the world-tree
which is nearest to them, that is the northern one, which stands over
Nifelhel and stretches its rootlets southward over Mount Hvergelmer and
down into its great water-reservoir (Grimnersmal, 34, 35). Like all the
Aryan mythologies, the Teutonic also knew this sort of monsters, and did
so long before the word " dragon" (drake) was borrowed from southern
kinsmen as a name for them. Nidhog abides now on Nastrands, where, by
the side of a wolf-demon, it tortures náir (corpses), now on the Nida
Mountains, whence the vala in Voluspa sees him flying away with náir
under his wings. Nowhere (except in Gylfaginning) is it said that he
lives in the well Hvergelmer, though it is possible that he, in spite of
his wings, was conceived as an amphibious being which also could subsist
in the water. Tradition tells of dragons who dwell in marshes and swamps.


The other two subterranean fountains, Urd's and Mimir's, and the roots
of Ygdrasil standing over them, are well protected against the influence
of the foes of creation, and have their separate guardians. Mimir, with
his sons and the beings subject to him, protects and guards his root of
the tree, Urd and her sisters hers, anid to the latter all the
victorious gods of Asgard come every day to hold counsel. Was the
northern root of Ygdrasil, which spreads over the realms of' the
frost-giants, of the demons, and of the damned, and was Hvergelmer,
which waters this root and received so important a position in the
economy of the world-tree, left in the mythology without protection and
without a guardian ' Hvergelmer we know is situated on the watershed,
where we have the death- between Hel and Nifelhel fortified with abysses
and gates, and is consequently situated in the immediate vicinity of
beings hostile to gods and men. Here, if anywhere, there was need of
valiant and vigilant watchers. Ygdrasil needs its northern root as well
as the others, and if Hvergelmer was not allowed undisturbed to conduct
the circuitous flow of all waters, the world would be either dried up or
drowned.


Already, long before the creation of the world, there flowed from
Hvergelmer that broad river called Elivágar, which in its extreme north
froze into that ice, which, when it melted, formed out of its dropping
venom the primeval giant Yimir (Vafthr., 31; Gylfag., 5). After creation
this river, like Hvergelmer, whence it rises, and Nifelhel, into which
it empties, become integral parts of the northern regions of the lower
world. Elivágar, also called Hraunn, Hronn, sends in its upper course,
where it runs near the crust of the earth, a portion of its waters up to
it, and forms between Midgard and the upper Jotunheim proper, the river
Vimur, which is also called Elivágar and Hraunn, like the parent stream
(cp. Hymerskv., 5, 38; Grimnersm., 28; Skaldskaparm., ch. 3, 16, 18, 19,
and Helg. Hj., 25). Elivagar separates the realm of the giants and
frost-giants from the other "worlds ".


South of Elivagar the gods have an "outgard," a "saether" which is
inhabited by valiant watchers'snotrir vikingar they are called in
Thorsdrapa, 8'who are bound by oaths to serve the gods. Their chief is
Egil, the most famous archer in the mythology (Thorsdrapa, 1, 8; cp.
Hymiskv., 7, 38; Skaldskap., ch. 16). As such he is also called Orvandel
(the one busy with the arrow). This Egil is the guardian entrusted with
the care of Hvergelmer and Elivagar. Perhaps it is for this reason that
he has a brother and fellow-warrior who is called Ide (Idi from ida, a
fountain with eddying waters). The "saeter" is called "Ides sćter"
(Thorsdrapa, 1). The services which he as watcher on Mt. Hvergelmer and
on the Elivágar renders to the regions of bliss in the lower world are
so great that, although he does not belong to the race of the gods by
birth or by adoption, he still enjoys among the inhabitants of Hel so
great honour and gratitude that they confer divine honours on him. He is
"the one worshipped in Hel who scatters the clouds which rise
storm-threatening over the mountain of the lower world," helblotinn
hneitr undir-fjalfrs bliku (Thorsdr., 1 9). The storm-clouds which Are,
Hraesvelgr, and other storm-demons of Nifelheim send to the elysian
fields of the death-kingdom, must, in order to get there, surmount Mt.
Hver gelmer, but there they are scattered by the faithful watchman. Now
in company with Thor, and now alone, Egil-Orvandel has made many
remarkable journeys to Jotunheirn. Next after Thor, he was the most
formidable foe of the giants, and in connection with Heimdal he
zealously watched their every movement. The myth in regard to him is
fully discussed in the treatise on the Ivalde-sons which forms a part of
this work, and there the proofs will be presented for the identity of'
Orvandel and Egil. I simply desire to point out here, in order to
present complete evidence later, that Ygdrasil's northern root and the
corresponding part of the lower world also had their defenders and
watchmen, and I also wished to call attention to the manner in which the
name Hel is employed in the word Helblótinn. We find it to be in harmony
with the use of the same word in those passages of the poetic Edda which
we have hitherto examined.


60.


THE WORD HEL IN SKIRNERSMAL DESCRIPTION OF NIFELHEL. THE MYTHIC MEANING
OF NAR, NAIR. THE HADESDIvISION OF THE FROST-GIANTS AND SPIRITS OF DISEASE.


In Skirnersmal (strophe 21) occurs the expression horfa ok snugga
Heljar til. It is of importance to our theme to investigate and explain
the connection in which it is found.


The poem tells that Frey sat alone, silent and longing, ever since he
had seen the giant Gymer's wonderfully beautiful daughter Gerd. He
wasted with love for her; but he said nothing, since he was convinced in
advance that neither Asas nor Elves would ever consent to a union
between him and her. But when the friend of his youth, who resided in
Asgard, and in the poem is called Skirner, succeeded in getting him to
confess the cause of his longing, it was, in Asgard, found necessary to
do something to relieve it, and so Skirner was sent to the home of the
giant to ask for the hand of Gerd on Frey's behalf. As bridal gifts he
took with him eleven golden apples and the ring Draupnir. He received
one of the best horses of Asgard to ride, and for his defence Frey's
magnificent sword, "which fights of itself against the race of giants ".
In the poem this sword receives the epithets Tams-vondr (str. 26) and
Gambanteinn (str. 32). Tams-vondr, means the "staff that subdues";
Gambanteinn means the "rod of revenge" (see Nos. 105, 116). Both
epithets are formed in accordance with the common poetic usage of
describing swords by compound words of which the latter part is vondr or
teinn. We find, as names for swords, benvondr, blódvondr, hjahtvondr,
hrídvondr, hvitvondr, mordvondr, sárvondr, benteinn, eggteinn,
hćvateinn, hjörteinn, hrćteinn, sárteinn, valteinn, mistelteinn.


Skirner rides over damp fells and the fields of giants, leaps, after a
quarrel with the watchman of Gymer's citadel, over the fence, comes in
to Gerd, is welcomed with ancient mead, and presents his errand of
courtship, supported by the eleven golden apples. Gerd refuses both the
apples and the object of the errand. Skirner then offers her the most
precious treasure, the ring Draupnir, but in vain. Then he resorts to
threats. He exhibits the sword so dangerous to her kinsmen; with it he
will cut off her head if she refuses her consent. Gerd answers that she
is not to be frightened, and that she has a father who is not afraid to
fight. Once more Skirner shows her the sword, which also may fell her
father (ser ţu ţenna maeki, mey, &c.), and he threatens to strike her
with the "subduing staff," so that her heart shall soften, but too late
for her happiness, for a blow from the staff will remove her thither,
where sons of men never more shall see her.


Tamsvendi ec ţic drep, enn ec ţic temia mun, mer! at minom munom; ţar
skaltu ganga er ţic gumna synir siţan eva se (str. 26).


This is the former threat of death repeated in another forni. The
fornier did not frighten her. But that which now overwhelms her with
dismay is the description Skirner gives her of the lot that awaits her
in the realm of death, whither she is destined'she, the giant maid, if
she dies by the avenging wrath of the gods (gambanreidi). She shall then
come to that region which is situated below the Na-gates (fyr nágrindr
neţan'str. 35), and which is inhabited by frost-giants who, as we shall
find, do not deserve the name mannasynir, even though the word menn be
taken in its most common sense, and made to embrace giants of the
masculine kind.


This phrase fyr nágrindr neţan. must have been a stereotyped
eschatological term applied to a particular division, a particular realm
in the lower world. In Lokasenna (str. 63), Thor says to Loki, after the
latter has emptied his phials of rash insults upon the gods, that if' he
does not hold his tongue the hammer Mjolner shall send him to Hel fyr
nágrindr neţan. Hel is here used in its widest sense, and this is
limited by the addition of the words "below the Na-gates," so as to
refer to a particular division of the lower world. As we find by the
application of the phrase to Loki, this division is of such a character
that it is intended to receive the foes of the Asas and the insulters of
the gods.


The word Nagrind, which is always used in the plural, and accordingly
refers to more than one gate of the kind, has as its first part nar (p1.
nair), which means corpse, dead body. Thus Na-gates means Corpse-gates.


The name must seem strange, for it is not dead bodies, but souls,
released from their bodies left on earth, which descend to the kingdom
of death and get their various abodes there. How far our heathen
ancestors had a more or less material conception of the soul is a
question which it is not necessary to discuss here (see on this point
No. 95). Howsoever they may have regarded it, the very existence of a
Hades in their mythology demonstrates that they believed that a
conscious and sentient element in man was in death separated from the
body with which it had been united in life, and went down to the lower
world. That the body from which this conscious, sentient element fled
was not removed to Hades, but went in this upper earth to its
disintegration, whether it was burnt or buried in a mound or sunk to the
bottom of the sea, this our heathen ancestors knew just as well as we
know it. The people of the stone-age already knew this.


The phrase Na-gates does not stand alone in our mythological
eschatology. One of the abodes of torture lying within the Nagates is
called Nastrands (Nástrandir), and is described in Völuspa as filled
with terrors. And the victims, which Nidhog, the winged demon of the
lower world, there sucks, are called nair framgenga, "the corpses of
those departed ".


It is manifest that the word nar thus used cannot have its common
meaning, but must be used in a special mythological sense, which bad its
justification and its explanation in the heathen doctrine in regard to
the lower world.


It not unfrequently happens that law-books preserve ancient
significations of words not found elsewhere in literature. The Icelandic
law-book Gragás (ii. 185) enumerates four categories within which the
word nár is applicable to a person yet living. Gallows-náir can be
called, even while living, the person who is hung; grave-nár, the person
placed in a grave; skerry-nár or rock-nár may, while yet alive, he be
called who has been exposed to die on a skerry or rock. Here the word
nár is accordingly applied to persons who are conscious and capable of
suffering, but on the supposition that they are such persons as have
been condemned to a punishment which is not to cease so long as they are
sensitive to it.


And this is the idea on the basis of which the word náir is
mythologically applied to the damned and tortured beings in the lower world.


If we now take into account that our ancestors believed in a second
death, in a slaying of souls in Hades, then we find that this same use
of the word in question, which at first sight could not but seem
strange, is a consistent development of the idea that those banished
from Hel's realms of bliss die a second time, when they are transferred
across the to Nifelhel and the world of torture. When they are overtaken
by this second death they are for the second time náir. And, as this
occurs at the gates of Nifelhel, it was perfectly proper to call the
gates nágrindr.


We may imagine that it is terror, despair, or rage which, at the sight
of the Na-gates, severs the bond between the damned spirit and his
Hades-body, and that the former is anxious to soar away from its
terrible destination. But however this may be, the avenging powers have
runes, which capture the fugitive, put chains on his Hades-body, and
force him to feel with it. The Sun-song, a Christian song standing on
the scarcely crossed of heathendom, speaks of damned ones whose breasts
were risted (carved) with bloody runes, and Havamal of runes which
restore consciousness to nair. Such runes are known by Odin. If he sees
in a tree a gallows-nar (virgil-nar), then he can rist runes so that the
body comes down to him and talks with him (see No. 70).


Ef cc se a tre uppi vafa virgilna, sva ec rist oc i runom fac, at sa
gengr gumi oc maelir viţ mic (Havamal, 157).


Some of the subterranean nair have the power of motion, and are doomed
to wade in "heavy streams ". Among them are perjurers, murderers, and
adulterers (Völuspa, 38). Among these streams is Vadgelmer, in which
they who have slandered others find their far-reaching retribution
(Sigurdarkv., ii. 4). Other nair have the peculiarity which their
appellation suggests, and receive quiet and immovable, stretched on iron
benches, their punishment (see below). Saxo, who had more elaborate
descriptions of the Hades of heathendom than those which have been
handed down to our time, translated or reproduced in his accounts of
Hadding's and Gorm's journeys in the lower world the word náir with
exsanguia simulacra (p. 426).


That place after death with which Skirner threatens the stubborn Gerd
is also situated within the Na-gates, but still it has another character
than Nastrands and the other abodes of torture, which are situated below
Nifelhel. It would also have been unreasonable to threaten a person who
rejects a marriage proposal with those punishments which overtake
criminals and nithings. The Hades division, which Skirner describes as
awaiting the giant-daughter, is a subterranean Jotunheim, inhabited by
deceased ancestors and kinsmen of Gerd.


Mythology has given to the giants as well as to men a life hereafter.
As a matter of fact, mythology never destroys life. The horse which was
cremated with its master on his funeral pyre, and was buried with him in
his grave-mound, afterwards brings the hero down to Hel. When the giant
who built the Asgard wall got into conflict with the gods, Thor's hammer
sent him "down below Nifelhel" (nidr undir Nifihel'Gylfag., ch. 43).
King Gorm saw in the lower world the giant Geirrod and both his
daughters. According to Grimnersmal (str. 31), frost-giants dwell under
one of Ygdrasil's roots'consequently in the lower world; and
Forspjallsljod says that hags (giantesses) and thurses (giants), nair,
dwarfs, and swarthy elves go to sleep under the world-tree's farthest
root on the north of Jormungrund  (the lower world), when Dag on a
chariot sparkling with precious stones leaves the lower world, and when
Nat after her journey on the heavens has returned to her home (str. 24,
28). It is therefore quite in order if we, in Skirner's description of
the realm which after death awaits the giant-daughter offending the
gods, rediscover that part of the lower world to which the drowned
primeval ancestors of the giant-maid were relegated when Bor's sons
opened the veins of Yimir's throat (Sonatorr., str. 3) and then let the
billows of the ocean wash clean the rocky ground of earth, before they
raised the latter from the sea and there created the inhabitable Midgard.


The frost-giants (rimethurses) are the primeval giants (gigantes) of
the Teutonic mythology, so called because they sprang from the
frost-being Yimir, whose feet by contact with each other begat their
progenitor, the "strange - headed" monster Thrudgelmer (Vafthr., 29,
33). Their original home in chaos was Nifelheim. From the Hvergelmer
fountain there the Elivagar rivers flowed to the north and became
hoar-frost and ice, which, melted by warmth from the south, were changed
into drops of venom, which again became Yimir, called by the giants
Aurgelmer (Vafthr., 31; Gylfag., 5). Thrudgelmer begat Bergelmer
countless winter's before the earth was made (Vafthr., 29; Gylf., ch.
7). Those members of the giant race living in Jotunheim on the surface
of the earth, whose memory goes farthest back in time, can remember
Bergelmer when he a var ludr urn lagir. At least Vafthrudner is able to
do this (Vafthr., 35).


When the original giants bad to abandon the fields populated by Bor's
sons (Völuspa, 4), they received an abode corresponding as nearly as
possible to their first home, and, as it seems, identical with it,
excepting that Nifelheim now, instead of being a part of chaos, is an
integral part of the cosmic universe, and the extreme north of its
Hades. As a Hades-realm it is also called Nifelhel.


 With this name of the lower world compare Gudmund-Mimir's abode a
Grund (see No. 45), and Helligrund (Heliand., 44, 22), and neowla grund
(Caedmon, 267, 1, 270, 16).


In the subterranean land with which Skirner threatens Gerd, and which
he paints for her in appalling colours, he mentions three kinds of
beings'(1) frost-giants, the ancient race of giants; (2) demons; (3)
giants of the later race.


The frost-giants occupy together one abode, which, judging from its
epithet, hall (holl), is the largest and most important there; while
those members of the younger giant clan who are there, dwell in single
scattered abodes, called gards. Gerd is also there to have a separate
abode (str. 28).


Two frost-giants are mentioned by name, which shows that they are
representatives of them' clan. One is named Rimgrimner (Hrimgrimnir'str.
35), the other Rimner (Hrímnir'str. 28).


Grimner is one of Odin's many surnames (Grimnersmal, 47, and several
other places; cp. Egilsson's Lex. Poet.). Rimgrimner means the same as
if Odin had said Rim-Odin, for Odin's many epithets could without
hesitation be used by the poets in paraphrases, even when these referred
to a giant. But the name Odin was too sacred for such a purpose. Upon
the whole the skalds seem piously to have abstained from using that name
in paraphrases, even when the latter referred to celebrated princes and
heroes. Glum Geirason is the first known exception to the rule. He calls
a king Malm- Odinn. The above epithet places Rimgrimner in the same
relation to the frost-giants as Odin-Grirnner sustains to the asas: it
charactenses him as the race-chief and clan-head of the former, and in
this respect gives him the same place as Thrudgelmer occupies in
Vafthrudnersmal. Yimir cannot be regarded as the special clan-chief of
the frost-giants, since he is also the progenitor of other classes of
beings (see Vafthr., 33, and Völuspa, 9; cp. Gylfag., oh. 14). But they
have other points of resemblance. Thrudgelmer is "strange-headed" in
Vafthrudnersmal; Rimgrimner is "three- headed" in Skirnersmal (str. 31;
cp. with str. 35). Thus we have in one poem a "strange-headed"
Thrudgelmer as progenitor of the frost-giants; in the other poem a
"three-headed" Rimgrimner as progenitor of the same frost-giants. The
"strange-headed" giant of the former poem, which is a somewhat
indefinite or obscure


 Compare the phrase iotna gaurdum i (str. 30, 3) with til hrimdursa
hallar (30, 4).


phrase, thus finds in "three-headed" of the latter poem its further
definition. To this is to be added a power which is possessed both by
Thrudgelmer and by Rimgrimner, and also a weakness for which both
Thrudgelmer and Rimgrimner are blamed. Thrudgelmer's father begat
children without possessing gygjar gaman (Vafthr., 32). That Thrudgelmer
inherited this power from his strange origin and handed it down to the
clan of frost-giants, and that be also inherited the inability to
provide for the perpetuation of the race in any other way, is evident
from Allvismal, str. 2. If we make a careful examination, we find that
Skirnersmal presupposes this same positive and negative quality in
Rimgrimner, and consequently Thrudgelmer and Rimgrimner must be identical.


Gerd, who tries to reject the love of the fair and blithe Vana-god,
will, according to Skirner's threats, be punished therefor in the lower
world with the complete loss of all that is called love, tenderness, and
sympathy. Skirner says that she either must live alone and without a
husband in the lower world, or else vegetate in a useless cohabitation
(nara) with the three-headed giant (str. 31). The threat is gradually
emphasised to the effect that she shall be possessed by Rimgrimner, and
this threat is made immediately after the solemn conjuration (str. 34)
in which Skirner invokes the inhabitants of Nifelhel and also of the
regions of bliss, as witnesses, that she shall never gladden or be
gladdened by a man in the physical sense of this word.

Hear, ye giants,
Hear, frost-giants,
Ye sons of Suttung'
Nay, thou race of the Asa-god !-
how I forbid,
how I banish
man's gladness from the maid,
man's enjoyment from the maid!
Rimgrimner is the giant's name
who shall possess thee
below the Na-gates.
 	Heyri iotnar,
heyri hrimthursar,
synir Suttunga,
sjalfir asliţar
hve ec fyr byd,
hve ec fyrir banna
manna glaum mani
manna nyt mani.
Hrímgrimner heiter ţurs,
er ţic hafa seal
fyr nagrindr nean.


 With race of the Asa-god aslidar there can hardly be meant others
than the asmegir gathered in the lower world around Balder. This is the
only place where the word aslidar occurs.


More plainly, it seems to me, Skirner in speaking to Gerd could not
have expressed the negative quality of Rimgrimner in question. Thor also
expresses himself clearly on the same subject when he meets the dwarf
Alvis carrying home a maid over whom Thor has the right of marriage.
Thor says scornfully that he thinks he discovers in Alvis something
which reminds him of the nature of thurses, although Alvis is a dwarf
and the thurses are giants, and he further defines wherein this
similarity consists:


ţursa lici ţicci mer a ţer vera; erat ţu till brudar borinn:


"Thurs' likeness you seem to me to have; you were not born to have a
bride ". So far as the positive quality is concerned it is evident from
the fact that Rimgrimner is the progenitor of the frost-giants.


Descended to Nifelhel, Gerd must not count on a shadow of friendship
and sympathy from her kinsmen there. It would be best for her to confine
herself in the solitary abode which there awaits her, for if she but
looks out of the gate, staring gazes shall meet her from Rimner and all
the others down there; and she shall there be looked upon with more
hatred than Heimdal, the watchman of the gods, who is the wise, always
vigilant foe of the rimethurses and giants. But whether she is at home
or abroad, demons and tormenting spirits shall never leave her in peace.
She shall be bowed to the earth by tramar (evil witches). Morn (a
Teutonic Eumenides, the agony of the soul personified) shall fill her
with his being. The spirits of sickness'such also dwell there; they once
took an oath not to harm Balder (Gylf., oh. 50)'shall increase her woe
and the flood of her tears. Tope (insanity), Ope (hysteria), Tjausul and
Othale (constant restlessness), shall not leave her in peace. These
spirits are also counted as belonging to the race of thurses, and hence
it is said in the rune-song that ţurs veldr kvenna kvillu, "thurs causes
sickness of women ". In this connection it should be remembered that the
daughter of Loki, the ruler of Nifelhel, is also the queen of diseases.
Gerd's food shall be more loathsome to her than the poisonous serpent is
to man, and her drink shall be the most disgusting. Miserable she shall
crawl among the homes of the Hades giants, and up to a mountain top,
where Are, a subterranean eagle-demon has his perch (doubtless the same
Are which, according to Völuspa (47), is to join with his screeches in
Rymer's shield-song, when the Midgard-serpent writhes in giant-rage, and
the ship of death, Naglfar, gets loose). Up there she shall sit early in
the morning, and constantly turn her face in the same direction'in the
direction where Hel is situated, that is, south over Mt. Hvergelmer,
toward the subterranean regions of bliss. Toward Hel she shall long to
come in vain:


Ara ţufo a scaltu ar sitja horfa ok snugga Heljar til.


"On Are's perch thou shalt early sit, turn toward Hel, and long to get
to Hel."


By the phrase snugga Heljar til, the skald has meant something far more
concrete than to "long for death ". Gerd is here supposed to be dead,
and within the Na-gates. To long for death, she does not need to crawl
up to "Are's perch ". She must subject herself to these nightly
exertions, so that when it dawns in the foggy Nifelhel, she may get a
glimpse of that land of bliss to which she may never come; she who
rejected a higher happiness'that of being with the gods and possessing
Frey's love.


I have been somewhat elaborate in the presentation of this description
in Skirnersmal, which has not hitherto been understood. I have done so,
because it is the only evidence left to us of how life was conceived in
the fore-court of the regions of torture, Nifelhel, the land situated
below Ygrdrasil's northern root, beyond and below the mountain, where
the root is watered by Hvergelmer. It is plain that the author of
Skirnersmal, like that of Vafthrudnersmal, Grimnersmal, Vegtamskvida,
and Thorsdrapa (as we have already seen), has used the word Hel in the
sense of a place of bliss in the lower world. It is also evident that
with the root under which the frost-giant dwells impossibly can be
meant, as supposed by Gylfaginning, that one under which Mimir's
glorious fountain, and Mimir's grove, and all his treasures stored for a
future world, are situated.


61.


THE WORD HEL IN VOLUSPA. WHO THE INHABITANTS OF HEL ARE.


We now pass to Völuspa, 40 (Hauk's Codex), where the word Helvegir occurs.


One of the signs that Ragnarok and the fall of the world are at hand,
is that the mighty ash Ygdrasil trembles, and that a fettened
giant-monster thereby gets loose from its chains. Which this monster is,
whether it is Garm, bound above the Gnipa cave, or some other, we will
not now discuss. The astonishment and confusion caused by these events
among all the beings of the world, are described in the poem with but
few words, but they are sufficient for the purpose, and well calculated
to make a deep impression upon the hearers. Terror is the predominating
feeling in those beings which are not chosen to take part in the
impending conflict. They, on the other hand, for whom the quaking of
Ygdrasil is the signal of battle for life or death, either arm
themselves amid a terrible war-cry for the battle (the giants, str. 41),
or they assemble to hold the last council (the Asas), and then rush to arms.


Two classes of beings are mentioned as seized by terror' the dwarfs,
who stood breathless outside of their stone-doors, and those beings
which are a Helvegum. Helvegir may mean the paths or ways in Hel: there,
are many paths, just as there are many gates and many rivers. Helvegir
may also mean the regions, districts in Hel (cp. Austrvegr, Sudrvegr,
Norvegr; and Allvism., 10, according to which the Vans call the earth
vegir, ways). The author may have used the word in either of these
senses or in both, for in this case it amounts to the same. At all
events it is stated that the inhabitants in Hel are terrified when
Ygdrasil quakes and the unnamed giant-monster gets loose.

Skelfr Yggdrasils
askr standandi,
ymr hid alldna tre
enn iotunn losnar;
hraedaz allir
a Helvegurn
adr Surtar ţann
sevi of gleypir.
 	Quakes Ygdrasil's
Ash standing,
The old tree trembles,
The giant gets loose;
All are frightened
On the Helways (in Hel's regions)
'ere Surt's spirit (or kinsman)
swallows him (namely, the giant).


Surt's spirit, or kinsman (sevi, sefi may mean either), is, as has also
hitherto been supposed, the fire. The final episode in the conflict on
Vigrid's plain is that the Muspel-flames destroy the last remnant of the
contending giants. The terror which, when the world-tree quaked and the
unnamed giant got loose, took possession of the inhabitants of Hel
continues so long as the conflict is undecided. Valfather falls, Frey
and Thor likewise; no one can know who is to be victorious. But the
terror ceases when on the one hand the liberated giant-monster is
destroyed, and on the other hand Vidar and Vale, Mode and Magne, survive
the conflict and survive the flames, which do not penetrate to Balder
and Hodr amid their proteges in Hel. The word ţann (him), which occurs
in tIme seventh line of the strophe (in the last of the translation) can
impossibly refer to any other than the giant mentioned in the fourth
line (iotunn). There are in the strophe only two masculine words to
which the masculine ţann can be referred' iotncnn and Yggdrasils askr.
Iotunn, which stands nearest to ţann, thus has the preference ; and as
we have seen that the world-tree falls by neither fire nor edge
(Fjolsv., 20), and as it, in fact, survives the conflagration of Surt,
then ţann must naturally be referred to the iotunn.


Here Völuspa has furnished us with evidence in regard to the position
of Hel's inhabitants towards the contending parties in Ragnarok. They
who are frightened when a giant-monster'a most dangerous one, as it
hitherto had been chained'gets free from its fetters, and they whose
fright is allayed when the monster is destroyed in the conflagration of
the world, such beings can impossibly follow this monster and its fellow
warriors with their good wishes. Their hearts are on the side of the
good powers, which are friendly to mankind. But they do not take an
active part in their behalf; they take no part whatever in time
conflict. This is manifest from the fact that their fright does not
cease before the conflict is ended. Now we know that among the
inhabitants in Hel are the asmegir' Lif and Leifthraser and their
offspring, and that they are not herţarfir; they are not to be employed
in war, since their very destiny forbids their taking an active part in
time events of this period of the world (see No. 53). But the text does
not permit us to think of them alone when we are to determine who the
beings a Helvegum are. For the text says that all, who are a Helvegum,
are alarmed until the conflict is happily ended. What the interpreters
of this much abused passage have failed to see, the seeress in Voluspa
has not forgotten, that, namely, during tIme lapse of countless
thousands of years, innumerable children and women, and men who never
wielded the sword, have descended to the kingdom of death and received
dwellings in Hel, and that Hel'in the limited local sense which the word
hitherto has appeared to have in the songs of the gods'does not contain
warlike inhabitants. Those who have fallen on the battle-field come,
indeed, as shall be shown later, to Hel, but not to remain there; they
continue their journey to Asgard, for Odin chooses one half of those
slain on the battlefield for his dwelling, and Freyja the other half
(Grimnersmal, 14). The chosen accordingly have Asgard as their place of
destination, which they reach in case they are not found guilty by a
sentence which neutralises the force and effect of the previous choice
(see below), and sends them to die the second death on crossing the
boundary to Nifelhel. Warriors who have not fallen on the battlefield
are as much entitled to Asgard as those fallen by the sword, provided
they as heroes have acquired fame and honour. It might, of course,
happen to the greatest general and the most distinguished hero, the
conqueror in hundreds of battles, that he might die from sickness or an
accident, while, on the other hand, it might be that a man who never
wielded a sword in earnest might fall on the field of battle before he
had given a blow. That the mythology should make the latter entitled to
Asgard, but not the former, is an absurdity as void of support in the
records'on the contrary, these give the opposite testimony' as it is of
sound sense. The election contained for the chosen ones no exclusive
privilege. It did not even imply additional favour to one who,
independently of the election, could count on a place among the
einherjes. The election made the person going to battle feigr, which was
not a favour, nor could it be considered the opposite. It might play a
royal crown from the head of the chosen one to that of his enemy, and
this could not well be regarded as a kindness. But for the electing
powers of Asgard themselves the election implied a privilege. The
dispensation of life and death regularly belonged to the norns; but the
election partly supplied the gods with an exception to this rule, and
partly it left to Odin the right to determine the fortunes and issues of
battles. The question of the relation between the power of the gods and
that of fate'a question which seemed to the Greeks and Romans dangerous
to meddle with and well-nigh impossible to dispose of'was partly solved
by the Teutonic mythology by the naive and simple means of dividing the
dispensation of life and death between the divinity and fate, which, of
course, did not hinder that fate always stood as the dark, inscrutable
power in the background of all events. (On election see further, No. 66.)


It follows that in Hel's regions of bliss there remained, none that
were warriors by profession. Those among them who were not guilty of any
of the sins which the Asa-doctrine stamped as sins unto death passed
through Hel to Asgard, the others through Hel to Nifelhel. All the
inhabitants on Hel's elysian fields accordingly are the asmegir, and the
women, children, and the agents of the peaceful arts who have died
during countless centuries, and who, unused to the sword, have no place
in the ranks of the einherjes, and therefore with the anxiety of those
waiting abide the issue of the conflict. Such is the background and
contents of the Völuspa strophe. This would long since have been
understood, had not the doctrine constructed by Gylfaginning in regard
to the lower world, with Troy as the starting-point, bewildered the
judgment.


62.


THE WORD HEL IN ALLVISMAL. THE CLASSES OF BEINGS IN HEL.


In Allvismal occurs the phrases: those i helio and halir. The premise
of the poem is that such objects as earth, heaven, moon, sun, night,
wind, fire, &c., are expressed in six different ways, and that each one
of these ways of expression is, with the exclusion of the others,
applicable within one or two of the classes of beings found in the
world. For example, Heaven is called' Himinn among men, Lyrner am ong
gods, Vindofner among Vans, Uppheim among giants. Elves say Fager-tak
(Fair-roof), dwarfs Drypsal (dropping-hall) (str. 12).


In this manner thirteen objects are mentioned, each one with its six
names. In all of the thirteen cases man has a way of his own of naming
the objects. Likewise the giants. No other class of beings has any of
the thirteen appellations in common with them. On the other hand, the
Asas and Vans have the same name for two objects (moon and sun); elves
and dwarfs have names in common for no less than six objects (cloud,
wind, fire, tree, seed, mead); the dwarfs and the inhabitants of the
lower world for three (heaven, sea, and calm). Nine times it is stated
how those in the lower world express themselves. In six of these nine
cases Allvismal refers to the inhabitants of the lower world by the
general expression "those in Hel"; in three cases the poem lets "those
in Hel" be represented by some one of those classes of beings that
reside in Hel. These three are upregin (str. 10), asasynir (str. 16),
and halir (str. 28).


The name upregin suggests that it refers to beings of a very certain
divine rank (the Vans are in Allvismal called ginnregin, str. 20, 30)
that have their sphere of activity in the upper world. As they none the
less dwell in the lower world, the appellation must have reference to
beings which have their homes and abiding places in Hel when they are
not occupied with their affairs in the world above. These beings are
Nat, Bag, Mane, Sol.


Asasynir has the same signification as asmegir. As this is the case,
and as the asmegir dwell in the lower world and the ásasynir likewise,
then they must be identical, unless we should be credulous enough to
assume that there were in the lower world two categories of beings, both
called sons of Asas.


Halir, when the question is about the lower world, means the souls of
the dead (Vafthr., 43; see above).


From this we find that Ailvismal employs the word Hel in such a manner
that it embraces those regions where Nat and Dag, Mane and Sol, the
living human inhabitants of Mimir's grove, and the souls of departed
human beings dwell. Among the last-named are included also souls of the
damned, which are found in the abodes of torture below Nifelhel, and it
is within the limits of possibility that the author of the poem also had
them in mind, though there is not much probability that he should
conceive them as having a nomenclature in common with gods, asmegir, and
the happy departed. At all events, he has particularly'and probably
exclusively'had in his mind the regions of bliss when he used the word
Hel, in which case he has conformed in the use of the word to Völuspa,
Vafthrudnersmal, Grimnersmal, Skirnersmal, Vegtamskvida, and Thorsdrapa.


63.


THE WORD HEL IN OTHER PASSAGES. THE RESULT OF THE IN VESTIGATION FOR
THE COSMOGRAPHY AND FOR THE MEANING OF THE WORD HEL. HEL IN A LOCAL
SENSE THE KINGDOM OF DEATH, PARTICULARLY ITS REALMS OF BLISS. HEL IN A
PERSONAL SENSE IDENTICAL WITH THE GODDESS OF FATE AND DEATH, THAT IS, URD.


While a terrible winter is raging, the gods, according to
Forspjallshjod, send messengers, with Heimdal as chief, down to a
lower-world goddess (dis), who is designated as Gjöll's (the lower world
river's) Sunna (Sol, sun) and as the distributor of the divine liquids
(str. 9, 11) to beseech her to explain to them the mystery of creation,
the beginning of heaven, of Hel, and of the world, life and death, if
she is able (hlyrnis, heliar, heims of vissi, artid, aefi, aldrtila).
The messengers get only tears as an answer. The poem divides the
universe into three great divisions: heaven, Hel, and the part lying
between Hel and heaven, the world inhabited by mortals. Thus Hel is here
used in its general sense, and refers to the whole lower world. But
here, as wherever Hel has this general signification, it appears that
the idea of regions of punishment is not thought of, but is kept in the
background by the definite antithesis in which the word Hel, used in its
more common and special sense of the subterranean regions of bliss,
stands to Nifelhel and the regions subject to it. It must be admitted
that what the anxious gods wish to learn from the wise goddess of the
lower world must, so far as their desire to know and their fears concern
the fate of Hel, refer particularly to the regions where Urd's and
Mimir's holy wells are situated, for if the latter, which water the
world-tree, pass away, it would mean nothing less than the end of the
world. That the author should make the gods anxious concerning Loki's
daughter, whom they had hurled into the deep abysses of Nifelhel, and
that he should make the wise goddess by Gjöll weep bitter tears over the
future of the sister of the Fenris-wolf, is possible in the sense that
it cannot be refuted by


 Of the age and genuineness of Forspjallsljod I propose to publish a
separate treatise any definite words of the old records; but we may be
permitted to regard it as highly improbable.


Among the passages in which the word Hel occurs in the poetic Edda's
mythological songs we have yet to mention liarbardsljod (str. 27), where
the expression drepa i Hel is employed in the same abstract manner as
the Swedes use the expression "at sla ihjal," which means simply "to
kill" (it is Thor who threatens to kill the insulting Harbard); and also
Völuspa (str. 42), Fjöllsvinasmal (str. 25), and Grimnersmal (str. 31).


Völuspa (str. 42), speaks of Goldcomb, the cock which, with its
crowing, wakes those who sleep in Herfather's abode, and of a sooty-red
cock which crows under the earth near Hel's halls. In Fjöllsvinnsmal
(str. 25), Svipdag asks with what weapon one might be able to bring down
to Hel's home (a Heljar sjöt) that golden cock Vidofner, which sits in
Mimir's tree (the world-tree), and doubtless is identical with Goldcomb.
That Vidofner has done nothing for which he deserves to be punished in
the home of Loki's daughter may be regarded as probable. Hel is here
used to designate the kingdom of death in general, and all that Svipdag
seems to mean is that Vidofner, in case such a weapon could be found,
might be transferred to his kinsman, the sooty-red cock which crows
below the earth. Saxo also speaks of a cock which is found in Hades, and
is with the goddess who has the cowbane stalks when she shows Hadding
the flower-meadows of the lower world, the Elysian fields of those
fallen by the sword, and the citadel within which death does not seem
able to enter (see No. 47). Thus there is at least one cock in the lower
world's realm of bliss. That there should be one also in Nifelhel and in
the abode of Loki's daughter is nowhere mentioned, amid is hardly
credible, since the cock, according to an ancient and wide-spread Aryan
belief, is a sacred bird, which is the special foe of demons and the
powers of darkness. According to Swedish popular belief, even of the
present time, the crowing of the cock puts ghosts and spirits to flight;
and a similar idea is found in Avesta (Vendidad, 18), where, in str. 15,
Ahuramazda himself translates the morning song of the cock with the
following words : "Rise, ye men, and praise the justice which is the
most perfect! Behold the demons are put to flight " Avesta is naively
out of patience with thoughtless persons who call this sacred bird
(Parodarsch) by the so little respect-inspiring name "Cockadoodledoo"
(Kahrkatás). The idea of the sacredness of the cock and its hostility to
demons was also found among the Aryans of South Europe and survived the
introduction of Christianity. Aurelius Prudentius wrote a Hymnus ad
galli cantum, and the cock has as a token of Christian vigilance
received the same place on the church spires as formerly on the
world-tree. Nor have the May-poles forgotten him. But in the North the
poets and the popular language have made the red cock a symbol of fire.
Fire has two characters'it is sacred, purifying, and beneficent, when it
is handled carefully and for lawful purposes. In the opposite case it is
destructive. With the exception of this special instance, nothing but
good is reported of the cocks of mythology and poetry.


Grimnersmal (str. 31) is remarkable from two points of view. It
contains inforniation'brief and scant, it is true, but nevertheless
valuable'in regard to Ygdrasil's three roots, and it speaks of Hel mu an
unmistakable, distinctly personal sense.


In regard to the roots of the world-tree and their positiomi, our
investigation so far, regardless of Grimnersmal (str. 31), has produced
the following result Ygdrasil has a northern root. This stands over the
vast reservoir Hvergelmer and spreads over Nifelhel, situated north of
Hvergelmer and inhabited by frost-giants. There nine regions of
punishment are situated, among them Nastrands.


Ygdrasil's second root is watered by Mimir's fountain and spreads over
the land where Mimir's fountain and grove are located. In Mimir's grove
dwell those living (not dead) beings called Asmegir and Ásasynir, Lif
and Leifthraser and their offspring, whose destiny it is to people the
regenerated earth.


Ygdrasil's third root stands over Urd's fountain and the subterranean
thingstead of the gods.


The lower world consists of two chief divisions: Nifelhel (with the
regions thereto belonging) and Hel,'Nifelhel situated north of the
Hvergelmer mountain, and Hel south of it. Accordingly both the land
where Mimir's well and grove are situated and the laud where Urd' s
fountain is found are within the domain Hel.


In regard to the zones or climates, in which the roots are located,
they have been conceived as having a southern and northern. We have
already shown that the root over Hvergelmer is the northern one. That
the root over Urd's fountain has been conceived as the southern one is
manifest from the following circumstances. Eilif Gudrunson, who was
converted to Christianity'the same skald who wrote the purely heathen
Thorsdrapa'says in one of his poems, written after his conversion, that
Christ sits sunnr at Urdarbrunni, in the south near Urd's fountain, an
expression which he could not have used unless his hearers had retained
from the faith of their childhood the idea that Urd's fountain was
situated south of the other fountains. Forspjallsljod puts upon Urd's
fountain the task of protecting the world-tree against the devastating
cold during the terrible winter which the poem describes. Oţhraerir
skyldi Urţar geyrna maettk at veria mestum ţorra.'" Urd's Odreirer
(mead-fountain) proved not to retain strength enough to protect against
the terrible cold." This idea shows that the sap which Ygdrasil's
southern root drew from Urd's fountain was thought to be warmer than the
saps of the other wells. As, accordingly, the root over Urd's well was
the southern, and that over Hvergelmer and the frost-giants the
northern, it follows that Mimir's well was conceived as situated between
those two. The memory of this fact Gylfaginning has in its fashion
preserved, where in chapter 15 it says that Mimir's fountain is situated
where Ginungagap formerly was'that is, between the northern Nifelheim
and the southern warmer region (Gylfaginning's "Muspelheim ").


Grimnersmal (str. 31) says:

ţriar' raetr standa
a ţria vega
undan asciYggdrasils:
Hel byr und einni,
annari hrimţursar,
ţriio mennzkir menn.
 	Three roots stand
on three ways
below Ygdrasil's ash:
Hel dwells under one,
under another frost-giants,
under a third human-" men".


The root under which the frost-giants dwell we already know as the root
over Hvergehmer and the Nifelhel inhabited by frostgiants.


The root under which human beings, living persons, mennskir menn, dwell
we also know as the one over Mimir's well and Mimir's grove, where the
human beings Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring have their abode,
where jörd lifanda manna is situated.


There remains one root: the one under which the goddess or fate, Urd,
has her dwelling. Of this Grimnersmal says that she who dwells there is
named Hel.


Hence it follows of necessity that the goddess of fate, Urd, is
identical with the personal Hel, the queen of the realm of death,
particularly of its regions of bliss. We have seen that Hel in its local
sense has the general signification, the realm of death, and the special
but most frequent signification, the elysium of the kingdom of death. As
a person, the meaning of the word Hel must be analogous to its
signification as a place. It is the same idea having a personal as well
as a local form.


The conclusion that Urd is Hel is inevitable, unless we assume that
Urd, though queen of her fountain, is not the regent of the land where
her fountain is situated. One might then assume Hel to be one of Urd's
sisters, but these have no prominence as compared with herself. One of
them, Skuld, who is the more known of the two, is at the same time one
of Urd's maid-servants, a valkyrie, who on the battlefield does her
errands, a feminine psycho-messenger who shows the fallen the way to
Hel, the realm of her sisters, where they are to report themselves ere
they get to their destination. Of Verdandi the records tell us nothing
but the name, which seems to preclude the idea that she should be the
personal Hel.


This result, that Urd is identical with Hel; that she who dispenses
life also dispenses death; that she who with her serving sisters is the
ruler of the past, the present, and the future, also governs and gathers
in her kingdom all generations of the past, present, and future'this
result may seem unexpected to those who, on the authority of
Gylfaginning, have assumed that the daughter of Loki cast into the abyss
of Nifelhel is the queen of the kingdom of death; that she whose
threshold is called Precipice (Gylfag., 34) was the one who conducted
Balder over the threshold to the subterranean citadel glittering with
gold; that she whose table is called Hunger and whose knife is called
Famine was the one who ordered the clear, invigorating mead to be placed
before him ; that the sister of those foes of the gods and of the world,
the Midgard-serpent and the Fenris-wolf was entrusted with the care of
at least one of Ygdrasil's roots; and that she whose bed is called
Sickness, jointly with Urd and Mimir, has the task of caring for the
world-tree and seeing that it is kept green and gets the liquids from
their fountains.


Colossal as this absurdity is, it has been believed for centuries. And
in dealing with an absurdity which is centuries old, we must consider
that it is a fon'ce which does not yield to objections simply stated,
but must be conquered by clear and convincing arguments. Without the
necessity of travelling the path by which I have reached the result
indicated, scholars would long since have come to the conviction that
Urd and the personal Hel are identical, if Gylfaginning and the
text-books based thereon had not confounded the judgment, and that for
the following reasons:


The name Urdr corresponds to the Old English Vurd, Vyrd, Vird, to the
Old low German Wurth, and to the Old High German Wurt. The fact that the
word is found in the dialects of several Teutonic branches indicates, or
is thought by tIme linguists to indicate, that it belongs to the most
ancient Teutonic times, when it probably had the form Vorthi.


There can be no doubt that Urd also among other Teutonic branches than
the Scandinavian has bad the meaning of goddess of fate. Expressions
handed down from time heathen time and preserved inn Old English
documents characterise Vyrd as tying the threads or weaving the web of
fate (Cod. Ex., 355; Beowulf, 2420), and as the one who writes that
which is to happen (Beowulf, 4836). Here the plural form is also
employed, Vyrde, the urds, the norns, which demonstrates that she in
England, as in the North, was conceived as having sisters or assistants.
In the Old Low German poem "Heliand," Wurth's personality is equally
plain. But at the same time as Vyrd, Wurth, was the goddess of fate, she
was also that of death. In Beowulf (4831, 4453) we find the parallel
expressions:


him vas Vyrd ungemete neah: Urd was exceedingly near to him; vas dead
ungemete neah: death was exceedingly near.


And in Heliand, 146, 2; 92, 2


Thiu Wurth is at handun: Urd is near; Dód is at hendi: death is near.


And there are also other expressions, as Thiu Wurth náhida thus:


Urd (death) them approached; Wurth ma benam: Urd (death) took him away
(cp. J. Grimm, Deutsche Myth., i. 373).


Thus Urd, the goddess of fate, was, among the Teutonic branches in
Germany and England, identical with (heath, conceived as a queen. So
also in the North. The norns made laws and chose life and örlög (fate)
for the children of time (Völuspa). The word orlog (Nom. Pl.; the
original meaning seems to be urlagarne, that is, the original laws)
frequently has a decided leaning to the idea of death (cp. Völuspa: Ek
sá Baldr'i orlog fólgin). Hakon Jarl's orlog was that Kark cut his
throat (Nj., 156). To receive the "judgment of the norns" was identical
with being doomed to die (Yng., Heimskringla, ch. 52). Fate and death
were in the idea and in usage so closely related, that they were blended
into one personality in the mythology. The ruler of death was that one
who could resolve death; but the one who could determine the length of
life, and so also could resolve death, and the kind of death, was, of
course, the goddess of fate. They must blend into one.


In the ancient Norse documents we also find the name Urd used to
designate death, just as in Heliand and Beowulf, and this, too, in such
a manner that Urd's personal character is not emphasised. Ynglingatal
(Heimskr., ch. 44) calls Ingjald's manner of death his Urdr, and to
determine death for anyone was to draga Urr at him.


Far down in the Christian centuries the memory survived that Urd was
the goddess of the realm of death and of death. When a bright spot,
which was called Urd's moon, appeared on the wall, it meant the breaking
out of an epidemic (Eyrbyggia Saga, 270). Even as late as the year 1237
Urd is supposed to have revealed herself, the night before Christmas, to
Snobjorn to predict a bloody conflict, and she then sang a song in which
she said that she went mournfully to the contest to choose a man for
death. Saxo translates Ur'r or Hel with "Proserpina" (Hist., i. 43).


64.


URD'S MAID-SERVANTS: (1) MAID-SERVANTS OF LIFE'NORNS, DISES OF BIRTH,
HAMINGJES, GIPTES, FYLGJES; (2) MAIDSERVANTS OF DEATH'VALKYRIES, THE
PSYCHO-MESSENGERS OF DISEASES AND ACCIDENTS.


As those beings for whom Urd determines birth, position in life, and
death, are countless, so her servants, who perform the


tasks commanded by her as queen, must also be innumerable. They belong
to two large classes: the one class is active in her service in regard
to life, the other in regard to death.


Most intimately associated with her are her two sisters. With her they
have the authority of judges. Compare Voluspa, 19, 20, and the
expressions norna dómr', norna kvidr. And they dwell with her under the
world-tree, which stands for ever green over her gold-chad fountain.


As maid-servants under Urd there are countless hamingjes (fylgjes) and
giptes (also called gafes, audnes, heilles). The hamingjes are fostered
among beings of giant-race (who hardly can be others than the norns and
Mimir). Three mighty rivers fall down into the world, in which they have
their origin, and they come wise in their hearts, soaring over the
waters to our upper world (Vafthr., 48, 49). There every child of man is
to have a hamingje as a companion and guardian spirit. The testimony of
the Icelandic sagas of the middle ages in this regard are confirmed by
phrases and forms of speech which have their root in heathendom. The
hamingjes belong to that large circle of feminine beings which are
called dises, and they seem to have been especially so styled. What Urd
is on a grand scale as the guardian of the mighty Ygdrasil, this the
hamingje is on a smaller scale when she protects the separate fruit
produced on the world-tree and placed in her care. She does not appear
to her favourite excepting perhaps in dreams or shortly before his death
(the latter according to Helgakv. Hjorv. the prose; Njal, 62; Hallf, ch.
11; proofs from purely heathen records are wanting). In strophes which
occur in Gisle Surson's saga, and which are attributed (though on
doubtful grounds) to this heathen skald, the hero of the saga, but the
origin of which (from a time when the details of the myth were still
remembered) is fully confirmed by a careful criticism, it is mentioned
how he stood between good and evil inispirations, and how the draumkona
(dream-woman) of the good inspirations said to him in sleep: " Be not
the first cause of a murder! excite not peaceful men against yourself
!'promise me this, thou charitable man! Aid the blind, scorn not the
lame, and insult not a Tyr robbed of his hand !" These are noble
counsels, and that the hamingjes were noble beings was a belief'
preserved through the Christian centuries in Iceland, where, according
to Vigfusson, the word hamingja is still used in the sense of
Providence. They did not usually leave their favourite before death. But
there are certain phrases preserved in the spoken language which show
that they could leave him before death. He who was abandoned by his
hamingje and


gipte was a lost man. If the favourite became a hideous and bad man,
then his hamingja and gipta might even turn her benevolence into wrath,
and cause his well-deserved ruin. Uvar' 'ro disir, angry at you are the
dises I cries Odin to the royal nithing Geirrod, and immediately
thereupon the latter stumbles and falls pierced by his own sword. That
the invisible hamingje could cause one to stumble and fall is shown in
Forum., iii.


The giptes seem to have carried out such of Urd's resolves, on account
of which the favourite received an unexpected, as it were accidental,
good fortune.


Not omily for separate individuals, but also for families and clans,
there were guardian spirits (kynfylgjur, ćttarfylgjur).


Another division of this class of maid-servants under Urd are those who
attend the entrance of the child into the world, and who have to weave
the threads of the new-born babe into the web of the families and
events. Like Urd and her sisters, they too are called norns. If it is a
child who is to be a great amid famous man, Urd herself and her sisters
niay be present for the above purpose (see No. 30 in regard to Halfdan's
birth).


A few strophes incorporated in Fafnersmal from a heathen didactic poem,
now lost (Fafn., 12-15), speak of norns whose task it is to determine
and assist the arrival of the child into this world. Nornir, er
naudgaunglar 'ro oc kjósa mćdr fra maugum. The expression kjósa mćdr fra
maugum, "to choose mothers from descendants," seems obscure, and can
under all circumstances not mean simply "to deliver mothers of children
". The word kjósa is never used in any other sense than to choose,
elect, select. Here it must then mean to choose, elect as mothers; and
the expression "from descendants" is incomprehensible, if we do not on
the one hand conceive a crowd of eventual descendants, who at the
threshold of life are waiting for mothers in order to become born into
this world, and on the other hand women who are to be mothers, but in
reference to whoni it has not yet been determined which descendant each
one is to call hers among the great waiting crowd, until those nomns
which we are here discussing resolve on that point, and from the
indefinite crowd of waiting megir choose mothers for those children
which are especially destined for them.


These norns are, according to Fafn., 13, of different birth. Some are
Asa-kinswomen, others of elf-race, and again others are daughters of
Dvalin. In regard to the last-named it should be remembered that Dvalin,
their father, through artists of his circle, decorated the citadel,
within which a future generation of men await the regeneration of the
world, and that the mythology has associated him intimately with the elf
of the morning dawn, Delling, who guards the citadel of the race of
regeneration against all that is evil and all that ought not to enter
(see No. 53). There are reasons (see No. 95) for assuming that these
dises of birth were Honer's maid-servants at the same time as they were
Urd's, just as the valkyries are Urd's and Odin's maid-servants at the
sanie time (see below).


To the other class of Urd's maid-servants belong those lower-world
beings which execute her resolves of death, and conduct the souls of the
dead to the lower world.


Foremost among the psycho-messengers (psychopomps), the attendants of
tlne dead, we note that group of shield-maids called valkyries. As Odin
and Freyja got the right of choosing on the battlefield, the valkyries
have received Asgard as their abode. There they bring the mead-honus to
the Asas and einherjes, when they do not ride on Valfather's errands
(Völuspa, 31; Grimnersmal, 36; Eiriksm., 1; Ulf Ugges. Skaldsk., 238).
But the third of the norns, Skuld, is the chief one in this group
(Voluspa, 31), and, as shall be shown below, they for ever remain in the
most intimate association with Urd and the lower world.


65.


ON THE (COSMOGRAPHY. THE WAY OF THOSE FALLEN BY THE SWORD TO VALHAL IS
THROUGH THE LOWER WORLD.


The modern conception of the removal of those fallen by the sword to
Asgard is that the valkyries carried them immediately through blue space
to the halls above. The heathens did not conceive the matter in this manner.


It is true that the mythological horses might carry their riders
through the air without pressing a firm foundation with their hoofs. But
such a mode of travel was not the rule, even among the gods, and, when
it did happen, it attracted attention even among them. Compare
Gylfaginning, i. 118, which quotes strophes from a heathen source. The
bridge Bifrost would not have been built or established for the daily
connection between Asgard and Urd's subterranean realm if it had been
unnecessary in the mythological world of fancy. Mane's way in space
would not have been regarded as a road inn the concrete sense, that
quakes amid rattles when Thor's thunder-chariot passes over it (Haustl.,
Skaldsk., ch. 16), had it not been thought that Mane was safer on a firm
road than without one of that sort. To every child that grew up in the
homes of our heathen fathers the question must have lain near at hand,
what such roads and bridges were for, if the gods had no advantage froni
them. The mythology had to be prepared for such questions, and in this,
as in other cases, it had answers wherewith to satisty that claim on
causality amid consistency which even the most naive view of the world
presents. The answer was : If the Bifrost bridge breaks under its
riders, as is to happen in course of time, then their horses would have
to swim in the sea of air (Bilraust brotnar, er ţeir a brn fara, oc
svima i modo marir'Fafn., 15 ; compare a strophe of Kormak, Kormak's
Saga, p. 259, where the atmosphere is called the fjord of the gods, Dia
fjordr). A horse does not swim as fast and easily as it runs. The
different possibilities of travel are associated with different kinds of
exertion and swiftness. TIne one method is more adequate to the purpose
than the other. The solid connections which were used by the gods amid
which the mythology built in space are, accordingly, objects of
advantage and convenience. The valkyries, riding at the head of their
chosen heroes, as well as the gods, have found solid roads advantageous,
amid the course they took with their favourites was miot the one
presented in our mytho' logical text-books. Grimnersmal (str. 21; see
No. 93) informs us that the breadth of tIme atmospheric sea is too great
amid its currents too strong for those riding on their horses from the
battlefield to wade across.


In the 45th chapter of Egil Skallagrimson's saga we read how Egil saved
himself from men, whom King Erik Blood-axe sent in pursuit of him to
Saul Isle. While they were searching for him there, he had stolen to the
vicinity of the place where tIme boat lay in which those in pursuit had
rowed across. Three warriors guarded the boat. Egil succeeded in
surprising them, and in giving one of theni his death-wound ere the
latter was able to defend himself. The second fell in a duel on the
strand. The third, who sprang into the boat to make it loose, fell there
after an exchange of blows. The saga has preserved a strophe in which
Egil mentions this exploit to his brother Thorolf and his friend
Arinbjorn, whomn he met after his flight from Saud Isle. There lie says:


at ţrymreynis ţjónar ţrir nokkurir Hlakkar, til hasalar Heljar
helgengnir, for dvelja.


Three of those who serve the tester of the valkyrie-din (the warlike
Erik Blood-axe) will late return; they have gone to time lower world, to
Hel's high hall."


The fallen ones were king's men and warriors. They were slain by
weapons and tell at their posts of duty, one from a sudden, unexpected
wound, the others in open conflict. According to the conception of the
mythological text-books, these sword-slain men should have been
conducted by valkyries through the air to Valhal. But the skald Egil,
who as a heathen horn about the year 904, and who as a contemporary of
the sons of Harald Fairhair must have known the mythological views of
his fellow-heathen believers better than the people of our time, assures
us positively that these men from King Erik's body-guard, instead of
going immediately to Valhal, went to the lower world and to Hel's high
hall there. He certainly would not have said anything of the sort if
those for whom he composed the strophe had not regarded this idea as
both possible and correct.


The question now is : Does this Egil's statement stand alone and is it
in conflict with those other statements touching the same point which
the ancient heathen records have preserved for us The answer is, that in
these ancient records there is not found a single passage in conflict
with Egil's idea, but that they all, on the contrary, fully agree with
his words, and that this harmony continues in the reports of the first
Christian centuries in regard to this subject.


All the dead and also those fallen by the sword come first to Hel.
Thence the sword-slain conie to Asgard, if they have deserved this destiny.


In Gisle Surson's saga (ch. 24) is mentioned the custom of binding
Hel-shoes on the feet of the dead. Warriors in regard to whom there was
no doubt that Valhal was their final destiny received Hel-shoes like all
others, ţat er tiska at binda monnum helskó, sem menn, skulo á ganga
till Valhallar. It would be impossible to explain this custom if it had
not been believed that those who were chosen for the joys of Valhal were
obliged, like all others, to travel á. Helvegurn. Wherever this custom
prevailed, Egil's view in regard to the fate which inimediately awaited
sword-fallen men was general.


When Herniod betook hiniself to the lower world to find Balder he came,
as we know, to the golden bridge across the river Gjöll. Urd's
maid-servant, who watches the bridge, mentioned to him that the day
before five fylki of dead men had rode across the same bridge.
Consequently all these dead are on horseback and they do not come
separately or a few at a time, but in large troops called fylki, an
expression which, in the Icelandic literature, denotes larger or smaller
divisions of an army'legions, cohorts, maniples or companies in battle
array; and with fylki the verb fylkja, to form an arnmy or a division of
an arnny in line of battle, is most intimately connected. This indicates
with sufficient clearmess that the dead here in question are men who
have fallen on the field of battle and are on their way to Hel, each one
riding, in company with his fallen brothers in arms, with those who
belonged to his own fylki. The account presupposes that men fallen by
the sword, whose final destination is Asgard, first have to ride down to
the lower world. Else we would not find these fylkes on a Hel-way
galloping across a subterranean bridge, into the sanie realm as had
received Balder amid Nanna after death.





It has already been pointed out that Bifrost is tIme only connecting
link between Asgard arid the lower regions of the universe. The air was
regarded as aim ether sea which tIme bridge spanmied, and although the
horses of' mythology were able to swim in this sea, the solid connection
was of the greatest importance. Time gods used the bridge every day
(Grimnismal, Gylfagininning). Frost'giants and mountain-giants are
anxious to get possession of it, for it is the key to Asgard. It
therefore has its special watchman in the keen-eyed and vigilant
Heimdal. When in Ragnarok the gods ride to time last conflict they pass
over Bifrost (Fafnersmal). The bridge does not lead to Midgard. Its
lower ends were not conceived as situated among mortal men. It stood
outside and below the edge of the earth's crust both in the north and in
the south. In the south it descended to Urd's fountain and to the
thingstead of the gods in the lower world (see the accompanying drawing,
intended to make these facts intelligible). From this mythological
topographical arrangement it follows of necessity that the valkyries at
the head of the chosen slain must take their course through the lower
world, by tIme way of Urd's fountain and the thingstead of the gods, if
they are to ride on Bifrost bridge to Asgard, and not be obliged to
betake themselves thither on swimming horses.


There are still two poems extant from the heathen time, which describe
the reception of sword-fallen kings in Valhal. The one describes the
reception of Erik Blood-axe, the other that of Hakon the Good.


When King Erik, with five other kings and their attendants of fallen
warriors, come riding up thither, the gods hear on their approach a
mighty din, as if the foundations of Asgard trembled. All the benches of
Valhal quake and tremble. What single probability can we now conceive as
to what the skald presupposed' Did he suppose that the chosen heroes
came on horses that swim in the air, and that the movements of the
horses in this element produced a noise that made Valhal tremble' Or
that it is Bifrost which thunders under the hoofs of hundreds of horses,
and quakes beneath their weight' There is scarcely need of an answer to
this alternative. Meanwhile the skald himself gives the answer. For the
skald makes Brage say that from the din and quaking it might be presumed
that it was Balder who was returning to tine halls of the gods. Balder
dwells in the lower world ; the connection between Asgard and the lower
world is Bifrost: this connection is of such a nature that it quakes and
trembles beneath the weight of horses and riders, and it is predicted in
regard to Bifrost that in Ragnarok it shall break under the weight of
the host of riders. Thus Brage's words show that it is Bifrost from
which the noise is heard when Erik and his men ride up to Valhal. But to
get to the southern end of Bifrost, Erik and his ridem's must have
journeyed in Hel, across Gjoll, and past the thinmgstead of the gods
near Urd's well. Thus it is by this road that the psychopomps of the
heroes conduct their favourites to their final destination.


In his grand poem "Hakonarmal," Eyvind Skaldaspiller makes Odin send
the valkyries Candul and Skagul "to choose among the kings of Yngve's
race some who are to come to Odin and abide in Valhal. It is not said by
which road the two valkyries betake themselves to Midgard, but when they
have arrived there they find that a battle is imminent between the Yngve
descendants, Hakon the Good, and the sons of Erik. Hakon is just putting
on his coat-of-mail, and immediately thereupon begins the
brilliantlydescribed battle. The sons of Erik are put to flight, but the
victor Hakon is wounded by an arrow, and after the end of the battle he
sits on the battlefield, surrounded by his heroes, "with shields cut by
swords and with byrnies pierced by arrows ". Gandul and Skagul, maids
omi horseback, with wisdom in their countenances, with helmets on their
heads, and with shields before them," are near the king. The latter
hears that Gandul, "leaning on her spear," says to Skagul that the wound
is to cause the king's death, and now a conversation begins between
Hakon and Skagul, who confirms what Gandul has said, and does so with
the following words:


Rida vit nu skulum, kva hint rika Skagul, grćna heima goa Oni at segja,
at un mun allvaldr koma a hann sjalfan at sja.


"We two (Gandul and Skagul) shall now, quoth the mighty Skagul, ride
o'er green realms (or worlds) of the gods in order to say to Odin that
now a great king is coming to see him."


Here we get definite information in regard to which way the valkyries
journey between Asgard and Midgard. The fields through which the road
goes, and which are beaten by the hoofs of their horses, are gr'een
realms of the gods (worlds, heimar).


With these green reahmmms Eyvind has not meant the blue ether. He
distinguishes between blue and green. The sea he calls blue (blamćr'see
Heimskringla). What he expressly states, and to which we must confine
ourselves, is that, according to his cosmological conception and that of
his heathen fellow-believers, there were realms clothed in green aud
inhabited by divinities on the route the valkyries had to take when they
from a battlefield in Midgard betook themselves back to Valhal and
Asgard. But as valkyries and the elect ride on Bifrost up to Valhal,
Bifrost, which goes down to Urd's well, must he the connecting link
between the realms decked with green and Asgard. The grćnar heimar
through which the valkyries have to pass are theref ore the realnis of
the lower world.


Among the realms or "worlds" which constituted the mythological
universe, the realms of bliss in the lower world were those which might
particularly he characterised as the green. Their groves and blooming
meadows and fields of waving grain were never touched by decay or frost,
amid as such they were cherished by the popular fancy for centuries
after the introduction of Christianity. The Low German language has also
rescued the memory thereof in tIme expression gróni godes wang (Hel.,
94, 24). That the green realms of time lower world ane called realms of
the gods is also propel', for they have contained and do contain many
beings of a higher or lower divine rank. There dwells the divine mother
Nat, worshipped by the Teutons ; there Thor's mother and her brother and
sister Njord and Fulla are fostered; there Balder, Nanna, and Hodr a.re
to dwell until Ragnarok; there Delling, Billing, Rind, Dag, Mane, and
Sol, and all the clan of artists gathered around Mimir, they who "
smithy" living beings, vegetation, and ornanients, have their halls;
there was born Odin's son Vale. Of the mythological divinities, only a
small number were fostered in Asgard. When Gandul and Skagul at the head
of sword-fallen men ride "o'er the green worlds of the gods," this
agrees with the statement in the myth about Herniod's journey to Hel,
that "fylkes" of dead riders gallop over the subterranean gold-bridge,
on the other side of which glorious regions are situated, and with the
statement in Vegtamskvida that Odin, when he had left Nifelhel behind
him, came to a foldvegr, a way over green plains, by which he reaches
the hall that awaits Balder.


In the heroic songs of the Elder Edda, and in other poems from the
centuries immediately succeeding the introduction of Christianity, the
memory survives that the heroes journey to the lower world. Sigurd
Fafnersbane comes to Hel. Of one of Atle's brothers who fell by Gudrun's
sword it is said, i Helju hon dana hafdi (Atlam., 51). In the same poem,
strophe 54, one of the Nifiungs says of a sword-fallen foe that they had
him lam an til Heljar'.


The mythic tradition is supported by linguistic usage, which, in such
phrases as berja i Hel, drepa i Hel, drepa til Heljar, fćra til Heljar,
indicated that those fallen by the sword also had to descend to the
realni of death.


The memory of valkyries, subordinate to the goddess of fate and death,
and belonging with her to the class of norns, continued to flourish in
Christian times both among Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. Among the
former, valcyrge, valcyrre (valkyrie) could be used to express the Latin
parca, and in Beowulf occur phrases in which Hild and Gud (the valkyries
Hildr and Gunnr) perform the tasks of Vyrd. In Atlamal (28), tIme
valkyries are changed into "dead women," inhabitants of the lower world,
who came to choose the hero and invite him to their halls. The basis of
the transformation is the recollection that the valkyries were not only
in Odin's service, but also in that of the lower world goddess Urd
(compare Atlamal, 16, where they are called norns), and that they as
psychopomps conducted the chosen Heroes to Hel on their way to Asgard.


66.


THE CHOOSING. THE MIDDLE-AGE FABLE ABOUT "RISTING WITH THE SPEAR-POINT ".


If death on the battlefield, or as the result of wounds received on the
field of battle, had been regarded as an inevitable condition for the
admittance of the dead into Asgard, and for the honour of sitting at
Odin's table, then the choosing would under all circumstances have been
regarded as a favour from Odin. But this was by no means time case, nor
could it be so when regarded from a psychological point of view (see
above, No. 61). The poems mentioned above, "Eiriksmal" and "Hakonarmal,"
give us examples of choosing from a standpoint quite different from that
of favour. When one of the einherjes, Sigmund, learns from Odin that
Erik Blood-axe has fallen and is expected in Valhal, he asks why Odin
robbed Erik of victory and life, although he, Erik, possessed Odin's
friendship. From Odin's answer to the question we learn that the skald
did not wish to make Sigmund express any surprise that a king, whom Odin
loves above other kings and heroes, has died in a lost instead of a won
battle. What Sigmund emphasises is, that Odin did not rather take unto
himself a less loved king than the so highly appreciated Erik, and
permit the latter to conquer and live. Odin's answer is that he is
hourly expecting Ragnarok, and that he therefore made haste to secure as
soon as possible so valiant a hero as Erik among his einherjes. But Odin
does not say that lie feared that he might have to relinquish the hero
for ever, in case the latter, not being chosen on this battlefield,
should be snatched away by some other death than that by the sword.


Hakonarmal gives us an example of a king who is chosen in a battle in
which he is the victor. As conqueror the wounded Hakon remained on the
battlefield; still lie looks upon the choosing as a disfavour. When he
had learned from Gandul's words to Skagul that the number of the
einherjes is to be increased with him, he blames the valkyries for
dispensing to him this fate, and says he had deserved a better lot from
the gods (várun ţó verir' gagns frá godum). When he enters Valhal line
has a keener reproach on his lips to the welcoming Odin: illudigr mjók
ţykkir oss Odinn vera, sjám ver hans of hugi.


Doubtless it was for our ancestors a glorious prospect to be permitted
to conie to Odin after death, and a person who saw inevitable death
before his eyes might comfort himself with the thought of soon seeing
"the benches of Balder's father decked for the feast" (Ragnar's
death-song). But it is no less certain from all the evidences we have
froni the heathen time, that honourable life was preferred to honourable
death, although between the wars there was a chance of death from
sickness. Under these circumstances, tIme mythical eschatology could not
have made death from disease aim insurmountable obstacle for warriors
and heroes on their way to Valhal. In the ancient records there is not
the faintest allusion to such an idea. It is too absurd to have existed.
It would have robbed Valhal of many of Midgard's most brilliant heroes,
and it would have demanded from faithful believers that they should
prefer death even with defeat to victory and life, since the latter lot
was coupled with the possibility of death from disease. With such a view
no army goes to battle, and no warlike race endowed with normal
instincts has even entertained it and given it expression in their
doctrine in regard to future life.


The absurdity of the theory is so manifest that the mythologists who
have entertained it have found it necessary to find some way of making
it less inadmissible than it really is. They have suggested that Odin
did not necessarily fail to get those heroes whom sickness amid age
threatened with a straw-death, nor did they need to relinquish the joys
of Valhal, for there remained to them an expedient to which they under
such circumustances resorted : they risted (marked, scratched)
themselves with tIme spear-poinit (marka sik geirs'oddi).


If there was such a custom, we may conceive it as springing from a
sacredness attending a voluntary death as a sacrifice'a sacredness which
in all ages has been niore or less alluring to religious minds But all
the descriptions we have from Latin records in regard to Teutonic
customs, all our own ancient records froni heathen times, all Northern
amid German heroic songs, are unanimously and stubbornly silent about
the existence of tIme supposed custom of " risting with the
spear-point," although, if it ever existed, it would have been just such
a thing as would on the one hand be noticed by strangers, mind cmi the
other hand be remembered, at least for a time, by the generations
converted to Christianity.


But the well-informed persons interviewed by Tacitus, they who
presented so ninny characteristic traits of the Teutons, knew nothing of
such a practice; otherwise they certainly would have mentioned it as
something very remarkable and peculiar to the Teutons. None of the later
classical Latin or middle age Latin records which have made
contributions to our knowledge of the Teutons have a single word to say
about it; nor the heroic poems. The Scandinavian records, amid the more
or less historical sagas, tell of many heathen kings, chiefs, amid
warriors who have died on a bed of straw, but not of a single one who
"risted himself with the spear-point ". The fable about this "risting
with the spear-point" has its origin in Ynglingasaga, ch. 10, where
Odin, changed to a king in Svithiod, is said, when death was
approaching, to have let marka sik geirs-oddi. Out of this statement has
been constructed a custom among kings amid heroes of anticipating a
straw-death by "risting with the spear.point," and this for the purpose
of getting admittance to Valhal. Vigfusson (Dictionary) has already
pointed out the fact that the author of Ynglingasaga had no other
authority for his statemnent than the passage in Havamal, where Odin
relates that he wounded with a spear, hungering and thirsting,
voluntarily inflicted on himself pain, which moved Bestla's brother to
give him runes and a drink from the fountain of wisdom. The fable about
the spear-point risting, and its purpose, is therefore quite unlike the
source from which, through ignorance and random writing, it sprang.


67.


THE PSYCHO-IMESSENGERS OF THOSE NOT FALLEN By THE SWORD. LOKI'S
DAUGHTER (PSEUDO-HEL IN GYLFAGINNING) IDENTICAL WITH LEIKIN.


The psychopomps of those fallen by the sword are, as we have seen,
stately discs, sitting high in the saddle, with helmet, shield, amid
spear. To those not destined to fall by the sword Urd sends other
maid-servants, who, like the former, may come on horseback, amid who, as
it appears, are of very different appearance, varying inn accordance
with the manner of death of those persons whose departure they attend.
She who cannes to those who sink beneath the weight of years has been
conceived as a very benevolent dis, to judge from the solitary passage
where she is characterised, that is in Ynglingatal and in Yngliagasaga,
ch. 49, where it is said of the aged and just king Halfdan Whiteleg,
that he was taken hence by the woman, who is helpful to those bowed and
stooping (hallvarps hlífinauma). The burden which Elli (age),
Utgard-Loki's foster-mother (Gylfag., 47), puts on men, and which
gradually gets too heavy for them to bear, is removed by this
kind-hearted dis.


Other psychopomps are of a terrible kind. The most of them. belong to
the spirits of disease dwelling in Nifelhel (see No. 60). King Vanlande
is tortured to death by a being whose epithet, vitta vćttr and
trollkund, shows that she belongs to the same group as Heir, the
prototype of witches, and who is contrasted with the valkyrie Hild by
the appellation ljóna lids bága Grimhildr (Yngl., cb. 16). The same
vitta vćttr came to King Adils when his horse fell and he himself struck
his head against a stone (Yngl., ch. 33). Two kings, who die on a bed of
straw, are nientioned in Ynglingasaga's Thjodolf-strophes (ch. 20 and
52) as visited by a being called in the one instance Loki's kinswoman
(Loka mćr), and in the other Hvedrung's kinswoman (Hvedrungs mćr). That
this Loki's kinswoman has no authority to determine life and death, but
only carries out the dispensations of tIme moms, is definitely stated in
the Thjodolf-strophe (ch. 52), and also that her activity, as one who
brings the invitation to the realm of death, dues not imply that the
person invited is to be counted among tIne damned, although she herself,
the kinswoman of Loki, the daughter of loke, surely does not belong to
the regions of bliss.


Ok til ţings ţrida jofri hvedrungs mćr or' heimi baud, ţa er Hálfdan,
sa er á Holti bjó norna dóms um notit hafdi.


As all the dead, whether they are destined for Valhal or for Hel (in
the sense of the subterranean realms of bliss), or for Nifelhel, must
first report themselves in Hel, their psychopomps, whether they dwell in
Valhal, Hel, or Nifelhel, must do the same.


This arrangement is necessary also from the point of view that the
unhappy who "die from Hel into Nifelhel" (Grimnersmal) must have
attendants who conduct them from the realms of bliss to the Na-gates,
and thence to the realms of torture. Those dead fronn disease, who have
the subterranean kinswoman of Loki as a guide, may be destined for the
realms of bliss'then she delivers them there; or be destined for
Nifelbel'then they die under her care and are brought by her through the
Na-gates to the worlds of torture in Nifelhel.


Far down in Christian times the participle leikinn was used in a manner
which points to something mythical as the original reason for its
application. In Biskupas. (i. 464) it is said of a man that he was
leikinn by some magic being (flagd). Of another person who sought
solitude and talked with himself, it is said in Eyrbyggja (270) that he
was believed to be leikinn. Ynglingatal gives us the mythical
explanation of this word.


In its strophe about King Dyggve, who died from disease, this poem says
(Yngling., ch. 20) that, as the lower world dis had chosen him, Loki's
kinswoman came and made him leikinn (Allvald Yngva ţjodar Loka mćr um
leikinn hefir). The person who became leikinn is accordingly visited by
Loki's kinswoman, or, if others have had the same task to perform, by
some being who resembled her, and who brought psychical or physical disease.


In our mythical records there is mention made of a giantess whose very
name, Leikin, Leikn, is immediately connected with that activity which
Loki's kinswoman'and she too is a giantess' exercises when she makes a
person leikinn. Of this personal Leikin we get the following information
in our old records:


1. She is, as stated, of giant race (Younger Edda, i. 552).


2. She has once fared badly at Thor's hands. He broke her leg (Leggi
brauzt ţu Leiknar'Skaldsk., ch. 4, after a song by Vetrlidi).


3. She is kveldrida. The original and mythological meaning of kveldrida
is a horsewoman of torture or death (from kvelja, to torture, to kill).
The meaning, a horsewoman of the night, is a misunderstanding. Compare
Vigfusson's Dict., sub voce "Kveld ".


4. The horse which this woman of torture and death rides is black,
untamed, difficult to manage (styggr), and ugly - grown (ljótvaxinn). It
drinks human blood, and is accompanied by other horses belonging to
Leikin, black and bloodthirsty like it. (All this is stated by Hallfred
Vandradaskald.) Perhaps these loose horses are intended for those
persons whom the horsewoman of torture causes to die from disease, and
whom she is to conduct to the lower world.


Popular traditions have preserved for our times the remembrance of the
"ugly-grown" horse, that is, of a three-legged horse, which on its
appearance brings sickness, epidemics, and plagues. The Danish popular
belief (Thiele., i. 137, 138) knows this monster, and the word Hel-horse
has been preserved in the vocabulary of the Danish language. The
diseases brought by the Hel-horse are extremely dangerous, but not
always fatal. When they are not fatal, the convalescent is regarded as
having ransomed his life with that tribute of loss of strength and of
torture which the disease caused him, and in a symbolic sense he has
then "given death a bushel of oats" (that is, to its horse). According
to popular belief in Slesvik (Arnkiel, i. 55; cp. J. Grimm, Deutsche
Myth., 804), Hel rides in the time of a plague on a three-legged horse
and kills people. Thus the ugly-grown horse is not forgotten in
traditions from the heathen time.


Voluspa informs us that in the primal age of man, the sorceress Heid
went from house to house and was a welcome guest with evil women, since
she seid Leikin (sida means to practise sorcery). Now, as Leikin is the
"horsewoman of torture and death," and rides the Hel-horse, then the
expression sida Leikin can mean nothing else than by sorcery to send
Leikin, the messenger of disease and death, to those persons who are the
victims of' the evil wishes of "evil women"; or, more abstractly, to
bring by sorcery dangerous diseases to men.t


 Tidhoggvit let tiggi Vinhrodigr gaf vida Tryggvar sonr fyrir styggvan
visi margra Frisa Leiknar hest a leiti blokku brunt at derkka ljotvaxinn
hrae Saxa. blod kvellridu stodi.


' Voluspa 23, Cod. Reg., says of Heid: seid hon kuni, seid hon Leikin.
The letter u is in this manuscript used for both u and y (compare Bugge,
Smeniund Edd., Preface x., xi), and hence kuni may be read both kuni and
kyni. The latter reading makes logical sense. Kyni is dative of kyn, a
neuter noun, meaning something sorcerous, supernatural, a monster.
Kynjamein and kynjasott mean diseases brought on by sorcery. Seid in
both the above lines is past tense of the verb sida, and not in either
one of them the noun seidr. There was a sacred sorcery and an unholy
one, according to the purpose for which it was practised, and according
to the attending ceremonies. The object of the holy sorcery was to bring
about something good either for the sorcerer or for others, or to find
out the will of the gods and future things. The sorcery practised by
Heidr is the unholy one, hated by the gods, and again and again
forbidden in the laws, and this kind of sorcery is designated in Völuspa
by the term sida kyni. Of a thing practised with improper means it is
said that it is not kynja-lauss, kyn-free. The reading in Cod. Hank.,
seid hon hvars hon. kunni, seid hon hugleikin, evidently has some
"emendator" to thank for its existence who did not understand the
passage and wished to substitute something easily understood for the
obscure lines he thought he had found.


From all this follows that Leikin is either a side-figure to the
daughter of Loki, and like her in all respects, or she and the
Loki-daughter are one and the same person. To determine the question
whether they are identical, we must observe (1) the definitely
representative manner in which Völuspa, by the use of the name Leikin,
makes the possessor of this name a mythic person, who visits men with
diseases and death; (2) the manner in which Ynglingatal characterises
the activity of Loki's daughter with a person doomed to die from
disease; she makes him leikinn, an expression which, without doubt, is
in its sense connected with the feminine name Leikin, and which was
preserved in the vernacular far down in Christian times, and there
designated a supernatural visitation bringing the symptoms of mental or
physical illness ; (3) the Christian popular tradition in which the
deformed and disease-bringing horse, which Leikin rides in the myth, is
represented as the steed of "death" or "Hel"; (4) that change of meaning
by which the name Hel, which in the mythical poems of the Elder Edda
designates the whole heathen realm of death, and especially its regions
of bliss, or their queen, got to mean the abode of torture and misery
and its ruler' a transmutation by which the name Hel, as in Gylfaginning
and in the Slesvik traditions, was transferred from Urd to Loki's daughter.


Finally, it should. be observed that it is told of Leikin, as of Loki's
daughter, that she once fared badly at the hands of the gods, who did
not, however, take her life. Loki's daughter is not slain, but is cast
into Nifelhel (Gylfaginning, oh. 34). From that time she is
gnupleit'that is to say, she has a stooping form, as if her bones had
been broken and were unable to keep her in an upright position. leikin
is not slain, but gets her legs broken. All that we learn of Leikin thus
points to the Loki-maid, the Hel, not of the myth, but of Christian
tradition.


68.


THE WAY TO HADES COMMON TO THE DEAD.


It has already been demonstrated that all the dead must go to Hel'not
only they whose destination is the realm of bliss, but also those who
are to dwell in Asgard or in the regions of torture in Nifelheim. Thus
the dead tread at the outset the same road. One and the same route is
prescribed to them all, and the same Helgate daily opens for hosts of
souls destined for different lots. Women and children, men and the aged,
they who have practised the arts of peace and they who have stained the
weapons with blood, those who have lived in accordance with the sacred
commandments of the norns and gods and they who have broken them'all
have to journey the same way as Balder went before them, down to the
fields of the fountains of the world. They come on foot and on
horseback'nay, even in chariots, if we niay believe Helreid Brynhildar,
a very unreliable source'guided by various psychopomps: the beautifully
equipped valkyries, the blue-white daughter of Loki, the sombre spirits
of disease, and the gentle maid-servant of old age. Possibly the souls
of children had their special psychopomps. Traditions of mythic origin
seem to suggest this; but the fragments of the myths themselves
preserved to our time give us no information on this subject.


The Hel-gate here in question was situated below the eastern horizon of
the earth. When Thor threatens to kill Loki he says (Lokas., 59) that he
will send him á austrvega. When the author of the Sol-song sees the sun
set for the last time, lie hears in the opposite direction'that is, in
the east'the Hel-gate grating dismally on its hinges (str. 39). The gate
has a watchman and a key. The key is called gillingr, gyllingr (Younger
Edda, ii. 494); and hence a skald who celebrates his ancestors in his
songs, and thus recalls to those living the shades of those in Hades,
may say that he brings to the light of day the tribute paid to Gilling
(yppa gillings gjöldum. See Eyvind's strophe, Younger Edda, i. 248. The
paraphrase has hitherto been misunderstood, on account of the
pseudo-myth Bragarćdur about the mead.) From this gate the highway of
the dead went below the earth in a westerly direction through deep and
dark dales (Gylfag., ch. 52), and it required several days'for Hermod
nine days and nights'before they came to light regions and to the golden
bridge across the river Gjoll, flowing from north to south (see No. 59).
On the other side of the river the roads forked. One road went directly
north. This led to Balder's abode (Gylfag., ch. 52); in other words, to
Mimir's realm, to Minier's grove, and to the sacred citadel of the
ásmegir, where death and decay cannot enter (see No. 53). This northern
road was not, therefore, the road coninnon to all the dead. Another road
went to the south. As Urd's realm is situated south of Mimir's (see Nos.
59, 63), this second road must have led to Urd's fountain and to the
thingstead of the gods there. From the Sunsong we learn that the
departed had to continue their journey by that road. The deceased skald
of the Sun-song came to the norns, that is to say, to Urd and her
sisters, after he had left this road behind him, and he sat for nine
days and nights á norna stoli before he was permitted to continue his
journey (str. 51). Here, then, is the end of the road common to all, and
right here, at Urd's fountain and at the thingstead of the gods
something must happen, on which account the dead are divided into
different groups, some destined for Asgard, others for the subterranean
regions of bliss, and a third lot for Nifelhel's regions of torture. We
shall now see whether the mythic fragments preserved to our time contain
any suggestions as to what occurs in this connection. It must be
admitted that this dividing must take place somewhere in the lower
world, that it was done on the basis of the laws which in mythological
ethics distinguish between right and wrong, innocence and guilt, that
which is pardonable and that which is unpardonable, and that the
happiness and unhappiness of the dead is determined by this division.


69.


THE TWO THINGSTEADS OF THE ASAS. THE EXTENT OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE
ASAS AND OF THE DIS OF FATE. THE DOOM OF THE DEAD.


The Asas have two thingsteads: the one in Asgard, the other in the
lower world.


In the former a council is held and resolutions passed in such matters
as pertain more particularly to the clan of the Asas and to their
relation to other divine clans and other powers. When Balder is visited
by ugly dreams, Valfather assembles the gods to hold counsel, and all
the Asas assemble 6 ţingi, and all the asynjes a máli (Vegtamskv., 1;
Balder's Dr., 4). In assemblies here the gods resolved to exact an oath
from all things for Balder's safety, and to send a messenger to the
lower world to get knowledge partly about Balder, partly about future
events. On this thingstead efforts are made of reconciliation between
the Asas and the Vans, after Gulveig had been slain in Odin's hall
(Völuspa, 23, 24). Hither (a thing goda) comes Thor with the kettle
captured fronu Hymer, and intended for the feasts of the gods
(Hymerskv., 39); and here the Asas hold their last deliberations, when
Ragnarok is at hand (Völuspa, 49 : Ćsir 'ro a ţingi). No matters are
mentioned as discussed in this thingstead in which any person is
interested who does not dwell in Asgard, or which are not of such a
nature that they have reference to how the gods themselves are to act
under particular circumstances. That the thingstead where such questions
are discussed must be situated in Asgard itself is a matter of
convenience, and is suggested by the very nature of the case.


It follows that the gods assemble in the Asgard thingstead more for the
purpose of discussing their own interests than for that of judging in
the affairs of others. They also gather there to amuse themselves and to
exercise themselves in arms (Gylfaginning, 50).


Of the other thingstead of the Asas, of the one in the lower world, it
is on the other hand expressly stated that they go thither to sit in
judgment, to act as judges; and there is no reason for taking this word
daema, when as here it means activity at a thingstead, in any other than
its judicial and common sense.


What matters are settled there' We might take this to be the proper
place for exercising Odin's privilege of choosing heroes to be slain by
the sword, since this right is co-ordinate with that of the norns to
determine life and dispense fate, whence it might seem that the domain
of the authority of the gods and that of the norns here approached each
other sufficiently to require deliberations and decisions in common.
Still it is not on the thingstead at Urd's fountain that Odin elects
persons for death by the sword. It is expressly stated that it is in his
own home inn Valhal that Odin exercises his right of electing
(Grimnersmal, 8), and this right be holds so independently and so
absolutely that he does not need to ask for the opinion of the norns. On
the other hand, the gods have no authority to determine the life and
death of the other mortals. This belongs exclusively to the norns. The
norns elect for every other death but that by weapons, and their
decision in this domain is never called a decision by the gods, but
norna domr, norna kvidr, feigar ord, Dauda ord.


If Asas and norns did have a connmon voice in deciding certain
questions which could be settled in Asgard, then it would not be in
accordance with the high rank given to the Asas in mythology to have
them go to the norns for the decision of such questions. On the
contrary, the norns would have to come to them. Urd and her sisters are
beings of high rank, but nevertheless they are of giant descent, like
Mimir. The power they have is immense; and on a closer investigation we
find how time mythology in more than one way has sought to maintain in
tine fancy of its believers the independence (at least apparent and well
defined, within certain limits) of the gods'an independence united with
the high rank which they have. It may have been for this veiny reason
that the youngest of the discs of fate, Skuld, was selected as a
valkyrie, and as a maid-servant both of Odin and of her sister Urd.


The questions in which the Asas are judges near Urd's fountain must be
such as cannot be settled in Asgard, as the lower world is their proper
forum, where both the parties concerned and the witnesses are to be
found. The questions are of great importance. This is evident already
from the fact that the journey to the thingstead is a troublesome one
for the gods, at least for Thor, who, to get thither, must wade across
four rivers. Moreover, the questions are of such a character that they
occur every day (Grimnersmal, 29, 31).


At this point of the investigation the results hitherto gained from the
various premises unite themselves in the following manner:


The Asas daily go to the thingstead near Urd's fountain. At the
thingstead near Urd's fountain there daily arrive hosts of the dead.


The task of the Asas near Urd's fountain is to judge in questions of
which the lower world is the proper forum. When the dead arrive at Urd's
fountain their final doom is not yet sealed. They have not yet been
separated into the groups which are to be divided between Asgard, Hel,
and Nifelhel.


This question now is, Can we conceive that the daily journey of the
Asas to Urd's fountain and the daily arrival there of the dead have no
connection with each other ''That the judgments daily pronounced by the
Asas at this thingstead, and that the daily event in accordance with
which the dead at this thingstead are divided between the realms of
bliss and those of torture have nothing in common'


That these mythological facts should have no connection with each other
is hard to conceive for anyone who, in doubtful questions, clings to
that which is probable rather than to the opposite. The probability
becomes a certainty by the following circumstances:


Of the kings Vanlande and Halfdan, Ynglingatal says that after death
they met Odin. According to the common view presented in our
mythological text-books, this should not have happened to either of
them, since both of them died from disease. One of them was visited and
fetched by that choking spirit of disease called vitta vaettr, and in
this way he was permitted "to meet Odin" (kom a vit Vilja brodur). The
other was visited by Hvedrungs maer, the daughter of Loki, who "called
him from this world to Odin's Thing ".


Ok til ţings ţridja jofri Hvedrungs maer or heimi baud.


ţing-bod means a legal summons to appear at a Thing, at the seat of
judgment. Bjoda til ţings is to perform this legal summons. Here it is
Hvedrung's kinswoman who comes with sickness and death and ţing-bod to
King Halfdan, and summons him to appear before the judgment-seat of
Odin. As, according to mythology, all the dead, and as, according to the
mythological text-books, at least all those who have died from disease
must go to Hel, then certainly King Halfdan, who died from disease, must
descend to the lower world; and as there is a Thing at which Odin and
the Asas daily sit in judgment, it must have been this to which Halfdan
was summoned. Otherwise we would be obliged to assume that Hvedrung's
kinswoman, Loki's daughter, is a messenger, not from the lower world and
Urd, but from Asgard, although the strophe further on expressly states
that she comes to Halfdan on account of "the doom of the norns"; and
furthermore we would be obliged to assume that the king, who had died
from sickness, after arriving in the lower world, did not present
himself at Odin's court there, but continued his journey to Asgard, to
appear at some of the accidental deliberations which are held at the
thingstead there. The passage proves that at least those who have died
from sickness have to appear at the court which is held by Odin in the
lower world.


70.


THE DOOM OF THE DEAD (continued). SPEECH-RUNES ORDS TIRR NAMĆLI.


In Sigrdrifumal (str. 12) we read:


Malrunar skaltu kunna, vilt-ar magni ţer heiptom gjaldi harm; ţaer um
vindr, ţaer um vefr, ţćr um setr allar saman a ţvi ţingi, er ţjoţir
scolo i fulla doma fara.


"Speech-runes you must know, if you do not wish that the strong one
with consuming woe shall requite you for the injury you have caused. All
those runes you must wind, weave, and place together in that Thing where
the host of people go into the full judgments."


In order to make the significance of this passage clear, it is
necessary to explain the meaning of speech-runes or mal-runes.


Several kinds of runes are mentioned in Sigrdrifumal, all of a magic
and wonderful kind. Among them are mal-runes (speech-runes). They have
their name from the fact that they are able to restore to a tongue mute
or silenced in death the power to mćla (speak). Odin employs mal-runes
when he rists i runom, so that a corpse from the gallows comes and
rnćlir with him (Havam., 157). According to Saxo (i. 38), Hadding places
a piece of wood risted with runes under the tongue of a dead man. The
latter then recovers consciousness and the power of speech, and sings a
terrible song. This is a reference to mal-runes. In Gudrunarkvida (i.)
it is mentioned how Gudrun, niute and almost lifeless (hon gordiz at
deyja), sat near Sigurd's dead body. One of the kinswomen present lifts
the napkin off from Sigurd's head. By the sight of the features of the
loved one Gudrun awakens again to life, bursts into tears, and is able
to speak. The evil Brynhild then curses the being (vettr) which "gave
mal-runes to Gudrun," that is to say, freed her tongue, until then
sealed as in death.


Those who are able to apply these mighty runes are very few. Odin
boasts that he knows them. Sigrdrifva, who also is skilled in them, is a
dis, not a daughter of man. The runes which Had-ding applied were risted
by Hardgrep, a giantess who protected him. But within the court here in
question men come in great numbers (ţjódir), and among them there must
be but a small number who have penetrated so deeply into the secret
knowledge of runes. For those who have done so it is of importance and
advantage. For by them they are able to defend themselves against
complaints, the purpose of which is "to requite with consuming woe the
harm they have done ". In the court they are able to mćla (speak) in
their own defence.


Thus it follows that those hosts of people who enter this thing-stead
stand there with speechless tongues. They are and reniain mute before
their judges unless they know the mal-runes which are able to loosen the
fetters of their tongues. Of tIme dead man's tongue it is said in
Solarljod (44) that it is til tres metin ok kolnat alt fyr utan.


The sorrow or harm one has caused is requited in this Thing by heiptir,
unless the accused is able'thanks to the mal-runes' to speak and give
reasons in his defence. In Havamal (151) the word heiptir has the
meaning of something supernatural and magical. It has a similar meaning
here, as Vigfusson has already pointed out. The magical mal-runes,
wound, woven, and placed together, form as it were a garb of protection
around the defendant against the magic heiptir. In the Havamal strophe
mentioned the skald makes Odin paraphrase, or at least partly explain,
the word heiptir with mein, which "eat" their victims. It is in the
nature of the myth to regard such forces as personal beings. We have
already seen the spirits of disease appear in this manner (see No. 60).
The heiptir were also personified. They were the Erinnyes of the
Teutonic mythology, armed with scourges of thorns (see below).


He who at the Thing particularly dispenses the law of requital is
called magni. The word has a double meaning, which appears in the verb
magna, which means both to make strong and to operate with supernatural
means.


From all this it must be sufficiently plain that the Thing here
referred to is not the Althing in Iceland or the Gulathing in Norway, or
any other Thing held cnn the surface of the earth. The thingstead here
discussed must be situated in one of the mythical realms, between which
the earth was established. And it must be superhuman beings of higher or
lower rank who there occupy the judgment-seats and requite the sins of
men with heiptir. But in Asgard men do not enter with their tongues
sealed in death. For the einherjes who are invited to the joys of Valhal
there are no heiptir prepared. Inasmuch as the mythology gives us
information about only two thingsteads where superhuman beings
deliberate and judge'namely, the Thing in Asgard and the Thing near
Urd's fountain'and inasmuch as it is, in fact, only in the latter that
the gods act as judges, we are driven by all the evidences to the
conclusion that Sigrdrifumal has described to us that very thingstead at
which Hvedrung's kinswoman summoned King Halfdan to appear after death.


Sigrdrifumal, using the expression á ţvi, sharply distinguished this
thingstead or count from all others. The poem declares that it means
that Thing where hosts of people go into full judgments.


"Full" are those judgments against which no formal or real protests can
be made'decisions which are irrevocably valid. The only kind of
judgments of which the mythology speaks in this manner, that is,
characterises as judgments that "never die," are those "over each one
dead ".


This brings us to the well-known and frequently-quoted strophes in Havamal:


Str. 76. Deyr fae, deyja frćndr, deyr sialfr it sama; enn orztirn deyr
aldr'egi hveim er ser godan getr.


Str. 77. Deyr' fć, deyja frćndr, deyr' sialfr it sama; cc veit einn at
aldri deyr; domr urn dauan hvern.


(76) "Your cattle shall die; your kindred shall die; you yourself shall
die; but the fair fame of him who has earned it never dies."


(77) "Your cattle shall die; your kindn'ed shall die; you yourself
shall die; one thing I know which never dies: the judgment on each one
dead."


Hitherto these passages have been interpreted as if Odin or Havamal's
skald meant to say'What you have of earthly possessions is perishable;
your kindred and yourself shall die. But I know one thing that never
dies: the reputation you acquired annong men, the posthumous fame
pronounced on your character and on your deeds: that reputation is
immortal, that fame is imperishable.


But can this have been the meaning intended to be conveyed by the skald
' And could these strophes, which, as it seems, were widely known in the
heathendom of the North, have been thus understood by their hearers and
readers ' Did not Havamal's author, and the many who listened to and
treasured in their memories these words of his, know as well as all
other persons who have some age and experience, that in the great
majority of cases the fame acquired by a person scarcely survives a
generation, and passes away together with the very memory of the deceased'


Could it have escaped the attention of the Havamal skald and his
hearers that the number of mortals is so large and increases so
immensely with the lapse of centuries that the capacity of the survivors
to remember them is utterly insufficient'


Was it not a well-established fact, especially among the Germans,
before they got a written literature, that the skaldic art waged, so to
speak, a desperate conflict with the power of oblivion, in order to
rescue at least the names of the most distinguished heroes and kings,
but that nevertheless thousands of chiefs and warriors were after the
lapse of a few generations entirely forgotten'


Did not Havamal's author know that millions of men have, in the course
of thousands of years, left this world without leaving so deep
footprints in the sands of time that they could last even through one
generation'


Every person of some age and experience has known this, and Havamál's
author too. The lofty strains above quoted do not seem to be written by
a person wholly destitute of worldly experience.


The assumption that Havamal with that judgment on each one dead, which
is said to be imperishable, had reference to the opinion of the
survivors in regard to the deceased attains its climax of absurdity when
we consider that the poem expressly states that it means the judgment on
every dead person'" domr um daudan hvern ". In the cottage lying far,
far in the deep forest dies a child, hardly known by others than by its
parents, who, too, are soon to be harvested by death. But the judgment
of the survivors in regard to this child's character and deeds is to be
imperishable, and the good fame it acquired during its brief life is to
live for ever on the lips of posterity! Perhaps it is the sense of the
absurdity to which the current assumption leads on this point that has
induced some of the translators to conceal the word hvern (every) and
led them to translate the words domr um daudan hvern in an arbitrary
manner with "judgment on the dead man".


If we now add that the judgment of posterity on one deceased,
particularly if he was a person of great influence, very seldom is so
unanimous, reliable, well-considered, and free from prejudice that in
these respects it ought to be entitled to permanent validity, then we
find that the words of the Havamal strophes attributed to Odin's lips,
when interpreted as hitherto, are not words of wisdom, but the most
stupid twaddle ever heard declaimed in a solemn manner.


There are two reasons for the misunderstanding'the one is formal, and
is found in the word ords-tirr (str. 76); the other reason is that
Gylfaginning, which too long has had the reputation of being a reliable
and exhaustive codification of the scattered statements of the mythic
sources, has nothing to say about a court for the dead. It knows that,
according to the doctrine of the heathen fathers, good people come to
regions of bliss, the wicked to Nifelhel; but who he or they were who
determined how far a dead person was worthy of the one fate on' the
other, on this point Gylfaginning has not a word to say. From the
silence of this authority, the conclusion has been drawn that a court
summoning the dead within its forum was not to be found in Teutonic
mythology, although other Aryan and non-Aryan mythologies have presented
such a judgment-seat, and that the Teutonic fancy, though always much
occupied with the affairs of the lower world and with the condition of
the dead in the various realms of death, never felt the necessity of
conceiving for itself clear and concrete ideas of how and through whom
the deceased were determined for bliss or misery. The ecclesiastical
conception, which postpones the judgment to the last day of time, and
permits the souls of the dead to be transferred, without any special act
of judgment, to heaven, to purgatory, or to hell, has to some extent
contributed to making us familiar with this idea which was foreign to
the heathens. From this it followed that scholars have been blind to the
passages in our mythical records which speak of a court in the lower
world, and they have either read them without sufficient attention (as,
for instance, the above-quoted statements of Ynglingatal, which it is
impossible to harmonise with the current conception), or interpreted
them in an utterly absurd manner (which is the case with Sigrdrifumal,
str. 12), or they have interpolated assumptions, which, on a closer
inspection, are reduced to nonsense (as is the case with the Havamál
strophes), or given them a possible, but improbable, interpretation
(thus Sonatorrek, 19).


The compound ordstirr is composed of ord, gen. ords, and tirr.


The composition is of so loose a character that the two parts are not
blended into a new word. The sign of the gen. -s is retained, and shows
that ordstirr, like lofstirr, is not in its sense and in its origin a
compound, hut is written as one word, probably on account of the laws of
accentuation. The more original meaning of ordstirr is, therefore, to be
found in the sense of ords tirr.


Tirr means reputation in a good sense, but still not in a sense so
decidedly good but that a qualifying word, which makes the good meaning
absolute, is sometimes added. Thus in lofs-tirr, laudatory reputation;
gódr tirr, good reputation. In the Havamtil strophe 76, above-quoted,
the possibility of an ords tirr which is not good is presupposed. See
the last line of the strophe.


So far as the meaning of ord is concerned, we must leave its relatively
more modern and grammatical sense (word) entirely out of the question.
Its older signification is an utterace (one which may consist of many
"words" in a grammatical sense), a command, a result, a judgment; and
these older significations have long had a conscious existence in the
language. Compare Fornmanna, ii. 237: "The first word: All shall be
Christians; the second word: All heathen temples and idols shall be
unholy," &c.


In Völuspa (str. 27) ord is employed in the sense of an established law
or judgment among the divine powers, a gengoz eidar, ord oc saeri, where
the treaties between the Asas and gods, solemnised by oaths, were broken.


When or occurs in purely mythical sources, it is most frequently
connected with judgments pronounced in the lower world, and sent from
Urd's fountain to their destination. Urdar ord is Urd's judgment, which
must come to pass (Fjölsvinnsm., str. 48), no matter whether it concerns
life or death. Feigdar ord, a judgment determining death, comes to
Fjolner, and is fulfilled "where Frode dwelt" (Yng-tal, Heimskr., 14).
Dauda ord the judgment of death, awaited Dag the Wise, when he came to
Vorva (Yng-tal, Heimskr., 21). To a subterranean judgment refers also
the expression bana-ord, which frequently occurs.


Vigfusson (Diet., 466) points out the possibility of an etymological
connection between or and Urdr. He compares word (ord) and wurdr (urdr),
word and weird (fate, goddess of fate). Doubtless there was, in the most
ancient time, a mythical idea-association between them.


These circumstances are to be remembered in connection with the
interpretation of ordstirr, ords-tirr in Havamal, 76. The real meaning
of the phrase proves to be: reputation based on a decision, on an
utterance of authority.


When ordstirr had blended into a compound word, there arose by the side
of its literal meaning another, in which the accent fell so heavily on
tirr that or is superfluous and gives no additional meaning of a
judgment on which this tim' is based. Already in Hofudlausn (str. 26)
or'stirr is used as a compound, meaning simply honourable reputation,
honour. There is mention of a victory which Erik Blood-axe won, and it
is said that he thereby gained ordstirr (renown).


In interpreting Havamal (76) it would therefore seem that we must
choose between the proper and figurative sense of ordstirr. The age of
the Havamal strophe is not known. If it was from it Eyvind Skaldaspiller
drew his deyr fe, deyja frćndr, which he incorporated in his drapa on
Hakon the Good, who died in 960, then the Havamal strophe could not be
composed later than the middle of the tenth century. Hofudlausn was
composed by Egil Skallagrimson in the year 936 or thereabout. From a
chronological point of view there is therefore nothing to hinder our
applying the less strict sense, "honourable reputation, honour," to the
passage in question.


But there are other hindrances. If the Havamal skald with ords-tirr
meant "honourable reputation, honour," he could not, as he has done,
have added the condition which he makes in the last line of the strophe:
hveim er ser godan getr, for the idea "good" would then already be
contained in ordstirr. If in spite of this we would take the less strict
sense, we must subtract from orstirr tine meaning of honourable
reputation, honour, and conceive the expression to mean simply
reputation in general, a meaning which the word never had.


We are therefore forced to the conclusion that the meaning of
court-decision, judgment, which or has not only in Ynglingatal and
Fjölsvinnsmal, but also in linguistic usage, was clear to the author of
the Havamal strophe, and that he applied ords tirr in its original sense
and was speaking of imperishable judgments.


It should also have been regarded as a matter of course that the
judgment which, according to the Havamál strophe (77), is passed on
everyone dead, and which itself never dies, must have been prepared by a
court whose decision could not be questioned or set aside, and that the
judgment must have been one whose influence is eternal, for the infinity
of the judgment itself can only depend on the infinity of its operation.
That the more or less vague opinions sooner or later committed to
oblivion in regard to a deceased person should be supposed to contain
such a judgment, and to have been meant by the immortal doom over the
dead, I venture to include among the most extraordinary interpretations
ever produced.


Both the strophes are, as is evident from the first glance, most
intimately connected with each other. Both begin: deyr fae, deyja
frćndr. Ord in the one strophe corresponds to domr in the other. The
latter strophe declares that the judgment on every dead person is
imperishable, and thus completes the more limited statement of the
foregoing strophe, that the judgment which gives a good renown is
everlasting. The former strophe speaks of only one category of men who
have been subjected to an ever-valid judgment, namely, of that category
to whose honour the eternal judgment is pronounced. The second strophe
speaks of both the categories, and assures us that the judgment on the
one as on the other category is everlasting.


The strophes are by the skald attributed to Odin's lips. Odin
pronounces judgment every day near Urd's fountain at the court to which
King Halfdan was summoned, and where hosts of people with fettered
tongues await their final destiny (see above). The assurances in regard
to the validity of the judgment on everyone dead are thus given by a
being who really may be said to know what he talks about (ec veit, &c.),
namely, by the judge himself.


In the poem Sonatorrek the old Egil Skallagrimson laments the loss of
sons and kindred, and his thoughts are occupied with the fate of his
children after death. When he speaks of his son Gunnar, who in his
tender years was snatched away by a sickness, he says (str. 19):


Son minn sóttar brimi heiptuligr ór heimi nam, ţann ec veil at varnadi
vamma varr vid námaeli.


"A fatal fire of disease (fever') snatched from this world a son of
mine, of whom I know that he, careful as he was in regard to sinful
deeds, took care of himself for námaeli."


To understand this strophe correctly, we must know that the skald in
the preceding 17th, as in the succeeding 20th, strophe, speaks of
Gunnar's fate in the lower world.


The word námaeli occurs nowhere else, and its meaning is not known. It
is of importance to our subject to find it out.


In those compounds of which the first part is na-, na may be the
abverbial prefix, which means near by, by the side of, or it may be the
substantive nar, which means a corpse, dead body, and in a mythical
sense one damned, one who dies for the second time and connes to
Nifelhel (see No. 60). The question is now, to begin with, whether it is
the adverbial prefix or the substantive na- which we have in namaeli.


Compounds which have the adverbial na as the first part of the word are
very common. In all of them the prefix na- implies nearness in space or
in kinship, or it has the signification of something correct or exact.


(1) In regard to space: nabud, nábui, nabyli, nágranna, nagranni,
nagrennd, nagrenni, nakommin, nakvaema, nákvaemd, nakvaemr, naleid,
nálaegd, nálćgjast, nálaegr, namunda, nasessi, naseta, nasettr, nasaeti,
navera, naverukona, naverandi, navist, navistarkona, navistarmadr,
navistarvitni.


(2) In regard to friendship: naborinn, náfraendi, náfraendkona, namagr,
naskyldr, nastaedr, naongr.


(3) In regard to correctness, exactness : nakvćmi, nakvćmliga, nakvaemr.


The idea of correctness comes from the combination of naand kvaemi,
kvaemliga, kvaemr. The exact meaning is'that which comes near to, and
which in that sense is precise, exact, to the point.


These three cases exhaust the meanings of the adverbial prefix na-. I
should consider it perilous, and as the abandoning of solid ground under
the feet, if we, without evidence from the language, tried, as has been
done, to give it another hitherto unknown signification.


But none of these meanings can be applied to namaeli. In analogy with
the words under (1) it can indeed mean "An oration held near by"; but
this signification produces no sense in the above passage, the only
place where it is found.


In another group of words the prefix na- is the noun nar. Here belong
nábjargir, nableikr, nagrindr, nagoll, nareid, nastrandir, and other words.


Maeli means a declamation, an oration, an utterance, a reading, or the
proclamation of a law. Maela, maelandi, formaelandi, formaeli, nymaeli,
are used in legal language. Formaelandi is a defendant in court.
Formaeli is his speech or plea. Nymaeli is a law read or published for
the first tinne.


Maeli can take either a substantive or adjective as prefix.


Examples: Gudmaeli, fullmaeli. Na from nar can be used as a prefix both
to a noun and to an adjective. Examples: nagrindr, nábleikr.


Namaeli should accordingly be an oration, a declaration, a
proclamation, in regard to nár. From the context we find that namaeli is
something dangerous, something to look out for. Gunnar is dead and is
gone to the lower world, which contains not only happiness but also
terrors; but his aged father, who in another strophe of the poem gives
to understand that he had adhered faithfully to the religious doctrines
of his fathers, is convinced that his son has avoided the dangers
implied in namaeli, as he had no sinful deed to blame himself for. In
the following strophe (20) he expressed his confidence that the deceased
had been adopted by Gauta spjalli, a friend of Odin in the lower world,
and had landed in the realm of happiness. (In regard to Gauta spjalli,
see farther on. The expression is applicable both to Mimir and Honer.)


Namaeli must, therefore, mean a declaration (1) that is dangerous; (2)
which does not affect a person who has lived a blameless life; (3) which
refers to the dead and affects those who have not been vamma varir, on
the look-out against blameworthy and criminal deeds.


The passage furnishes additional evidence that the dead inn the lower
world make their appearance in order to be judged, and it enriches our
knowledge of the mythological eschatology with a technical term
(namaeli) for that judgment which sends sinners to travel through the Na
-gates to Nifelhel. The opposite of námćli is ords tirr, that judgment
which gives the dead fair renown, and both kinds of judgments are
embraced in the phrase domr um daudan. Námćli is a proclamation for
náir, just as nágrindr are gates, and nástrandir are strands for náir.


71.


THE DOOM OF THE DEAD (continued). THE LOOKS OF THE THINGSTEAD. THE DUTY
OF TAKING CARE OF THE ASHES OF THE DEAD. THE HAMINGJE AT THE JUDGMENT.
SINS OF WEAKNESS. SINS UNTO DEATH.


Those hosts which are conducted by their psychoponips to the Thing near
Urd's fountain proceed noiselessly. It is a silent journey. The bridge
over Gjöll scarcely resounds under the feet of the death-horses andof
the dead (Gylfaginning). The tongues of the shades are sealed (see No. 70).


This thingstead has, like all others, had its judgment-seats. Here are
seats (in Völuspa called rokstólar) for the holy powers acting as
judges. There is also a rostrum (á ţularstóli at Urar brunni'Havam.,
111) and benches or chairs for the dead (compare the phrase, falla a
Helpalla'Fornald., i. 397, and the sitting of the dead one, a
nornastóli'Solarlj., 51). Silent they must receive their doom unless
they possess mal-runes (see No. 70).


The dead should come well clad and ornamented. Warriors bring their
weapons of attack and defence. The women and children bring ornaments
that they were fond of in life. Hadespictures of those things which
kinsmen and friends placed in the grave-mounds accompany the dead
(Hakonarm., 17; Gylfaginniag, 52) as evidence to the judge that they
enjoyed the devotion and respect of their survivors. The appearance
presented by the shades assembled in the Thing indicates to what extent
the survivors heed the law, which commands respect for the dead and care
for the ashes of the departed.


Many die under circumstances which make it impossible for their kinsmen
to observe these duties. Then strangers should take the place of
kindred. The condition in which these shades come to the Thing shows
best whether piety prevails in Midgard; for noble minds take to heart
the advices found as follows in Sigrdrifumal, 33, 34: "Render the last
service to the corpses you find on the ground, whether from sickness
they have died, or are drowned, or are from weapons dead. Make a bath
for those who are dead, wash their hands and their head, comb them and
wipe them dry, ere in the coffin you lay them, and pray for their happy
sleep."


It was, however, not necessary to wipe the blood off from the byrnie of
one fallen by the sword. It was not improper for the elect to make their
entrance in Valhal in a bloody coat of mail. Eyvind Skaldaspiller makes
King Hakon come all stained with blood (allr i dreyra drifinn.) into the
presence of Odin.


When the gods have arrived from Asgard, dismounted from their horses
(Gylfag.) and taken their judges' seats, the proceedings begin, for the
dead are then in their places, and we may be sure that their psychopomps
have not been slow on their Thing-journey. Somewhere on the way the
Hel-shoes must have been tried ; those who ride to Valhal must then have
been obliged to dismount. The popular tradition first pointed out by
Walter Scott and J. Grimm about the need of such shoes for the dead and
about a thorn-grown heath, which they have to cross, is not of Christian
but of heathen origin. Those who have shown mercy to fellow-men that in
this life, inn a figurative sense, had to travel thorny paths, do not
need to fear torn shoes and bloody feet (W. Scott, Minstrelsy, ii.); and
when they are seated on Urd's benches, their very shoes are, by their
condition, a conspicuous proof in the eyes of the court that they who
have exercised mercy are worthy of mercy.


The Norse tradition preserved in Gisle Surson's saga in regard to the
importance for the dead to be provided with shoes reappears as a popular
tradition, first in England, and then several places (Mullenhoff,
Deutsche Alt., v. 1, 114; J. Grimm., Myth., iii. 697; nachtr., 349;
Weinhold, Altn. Leb., 494; Mannhardt in Zeitschr. f. deutsch. .Myth.,
iv. 420 ; Simrock, Myth., v. 127). Visio Godeschalci describes a journey
which the pious Holstein peasant Godeskalk, belonging to the generation
immediately preceding that which by Vicelin was converted to
Christianity, believed he had made in the lower world. There is
mentioned an immensely large and beautiful linden-tree hanging full of
shoes, which were handed down to such dead travellers as had exercised
mercy during their lives. When the dead had passed this tree they had to
cross a heath two miles wide, thickly grown with thorns, and then they
came to a river full of irons with sharp edges. The unjust had to wade
through this river, and suffered immensely. They were cut and mangled in
every limb ; but when they reached the other strand, their bodies were
the same as they had been when they began crossing the river. Compare
with this statement Solarljod, 42, where the dying skald hears the
roaring of subterranean streams mixed with much blood'Gylfar straumar
grenjudu, blandnir mjök ved blód. The just are able to cross the river
by putting their feet on boards a foot wide and fourteen feet long,
which floated on the water. This is the first day's journey. On the
second day they come to a point where the road forked into three
ways'one to heaven, one to hell, and one between these realms (compare
Mullenhoff, D. Alt., v. 113, 114). These are all mythic traditions, but
little corrupted by time and change of religion. That in the lower world
itself Hel-shoes were to be had for those who were not supplied with
them, but still deserved them, is probably a genuine mythological idea.


Proofs and witnesses are necessary before the above-named tribunal, for
Odin is far from omniscient. He is not even the one who knows the most
among the beings of mythology. Urd and Mimir know more than he. With
judges on the one hand who, in spite of all their loftiness, and with
all their superhuman keenness, nevertheless are not infallible, and with
defendants on the other hand whose tongues refuse to serve them, it
might happen, if there were no proofs and witnesses, that a judgment,
everlasting in its operations, not founded on exhaustive knowledge and
on well-considered premises, might be proclaimed. But the judgment on
human souls proclaimed by their final irrevocable fate could not in the
sight of the pious and believing bear the stamp of uncertain justice.
There must be no doubt that the judicial proceedings in the court of
death were so managed that the wisdom and justice of the dicta were
raised high above every suspicion of being mistaken.


The heathen fancy shrank from the idea of a knowledge able of itself to
embrace all, the greatest and the least, that which has been, is doing,
and shall be in the world of thoughts, purposes, and deeds.


It hesitated at all events to endow its gods made in the image of man
with omniscience. It was easier to conceive a divine insight which was
secured by a net of messengers and spies stretched throughout the world.
Such a net was cast over the human race by Urd, and it is doubtless for
this reason that the subterranean Thing of the gods was located near her
fountain and not near Mimir's. Urd has given to every human soul,
already before the hour of birth, a maid-servant, a hamingje, a norn of
lower rank, to watch over and protect its earthly life. And so there was
a wide-spread organisation of watching and protecting spirits, each one
of whom knew the motives' and deeds of a special individual. As such aim
organisation was at the service of the court, there was no danger that
the judgment over each one dead would not be as just as it was
unappealable and everlasting.


The hamingje hears of it before anyone else when her mistress has
announced dauda ord'the doom of death, against her favourite. She (and
the gipte, heille, see No. 64) leaves him then. She is horfin, gone,
which can be perceived in dreams (Balder's Dream, 4) or by revelations
in other ways, and this is an unmistakable sign of death. But if the
death-doomed person is not a nithing, whom she in sorrow and wrath has
left, then she by no means abandons him. They are like members of the
same body, which can only be separated by mortal sins (see below). The
hamingje goes to the lower world, the home of her nativity (see No. 64),
to prepare an abode there for her favourite, which also is to belong to
her (Gisle Surson's saga). It is as if a spiritual marriage was entered
into between her and the human soul.


But on the dictum of the court of death it depends where the dead
person is to find his haven. The judgment, although not pronounced on
the hamingje, touches her most closely. When the most important of all
questions, that of eternal happiness or unhappiness, is to be determined
in regard to her favourite, she must be there, where her duty and
inclination bid her be'with him whose guardian. spirit she is. The great
question for her is whether she is to continue to share his fate or not.
During his earthly life she has always defended him. It is of paramount
importance that she should do so now. His lips are sealed, but she is
able to speak, and is his other ego. And she is not only a witness
friendly to him, but, from the standpoint of the court, she is a more
reliable one than he would be himself.


In Atlamal (str. 28) there occurs a phrase which has its origin in
heathendom, where it has been employed in a clearer and more limited
sense than in the Christian poem. The phrase is ec que aflima ordnar ţer
disir, and it means, as Atlamal uses it, that he to whom the dises (the
hamignje and gipte) have become aflima is destined, in spite of all
warnings, to go to his ruin. In its very nature the phrase suggests that
there can occur between the hamingje and the human soul another
separation than the accidental and transient one which is expressed by
saying that the hamingje is horfin. Aflima means "amputated," separated
by a sharp instrument from the body of which one has been a member. The
person from whom his dises have been cut off has no longer any close
relation with them. He is for ever separated from them, and his fate is
no longer theirs. Hence there are persons doomed to die and persons dead
who do not have hamingjes by them. They are those whom the hamingjes in
sorrow and wrath have abandoned, and with whom they are unable to dwell
in the lower world, as they are nithings and are awaited in Nifelhel.


The fact that a dead man sat á nornastóli or a Helpalli without having
a hamingje to defend him doubtless was regarded by the gods as a
conclusive proof that he had been a criminal.


If we may judge from a heathen expression preserved in strophe 16 of
Atlakvida, and there used in an arbitrary manner, then the hamingjes who
were "cut oft"' from their unworthy favourites continue to feel sorrow
and sympathy for theni to the last. The expression is nornir gráta nái,
"the norns (hamingjes) bewail the náir ". If the námćli, the na-dictum,
the sentence to Nifelhel which turns dead criminals into nair, in the
eschatological sense of the word, has been announced, the judgment is
attended with tears on the part of the fornner guardian-spirits of the
convicts. This corresponds, at all events, with the character of the
hamingjes.


Those fallen on the battlefield are not brought to the fountain of Urd
while the Thing is in session. This follows from the fact that Odin is
in Valhal when they ride across Bifrost, and sends Asas or einherjes to
meet them with the goblet of mead at Asgard's gate (Eiriksm.,
Hakonarmal). But on the way there has been a separation of the good and
bad elements among them. Those who have no hamingjes must, á nornastóli,
wait for the next Thing-day and their judgment. The Christian age well
remembered that brave warriors who had committed nithing acts did not
come to Valhal (see Hakon Jarl's words in Njala). The heathen records
confirm that nien slain by the sword who had lived a wicked life were
sent to the world of torture (see Harald Harfager's saga, ch. 27'the
verses about the viking Thorer Wood-beard, who fell in a naval battle
with Einar Ragnvaldson, and who had been a scourge to the Orkneyings).


The high court must have judged very leniently in regard to certain
human faults and frailties. Sitting long by and looking diligently into
the drinking-horn certainly did not lead to any punishment worth
mentioning. The same was the case with fondness for female beauty, if
care was taken not to meddle with the sacred ties of matrimony. With a
pleasing frankness, and with much humour, the Asa-father has told to the
children of men adventures which he himself has had in that line. He
warns against too much drinking, but admits without reservation and
hypocrisy that he himself once was drunk, nay, very drunk, at Fjalar's,
and what he had to suffer, on account of his uncontrollable longing for
Billing's maid, should be to men a hint not to judge each other too
severely in such matters (see Havamal). All the less he will do so as
judge. Those who are summoned to the Thing, and against whom there are
no other charges, may surely count on a good ords tirr, if they in other
respects have conducted themselves in accordance with the wishes of Odin
and his associate judges: if they have lived lives free from deceit,
honourable, helpful, and without fear of death. This, in connection with
respect for the gods, for the temples, for their duties to kindred and
to the dead, is the alpha and the omega of the heathen Teutonic moral
code, and the sure way to Hel's regions of bliss and to Valhal. He who
has observed these virtues may, as the old skald sings of himself,
"glad, with serenity and without discouragement, want for Hel ".


Skal ek ţó glar med goan vilja oh uhryggr Heljar bia (Sonatorrek, 24).


If the judgment on the dead is lenient in these respects, it is
inexorably severe in other matters. Lies uttered to injure others,
perjury, murder (secret murder, assassination, not justified as
blood-revenge), adultery, the profaning of temples, the opening of
grave-mounds, treason, cannot escape their awful punishment. Unutterable
terrors await those who are guilty of these sins. Those psychopomps that
belong to Nifelhel await the adjournment of the Thing in order to take
them to the world of torture, and Urd has chains (Heljar reip'Solarljod,
27; Des Todes Seil'J. Grimm, D. Myth., 805) which make every escape
impossible.


72.


THE HADES-DRINK.


Before the dead leave the thingstead near Urd's fountain, something
which obliterated the marks of earthly death has happened to those who
are judged happy. Pale, cold, mute, and with the marks of the spirits of
disease, they left Midgard and started on the Hel-way. They leave the
death-Thing full of the warmth of life, with health, with speech, and
more robust than they were on earth. The shades have become corporal.
When those slain by the sword ride over the Gjoll to Urd's fountain,
scarcely a sound is heard under the hoofs of their horses; when they
ride away from the fountain over Bifrost, the bridge resounds under the
trampling horses. The sagas of the middle ages have preserved, but at
the same time demonised, the memory of how Hel's inhabitants were
endowed with more than human strength (Gretla, 134, and several other
passages).


The life of bliss presupposes health, but also forgetfulness of the
earthly sorrows and cares. The heroic poems and the sagas of the middle
ages have known that there was a Hades-potion which brings freedom from
sorrow and care, without obliterating dear memories or making one forget
that which can be remembered without longing or worrying. In the
mythology this drink was, as shall be shown, one that produced at the
same time vigour of life and the forgetfulness of sorrows.


In Saxo, and in the heroic poems of the Elder Edda, which belong to the
Gjukung group of songs, there reappear many mythical details, though
they are sometimes taken out of their true connection and put in a light
which does not originally belong to them. Among tIne mythical
reminiscences is the Hades-potion.


In his account of King Gorm's and Thorkil's journey to the lower world,
Saxo (see No. 46) makes Thorkil warn his travelling companions from
tasting the drinks offered them by the prince of the lower world, for
the reason that they produce forgetfulness, and make one desire to
remain in Gudmund's realm (Hist. Dan., i. 424'amissa memoria . . .
pocalis abstinendum edocuit).


The Gudrun song (ii. 21) places the drinking-horn of the lower world in
Grimhild's hands. In connection with later additions, the description of
this horn and its contents contains purely mythical and very instructive
details in regard to the F ár m a k o n
n h p e n q e V of the Teutonic lower world.


Str. 21. Fćrdi mer Grimildr full at dreeka svalt oc sarlict, ne ec
sacar mundac; ţar var um aukit Urar magni, svalcauldom see oc Sonar' dreyra.


Str. 22. Voro i horni hverskyns stafir ristnir oc ronir, raţa cc ne
mattac, lyngfiscr langr lands Haddingja, ax oscorit, innleid dyra.


Grimhild handed me in a filled horn to drink a cool, bitter drink, in
order that I might forget my past afflictions. This drink was prepared
from Urd's strength, cool-cold sea, and the liquor' of Son."


"On the horn were all kinds of staves engraved and painted, which I
could not interpret: the Hadding-land's long heath-fish, unharvested
ears of grain, and animals' entrances."


The Hadding-land is, as Sv. Egilsson has already pointed out, a
paraphrase of the lower world. The paraphrase is based on the mythic
account known and mentioned by Saxo in regard to Had-ding's journey inn
Hel's realm (see No. 47).


Heath-fish is a paraphrase of the usual sort for serpent, dragon. Hence
a lower-world dragon was engraved on the horn. More than one of the kind
has been mentioned already: Nidhog, who has his abode in Nifelhel, and
tIme dragon, which, according to Erik Vidforle's saga, obstructs the way
to Odain's-acre. The dragon engraved on the horn is that of the
Hadding-land. Hadding-land, on the other hand, does not mean the whole
lower world, but the regions of bliss visited by Hadding. Thus the
dragon is such an one as Erik Vidforle's saga had in mind. That the
author did not himself invent his dragon, but found it in mythic records
extant at the time, is demonstrated by Solarljod (54), where it is said
that immense subterranean dragons come flying from the west'the opposite
direction of that the shades have to take when they descend into the
lower world'and obstruct "the street of the prince of splendour"
(glćvalds gotu). The ruler of splendour is Mimir, tIme prince of time
Glittering Fields (see Nos. 45-51).


The Hadding-land's "unharvested ears of grain" belong to the flora
inaccessible to the devastations of frost, the flowers seen by Hadding
in the blooming meadows of the world below (see No. 47). The expression
refers to the fact that the Hadding-land has not only imperishable
flower's and fruits, but also fields of grain which do not require
harvesting. Compare herewith what Völuspa says about the Odain's-acre
which in the regeneration of the earth rises from the lap of the sea:
"unsown the fields yield the grain".


Beside the heath-fish and the unharvested ears of grain, there were
also seen on the Hadding-land horn dyra-innleid. Some interpreters
assume that "animal entrails" are meant by this expression ; others have
translated it with "animal gaps ". There is no authority that innleid
ever meant entrails, nor could it be so used in a rhetorical-poetical
sense, except by a very poor poet. Where we meet with the word it means
a way, a way in, in contrast with utleid; a way out. As both Gorm's saga
and that of Erik Vidforle use it in regard to animals watching entrances
in the lower world this gives the expression its natural interpretation.


So much for the staves risted on the horn. They all refer to the lower
world. Now as to the drink which is mixed in this Hades-horn. It
consists of three liquids:


Urdar magn,

svalkaldr saer,

Sonar dreyri.


	

Urd's strength,

cool-cold sea,

Son's liquid.


Son has already been mentioned above (No. 21) as one of the names of
Mimir's fountain, the well of creative power and of poetry. Of Son Eilif
Gudrunson sings that it is enwreathed by bulrushes and is surrounded by
a of meadow on which grows the seed of poetry.


As Urd's strength is a liquid mixed in the horn, nothing else can be
meant thereby than the liquid in Urd's fountain, which gives the warmth
of life to the world-tree, and gives it strength to resist the cold (see
No. 63).


From this it is certain that at least two of the three subterranean
fountains made their contributions to the drink. There remains the well
Hvergelmer, and the question now is, whether it and the liquid it
contains can be recognised as the cool-cold sea, Hvergelmer is, as we
know, the mother-fountain of all waters, even of the ocean (see No. 59).
That this immense cistern is called a sea is not strange, since also
Urd's fountain is so styled (in Völuspa, Cod. Reg., 19). Hvergelmer is
situated under the northern root of the world-tree near the s of the
subterranean realm of the rime-thurses'that is, the powers of frost; and
the Elivagar rivers flowing thence formed the ice in Nifelheim. Cool
(Svol) is the name of one of the rivers which have their source in
Hvergelmer (Grimnersmal). Cool-cold sea is therefore the most suitable
word with which to designate Hvergelmer when its own name is not to be used.


All those fountains whose liquids are sucked up by the roots of the
world-tree, and in its stem blend into the sap which gives the tree
imperishable strength of life, are accordingly mixed in the lower-world
horn (cp. No. 21).


That Grimhild, a human being dwelling on earth, should have access to
and free control of these fountains is, of course, from a mythological
standpoint, an absurdity. From the standpoint of the Christian time the
absurdity becomes probable. The sacred things and forces of the lower
world are then changed into deviltry and arts of magic, which are at the
service of witches. So the author of Gudrunarkvida (ii.) has regarded
the matter. But in his time there was still extant a tradition, or a
heathen song, which spoke of the elements of the drink which gave to the
dead who had descended to Hel, and were destined for happiness, a higher
and more enduring power of life, and also soothed the longing and sorrow
which accompanied the recollection of the life on earth, and this
tradition was used in the description of Grimhild's drink of forgetfulness.


Magn is the name of the liquid from Urd's fountain, since it magnar,
gives strength. The word magna has preserved from the days of heathendom
the sense of strengthening in a supernatural manner by magical or
superhuman means. Vigfusson (Dict., 408) gives a number of examples of
this meaning. In Heimskringla (ch. 8) Odin "magns" Mimir's head, which
is chopped off, in such a manner that it recovers the power of speech.
In Sigrdrifumal (str. 12) Odin himself is, as we have seen, called
magni, "the one magning," as the highest judge of the lower world, who
gives magn to the dead from the Hades-horn.


The author of the second song about Helge Hundingsbane has known of
dyrar veigar, precious liquids, of which those who have gone to Hel
partake. The dead Helge says that when his beloved Sigma is to share
them with him, then it is of no consequence that they have lost earthly
joy and kingdoms, and that no one must lament that his breast was
tortured with wounds (Helge Hund., ii. 46). The touching finale of this
song, thongh preserved only in fragments, and no doubt borrowed from a
heathen source, shows that the power of the subterranean potion to allay
longing and sorrow had its limits. The survivors should mourn over
departed loved ones with moderation, and not forget that they are to
meet again, for too bitter tears of sorrow fall as a cold dew on the
breast of the dead one and penetrate it with pain (str. 45).


73.


THE HADES-DRINK (continued). THE HADES-HORN EMBELLISHED WITH SERPENTS.


In Sonatorrek (str. 18) the skald (Egil Skallagrimson) conceives
himself with the claims of a father to keep his children opposed to a
stronger power which has also made a claim on them. This power is firm
in its resolutions against Egil (stendr a fostum ţokk 6 hendi mer); but,
at the same time, it is lenient toward his children, and bestows on them
the lot of happiness. The mythic person who possesses this power is by
the skald called Fans hrosta hilmir, "the lord of Fánn's brewing ".


Fánn is a mythical serpent and dragon-name (Younger Edda, ii. 487,
570). The serpent or dragon which possessed this name in the myths or
sagas must have been one which was engraved or painted somewhere. This
is evident from the word itself, which is a contraction of fainn,
engraved, painted (cp. Egilsson's Lex. Poet., and Vigfusson's Dict., sub
voce). Its character as such does not hinder it from being endowed with
a magic life (see below). The object on which it was engraved or painted
must have been a drink-lag- horn, whose contents (brewing) is called by
Egil Fánn's either because the serpent encircled the horn which
contained the drink, or because the horn, on which it was engraved, was
named after it. In no other way can the expression, Fánn's brewing, be
explained, for an artificial serpent or dragon is neither the one who
brews the drink nor the malt from which it is brewed.


The possessor of the horn, embellished with Fánn's image, is the
mythical person who, to Egil's vexation, has insisted on the claim of
the lower world to his sons. If the skald has paraphrased correctly,
that is to say, if lie has produced a paraphrase which refers to the
character here in question of the person indicated by the paraphrase,
then it follows that "Fánn's brewing" and Pánn himself, like their
possessor, must have been in some way connected with the lower world.


From the mythic tradition in Gudrunarkvida (ii.), we already know that
a serpent, "a long heath-fish," is engraved and painted on the
subterranean horn, whose sorrow-allaying mead is composed of the liquids
of the three Hades-fountains.


When King Gorm (Hist. Dan., 427; cp. No. 46) made his journey of
discovery in the lower world, he saw a vast ox-horn (ingens bubali
eornu) there. It lay near the gold-clad meadcisterns, the fountains of
the lower world. Its purpose of being filled with their liquids is
sufficiently clear from its location. We are also told that it was
carved with figures (nec caelaturae artificio vacuum), like the
subterranean horn in Gudrunarkvida. One of Gorm's men is anxious to
secure the treasure. Then the horn lengthens into a dragon who kills the
would-be robber (cornu in draconem extractum sui spiritum latoris
eripuit). Like Slidrugtanne and other subterranean treasures, the
serpent or dragon on the drinking-horn of the lower world is endowed
with life when necessary, or the born itself acquires life in the form
of a dragon, and punishes with death him who has no right to touch it.
The horn itself is accordingly a Fánn, an artificial serpent or dragon,
and its contents is Fann's hrosti (Fánn's brewing).


The Icelandic middle-age sagas have handed down the memory of an
aurocks-horn (urarhorn), which was found in the lower world, and was
there used to drink from (Fornald., iii. 616).


Thus it follows that the hilmir Fán's hrosta, "the lord of Fan's
brewing," mentioned by Egil, is the master of the Hadeshorn, he who
determines to whom it is to be handed, in order that they may imbibe
vigour and forgetfulness of sorrow from "Urd's strength, cool sea, and
Son's liquid ". And thus the meaning of the strophe here discussed
(Sonatorrek, 18) is made perfectly clear. Egil's deceased sons have
drunk from this horn, and thus they have been initiated as dwellers for
ever in the lower world. Hence the skald can say that Hilmir Fan's
hrosta was inexorably firm against him, their father, who desired to
keep his sons with him.


 The interpretation of the passage, which has hitherto prevailed,
begins with a text emendation. Fann is changed to Finn. Finn is the name
of a dwarf. Finns hrosti is "the dwarf's drink," and "the dwarf's drink"
is, on the authority of the Younger Edda, synonymous with poetry. The
possessor of Finns hrosti is Odin, the lord of poetry. With text
eniendations of this sort (they are numerous, are based on false notions
in regard to the adaptability of the Icelandic Christian poetics to the
heathen poetry, and usually quote Gylfaginning as authority) we can
produce anything we like from the statements of the ancient records.
Odin's character as the lord of poetry has not the faintest idea in
common with the contents of the strophe. His character as judge at the
court near Urd's fountain, and as the one who, as the judge of the dead,
has authority over the liquor in the subterranean horn, is on the other
hand closely connected with the contents of the strophe, and is alone
able to make it consistent and intelligible. Further on in the poem,
Egil speaks of Odin as the lord of poetry. Odin, he says, has not only
been severe against him (in the capacity of kilmir Fans hrosta), hut he
has also been kind in bestowing the gift of poetry, and therewith
consolation in sorrow (bolva baetr). The paraphrase here used by Egil
for Odin's name is Mims vinr (Mimir's friend). From Mimir Odin received
the drink of inspiration, and thus the paraphrase is in harmony with the
sense. As hilmir Fans hrosta Odin has wounded Egil's heart; as Mims vinr
(Mimir's friend) he has given him balsam for the wounds inflicted. This
two-sided conception of Odin's relation to the poet permeates the whole
poem.


From Voluspa (str. 28, 29), and from Gylfaginning (ch. 15), it appears
that the mythology knew of a drinking-horn which belonged at the same
time, so to speak, both to Asgard and to the lower world. Odin is its
possessor, Mimir its keeper. A compact is made between the Asas dwelling
in heaven and the powers dwelling in the lower world, and a security
(ved) is given for the keeping of the agreement. On the part of the Asas
and their clan patriarch Odin, the security given is a drinking-horn.
From this " Valfather's pledge" Mimir every morning drinks mead from his
fountain of wisdom (Voluspa, 29), and from the same horn he waters the
root of the world-tree (Völuspa, 28). As Mullenhoff has already pointed
out (D. Alterth., v. 100 ff.), this drinking-horn is not to be
confounded with Heimdal's war-trumpet, the Gjallarhorn, though
Gylfaginning is also guilty of this mistake.


Thus the drinking-horn given to Mimir by Valfather represents a treaty
between the powers of heaven and of the lower world. Can it be any other
than the Hades-horn, which, at the thingstead near Urd's fountain, is
employed in the service both of the Asa-gods and of the lower world' The
Asas determine the happiness or unhappiness of the dead, and
consequently decide what persons are to taste the strength-giving mend
of the horn. But the horn has its place in the lower world, is kept
there'there performs a task of the greatest importance, and gets its
liquid from the fountains of the lower world.


What Mimir gave Odin in exchange is that drink of wisdom, without which
he would not have been able to act as judge in matters concerning
eternity, but after receiving the which he was able to find and proclaim
the right decisions (ord) (ord mer af ordi ordz leitadi'Hav., 141). Both
the things exchanged are, therefore, used at the Thing near Urd's
fountain. The treaty concerned the lower world, and secured to the Asas
the power necessary, in connection with their control of mankind and
with their claim to be worshipped, to dispense happiness and unhappiness
in accordance with the laws of religion and morality. Without this power
the Asas would have been of but little significance. Urd and Mimir would
have been supreme.


With the dyrar veigar (precious liquids), of which the dead Helge
speaks, we must compare the skirar veigar (clear liquids), which,
according to Vegtamskvida, awaited the dead Balder in the lower world.
After tasting of it, the god who had descended to Hades regained his
broken strength, and the earth again grew green (see No. 53).


In dyrar veigar, skirar veigar, the plural form must not be passed over
without notice. The contents of one and the same drink are referred to
by the plural veigar'

Her stendr Balldri
of brugginn miaedr
skiraR veigar
 	Here stands for Balder
mend brewed
clear " veigar "(Vegt., 7)'


which can only be explained as referring to a drink prepared by a
mixing of several liquids, each one of which is a veig. Originally
veigar seems always to have designated a drink of the dead, allaying
their sorrows and giving them new life. In Hyndluljod (50) dyrar veigar
has the meaning of a potion of bliss which Ottar, beloved by Freyja, is
to drink. In strophe 48, Freyja threatens the sorceress Hyndla with a
fire, which is to take her hence for ever. In strophe 49, Hyndla answers
the threat with a similar and worse one. She says she already sees the
conflagration of the world; there shall nearly all beings "suffer the
loss of life" (vera flestir fjörlausn ţola), Freyja and her Ottar of
course included, and their final destiny, according to Hyndla's wish, is
indicated by Freyja's handing Ottar a pain-foreboding, venomous drink.
Hyndla invokes on Freyja and Ottar the flames of Ragnarok and damnation.
Freyja answers by including Ottar in the protection of the gods, and
foretelling that he is to drink dyrar veigar.


Besides in these passages veigar occurs in a strophe composed by Ref
Gestson, quoted in Skaldskaparmal, ch. 2. Only half of the strophe is
quoted, so that it is impossible to determine definitely the meaning of
the veigar referred to by the skald. We only see that they are given by
Odin, and that "we" must be grateful to him for them. The half strophe
is possibly a part of a death-song which Ref Gestson is known to have
composed on his foster-father, Gissur.


Veig in the singular means not only drink, but also power, strength.
Perhaps Bugge is right in claiming that this was the original meaning of
the word. The plural veigar accordingly means strengths. That this
expression "strengths" should come to designate in a rational manner a
special drink must be explained by the fact that "the strengths" was the
current expression for the liquids of which the invigorating mythical
drink was composed. The three fountains of the lower world are the
strength-givers of the universe, and, as we have already seen, it is the
liquids of these wells that are mixed into the wonderful brewing in the
subterranean horn.


When Eilif Gudrunson, the skald converted to Christianity, makes
Christ, who gives the water of eternal life, sit near Urd's fountain,
then this is a Christianised heathen idea, and refers to the power of
this fountain's water to give, through the judge of the world, to the
pious a less troublesome life than that on earth. The water which gives
warmth to the world-tree and heals its wounds is to be found in the
immediate vicinity of the thingstead, and has also served to strengthen
and heal the souls of the dead.


To judge from Hyndluljod (49), those doomed to unhappiness must also
partake of some drink. It is "much mixed with venom (eitri blandinn
miok), and forebodes them evil (illu heilli). They must, therefore, be
compelled to drink it before they enter the world of misery, and
accordingly, no doubt, while they sit a nornastoli on the very
thingstead. The Icelandic sagas of the middle ages know the venom drink
as a potion of misery.


It appears that this potion of unhappiness did not loosen the
speechless tongues of the damned. Eitr means the lowest degree of cold
and poison at the same time, and would not, therefore, be serviceable
for that purpose, since the tongues were made speechless with cold. In
Saxo's descriptions of the regions of misery in the lower world, it is
only the torturing demons that speak. The dead are speechless, and
suffer their agonies without uttering a sound; but, when the spirits of
torture so desire, and force and egg them on, they can produce a howl
(mugitus). There broods a sort of muteness over the forecourt of the
domain of torture, the Nifelheim inhabited by the frost-giants,
according to Skirnersmal's description thereof (see No. 60). Skirner
threatens Gerd that she, among her kindred there, shall be more widely
hated than Heimdal himself; but the manner in which they express this
hate is with staring eyes, not with words (a ţic Hrimnir hari, a ţic
hotvetna stari'str. 28).


74.


AFTER THE JUDGMENT. THE LOT OF THE BLESSED.


When a deceased who has received a good ord's tirr leaves the Thing, he
is awaited in a home which his hamingje has arranged for her favourite
somewhere in "the green worlds of the gods ". But what he first has to
do is to leita kynnis, that is, visit kinsmen and friends who have gone
before him to their final destination (Sonatorr., 17). Here he finds not
only those with whom he became personally acquainted on earth, but he
may also visit and converse with ancestors from the beginning of time,
and he may hear the history of his race, nay, the history of all past
generations, told by persons who were eye-witnesses. The ways he travels
are munvegar (Sonatorr., 10), paths of pleasure, where the wonderful
regions of Urd's and Mimir's realms lie open before his eyes.


Those who have died in their tender years are received by a being
friendly to children, which Egil Skallagrimson (Sonatorrek, 20) calls
Gauta spjalli. The expression means "the one with whom Odin counsels,"
"Odin's friend ". As the same poem (str. 22) calls Odin Mimir's friend,
and as in the next place Gauta spjalli is characterised as a ruler in
Godheim (compare graenar heimar goda'Hakonarmal, 12), he must either be
Mimir, who is Odin's friend and adviser from his youth until his death,
or he must be Honer, who also is styled Odin's friend, his sessi and
mali. That Mimir was regarded as the friend of dead children corresponds
with his vocation as the keeper in his grove of immortality, Mimisholt,
of the Asa-children, the asmegir, who are to be the mankind of the
regenerated world. But Honer too has an important calling in regard to
children (see No. 95), and it must therefore be left undecided which one
of the two is here meant.


 Likewise the warlike skald Kormak is certain that he would have come
to Valhal in case he had been drowned nader circumstances described in
his saga, a work which is, however, very unreliable.


Egil is convinced that his drowned son Bodvar found a harbour in the
subterranean regions of bliss. The land to which Bodvar comes is called
by Egil "the home of the bee-ship" (byskips baer). The poetical figure
is taken from the experience of seamen, that birds who have grown tired
on their way across the sea alight on ships to recuperate their
strength. In Egil's paraphrase the bee corresponds to the bird, and the
honey-blossom where the bee alights corresponds to the ship. The fields
of bliss are the haven of the ship laden with honey. The figure may be
criticised on the point of poetic logic, but is of a charming kind on
the lips of the hardy old viking, and it is at the same time very
appropriate in regard to a characteristic quality ascribed to the fields
of bliss. For they are the proper home of the honey-dew which falls
early in the morning from the world-tree into the dales near Urd's
fountain (Völuspa). Lif and Leifthraser live through ages on this dew
(see Nos. 52, 53), and doubtless this same Teutonic ambrosia is the food
of the happy dead. The dales of the earth also unquestionably get their
share of the honey-dew, which was regarded as the fertilising and
nourishing element of the ground. But the earth gets her share directly
from Rimfaxe, the steed of the Hades-goddess Nat. This steed, satiated
with the grass of the subterranean meadows, produces with his mouth a
froth which is honey-dew, and from his bridle the dew drops "in the
dales" in the morning (Vafthr., 14). The same is true of the horses of
the valkyries coming from the lower world. From their manes, when they
shake them, falls dew "in deep dales," and thence come harvests among
the peoples (Helge Hjorv., 28).


75.


AFTER THE JUDGMENT (continued). THE FATE OF THE DAMNED. THEIR PATH.
ARRIVAL AT THE NA-GATES.


When the na-dictum (the judgment of those who have committed sins unto
death) has been proclaimed; they must take their departure for their
terrible destination. They cannot take flight. The locks and fetters of
the norns (Urdar lokur, Heljar reip) hold them prisoners, and amid the
tears of their former hamingjes (nornir grata nái) they are driven along
their path by heiptir, armed with rods of thorns, who without mercy beat
their lazy heels. The technical term for these instruments of torture is
limar, which seems to have become a word for eschatological punishment
in general. In Sigrdrifumal (23) it is said that horrible limar shall
fall heavy on those who have broken oaths and promises, or betrayed
confidence. In Sigurd Fafnesb. (ii. 3) it is stated that everyone who
has lied about another shall long be tortured with limar. Both the
expressions troll brutu hrís i hćla deim and troll visi ydr til burs
have their root in the recollection of the myth concerning the march of
the damned under the rod of the Eumenides to Nifelhel (see further on
this point Nos. 91 and 123).


Their way from Urd's well goes to the north (see No. 63) through
Mimir's domain. It is ordained that before their arrival at the home of
torture they are to see the regions of bliss. Thus they know what they
have forfeited. Then their course is past Mimir's fountain, the splendid
dwellings of Balder and the asnnegir, the golden hall of Sindre's race
(see Nos. 93, 94), and to those regions where mother Nat rests in a hall
built on the southern spur of the Nida mountains (Forspjallsljod). The
procession proceeds up this mountain region through valleys and gorges
in which the rivers flowing from Hvergelmer find their way to the south.
The damned leave Hvergelmer in their rear and cross the rivers Hraunn
(the subterranean Elivagar rivers, see No. 59), on the other side of
which rise Nifelhel's black, perpendicular niountainwalls (Saxo, Hist.
Dan.; see No. 46). Ladders or stairways lead across giddying precipices
to the Na-gates. Howls and barking from the monstrous Nifelheim dogs
watching the gates (see Nos. 46, 58) announce the arrival of the damned.
Then hasten, in compact winged flocks, monsters, Nifelheim's birds of
prey, Nidhog, Are, Hraesvelger, and their like to the south, and alight
on the rocks around the Na-gates (see below). When the latter are opened
on creaking hinges, the damned have died their second death. To that
event, which is called "the second death," and to what this consists of,
I shall return below (see No. 95).


Those who have thus marched to a terrible fate are sinners of various
classes. Below Nifelheim there are nine regions of punishment. That
these correspond to nine kinds of unpardonable sins is in itself
probable, and is to some extent confirmed by Solarljod, if this poem,
standing almost on the -line between heathendom and Christianity, may be
taken as a witness. Solarljod enumerates nine or ten kinds of
punishments for as many different kinds of sins. From the purely heathen
records we know that enemies of the gods (Loki), perjurers, murderers,
adulterers (see Völuspa), those who have violated faith and the laws,
and those who have lied about others, are doomed to Nifelhel for ever,
or at least for a very long time (oflengi'Sig. Fafn., ii. 3). Of the
unmerciful we know that they have already suffered great agony on their
way to Urd's fountain. Both in reference to them and to others, it
doubtless depended on the investigation at the Thing whether they could
be ransomed or not.


The sacredness of the bond of kinship was strongly emphasised in the
eschatological conceptions. Niflgódr, "good for the realm of damnation,"
is he who slays kinsmen and sells the dead body of his brother for rings
(Sonatorrek, 15); but he who in all respects has conducted himself in a
blameless manner toward his kinsmen, and is slow to take revenge if they
have wronged him, shall reap advantage therefrom after death (Sigrdr., 22).


When the damned come within the Na-gates, the winged demons rush at the
victims designated for them, press them under their wings, and fly with
them through Nifelheim's foggy space to the departments of torture
appointed for them. The seeress in Völuspa (str. 62) sees Nidhog, loaded
with náir under his wings, soar away from the Nida mountains. Whither he
was accustomed to fly with them appears froni strophe 38, where he in
Nastrands is sucking his prey. When King Gorm, beyond the
above-mentioned boundary river, and by the Nida mountains' ladders, had
reached the Na-gates opened for him, he sees dismal monsters (larvć
atrć; cp. Völuspa's in dimmi dreki) in dense crowds, and hears the air
filled with their horrible screeches (cp. Völuspa's Ari hlaccar, slitr
nai neffaulr, 47). When Solarljod's skald enters the realm of torture he
sees "scorched" birds, which are not birds but souls (salir), flying
"numerous as gnats ".


76.


THE PLACES OF PUNISHMENT.


The regions over which the flock of demons fly are the same as those
which the author of Skirnersmal has in view when Skirner threatens Gerd
with sending her to the realms of death. It is the home of the
frost-giants, of the subterranean giants, and of the spirits of disease.
Here live the offspring of Yimir's feet, the primeval giants strangely
born and strangely bearing, who are waiting for the quaking of Ygdrasil
and for the liberation of their chained leader, in order that they may
take revenge on the gods in Ragnarok, and who in the meantime contrive
futile plans of attack on Hvergelmer's fountain or on the north end of
the Bifrost bridge. Here the demons of restless uneasiness, of mental
agony, of convulsive weeping, and of insanity (Othale, Morn, Ope, and
Tope) have their home; and here dwells also their queen, Loki's
daughter, Leikin, whose threshold is precipice and whose bed is disease.
According to the authority used by Saxo in the description of Gorm's
journey, the country is thickly populated. Saxo calls it urbs, oppidurn
(cp. Skirnismal's words about the giant-homes, among which Gerd is to
drag herself hopeless from house to house. The ground is a marsh with
putrid water (putidum eaenum), which diffuses a horrible stench. The
river Slid flowing north out of ilvergelmer there seeks its way in a
muddy stream to the abyss which leads down to the nine places of
punishment. Over all hovers Nifelheim's dismal sky.


The mortals who, like Gorm and his men, have been permitted to see
these regions, and who have conceived the idea of descending into those
worlds which lie below Nifelheim, have shrunk back when they have
reached the abyss in question and have cast a glance down into it. The
place is narrow, but there is enough daylight for its bottom to be seen,
and the sight thereof is terrible. Still, there must have been a path
down to it, for when Gorm and his men had recovered from the first
impression, they continued their journey to their destination (Geirrod's
place of punishment), although the most terrible vapour (teterrimus
vapor) blew into their faces. The rest that Saxo relates is
unfortunately wanting both in sufficient clearness and in completeness.
Without the risk of making a mistake, we may, however, consider it as
mythically correct that some of the nine worlds of punishment below
Nifelheim, or the most of them, are vast mountain caves, mutually united
by openings broken through the mountain walls and closed with gates,
which do not, however, obstruct the course of Slid to the Nastrands and
to the sea outside. Saxo speaks of a perfractam scopuli partem, "a
pierced part of the mountain," through which travellers come from one of
the subterranean caves to another, and between the caves stand
gatekeepers (janitores). Thus there must be gates. At least two of these
"homes" have been named after the most notorious sinner found within
them. Saxo speaks of one called the giant Geirrod's, and an Icelandic
document of one called the giant Geitir's. The technical term for such a
cave of torture was guyskuti (clamour-grotto). Saxo translates skuti
with conclave saxeum. "To thrust anyone before Geitir's clamour-grotto
"'reka einn fyrir Geitis guyskuta'was a phrase synonymous with damning a
person to death and hell.


The gates between the clamour-grottos are watched by various kinds of
demons. Before each gate stand several who in looks and conduct seem to
symbolise the sins over whose perpetrators they keep guard. Outside of
one of the caves of torture Gorm's men saw club-bearers who tried their
weapons on one another. Outside of another gate the keepers amused
themselves with "a monstrous game" in which they "mutually gave their
ram-backs a curved motion ". It is to be presumed that some sort of
perpetrators of violence were tortured within the threshold, which was
guarded by the club-bearers, and that the ram-shaped. demons amused
themselves outside of the torture-cave of debauchees. It is also
probable that the latter is identical with the one called Geitir's. The
name Geitir comes from geit, goat. Saxo, who Latinised Geitir into
Götharus, tells adventures of his which show that this giant had tried
to get possession of Freyja, and that he is identical with Gymer, Gerd's
father. According to Skirnersmal (35), there are found in Nifelhel
goats, that is to say, trolls in goat-guise, probably of the same kind
as those above-mentioned, and it may be with an allusion to the fate
which awaits Gymer in the lower world, or with a reference to his
epithet Geitir, that Skinner threatens Gerd with the disgusting drink
(geita hland) which will there be given her by "the sons of misery"
(velmegir). One of the lower-world demons, who, as his name indicates,
was closely connected with Geitir, is called "Geitir's Howl-foot"
(Geitis Guyfeti); and the expression "to thrust anyone before Geitir's
Howl-foot" thus has the same meaning as to send him to damnation.


Continuing their journey, Gorm and his men came to Geirrod's skuti (see
No. 46).


We learn from Saxo's description that in the worlds of torture there
are seen not only terrors, but also delusions which tempt the eyes of
the greedy. Gorm's prudent captain Thorkil (see No. 46) earnestly warns
his companions not to touch these things, for hands that come in contact
with them are fastened and are held as by invisible bonds. The illusions
are characterised by Saxo as cedis supellectilis, an expression which is
ambiguous, but may be an allusion that they represented things
pertaining to temples. The statement deserves to be compared with
Solarljod's strophe 65, where the skald sees in the lower world persons
damned, whose hands are riveted together with burning stones. They are
the mockers at religious rites (they who minst vildu halda helga daga)
who are thus punished. In the mythology it was probably profaners of
temples who suffered this punishment.


The Nastrands and the hall there are thus described in Voluspa:


Sal sá hon sianda sólu fjarri Nástrondu a nordr horfa dyrr; fellu
eitrdropar inn um ljora, Sa er undinn salr orma hryggjum. Sa hon dar
vada ţunga strauma menn meinsvara ok mordvarga ok ţanns annar's glepr
eyraruna; ţar' saug Nidhoggr nai framgengna, sleit vargr vera.


"A hall she saw stand far from the sun on the Nastrands; the doors
opened to the north. Venom-drops fell through the roof-holes. Braided is
that hall of serpent-backs."


"There she saw perjurers, murderers, and they who betray the wife of
another (adulterers) wade through heavy streams. There Nidhog sucked the
'nair of the dead. And the wolf tore men into pieces."


Gylfaginning (ch. 52) assumes that the serpents, whose backs, wattled
together, form the hall, turn their heads into the hall, and that they,
especially through the openings in the roof (according to Codex Ups. and
Codex Hypnones.), vomit forth their floods of venom. The latter
assumption is well founded. Doubtful seems, on the other hand,
Gylfaginning's assumption that "the heavy streams," which the damned in
Nastrands have to wade through, flow out over the floor of the hall. As
the very name Nastrands indicates that the hall is situated near a
water, then this water, whether it be the river Slir with its eddies
filled with weapons or some other river, may send breakers on shore and
thus produce the heavy streams which Völuspa mentions. Nevertheless
Gylfaginning's view may be correct. The hall of Nastrands, like its
counterpart Valhal, has certainly been regarded as immensely large. The
serpent-venom raining down must have fallen on the floor of the hall,
and there is nothing to hinder the venom-rain from being thought
sufficiently abundant to form "heavy streams" thereon (see below).


Saxo's description of the hall in Nastrands'by him adapted to the realm
of torture in general'is as follows : "The doors are covered with the
soot of ages; the walls are bespattered with filth; the roof is closely
covered with barbs; the floor is strewn with serpents and bespawled with
all kinds of uncleanliness ". The last statement confirms Gylfaginning's
view. As this bespawling continues without ceasing through ages, the
matter thus produced must grow into abundance and have an outlet.
Remarkable is also Saxo's statement, that the doors are covered with the
soot of ages. Thus fires must be kindled near these doors. Of this more
below.


77.


THE PLACES OF PUNISHMENT (continued). THE HALL IN NASTRANDS.


Without allowing myself to propose any change of text in the Voluspa
strophes above quoted, and in pursuance of the principle which I have
adopted in this work, not to base any conclusions on so-called
text-emendations, which invariably are text-debasings, I have applied
these strophes as they are found in the texts we have. Like Mullenhoff
(D. Alterth., v. 121) and other scholars, I am, however, convinced that
the strophe which begins sa hon ţar vada, &c., has been corrupted.
Several reasons, which I shall present elsewhere in a special treatise
on Voluspa, make this probable but simply the circumstance that the
strophe has ten lines is sufficient to awaken suspicions in anyone's
mind who holds the view that Völuspa originally consisted of exclusively
eight-lined strophes'a view which cannot seriously be doubted. As we now
have the poem, it consists of forty-seven strophes of eight lines each,
one of four lines, two of six lines each, five of ten lines each, four
of twelve lines each, and two of fourteen lines each'in all fourteen not
eight-lined strophes against forty-seven eight-lined ones; and, while
all the eight-lined ones are intrinsically and logically well
constructed, it may be said of the others that have more than eight
lines each partly that we can cancel the superfluous lines without
injury to the sense, and partly that they look like loosely-joined
conglomerations of scattered fragments of strophes and of
interpolations. The most recent effort to restore perfectly the poem to
its eight-lined strophes has been made by Mullenhoff (D. Alterth., v.);
and although this effort may need revision in some special points, it
has upon the whole given the poem a clearness, a logical sequence and
symmetry, which of themselves make it evident that Mullenhoff's premises
are correct.


In the treatise on Völuspa which I shall publish later, this subject
will be thoroughly discussed. Here I may be permitted to say, that in my
own efforts to restore Völuspa to eight-lined strophes, I came to a
point where I had got the most of the materials arranged on this
principle, but there remained the following fragment:


(1) A felir austan
um eitrdala
soxum ok sverdum,
Slidr heitir su.

(2) Sa hon ţar vada

ţunga strauma

menn meinsvara
ok mordvarga
ok ţanns annars glepreyrarunn.


	

(1) Falls a river from the east
around venom dales
with daggers and spears,
Slid it is called.

(2) There saw she wade

through heavy streams

perjurers
murderers
and him who seduces another's wife.


These fragments make united ten lines. The fourth line of the fragment
(1) Slidr heitir su has the appearance of being a mythographic addition
by the transcriber of the poem. Several similar interpolations which
contain information of mythological interest, but which neither have the
slightest connection with the context, nor are of the least importance
in reference to the subject treated in Völuspa, occur in our present
text-editions of this poem. The dwarf-list is a colossal interpolation
bf this kind. If we hypothetically omit this line for the present, and
also the one immediately preceding (soxum ok sverdum), then there
remains as many lines as are required in a regular eight-line strophe.


It is further to be remarked that among all the eight-lined Völuspa
strophes there is not one so badly constructed that a verb in the first
half-strophe has a direct object in the first line of the second
half-strophe, as is the case in that of the present text:


Sa hon ţar vada ţunga strauma menn meinsvara ok rnordvarga ok ţann's
annars glepr eyrarunu;


and, upon the whole, such a construction can hardly ever have occurred
in a tolerably passable poem. If these eight lines actually belonged to
one and the same strophe, the latter would have to be restored according
to the following scheme:


(1) Sa hon ţar vada


(2) ţunga strauma


(3) menn meinsvara (4) ok mordvarga;


(5) ''''''.


(6) ''''''.


(7) ţann's annars glepr


(8) eyrarunu.


and in one of the dotted lines the verb must have been found which
governed the accusative object ţann. The lines which should take the
place of the dots have, in their present form, the following appearance:


a fellr austan urn eitrdala.


The verb which governed ţann must then be áfellr, that is to say, the
verb fellr united with the preposition á. But in that case 6 is not the
substantive á, a river, a running water, and thus the river which falls
from the east around venom dales has its source in an error.


Thus we have, under this supposition, found that there is something
that fellr á, falls on, streams down upon, him who seduces the wife of
another. This something must be expres.sed by a substantive, which is
now concealed behind the adverb austan, and must have resembled it
sufficiently in sound to be transformed into it.


Such a substantive, and the only one of the kind, is austr. This means
something that can falla á, stream down upon; for ausir is bail-water
(from ausa, to bail), waste-water, water flowing out of a gutter or shoot.


A test as to whether there originally stood austr or not is to be found
in the following substantive, which now has the appearance of eitrdala.
For if there was written austr, then there must, in the original text,
have followed a substantive (1) which explained the kind of waste-water
meant, (2) which had sufficient resemblance to eitrdala to become
corrupted into it.


The sea-faring Norseman distinguished between two kinds of austr:
byttu-austr and daelu-austr. The bail-water in a ship could be removed
either by bailing it out with scoops directly over the railing, or it
could be scooped into a dćla, a shoot or trough laid over the railing.
The latter was the more convenient method. The difference between these
two kinds of' austr became a popular phrase; compare the expression ţa
var byttu-austr, eigi dćlu-austr. The word daela was also used
figuratively; compare láta daeluna ganga, to let the shoots (troughs)
run (Gretla, 98), a proverb by which men in animated conversation are
likened unto daelur, troughs, which are opened for flowing conversation.


Under such circumstances we might here expect after the word austr the
word daela, and, as venom here is in question, eitr-daela.


Eitr-daela satisfies both the demands above made. It explains what sort
of waste-water is meant, and it resembles eitr-dala sufficiently to be
corrupted into it.


Thus we get a fellr austr eitrdaela: "On (him who seduces another man's
wife) falls the waste-water of the venom-troughs ". Which these
venom-troughs are, the strophe in its entirety ought to define. This
constitutes the second test of the correctness of the reading.


It must be admitted that if a fellr austr eitrdaela is the original
reading, then a corruption into a fellr austan eitrdala had almost of
necessity to follow, since the preposition á was taken to be the
substantive á, a river, a running stream. How near at hand such a
confounding of these words lies is demonstrated by another Völuspa
strophe, where the preposition a in a ser hon ausaz aurgom forsi was
long interpreted as the substantive á.


We shall now see whether the expression á fellr austr eitrdaela makes
sense, when it is introduced in lieu of the dotted lines above:


Sa hon ţar vaa ţunga strauma menn meinsvara ok mordvarga; (en) á fellr
austr eitrdaela ţann's annars glepr eyraruna.


"There saw she heavy streams (of venom) flow upon (or through)
perjurers and murderers. The waste-water of the venom-troughs (that is,
the waste-water of the perjurers and murderers after the venom-streams
had rushed over them) falls upon him who seduces the wife of another man."


Thus we get not only a connected idea, but a very remarkable and
instructive passage.


The verb vaa is not used only about persons who wade through a water.
The water itself is also able to vada (cp. eisandi udr vedr undan'Rafns
S. Sveinb.), to say nothing of arrows that wade i fólk (Havam., 150),
and of banners which wade in the throng of warriors. Here the venom
wades through the crowds of perjurers and murderers. The verb vada has
so often been used in this sense, that it has also acquired the meaning
of rushing, running, rushing through. Heavy venom-streams run through
the perjurers and murderers before they fall on the adulterers. The
former are the venom-troughs, which pour their waste-water upon the latter.


We now return to Saxo's description of the hall of Nastrands, to see
whether the Völuspa strophe thus hypothetically restored corresponds
with, or is contradicted by, it. Disagreeable as the pictures are which
we meet with in this comparison, we are nevertheless compelled to take
them into consideration.


Saxo says that the wall of the hall is bespattered with liquid filth
(panes obductus illuvie). The Latin word, and the one used by Saxo for
venom, is venenum, not illuvies, which means filth that has been poured
or bespattered on something. Hence Saxo does not mean venom-streams of
the kind which, according to Völuspa, are vomited by the serpents down
through the roof-openings, but the reference is to something else, which
still niust have an upper source, since it is bespattered on the wall of
the hall.


Saxo further says that the floor is bespawled with all sorts of
impurity: pavimentum omni sordium genere respersum. The expression
confirms the idea, that unmixed venom is not meant here, but everything
else of the most disgusting kind.


Furthermore, Saxo relates that groups of damned are found there within,
which groups he calls consessus. Consessus means "a sitting together,"
and, in a secondary sense, persons sitting together. The word "sit" may
here be taken in a more or less literal sense. Consessor, "the one who
sits together with," might be applied to every participator in a Roman
dinner, though the Romans did not actually sit, but reclined at the table.


As stated, several such consessus, persons sitting or lying together,
are found in the hall. The benches upon which they sit or lie are of
iron. Every consessus has a locus in the hall; and as both these terms,
consessus and locus, in Saxo united in the expression consessuum loca,
together mean rows of benches in a theatre or in a public place, where
the seats rise in rows one above the other, we must assume that these
rows of the damned sitting or lying


together are found in different elevations between the floor and
ceiling. This assumption is corroborated by what Saxo tells, viz., that
their loca are separated by leaden hurdles (plumbeae crates). That they
are separated by hurdles must have some practical reason, and this can
be none other than that something flowing down may have an unobstructed
passage from one consessus to the other. That which flows down finally
reaches the floor, and is then omne sordium genus, all kinds of
impurity. It must finally be added that, according to Saxo, the stench
in this room of torture is well-nigh intolerable (super omnia perpetui
faetoris asperitas tristes lacessebat olfactus).


Who is not able to see that Voluspa's and Saxo's descriptions of the
hall in Nastrands confirm, explain, and complement each other' From
Völuspa's words, we conclude that the venom-streams come from the
openings in the roof, not from the walls. The wall consists, in its
entirety, of the backs of serpents wattled together (sa er undinn salr
orma hryggjom). The heads belonging to these serpents are above the
roof, and vomit their venom down through the roof-openings'" the ljors"
(fellu eitrdropar inn um ljóra). Below these, and between them and the
floor, there are, as we have seen in Saxo, rows of iron seats, the one
row below the other, all furnished with leaden hurdles, and on the iron
seats sit or lie perjurers and murderers, forced to drink the venom
raining down in " heavy streams Every such row of sinners becomes " a
trough of venom" for the row immediately below it, until the disgusting
liquid thus produced falls on those who have seduced the dearest and
most confidential friends of others. These seducers either constitute
the lowest row of the seated delinquents, or they wade on the floor in
that filth and venom which there flows. Over the hall broods eternal
night (it is sólu fjarri). What there is of light, illuminating the
terrors, comes from fires (see below) kindled at the doors which open to
the north (norr horfa dyrr). The snnoke from the fires comes into the
hall and covers the door-posts with the "soot of ages" (posies longaeva
fuligine illitae).


With this must be compared what Tacitus relates concerning the views
and customs of the Germans in regard to crime and punishment. He says:


"The nature of the crime determines the punishment. Traitors and
deserters they hang on trees. Cowards and those given to disgraceful
debauchery they smother in filthy pools and marshes, casting a hurdle
(crates) over them. The dissimilarity in these punishments indicates a
belief that crime should be punished in such a way that the penalty is
visible, while scandalous conduct should be punished in such a way that
the debauchee is removed from the light of day" (Ger'mania, xii.).


This passage in Germania is a commentary on Saxo's descriptions, and on
the Völuspa strophe in the form resulting from my investigation. What
might naturally seem probable is corroborated by Germania's words: that
the same view of justice and morality, which obtained in the camp of the
Germans, found its expression, but in gigantic exaggeration, in their
doctrines concerning eschatological rewards and punishments. It should,
perhaps, also be remarked that a similar particularism prevailed through
centuries. The hurdle (crates) which Saxo mentions as being placed oven'
the venom and filth-drinking criminals in the hall of Nastrands has its
earthly counterpart in the hurdle (also called crates), which, according
to the custonn of the age of Tacitus, was thrown over victims smothered
in the cesspools and marshes (ignavos et imbelles et corpore infames
cćno ac palude injecta insuper' crate mergunt). Those who were sentenced
to this death were, according to Tacitus, cowards and debauchees. Among
those who received a similar punishment in the Teutonic Gehenna were
partly those who in a secret manner had committed murder and tried to
conceal their crime (such were called morvar'gr), partly debauchees who
had violated the sacredness of matrimony. The descriptions in the
Voluspa strophe and in Saxo show that also in the hall of the Nastrands
the punishment is in accordance with the nature of the crime. All are
punished terribly; but there is a distinction between those who had to
drink the serpent venom unmixed and those who receive the mixed potion,
and finally those who get the awful liquid over themselves and doubtless
within themselves.


In closing this chapter I will quote a number of Völuspa strophes,
which refer to Teutonic eschatology. In parallel columns I print the
strophes as they appear in Codex Regius, and in the form they have
assunied as the result of an investigation of which I shall give a full
account in the future. I trust it will be found that the restoration of
a fellr austan um eitrdala into a fellr austr eitrdćla, and the
introducing of these words before ţanns annar's glepr


eyraruna not only restores to the strophe in which these words occur a
regular structure and a sense which is corroborated by Saxo's
eschatological sources and by the Germania of Tacitus, but also supplies
the basis and conditions on which other strophes may get a regular
structure and intelligible contents.


_Codex Regius
_
A fellr austan

urn eitrdala

sauxom oc sverdom

slidr heitir su.

Stod fyr nordan
a nida vollom
salr or gulli
sindra ettar.
enn annar sto
a okolni
bior salr iotuns
en sa brimir heitir.

Sal sa. hon standa
solo fiarri
na strondu a
nordr horfa dyrr
fello eitr dropar
inn um liora
sa er undinn salr
orma hryggiom.

  (38) Sa hon dar vada

dunga strauma
menu meinsvara
oc mordvargar.
oc dann annars glepr
eyra runo
dar sug nidhauggr
nai fram gegna
sleit vargr vera
vitod er en eda hvat.

  (35) Hapt sa hon liggia

undir hvera lundi
legiarn lici
loca adeckian.
dar sitr Sigyn
deygi um sinom
ver velglyiod
vitod er en eda hvat,

vigbönd snua,

heldr varn hardgor

höpt or dörmum; dar sitr Sigyn

deygi um sinum ver vel glyjud.

Vitud er enn ea hvat'


	

_Revised Text
_
'''''..

'''''..

'''''..

'''''..

Stod fyr nordan
a Nia vollum
salr or gulli
Sindra aettar;
enn annar sto
a okolni,
bjorsals jotuns,
en sa. Brimir heitir.

Sal sa hon standa
solu fjarri
Nastrondu a,
nordr horfa dyrr;
fellu eitrdropar
inn um ljora,
sa er undinn salr
orma hryggj urn.

Sa hon dar vada

dunga strauma
menn meinsvara
oc mordvarga;
en a fell austr
eitrdaela
danns annars glepr
eyrarunu
'''''..
'''''..

Hapt sa hon liggja

undir hveralundi
laegjarnliki
Loka adekkjan;
dar sang Nidhöggr
nai framgengna,
sleit vargr vera.
Vitud er enn eda hvat'

dar kna Vala


78


THE PLACES OF PUNISHMENT (continued). LOKI'S CAVE OF PUNISHMENT.
GYLFAGINNING'S CONFOUNDING OF MUSPEL'S SONS WITH THE SONS OF SUTTUNG.


Saxo (Hist. Dan., 429 ff.) relates that the experienced Captain Thorkil
made, at the command of King Gorm, a second journey to the uttermost
North, in order to complete the knowledge which was gained on the first
journey. That part of the lower world where Loki (by Saxo called
Ugartilocus) dwells had not then been seen. This now remained to be
done. Like the first time, Thorkil sailed into that sea on which sun and
stars never shine, and he kept cruising so long in its darkness that his
supply of fuel gave out. The expedition was as a consequence on the
point of failing, when a fire was suddenly seen in the distance. Thorkil
then entered a boat with a few of his men and rowed thither. In order to
find his way back to his ship in the darkness, he had placed in the
mast-top a self-luminous precious stone, which he had taken with him on
the journey. Guided by the light, Thorkil came to a strandrock, in which
there were narrow "gaps" (fauces), out of which the light came. There
was also a door, and Thorkil entered, after requesting his men to remain
outside.


Thorkil found a grotto. At the fire which was kindled stood two
uncommonly tall men, who kept mending the fire. The grotto had an inner
door or gate, and that which was seen inside that gate is described by
Saxo in almost the same words as those of his former description of the
hall at the Nastrands (obsoleti postes, ater situ paries, sordidum
tectum, frequens anguibus pavirnentum). Thorkil in reality sees the same
hall again; he had simply come to it from another side, from the north,
where the hall has its door opening toward the strand (nordr horfa
dyrr~Völuspa), the pillars of which, according to Saxo's previous
description, are covered with the soot of' ages. The soot is now
explained by the fire which is kindled in the grotto outside the hall,
the grotto forming as it were a vestibule. The two gigantic persons who
mend the fire are called by Saxo aquili.


In Marcianus Capella, who is Saxo's model in regard to style and
vocabulary, persons of semi-divine rank (hemithei) are mentioned who are
called aquili, and who inhabit the same regions as the souls of the dead
(lares and larvć'Marc. Cap., i., ii. Compare P. E, Muller, not., Hist.
Dan., pp. 68, 69). Aquilus also has the signification, dark, swarthy,
lcel.. dokkr.


In the northern mythology a particular kind of elves are
mentioned'black or swarthy elves, dókkálfar. They dwell under the
farthest root of the world-tree, near the northern gate of the lower
world (iormungrundar i iodyr nyrdra), and have as their neighbours the
Thurses and the unhappy dead (nair'Forspjallsljod, 25). Gylfaginning
also (oh. 17) knows of the swarthy elves, at least, that they "dwell
down in the earth" (bua nidri í jördu). As to mythic rank, colour, and
abode, they therefore correspond with the Roman aquili, and Saxo has
forcibly and vem'y correctly employed this Latin word in order to
characterise them in an intelligible manner.


The two swarthy elves keeping watch outside of the hail of Nastrands
ought naturally to have been astonished at seeing a living human being
entering their grotto. Saxo makes them receive the unexpected guest in a
friendly manner. They greet him, and, when they have learned the purpose
of his visit, one of them reproaches him for the mash boldness of his
undertaking, but gives him information in regard to the way to Loki, and
gives him fire and fuel after he had tested Thorkil's understanding, and
found him to be a wise man. The journey, says the swarthy elf, can be
performed in four days' fast sailing. As appears from the context, the
journey is to the east. The traveller then comes to a place where not a
blade of grass grows, and over which an even denser darkness broods. The
place includes several terrible rocky halls, and in one of them Loki dwells.


On the fourth day Thorkil, favoured by a good wind, comes to the goal
of his journey. Through the darkness a mass of rock rising from the sea
(scopulum inusitatć molis) is with difficulty discerned, and Thorkil
lays to by this rocky island. He and his nien put on clothes of skin of
a kind that protects against venom, and then walk along the beach at the
foot of the rock until they find an entrance. Then they kindle a fire
with flint stones, this being an excellent protection against demons ;
they light torches and crawl in through the narrow opening.
Unfortunately Saxo gives but a scanty account of what they saw there.
First they came to a cave of torture, which reseumbled the hall on the
Nastrands, at least, in this particular, that there were many serpents
and many iron seats or iron benches of the kind described above. A brook
of sluggish water is crossed by wading. Another grotto which is not
described was passed through, whereupmrn they entered Loki's awful
prison. He lay there bound hands and feet with immense chains. His hair
and beard resembled spears of horn, and had a terrible odour. Thorkil
jerked out a hair of his beard to take with him as evidence of what he
had seen. As he did this, there was diffused in the cave a pestilential
stench; and after Thorkil's arrival home, it appeared that the
beard-hair he had taken home was dangerous to life on account of its
odour (Hist. Dan., 433). When Thorkil and his men had passed out of the
interior jurisdiction of the rock, they were discovered by flying
serpents which had their home on the island (cp. Völuspa'ţar saug
Nidhoggr, &c., No. 77). TIne skin clothes protected them against the
venom vomited forth. But one of tine men who bared his eyes became
blind. Another, whose hand came outside of the protecting garnients, got
it cnt off; and a third, who ventured to uncover his head, got the
hatter separated from his neck by the poison as by a sharp steel instrument.


The poem or saga which was Saxo's authority for this story must have
described the rocky island where Loki was put in chains as inhabited by
many condemned beings. There are at least three caves of torture, and in
one of them there are many iron benches. This is confirmed, as we shall
see, by Völuspa.


Saxo also says that there was a harbour. From Völuspa we learn that
when Ygdrasil trembles at the approach of Ragnarok, the ship of the
dead, Nagelfar, lies so that the liberated Loki can go aboard it. That
it has long lain moored in its harbour is evident from the fact that,
according to Voluspa, it then "becomes loose ". Unknown hands are its
builders. The material out of which it is constructed is the
nail-parings of dead men (Gylfag., 51'probably according to some popular
tradition). The less regard for religion, the less respect for the dead.
But from each person who is left unburied, or is put into his grave
without being, when possible, washed, combed, cleaned as to hands and
feet, and so cared for that his appearance may be a favourable evidence
to the judges at the Thing of the dead in regard to his survivors'from
each such person comes building material for the death-ship, which is to
carry the hosts of world-destroyers to the great conflict. Much building
material is accumulated in the last days'in time "dagger-and-axe age,"
when "men no longer respect each other" (Völuspa).


Nagelfar is the largest of all ships, larger than Skidbladner
(Skidbladnir er beztr skipanna . . . en Nagifari en' mest skip' Gylfag.,
43). This very fact shows that it is to have a large number of persons
on board when it departs from Loki's rocky island. Voluspa says: 


Str. 47, 8.Naglfar losnar,

Str. 48. Kioll ferr austan,

koma muno Muspellz
urn laug lydir,
en Loki styrir;
fara Fifls megir
me Freka allir,
ţeim er brodir
Byleipts i fór.


	

Nagelfar becomes loose,

a ship comes from the east,

the hosts of Muspel
come o'er the main,
Loki is pilot;
all Fifel's descendants
come with Freke,
Byleipt's brother
is with them on the journey.


Here it is expressly stated that " the hosts of Muspel" are on board
the ship, Nagelfar, guided by Loki, after it has been "freed from its
moorings" and had set sail from the island where Loki and other damned
ones were imprisoned.


How can this be harmonised with the doctrine based on the authority of
Gylfaginning, that the sons of Muspel are inhabitants of the
southernmost region of light and warmth, Gylfaginning's so-called
Muspelheim' or with the doctrine that Surt is the protector of the s of
this realm' or that Muspel's sons proceed under his command to the
Ragnarok conflict, and that they consequently must come from the South,
which Voluspa also seems to corroborate with the words Surtr ferr sunnan
med sviga laefi'


The answer is that the one statement cannot be harmonised with the
other, and the question then arises as to which of the two authorities
is the authentic one, the heathen poem Voluspa or Gylfaginning, produced
in the thirteenth century by a man who had a vague conception of the
mythology of our ancestors. Even the most uncritical partisan of
Gylfaginning would certainly unhesitatingly decide in favour of Voluspa,
provided we had this poem handed down in its pure form from the heathen
days. But this is clearly not the case. We therefore need a third
witness to decide between the two. Such an one is also actually to be found.


In the Norse heathen records the word muspell occurs only twice, viz.,
in the above-mentioned Voluspa strophe and in Lokasenna, 42, where Frey,
who has surrendered his sword of victory, is threatened by Loki with the
prospect of defeat and death'er Murpellz synir ria Myrcviţ yfir, "when
Muspel's sons ride over Darkwood ". The Myrkwood is mentioned in
Volundarkvida (1) as a forest, through which the swan-maids coming from
the South flew into the wintry Ulfdales, where one chases bears on skees
(snow-shoes) to get food. This is evidently not a forest situated near
the primeval fountains of heat and fire. The very arbitrary manner in
which the names of the mythical geography is used in the heroic poems,
where Myrkwood comes to the surface, does not indicate that this forest
was conceived as situated south of Midgard, and there is, as shall be
shown below, reason for assuming that Darkwood is another name for the
Ironwood famous in mythology; the wood which, according to Voluspa, is
situated in the East, and in which Angerboda fosters the children of
Loki and Fenrer.


One of these, and one of the worst, is the monster Hate, the enemy of
the moon mentioned in Voluspa as tungls tiugari, that makes excursions
from the Ironwood and "stains the citadels of rulers with blood ". In
the Ragnarok conflict Hate takes part and contends with Tyr (Gylfag.),
and, doubtless, not only he, hut also the whole offspring of the
Fenris-wolf fostered in the Ironwood, are on the battlefield in that
division which is commanded by Loki their clan-chief. This is also,
doubtless, the meaning of the following words in the Voluspa strophe
quoted above: "Fifel's descendants all come with Freke (the wolf), and
in company with them is Byleipt's (or Byleist's) brother ". As Loki,
Byleipt, and Helblinde are mentioned as brothers (Gylfag., 33), no one
else can be meant with "Byleipt's brother" than Loki himself or
Helblinde, and more probably the latter, since it has already been
stated, that Loki is there as the commander of the forces. Thus it is
Muspel's sons and Loki's kinsmen in the Ironwood who are gathered around
him when the great conflict is at hand. Muspel's sons accompany the
liberated Loki from his rocky isle, and are with him on board Nagelfar.
Loki's first destination is the Ironwood, whither he goes to fetch
Angerboda's children, and thence the journey proceeds "over Myrkwood" to
the plain of Vigrid. The statements of Voluspa and Lokasenna illustrate
and corroborate each other, and it follows that Voluspa's statement,
claiming that Muspel's sons come from tIne East, is original and correct.


Gylfaginning treats Muspel as a place, a realm, the original home of
fire and heat (Gylfag., 5). Still, there is a lack of positiveness, for
the land in question is in the same work called Muspellsheimr (ch. 5)
and Muspells heimr (ch. 8), whence we may presume that the author
regarded Muspell as meaning both the land of the fire and the fire
itself. The true etymology of Muspell was probably as little known in
the thirteenth century, when Gylfaginning was written, as it is now. I
shall not speak of the several attempts made at conjecturing the
definition of the word. They may all be regarded as abortive, mainly,
doubtless, for the reason that Gylfaginning's statements have
credulously been assumed as the basis of the investigation. As a word
inherited from heathen times, it occurs under the forms mutspelli and
muspilli in the Old Saxon poem Heliand and in an Old High German poem on
the final judgment, and there it has the meaning of the Lord's day, the
doom of condemnation, or the condemnation. Concerning the meaning which
the word had among the heathens of the North, before the time of the
authors of Voluspa and Lokasenna, all that can be said with certainty
is, that the word in the expression "Muspel's sons" has had a special
reference to mythical beings who are to appear in Ragnarok fighting
there as Loki's allies, that is, on the side of the evil against the
good; that these beings were Loki's fellow-prisoners on the rocky isle
where he was chained; and that they accompanied him from there on board
Nagelfar to war against the gods. As Gylfaginning makes them accompany
Surt coming from the South, this must be the result of a confounding of
"Muspel's sons" with "Surt's (Suttung's) sons ".


A closer examination ought to have shown that Gylfaginning's conception
of "Muspel's sons" is immensely at variance with the mythical. Under the
influence of Christian ideas they are transformed into a sort of angels
of light, who appear in Ragnarok to contend under the command of Surt
"to conquer all the idols" (sigra oll godin'Gylfag. 4) and carry out the
punishment of the world. While Völuspa mnakes them come with Loki in the
ship Nagelfar, that is, from the terrible rocky isle in the sea over
which eternal darkness broods, and while Lokasenna makes them come
across the Darkwood, whose name does not suggest any region in the realm
of light, Gylfaginning tells us that they are celestial beings. Idols
and giants contend with each other on Vigrid's plains; then the heavens
are suddenly rent in twain, and out of it ride in shining squadrons
"Muspel's sons" and Surt, with his flaming sword, at the bead of the
fylkings. Gylfaginning is careful to keep these noble riders far away
from every contact with that mob which Loki leads to the field of
battle. It therefore expressly states that they form a fylking by
themselves (I ţessum gny Klofnar himininn, ok ridu ţadan Muspells synir;
Surtr ridr fyrstr, &c. . . . enn Muspells synir hafa einir ser fylking,
er sa björt mjök'ch. 56). Thus they do not come to assist Loki, but to
put an end to both the idols and the mob of giants. The old giant, Surt,
who, according to a heathen skald, Eyvind Skaldaspiller, dwells in
sokkdalir, in mountain grottos deep under the earth (see about him, No.
89), is in Gylfaginning first made the keeper of the s of "Muspelheim,"
and then the chief of celestial hosts. But this is not the end of his
promotion. In the text found in the Upsala Codex, Gylfaginning makes him
lord in Gimle, and likewise the king of eternal bliss. After Ragnarok it
is said, "there are many good abodes and many bad"; best it is to be in
Gimle with Surt (margar ero vistar goţar og margar illar, bezt er at
vera a Gimle medr surtr). The name Surt means black. We find that his
dark looks did not prevent his promotion, and this has been carried to
such a point that a mythologist who honestly believed in Gylfaginning
saw in him the Almighty who is to come after the regeneration to
equalise and harmonise all discord, and to found holy laws to prevail
for ever.


Under such circumstances, it may be suggested as a rule of critical
caution not to accept unconditionally Gylfaginning's statement that the
world of light and heat which existed before the creation of the world
was called Muspel or Muspelheim. In all probability, this is a result of
the author's own refiections. At all events, it is certain that no other
record has any knowledge of that name. But that the mythology presumed
the existence of such a world follows already from the fact that Urd's
fountain, which gives the warmth of life to the world - tree, must have
had its deepest fountain there, just as Hvergelmer has its in the world
of primeval cold, and Mimir has his fountain in that wisdom which unites
the opposites and makes them work together in a cosmic world.


Accordingly, we must distinguish between Muspells megir, Muspells
synir, from Surt's clan-men, who are called Surts aett, synir Suttunga,
Suttungs synir (Skirnismal, 34; Alvissm., 35). We should also remember
that Muspell in connection with the words synir and megir hardly can
mean a land, a realm, a region. The figure by which the inhabitants of a
country are called its sons or descendants never occurs, so far as I
know, in the oldest Norse literature.


In regard to the names of the points of the compass in the poetic Edda,
nordan and austan, it must not be forgotten that the same northern
regions in the mythical geography to which various events are referred
must have been regarded by the Icelanders as lying to the east from
their own northern isle. The Bjarmia ulterior, in whose night - shrouded
waters mythical adventurers sought the gates to the lower world, lay in
the uttermost North, and might still, from an Icelandic and also from a
Norwegian standpoint, be designated as a land in the East. According to
the sagas preserved by Saxo, these adventurers sailed into the Arctic
Ocean, past the Norwegian coast, and eastward to a mythical Bjarmia,
more distant than the real Bjarmaland. They could thus come to the coast
where a gate to the lower world was to be found, and to the Nastrands,
and if they continued this same course to the East, they could finally
get to the rocky isle where Loki lay chained.


We have seen that Loki is not alone with Sigyn on that isle where in
chains he abides Ragnarok. There were unhappy beings in large numbers
with him. As already stated, Saxo speaks of three connected caves of
torture there, and the innermost one is Loki's. Of the one nearest to
it, Saxo tells nothing else than that one has to wade across a brook or
river in order to get there. Of the bound Fenrer, Loki's son, it is said
that from his mouth runs froth which forms the river Von (Gylfag., 34).
In Lokasenna (34) Frey says to the abusive Loki: "A wolf (that is,
Fearer) I see lying at the mouth of the river until the forces of the
world come in conflict; if you do not hold your tongue, you, villain,
will be chained next to him" (ţvi naest'an expression which here should
be taken in a local sense, as a definite place is mentioned in the
preceding sentence). And as we learn from Voluspa, that Freke (the wolf)
is with Loki on board Nagelfar, then these evidences go to show that
Loki and his son are chained in the same place. The isle where Fearer
was chained is called in Gylfaginning Lyngvi, and the body of water in
which the isle is situated is called Amsvartnir, a suitable name of the
sea, over which eternal darkness broods. On the isle, the probably
Icelandic author of Völuspa (or its translator or compiler) has imagined
a "grove," whose trees consist of jets of water springing from hot
fountains (hvera lundr). The isle is guarded by Garmr, a giant-dog, who
is to bark with all its might when the chains of Loki and Fenrer
threaten to burst asunder:


Geyr Garmr mjök fyr Gnipahelli Festr man slitna, en Freki renna.


According to Grimnersmal, Garm is the foremost of all dogs. The dogs
which guard the beautiful Menglad's citadel are also called Garms
(Fjölsvinnsmal). In Gylfaginning, the word is also used in regard to a
wolf, Hate Manegarm. Gnipahellir means the cave of the precipitous rock.
The adventures which Thorkil and his men encountered with the flying
serpents, in connection with the watching Hel-dog, show that Lyngve is
the scene of demons of the same kind as those which are found around the
Na-gates of Nifelheim.


Bound hands and feet with the entrails of a "frost-cold son"
(Lokasenna, 49), which, after being placed on his limbs, are transformed
into iron chains (Gyfag., 54), Loki lies on a weapon (a
hiorvi'Lokasenna, 49), and under him are three flat stones placed on
edge, one under his shoulders, one under his loins, and one under his
hams (Gylfag., 54). Over him Skade, who is to take revenge for the
murder of her father, suspends a serpent in such a manner that the venom
drops in the face of the nithing. Sigyn, faithful to her wicked husband,
sits sorrowing by his side (Völuspa) and protects him as well as she is
able against the venom of the serpent (Postscript to Lokasenna, Gylfag.,
54). Fearer is fettered by the soft, silk-like chain Gleipner, made by
the subterranean artist, and brought from the lower world by Hermod. It
is the only chain that can hold him, and that cannot be broken before
Ragnarok. His jaws are kept wide open with a sword (Gylfag., 35).


79.


THE GREAT WORLD-MILL. ITS MISTAKEN IDENTITY WITH THE FRODE-MILL.


We have yet to mention a place in the lower world which is of
importance to the naive but, at the same time, perspicuous and
imaginative cosmology of Teutonic heathendom. The myth in regard to the
place in question is lost, but it has left scattered traces and marks,
with the aid of which it is possible to restore its chief outlines.


Poems, from the heathen time, speak of two wonderful mills, a larger
and a smaller "Grotte''-mill.


The larger one is simply immense. The storms and showers which lash the
sides of the mountains and cause their disintegration; the breakers of
the sea which attack the rocks on the strands, make them hollow, and
cast the substance thus scooped out along the coast in the form of
sand-banks; the whirlpools and currents of the ocean, and the still more
powerful forces that were fancied by antiquity, and which smouldered the
more brittle layers of the earth's solid crust, and scattered them as
sand and mould over "the stones of the hail," in order that the ground
might "be overgrown with green herbs "'all this was symbohised by the
larger Grotte-mill. And as all symbols, in the same manner as the
lightning which becomes Thor's hammer, in the mythology become
epic-pragmatic realities, so this symbol becomes to the imagination a
real mill, which operates deep down in the sea and causes the phenomena
which it symbolises.


This greater mill was also called Graedir, since its grist is the mould
in which vegetation grows. This name was gradually transferred by the
poets of the Christian age from the mill, which was grinding beneath the
sea, to the sea itself.


The lesser Grotte-mill is like the greater one of heathen origin'Egil
Skallagrimson mentions it'but it plays a more accidental part, and
really belongs to the heroic poems connected with the mythology.
Meanwhile, it is akin to the greater. Its stones come from the lower
world, and were cast up thence for amusement by young giant-maids to the
surface of the earth. A being called Hengikjoptr (the feminine
Hengikepta is the name of a giantess' Sn. Edda, i. 551; ii. 471) makes
mill-stones out of these subterranean rocks, and presents the mill to
King Frode Fridleifson Fate brings about that the same young giantesses,
having gone to Svithiod to help the king warring there, Guthorm (see
Nos. 38, 39), are taken prisoners and sold as slaves to King Frode, who
makes them turn his Grotte-mill, the stones of which they recognise from
their childhood. The giantesses, whose names are Fenja and Menja, grind
on the mill gold and safety for King Frode, peace and good-will among
men for his kingdom. But when Frode, hardened by greed for gold, refuses
them the necessary rest from their toils, they grind fire and death upon
him, and give the mill so great speed that the mill-stone breaks into
pieces, and the foundation is crushed under its weight.


After the introduction of Christianity, the details of the myth
concerning the greater, the cosmological mill, were forgotten, and there
remained only the memory of the existence of such a mill on the bottom
of the sea. The recollection of the lesser Grotte-mill was, on the other
hand, at least in part preserved as to its details in a song which
continued to flourish, and which was recorded in Skaldskaparmal.


Both mills were now regarded as identical, and there sprang up a
tradition which explained how they could be so.


Contrary to the statements of the song, the tradition narrates that the
mill did not break into pieces, but stood whole and perfect, when the
curse of the giant-maids on Frode was fulfilled. The night following the
day when they had begun to grind misfortune on Frode, there came a
sea-king, Mysing, and slew Frode, and took, among other booty, also the
Grotte-mill and both the female slaves, and carried them on board his
ship. Mysing commanded them to grind salt, and this they continued to do
until the following midnight. Then they asked if he had not got enough,
but he commanded them to continue grinding, and so they did until the
ship shortly afterwards sank. In this manner the tradition explained how
the mill came to stand on the bottom of the sea, and there the mill that
had belonged to Frode acquired the qualities which originally had
belonged to the vast Grotte-mill of the mythology. Skaldskaparmal, which
relates this tradition as well as the song, without taking any notice of
the discrepancies between them, adds that after Frode's mill had sunk,
"there was produced a whirlpool in the sea, caused by the waters running
through the hole in the mill-stone, and from that time the sea is salt ".


80.


THE WORLD-MILL (continued).


With distinct consciousness of its symbolic signification, the greater
mill is mentioned in a strophe by the skald Snaebjorn (Skaldskap., ch.
25). The strophe appears to have belonged to a poem describing a voyage.
"It is said," we read in this strophe, "that Eyludr's nine women
violently turn the Grotte of the skerry dangerous to man out near the
edge of the earth, and that these women long ground Amlode's lid-grist."


Hvat kveda hraera Grotta hergrimmastan. Skerja ut fyrir jardar skauti
Eyludrs níu brudir: ţaer er . . fyrir launga lid-meld amloda molu.


To the epithet Eyludr, and to the meaning of lid- in lid-grist, I shall
return below. The strophe says that the mill is in motion out on the
edge of the earth, that nine giant-maids turn it (for the lesser
Grotte-mill two were more than sufficient), that they had long ground
with it, that it belongs to a sherry very dangerous to seafaring men,
and that it produces a peculiar grist.


The same mill is suggested by an episode in Saxo, where he relates the
saga about the Danish prince, Amlethus, who on account of circumstances
in his home was compelled to pretend to be insane. Young courtiers, who
accompanied him on a walk along the sea-strand, showed him a sand-bank
and said that it was meal. The prince said he knew this to be so: he
said it was "meal from the mill of the storms" (Hist. Dan., 141).


The myth concerning the cosmic Grotte-mill was intimately connected
partly with the myth concerning the fate of Yimir and the other primeval
giants, and partly with that concerning Hvergelmer's fountain.
Vafthrudnersmal (21) and Grimnersmal (40) tell us that the earth was
made out of Yimir's flesh, the rocks out of his bones, and the sea from
his blood. With earth is here meant, as distinguished from rocks, the
mould, the sand, which cover the solid ground. Vafthrudnersmal calls
Yimir Aurgelmir, Claygelmer or Moldgelmer; and Fjölsvinnsmal gives him
the epithet Leirbrimir, Claybrimer, which suggests that his "flesh" was
changed into the loose earth, while his bones became rocks. Yimir's
descendants, the primeval giants, Thrudgelmer and Bergelmer perished
with him, and the "flesh" of their bodies cast into the primeval sea
also became mould. Of this we are assured, so far as Bergelmer is
concerned, by strophe 35 in Vafthrudnersmal, which also informs us that
Bergelmer was laid under the mill-stone. The mill which ground his
"flesh" into mould can be none other than the one grinding under the
sea, that is, the cosmic Grottemill.


When Odin asks the wise giant Vafthrudner how far back he can remember,
and which is the oldest event of which he has any knowledge from
personal experience, the giant answers: "Countless ages ere the earth
was shapen Bergelmer was born. The first thing I remember is when he a
var ludr urn lagidr."


This expression was misunderstood by the author of Gylfaginning
himself, and the misunderstanding has continued to develop into the
theory that Bergelmer was changed into a sort of Noah, who with his
household saved himself in an ark when Bur's sons drowned the primeval
giants in the blood of their progenitor. Of such a counterpart to the
Biblical account of Noah and his ark our Teutonic mythical fragments
have no knowledge whatever.


The word ludr (with radical r) has two meanings: (1) a wind-instrument,
a loor, a war-trumpet; (2) the tier of beams, the underlying timbers of
a mill, and, in a wider sense, the mill itself.


The first meaning, that of war-trumpet, is not found in the songs of
the Elder Edda, and upon the whole does not occur in the Old Norse
poetry. Heimdal's war-trumpet is not called ludr, but horn or hljód.
Ludr in this sense makes its first appearance in the sagas of Christian
times, but is never used by the skalds. In spite of this fact the
signification may date back to heathen times. But however this may be,
ludr in Vafthrudnersmal does not mean a war-trumpet. The poem can never
have meant that Beigelmer was laid on a musical instrument.


The other meaning remains to be discussed. Ludr, partly in its more
limited sense of the timbers or beams under the mill, partly in the
sense of the subterranean mill in its entirety, and the place where it
is found, occurs several times in the poems: in the Grotte-song, in
Helge Hund. (ii. 2), and in the above-quoted strophe by Snaebjorn, and
also in Grogalder and in Fjölsvinnsmal. If this signification is applied
to the passage in Vafthrudnersmal: a var ludr um lagidr, we get the
meaning that Bergelmer was "laid on a mill," and in fact no other
meaning of the passage is possible, unless an entirely new signification
is to be arbitrarily invented.


But however conspicuous this signification is, and however clear it is
that it is the only one applicable in this poem, still it has been
overlooked or thrust aside by the mythologists, and for this
Gylfaginning is to blame. So far as I know, Vigfusson is the only one
who (in his Dictionary, p. 399) makes the passage a ludr lagidr mean
what it actually means, and he remarks that the words must "refer to
some ancient lost myth ".


The confusion begins, as stated, in Gylfaginning. Its author has had no
other authority for his statement than the Vafthrudnersmal strophe in
question, which he also cites to corroborate his own words; and we have
here one of the many examples found in Gylfaginning showing that its
author has neglected to pay much attention to what the passages quoted
contain. When Gylfaginning has stated that the frost-giants were drowned
in Yimir's blood, then comes its interpretation of the Vafthrudnersmal
strophe, which is as follows: "One escaped with his household: him the
giants call Bergelmer. He with his wife betook himself upon his ludr and
remained there, and from them the races of giants are descended" (nema
einn komst undan med sinu hyski: ţann kalla jotnar Bergelmi; hann fór
upp a ludr sinn oh kona hans, oh helzt ţar, ok eru af ţeim komnar), &c.


What Gylfaginning's author has conceived by the ludr which he mentions
it is difficult to say. That he did not have a boat in mind is in the
meantime evident from the expression: hann fór upp a ludr sinn. It is
more reasonable to suppose that his idea was, that Bergelmer himself
owned an immense mill, upon whose high timbers he and his household
climbed to save themselves from the flood. That the original text says
that Bergelmer was laid on the timbers of the mill Gylfaginning pays no
attention to. To go upon something and to be laid on something are,
however, very different notions.


An argument in favour of the wrong interpretation was furnished by the
Resenian edition of the Younger Edda (Copenhagen, 1665). There we find
the expression fór upp 4 ludr sinn "amended" to fór a bat sinn. Thus
Bergelmer had secured a boat to sail in; and although more reliable
editions of the Younger Edda have been published since from which the
boat disappeared, still the mythologists have not had the heart to take
the boat away from Bergelmer. On the contrary, they have allowed the
boat to grow into a ship, an ark.


As already pointed out, Vafthrudnersmal tells us expressly that
Bergelmer, Aurgelmer's grandson, was "laid on a mill" or "on the
supporting timbers of a mill ". We may be sure that the myth would not
have laid Bergelmer on "a mill" if the intention was not that he was to
be ground. The kind of meal thus produced has already been explained. It
is the mould and sand which the sea since time's earliest dawn has cast
upon the shores of Midgard, and with which the bays and strands have
been filled, to become sooner or later green fields. From Yimir's flesh
the gods created the oldest layer of soil, that which covered the earth
the first time the sun shone thereon, and in which the first herbs grew.
Ever since the same activity which then took place still continues.
After the great mill of the gods transformed the oldest frost-giant into
the dust of earth, it has continued to grind the bodies of his
descendants between the same stones into the same kind of mould. This is
the meaning of Vafthrudner's wonds when he says that his memory reaches
back to the time when Bergelmer was laid on the mill to be ground. Yimir
he does not remember, nor Thrudgelmer, nor the days when these were
changed to earth. Of them he knows only by hearsay. But he remembers
when the turn came for Bergelmer's limbs to be subjected to the same fate.


"The glorious Midgard" could not be created before its foundations
raised by the gods out of the sea were changed to bjód (Voluspa). This
is the word (originally bjódr) with which the author of Voluspa chose to
express the quahity of the fields and the fields themselves, which were
raised out of the sea by Bor's sons, when the great mill had changed the
"flesh" of Yimir into mould. Bjod does not mean a bare field or ground,
but one that can supply food. Thus it is used in Haustlaung (af breidu
bjódi, the place for a spread feast'Skaldskaparmal, ch. 22), and its
other meanings (perhaps the more original ones) are that of a board and
of a table for food to lie on. When the fields were raised out of
Yimir's blood they were covered with mould, so that, when they got light
and warmth from the sun, then the grund became gróin graenum lauki. The
very word mould comes from the Teutonic word mala, to grind (cp. Eng.
meal, Latin molere). The development of' language and the development of
mythology have here, as in so many other instances, gone hand in hand.


That the "flesh" of the primeval giants could be ground into fertile
mould refers us to the primeval cow Audhumbla by whose milk Yimir was
nourished and his flesh formed (Gylfaginning). Thus the cow in the
Teutonic mythology is the same as she is in the Iranian, the primeval
source of fertility. The mould, out of which the harvests grow, has by
transformations developed out of her nourishing liquids.


Here, then, we have the explanation of the lidmeldr which the great
mill grinds, according to Snaebjorn. Lidmeldr means limb-grist. It is
the limbs and joints of the primeval giants, which on Amlode's mill are
transformed into meal.


In its character as an institution for the promotion of fertility, and
for rendering the fields fit for habitation, the mill is under the care
and protection of the Vans. After Njord's son, Frey, had been fostered
in Asgard and had acquired the dignity of lord of the harvests, he was
the one who became the master of the great Grotte. It is attended on his
behalf by one of his servants, who in the mythology is called Byggvir, a
name related both to byggja, settle, cultivate, and to bygg, barley, a
kind of grain, and by his kinswoman and helpmate Beyla. So important is
the calling of Bygver and Beyla that they are permitted to attend the
feasts of the gods with their master (Frey). Consequently they are
present at the banquet to which Ćgir, according to Lokasenna, invited
the gods. When Loki uninvited made his appearance there to mix harm in
the mead of the gods, and to embitter their pleasure, and when he there
taunts Frey, Bygver becomes wroth on his master's behalf and says:


Str. 43 Veiztu, ef ec oţli ettac

sem ingunar-Freyr

oc sva sćlict setr,
mergi smćra maul ţa ec
ţa meincraco
oc lemţa alla i liţo.

 

Loki answers:

 

Str. 44 Hvat er ţat iţ litla

er ec ţat lauggra sec
oc snapvist snapir;
att egrom Freys
mundu ae vera
oc und kvernom klaka.

Bygver:

 

Str. 45 Beyggvir ec heiti,

enn mic braţan kveda
god aull oc gumar:
ţvi em ec her hrodugr,
at drecca Hroptz megir
allir aul saman.

 

Loki.

 

Str. 46 ţegi ţu, Beyggvir!

ţu kunnir aldregi

deila meţ monnom mat,


	

Had I the ancestry

of Ingunar Frey

and so honoured a seat,
know I would grind you
finer than marrow, you evil crow,
and crush you limb by limb.

 

 

 

What little boy is that

whom I see wag his tail
and eat like a parasite'
Near Frey's ears
always you are
and clatter 'neath the mill-stone.

Bygver is my name,

     
     
All gods and men
call me the nimble,
and here it is my pride,
that Odin's sons each
and all drink ale.

 


 


Be silent, Bygver!

Ne'er were you able

food to divide among men.


Beyla, too, gets her share of Loki's abuse. The least disgraceful thing
he says of her is that she is a deigia (a slave, who has to work at the
mill and in the kitchen), and that she is covered with traces of her
occupation in dust and dirt.


As we see, Loki characterises Bygver as a servant taking charge of the
mill under Frey, and Bygver characterises himself as one who grinds, and
is able to crush an "evil crow" limb by limb with his mill-stones. As
the one who with his mill makes vegetation, and so also bread and malt,
possible, he boasts of it as his honour that the gods are able to drink
ale at a banquet. Loki blames him because he is not able to divide the
food among men. The reproach implies that the distribution of food is in
his hands. The mould which comes from the great mill gives different
degrees of fertility to different fields, and rewards abundantly or
niggardly the toil of the farmer. Loki doubtless alludes to this unequal
distribution, else it would be impossible to find any sense in his words.


In the poetic Edda we still have another reminiscence of the great mill
which is located under the sea, and at the same time in the lower world
(see below), and which "grinds mould into food ". It is in a poem, whose
skald says that he has seen it on his journey in the lower world. In his
description of the "home of torture" in Hades, Solarljod's Christian
author has taken all his materials from the heathen mythological
conceptions of the worlds of punishment, though the author treats these
materials in accordance with the Christian purpose of his song. When the
skald dies, he enters the Hades gate, crosses bloody streams, sits for
nine days ánorna stóli, is thereupon seated on a horse, and is permitted
to make a journey through Mimir's domain, first to the regions of the
happy and then to those of the damned. In Mimir's realm he sees the
"stag of the sun" and Nide's (Mimir's) sons, who "quaff the pure mead
from Baugregin's well". When he approached the s of the world of the
damned, he heard a terrible din, which silenced the winds and stopped
the flow of the waters. The mighty din came from a mill. Its stones were
wet with blood, but the grist produced was mould, which was to be food.
Fickle-wise (svipvisar, heathen) women of dark complexion turned the
mill. Their bloody and tortured hearts hung outside of their breasts.
The mould which they ground was to feed their husbands.


This mill, situated at the entrance of hell, is here represented as one
of the agents of torture in the lower world. To a certain extent this is
correct even from a heathen standpoint. It was the lot of slave-women to
turn the hand-mill. In the heroic poem the giant-maids Fenja and Menja,
taken prisoners and made slaves, have to turn Erode's Grotte. In the
mythology "Eylud's nine women," thurse-maids, were compelled to keep
this vast mechanism in motion, and that this was regarded as a heavy and
compulsory task may be assumed without the risk of being mistaken.


According to Solarljod, the mill-stones are stained with blood. In the
mythology they crush the bodies of the first giants and revolve in
Yimir's blood. It is also in perfect harmony with the mythology that the
meal becomes mould, and that the mould serves as food. But the cosmic
signification is obliterated in Solarljod, and it seenns to be the
author's idea that men who have died in their heathen belief are to eat
the mould which women who have died in heathendom industriously grind as
food for them.


The myth about the greater Grotte, as already indicated, has also been
connected with the Hvergelmer myth. Solarljod has correctly stated the
location of the mill on the of the realm of torture. The mythology has
located Hvergelmer's fountain there (see No. 59); and as this vast
fountain is the mother of the ocean and of all waters, and the ever open
connection between the waters of heaven, of the earth, and of the lower
world, then this furnishes the explanation of the apparently conflicting
statements, that the mill is situated both in the lower world and at the
same time on the bottom of the sea. Of the mill it is said that it is
dangerous to men, dangerous to fleets and to crews, and that it causes
the maelstrom (svelgr) when the water of the ocean rushes down through
the eye of the mill-stone. The same was said of Hvergelmer, that causes
ebb and flood and maelstrom, when the water of the world alternately
flows into and out of this great source. To judge from all this, the
mill has been conceived as so made that its foundation timbers stood on
solid ground in' the lower world, and thence rose up into the sea, in
which the stones resting on this substructure were located. The
revolving "eye" of the mill-stone was directly above Hvergelmer, and
served as the channel through which the water flowed to and from the
great fountain of the world's waters.


81.


THE WORLD-MILL (continued). THE WORLD-MILL MAKES THE CONSTELLATIONS
REVOLVE. MUNDILFORI.


But the colossal mill in the ocean has also served other purposes than
that of grinding the nourishing mould from the limbs of the primeval giants.


The Teutons, like all people of antiquity, and like most men of the
present time, regarded the earth as stationary. And so, too, the lower
world (jormurgrundr'Forspjallsljod) on which the foundations of the
earth rested. Stationary was also that heaven in which the Asas had
their citadels, surrounded by a common wall, for the Asgard-bridge,
Bifrost, had a solid bridge-head on the southern and another on the
northern edge of the lower world, and could not change position in its
relation to them. All this part of creation was held together by the
immovable roots of the world-tree, or rested on its invisible branches.
Sol and Mane had their fixed paths, the points of departure and arrival
of which were the "horse-doors" (jódyrr), which were hung on the eastern
and western mountain-walls of the lower world. The god Mane and the
goddess Sol were thought to traverse these paths in shining chariots,
and their daily journeys across the heavens did not to our ancestors
imply that any part of the world-structure itself was in motion. Mane's
course hay below Asgard. When Thor in his thunder-chariot descends to
Jotunheim the path of Mane thunders under him (en dundi Mana vegr und
Meila bródtr'Haustl., 1). No definite statement in our mythical records
informs us whether the way of the sun was over or under Asgard.


But high above Asgard is the starry vault of heaven, and to the Teutons
as well as to other people that sky was not only an optical but a real
vault, which daily revolved around a stationary point. Sol and Mane
might be conceived as traversing their appointed courses independently,
and not as coming in contact with vaults, which by their motions from
east to west produced the progress of sun and moon. The very
circumstance that they continually changed position in their relation to
each other and to the stars seemed to prove that they proceeded
independently in their own courses. Within the countless stars the case
was different. They always keep at the same distance and always present
the same figures on the canopy of the nocturnal heavens. They looked
like glistening heads of nails driven into a movable ceiling. Hence the
starlit sky was thought to be in motion. The sailors and shepherds of
the Teutons very well knew that this revolving was round a fixed point,
the polar star, and it is probable that veraldar nagli, the world-nail,
the world-spike, an expression preserved in Eddubrott, ii., designates
the north star.


Thus the starry sky was the movable part of the universe. And this
motion is not of the same kind as that of the winds, whose coming and
direction no man can predict or calculate. The motion of the starry
firmament is defined, always the same, always in the same direction, and
keeps equal step with the march of time itself. It does not, therefore,
depend on the accidental pleasure of gods or other powers. On the other
hand, it seems to be caused by a mechanism operating evenly and regularly.


The mill was for a long time the only kind of mechanism on a large
scale known to the Teutons. Its motion was a rotating one. The movable
mill-stone was turned by a handle or sweep which was called mondull. The
mill-stones and the mondull might be conceived as large as you please.
Fancy knew no other limits than those of the universe.


There was another natural phenomenon, which also was regular, and which
was well known to the seamen of the North and to those Teutons who lived
on the shores of the North Sea, namely, the rising and falling of the
tide. Did one and the same force produce both these great phenomena' Did
the same cause produce the motion of the starry vault and the ebb and
flood of the sea' In regard to the latter phenomenon, we already know
the naive explanation given in the myth concerning Hvergelmer and the
Grotte-mill. And the same explanation sufficed for the former. There was
no need of another mechanism to make the heavens revolve, as there was
already one at hand, the influence of which could be traced throughout
that ocean in which Midgard was simply an isle, and which around this
island extends its surface even to the brink of heaven (Gylfaginning).


The mythology knew a person by name Mundilfori (Vafthr., 23 Gylfag.).
The word mundill is related to mondull, and is presumably only another
form of the same word. The name or epithet Mundilfore refers to a being
that has had something to do with a great mythical mondull and with the
movements of the mechanism which this mondull kept in motion. Now the
word mondull is never used in the old Norse literature about any other
object than the sweep or handle with which the movable mill-stone is
turned. (In this sense the word occurs in the Grotte-song and in Helge
Hund. ii, 3, 4.) Thus Mundilfore has had some part to play in regard to
the great giant-mill of the ocean and of the lower world.


Of Mundilfore we learn, on the other hand, that be is the father of the
personal Sol and the personal Mane (Vafthr. 23). This, again, shows that
the mythology conceived him as intimately associated with the heavens
and with the heavenly bodies. Vigfusson (Diet., 437) has, therefore,
with good reason remarked that mundill in Mundilfore refers to the
veering round or the revolution of the heavens. As the father of Sol and
Mane, Mundilfore was a being of divine rank, and as such belonged to the
powers of the lower world, where Sol and Mane have their abodes and
resting-places. The latter part of the name, fori, refers to the verb
faera, to conduct, to move. Thus he is that power who has to take charge
of the revolutions of the starry vault of heaven, and these must be
produced by the great mondull, the mill-handle or mill -sweep, since he
is called Mundilfori.


The regular motion of the starry firmament and of the sea is,
accordingly, produced by the same vast mechanism, the Grottemill, the
meginverk of the heathen fancy (Grotte-song, 11; cp. Egil
Skallagrimson's way of using the word, Arnibj.-Drapa, 26). The handle
extends to the edge of the world, and time nine giantesses, who are
compelled to turn the mill, pushing the sweep before them, march along
the outer edge of the universe. Thus we get an intelligible idea of what
Snaebjorn means when he says that Eylud's nine women turn the Grotte
"along the edge of the earth" (hrćra Grotta at fyrir jardar skauti).


Mundilfore and Bygver thus each has his task to perform in connection
with the same vast machinery. The one attends to the regular motion of
the mondull, the other looks after the mill-stones and the grist.


In the name Eylud the first part is ey, and the second part is lur. The
name means the "island-mill". Eylud's nine women are the "nine women of
the island-mill ". The mill is in the same strophe called skerja Grotti,
the Grotte of the skerry. These expressions refer to each other and
designate with different words the same idea'the mill that grinds
islands and skerries.


The fate which, according to the Grotte-song, happened to King Frode's
mill has its origin in the myth concerning the greater mill. The
stooping position of the starry heavens and the sloping path of the
stars in relation to the horizontal line was a problem which in its way
the mythology wanted to solve. The phenomenon was put in connection with
the mythic traditions in regard to the terrible winter which visited the
earth after the gods and the sons of Alvalde (Ivalde) had become
enemies. Fenja and Menja were kinswomen of Alvalde's sons. For they were
brothers (half-brothers) of those mountain giants who were Fenja's and
Menja's fathers (the Grotte-song). Before the feud broke out between
their kin and the gods, both the giant-maids had worked in the service
of the latter and for the good of the world , grinding the blessings of
the golden age on the world-mill. Their activity in connection with the
great mechanism, mondul, which they pushed, amid the singing of
bliss-bringing songs of sorcery, was a counterpart of the activity of
the sons of Alvalde, who made for the gods the treasures of vegetation.
When the conflict broke out the giant-maids joined the cause of their
kinsmen. They gave the world-mill so rapid a motion that the foundations
of the earth trembled, pieces of the mill- stones were broken loose and
thrown up into space, and the sub-structure of the mill was damaged.
This could not happen without harm to the starry canopy of heaven which
rested thereon.


The memory of this mythic event comes to the surface in Rimbegla, which
states that toward the close of King Frode's reign there arose a
terrible disorder in nature'a storm with mighty thundering passed over
the country, the earth quaked and cast up large stones. In the
Grotte-song the same event is mentioned as a "game" played by Fenja and
Menja, in which they cast up from the deep upon the earth those stones
which afterwards became the mill-stones in the Grotte-mill. After that
"game" the giant-maids betook themselves to the earth and took part in
the first world-war on the side hostile to Odin (see No. 39). It is
worthy of notice that the mythology has connected the fimbul-winter and
the great emigrations from the North with an earthquake and a damage to
the world-mill which makes the starry heavens revolve.


82.


THE WORLD-MILL (continued). THE ORIGIN OF THE SACRED FIRE THROUGH
MUNDILFORE. HEIMDAL THE PERSONIFICATION OF THE SACRED FIRE. His IDENTITY
WITH RIGVEDA'S AGNI. HIS ANTITHESIS, LOKI, ALSO A FIRE-BEING.


Among the tasks to be performed by the world-mill there is yet another
of the greatest importance. According to a belief which originated in
ancient Aryan times, a fire is to be judged as to purity and holiness by
its origin. There are different kinds of fire more or less pure and
holy, and a fire which is holy as to its origin may become corrupted by
contact with improper elements. The purest fire, that which was
originally kindled by the gods and was afterwards given to man as an
invaluable blessing, as a bond of union between the higher world and
mankind, was a fire which was produced by rubbing two objects together
(friction). In hundreds of passages this is corroborated in Rigveda, and
the belief still exists among the common people of various Teutonic
peoples. The great mill which revolves the starry heavens was also the
mighty rubbing niachine (friction machine) from which the sacred fire
naturally ought to proceed, and really was regarded as having proceeded,
as shall be shown below.


The word mondull, with which the handle of the mill is designated, is
found among our ancient Aryan ancestors. It can be traced back to the
ancient Teutonic manthula, a swing-tree (Fick, Worterb d. ind.-germ.
Spr., iii. 232), related to Sanscr. Manthati, to swing, twist, bore,
from the root manth, which occurs in numerous passages in Rigveda, and
in its direct application always refers to the production of fire by
friction (Bergaigne, Rel. ved., iii. 7).


In Rigveda, the sacred fire is personified by the "pure," upright,"
"benevolent" god Agni, whose very name, related to the Latin ignis,
designates the god of fire. According to Rigveda, there was a time 'when
Agni lived concealed from both gods and men, as the element of light and
warmth found in all beings and things. Then there was a time when he
dwelt in person among the gods, but not yet among men; and, finally,
there was a time when Mataricvan, a sacred being and Agni's father in a
literal or symbolic sense, brought it about that Agni came to our
fathers (Rigv., i. 60, 1). The generation of men then living was the
race of Bhriguians, so-called after an ancient patriarch Bhrigu. This
Bhrigu, and with him Mann (Manus), was the first person who, in his
sacrifices to the gods, used the fire obtained through Agni (Rigv., i.
31, 17, and other passages).


When, at the instigation of Mataricvan, Agni arrived among mankind, he
came from a far-off region (Rigv., i. 128, 2). The Bhriguians who did
not yet possess the fire, but were longing for it and were seeking for
it (Rigv., x. 40, 2), found the newly-arrived Agni "at the confluence of
the waters ". In a direct sense, "the confluence of the waters" cannot
mean anything else than the ocean, into which all waters flow. Thus Agni
came from the distance across a sea to the coast of the country where
that people dwelt who were named after the patriarch Bhrigu. When they
met this messenger of the gods (Rigv., viii. 19, 2]), they adopted him
and cared for him at "the place of the water" (Rigv., ii. 4, 2).
Mataricvan, by whose directions Agni, "the one born on the other side of
the atmosphere" (x. 187, 5) was brought to mankind, becomes in the
classical Sanscrit language a designation for the wind. Thus everything
tends to show that Agni has traversed a wide ocean, and has been brought
by the wind when he arrives at the coast where the Bhriguians dwell. He
is very young, and hence bears the epithet yavishtha.


We are now to see why the gods sent him to men, and what be does among
them. He remains among those who care for him, and dwells among them "
an immortal among mortals " (Rigv., viii. 60, 11; iii. 5, 3), a guest
among men, a companion of mortals (iv. 1, 9). He who came with the
inestimable gift of fire long remains personally among men, in order
that "a wise one among the ignorant" may educate them. He who "knows all
wisdom and all sciences" (Rigv., iii. 1, 17; x. 21, 5) "came to be asked
questions" (i. 60, 20) by men; he teaches them and "they listen to him
as to a father" (i. 68, 9). He becomes their first patriarch (ii. 10, 1)
and their first priest (v. 9, 4; x. 80, 4). Before that time they had
lived a nomadic life, but he taught them to establish fixed homes around
the hearths, on which the fire he had brought now was burning (iii. 1,
17). He visited them in these fixed dwellings (iv. 1, 19), where the
Bhriguians now let the fire blaze (x. 122, 5); he became "the husband of
wives" (i. 66, 4) and the progenitor of human descendants (i. 96, 2),
through whom he is the founder of the classes or "races" of men (vi. 48,
8). He established order in all human affairs (iv. 1, 2), taught
religion, instructed men in praying and sacrificing (vi. 1, 1, and many
other passages), initiated them in the art of poetry and gave them
inspiration (iii. 10, 5; x. 11, 6).


This is related of Agni when he came to the earth and dwelt among men.
As to his divine nature, he is the pure, white god (iv. 1, 7; iii. 7,
1), young, strong, and shining with golden teeth (v. 2, 2), and
searching eyes (iv. 2, 12) which can see far (vii. 1, 1), penetrate the
darkness of night (i. 94, 7), and watch the acts of demons (x. 87, 12).
He, the guard of order (i. 11, 8), is always attentive (i. 31, 12), and
protects the world by day and by night from dangers (i. 98, 1). On a
circular path he observes all beings (vii. 13, 3), and sees and knows
them all (x. 187, 4). He perceives everything, being able to penetrate
the herbs, and diffuse himself into plants and animals (vii. 9, 3 ;
viii. 43, 9; x. 1, 2). He bears all who pray to him, and can make
himself heard as if he had the voice of thunder, so that both the halves
of the world reecho his voice (x. 8, 1). His horses are like himself
white (vi. 6, 4). His symbol among the animals is the bull (i. 31, 5; i.
146, 2).


In regard to Agni's birth, it is characteristic of him that he is said
to have several mothers, although their number varies according to the
point from which the process of birth is regarded. When it is only to be
a figurative expression for the origin of the friction-fire, the singer
of the hymn can say that Agni had ten mothers or two mothers. In the
case of the former, it is the ten fingers of the person producing the
friction-fire that are meant. Sometimes this is stated outright
(Rigveda, iii. 23, 3); then again the fingers are paraphrased by "the
twice five sisters dwelling together" (iv. 6, 8), "the work-master's ten
untiring maids" (i. 95, 1). In the case of the latter'that is, when two
mothers are mentioned'the two pieces of wood rubbed together are meant
(viii. 49, 15). Ia a more real sense he is said to have three places of
nativity: one in the atmospheric sea, one in heaven, and one in the
waters (i. 95, 3), and that his "great, wise, divine nature proceeded
from the laps of many active mothers" (i. 95, 4), such as the waters,
the stones, the trees, the herbs (ii. 1, 1). In Rigveda (x. 45, 2) nine
maternal wombs or births are indicated; his "triple powers were sown in
triplets in heaven, among us, and in the waters ". In Rigveda (i. 141,
2) three places of nativity and three births are ascribed to him, and in
such a way that he had seven mothers in his second birth. In Rigveda (x.
20, 7) he is called the son of the rock.


It scarcely needs to be pointed out that all that is here told about
Agni corresponds point by point with the Teutonic myth about Heimdal.
Here, as in many other instances, we find a similarity between the
Teutonic and the Aryan-Asiatic myths, which is surprising, when we
consider that the difference between the Rigveda and Zend languages on
the one band, and the oldest Teutonic linguistic monuments on the other,
appear in connection with other circumstances to indicate that the old
Aryan unity of language and religion lies ages back in antiquity. Agni's
birth "beyond the atmosphere," his journey across the sea to original
man in the savage state, his vocation as the sower of the blessings of
culture among men, his appearance as the teacher of wisdom and "the
sciences," his visit to the farms established by him, where he becomes
"the husband of wives," father of human sons, and the founder of "the
races" (the classes among the Teutons),'all this we rediscover
completely in the Heimdal myth, as if it were a copy of the
Aryan-Asiatic saga concerning the divine founder of culture; a copy
fresh from the master's brush without the effects of time, and without
any retouchings. The very names of the ancient Aryan patriarchs, Bhrigu
and Manu are recognisable in the Teutonic patriarch names Berchter and
Mann (Mannus-Halfdan). In the case of Mann and Mann no explanation is
necessary. Here the identity of sound agrees with the identity of
origin. The descendants of Bhrigu and of his contemporary Bhriguians,
are called Bhargavans, which corroborates the conclusion that Bhrigu is
derived from bharg "to shine," whence is derived the ancient Teutonic
berhta, " bright," " clear," " light," the Old Saxon berht, the
Anglo-Saxon beorht, which reoccurs in the Teutonic patriarch Berchter,
which again is actually (not linguistically) identical with the Norse
Borgarr. By Bhrigu's side stands Mann, just as Mann (Halfdan) is
co-ordinate with Borgar.


Point by point the descriptions of Agni and Heimdal also correspond in
regard to their divine natures and attributes. Agni is the great holy
white god; Heimdal is mikill and heilagr, and is called hviti áss
(Younger Edda) or "the whitest of the Asas" (Thrymskv., 15). While Agni
as time fire-god has golden teeth, Heimdal certainly for the same reason
bears the epithet gullintanni, "the one with the golden teeth ". Agni
has white horses. In Ulf Uggeson's poem about the work of art in
Hjardarholt, Heimdal rides his horse Gulltoppr, whose name reflects its
splendour. While Agni's searching eyes can see in the distance and can
penetrate the gloom of night, it is said of Heimdal that hann ser jafnt
nótt sem dag hundrad rasta frá ser. While Agni perceives everything,
even the inaudible motions in the growing of herbs and animals; while he
penetrates and diffuses himself in plants and animals, it is said of
Heimdal that he heyrir ok ţat, er gras vex a jordu eda ull a saudum.
While Agni'it is not stated by what means'is able to produce a noise
like thunder which re-echoes through both the world-halves, Heimdal has
the horn, whose sound all the world shall hear, when Ragnarok is at
hand. On a "circular path," Agni observes the beings in the world.
Heimdal looks out upon the world from Bifrost. Agni keeps his eye on the
deeds of the demons, is perpetually on the look-out, and protects the
world by day and by night f'rom dangers; Heimdal is the watchman of the
gods vordr goda (Grimnersmal), needs in his vocation as watchman less
sleep than a bird, and faithfully guards the Asa-bridge against the
giants. Agni is born of several mothers; Heimdal has mothers nine. Agni
is " the fast traveller," who, in the human abodes he visits, opens a
way for prayer and sacrifice (Rigv., vii. 13, 3); in Rigsmal, Heimdal
has the same epithet, "the fast traveller," roskr Stigandi, as he goes
from house to house and teaches men the "runes of eternity" and "the
runes of time ".


The only discrepancy is in the animal symbols by which Agni and Heimdal
are designated. The bull is Agni's symbol, the ram is Heimdal's. Both
symbols are chosen from the domestic animals armed with horns, and the
difference is linguistically of such a kind, that it to some extent may
be said to corroborate the evidence in regard to Agni's and Heimdals
identity. In the old Norse poetry, Vedr (wether, ram), Heimdali and the
Heimdal epithet Hallinskidi, are synonymous. The word ver, according to
Fick (Worterb., iii. 307), can be traced to an ancient Teutonic vethru,
the real meaning of which is "yearling," a young domestic animal in
general, and it is related to the Latin vitulus and the Sanscrit
vatsala, "calf". If this is correct, then we also see the lines along
which one originally common symbol of a domestic animal developed into
two and among the Rigveda Aryans settled on the "yearling" of the cow,
and among the Teutons on that of the sheep. It should here be remarked
that according to Ammianus Marcellinus (xix. 1) the tiara of the Persian
kings was ornamented with a golden ram's-head. That Agni's span of
horses were transformed into Heimdal's riding horse was also a result of
time and circumstances. In Rigveda, riding and cavalry are unknown;
there the hon'ses of the gods draw the divine chariots. In the Teutonic
mythology the draught horses are changed into riding horses, and
chariots occur only exceptionally.


We have reason to be surprised at finding that the Aryan-Asiatic myths
and the Teutonic have so broad surfaces of contact, on which not only
the main outlines but even the details completely resemble each other.
But the fact is not inexplicable. The hymns, the songs of the divine
worship and of the sacrifices of the Rigveda Aryans, have been
preserved, but the epic-mythological poems are lost, so that there
remains the difficult task of reconstructing out of the former a clear
and concise mythology, freed from "dissolving views" in which their
mythic characters now blend into each other. The Teutonic mythology has
had an opposite fate: here the genuine religious songs, the hymns of
divine worship and of sacrifices, are lost, and there remain fragments
of the mighty divine epic of the Teutons. But thus we have also been
robbed of the opportunity of studying those very songs which in a higher
degree than the epic are able to preserve through countless centuries
ancient mythical traits; for the hymns belong to the divine worship,
popular customs are long-lived, and the sacred customs are more
conservative and more enduring than all others, if they are not
disturbed by revolutions in the domain of faith. If an epithet of a god,
e.g., "the fast traveller," has once become fixed by hymns and been
repeated in the divine service year after year, then, in spite of the
gradual transformation of the languages and the types of the race, it
may be preserved through hundreds and thousands of years. Details of
this kind may in this manner survive the ravages of time just as well as
the great outlines of the mythology, and if there be a gradual change as
to signification, then this is caused by the change of language, which
may make an old expression unintelligible or give it another meaning
based on the association of ideas.


From all this I am forced to draw the conclusion that Heimdal, like
several other Teutonic gods'for example, Odin (Wodan, Rigveda's
Vata)'belongs to the ancient Aryan age, and retained, even to the decay
of the Teutonic heathendom his ancient character as the personal
representative of the sacred fire, the fire produced by friction, and,
in this connection, as the representative of the oldest culture
connected with the introduction of fire.


This also explains Heimdal's epithet Vindler, in Cod. Reg. of the
Younger Edda (i. 266, 608). The name is a subform of vindill and comes
from vinda, to twist or turn, wind, to turn anything around rapidly. As
the epithet "the turner" is given to that god who brought friction-fire
(bore-fire) to man, and who is himself the personification of this fire,
then it must be synonymous with "the borer".


A synonym of Heinndal's epithet Stigandi, "the traveller," is Rati,
"the traveller," from rata, "to travel," "to move about ". Very
strangely, this verb (originally vrata, Goth. vráton, to travel, make a
journey) can be traced to an ancient Germanic word which meant to turn
or twist, or something of the sort (Fick, Worterb., iii. 294). And, so
far as the noun Rati is concerned, this signification has continued to
flourish in the domain of mythology after it long seems to have been
extinct in the domain of language. Havamal (106), Grimnersmal (32), and
Bragaraedur testify each in its own way that the mythical name Rati was
connected with a boring activity. In Havamal " Rate's mouth" gnaws the
tunnel through which Odin, in the guise of an eagle, flies away with the
mead-treasure concealed in the "deep dales" at Fjalar's under the roots
of the world-tree. In the allegorical Grimnersmal strophe it is "Rate's
tooth" (Ratatoskr) who lets the mead-drinking foe of the gods near the
root of the world-tree find out what the eagle in the top of the
world-tree (Odin) resolves and carries out in regard to the sanie
treasure. In Bragaraedur the name is given to the gimlet itself which
produced tine connection between Odin's world and Fjalar's halls. The
gimlet has here received the name of the boring "traveller," of him who
is furnished with " golden teeth ". Hence there are good reasons for
assuming that in the epic of the myth it was Heimdal-Gullintanne himself
whose fire-gimlet helped Odin to fly away with his precious booty. In
Rigveda Agni plays the same part. The "tongue of Agni" has the same task
there as "Rate's niouth" inn our Norse records. The sacred mead of the
liquids of nourishnient was concealed in the wonib of the mountain with
the Dasyns, hostile to the world; but Agni split the mountain open with
his tongue, his ray of light penetrated into the darkness where the
liquids of nourishment were preserved, and through him they were brought
to the light of day, after Trita (in some passages of Rigveda identical
with Vata) had slain a giant monster and found the "cows of the son of
the work-master" (cp. Rigveda, v. 14, 4; viii. 61, 4-8 ; x. 8, 6-9).
"The cows of the son of the work-master" is a paraphrase for the saps of
nourishiment. In the Teutonic mythology theme is also "a son of the
work-master," who is robbed of the mead. Fjalar is a son of Surt, whose
character as an ancient artist is evident from what is stated in Nos. 53
and 89.


By friction Mataricvan brought Agni out of the maternal wombs in which
he was concealed as an embryo of light and warmth. Heimdal was born to
life in a similar manner. His very place of nativity indicates this. His
niothers have their abodes vid jardar ţraurn (Hyndl., 35) near the edge
of the earth, on the outer rim of the earth, amid that is where they
gave him life (báru ţann man vid jardar ţraum). His niothers are
giaintesses (iotna meyjar), and nine in number. We have already found
giantesses, nine in number, mentioned as having their activity on the
outer edge of the earth'namely, those who with the mondull, the handle,
turn the vast friction-mechanism, the world-mill of Mundilfore. They are
the níu brudir of Eyludr, "the Isle-grinder," mentioned by Suaebjorn
(see above). These nine giant-maids, who along the outer zone of the
earth (fyrir jordar skauti) push the mill's sweep before themselves and
grind the coasts of the islands, are the same nine giant-maids who on
the outer zone of the earth gave birth to Heimdal, the god of the
friction-fire. Hence one of Heimdal's mothers is in Hyndluljod called
Angeyja, "she who makes the islands closer," and another one is called
Eyrgjafa, "she who gives sandbanks ". Mundilfori, who is the father of
Sol and Mane, and has the care of the motions of the starry heavens is
accordingly also, though in another sense, the father of Heimdal the
pure, holy fire to whom the glittering objects in the skies must
naturally be regarded as akin.


In Hyndluljod (37) Heimdal's nine giant-mothers are named:


Gjálp Greip, Eistla, Eyrgjafa, Ulfrun, Angeyja, Imdr, Atla, Jarnsaxa.
The first two are daughters of the fire-giant Geirrod (Younger Edda, i.
288). To fire refers also Imdr, from im, embers. Two of the names,
Angeyja and Eyrgjafa, as already shown, indicate the occupation of these
giantesses in connection with the world-null. This is presumably also
the case with Járnsaxa, "she who crushes the iron ". The iron which our
heathien fathers worked was produced from the sea- and swamp-iron mixed
with sand and clay, and could therefore properly be regarded as a grist
of the world-mill.


Heimdal's antithesis in all respects, and therefore also his constant
opponent in the mythological epic, is Loki, he too a fire-being, but
representing another side of this element. Natural agents such as fire,
water, wind, cold, heat, and thunder have in the Teutonic mythology a
double aspect. When they work in harmony, each within the limits which
are fixed by the welfare of the world and the happiness of man, then
they are sacred forces and are represented by the gods. But when these
limits are transgressed, giants are at work, and the turbulent elements
are represented by beings of giant-race. This is also true of thunder,
although it is the common view among mythologists that it was regarded
exclusively as a product of Thor's activity. The genuine mythical
conception was, however, that the thunder which purifies the atmosphere
and fertilises the thirsty earth with showers of rain, or strikes down
the foes of Midgard, came from Thor; while that which splinters the
sacred trees, sets fire to the woods and houses, and kills men that have
not offended the gods, came from the foes of the world. The
blaze-element (see No. 35) was not only in the possession of the gods,
but also in that of the giants (Skirnersmal), and the lightning did not
proceed alone fronn Mjolner, but was also found in Hrungner's hein and
in Geiri'od's glowing javelin. The conflicts between Thor and the giants
were not only on terra firma, as when Thor made an expedition on foot to
Jotunheim, but also in the air. There were giant-horses that were able
to wade with force and speed through the atmosphere, as, for instance,
Hrungner's Gullfaxi (Younger Edda, i. 270), and these giant-horses with
their shining manes, doubtless, were expected to carry their riders to
the lightning-conflict in space against the lightning-hurler, Thor. The
thunderstorm was frequently a vig ţrimu, a conflict between thundering
beings, in which the lightnings hurled by the ward of Midgai'd, the son
of Hlodyn, crossed the lightnings hurled by the foes of Midgard.


Loki and his brothers Helblindi and Byl-eistr are the children of a
giant of this kind, of a giant representing the hurricane and thunder.
The rain-torrents and waterspouts of the hurricane, which directly or
indirectly became wedded to the sea through the swollen streams, gave
birth to Helblinde, who, accordingly, received Rán as his "maid" (Yngl.,
51). The whirlwind inn the hurricane received as his ward Byleistr,
whose name is composed of bylr, "whirlwind," and eistn', " the one
dwelling in the east " (the north), a paraphrase for "giant". A
thunderbolt fn'om the hurricane gave birth to Loki. His father is called
Fárbauti, "the one inflicting harm," and his mother is Laufey, "the
leaf-isle," a paraphrase for the tree-crown (Younger Edda, 104, 268).
Thus Loki is the son of the burning and destructive lightning, the son
of him who particularly inflicts damaging blows on the sacred oaks (see
No. 36) and sets fire to the groves. But the violence of the father does
not appear externally in the son's character. He long prepares the
conflagration of the world in secret, and not until he is put in chains
does he exhibit, by the earthquakes he produces, the wild passion of his
giant nature. As a fire-being, he was conceived as handsome and
youthful. From an ethical point of view, the impurity of the flame which
he represents is manifested by his unrestrained sensuousness. After he
had been for ever exiled from the society of the gods and had been
fettered in his cave of torture, his exterior, which was in the
beginning beautiful, became transformed into an expression of his
intrinsic wickedness, and his hair grew out in the form of horny spears
(see above). In this too he reveals himself as a counterpart of Heimdal,
whose helmet is ornamented with a glittering ram's-horn.


83.


MUNDILFORE'S IDENTITY WITH LODUR.


The position which we have found Mundilfore to occupy indicates that,
although not belonging to the powers dwelling in Asgard, he is one of
the chief gods of the Teutonic mythology. All natural phenomena, which
appear to depend on a fixed mechanical law and not on the initiative of
any mighty will momentarily influencing the events of the world, seem to
have been referred to his care. The mythology of the Teutons, like that
of the RigvedaAryans, has had gods of both kinds'gods who particularly
represent that order in the physical and moral world which became fixed
in creation, and which, under normal conditions, remain entirely
uniform, and gods who particularly represent the powerful temporary
interference for the purpose of restoring this order when it has been
disturbed, and for the purpose of giving protection and defence to their
worshippers in times of trouble and danger. The latter are in their very
nature war-gods always ready for battle, such as Vita and Indra in
Rigveda, Odin and Thor-Indride in the Eddas; and they have their proper
abode in a group of fortified celestial citadels like Asgard, whence
they have their out-look upon the world they have to protect'the
atmosphere and Midgard. The former, on the other hand, have their
natural abode in Jormungrund's outer zone and in the lower world, whence
the world-tree grew, and where the fountains are found whose liquids
penetrate creation, and where that wisdom had its source of which Odin
only, by self-sacrifice, secured a part. Down there dwell, accordingly,
Urd and Mimir, Nat and Dag, Mundilfore with the dises of the sun and the
moon, Delling, the genius of the glow of dawn, and Billing, the genius
of the blushing sunset. There dwell the smiths of antiquity who made the
chariots of the sun and moon and smithied the treasures of vegetation.
There dwell the nidjar who represent the moon's waxing and waning; there
the seven sons of Mimir who represent the changing seasons (see No. 87).
Mundilfore is the lord of the regular revolutions of the starry
firmament, and of the regular rising and sinking of the sea in its ebb
and flood. He is the father of the dises of the sun and moon, who make
their celestial journeys according to established laws; and, finally, he
is the origin of the holy fire; he is father of Heimdal, who introduced
among men a systematic life in homes fixed and governed by laws. As the
father of Heimdal, the Vana-god, Mundilfore is himself a Vana-god,
belonging to the oldest branch of this race, and in all probability one
of those "wise rulers" who, according to Vafthrudnersmal, "created Njord
in Vanaheim and sent him as a hostage to the gods (the Asas)".


Whence came the clans of the Vans and the Elves' It should not have
escaped the notice of the mythologists that the Teutonic theogony, as
far as it is known, mentions only two progenitors of the mythological
races' Yimir and Bure. From Yimir develop the two very different races
of giants, the offspring of his arms and that of his feet (see No.
86)'in other words, the noble race to which the norns Mimir and Beistla
belong, and the ignoble, which begins with Thrudgelmer. Bure gives birth
to Burr (Bor), and the latter has three sons'Odinn, Vei (Ve), and Vili
(Vilir). Unless Bure had more sons, the Van- and Elf-clans have no other
theogonic source than the same as the Asa-clan, namely, Burr. That the
hierologists of the Teutonic mythology did not leave the origin of these
clans unexplained we are assured by the very existence of a Teutonic
theogony, together with the circumstance that the more thoroughly our
mythology is studied the more clearly we see that this mythology has
desired to answer every question which could reasonably be asked of it,
and in the course of ages it developed into a systematic and epic whole
with clear outlines sharply drawn in all details. To this must be added
the important observation that Vei and Vili, though brothers of Odin,
are never counted among the Asas proper, and had no abode in Asgard. It
is manifest that Odin himself with his sons founds the Asa-race, that,
in other words, he is a clan-founder in which this race has its
chieftain, and that his brothers, for this very reason, could not be
included in his clan. There is every reason to assume that they, like
him, were clan-founders; and as we find besides the Asa-clan two other
races of gods, this of itself makes it probable that Odin's two brothers
were their progenitors and clan-chieftains.


Odin's brothers, like himself, had many names. When Völuspa says that
Odin, in the creation of man, was assisted by Homier and Loder, and when
the Younger Edda (i. 52) says that, on this occasion, he was attended by
his brothers, who just before (i. 46) are called Ve and Vile, then these
are only different names of the same powers. Honer and Loder are Ve and
Vile. It is a mistake to believe that Odin's brothers were mythical
ghosts without characteristic qualities, and without prominent parts in
the mythological events after the creation of the world and of man, in
which we know they took an active part (Völuspa, 4, 16, 17). The
assumption that this was the case depends simply upon the fact that they
have not been found mentioned among the Asas, and that our records, when
not investigated with proper thoroughness, and when the mythological
synonymies have not been carefully examined, seem to have so little to
say concerning them.


Danish genealogies, Saxo's included, which desin'e to go further back
in the genealogy of the Skjoldungs than to Skjold, the eponym of the
race, mention before him a King Lotherus. There is no doubt that
Lotherus, like his descendants, Skjold, Halfdan, and Hadding, is taken
from the mythology. But in our mythic records there is only one name of
which Lotherus can be a Latinised form, and this name is, as Muller
(Notae ulterior ad Saxonis Hist.) has already pointed out, Lourr.


It has above been demonstrated (see Nos. 20, 21, 22) that the
anthopomorphous Vana-god Heimdal was by Vana-gods sent as a child to the
primeval Teutonic country, to give to the descendants of Ask and Embla
the holy fire, tools, and implements, the runes, the laws of society,
and the rules for religious worship. It has been demonstrated that, as
an anthropomorphous god and first patriarch, he is identical with
Scef-Rig, the Scyld of the Beowulf poem, that he becomes the father of
the other original patriarch Skjold, and the grandfather of Halfdan. It
has likewise been demonstrated (No. 82) that Heimdal, the personified
sacred fire, is the son of the fire-producer (by friction) Mundilfore,
in the same manner as Agni is the son of Mataricvan. From all this it
follows that when the authors of mythic genealogies related as history
wish to get further back in the Skjoldung genealogy than to the Beowulf
Skjold, that is to say, further back than to the original patriarch
Heimdal, then they must go to that mythic person who is Heimdal's
father, that is to say, to Mundilfore, the fire-producer. Mundilfore is
the one who appears in the Latinised name Lotherus. In other words,
Mundilfore, the fire-producer, is Lodurr. For the name Lourr there is no
other rational explanation than that which Jacob Grimm, without knowing
his position in the epic of mythology, has given, comparing the name
with the verb lodern, "to blaze ". Lourr' is active in its
signification, "he who causes or produces the blaze," and thus refers to
the origin of fire, particularly of the friction-fire and of the bore-fire.


Further on (Nos. 90, 91, 92, 121, 123) I shall give an account of the
ward of the atmosphere, Gevarr (Nökkvi, Nćfr), and demonstrate that he
is identical with Mundilfore, the revolver of the starry firmament. All
that Saxo tells about Lotherus is explained by the character of the
latter as the chieftain of a Vana-clan, and by his identity with
Mundilfori-Gevarr. As a chieftain of the Vans he was their leader when
the war broke out between the Asas on the one side, and the Vans and
Elves on the other. The banishment of Odin and the Asas by the Vans
causes Saxo to say that Lotherus banished from the realm persons who
were his equals in noble birth (nobilitate pares), and whom he regarded
as competitors in regard to the government. It is also stated that he
took the power from an elder brother, but spared his life, although he
robbed him of the sceptre. The brother here referred to is not, however,
Odin, but Hćnir (Vei). The character of the one deposed is gentle and
without any greed for rule like that by which Honer is known. Saxo says
of him that lie so patiently bore the injustice done him that he seemed
to be pleased therewith as with a kindness received (ceterum injurić tam
patiens fuit, ut honoris damno tanquam beneficio gratulari crederetur).
The reason why Honer, at the outbreak of the war with the Asas, is
deposed from his dignity as the ruler of Vanaheim and is succeeded by
Loder, is explained by the fact that he, like Mimir, remained devoted to
the cause of Odin. In spite of the confused manner in which the troubles
between the Asas and Vans are presented in Heimskringla, it still
appears that, before the war between the Asas amid Vans, Honer was the
chief of the latter on account of an old agreement between the two
god-clans; that he then always submitted to the counsels of the wise
Mimir, Odin's friend; that Minier lost his life in the service of Odin,
and that the Vans sent his head to Odin; and, finally, that, at the
outbreak of the feud with the Asas and after the death of Mimir, they
looked upon Honer as unqualified to be their judge and leader. Thus
Loder becomes after Honer the ruler of Vanaheim and the chieftain of the
Vans, while the Vans Njord, Frey, and the Elf Ull, who had already been
adopted in Asgard, administer the affairs of the rest of the world. To
the mythical circumstance, that Honer lost his throne and his power
points also Voluspa, the poem restoring to the gentle and patient
Vana-god, after the regeneration, the rights of which he had been
robbed, ţa kná Haenir hlautvid kjosa (str. 60). "Then Honer becomes able
to choose the lot-wood," that is to say, he is permitted to determine
and indicate the fortunes of those consulting the oracle; in other
words, then he is again able to exercise the rights of a god. In the
Eddas, Honer appears as Odin's companion on excursions from Asgard.
Skaldskaparmal, which does not seem to be aware that Honer was Odin's
brother, still is conscious that he was intimately connected with him
and calls him his sessi, sinni, and mali (Younger Edda, i. 266). During
the war between Asas and Vans, Frigg espoused the cause of the Vans (see
No. 36); hence Loki's insulting words to her (Lokasenna, 26), and the
tradition in Heimskringla (Yngl., 3), that Vilir and Vei took Frigg to
themselves once when Odin was far away from Asgard.


Saxo makes Lotherus fall at the hands of conspirators. The explanation
of this statement is to be sought in Mundilföri-Gevarr's fate, of which,
see Nos. 91, 123.


Mundilfore's character seems at least in one respect to be the opposite
of Honor's. Gylfaginning speaks of his ofdrambi, his pride, founded,
according to this record, on the beauty of his children. Saxo mentions
the insolentia of Lotherus, and one of his surnames was Dulsi, the
proud. See No. 89, where a strophe is quoted, in which the founder of
the Swedish Skilfing race (the Ynglings) is called Dulsa konr, Dulse's
descendant. As was shown above in the account of the myth about Scef,
the Skjoldungs, too, are Skilfings. Both these branches of the race have
a common origin; and as the genealogy of the Skjoldungs can be traced
back to Heimdal, and beyond him to Mundilfore, it must be this
personality who is mentioned for his ofdrambi, that bears the surname Dulsi.


With Odin, Vei-Honer and Vili-Lodur-Mundilfori have participated in the
shaping of the world as well as in the creation of man. Of the part they
took in the latter act, and of the importance they thereby acquired in
the mythical anthropology, and especially in the conceptions concerning
the continued creation of man by generation and birth, see No. 95.


84


NAT, THE MOTHER OF THE GODS.


It has already been shown above that Nat, the mother of the gods, has
her hall in the northern part of Mimir's realm, below the southern
slopes of the Nida mountains.


There lnas been, and still is, an interpretation of the myths as
symbols. Light is regarded as the symbol of moral goodness, and darkness
as that of moral evil. That there is something psychologically correct
in this cannot be denied; but in regard to the Aryan religious the
assumption would lead to a great error, if, as we might be tempted to
do, we should make night identical with darkness, and should refer her
to the world of evil. In the mythologies of the Rigveda-Aryans and of
the Teutons, Nat is an awe-inspiring, adorable, noble, and beneficent
being. Night is said in Rigveda "to have a fair face, to increase
riches, and to be one of the mothers of order ". None of the phenomena
of nature seemed to the Teutons evil per se; only when they transgressed
what was thought to be their lawful limits, and thus produced injury and
harm, were giant-powers believed to be active therein. Although the
Teutonic gods are in a constant; more or less violent conflict with the
powers of frost, still winter, when it observes its limits of tinne, is
not an evil but a good divinity, and the cold liquids of Hvergelmer
mixed with those of Urd's and Mimcr's fountains are necessary to the
world-tree. Still less could night be referred to the domain of demons.
Mother Nat never transgresses the s of her power; she never defies the
sacred laws, which are established for the order of the universe.
According to the seasons of the year, she divides in an unvarying manner
the twenty-four hours between herself and day. Work and rest niust
alternate with each other. Rich in blessing, night comes with solace to
the weary, and seeks if possible to sooth the sufferer with a potion of
slumber. Though sombre in appearance (Gylfy., 10), still she is the
friend of light. She decorates herself with lunar effulgence and with
starry splendour, with winning twilight in midsummer, and with the light
of snow and of northern aurora in the winter. The following lines in
Sigrdrifumal (str., 3 4) sound like a reverberation from the lost
liturgic hymns of our heathendom.

Heill Dagr,
heilir Dags synir,
heil Nott ok Nipt!
Oreiţom augom
litiţ ocr ţinig
oc gefit sitiondom regr!
Heilir aesir,
heilar asynjor,
heil sia in fiolnyta fold!
 	Hail Dag,
Hail Dag's sons,
Hail Nat and Nipt!
Look down upon us
With benovolent eyes
And give victory to thesitting!
Hail Asas,
Hail Asynjes,
Hail bounteous earth!


Of the Germans in the first century after Christ, Tacitus writes
(Germ., 3): "They do not, as we, compute time by days but by nights,
night seems to lead the day " (nec dierum numerum, ut nos, sed noctium
computant: nox ducere diem videtur). This was applicable to the
Scandinavians as far down as a thousand years later. Time was computed
by nights not by days, and in the phrases from heathen times, nótt ok
dagr, nótt med degi, bći um naetr oh urn daga, night is named before
day. Linguistic usage and mythology are here intimately associated with
each other. According to Vafthrudnersmal (25) and Gylfaginning (10), Nat
bore with Delliag the son Dag, with whom she divided the administration
of the twenty-four hours. Delling is the elf of the morning red (see No.
35). The symbolism of nature is here distinct as in all theogonies.


Through other divinities, Naglfari and Onarr (Anarr, Aunarr), Nat is
the mother with the former of Unnr (Udr), also called Audr, with the
latter of the goddess Jord, Odin's wife. Unnr means water, Audr means
rich. It has above been shown that Unnr-Audr is identical with Njord,
the lord of wealth and commerce, who in the latter capacity became the
protectors of navigators, and to whom sacrifices were offered for a
prosperous voyage. Gods of all clans'Asas, Vans, and Elves'are thus akin
to Nat, and are descended from her.


85


NARFI, NAT'S FATHER, IDENTICAL WITH MIMIR. A PSEUDO-NARFI IN THE
YOUNGER EDDA.


Nat herself is the daughter of a being whose name has many forms.


Naurr, Norr (dative Naurvi, Norvi, Noti var Naurvi borin'
Vafthrudnersmal, 25 ; Nott. Naurvi kenda' Alvism., 29).


Narfi, Narvi (niderfi Narfa'Egil Skallagr., 56, 2; Gylfag., 10).


Norvi, Norvi (Gylfag., 10; kund Norva'Forspjallsl., 7).


Njörfi, Njörvi (Gylfag., 10; Njörva nipt'Sonatorr.).


Nori (Gylfag., 10),


Nari (Höfudl., 10).


Neri (Helge Hund., 1).


All these variations are derived from the same original appellation,
related to the Old Norse verb njörva, the Old English nearwian meaning
"the one that binds," "the one who puts on tight-fitting bonds ".


Simply the circumstance that Narvi is Nat's father proves that he must
have occupied one of the most conspicuous positions in the Teutonic
cosmogony. In all cosmogonies and theogonies night is one of the oldest
beings, older than light, without which it cannot be conceived. Light is
kindled in the darkness, thus foreboding an important epoch in the
development of the world out of chaos. The being which is night's father
must therefore be counted among the oldest in the cosmogony. The
personified representatives of water and earth, like the day, ate the
children of his daughter.


What Gylfaginning tells of Narve is that he was of giant birth, and the
first one who inhabited Jotunheim (Norvi eda Narfi het jötun, er bygdi
fyrst Jotunheirna'Gylfag., 10). In regard to this we must remember that,
in Gylfaginning and in the traditions of the Icelandic sagas, the lower
world is embraced in the term Jotunheim, and this for mythical reasons,
since Nifelheim is inhabited by rimthurses and giants (see No. 60), and
since the regions of bliss are governed by Mimir and by the norns, who
also are of giant descent. As the father of the lower-world dis, Nat,
Narve himself belongs to that group of powers, with which the mythology
peopled the lower world. The upper Jotunheim did not exist before in a
later epoch of the cosmogonic development. It was created simultaneously
with Midgard by Odin and his brothers (Gylfaginning).


In a strophe by Egil Skallagrimson (ch. 56), poetry, or the source of
poetry, is called niderfi Narfa, "the inheritance left by Narve to his
descendants ". As is well known, Mimir's fountain is the source of
poetry. The expression indicates that the first inhabitant of the lower
world, Narve. also presided over the precious fountain of wisdom and
inspiration, and that he died and left it to his descendants as an
inheritance.


Finally, we learn that Narve was a near kinsman to Urd and her sisters.
This appears from the following passages:


(a) Helge Hundingsbane (1, 3, ff.). When Helge was born norns came in
the night to the abode of his parents, twisted the threads of his fate,
stretched them from east to west, and fastened them beneath the hail of
the moon. One of the threads nipt Nera cast to the north and bade it
hold for ever. It is manifest that by Nere's (Narve's) kinswoman is
meant one of the norns present.


   2. Sonatorr. (str. 24). The skald Egil Skallagrimson, weary of life,
      closes his poem by saying that he sees the dis of death standing
      on the ness (Digraness) near the grave-mound which conceals the
      dust of his father and of his sons, and is soon to receive him:
       

Tveggja baga
Njörva nipt
a nesi stendr.
Skal ek ţó gladr
med gódan vilja
ok uhryggr
Heljar bida.
 	The kinswoman of Njorve (the binder)
of Odin's (Tvegge's) foes
stands on the ness.
Then shall I glad,
with a good will,
and without remorse,
wait for Hel.


It goes without saying that the skald means a dis of death, Urd or one
of her messengers, with the words, "The kinswoman of Njorve (the binder)
of Odin's foes," whom he with the eye of presentiment sees standing on
the family grave-mound on Digraness. She is not to stop there, but she
is to continue her way to his hall, to bring him to the grave-mound. He
awaits her coming with gladness, and as the last line shows, she whose
arrival he awaits is Hel, the goddess of death or fate. It has already
been demonstrated that Hel in the heathen records is always identical
with Urd.


Njorve is here used both as a proper and a common noun. "The kinswoman
of the Njorve of Odin's foes" means "the kinswoman of the binder of
Odin's foes ". Odin's foe Fenrer was bound with an excellent chain
smithied in the lower world (dwarfs in svartalfheimr'Gylfag., 37), and
as shall be sbown later, there are more than one of Odin's foes who are
bound with Narve's chains (see No. 87).


(c) Hofudlausn (str. 10). Egil Skallagrimson celebrates in song a
victory won by Erik Blood-axe, and says of the battle-field that there
trad nipt Nara náttverd ara (" Nare's kinswoman trampled upon the supper
of the eagles," that is to say, upon the dead bodies of the fallen). The
psychopomps of disease, of age, and of misfortunes have nothing to do on
a battle-field. Thither come valkyries to fetch the elect. Nipt Nara
must therefore be a valkyrie, whose horse tramples upon the heaps of
dead bodies; and as Egil names only one shield-maid of that kind, he
doubtless has had the most representative, the most important one in
mind. That one is Skuld, Urd's sister, and thus a nipt Nara like Urd
herself.


(d) Ynglingatal (Ynglingasaga, ch. 20). Of King Dygve, who died from
disease, it is said that jódis Narva (jódis Nara) chose him. The right
to choose those who die from disease belongs to the norns alone (see No.
69). Jódis, a word doubtless produced by a vowel change from the Old
Germanic idis, has already in olden times been interpreted partly as
horse-dis (from jór', horse), partly as the dis of one's kin (from jo,
child, offspring). In this case the skald has taken advantage of both
significations. He calls the death-dis ulfa ok Narva jódis, the wolf's
horse-dis, Narve's kin-dis. In regard to the former signification, it
should be remembered that the wolf is horse for all giantesses, the
honoured norns not excepted. Cp. grey nor'na as a paraphrase for wolf.


Thus what our mythic records tell us about Narve is:


(a) He is one of the oldest beings of theogouy, older than the upper
part of the world constructed by Bur's sons.


(b) He is of giant descent.


(c) He is father of Nat, father-in-law of Nagelfar, Onar, and of
Delling, the elf of the rosy dawn; and he is the father of Dag's mother,
of Unnr, and of the goddess Jord, who becomes Odin's wife and Thor's
mother. Bonds of kinship thus connect him with the Asas and with gods of
other ranks.


(d) He is near akin to the dis of fate and death, Urd and her sisters.
The word nipt, with which Urd's relation to him is indicated, nnay mean
sister, daughter, and sister's daughter, and consequently does not state
which particular one of these it is. It seems upon the whole to have
been applied well-nigh exclusively mu regard to mythic persons, and
particularly in regard to Urd and her sisters (cp. above: Njörva nipt,
nipt Nara, nipt Nera), so that it almost acquired the meaning of dis or
norn. This is evident from Skaldskaparmal, ch. 75: Nornir heita ţaer er
naud skapa; Nipt ok Dis nu eru taldar, and from the expression Heil Nótt
ok Nipt in the above-cited strophe from Sigrdrifumal. There is every
reason for assuming that the Nipt, which is here used as a proper noun,
in this sense means the dis of fate and as an appellation of kinship, a
kinswoman of Nat. The common interpretation of heil Nótt ok Nipt is
"hail Nat and her daughter," and by her daughter is then meant the
goddess Jord; but this interpretation is, as Bugge has shown, less
probable, for the goddess Jord immediately below gets her special
greeting in the words : heil sia in fiolnyta Fold! (" hail the bounteous
earth !")


(e) As the father of Nat, living in Mimir's realm, and kinsman of Urd,
who with Mimir divides the dominion over the lower world, Narve is
himself a being of the lower world, and the oldest subterranean being:
the first one who inhabited Jotunheim.


(f) He presided over the subterranean fountain of wisdom and
inspiration, that is to say, Mimir's fountain.


(g) He was Odin's friend and the binder of Odin's foes.


(h) He died and left his fountain as a heritage to his descendants.


As our investigation progresses it will be found that all these facts
concerning Narve apply to Mimir, that "he who thinks" (Mimir) and "he
who binds" (Narve) are the same person. Already the circumstances that
Narve was an ancient being of giant descent, that he dwelt in the lower
world and was the possessor of the fountain of wisdom there, that he was
Odin's friend, and that he died and left his fountain as an inheritance
(cp. Mims synir), point definitely to Narve's and Mimir's identity. Thus
the Teutonic theogony has made Thought the older kinsman of Fate, who
through Nat bears Dag to the world. The people of antiquity made their
first steps toward a philosophical view of the world in their theogony.


The Old English language has preserved and transferred to the Christian
Paradise a name which originally belonged to the subterranean region of
bliss of heathendom'Neorxenavang. Vang means a meadow, plain, field. The
mysterious Neorxena looks like a gentive plural. Grein, in his
Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, and before him Weinhold, refers neorxena to
Narve, Nare, and this without a suspicion that Narve was an epithet of
Mimir and referred to the king of the heathen regions of bliss. I
consider this an evidence that Grein's assumption is as correct as it is
necessary, if upon the whole we are to look for an etymological
explanation of the word. The plural genitive, then, means those who
inhabit Narve's regions of bliss, and receive their appellation from
this circumstance. The opposite Old Norse appellation is njarir, a word
which I shall discuss below.


To judge from certain passages in Christian writings of the thirteenth
century, Mimir was not alone about the name Narve, Nare. One or two of
Loki's sons are supposed to have had the same name. The statements in
this regar(l demand investigation, and, as I think, this will furnish
another instructive contribution to the chapter on the confusion of the
mythic traditions, and on the part that the Younger Edda plays in this
respect. The passages are:


(a) The prosaic afterword to Lokasenna: "He (Loki) was bound with the
entrails of his son Nan, but his son Narfi was turned into a wolf".


(b) Gylfaginning, ch. 33. (1) Most of the codices: "His (Loki's) wife
is hight Sygin; their son is Nan or Narvi ".


(2) Codex Hypnonesiensis: "His (Loki's) wife is hight Sygin; his Sons
are bight Nan or Narvi and Vali ".


(c) Gylfaginning, ch. 50. (1) Most of the codices: "Then were taken
Loki's Sons Vali and Nari or Narfi. The Asas changed Vali into a wolf,
and the latter tore into pieces his brother Narfi. Then the Asas took
his entrails and therewith bound Loki."


(2) Codex Upsalensis: "Then were taken Loki's sons Vali and


Nari. The Asas changed Vali into a wolf, and the latter tore into
pieces his brother Nan."


(d) Skaldskaparmal, ch. 16. (1) "Loki is the father of the wolf Fenrer,
the Midgard-serpent, and Hel, 'and also of Nari and Ali '."


(2) Codex Wormianus and Codex Hypnonesiensis, 3: "Loki is father of the
Fenris-wolf, of the Midgard-serpent, and of Hel, 'and also of Nan and
Vali' ".


The mythology has stated that Loki was bound with chains which were
originally entrails, and that he who contributed the materials of these
chains was his own son, who was torn into pieces by his brother in wolf
guise. It is possible that there is something symbolic in this myth'that
it originated in the thought that the forces created by evil contend
with each other and destroy their own parent. There is at least no
reason for doubting that this account is a genuine myth, that is to say,
that it comes from a heathen source and from some heathen poem.


But, in regard to the names of Loki's two sons here in question, we
have a perfect right to doubt.


We discover at once tine contradictions betrayed by the records in
regard to them. The discrepancy of the statements can best be shown by
the following comparisons. Besides Fenrer, the Midgardserpent, and Hel,
Loki has, according to:

Gylfaginning, 33:


The Prose added to Lokasenna:


Codex Hypnon / (Gylfag., 33):


Gylfaginning, ch. 50:


Skaldskaparmal ch. 16:


The Prose added to Lokasenna:


Gylfaginning:


	the son Nari,


the son Nari,


the son Nari,


the son Nari,


the son Nari,


Nari


Nari-Narfi


	also called Narfi.


''''''.


also called Narvi.


also called Narfi,


''''''.


is torn into pieces by


is torn into pieces by


	(No other son is named).


and the son Narfi.


and the son Vali;


and the son Vali;


and the son Ali;


Narfi


Vali.


The discrepancy shows that the author of these statements did not have
any mythic song or mythic tradition as the source of all these names of
Loki's sons.


The matter becomes even more suspicious when we find' That the
variations Nare and Narve, both of which belong to one of the foremost
and noblest of mythic beings, namely, to Mimir, are here applied in such
a manner that they either are given to two sons of Loki or are
attributed to one and the same Loki-son, while in the latter case it
happens'


That the names Vale and Ale, which both belong to the same Asa-god and
son of Odin who avenged the death of his brother Balder, are both
attributed to the other son of Loki. Compare Gylfaginning, oh. 30 : Vali
eda Ali heitir einn (Assin) sonr Odins ok Rindar.


How shall we explain this ' Such an application of these names must
necessarily produce the suspicion of some serious mistake; but we cannot
assume that it was made wilfully. The cause must be found somewhere.


It has already been demonstrated that, in the mythology, Urd, the dis
of fate, was also the dis of death and the ruler of the lower world, and
that the functions belonging to her in this capacity were, in Christian
times, transferred to Loki's daughter, who, together with her functions,
usurped her name Hel. Loki's daughter and Hel became to the Christian
niythographers identical.


An inevitable result was that such expressions as nipt Nara, jódis
Narfa, nipt Njörva, had to change meaning. The nipt Njörva, whom the
aged Egil saw standing near the grave-mound on Digraness, and whose
arrival he awaited "with gladness and goodwill," was no longer the
death-dis Urd, but became to the Christian interpreters the abominable
daughter of Loki who came to fetch the old heathen. The nipt Nan'a,
whose horse trampled on the battlefield where Erik Blood-axe defeated
the Scots, was no longer Urd's sister, the valkyrie Skuld, but became
Loki's daughter, although, even according to the Christian
mythographers, the latter had nothing to do on a battle-field. The jódis
Nan fa, who chose King Dygve, was confounded with Loka mćr, who had him
leikinn (see No. 67), but who, according to the heathen conception, was
a maidservant of fate, without the right of choosing. To the heathens
nipt Nara, nipt Njörva, jódis Narfa, meant "Nare-Mimir's kinswoman Urd
". To the mythographers of the thirteenth century it must, for the
reason stated, have meant the Loki-daughter as sister of a certain Nare
or Narve. It follows that this Nare or Narve ought to be a son of Loki,
since his sister was Loki's daughter. It was known that Loki, besides
Fenrer amid the Midgard-serpent, had two other sons, of which the one in
the guise of a wolf tore the other into pieces. In Nare, Narve, the name
of one or the names of both these Loki-sons were thought to have been found.


The latter assumption was made by the author of the prose in Lokasenna.
He conceived Nare to be the one brother and Narve the other. The author
of Gylfaginning, on the other hand, rightly regarded Nare and Narve as
simply variations of the same name, and accordingly let them designate
the same son of Loki. When he wrote chapter 33, he did not know what
name to give to the other, and consequently omitted him entirely. But
when he got to the 50th chapter, a light had risen for him in regard to
the name of the other. And the light doubtless came from the following
half strophe in Völuspa:


ţa kna vala vigbond snua, helldi voru hardgior hoft or ţormum.


This half strophe says that those were strong chains (for Loki) that
were made of entrails, and these fetters were "twisted" from "Vale's
vigbönd ". Vig as a legal term means a murder, slaughter. Vala vig was
interpreted as a murder comitted by Vale; and Vala vigbond as the bonds
or fetters obtained by the slaughter committed by Vale. It was known
that Loki was chained with the entrails of his son, and here it was
thought to appear that this son was slain by a certain Vale. And as he
was slain by a brother according to the myth, then Vale must be the
brother of the slain son of Loki. Accordingly chapter 50 of Gylfaginning
could tell us what chapter 33 did not yet know, namely, that the two
sons of Loki were named Vale and Nare or Narve, and that Vale changed to
a wolf, tore the brother "Nare or Narve" into pieces.


The next step was taken by Skaldskaparmal, or more probably by one of
the transcribers of Skaldskaparmal. As Vale and Ale in the mythology
designated the same person (viz., Balder's avenger, the son of Odin),
the son of Loki, changed into a wolf, "Vale" received as a gift the name
" Ale ". It is by no means impossible that the transcriber regarded
Balder's avenger, Vale, and the son of Loki as identical. 'the oldest
manuscript we have of Skaldskaparmal is the Upsala Codex, which is no
older than the beginning of the fourteenth century. The mythic
traditions were then in the continuation of that rapid decay which had
begun in the eleventh century, and not long thereafter the Icelandic
saga writings saw Valhal peopled by giants and all sorts of monsters,
which were called einherjes, and Thor himself transferred to the places
of torture where he drank venom from "the auroch's horn," presented to
him by the daughter of Loki.


In the interpretation of the above-cited half strophe of Voluspa, we
must therefore leave out the supposed son of Loki, Vale. The Teutonic
mythology, like the other Aryan mythologies, applied many names and
epithets to the same person, but it seldom gave two or more persons one
and the same name, unless the latter was a patronymic or, in other
respects, of a general character. There was not more than one Odin, one
Thor, one Njord, one Heimdal, one Loki, and there is no reason for
assuming that there was more than one Vale, namely, the divine son of
this name. Of Balder's brother Vale we know that he was born to avenge
the slaying of Balder. His impatience to do that which he was called to
perform is expressed in the mythology by the statement, that he
liberated himself from the womb of his mother before the usual time
(Baldrs brodir var af borinn snemma'Völuspa), and only one night old he
went to slay Hodr. The bonds which confine the impatient one in his
mother's womb were his vigbond, the bonds which hindered him from
combat, and these bonds were in the most literal sense of the word ór
ţormum. As Loki's bonds are made of the same material and destined to
hinder him from combat with the gods until Ragnarok, and as his prison
is in the wonib of the earth, as Vale's was in that of the earth-goddess
Rind's, then Vala vigbond as a designation of Loki's chains is both
logically and poetically a satisfactory paraphrase, and the more in
order as it occurs in connection with the description of the impending
Ragnarok, when Loki by an earthquake is to sever his fetters and hasten
to the conflict.


86


THE TWO GIANT CLANS DESCENDED FROM YMER.


In Havamal (140, ff.), Odin says that he in his youth obtained nine
fimbul-songs and a drink of the precious mead dipped out of Odrerer from
Beyzla's father, Bolţorn's famous son:


Fimbulliód nio nam ec af enom fregia syni Baulţorns Beyzlu faudur oc ce
dryc of gat ens dyra miadar ausinn Odreri.


The mythologists have assumed, for reasons that cannot be doubted, that
Bolthorn's famous son, Beistla's brother, is identical with Mimir. No
one else than he presided at that time over the drink dipped out of
Odrerer, the fountain which conceals "wisdom and man's .sense," and
Sigrdrifumal (13, 14) corroborates that it was from Mimir, and through a
drink from "Hodrofner's horn," that Odin obtained wonderful runes and
"true sayings".


Accordingly Mimir had a sister by name Beyzla (variations: Bestla,
Besla, Bezla). A strophe by Einar Skalaglam (Skaldskaparmal, ch. 2; cp.
Gylfag., oh. 6) informs us that Beistla is Odin's mother. Mimir's
disciple, the clan-chieftain of the gods, is accordingly his sister's
son. Herein we have one more reason for the faithful friendship which
Mimir always showed to Odin.


The Mimir epithet Narfi, Narve, means, as shown above, "the one who
binds ". His daughter Nat is called draumnjörun, the dream-binder
(Alvism., 31). His kinswomen, the norns, spin and bind the threads and
bonds, which, extended throughout the world, weave together the web of
events. Such threads and bonds are called orlogdaettir (Helge Hund., i.
3), and Urdar lokur (Grogaldr., 7). As the nearest kinswomen of Beistla
all have epithets or tasks which refer to the idea of binding, and when
we add to this that Beistla's sons and descendants as gods have the
epithet hopt and bond, her own name might most properly be referred to
the old word beizl, beisl (cp. betsel, bridle), which has a similar meaning.


As Mimir and Beistla are of giant descent, and in the theogony belong
to the same stage of development as Bur (Burr), Odin's father, then, as
the mythologists also have assumed, Bolthorn can be none else than Yimir.


Mimir, Beistla, the norns, and Nat thus form a group of kindred beings,
which belong to the oldest giant race, but still they are most
definitely separated from the other descendants of Yimir, as a higher
race of giants from a lower, a noble giant race friendly to the gods and
fostering the gods, from that race of deformed beings which bear
children in the strangest manner, which are hostile to the gods and to
the world, and which are represented by the rimthurses Thrudgelmer and
Bergelmer and their offspring.


It now lies near at hand to inquire whether the mythology which
attributed the same father to Mimir and Thrudgelmer was unable to
conceive in this connection the idea of a nobler origin for the former
than the latter. The remedy nearest at hand would have been to have
given them mothers of different characters. But the mythology did not
resort to this expedient. It is expressly stated that Yimir bore
children without the pleasure of woman (gygiar gaman'Vafthrudnersmal, 32
; cp. No. 60). Neither Mimir nor Thrudgelmer had a mother. Under such
circumstances there is another expedient to which the sister of the
Teutonic mythology, the Rigveda mythology, has resorted, and which is
explained in the 90th hymn of book x. of Rigveda. The hymn informs us in
regard to a primeval giant Parusha, and this nnyth is so similar to the
Teutonic in regard to Yimir that it must here be considered.


The primeval being Parusha was a giant monster as large as the whole
world, and even larger (lines 1-5). The gods resolved to sacrifice him,
that is to say, to slay him for sacred purposes (1. 6), and from his
limbs was created the present world. From his navel was made the
atmosphere, from his head the canopy of heaven, from his two feet the
earth, from his heart the moon, from his eye the sun, from his breath
tine wind, &c. His mouth became the brahma (the priest), his arms became
the rajanya (the warrior), his thighs became the vaisya (the third free
caste), and from his feet arose the sudra (the thrall, line 12).


The two fundamental ideas of the myth concerning Parusha are:


(1) There was a primeval being who was not divine. The gods slew him
and created the material world out of his limbs.


(2) This primeval being gave rise to other beings of different ranks,
and their rank corresponded with the position of the giant's limbs from
which they were created.


Both these fundamental ideas reappear in the Teutonic myth concerning
Yimir. In regard to the former idea we need only to quote what
Vafthrudnersmal says in strophe 21:


Or Ymis holdi

var iord um scaupud,

en or beinom bjorg,

himinn or hausi

ins hrimkalda iotuns,

enn or sveita sior.


	

Of Yimir's flesh

the world was shapen,

from his bones tine rocks,

the heavens from the head

of the ice-cold giant,

from his blood the sea.


In regard to the second fundamental idea, it is evident from the
Rigveda account that it is not there found in its oldest form, but that,
after the rise of four castes among the Rigveda Aryans, it was changed,
in order to furnish an explanation of the origin of these castes and
make them at least as old as the present material world. Far more
original, and perfectly free from tine influence of social ideas, it
appears in the Teutonic mythology, where the 33rd strophe of
Vafthrudnersmal testifies concerning its character:


Undir hendi vaxa

quaţo hrimţursi

mey oc maug saman;

fótr vid fóti gat

ins froda iotuns

serhaufdaţan son.


	

A son and a daughter

are said to have been born together

under the rimthurse's arm;

foot begat with foot

the strange-headed son

of the wise giant.


In perfect harmony with this Gylfaginning narrates: "Under Yimir's left
arm grew forth a man and a woman, and his one foot begat with the other
a son. Thence come (different) races."


The different races have this in common, that they are giant races,
since they spring from Yimir; but these giant races must at the same
time have been widely different intellectually and physically, since the
mythology gives them different origins from different limbs of the
progenitor. And here, as in Rigveda, it is clear that the lowest race
was conceived as proceeding from the feet of the primeval giant. This is
stated with sufficient distinctness in Vafthrudnersmal, where we read
that a "strangely-headed" monster (Thrudgelmer'see No. 60) was born by
them, while "man and maid" were born under the arnn of the giant. "The
man" and "the maid" must therefore represent a noble race sprung from
Yimir, and they can only be Mimir and his sister, Odin's mother. Mimir
and his clan constitute a group of ancient powers, who watch over the
fountains of the life of the world and care for the perpetuation of the
world - tree. From them proceeded the oldest, fairest, and most enduring
parts of the creation. For the lower world was put in order and had its
sacred fountains and guardians before Bur's sons created Midgard and
Asgard. Among them the world-tree grew up from its roots, whose source
no one knows (Havamal, 138). Among them those forces are active which
make the starry firmament revolve on its axis, and from them come the
seasons and the divisions of time, for Nat and nidjar, Mane and Sol,
belong to Mimir's clan, and were in the morning of creation named by the
oldest "high holy gods," and endowed with the vocation árom at telja
(Voluspa). From Mimir comes the first culture, for in his fountain
inspiration, spiritual power, man's wit and wisdom, have their source,
and around him as chief stand gathered the artists of antiquity by whose
bands all things can be smithied into living and wonderful things. Such
a giant clan demands another origin than that of the frost-giants and
their offspring. As we learn from Vafthrndnersmal that two giant races
proceeded from Yimir, the one from a part of his body which in a
symbolic sense is more noble than that from which the other race sprang,
and that the race born of his feet was the ignoble one hostile to the
gods, then the conclusion follows of necessity that "the man and maid"
who were born as twins under Yimir's arm became the founders of that
noble group of giants who are friendly to the gods, and which confront
us in the mythology of our fathers. It has already been shown above (see
No. 54) that Jima (Yama) in the Asiatic-Aryan mythology corresponds to
Mimir in the Teutonic. Jima is an epithet which means twin. The one with
whom Jima was born together was a maid, Yami. The words in the quoted
Vafthrudnersmal strophe, undir hendi hrimţursi vaxa mey ok maug saman,
are evidence that the Germans also considered Mimir and his sister as twins.


87.


THE IDENTITY OF MIMIR AND NIDHAD OF THE VOLUND SAGA.


The condition in which the traditions of the great Volund (Wayland)
have come down to our time is one of the many examples illustrating how,
under the influences of a change of faith, a myth disrobes itself of its
purely mythical character and becomes a heroic saga. The nature of the
mythic traditions and songs is not at once obliterated in the time of
transition; there remain marks of their original nature in some or other
of the details as proof of what they have been. Thus that fragment of a
Volund saga, turned into an epic, which the Old Norse literature has
preserved for us in Volundarkvida, shows us that the artist who is the
hero of the song was originally conceived not as a son of man, but as a
member of the mythic race of elves which in Voluspa is mentioned in
connection with the Asas (hvat er med asom, hvat er med alfom' 'str.
49). Volund is an elf-prince (alfa visi, alfa ljoţi'Volund., str. 10,
13), and, as shall be shown below, when we come to consider the Volund
myth exhaustively, he and his brothers and their mistresses have played
parts of the very greatest importance in the epic of Teutonic mythology.
Under such circumstances it follows that the other persons appearing in
Volundarkvida also were originally mythical characters.


One of these is called Nidadr (Nidudr), king of Njares, and I am now to
investigate who this Nidadr was in the mythology.


When Volund for the first time appears by this name in the Elder Edda,
he is sojourning in a distant country, to which it is impossible to come
without traversing the Myrkwood forest famous in the mythology (see No.
78). It is a snow-clad country, the home of bears and wolves. Volund
gets his subsistence by hunting on skees. The Old English poem, "Deor
the Scald's Complaint," confirms that this region was regarded as very
cold (cp. vintercealde vraece). In Volundarkvida it is called Wolfdales.


Volund stays here many years in company with his two brothers and with
three swan-maids, their mistresses or wives, but finally alone. Volund
passes the time in smithying, until he is suddenly attacked by Nidadr
(Nidudr), "the Njara-king" (Volundarkv., 6), who puts him in chains and
robs him of two extraordinary treasures'a sword and an arm-ring. Seven
hundred arm-rings hung in a string in Volund's hall; but this one alone
seemed to be worth more than all the rest, and it alone was desired by
Niar (str. 7, 8, 17).


Before Volund went to the Wolfdales, he had lived with his people a
happy life in a land abounding in gold (str. 14). Not voluntarily, but
from dire necessity he had exchanged his home for the distant wilderness
of the Wolfdales. "Deor the Scald's Corn plaint" says he was an exile
(Veland him be vurman vreces cannade). A German saga of the middle ages,
"Anhang des Heldenbuchs," confirms this statement. Wieland (Volund), it
is there said, "was a duke who was banished by two giants, who took his
land from him," whereupon "he was stricken with poverty," and "became a
smith ". The Volundarkvida does not bave much to say about the reason
for bis sojourn in the Wolfdales, but strophe 28 informs us that,
previous to his arrival there, he had suffered an injustice, of which he
speaks as the worst and the most revenge-demanding which he, the unhappy
and revengeful man, ever experienced. But he has had no opportunity of
demanding satisfaction, when he finally succeeds in getting free from
Nidadr's chains. Who those mythic persons are that have so cruelly
insulted him and filled his heart with unquenchable thirst for revenge
is not mentioned; but in the very nature of the case those persons from
whose persecutions he has fled must have been mightier than he, and as
he himself is a chief in the godlike clan of elves, his foes are
naturally to be looked for among the more powerful races of gods.


And as Volundarkvida pictures him as boundlessly and recklessly
revengeful, and makes him resort to his extraordinary skill as a smith'a
skill famous among all Teutonic tribes'in the satisfaction which he
demands of Nidudr, there is no room for doubt that, during the many
years he spent in Wolfdales, he brooded on plans of revenge against
those who had most deeply insulted him, and that he made use of his art
to secure instruments for the carrying out of these plans. Of the
glittering sword of which Niar' robbed him, Volund says (str. 18) that
he had applied his greatest skill in making it hard and keen. The sword
must, therefore, have been one of the most excellent ones mentioned in
the songs of Teutonic heathendom. Far down in the middle ages, the songs
and sagas were fond of attributing the best and most famous swords
wielded by their heroes to the skill of Volund.


In the myths turned by Saxo into history, there has been mentioned a
sword of a most remarkable kind, of untold value (ingens praemium), and
attended by success in battle (belli fortuna comitaretur). A hero whose
name Saxo Latinised into Hotherus (see Hist. Dan., p. 110) got into
enmity with the Asa-gods, and the only means with which he can hope to
cope with them is the possession of this sword. He also knows where to
secure it, and with its aid he succeeds in putting Thor himself and
other gods to flight.


In order to get possession of this sword, Hotherus had to make a
journey which reminds us of the adventurous expeditions already
described to Gudmund-Mimir's domain, but with this difference, that he
does not need to go by sea along the coast of Norway in order to get
there, which circumstance is sufficiently explained by the fact that,
according to Saxo, Hotherus has his home in Sweden. The regions which
Hotherus has to traverse are pathless, full of obstacles, and for the
greater part continually in the cold embrace of the severest frost. They
are traversed by mountain-ridges on which the cold is terrible, and
therefore they must be crossed as rapidly as possible with the aid of
"yoke-stags ". The sword is kept concealed in a specus, a subterranean
cave, and "mortals" earn scarcely cross its threshold (hand facile
mortalibus patere posse). The being which is the ward of the sword in
this cave is by Saxo called Mimingus.


The question now is, whether the sword smithied by Volund and the one
fetched by Hotherus are identical or not. The former is smithied in a
winter-cold country beyond Myrkwood, where the mythic Nidadr suddenly
appears, takes possession of it, and the purpose for which it was made,
judging from all circumstances, was that Volund with its aid was to
conquer the hated powers which, stronger than] he, the chief of elves,
had compelled hinn to take refuge to the Wolfdales. If these powers were
Asas or Vans, then it follows that Volund must have thought himself able
to give to his sword qualities that could render it dangerous to the
world of gods, although the latter had Thor's hammer and other
subterranean weapons at their disposal. The sword captured by Hotherus
is said to possess those very qualities which we might look for in the
Volund weapon, and the regions he has to traverse in order to get
possession of it refer, by their cold and remoteness, to a land similar
to that where Nidadr surprises Volund, and takes from him the dangerous
sword.


As already stated, Nidad at the same time captured an armring of an
extraordinary kind. If the saga about Volund and his sword was connected
with the saga-fragment turned into history by Saxo concerning Hotherus
and the sword, whose owner he becomes, then we might reasonably expect
that the precious arm-ring, too, should app ear in the latter saga. And
we do find it there. Mimingus, who guards the sword of victory, also
guards a wonderful arm-ring, and through Saxo we learn what quality
makes this particular arm-ring so precious, that Nidad does not seem to
care about the other seven hundred which he finds in Volund's workshcp.
Saxo says: Eidem (Mimingo) quoque armillam esse mira quadam arcanaque
virtute possessoris opes augere solitam. "In the arm-ring there dwells a
wonderful and mysterious power, which increases the wealth of its
possessor." In other words, it is a smith's work, the rival of the ring
Draupner, from which eight similar rings drop every ninth night. This
explains why Volund's smithy contains so many rings, that Nidad
expresses his suspicious wonderment (str. 13).


There are therefore strong reasons for assuming that the sword and the
ring, which Hotherus takes from Mimingus, are the same sword and ring as
Nidad before took from Volund, and that the saga, having deprived Volund
of the opportunity of testing the quality of the weapon himself in
conflict with the gods, wanted to indicate what it really amounted to in
a contest with Thor and his hammer by letting the sword come into the
hands of Hotherus, another foe of the Asas. As we now find such articles
as those captured by Nidad reappearing in the hands of a certain
Mimingus, the question arises whether Mimiugus is Nidad himself or some
one of Nidad's subjects; for that they either are identical, or are in
some way connected with each other, seems to follow from the fact that
the one is said to possess what the other is said to have captured.
Mimingus is a Latinising of Mimingr, Mimungr, son or descendant of Mimir.


Nidadr, Nidudr (both variations are found in Volundarkvida), has, on
the other hand, his counterpart in the Anglo-Saxon Nidhad. The king who
in "Deor the Scald's Complaint" fetters Volund bears this name, and his
daughter is called Beadohild, in Volundarkvida Bodvild. Previous
investigators have already remarked that Beadohild is a more original
form than Bodvild, and Nidhad than Nidudr, Nidadr. The name Nidhad is
composed of nid (neuter gender), the lower world, Hades, and had, a
being, person, forma, species. Nidhad literally means the lower world
being, the Hades being. Herewith we also have his mythical character
determined. A mythical king, who is characterised as the being of the
lower world, must be a subterranean king. The mythic records extant
speak of the subterranean king Mimir (the middle-age saga's Gudmund,
king of the Glittering Fields; see Nos. 45, 46), who rules over the
realm of the well of wisdom and has the dis of fate as his kinswoman,
the princess of the realm of Urd's fountain and of the whole realm of
death. While we thus find, on the one hand, that it is a subterranean
king who captures Volund's sword and arm-ring, we find, on the other
hand, that when Hotherus is about to secure the irresistible sword and
the wealth-producing ring, he has to betake himself to the same
winter-cold country, where all the traditions here discussed (see Nos.
45-49) locate the descent to Mimir's realm, and that he, through an
entrance "scarcely approachable for mortals," must proceed into the
bosom of the earth after he has subdued a Mimingus, a son of Mimir.
Mimir being the one who took possession of the treasure, it is perfectly
natural that his son should be its keeper.


This also explains why Nidadr in Volundarkvida is called the king of
the Njares. A people called Njares existed in the mythology, but not in
reality. The only explanation of the word is to be found in the Mimir
epithet, which we discovered in the variations Narve, Njorve, Nare,
Nere, which means "he who binds ". They are called Njares, because they
belong to the clan of Njorvi-Nare.


Volundarkvida (str. 19, with the following prose addition) makes
Nidad's queen command Volund's knee-sinews to be cut. Of such a cruelty
the older poem, "Deor the Scald's Complaint," knows nothing. This poem
relates, on the other hand, that Nidad bound Volund with a fetter made
from a strong sinew:


siţţan-hinne Nidhad on nede legde sveoncre seono-bende.


Though Volund is in the highest degree skilful, he is not able to free
himself from these bonds. They are of magic kind, and resemble those
orlogţaevttir which are tied by Mimir's kinswoman Urd. Nidad accordingly
here appears in Mimir-Njorve's character as '' binder With this fetter
of sinew we must compare the one with which Loki was bound, and that
tough and elastic one which was made in the lower world and which holds
Fearer bound until Ragnarok. And as Volund'a circumstance already made
probable, and one that shall be fully proved below'actually regards
himself as insulted by the gods, and has planned a terrible revenge
against them, then it is an enemy of Odin that Nidhad here binds, and
the above-cited paraphrase for the death-dis, Urd, employed by Egil
Skallagrimson, "the kinswoman of the binder (Njorva) of Odin's foes"
(see No. 85), also becomes applicable here.


The tradition concerning Nidhad's original identity with Mimir
flourished for a long time in the German middle-age sagas, and passed
thence into the Vilkinasaga, where the banished Volund became Mimir's
smith. The author of Vilkinasaga, compiling both from German and from
Norse sources, saw Volund in the German records as a smith in Mimir's
employ, and in the Norse sagas he found him as Nidhad's smith, and from
the two synonyms he made two persons.


The Norse form of the name most nearly corresponding to the Old English
Nidhad. is Nidi, "the subterranean," and that Mimir also among the
Norsemen was known by this epithet is plain both from the Sol-song and
from Voluspa. The skald of the Sol-song sees in the lower world "Nide's
sons, seven together, drinking the clear mead from the well of
ring-Regin ". The well of the lower world with the "clear mead,, is
Minner's fountain, and the paraphrase ringRegin is well suited to Mimir,
who possessed among other treasures the wonderful ring of Hotherus.
Völuspa speaks of Nide's mountain, the Hvergelmer mountain, from which
the subterranean dragon Nidhog flies (see No. 75), and of Nide's plains
where Sindre's race have their golden hall. Sindre is, as we know, one
of the most celebrated primeval smiths of mythology, and he smithied
Thor's lightning hammer, Frey's golden boar, and Odin's spear Gungner
(Gylfaginning). Dwelling with his kinsmen in Mimir's realm, he is one of
the artists whom the ruler of the lower world kept around him (cp. No.
53). Several of the wonderful things made by these artists, as for
instance the harvest-god's Skidbladner, and golden boar, and Sif's
golden locks, are manifestly symbols of growth or vegetation. The sanne
is therefore true of the original Teutonic primeval smiths as of the
Ribhuians, the ancient smiths of Rigveda, that they make not only
implements and weapons, but also grass and herbs. Out of the lower world
grows the world-tree, and is kept continually fresh by the liquids of
the sacred fountains. In the abyss of the lower world and in the sea is
ground that mould which makes the fertility of Midgard possible (see No.
80); in the lower world "are smithied" those flowers and those harvests
which grow out of this mould, and fronn the manes of the subterranean
horses, and from their foaming bridles, falls on the fields and meadows
that honey-dew "which gives harvests to men".


Finally, it must be pointed out that when Nidhad binds Volund, the foe
of the gods, this is in harmony with Mimir's activity throughout the
epic of the myths as the friend of the Asa-gods, and as the helper of
Odin, his sister's son, in word and deed.


Further evidences of Mimir's identity with Nidhad are to be found in
the Svipdag myth, which I shall discuss further on.


Vafthrudnersmal states in strophe 25 that "beneficent regin (makers)
created Ny and Nedan to count times for men," this being said in
connection with what it states about Narve, Nat, and Dag. In the Voluspa
dwarf-list we find that the chief of these regin was Modsogner, whose
identity with Mimir has been shown (see No. 53). Modsogner-Mimir created
among other "dwarfs" also Ny and Nedan (Voluspa, 11). These are,
therefore, his sons at least in the sense that they are indebted to him
for their origin. The expressions to create and to beget are very
closely related in the mythology. Of Njord Vafthrudner also says (str.
39) that "wise regin created him" in Vanaheim.


As sons of Nide-Mimir the changes of the moon have been called after
his name Nidi, and collectively they have been called by the plural
Nidjar, in a later time Nidar. And as Nat's brothers they are enumerated
along with her as a stereotyped alliteration. In Vafthrudnersmal Odin
asks the wise giant whether he knows whence Nat and Nidjar (Nott med
Niţom) came, and Voluspa (6) relates that in the dawn of tinne the high
holy gods (regin) seated themselves on their judgment-seats and gave
names to Nat and Nidjar (Nott ok Niţiom). Tine giving of a name was in
heathen times a sacred act, which implied an adoption in the
name-giver's family or circle of friends.


Nidjar also appears to have had his signification of moon-changes in
regard to the changes of months. According to Saxo (see No. 46), King
Gorm saw in the lower world twelve sons of Gudmund-Mimir, all "of noble
appearance ". Again, Solarljod's skald says that the sons of Nide, whom
he saw in the lower world, were "seven together ". From the standpoint
of a nature-symbol the difference in these statements is explained by
the fact that the months of the year were counted as twelve, but in
regard to seasons and occupations there were seven divisions:
gor-manudr, frer-m., hrut-m., ein-m., sol-m., sel-m.,
kornskurdar-manudr. Seven is the epic-mythological number of these
Nidjar. To the saga in regard to these I shall return in No. 94.


88.


A GENERAL REVIEW OF MIMIR'S NAMES AND EPITHETS.


The names, epithets, and paraphrases with which the king of the lower
world, the ward of the fountain of wisdom, was designated, according to
the statements hitherto made, are the following:


(1) Mimir (Hodd-mimir, Mimr, Mimi, Mime der alte).


(2) Narfi (Narvi, Njorvi, Norr, Nari, Neri).


(3) Nidi (Nidhad, Nidadr, Nidudr, Nidungr).


These three names, which mean the Thinker, the Binder, the
Subterranean, are presumably all ancient.


(4) Mosognir, "the mead-drinker ".


(5) Hoddrofnir, presumably "the one bounteous in treasures ".


(6) Gauta spjalli, "the one with whom Gaute (Odin) counsels ".


(7) Baug-regin, Ring-regin.


(8) Godmundr, the name by which Mimir appears in Christian middle-age
sagas of Norse origin. To these names may still be added:


(9) Fimbulţulr, "the great teacher" (the lecturer). Havamal (str. 142;
cp. str. 80) says that Fimbulţulr drew (fadi) the runes, that ginn-regin
"made" (gordo) them, that is to say, in the older sense of the word,
prepared them for use, and that Odin (hroptr raugna) carved (reist)
them. In the stropbes immediately preceding, it is said that Odin, by
self-sacrifice, begot runes out of the deep and fimbul-songs from
Beistla's brother. These statements, joined with those which mention how
the runes given by Mimir were spread over the world, and were taught by
various clan-chiefs to different clans (see No. 53), make it evident
that a perfect myth had been developed in regard to the origin of the
runes and the spreading of runic knowledge. Mimir, as the possessor of
the well of wisdom, was the inventor or source of the runes. When
Sigrdrifumal (str. 13) says that they dropped out of Hoddrofner's horn,
this is, figuratively speaking, the same as Havamal tells, when it
states that Fimbulthul carved them. The oldest powers (ginnregin) and
Odin afterwards developed and spread them.


At the time of Tacitus, and probably one or two centuries earlier, the
art of writing was known among the Teutons. The runic inscriptions that
have come down to our time bear evidence of' a Greek-Roman origin.


By this we do not mean to deny that there were runes'at least,
non-phonetic ones'before them. The many kinds of magic runes of which
our mythic records speak are perhaps reminiscences of them. At afl
events we must distinguish the latter from the common runes for writing,
and also from the many kinds of cypher-runes the keys of which are to be
sought in the common phonetic rune-row.


(10) Brimir. By the side of the golden hall of Sindre, Voluspa (str.
36) mentions the giant Brimer's "bjor" hall, which is in Okólnir. Bjórr
is a synonym for mead and ale (Alvism., 34). Okólnir means "the place
where cold is not found ". The reference is to a giant dwelling in the
lower world who presides over mead, and whose hail is situated in a
domain to which cold cannot penetrate. The myth has put this giant in
connection with Yimir, who in relative opposition to him is called
Leirbrimir, clay-Brimer (Fjollsvinnsmal). These circumstances refer to
Mimir. So also Sigrdrifumal (str. 14), where it is said that "Odin stood
on the mountain with Brimer's sword" (Brimis eggiar), when Mimir's head
for the first time talked with him. The expression "Brimer's sword" is
ambiguous. As a head was once used as a weapon against Heimdal, a sword
and a head can, according to Skaldskaparmal, be employed as paraphrases
for each other, whence "Brimer's sword" may be the same as "Mimir's
head" (Skaldskaparmal, 69, Cod. H.; cp. Skaldskaparmal, 8, and Gylfag.,
27). Sigrdrifumal certainly also employs the phrase in its literal sense
of a famous mythological sword, for, in the case in question, it
represents Odin as fully armed, with helmet on his head; and the most
excellent mythological sword, according to an added line in strophe 24
of Grimnersmal (Cod. A.), bore Brimer's name, just as the same sword in
the German saga has the name Mimine (Biterolf, v. 176, in Vilkinasaga
changed to Mimmung), doubtless because it at one time was in
Mimir-Nidhad's possession ; for the German saga (Biterolf, 157; cp.
Vilkinasaga, oh. 23) remembers that a sword called by Mimir's name was
the same celebrated weapon as that made by Volund (Wieland in Biterolf;
Velint in Vilkinasaga), and hence the same work of art as that which,
according to Vilkinasaga, Nidhad captured from him during his stay in
Wolfdales.


89.


THE MEAD MYTH.


We have seen (Nos. 72, 73) that the mead which was brewed from the
three subterranean liquids destroys the effects of death and gives new
vitality to the departed, and that the same liquid is absorbed by the
roots of the world-tree, and in its trunk is distilled into that sap
which gives the tree eternal life. From the stem the mead rises into the
foliage of the crown, whose leaves nourish the fair giver of "the
sparkling drink," in Grimnersmal symbolised as Heidrun, from the streams
of whose teats the mead-horns in .Asgard are filled for the einherjes.
The morning dew which falls from Ygdrasil down into the dales of the
lower world contains the same elements. From the bridle of Rimfaxe and
from the horses of the valkyries some of the same dew also falls in the
valleys of Midgard (see No. 74). The flowers receive it in their
chalices, .where the bees extract it, and thus is produced the earthly
honey which man uses, and from which he brews his mead (cp. Gylfag., ch.
16). Thus the latter too contains some of the strength of Mimir's and
Urd's fountains (veigar'see Nos. 72, 73), and thus it happens that it is
able to stimulate the mind and inspire poetry and song'nay, used with
prudence, it nnay suggest excellent expedients in important emergencies
(cp. Tacitus, Germania).


Thus the world-tree is among the Teutons, as it is among their kinsmen
the Iranians (see below), a mead-tree. And so it was called by the
latter, possibly also by the former. The name miotvidr, with which the
world-tree is mentioned in Voluspa (2) and whose origin and meaning have
been so much discussed, is from a mythological standpoint satisfactorily
explained if we assume that an older word, miodvidr, the mead-tree,
passed into the word similar in sound, miotvidr, the tree of fate (from
miot, measure; cp. mjotudr in the sense of fate, the power. which gives
measure, and the Anglo-Saxon metod Old Saxon metod, the giver of
measure, fate, providence).


The sap of the world-tree and the veigar of the horn of the lower world
are not, however, precisely the same mead as the pure and undefiled
liquid from Mimir's fountain, that which Odin in his youth, through
self-sacrifice, was permitted to taste, nor is it precisely the same as
that concerning the possession of which the powers of mythology long
contended, before it finally, through Odin's adventures at Suttung's,
came to Asgard. The episodes of this conflict concerning the mead will
be given as my investigation progresses, so far as they can be
discovered. Here we must first examine what the heathen records have
preserved in regard to the chosing episode in which the conflict was
ended in favour of Asgard. What the Younger Edda (Bragaraedur) tells
about it I nnust for the present leave entirely unnoticed, lest the
investigation should go astray and become entirely abortive.


The chief sources are the Havamal strophes 104-110, and strophes 13 and
14. Subordinate sources are Grimnersmal (50) and Ynglingatal (15). To
this must be added half a strophe by Eyvind Skaldaspiller
(Skaldskaparmal, ch. 2).


The statements of the chief source have, strange to say, been almost
wholly unobserved, while the mythologists have confined their attention
to the later presentation in Bragartaedur, which cannot be reconciled
with the earlier accounts, and which from a mythological standpoint is
worse than worthless. In 1877 justice was for the first time done to
Havamal. in the excellent analysis of the strophes in question made by
Prof. M. B. Richerts, in his "Attempts at explaining the obscure
passages not hitherto understood in the poetic Edda ".


From Havamal alone we get directly or indirectly the following: The
giant Suttung, also called Fjalar, has acquired possession of the
precious mead for which Odin longs. The Asa-father resolves to capture
it by cunning.


There is a feast at Fjalar's. Guests belonging to the clan of
rimthurses are gathered in his halls (Havamal, 110). Besides these we
must imagine that Suttung-Fjalar's own nearest kith and kin are present.
The mythology speaks of a separate clan entirely distinct from the
rimthurses, known as Suttungs synir (Alvismal, Skirnersmal; see No. 78),
whose chief must be Suttung-Fjalar, as his very name indicates. The
Suttung kin and the rimthurses are accordingly gathered at the banquet
on the day in question.


An honoured guest is expected, and a golden high-seat prepared for him
awaits his arrival From the continuation of the story we learn that the
expected guest is the wooer or betrothed of SuttungFjalar's daughter,
Gunlad. On that night the wedding of the giant's daughter is to be
celebrated.


Odin arrives, but in disguise. He is received as the guest of honour,
and is conducted to the golden high-seat. It follows of necessity that
the guise assumed by Odin, when he descends to the mortal foes of the
gods and of himself, is that of the expected lover. Who the latter was
Havamal does not state, unless strophe 110, 5, like so many other
passages, is purposely ambiguous and contains his name, a question which
I shall consider later.


After the adventure has ended happily, Odin looks back with pleasure
upon the success with which he assumed the guise of the stranger and
played his part (str. 107). Vel keyptz litar hefi ec vel notiţ: "From
the well changed exterior I reaped great advantage". In regard to the
mythological meaning of litr, see No. 95. The expression keyptr litr,
which literally means "purchased appearance," may seem strange, but
kaupa means not only to "buy," but also to "change," "exchange"; kaupa
klaedum vid einn means "to change clothes with some one ". Of a queen
who exchanged her son with a slave woman, it is said that she keyptr um
sonu vid ambatt. But the cause of Odin's joy is not that he successfully
carried out a cunning trick, but that he in this way accomplished a deed
of inestimable value for Asgard and for man (str. 107, 4-6), and he is
sorry that poor Gunlad's trust in him was betrayed (str. 105). This is a
characterisation of Odin's personality.


Nor does Havamal tell us what hinders the real lover from putting in
his appearance and thwarting Odin's plan, while the latter is acting his
part; but of this we learn something from another source, which we shall
consider below.


The adventure undertaken by Odin is extremely dangerous, and he ran the
risk of losing his head (str. 106, 6). For this reason he has, before
entering Suttung-Fjalar's halls, secured an egress, through which he
must be able to fly, and, if possible, with the skaldic mead as his
booty. There is no admittance for everybody to the rocky abode where the
mead-treasure so much desired by all powers is kept. The dwelling is, as
Eyvind tells us, situated in an abyss, and the door is, as another
record tells us, watched. But Odin has let Rate bore ("gnaw ") a tunnel
through the mountain large enough to give him room to retire secretly
(str. 106). In regard to Rate, see No. 82.


When the pretended lover has seated himself in the golden high-seat, a
conversation begins around the banquet table. It is necessary for Odin
to guard well his words, for he represents another person, well known
there, and if he is not cautious he may be discovered. It is also
necessary to be eloquent and winning, so that he may charm Gunlad and
secure her devotion, for without her knowledge he cannot gain his end,
that of carrying away the supply of inspiration-mead kept at Suttung's.
Odin also boasts (str. 103, 104) that on this occasion he proved himself
minnigr and malugr and margfrodr and eloquent for the realisation of his
plan.


During the progress of the feast the guest had his glass filled to his
honour with the precious mead he desired to obtain. "Gunlad gave me on
the golden seat the drink of the precious mead" (str. 105).


Then the marriage ceremony was performed, and on the holy ring Gunlad
took to Odin the oath of faithfulness (str. 110).


It would have been best for the Asa-father if the banquet had ended
here, and the bridegroom and the bride had been permitted to betake
themselves to the bridal chamber. But the jolly feast is continued and
the horns are frequently filled and emptied. Havamal does not state that
the part played by Odin required him to be continually drinking; but we
shall show that Gunlad's wooer was the champion drinker of all
mythology, and in the sagas he has many epithets referring to this
quality. Odin became on his own confession "drunk, very drunk, at
Fjalar's ". "The hem of forgetfulness which steals one's wit and
understanding hovers over his drink" (str. 13, 15).


In this condition he let drop words which were not those of
caution'words which sowed the seed of suspicion in the minds of some of
his hearers who were less drunk. He dropped words which were not spelt
with letters of intelligence and good sense'words which did not suit the
part he was playing.


At last the banquet comes to an end, and the bridegroom is permitted to
be alone with the bride in that rocky ball which is their bed-chamber.
There is no doubt that Odin won Gunlad's heart, "the heart of that good
woman whom I took in my embrace" (str. 108). With her help he sees his
purpose attained and the mead in his possession. But the suspicions
which his reckless words had sown bear fruit in the night, and things
happen which Havamal does not give a full account of, but of a kind
which would have prevented Odin from getting out of the giant-gard, had
he not had Gunlad's assistance (str. 108). Odin was obliged to fight and
rob Gunlad of' a kinsman (str. 110'hann let graetta Gunnlodu; see Rich.,
p. 17). Taking the supply of mead with him, he takes flight by the way
Rate bad opened for him'a dangerous way, for "above and below me were
the paths of the giants" (str. 106).


It seems to have been the custom that the wedding guests on the morning
of the next day went to the door of the bridal-chamber to hear how the
newly-married man was getting on in his new capacity 'of husband.
According to Havamal, Suttung's guests, the rimthurses, observe this
custom; but the events of the night change their inquiries into the
question whether Odin had succeeded in escaping to the gods or had been
slain by Suttung (str. 109, 110).


Thus far Havamal. We must now examine Grimnersmal. (150) and
Ynglingatal (15), whose connection with the myth concerning Odin's
exploit in the home of Suttung-Fjalar has not hitherto been noticed.


Odin says in Grimnersmal


Sviţarr oc Sviţrir er ec hel at Sauccmimis oc dulţa ec ţann inn aldna
iotun, ţa er ec Miţviţnis varc ins maera burar ordinn einbani.


"Svidur and Svidrir I was called at Sokmimer's, and I presented myself
to the ancient giant, at the time when I alone became the slayer of
Midvitnir's famous son."


Ynglingatal (15) reads:


En Dagskjarr Durnis nidja salvordudr Svegdi velti, ţa er i stein hinn
stórgedi Dulsa konr ept dvergi hljóp ok sal bjartr deirra Sokkmimis
jotunbyggdr vid jofri gein.


"The day-shy hall-guard of Durnir's descendants deceived Svegdir when
he, the dauntless son of Dulsi, ran after the dwarf into the rock, and
when the shining giant-inhabited hall of Sokkmimir's kinsmen yawned
against the chief." (In regard to Dulsi, see No. 83.)


What attracts attention in a comparison of these two strophes is that
the epithet Sokkmimir is common to both of them, while this name does
not occur elsewhere in the whole Old Norse literature.


In both the strophes Sokkmimir is a giant. Grimnersmal calls him inn
aldna iotun, "the ancient giant," with which we may compare Odin's words
in Havamal (104): enn aldna iotun ec sotta, "the ancient giant I
sought," when lie visited that giant-chief, to whose clan
Suttung-Fjalar, the possessor of the skald-mead, belonged.


In both the strophes the giant Sokkmimir is the lord and chief of those
giants to whom, according to Grimnersmal, Odin comes, and outside of
whose hall-door, according to Ynglingatal, a certain Svegir is deceived
by the ward of the hall. This position of Sokkmimir in relation to his
surroundings already appears, so far as Grimnersmal is concerned, from
the expression at Sauccmimis, which means not only "with Sokmimer," but
also "at Sokmimer's," that is to say, with that group of kinsmen and in
that abode where Sokmimer is chief and ruler. It is with this
giant-chief, and in his rocky hail, that Midvitnir and his son sojourns
when Odin visits him, presents himself to him, and by the name Svidur
(Svidrir) acts the part of another person, and in this connection causes
Midvitner's death. The same quality of Sokmimer as clan-chief and lord
appears in the Ynglingatal strophe, in the form that the hall, outside
of whose door Svegder was deceived, is ţeirra Sökkmimis, that is to say,
is the abode of Sokmimer's kinsmen and household, "is their giant-home
". Thus all the giants who dwell there take their clan-name from Sokmimer.


The appellation Sökkmimir is manifestly not a name in the strictest
sense, but one of the epithets by which this ancient giant-chief could
be recognised in connection with mythological circumstances. We shall
point out these mythological circumstances further on.


The Ynglingatal strophe gives us, in fact, another epithet for the same
mythic person. What the latter half of the strophe calls the hall of
Sokmimer's kinsmen and household, the former half of the same strophe
calls the hall of Durnir's descendants. Thus Sokmimer and Durnir' are
the same person.


Durnir, on the other hand, is a variation of Durinn (cp. the parallel
variations Dvalnir and Dvalinn). Of Durinn we already know (see No. 53)
that he is one of the ancient beings of mythology who in time's morning,
together with Modsognir-Mimir and in accordance with the resolve of the
high-holy powers, created clans of artists. One of the artists created
by Dunn, and whose father he in this sense became, is, according to
Völuspa (11), Mjödvitnir. Rask and Egilsson have for philological
reasons assumed that Midvitnir and Mjödvitnir are variations of the same
name, and designate the same person (mjödr, in the dative midi). It here
appears that the facts confirm this assumption. Durinn and Mjödvitnir in
Völuspa correspond to Durnir and Midvitnir in the strophes concerning
Sökkmimir.


Mjödvitnir means the mead-wolf, he who captured the mead celebrated in
mythology. As Odin, having assumed the name of another, visits the abode
of the descendants of Durner-Sokmimer, he accordingly visits that rocky
home, where that giant dwells who has secured and possesses the mead
desired by Odin.


Ynglingatal reports, as we have seen, that a certain Svegdir was
deceived, when Ire was outside of the door of the hall of the kinsmen of
Durner-Sokmimer. He who deceived him was the doorkeeper of the hall. The
door appeared to be already open, and the "giant-inhabited" hall
"yawned" festively illuminated (bjartr) toward Svegder. If we may
believe Ynglingatal's commentary on the strophe, the hall-ward had
called to him and said that Odin was inside. The strophe represents
Svegder as running after the hall-ward, that is to say, toward the door
in the rock, eager to get in. What afterwards happened Ynglingatal does
not state; but that Svegder did not gain the point he desired, but fell
into some snare laid by the doorkeeper, follows from the expression that
he was deceived by him, and that this caused his death follows from the
fact that the purpose of the strophe is to tell how his life ended.
Ynglingasaga says that he got into the rock, but never out of it. The
rest that this saga has to say of Svegder' that he was on a journey to
the old Asgard in "Tyrkland," to find "Odin the old," Gylfaginninig's
King Priam'has nothing to do with the mythology and with Ynglingatal,
but is of course important in regard to the Euhemeristic hypothesis in
regard to the descent of the Asas from Tyrkland (Troy), on which the
author of Ynglingatal, like that of Gylfaginning, bases his work.


The variations Svegdir, Svigdir, and Sveigdir are used interchangeably
in regard to the same person (cp. Ynglingatal, 14, 15; Fornald., ii. 2;
Fornm., 1. 29; and Egilsson, 796, 801). Svigdir seems to be the oldest
of these forms. The words means the great drinker (Egilsson, 801).
Svigdir was one of the most popular heroes of mythology (see the
treatise on the "Ivalde race"), and was already in heathen times
regarded as a race-hero of the Swedes. In Ynglingatal (14) Svithiod is
called geiri Svigdis, "Svigder's domain". At the same time, Svegir is an
epithet of Odin. But it should be borne in mind that several of the
names by which Odin is designated belong to him only in a secondary and
transferred sense, and he has assumed them on occasions when he did not
want to be recognised, and wanted to represent some one else (cp.
Grimnersm., 49) whose name he then assumed.


When Odin visits the abode of Durinn-Sokkmimir, where the precious mead
is preserved, he calls himself, according to Grimnersmal, Svidurr,
Svidrir. Now it is the case with this name as with Svigir, that it was
connected with Svithiod. Skaldskaparmal (65) says that Sviţiod var
kallat af nafni Svidurs, "Svithiod was named after the name of Svidur".


Hence (1) the name Svidurr, like Svegdir-Svigdir, belongs to Odin, but
only in a secondary sense, as one assumed or borrowed from another
person; (2) Svidurr, like Svegdir-Svigdir, was originally a mythic
person, whonn tradition connected as a race hero with Svithiod.


From all this it appears that the names, facts, and the chain of events
connect partly the strophes of Grimnersmal and Ynglingatal with each
other, and partly both of these with Havamal's account of Odin's
adventure to secure the niead, and this connection furnishes indubitable
evidence that they concern the same episode in the mythological epic.


In the mythic fragments handed down to our time are found other
epithets, which, like Svigdir, refer to sonic mythical person who played
the part of a champion drinker, and was connected with the myth
concerning mead and brewing. These epithets am'e Olvaldi, Olmódr, and
Sumbl finnakonungr, Sumblus phinnorum rex in Saxo. Sumbl, as a common
noun, means ale, feast. In the "Finn-king" Sumbl these ideas are
personified, just as the somadrink in the Veda songs is personified in
King Soma. In nay treatise on the Ivalde race, I shall revert to the
person who had these epithets, in order to make his mythological
position clear. Here I shall simply point out the following: Havamal
(110) makes one of the rimthurses, Suttung's guests, say:


Baugeiţ Odinn hygg ec at unnit hafi; hvat seal hans trygdom trua'
Suttung svikinn han let sumbli fra oc grćtta Gunnlaudo.


The strophe makes the one who says this blanie Odin for breaking the
oath he took on the ring, and thus showing himself unworthy of being
trusted in the promises and oaths he might give in the future, whereupon
it is stated that he left Suttung deceitfully robbed of sumbl (Sambl),
and Gunlad in tears over a lost kinsman.


The expression that Suttung was deceitfully robbed of sumbl, to be
intelligible, requires no other interpretation than the one which lies
near at hand, that Suttung was treacherously deprived of the mead. But
as the skald might have designated the drink lost by Suttung in a more
definite manner than with the word sumbl, and as he still chose this
word, which to his hearers, familiar with the mythology, must have
called to mind the personal Sumbl (Olvaldi Svigdir), it is not only
possible, but, as it seems to me, even probable, that he purposely chose
an ambiguous word, and wanted thereby to refer at the same time to the
deceitfully captured mead, and to the intended son-in-law deceitfully
lost; and this seems to me to be corroborated by the juxtaposition of
Suttung's and Gunlad's loss. The common noun sumbl's double meaning as
mead and "drink-feast" has also led M. B. Richert (page 14 in his
treatise mentioned above) to assume that "the expression was purposely
chosen in such a manner that the meaning should not be entirely limited
and definite," and he adds: "A similar indefiniteness of statement,
which may give rise to ambiguity and play of words, is frequently found
in the old songs". Meanwhile, I do not include this probability in my
evidence, and do not present it as the basis of any conclusions.


The name Suttung shows in its very form that it is a patronymic, and
although we can furnish no linguistic evidence that the original form
was Surtungr and characterised its possessor as son of Surtr, still
there are other facts which prove that such was actually the case. The
very circumstance that the skaldic drink which came into Suttung's
possession is paraphrased with the expression sylgr Surt's ćttar, "the
drink of Surt's race" (Fornmanna, iii. 3), points that way, and the
question is settled completely by the half-strophe quoted in the Younger
Edda (i. 242), and composed by Eyvind Skaldaspiller, where the skaldic
potion is called'


hinn er Surts or sokkdolum farmagnudr fljugandi bar.


(" the drink, which Odin flying bore from Surt's deep dales ").


When Odin had come safely out of Fjalar-Suttung's deep rocky halls,
and, on eagle-pinions, was flying with the precious mead to Asgard, it
was accordingly that deep, in which Surtr dwells, which lie left below
him, and the giant race who had been drinking the macad before that
time, while it was still in Suttung's possession, was Surt's race. From
this it follows that "the ancient giant," whom Odin visited for the
purpose of robbing his circle of kinsmen of the skaldic mead, is none
other than that being so well known in the mythology, Surtr, and that
Surir is identical with Durinn (Durnir), and Sokkmimir.


This also explains the epithet Sokkmimir, "the Mimir of the deep ".
Sokk- in Sokk-Mimir refers to Sokk in Sokkdalir, Surt's domain, and that
Surt could be associated with Mimir is, from the standpoint of Old Norse
poetics, perfectly justifiable from the fact that he appears in times
morning as a co-worker with Mimir, and operating with him as one of the
forces of creation in the service of the oldest high-holy powers (see
No. 53). Consequently Mimir and Sokmimer (Surtr-Durinn) created the
clans of artists.


Surtr, Durinn, Durnir, Sokkmimir, are, therefore, synonyms, and
designate the same person. He has a son who is designated by the
synonyms Suttungr, Fjalarr, Mjödvitnir (Midvitnir). Suttung has a son
slain by Odin, when the latter robs him of the mead of inspiration, and
a daughter, Gunlad. The giant maid, deceived and deplored by Odin, is
consequently the daughter of Surt's son.


Light is thus shed on the myth concerning the giant who reappears in
Ragnarok, and there wields the sword which fells Frey and hurls the
flames which consume the world. It is found to be connected with the
myth concerning the oldest events of mythology. In time's morning we
find the fire-being Surt'the representative of subterranean fire'as a
creative force by the side of Mimir, who is a friend of the gods, and
whose kinsman he must be as a descendant of Yimir. Both work together in
peace for similar purposes and under the direction of the gods (Voluspa,
9, 10). But then something occurs which interrupts the amicable
relations. Mimir and Surt no longer work together. The fountain of
creative force, the mead of wisdom and inspiration, is in the exclusive
possession of Mimir, and he and Urd are together the ruling powers in
the lower world. The fire-giant, the primeval artist, is then with his
race relegated to the "deep dales," situated to the southward (Voluspa,
52), difficult of access, and dangerous for the gods to visit, and
presumably conceived as located deeper down than the lower world
governed by Mimir and Urd. That he tried to get possession of a part of
"Odraerir" follows from the position he afterwards occupies in the myth
concerning the mead. When daylight again falls on him from the mythic
fragments extant, his son has captured and is in possession of a supply
of mead, which must originally have come from Mimir's fountain, and been
chiefly composed of its liquid, for it is skaldic mend, it too, and can
also be designated as Odraerir (Havamal, 107), while the son is called
"the mend-wolf," the one who has robbed and conceals the precious drink.
Odin captures his mend by cunning, the grandson of the fire-giant is
slain, the devoted love of the son's daughter is betrayed, and the
husband selected for her is deceived and removed. All this, though done
for purposes to benefit gods and men, demands and receives in the
mythology its terrible retribution. It is a trait peculiar to the whole
Teutonic mythology that evil deeds, with a good purpose, even when the
object is attained, produce evil results, which develop and finally
smother the fruits of the good purpose. Thus Surt has a reason for
appearing in Ragnarok as the annihilator of the world of the Asas, when
the latter is to make room for a realm of justice. The flames of revenge
are hurled upon creation.


I have already above (No. 87) had occasion to speak of the choicest
sword of mythology, the one which Volund smithied and Mimir captured,
and which was fetched from the lower world by a hero whose name Saxo
Latinised into Hotherus. In my treatise on "the Ivalde race" it shall be
demonstrated who this Hotherus was in mythology, and that the sword was
delivered by him to Frey. Lokasenna (42; cp. Gylfag., 37), informs us
that the lovesick Frey gave the sword to the giant Gymer for his bride.
After coming into the hands of the giants it is preserved and watched
over until Ragnarok by Eggţer (an epithet meaning sword-watcher), who in
the Ironwood is the shepherd of the monster herd of Loki's progeny,
which in the last days shall harry the world and fight in Ragnarok
(Voluspa, 39-41). When Ragnarok is at hand a giant comes to this
sword-watcher in the guise of the red cock, the symbol of the
destructive fire. This giant is Fjalar (Voluspa, 41), and that the
purpose of his visit is to secure the sword follows from the fact that
the best sword of mythology is shortly afterwards in the hands of his
father Surt (Voluspa, 50) when the latter comes from the south with his
band (the sons of Suttung, not of Muspel) to take part in the last
conflict and destroy with fire that part of the world that can be
destroyed. Frey is slain by the sword which was once his own.


In this manner the myth about the mead and that about the Volund sword
are knit together.


Thor, too, ventured to visit Fjalar's abode. In regard to this visit we
have a few words in strophe 26 of Harbardsljod. Harbardr accuses Thor,
no doubt unjustly, of having exhibited fear. Of this matter we have no
reliable details in the records from heathendom, but a comparison of the
above strophe of Harbardsljod with Gylfaginning shows that the account
compiled in Gylfaginning from various mythic fragments concerning Thor's
journey to Utgarda-Loki and his adventures there contains reminiscences
of what the original myths have had to say about his experiences on his
expedition to Fjalar's. The fire-giant natures of Surt and of his son
Fjalar gleam forth in the narrative: the ruler of Utgard can produce
earthquakes, and Loge (the flame) is his servant. It is also doubtlessly
correct, from a mythical standpoint, that he is represented as
exceedingly skilful in "deluding," in giving things the appearance of
something else than they really are (see No. 39). When Odin assumed the
guise of Fjalar's son-in-law, he defeated Surt's race with their own
weapons.


Eyvind Skaldaspiller states, as we have seen, that Surt's abode is in
dales down in the deep. From an expression in Ynglingasaga's strophe we
must draw the conclusion that its author, in harmony herewith, conceived
the abyss where Surt's race dwelt as regions to which the light of day
never comes. Sokmimer's doorkeeper, one of whose tasks it was to take
notice of the wayfarers who approached, is a day-shy dwarf (dagskjarr
salvordudr; in regard to dwarfs that shun the light of day, see
Alvissmal). Darkness therefore broods over this region, but in the abode
of the fire-giant it is light (the hall is bjartr).


I now return to the episodes in the mead-myth under discussion to
recapitulate in brief the proofs and results. If we for a moment should
assume that the main source, namely, the Havamal strophes, together with
Eyvind's half strophe, were host, and that the only remaining evidences
were Grimnersmal (50) and Ynglingatal (15), together with the prose text
in Ynglingasaga, then an analysis of these would lead to the following
result:


(1) Grimnersmal (50) and Ynglingatal (15) should be comupared with each
other. The reasons for assuming them to be intrinsically connected are
the following:


(a) Both contain the epithet Sokkmimir, which occurs nowhere else.


(b) Both describe a primeval giant, who is designated by this epithet
as chief and lord of a giant race gathered around him.


(c) Both refer the events described to the same locality: the one tells
what occurred in the halls of Sokkmimir; the other narrates an episode
which occurred outside of the door of Sokmimer's giant abode.


(d) The one shows that Sokmimer is identical with Durnir (Durin); the
other mentions Midvitnir as one of Sokmimer's subjects. Midvitnir
(Mjodvitnir), according to Voluspa, was created by Durinn.


(e) Both describe events occurring while Odin is inside at Sokmimer's.


(f) The one mentions Svidurr, the other Svegdir. Mythologically, the
two names refer to each other.


(2) To the giant group which Odin visits in the abode of Sokkmimir
belongs the giant who captured the famous mead which Odin is anxious to
secure. This appears from the epithet which the author of the
Grimnersmal strophe chose in order to designate him in such a manner
that he could be recognised, namely, Midvitnir, "the mend-wolf," an
epithet which explains why the mead-thirsty Odin made his journey to
this race hostile to the gods.


(3) That Odin did not venture, or did not think it desirable in
connection with the purpose of his visit, to appear in his own name and
in a guise easily recognised, is evident from the fact that he
"disguised" himself, "acted the hypocrite" (dulda), in the presence of
the giant, and appeared as another mythic person, Svidurr.


This mythic person has been handed down in the traditions as the one
who gave the name to Svithiod, and as a race-hero of the Swedes. Sviţiód
var kallat af nafni Svidurs.


(4) While Odin, in the guise of this race-hero, plays his part in the
mountain in the abode of Sokmimer, a person arrives at the entrance of
the halls of this giant. This person, Svegdir (Svigdir), is in the sagas
called the race-hero of the Swedes, and after him they have called
Svithiod geiri Svigdis. Odin, who acted Svidurr's part, has also been
called Svigdir, Svegdir.


Svigdir is an epithet, and means "the champion drinker" (Anglo-Saxon
swig: to drink deep draughts). "The champion drinker" is accordingly on
his way to the "Mead-wolf," while Odin is in his abode. All goes to show
that the event belongs to the domain of the mead-myth.


Accordingly, the situation is this: A pretended race-hero and namer of
Svithiod is inn the abode of Sokmimer, while a person who, from a
mythological standpoint, is the real race-hero and namer of Svithiod is
on his way to Sokmimer's abode and about to enter. The myth could not
have conceived the matter in this way, unless the pretended race-hero
was believed to act the part of the real one. The arrival of the real
one makes Odin's position, which was already full of peril, still more
dangerous, and threatens him with discovery and its consequences.


(5) If Odin appeared in the part of a "champion drinker," he was
compelled to drink much in Sokmimer's halls in order to maintain his
part, and this, too, must have added to the danger of his position.


(6) Still the prudent Asa-father seems to have observed some degree of
caution, in order that his plans might not be frustrated by the real
Svigdir. That which happens gives the strongest support to this
supposition, which in itself is very probable. Sokmimer's doorkeeper
keeps watch in the darkness outside. When lie discovers the approach of
Svigdir, he goes to meet him and informs him that Odin is inside.
Consequently the doorkeeper knows that Svidurr is Odin, who is unknown
to all those within excepting to Odin himself. This and what follows
seems to show positively that the wise Odin and the cunning dwarf act
upon a settled plan. It may be delusion or reality, but Svigdir sees the
mountain door open to the illuminated giant-hall, and the information
that Odin is within (the dwarf may or may not have added that Odin
pretends to be Svigir) causes him, the "proud one," "of noble race," the
kinsman of Dulsi (epithet of Mundilfore, see No. 83), to rush with all
his might after the dwarf against the real or apparent door, and the
result is that the dwarf' succeeded in "deceiving" him (he velti
Svegder), so that he never more was seen.


This is what we learn from the strophes in Grimnersmal and Ynglingatal,
with the prose text of the latter. If we now compare this with what
Havamál and Eyvind relate, we get the following parallels:


 

Havamál and Eyvind


1. Odin visits inn aldna iotun (Surtr and his race).


2. Odin's purpose is to deceive the old giant. In his abode is found a
kinsman, who is in possession of the skaldic mead (Suttung-Fjalar).


3. Odin appears in the guise of Gunlad's wooer, who, if he is named, is
called Sumbl (sumbl = a drink, a feast).


4. Odin became drunk.


5. A catastrophe occurs causing Gunnlöd to bewail the death of a kinsman.


	

 

The Strophes about Sokkmimir


1. Odin visits inn aldna iotun (Sokkmirnir and his race).


2. Odin's purpose is to deceive the old giant. In his abode is found a
kinsman who is in possession of the skaldic mead (Midvitnir).


3. Odin appears as SvidurrSvigdir. Svigir means the champion drinker.


4. Odin must have drunk much, since he appears among the giants as one
acting the part of a " champion drinker ".


5. A catastrophe occurs causing Odin to slay Midvitnir's son.


To this is finally to be added that Eyvind's statement, that the event
occurred in Surt's Sokkdalir, helps to throw light on Surt's epithet
Sokkmimir, and particularly that Ynglingatal's account of the arrival
and fate of the real Svegder fills a gap in Havamal's narrative, and
shows how Odin, appearing in the guise of another person who was
expected, could do so without fear of being surprised by the latter.


NOTE.'The account in the Younger Edda about Odin's visit to Suttung
seems to be based on some satire produced long after the introduction of
Christianity. With a free use of the confused mythic traditions then
extant, and without paying any heed to Havamal's statement, this satire
was produced to show in a semiallegorical way how good and bad poetry
originated. The author of this satire either did not know or did not
care about the fact that Havamal identifies Suttung and Fjalar. To him
they are different persons, of whom the one receives the skaldic mead as
a ransom from the other. While in Havamál the rimthurses give Odin the
name Bolverkr, "the evil-doer," and this very properly from their
standpoint, the Younger Edda makes Odin give himself this name when lie
is to appear incognito, though such a name was not calculated to inspire
confidence. While in Havamal Odin, in the guise of another, enters
Suttung's halls, is conducted to a golden high-seat, and takes a lively
part in the banquet and in the conversation, the Younger Edda makes him
steal into the mountain through a small gimlet-hole and get down into
Gunlad's chamber in this manner, where he remains the whole time without
seeing anyone else of the people living there, and where, with Gunlad's
consent, he empties to the bottom the giant's three meadvessels,
Odrćrir, Bodn, and Són. These three names belong, as we have seen, in
the real mythology to the three subterranean fountains which nourish the
roots of the world-tree. Havamal contents itself with using a
poetic-rhetorical phrase and calling the skaldic mead, captured by Odin,
Odrćrir, "the giver of inspiration," "the inspiring nectar ". The author
of the satire avails himself of this reason for using the names of the
two other fountains Bodn and Són, and for applying them to two other
"vessels and kettles" in which Suttung is said to have kept the mead.
That he called one of the vessels a kettle is explained by the fact that
the third lower world fountain is Hvergelmir, "the roaring kettle ". In
order that Odin and Gunlad may be able to discuss and resolve in perfect
secrecy in regard to the mead, Odin must come secretly down into the
mountain, hence the satire makes him use the bored hole to get in. From
the whole description in Havamal, it appears, on the contrary, that Odin
entered the giant's hall in the usual manner through the door, while he
avails himself of the tunnel made by Rate to get out. Havamal first
states that Odin seeks the giant, and then tells how he enters into
conversation and develops his eloquence in Suttung's halls, and how,
while he sits in the golden high-seat (probably opposite the host, as
Richter has assumed), Gunlad hands him the precious mead. Then is
nuentioned for the first time the way made for him by Rate, and this on
the one band in connection with the "evil compensation" Gunlad received
from him, she the loving and devoted woman whom he had embraced, and on
the other hand in connection with the fact that his flight from the
mountain was successful, so that he could take the mead with him though
his life was in danger, and there were giants' ways both above and below
that secret path by which he escaped. That Odin took the oath of
faithfulness on the holy ring, that there was a regular wedding feast
with the questions on the next morning in regard to the well-being of
the newly-married couple'all this the satire does not mention) nor does
its premises permit it to do so.


90.


THE MEAD-MYTH (continued). THE MOON AND THE MEAD. PROOFS THAT NANNA'S
FATHER IS THE WARD OF THE ATMOSPHERE AND GOD OF THE MOON.


Before the skaldic mead came into the possession of SuttungFjalar, it
had passed through various adventures. In one of these enters Máni, the
god of the moon, who by the names Nokkvi (variation Nokkver), Nefr
(variation Nepr), and Gevarr (Gaevarr) occupies a very conspicuons
position in our mythology, not least in the capacity of Nanna's father.


I shall here present tine proofs which lie near at hand, and can be
furnished without entering into too elaborate investigations, that the
moon-god and Nanna's father are identical, and this will give me an
opportunity of referring to that episode of the mead-myth, in which he
appears as one of the actors.


The identity of Nokkvi, Nefr, and Gevarr appears from the following
passages:


(1) Hyndluljod, 20: "Nanna was, in the next place, Nokkvi's daughter"
(Nanna var naest ţar Nauckua dottir).


(2) Gylfaginning, 32: "The son of Balder and of Nanna, daughter of Nef,
was called Forsete " (Forseti heiter sonr Baldrs ok Nönnu Nefsdóttur').
Gylfaginning, 49: "His (Balder's) wife Nanna, daughter of Nef" (Kona
hans Nanna Nefsdottir).


(3) Saxo, Hist. Dan., iii.: "Gevarr's daughter Nanna" (Gevari filia
Nanna). That Saxo means the mythological Nanna follows from the fact
that Balder appears in the story as her wooer. That the Norse form of
the name, which Saxo Latinised into Gevarus, was Gevarr, not Gefr, as a
prominent linguist has assumed, follows from the rules adopted by Saxo
in Latinising Norse names.


NOTE.'Names of the class to which Gefr would belong, providing such a
name existed, would be Latinised in the following manner:


(a) Askr Ascerus, Baldr Balderus, Geldr Gelderus, Glaumr Glomerus,
Hodr, Hadr, Odr, Hotherus, Hatherus, Hotherus, Svipdagr Svipdagerus,
Ullr Ollerus, Yggr Uggerus, Vigr Vigerus.


(b) Asmundr Asmundus, Amundr Amundus, Arngrimr Amgrimus, Bildr Bildus,
Knutr Canutus, Fridleifr Fridlevus, Gautrekr Gotricus, Gódmundr
Guthmundus, Haddingr Hadingus, Haraldr Haraldus.


Names ending in -arr are Latinised in the following manner:


(a) Borgarr Borcarus, Einarr Enarus, Gunnarr Gunnarus, Hjörvarr
Hjartvarus, Ingimarr Ingimarus, Ingvarr Ingvarus, Ismarr Ismarus, Ivarr
Ivarus, Ottarr Otharus, Rostarr Rostarus, Sigarr Sigarus, Sivarr
Sivarus, Valdimarr Valdemarus.


(b) Agnarr Agnerus, Ragnarr Regnerus.


With the ending -arus occurs also in a single instance a Norse name in
-i, namely, Eylimi Olimarus. Herewith we might perhaps include Liotarus,
the Norse form of which Saxo may have had in Ljóti from Ljótr. Otherwise
Ljótr is a single exception from the rules followed by Saxo, and
methodology forbids our building anything on a single exception, which
moreover is uncertain.


Some monosyllabic names ending in -r are sometimes unlatinised, as Alf,
Ulf, Sten, Ring, Rolf, and sometimes Latinised with


-o, as Alvo, Ulvo, Steno, Ringo, Rolvo. Alfr is also found Latinised as
Alverus.


From the above lists of names it follows that Saxo's rules for
Latinising Norse names ending with the nominative -r after a consonant
were these:


(1) Monosyllabic names (seldom a dissyllabic one, as Svipdagr) are
Latinised with the ending -erus or the ending -o.


(2) Names of two or more syllables which do not end in -ar'r (rarely a
name of one syllable, as Bildr) are Latinised with the ending -us.


(3) Names ending in -arr are Latinised with -arus; in a few cases (and
then on account of the Danish pronunciation) with -erus.


From the above rules it follows (1) that Gefr, if such a name existed,
would have been Latinised by Saxo either into Geverus, Geferus, or into
Gevo, Gefo; (2) that Gevarr is the regular Norse for Gevarus.


The only possible meaning of the name Gevarr, considered as a common
noun is "the ward of the atmosphere" from ge (gae; see Younger Edda, ii.
486, and Egilsson, 227) and 'varr. I cite this definition not for the
purpose of drawing any conclusions therefrom, but simply because it
agrees with the result reached in another way.


The other name of Nanna's father is, as we have seen, Nokkvi, Nökkver.
This word means the ship-owner, ship-captain. If we compare these two
names, Gevarr and Nokkver, with each other, then it follows from the
comparison that Nanna's father was a mythic person who operated inn the
atmosphere or had some connection with certain phenomena in the air, and
particularly in connection with a phenomenon there of such a kind that
the mythic fancy could imagine a ship. The result of the comparison
should be examined in connection with a strophe by Thorbjorn Hornklofve,
which I shall now consider.


Thorbjorn was the court-skald of Harald Fairfax, and he described many
of the king's deeds and adventures. Harald had at one time caused to be
built for himself and his body-guard a large and stately ship, with a
beautiful figure-head in the form of a serpent. On board this ship he
was overtaken by a severe gale, which Hornklofve (Harald Harfager's
saga, ch. 9) describes in the following words:


Ut a mar maetir mannskaedr lagar tanna raesinadr til rausnar rak
vebrautar Nökkva


In prose order: Lagar tanna mannskaedr maetir ut a mar rak rausnar
raesnadr til Nokkva vebrautar (" The assalants of the skerry (the teeth
of the sea), dangerous to man, flung out upon tIne sea the splendid
serpent of the vessel's stem to the holy path of Nokve ").


All interpreters agree that by "the skerry's assailants, dangerous to
man," is meant the waves which are produced by the storm and rush
against the skerries in breakers dangerous to seamen. It is also evident
that Hornklofve wanted to depict the violence of the sea when be says
that the billows which rise to assail thie skerry tosses the ship, so
that the figure-head of the stein reaches "the holy path of Nokve ".
Poems of different literatures resemble each other in their descriptions
of a storm raging at sea. They make the billows rise to "the clouds," to
"the stars," or to "the moon ". Quanti montes volvuntur aquarum! Jam,
jam tacturos sidera suruma putes, Ovid sings (Trist., i. 18, 19) and
Virgil has it: Procella fluctus ad sidera tollit (Ćn., i. 107). One of
their brother skalds in the North, quoted in Skaldskaparmal (oh. 61),
depicts a storm with the following words:


Hraud i himin upp glódum hafs, gekk saer af afli, bor hygg ek at sky
skori, skaut Ránar vegr mána.


The skald makes the phosphorescence of the sea splash against heaven;
he makes the ship split the clouds, and the way of Ran, the giantess of
the sea, cut thie path of the moon.


The question now is, whether Hornklofve by "Nokve's holy path" did not
mean the path of the moon in space, and whether it is not to this path
the figure-head of the ship seems to pitch when it is lifted on high by
the towering billows. It is certain that this holy way toward which tIme
heaven-high billows lift the ship is situated in the atmosphere above
the sea, and that Nokve has been conceived as travelling this way in a
ship, since Nokve means the ship-captain. From this it follows that
Nokve's craft must have been a phenomenon in space resembling a ship
which was supposed to have its course marked out there. We must
therefore choose between the sun, the moon, and the stars; and as it is
the moon which, when it is not full, has the form of a ship sailing in
space, it is more probable that by Nokve's ship is meant the moon than
that any other celestial body is referred to.


This probability becomes a certainty by the following proofs. In
Sonatorrek (str. 2, 3) Egil Skallagrimson sings that when heavy sorrow
oppresses him (who has lost his favourite son) then the song does not
easily well forth from his breast:


ţagna fundr ţriggia nidja ár borinn or Jotunheimum, lastalauss er
lifnadi á Nokkvers nokkva Bragi.


The skaldic song is here compared with a fountain which does not easily
gush forth from a sorrowful heart, and the liquid of the fountain is
compared with the "Thrigge's kinsmen's find, the one kept secret, which
in times past was carried from Jotunheim into Nokve's ship, where Brage,
unharmed, refreshed himself (secured the vigour of life)".


It is plain that Egil here refers to a mythic event that formed aim
episode in the myth concerning the skaldic mead. Somewhere in Jotunheim
a fountain containing the same precious liquid as that in Mimir's well
has burst forth. The vein of the fountain was discovered by kinsmen of
Thrigge, but the precious find eagerly desired by all powers is kept
secret, presumably in order that they who made the discovery might enjoy
it undivided and in safety. But something happens which causes the
treasure which the fountain gave its discoverers to be carried from
Jotunheim to Nokve's ship, and there the drink is accessible to the
gods. It is especially mentioned that Brage, the god of poetry, is there
permitted to partake of it and thus refresh his powers.


Thus the ship of Nanna's father here reappears, and we learn that on
its holy way in space in bygone times it bore a supply of skaldic mead,
of which Brage in the days of his innocence drank the strength of life.


With this we must compare a mythic fragment preserved in Gylfaginning
(ch. 11). There a fountain called Byrgir is mentioned. Two children, a
lass by name Bil and a lad by name Hjuki, whose father was named
Vidfinnr, had come with a pail to this fountain to fetch water. The
allegory in which the tradition is incorporated calls the pail Saegr,
"the one seething over its brinks," amid calls the pole on which the
pail is carried Simul (according to one manuscript Sumul; cp. Suml,
brewing, ale, mead). Bil, one of the two children is put in connection
with the drink of poetry. The skalds pray that she may be gracious to
them. Ef unna itr vildi Bil skáldi, "if the noble Bil will favour the
skald," is a wish expressed in a strophe in the Younger Edda, ii. 363.
Byrgir is manifestly a fountain of the same kind as the one referred to
by Egil, and containing the skaldic mead. Byrgir's fountain must have
been kept secret, it must have been a "concealed find," for it is in the
night, whihe the moon is up, that Vidfin's children are engaged in
filling their pail from it. This is evident from the fact that Máni sees
the children. When they have filled the pail, they are about to depart,
presumably to their home, and to their father Vidfin. But they do not
get home. While they carry the pail with the pole on their shoulders
Mani takes them unto himself, and they remain with him, together with
their precious burden. From other mythic traditions which I shall
consider later (see the treatise on the Ivalde race), we learn that the
moon-god adopts them as his children, and Bil afterwards appears as an
asynje (Younger Edda, i. 118, 556).


If we now compare Egil's statements with the mythic fragment about Bil
and Hjuke, we find in both a fountain mentioned which contains the
liquid of inspiration found in Mimir's fountain, without being Mimir's
well-guarded or unapproachable "well ". In Egil the find is "kept secret
". In Gylfaginning the children visit it in the night. Egil says the
liquid was carried from Jotunheim; Gylfaginning says that Bil and Hjuke
carried it in a pail. Egil makes the liquid transferred from Jotunheim
to Nokve's ship; Gylfaginning makes the liquid and its bearer's be taken
aloft by the moon-god to the moon, where we still, says Gylfaginning,
can see Bil and Hjuke (in the moon-spots).


There can therefore be no doubt that Nokve's ship is the silvery craft
of tine moon, sailing in space over sea and land on a course marked out
for it, and that Nokve is the moon-god. As in Rigveda, so in the
Teutonic mythology, the ship of the moon was for a time tine place where
the liquid of inspiration, the life- and strength-giving mead, was
concealed. The myth has ancient Aryan roots.


On the myth concerning the mead-carrying ship, to which the Asas come
to drink, rests the paraphrase for composing, for making a song, which
Einar Skalaglam once used (Skaldskaparmal, 1). To make songs lie calls
"to dip liquid out of Her-Tyr's wind-ship" (ausa Hertys víngnodar austr;
see further No. 121, about Odin's visit inn Nokve's ship).


The name Nefr (variation Nepr), tine third name of Nanna's father
mentioned above, occur's nowhere in the Norse sources excepting in the
Younger Edda. It is, however, undoubtedly correct that Nokve-Gevar was
also called Nef.


Among all the Teutonic myths there is scarcely one other with which so
many heroic songs composed in heathen times have been connected as with
the myth concerning the moon-god and his descendants. As shall be shown
further on, the Niflungs are descendants of Nef's adopted son Hjuke, and
they are originally named after their adopted race-progenitor .Nefr'. A
more correct and an older form is perhaps Hnefr and Hniflungar, and the
latter form is also found in the Icelandic literature. In Old English
the moon-god appears changed into a prehistoric king, Hnaf, also called
Hoce (see Beowulf, 2142, and Gleeman's Tale). Hoce is the same name as
the Norse Hjuki. Thins while Hnaf and Hoce are identical in the Old
English poem "Beowuif," we find in the Norse source that the lad taken
aloft by Mane is called by one of the names of his foster-father. In the
Norse account tine moon-god (Nefr) captures, as we have seen, the
children of one Vidfinnr, and at the same time he robs Vidfinnr of the
priceless mend of inspiration found in the fountain Byrgir. In the Old
English saga Hnaf has a son-in-law and vassal, whose name is Finn (Fin
Folcvalding), who becomes his bitterest foe, contends with him, is
conquered and pardoned, but attacks him again, and, in company with one
Gudere (Gunnr), burns him. According to Saxo, Nanna's father Gevarr has
the same fate. He is attacked by a vassal and burnt. The vassal is
called Guano (Gunnr, Gudere). Thus we have in the Old English tradition
the names Hnaf, Hoce, Fin, and Gudere; and in the Norse tradition the
corresponding names Nefr, Hjuki, Vifinnr', and Gunnr (Gunnar). The
relation of the moon-god (Nefr) to Vidfinnr is the mythological basis of
Fin's enmity to Hnaf. The burning is common to both the Old English and
the Noise sources. Later in this work I shall consider these
circumstances more minutely. What I have stated is sufficient to show
that the Old English tradition is in this point connected with the Norse
in a manner, which confirms Nefr- Gevarr"s identity with Mani, who takes
aloft Hjuki and robs Vidfinnr of the skaldic mead.


The tradition of Gevarr-Nefr's identity with Máni reappears in Iceland
once more as late as in Hromund Greipson's saga. There a person called
Mani Karl shows where the hero of the saga is to find the sword
Mistelteinn. In Saxo, Nanna's father Gevarr shows the before-mentioned
Hotherus where he is to find the weapon which is to slay Balder. Thus
Mani in Hromund's saga assumes the same position as Gevarr, Nanna's
father, occupies in Saxo's narrative.


All these circumstances form together a positive proof of the
moon-god's identity with Nanna's father. Further on, when the
investigation has prognessed to the proper point, we shall give reasons
for assuming that Vidfinnr of the Edda, the Fin of the English heroic
poem, is the same person whom we have heretofore mentioned by the name
Sumbl Finnakonungr and Svigdir, and that the myth concerning the taking
of the mend aloft to the moon accordingly has an epic connection with
the myth concerning Odin's visit to the giant Fjalar, amid concerning
the fate which then befel Nokve's slayer.


91.


THE MYTH CONCERNING THE MOON-GOD (continued).


The moon-god, like Nat, Dag, and Sol, is by birth and abode a
lower-world divinity. As such, he too had his importance in the Teutonic
eschatology. The god who on his journeys on "Nokve's holy way" serves
auldom at ártali (Vafthrudnersmal, 23) by measuring out to men tinie in
phases of the moon, in months, and in years has, in the mythology also,
received a certain influence in inflicting suffering and punishment on
sinners. He is lord of the heiptir', the Teutonic Erinnyes (see No. 75),
and keeps those limar (bundles of thorns) with which the former are
armed, amid in this capacity lie has borne the epithet Eylimi, which
reappears in the heroic songs in a nnanner which removes all doubt that
Nanna's father was originally meant. (See in Saxo and in Helge
Hjorvardson's saga. To the latter I shall return in the second part of
this work, and I shall there present evidence that the saga is based on
episodes taken from the Balder myth, and that Helge Hjorvardson is
himself an imitation of Balder). In his capacity of lord of the Heiptir
the moon-god is tine power to whom prayers are to be addressed by those
who desire to be spared froni those sufferings which the Heiptir
represent (Heiţtom seal mána qvedja'Havamál, 137). His quality as the
one who keeps the thorn-rods of the heiptir still survives in a great
part of the Teutonic world in the scattered traditions about " the man
in the moon," who carries bundles of thorns on his back (J. Grimm,
Myth., 680 ; see No. 123).


92


THE MOON-DIS NANNA. THE MERSEBURG FORMULA. BALDER'S NAME FALR.


Thus Nanna is the daughter of the ruler of the moon, of "the ward of
the atmosphere ". This alone indicates that she herself was
mythologically connected with the phenomena which pertain to her
father's domain of activity, and in all probability was a moon-dis
(goddess). This assumption is fully confirmed by a contribution to
Teutonic mythology rescued in Germany, the so-called Merseburg formula,
which begins as follows:

Phol ende Uodan
vuoron zi holza
du van demo Balderes
volon sin vous birenkit
thu, biguolon Sinhtgunt.
Sunna er'a svister,
thu biguolen Friia,
Volla era svister
thu biguolen. Uodan
so he wola conda.
 	Falr and Odin
went to the wood,
then was the foot sprained
on Balder's foal.
Then sang over him Sinhtgunt,
Sunna her sister,
then sang over him Frigg,
Fulla her sister;
then sang over him Odin
as best he could.


Of the names occurring in this strophe Uodan-Odin, Balder, Sunna
(synonym of Sol'Alvissm., 17; Younger Edda, 1. 472, 593), Friia-Frigg,
and Volla-Fulla are well known in the Icelandic mythic records. Only
Phol and Sinhtgunt are strangers to our mythologists, though Phol-Falr
surely ought not to be so.


In regard to the German form Phol, we find that it has by its side the
form Fal in German names of places connected with fountains. Jacob Grimm
has pointed out a "Pholes" fountain in Thuringia, a "Fals" fountain in
the Frankish Steigerwald, and in this connection a "Balder" well in
Reinphaltz. In the Danish popular traditions Balder's horse had the
ability to produce fountains by tramping on the ground, and Balder's
fountain in Seeland is said to have originnated in this manner (cp. P.
E. Muller on Saxo, Hist., 120). In Saxo, too, Balder gives rise to wells
(Victor Balderus, ut afflictum siti militem opportuni liquoris beneficio
recrearet, novos humi latices terram altius rimatus operuit'p. 120).


This very circumstance seems to indicate that Phol, Fal, was a common
epithet or surname of Balder in Germany, and it must be admitted that
this meaning must have appeared to the German mythologists to be
confirmed by the Merseburg formula; for in this way alone could it be
explained in a simple and natural manner, that Balder is not named in
the first line as Odin's companion, although he actually attends Odin,
and although the misfortune that befals "Balder's foal" is the chief
subject of the narrative, while Phol on the other hand is not mentioned
again in the whole formula, although he is named in the first line as
Odin's companion.


This simple and incontrovertible conclusion, that Phol amid Balder in
the Merseburg formula are identical is put beyond all doubt by a more
thorough examination of the Norse records. In these it is demonstrated
that the name Fair' was also known in the North as an epithet of Balder.


The first books of Saxo are based exclusively on the myths concerning
gods and heroes. There is not a single person, not a single name, which
Saxo did not borrow from the mythic traditions. Among them is also a
certain Fjallerus, who is mentioned in bk. i. 160. In the question in
regard to the Norse form which was Latinised into Fjallerus, we must
remember that Saxo writes Hjallus (Hist., pp. 371, 672) for Hjali (cp.
p. 370), and alternately (Colo, Collo, and Collerus (Hist., pp. 56, 136,
181), and that he uses the broken form Bjarbi for Barri (Hist., p. 250).
In accordance with this the Latin form Fjallerus must correspond to the
Norse Fair, and there is, in fact, in the whole Old Norse literature,
not a single name to be found corresponding to this excepting Falr, for
the name Fjalarr, the only other one to be thought of in this
connection, should, according to the rules followed by Saxo, be
Latinised into Fjallarus or Fjalarus, but not into Fjallerus.


Of this Fjallerus Saxo relates that he was banished by ann enemy, and
the report says that Fjallerus betook himself to the place which is
unknown to our populations, and which is called Odains-akr (quem ad
locum, cui Undensakre nomen est, nostris ignotum populis concessisse est
fama'p. 160).


The mythology mentions only a single person who by an enemy was
transferred to Odainsakr, and that is Balder. (Of Odainsakr and Balder's
abode there, see Nos. 44-53.)


The enemy who transfers Fair to the realm of immortality is, according
to Saxo, a son of Horvendillus, that is to say, a son of the
mythological Orvandill, Groa's husband and Svipdag's father (see Nos.
108, 109). Svipdag has already once before been mistaken by Saxo for
Hotherus (see No. 101). Hotherus is, again, the Latin form for Hodr.
Hence it is Balder's banishment by Hodr to the subterranean realms of
immortality of which we here read in Saxo where the latter speaks of
Fal's banishment to Oddinsakr by a son of Orvandel.


When Balder dies by a flaug hurled by Hodr he stands in the midst of a
rain of javelins. He is the centre of a mannhringr, where all throw or
shoot at him: sumir skjota a hann, sumir hoggva til, sumir berja grjóti
(Gylfaginning). In this lies the mythical explanation of the paraphrase
Fals rain, which occurs in the last strophe of a poem attributed to the
skald Gisle Surson. In Gisle's saga we read that he was banished on
account of manslaughter, but by the aid of his faithful wife he was able
for thirteen years to endure a life of persecutions and conflicts, until
he finally was surprised and fell by the weapons of his foes. Surrounded
by his assailants, he is said to have sung the strophe in question, inn
which he says that "the beloved, beautiful, brave Fulla of his hall,"
that is to say, his wife, "is to enquire fon' him, her friend," for
whose sake "Fal's rain" now "falls thick and fast," while "keen edges
bite him ". In a foregoing strophe Gisle has been compared with a
"Balder of the shield," and this shield-Balder now, as in the Balder of
the myth, is the focus of javelins and swords, while he, like Balder,
has a beautiful and faithful wife, who, like Nanna, is to take his death
to heart. If the name Nanna, as has beerr assumed by Vigfusson and
others, is connected with the verb nenna, and means "the brave one,"
then rekkilat Fulla, "the brave Fulla of Gisle's hall," is an all the
more appropriate reference to Nanna, since Fulla and she are intimately
connected in the mythology, and are described as the warmest of friends
(Gylfaginning). Briefly stated: in the poem Gisle is compared with
Balder, his wife with Nanna, his death with Balder's death, and the rain
of weapons by which he falls with Fal's rain.


In a strophe composed by Refr (Younger Edda, i. 240) the skald offers
thanks to Odin, the giver of the skaldic art. The Asa-father is here
called Fals hrannvala brautar fannar salar vaidi (" The ruler of the
hail of the drift of the way of the billow-falcons of Fal "). This long
paraphrase means, as has also been assumed by others, the ruler of
heaven. Thus heaven is designated as "the ball of the drift of the way
of the billow-falcons of Fal ". T he "drift" which belongs to heaven,
and not to the earth, is the cloud. The heavens are "the hall of the
cloud ". But in order that the word "drift" might be applied in this
manner it had to be united with an appropriate word, showing that the
heavens were meant. This is done by the adjective phrase "of the way of
the billow-falcons of Fal ". Standing alone, "the drift of the way of
the billow-falcons" could not possibly mean anything else than the
billow white with foam, since " billow-falcons" is a paraphrase for
ships, and the "way of the billow-falcons" is a paraphrase for the sea.
By adding the name Falr the meaning is changed from "sea" to " sky ". By
Fal's "billow-falcons" must therefore be meant objects whose course is
through the air, just as the course of the ships is on the sea, and
which traverse the drift of the sky, the cloud, just as the ships plough
through the drift of the sea, the white-crested billow. Such a
paraphrase could not possibly avoid drawing the fancy of the hearers and
readers to the atmosphere strewn with clouds and penetrated by sunbeams,
that is, to Odin's ball. Balder is a sun-god, as his myth, taken as a
whole, plainly shows, and as is manifested by his epithet: raudbrikar
rikr rćkir (see No. 53). Thus Fal, like Balder, is a divinity of the
sun, a being which sends the sunbeams down through the drifts of the
clouds. As be, furthermore, like Balder, stood in a rain of weapons
under circumstances sufficiently familiar for such a rain to be
recognised when designated as Fal's, and as be, finally, like Balder,
was sent by an opponent to the realm of immortality in the lower world,
then Falr and Balder must be identical.


Their identity is furthermore confirmed by the fact that Balder in
early Christian times was made a historical king of Westphalia. The
statement concerning this, taken from Anglo-Saxon or German sources, has
entered into the foreword to Gylfaginning. Nearly all lands and peoples
have, according to the belief of that time, received their names from
ancient chiefs. The Franks were said to be named after one Francio, the
East Goth after Ostrogotha, the Angles after Angul, Denmark after Dan,
&c. The name Phalia, Westphalia, was explained in the same manner, and
as Balder's nanie was Phol, Fal, this nanie of his gave rise to the name
of the country in question. For the same reason the German poem Biterolf
makes Balder (Paltram) into king ze Pulle. (Compare the local name
Pölde, which, according to J. Grimm, is found in old manuscripts written
Polidi and Pholidi.) In the one source Balder is made a king in Pholidi,
since Phol is a name of Balder, and in the other source he is for the
same reason made a king in Westphalia, since Phal is a variation of
Phol, and likewise designated Balder. "Biterolf" has preserved the
record of the fact that Balder was not only the stateliest hero to be
found, but also the most pure in morals, and a man much praised. Along
with Balder, Gylfaginning speaks of another son of Odin, Siggi, who is
said to have become a king in Frankland. The same reason for which
Fal-Balder was made a king in Westphalia also made the apocryphal Siggi
in question the progenitor of Frankian kings. The Frankian branch to
which the Merovingian kings belonged bore the name Sigambrians, and to
explain this name the son Siggi was given to Odin, and he was niade the
progenitor and eponym of the Sigambrians.


After this investigation which is to be continued more elaborately in
another volume, I now return to the Merseburg formula:


"Fal and Odin Went to the wood, Then the foot was sprained Of Balder's
foal".


With what here is said about Balder's steed, we must compare what Saxo
relates about Balder himself: Adeo in adversam corporis valetudinem
incidit, ut ni pedibus quidem, incedere posset (Hist., 120).


The misfortune which happened first to Balder and then to Balder's
horse must be counted aniong the warnings which foreboded the death of
the son of Odin. There are also other passages which indicate that
Balder's horse must have had a conspicuous signification in the
mythology, and the tradition concerning Balder as rider is preserved not
only in northern sources (Lokasenna, Gylfaginning), and in the Merseburg
formula, but also in the German poetry of the middle ages. That there
was some witchcraft connected with this misfortune which happened to
Balder's horse is evident from the fact that the magic songs sung by the
goddesses accompanying him availed nothing. According to the Norse
ancient records, the women particularly exercise the healing art of
witchcraft (compare Groa and Sigrdrifva), but still Odin has the
profoundest knowledge of the secrets of this art; he is galdrs
fadir(Veg., 3). And so Odin comes in this instance, and is successful
after the goddesses have tried in vain. We must fancy that the goddesses
make haste to render assistance in the order in which they ride in
relation to Balder, for the event would lose its seriousness if we
should conceive Odin as being very near to Balder from the beginning,
but postponing his activity in order to shine afterwards with all the
greater magic power, which nobody disputed.


The goddesses constitute two pairs of sisters: Sinhtgunt and her sister
Sunna, and Frigg and her sister Fulla. According to the Norse sources,
Frigg is Balder's mother. According to the same records, Fulla is always
near Frigg, enjoys her whole confidence, and wears a diadem as a token
of her high rank among the goddesses. An explanation of this is
furnished by the Merseburg formula, which informs us that Fulla is
Frigg's sister, and so a sister of Balder's mother. And as Odin is
Balder's father, we find in the Merseburg formula the Balder of the
Norse records, surrounded by the kindred assigned to him in these records.


Under such circumstances it would be strange, indeed, if. Sinhtgunt and
the sun-dis, Sunna, did not also belong to the kin of the sun-god,
Balder, as they not only take part in this excursion of the Balder
family, but are also described as those nearest to him, and as the first
who give him assistance.


The Norse records have given to Balder as wife Nanna, daughter of that
divinity which under Odin's supremacy is the ward of the atmosphere and
the owner of the moon-ship. If the continental Teutons in their
mythological conceptions also gave Balder a wife devoted and faithful as
Nanna, then it would be in the highest degree improbable that the
Merseburg formula should not let her be one of those who, as a
body-guard, attend Balder on his expedition to the forest. Besides Frigg
and Fulla, there are two goddesses who accompany Balder. One of them is
a sun-dis, as is evident from the name Sunna; the other, Sinhtgunt, is,
according to Bugge's discriminating interpretation of this epithet, the
dis "who night after night has to battle her way ". A goddess who is the
sister of the sun-dis, but who not in the daytime but in the night has
to battle on her journey across the sky, must be a goddess of the moon,
a moon-dis. This moon-goddess is the one who is nearest at hand to bring
assistance to Balder. Hence she can be none else than Nanna, who we know
is the daughter of the owner of the moonship. The fact that she has to
battle her way across the sky is explained by the Norse mythic
statement, according to which the wolf-giant Hate is greedy to capture
the moon, and finally secures it as his prey (Völuspa, Gylfaginning). In
the poem about Helge Hjorvardson, which is merely a free reproduction of
the materials in the Balder-myth (which shall be demonstrated in the
second part of this work), the giant Hate is conquered by the hero of
the poem, a Balder figure, whose wife is a dis, who, "white" herself,
has a shining horse (str. 25, 28), controls weather and harvests (str.
28), and makes nightly journeys on her steed, and "inspects the
harbours" (str. 25).


The name Nanna (from the verb nenna; cp. Vigfusson, Lex.) means "the
brave one ". With her husband she has fought the battles of light, and
in the Norse, as in the Teutonic, mythology, she was with all her
tenderness a heroine.


The Merseburg formula makes the sun-dis and the moon-dis sisters. The
Norse variation of the Teutonic myth has done the same. Vafthrudnersmal
and Gylfaginning (ch. 11) inform us that the divinities which govern the
chariots of the sun and moon were brother and sister, but from the
masculine form Máni Gylfaginning has drawn the false conclusion that the
one who governed the car of the moon was not a sister but a brother of
the sun. In the mythology a masculine divinity Máni was certainly known,
but lie was the father of the sun-dis and moon-dis, and identical with
GevarrNökkvi-Nefr, the owner of the moon-ship. The god Máni is the
father of the sun-dis for the same reason as Nat is the mother of Dag.


Vafthrudnersmal informs us that the father of the managers of the sun-
and moon-cars was called Mundilföri. We are already familiar with this
mythic personality (see Nos. 81-83) as the one who is appointed to
superintend the mechanism of the world, by whose Mondull the starry
firmament is revolved. It is not probable that the power governing the
motion of the stars is any other than the one who under Odin's supremacy
is ruler of the sun and moon, and ward of all the visible phenomena in
space, among which are also the stars. As, by comparison of the old
records, we have thus reached the conclusion that the managers of the
sun and moon are daughters of the ward of the atmosphere, and as we have
also learned that they are daughters of him who superintends the motion
of the constellations, we are unable to see anything but harmony in
these statements. Mundilfori and GevarrNokkvi-Nefr are the same person.


It should be added that the moon-goddess, like her father, could be
called Mani without there being any obstacle in the masculine form of
the word. The name of the goddess Skadi is also masculine in form, and
is inflected as a masculine noun (oblique case, , Skada'Younger Edda,
212, 268).


93.


COSMOGRAPHIC REVIEW.


In the preceding pages various scattered contributions have been made
to Teutonic cosmography, and particularly to the topography of the lower
world. It may not be out of the way to gather and complete these fragments.


The world-tree's three roots, which divide themselves in the lower
world and penetrate through the three lower-world fountains into the
foundations of the world-structure and hold it together, stand in a
direction from north to south'the northernmost over the Hvergelmer
fountain, with its cold waters; the middle one over Mimir's well, which
is the fountain of spiritual forces; and the third over Urd's well,
whose liquids give warmth to Ygdrasil (see No. 63).


In a north and south direction stands likewise the bridge Bifrost, also
called Bilrost, Asbru (Grimnersmal, 29), and in a bold paraphrase,
hitherto not understood, ţiodvitnis fiscr, " the fish of the folk-wolf
". The paraphrase occurs in Grimnersmal (21) in its description of
Valhal and other abodes of the gods:


ţytr ţund, unir ţiódvitnis fiscr flódi i arstraumr ţickir ofmicil
valglaumi. at vaţa.


"Thund (the air-river) roars. The fish of the folk-wolf stands secure
in the stream. To the noisy crowd of sword-fallen men the current seems
too strong to wade through."


It has already been shown (No. 65) that those fallen by the sword ride
with their psychopomps on Bifrost up to Valhal, and do not proceed
thither through space, but have a solid foundation for the hoofs of
their steeds. Here, as in Fafnersmal (15), the air is compared with a
river, in which the horses are compelled to wade or swim if the bridge
leading to Asgard is not used, and the current in this roaring stream is
said to be very strong; while, on the other hand, "the fish's stands
safe and inviting therein. That the author of Grimnersmal called the
bridge a fish must seem strange, but has its natural explanation in
Icelandic usage, which called every bridge-end or bridge-head a spordr,
that is, a fish-tail. Compare Sigrdrifumal (16), which informs us that
runes were risted on "the fish-tail" of the great mythic bridge (a bruar
spori), and the expression bruarsporadr (bridge-head, bridge-" fish-tail
") in Nj ala (246) and Biskupa. s. (1, 17). As a bridge-pier could be
called a fish-tail, it was perfectly logical for the poem to make the
bridge a fish. On the zenith of the bridge stands Valhal, that secures
those fallen in battle, and whose entrance is decorated with images of
the wolf and of the eagle (Grimnersmal, 10), animals that satisfy their
hunger on the field of battle. This explains why the fish is called that
of the folk-wolf or great wolf. The meaning of the paraphrase is simply
"the Valhal bridge ". That the bow of Bifrost stands north and south
follows from the fact that the gods pass over one end of the bridge on
their way to Urd's fountain, situated in the south of the lower world,
while the other end is outside of Nifelhel, situated in the north. From
the south the gods comae to their judgment-seats in the realm of the dis
of fate and death. From the north came, according to Vegtamskvida, Odin
when he rode through Nifelhel to that hall which awaited Balder. Why the
Asafather on that occasion chose that route Vegtamskvida does not inform
us. But from Saxo (Hisi. Dan., 126), who knew an old heathen song about
Odin's visit in the lower world on account of Balder's death, we get
light on this point. According to this song  it was Rostiophus
Phinnicus who told Odin that a son of the latter and Rind was to avenge
Balder's death. Rostiophus is, as P. E. Muller has already remarked, the
rimthurs Hrossţiófr mentioned in Hyndluljod as as on of Hrimnir and
brother of the sorceress Heir, the vala and witch well known from
Völuspa and other sources. Nifelhel is, as shown above (No. 60), the
abode of the rimthurses transferred to the lower world. Where his father
Hrimnir (Bergelmer) and his progenitor Hrimgrimnir (Thrudgelmer) dwell
in the thurs-hall mentioned in Skirnersmal, there we also find
Hrossţiofr, and Odin must there seek him. Vegtamskvida makes Odin seek
his sister.


 Possibly the same as that of which a few strophes are preserved in
Baldrs draumar, an old poetic fragment whose gaps have been filled in a
very unsatisfactory manner in recent times with strophes which now are
current as Vegtamskvida. That Odin, when he is about to proceed to the
abode which in the subterranean realms of bliss is to receive Balder,
chooses the route through Nifelhel is explained not by Vegtamskvida,
where this fact is stated, but by the older poem mentioned by Saxo,
which makes him seek the dweller in Nifelhel, the rimthurs Hrossdiofr,
son of Hrimnir.


It is Bifrost's north bridge-head which particularly requires the
vigilance of Heimdal, the ward of the gods, since the rimthurses and the
damned are its neighbours. Heimdal is therefore "widely known" among the
inhabitants of Nifelhel (Skirnersmal, 28), and Loki reproaches Heimdal
that his vocation as watchman always compels him to expose his back to
the torrents of an unfavourable sky (Lokas., 48). In the night which
constantly broods over this northern zone shine the forms of the "white"
god and of his gold-beaming horse Gulltoppr, when he makes spying
expeditions there. His eye penetrates the darkness of a hundred "rasts,"
and his ear catches the faintest sound (Gylfag., 27). Near Bifrost,
presumably at the very bridge-head, mythology has given him a fortified
citadel, Himinbjorg, "the ward of heaven" with a comfortable hall well
supplied with "the good mead" (Grimn., 13; Gylfag., 27).


The lower world is more extensive in all directions than the surface of
the earth above it. Bifrost would not be able to pass outside and below
the crust of the earth to rest with its bridge-heads on the domain of
the three world-fountains if this were not the case. The lower world is
therefore called Jormungrund, "the great ground or foundation"
(Forspjallsljod, 25), and its uttermost zone, j'aarr Jormungrundar, "the
domain of the great ground," is open to the celestial canopy, and the
under side of the earth is not its roof. From Hlidskjalf, the outlook of
the gods in Asgard (Forspjallsljod, the prose texts in Skirnersmal and
in Grimnersmal), the vmew is open to Midgard, to the sea, and to the
giant-world situated beyond the Elivagar rivers (see the texts
mentioned), and should accordingly also be so to the broad zone of
Jormaungrund, excepting its northernmost part, which always is shrouded
in night. From Hlidskjalf the eye cannot discern what is done there. But
Heimdal keeps watch there, and when anything unusual is perceived Odin
sends the raven Huginn (Hugr) thither to spy it out (Forspjallsljod, 10,
3, which strophes belong together). But from Hlidskjalf as the point of
observation the earth conceals all that part of Jormungrund below it;
and as it is important to Odin that he should know all that happens
there, Huginn and Muninn fly daily over these subterranean regions:
Huginn oc Muninn fljuga hverjan dag iormungrund yfir (Grimnersmal, 20).
The expeditions of the ravens over Nifelhel in the north and over Surt's
"deep dales" in the south expose them to dangers: Odin expresses his
fear that some misfortune may befall them on these excursions
(Grimnersmal, 20).


In the western and eastern parts of jadarr Jormungrundar dwell the two
divine clans the Vans and Elves, and the former rule over the whole zone
ever since "the gods in time's morning gave Frey, Njord's bounteous son,
Alfheim as a tooth-gift (Grimners., 5). Delling is to be regarded as
clan-chief of the Elves (light-Elves), since in the very theogony he is
ranked with the most ancient powers. With Mimir's daughter Nat he
becomes the father of Dag and the progenitor of Dag's synir (the
light-Elves). It has already been emphasised (see No. 53) that he is the
lord of the rosy dawn, and that outside of his doors the song of
awakening is sung every morning over the world: "Power to the Asas,
success to the Elves, and wisdom to Hroptatyr" (Havamal, 100). The glow
of dawn blazes up from his doniain beyond the eastern horizon. Where
this clan-chieftain of the Elves dwells, thither the mythology has
referred the original home of his clan. Alfheimr occupies the eastern
part of Jormungrund's zone. It is in the eastern part that Dag,
Delling's son, and Sol, his kinswoman, mount their chariots to make
their journey around the earth in the sky. Here is also the Hel-gate
through which all the dead must pass in the lower world (No. 68).


There are many proofs that the giant settlement with the Ironwood or
Myrkwood was conceived as extending from the north over large portions
of the east (Völuspa, 39, 48, &c.). These regions of Alfheim constitute
the southern coasts of the Elivagar, and are the scenes of important
events in the epic of the mythology (see the treatise on the Ivalde race).


Vanaheimr is situated in the western half of the zone. At the banquet
in Ćgir's hall, described in Lokasenna, Loki says to


Njord:


ţu vast austr hedan gisl um sendr godum' "From here you were sent out
east as a hostage to the gods ".


Ćgir's hall is far out in the depths of the sea. The ocean known by the
Teutons was the North Sea. The author has manifestly conceived Ćgir's
hall as situated in the same direction from Asgard as Vanaheim, and not
far from the native home of the Vans. This lies in the word hean (from
here). According to Vafthrudnersmal (str. 39), Njord was "created in
Vanaheim by wise regin ". When he was sent as a hostage to the gods to
Asgard he had to journey eastward (austr). The western location of
Vanaheim is thereby demonstrated.


In the "western halls" of Vanaheirn dwells Billing, Rind's father, the
father of the Asa-god, Vale's mother (Rindr berr Vala i
vćsirsolum'Vegt., 11). His name has been preserved inn both the German
and the Anglo-Saxon mythic records. An Old German document mentions
together Billuac and Nidunc, that is, Billing and Mimir (see No. 87). In
the mythology Mimir's domain is bounded on the west by Billing's realm,
and on the east by Delling's. Delling is Mimir's son-in-law. According
to Völuspa, 13 (Codex Hank.), Billing is a being which in time's
morning, on the resolve of the gods, was created by Modsognir-Mimir and
Durinn. Mimir's neighbours in the east and in the west were therefore
intimately connected with him. An Anglo-Saxon record (Codex Exoniensis,
320, 7) makes Billing the race-hero of the kinsmen and neighbours of the
Angles, the Varnians (Billing veold Vernum). This too has a mythological
foundation, as appears in Grimnersmal (39) and in the saga of Helge
Hjorvardson, which, as before stated, is composed of mythic fragments.
When Sol and Mane leave Delling's domain and begin their march across
the heavens, their journey is not without danger. From the Ironwood (cp.
Völuspa, 39) come the wolf-giants Skoll and Hate and pursue them. Skoll
does not desist from the pursuit before the car of the bright-faced
goddess has descended toward the western halls and reached Varna vir
(Scaull heitir ulfr, er fylgir' eno scirleita godi til Varna
vidar'Grimnersmal, 39). Varna vir is the forest of the mythic Varnians
or Varinians. Varnians, Varinians, means "defenders," and the protection
here referred to can be none other than that given to the journeying
divinities of light when they have reached the western horizon.
According to Helge Hjorvardson's saga, Hate, who pursues the moon, is
slain near Varin's Bay. Varinn, the "defender," "protector," is the
singular form of the same word as reappears in the genitive plural
Varna. These expressions' Billing veold Vernum, Varna vir', and Varins
vik'are to be considered as belonging together. So also the local names
borrowed from the mythology, Varinsfjödr and Varinsey, in Helge
Hjorvardson's saga, where several names reappear, e.g., Svarinn, Móinn,
Alfr, and Yngvi, which in connection with that of Billing occur in the
list of the beings created by Mimir amid Durinn. It is manifest that
Varna vidr, where the wolf Skoll is obliged to turn back from his
pursuit of Sol, and that Varins vik, where the moon's pursuer Hate is
conquered, were conceived in the mythology as situated in the western
horizon, since the sun and the moon making their journey from east to
west on the heavens are pursued and are not safe before they reach the
western halls. And now as Billing dwells in the western halls and is
remembered in the Anglo-Saxon mythic fragnients as the prince of the
Varnians or Varinians, and as, furthermore, Varinsfjödr and Varinsey are
connected with adventures in which there occur several names of mythic
persons belonging to Billing's clan, then this proves absolutely an
original mythic connection between Billing and his western halls and
those western halls in whose regions Varna vidr and Varinsvik are
situated, and where the divinities of light, their journey athwart the
sky accomplished, find defenders and can take their rest. And when we
add to this that Delling, Mimir's kinsman and eastern neighbour, is the
lord of morning and the rosy dawn, and that Billing is Mimir's kinsman
and western neighbour, then it follows that Billing, from the standpoint
of a symbol of nature, represents the evening and the glow of twilight,
and that in the epic he is ruler of those regions of the world where the
divinities of light find rest and peace. The description which the
Havamál strophes (97-101) give us of life in Billing's halls corresponds
most perfectly with this view. Through the epic presentation there
gleams, as it seems, a conscious symbolising of nature, which paints to
the fancy the play of colours in the west when the sun is set. When
eventide comes Billing's lass, "the sun-glittering one," sleeps on her
bed (Billing's mey ec fann bedjum a sollivita sofa'str. 97). In his
halls Billing has a body-guard of warriors, his saldrótt, vigdrótt (str.
100, 101), in whom we must recognise those Varnians who protect the
divinities of light that come to his dwelling, and these warriors watch
far into the night, "with burning lights and with torches in their
hands," over the slumbering "sun-white" maiden. But when day breaks
their services are no longer necessary. Then they in their turn go to
sleep (Oc naer morni . . . ţu var saldrott um sofin'str. 101).


When the Asas'all on horseback excepting Thor'on their daily journey to
the thingstead near Urd's fountain, have reached the southern
rune-risted bridge-head of Bifrost, they turn to the north amid ride
through a southern Hel-gate into the lower world proper. Here, in the
south, and far below Jormungrund's southern zone, we must conceive those
"deep dales" where the fire-giant Surt dwells with his race, Suttung's
sons (not Muspel's sons). The idea presented in Gylfaginning's
cosmogony, according to which there was a world of fire in the south and
a world of cold in the north of that Ginungagap in which the world was
formed, is certainly a genuine myth, resting on a view of nature which
the very geographical position forced upon the Teutons. Both these
realms afterwards find their representatives in the organised world: the
fire-world in Surt's Sokkdalir, and the frost-world in the Nifelhel
incorporated with the eschatological places; and as the latter
constitutes the northern part of the realm of death, we may in analogy
herewith refer the dales of Surt and Suttung's sons to the south, and we
may do this without fear of error, for Völuspa (50) states positively
that Surt and his descendants come from the south to the Ragnarok
conflict (Surtr fer' sunan med sviga lćfi). While the northern
bridge-head of Bifrost is threatened by the rimthurses, the southern is
exposed to attacks from Suttng's sons. In Ragnarok the gods have to meet
storms from both quarters, and we must conceive the conflict as
extending along Jormungrund's outer zone and especially near' both ends
of the Bifrost bridge. The plain around time south end of Bifrost where
the gods are to "mix the liquor of tIme sword with Surt" is called
Oskópn in' in a part of a heathen poem incorporated with Fafnersmal.
Here Frey with his hosts of einherjes meets Surt and Suttung's sons, and
falls by the sword which once was his, after the arch of Bifrost on this
side is already broken under the weight of the hosts of riders
(Fafnersmal, 14, 15; Völuspa, 51). Oskópnir's plain must therefore be
referred to the south end of Bifrost and outside of the southern
Hel-gate of the lower world. The plain is also called Vigridr
(Vafthrudnersmal, 18), and is said to be one hundred rasts long each
way. As the gods who here appear in the conflict are called in svaso god
"the sweet," and as Frey falls in the battle, those who here go to meet
Surt and his people seem to be particularly Vana-gods and Vans, while
those who contend with the giants and with Loki's progeny are chiefly Asas.


When the gods have ridden through the southern Hel-gate, there lie
before them magnificent regions over which Urd in particular rules, and
which together with Mimir's domain constitute the realms of bliss inn
the lower world with abodes for departed children and women, and for men
who were not chosen on the field of battle. Rivers flowing from
Hvergelmer flow through Urd's domain after they have traversed Mimir's
realm. The way leads the gods to the fountain of the norns, which waters
the southern root of the world-tree, and over which Ygdrasil's lower
branches spread their ever-green leaves, shading the gold-clad fountain,
where swans swim and whose waters give the whitest colour to everything
that comes in contact therewith. In the vicinity of this fountain are
the thingstead with judgment-seats, a tribunal, and benches for the
hosts of people who daily arrive to be blessed or damned.


These hosts enter through the Hel-gate of the east. They traverse deep
and dark valleys, and come to a thorn-grown plain against whose pricks
Hel-shoes protect those who were merciful in their life on earth, and
thence to the river mixed with blood, which in its eddies whirls weapons
and must be waded over by the wicked, but can be crossed by the good on
the drift-wood which floats on the river. When this river is crossed the
way of the dead leads southward to the thingstead of the gods.


Further up there is a golden bridge across the river to the glorious
realm where Mimir's holt and the glittering halls are situated, in which
Balder and 'the ásmegir await the regeneration. Many streams come from
Hvergelmer, among them Leiptr, on whose waters holy oaths are taken, and
cast their coils around these protected places, whence sorrow, aging,
and death are banished. The halls are situated in the eastern part of
Mimir's realm in the domain of the elf of the rosy dawn, for he is their
watchman.


Further down in Mimir's land and under the middle root of the
world-tree is the well of creative force and of inspiration, and near it
are Mimir's own golden halls.


Through this middle part of the lower world goes from west to east the
road which Nat, Dag, Sol, and Mane travel from Billing's domain to
Delling's. When the mother Nat whose car is drawn by Hrimfaxi makes her
entrance through the western Hel-gate, darkness is diffused along her
course over the regions of bliss and accompanies her chariot to the
north, where the hall of Sindre, the great artist, is located, and
toward the Nida mountains, at whose southern foot Nat takes her rest in
her own home. Then those who dwell in the northern regions of
Jormungrund retire to rest (Forspjallsljod, 25); but on the outer rim of
Midgard there is life and activity, for there Dag's and Sol's cars then
diffuse light and splendour on land and sea. The hall of Sindre's race
has a special peculiarity. It is, as shall be shown below, the prototype
of "the sleeping castle" mentioned in the sagas of the middle ages.


Over the Nida mountains and the lands beyond them we find Ygdrasil's
third root, watered by the Hvergelmer fountain, the mother of all
waters. The Nida mountains constitute Jormungrund's great watershed,
from which rivers rush down to the south and to the north. In
Hvergelmer's fountain and above it the world-mill is built through whose
mill-stone eye water rushes up and down, causing the maelstrom and ebb
and flood tide, and scattering the meal of the mill over the bottom of
the sea. Nine giantesses march along the outer edge of the world pushing
the mill-handle before them, while the mill and the starry heavens at
the same time are revolved.


Where the Elivagar rivers rise out of Hvergelmer, and on the southern
strand of the mythic Gaudvik, is found a. region which, after one of its
inhabitants, is called Ide's pasture (setr'Younger Edda, i. 292). Here
dwell warriors of mixed elf and giant blood (see the treatise on the
Ivalde race), who received from the gods the task of being a guard of
protection against the neighbouring giant-world.


Farther toward the north rise the Nida mountains and form the steep
wall which constitutes Nifelhel's southern boundary. In this wall are
the Na-gates, through which the damned when they have died their second
death are brought into the realm of torture, whose ruler is Leikinn.
Nifelheim is inhabited by the spirits of the primeval giants, by the
spirits of disease, and by giants who have fallen in conflict with the
gods. Under Nifelhel extend the enormous caves in which the various
kinds of criminals are tortured. In one of these caves is the torture
hall of the Na-strands. Outside of its northern door is a grotto guarded
by swarthy elves. The door opens to Armsvartner's sea, over which
eternal darkness broods. In this sea lies the Lyngve-holm, within whose
jurisdiction Loki, Fenrer, and "Muspel's sons" are fettered. Somewhere
in the same region Bifrost descends to its well fortified northern
bridge-head. The citadel is called Himinbjorg, "the defence or rampart
of heaven ". Its chieftain is Heimdal.


While Bifrost's arch stands in a direction from north to south, the way
on which Mane and Sol travel across the heavens goes from east to west.
Mane's way is below Asgard.


The movable starry heaven is not the only, nor is it the highest,
canopy stretched over all that has been mentioned above. One can go so
far to the north that even the horizon of the starry heavens is left in
the rear. Outside, the heavens Andlanger and Vidblainn support their
edges against Jormungrund (Gylfag., 17). All this creation is supported
by the world-tree, on whose topmost bough the cock Vidofner glitters.


94.


THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.


Völuspa gives an account of the events which forebode and lead up to
Ragnarok. Among these we also find that leika Mims synir, that is, that
the sons of Mimir "spring up," "fly up," "get into lively motion ". But
the meaning of this has hitherto been an unsolved problem.


In the strophe immediately preceding (the 44th) Voluspa describes how
it looks on the surface of Midgard 'when the end of the world is at
hand. Brothers and near kinsmen slay each other.


The sacred bonds of morality are broken. It is the storm-age and the
wolf-age. Men no longer spare or pity one another. Knives and axes rage.
Volund's world-destroying sword of revenge has already been fetched by
Fjalar in the guise of the red cock (str. 41), and from the Ironwood,
where it hitherto had been concealed by Angerboda and guarded by Egther;
the wolf-giant Hate with his companions have invaded the world, which it
was the duty of the gods to protect. The storms are attended by eclipses
of the sun (str. 40).


Then suddenly the Hjallar-horn sounds, announcing that the destruction
of the world is now to be fulfilled, and just as the first notes of this
trumpet penetrate the world, Mimir's sons spring up. "The old tree," the
world-tree, groans and trembles. When Mimir's sons "spring up" Odin is
engaged in conversation with the head of their father, his faithful
adviser, in regard to the impending conflict, which is the last one in
which the gods are to take a hand.


I shall here give reasons for the assumption that the blast from the
Hjallar-horn wakes Mimir's sons from a sleep that has lasted through
centuries, and that the Christian legend concerning the seven sleepers
has its chief, if not its only, root in a Teutonic myth which in the
second half of the fifth or in the first half of the sixth century was
changed into a legend. At that time large portions of the Teutonic race
had already been converted to Christianity: the Goths, Vandals,
Gepidians, Rugians, Burgundians, and Swabians were Christians.
Considerable parts of the Roman empire were settled by the Teutons or
governed by their swords. The Franks were on the point of entering the
Christian Church, and behind them the Alamannians and Longobardians.
Their myths and sagas were reconstructed so far as they could be adapted
to the new forms and ideas, and if they, more or less transformed,
assumed the garb of a Christian legend, then this guise enabled them to
travel to the utmost limits of Christendom; and if they also contained,
as in the case here in question, ideas that were not entirely foreign to
the Greek-Roman world, then they might the more easily acquire the right
of Roman nativity.


In its oldest form the legend of "the seven sleepers" has the following
outlines (Miraculorum Liber, vii., i. 92):


"Seven brothers "  have their place of rest near the city of Ephesus,
and the story of them is as follows: In the time of the Emperor Decius,
while the persecution of the Christians took place, seven men were
captured and brought before the ruler. Their names were Maximianus,
Malchus, Martinianus, Constantius, Dionysius, Joannes, and Serapion. All
sorts of persuasion was attempted, but they would not yield. The
emperor, who was pleased with their courteous manners, gave them time
for reflection, so that they should not at once fall under the sentence
of death. But they concealed themselves in a cave and remained there
many days. Still, one of them went out to get provisions and attend to
other necessary matters. But when the emperor returned to the same city,
these men prayed to God, asking Him in His mercy to save them out of
this danger, and when, lying on the ground, they had finished their
prayers, they fell asleep. When the emperor learned that they were in
the above-mentioned cave, he, under divine influence, commanded that the
entrance of the cave should be closed with large stones, "for," said he,
"as they are unwilling to offer sacrifices to our gods, they must perish
there ". While this transpired a Christian man had engraved the names of
the seven men on a leaden tablet, and also their testimony in regard to
their belief, and he had secretly laid the tablet in the entrance of the
cave before the latter was closed. After many years, the congregations
having secured peace and the Christian Theodosius having gained the
imperial dignity, the false doctrine of the Sadducees, who denied
resurrection, was spread among the people. At this time it happens that
a citizen of Ephesus is about to make an enclosure for his sheep on the
mountain in question, and for this purpose he loosens the stones at the
entrance of the cave, so that the cave was opened, but without his
becoming aware of what was concealed within. But the Lord sent a breath
of life into the seven men and they arose. Thinking they had slept only
one night, they sent one of their number, a youth, to buy food. When he
came to the city gate he was astonished, for he saw the glorious sign of
the Cross, and he heard people aver by the name of Christ.


 For "brothers" the text, perhaps purposely, used the ambiguous word
germani. This would, then, not be the only instance where the word is
used in both senses at the same time. Cp. Quintil., 8, 3, 29.


But when he produced his money, which was from the time of Deems, he
was seized by the vendor, who insisted that he must have found secreted
treasures from former times, and who, as th youth made a stout denial,
brought him before the bishop and th judge. Pressed by them, he was
forced to reveal his secret, and he conducted them to the cave where the
men were. At th entrance the bishop then finds the leaden tablet, on
which all that concerned their case was noted down, and when he had
talked with the men a messenger was despatched to the Emperor
Theodosius. He came and kneeled on the ground and worshipped them, and
they said to the ruler: "Most august Augustus! ther has sprung up a
false doctrine which tries to turn the Christian people from the
promises of God, claiming that there is no resur rection of the dead. In
order that you may know that we are all to appear before the
judgment-seat of Christ according to the words of the Apostle Paul, the
Lord God has raised us from the dead and commanded us to make this
statement to you. See to it that you are not deceived amid excluded from
the kingdom of God." When the Emperor Theodosius heard this he praised
the Lord for not per. mitting H is people to perish. But tine men again
lay down on the ground and fell asleep. The Emperor Theodosius wanted to
make graves of gold for them, but in a vision he was prohibited from
doing this. And until this very day these men rest in the same place,
wrapped in fine linen mantles.


At the first glance there is nothing which betrays the Teutonic origin
of this legend. It may seemingly have had an independent origin anywhere
in the Christian world, and particularly in the vicinity of Ephesus.


Meanwhile the historian of the Franks, Bishop Gregorius of Tours (born
538 or 539), is the first one who presented in writing the legend
regarding the seven sleepers. In the form given above it appears through
him for the first time within the s of the christianised western Europe
(see Gregorius' Miraculorum Liber, I., ch. 92). After him it reappears
in Greek records, and thence it travels on and finally gets to Arabia
and Abyssinia. His account is not written before the year 571 or 572. As
the legend itself claims in its preserved form not to be older than the
first years of the reign of Theodosius, it must have originated between
the year's 379-572.


The next time we learn anything about the seven sleepers in occidental
literature is in the Longobardian historian Paulus Diaconus (born about
723). What he relates has greatly surprised investigators; for although
he certainly was acquainted with the Christian version in regard to the
seven men who sleep for generations in a cave, and although he
entertained no doubt as to its truth, he nevertheless relates
another'and that a Teutonic'seven sleepers' legend, the scene of which
is the remotest part of Teutondom. He narrates (i. 4):


"As my pen is still occupied with Germany, I deem it proper, in
connection with some other miracles, to mention one which there is on
the lips of everybody. In the remotest western boundaries of Germany is
to be seen near the sea-strand under a high rock a cave where seven men
have been sleeping no one knows how long. They are in the deepest sleep
and uninfluenced by time, not only as to their bodies but also as to
their garments, so that they are held in great honour by the savage and
ignorant people, since time for so many years has left no trace either
on their bodies or on their clothes. To judge from their dress they must
be Romans. When a man from curiosity tried to undress one of them, it is
said that his arm at once withered, and this punishment spread such a
terror that nobody has since then dared to touch them. Doubtless it will
some day be apparent why Divine Providence has so long preserved them.
Perhaps by their preaching'for they are believed to be none other than
Christians'this people shall once more be called to salvation. In the
vicinity of this place dwell the race of the Skritobinians ('the
Skridfinns ')."


In chapter 6 Paulus makes the following additions, which will be found
to be of importance to our theme: "Not far from that sea-strand which I
mentioned as lying far to the west (in the most remote Germany), where
the boundless ocean extends, is found the unfathomably deep eddy which
we traditionally call the navel of the sea. Twice a-day it swallows the
waves, and twice it vomits them forth again. Often, we are assured,
ships are drawn into this eddy so violently that they look like arrows
flying through the air, and frequently they perish in this abyss. But
sometimes, when they are on the point of being swallowed up, they are
driven back with the same terrible swiftness. "


From what Paulus Diaconus here relates we learn that in the eighth
century the common belief prevailed among the heathen Teutons that in
the neighbourhood of that ocean-maelstrom, caused by Hvergelmer (" the
roaring kettle"), seven men slept from time immemorial under a rock. How
far the heathen Teutons believed that these men were Romans and
Christians, or whether this feature is to be attributed to a conjecture
by Christian Teutons, and came through influence from the Christian
version of the legend of the seven sleepers, is a question which it is
not necessary to discuss at present. That they are some day to awake to
preach Christianity to "the stubborn," still heathen Teutonic tribes is
manifestly a supposition on the part of Paulus himself, and he does not
present it as anything else. It has nothing to do with the saga in its
heathen form.


The first question now is: Has the heathen tradition in regard to the
seven sleepers, which, according to the testimony of the Longobardian
historian, was common among the heathen Teutons of the eighth century,
since then disappeared without leaving any traces in our niythic records'


The answer is: Traces of it reappear in Saxo, in Adam of Bremen, in
Norse and German popular belief, and in Völuspa. When compared with one
another these traces are sufficient to determine the character and
original place of the tradition in the epic of the Teutonic mythology.


I have already given above (No. 46) the main features of Saxo's account
of King Gorm's and Thorkil's journey to and in the lower world. With
their companions they are permitted to visit the abodes of torture of
the damned and the fields of bliss, together with the gold-clad
world-fountains, and to see the treasures preserved in their vicinity.
In the same realm where these fountains are found there is, says Saxo, a
Tabernaculum within which still more precious treasures are preserved.
It is an uberioris thesauri secretarium. The Danish adventurers also
entered here. The treasury was also an armoury, and contained weapons
suited to be borne by warriors of superhuman size. The owners and makers
of these arms were also there, but they were perfectly quiet and as
immovable as lifeless figures. Still they were not dead, but made the
impression of being half-dead (semineces). By the enticing beauty and
value of the treasures, and partly, too, by the dormant condition of the
owners, the Danes were betrayed into an attempt to secure some of these
precious things. Even the usually cautious Thorkil set a bad example and
put his hand on a garment (amiculo manum inserens). We are not told by
Saxo whether the garment covered anyone of those sleeping in the
treasury, nor is it directly stated that the touching with the hand
produced any disagreeable consequences for Thorkil. But further on Saxo
relates that Thorkil became unrecognisable, because a withering or
emaciation (mareor) had changed his body and the features of his face.
With this account in Saxo we must compare what we read in Adam of Bremen
about the Frisian adventurers who tried to plunder treasures belonging
to giants who in the middle of the day lay concealed in subterranean
caves (meridiano tempore latitantes antris subterraneis). This account
must also have conceived the owners of the treasures as sleeping while
the plundering took place, for not before they were on their way back
were the Frisians pursued by the plundered party or by other lower-world
beings. Still, all but one succeeded in getting back to their ships.
Adam asserts that they were such beings quos nostri cyclopes appellant
(" which among us are called cyclops "), that they, in other words, were
gigantic smiths, who accordingly themselves had made the untold amount
of golden treasures which the Frisians there saw. These northern
cyclops, lie says, dwelt within solid walls, surrounded by a water, to
which, according to Adam of Brenien, one first comes after traversing
the land of frost (provincia frigoris), and after passing that Euripus,
"in which the water of the ocean flows back to its mysterious fountain"
(ad initia quaedam fontis sui arcani recur'rens), "this deep
subterranean abyss wherein the ebbing streams of the sea, according to
report, were swallowed up to return," and 'which "with most violent
force drew the unfortunate seamen down into the lower world" (infelices
nautos vehementissimo impetu traxit ad Chaos).


It is evident that what Paulus Diaconus, Adam of Bremen, and Saxo here
relate must be referred to the same tradition. All three refer the scene
of these strange things and events to the "most remote part of Germany"
(cp. Nos. 45, 46, 48, 49). According to all three reports the boundless
ocean washes the shores of this saga-land which has to be traversed in
order to get to "the sleepers," to "the men half-dead and resembling
lifeless images," to "those concealed in the middle of the day in
subterranean caves ". Paulus assures us that they are in a cave under a
rock in the neighbourhood of the famous maelstrom which sucks the
billows of the sea into itself and spews them out again. Adam makes his
Frisian adventurers come near being swallowed up by this maelstrom
before they reach the caves of treasures where the cyclops in question
dwell; and Saxo locates their tabernacle, filled with weapons and
treasures, to a region which we have already recognised (see Nos. 45-51)
as belonging to Mimir's lower-world realm, and situated in the
neighbourhood of the sacred subterranean fountains.


In the northern part of Mimir's domain, consequently in the vicinity of
the Hvergelmer fountain (see Nos. 59, 93), from and to which all waters
find their way, and which is the source of the famous maelstrom (see
Nos. 79, 80, 81), there stands, according to Voluspa, a golden hall in
which Sindre's kinsmen have their honie. Sindre is, as we know, like his
brother Brok and others of his kinsmen, an artist of antiquity, a
cyclops, to use the language of Adam of Bremen. The Northern records and
the Latin chronicles thus correspond in the statement that in the
neighbourhood of the maelstrom on' of its subterranean fountain, beneath
a rock and in a golden hall, or in subterranean caves filled with gold,
certain men who are subterranean artisans dwell. Paulus Diaconus makes a
"curious" person who had penetrated into this abode disrobe one of the
sleepers clad in "Roman" clothes, and for this he is punished with a
withered arm. Saxo makes Thorkil put his hand on a splendid garment
which he sees there, and Thorkil returns from his journey with an
emaciated body, and is so lean and lank as not to be recognised.


There are reasons for assuming that the ancient artisan Sindre is
identical with Dvalinn, the ancient artisan created by Mimir. I base
this assumption on the following circumstances:


Dvalinn is mentioned by the side of Dainn both in Havamal (43) and in
Grimnersmal (33); also in the sagas, where they make treasures in
company. Both the names are clearly epithets which point to the mythic
destiny of the ancient artists in question. Dainn means "the dead one,"
and in analogy herewith we must interpret Dvalinn as "the dormant one,"
"the one slumbering" (cp. the Old Swedish dvale, sleep, unconscious
condition). Their fates have made them the representatives of death and
sleep, a sort of equivalents of Thanatos and Hypnos. As such they appear
in the allegorical strophes incorporated in Grimnersmal, which,
describing how the world-tree suffers and grows old, make Dainn and
Dvalinn, "death" and "slumber," get their food from its branches, while
Nidhog and other serpents wound its roots.


In Hyndluljod (6) the artists who made Frey's golden boar are called
Dáinn and Nabbi. In the Younger Edda (i. 340-342) they are called Brokkr
and Sindri. Strange to say, on account of mythological circumstances not
known to us, the skalds have been able to use Dainn as a paraphrase for
a rooting four-footed animal, and Brokkr too has a similar signification
(cp. the Younger Edda, in. 490, and Vigfusson, Dict., under Brokkr).
This points to an original identity of these epithets. Thus we arrive at
the following parallels:


Dáinn (-Brokkr) and Dvalinn made treasures together;


(Dáinn-) Brokkr and Sindri made Frey's golden boar;


Dáinn and Nabbi made Frey's golden boar;


and the conclusion we draw herefrom is that in our mythology, in which
there is such a plurality of names, Dvalinn, Sindri, and Nabbi are the
same person, and that Dainn and Brokkr are identical. I may have an
opportunity later to present further evidence of this identity.


The primeval artist Sindre, who with his kinsmen inhabits a golden hall
in Mimir's realm under the Hvergelmer mountains, near the subterranean
fountain of the maelstrom, has therefore borne the epithet Dvalinn, "the
one wrapped in slumber ". "The slumberer" thus rests with his kinsmen,
where Paulus Diaconus has heard that seven men sleep from time out of
mind, and where Adam of Bremen makes smithying giants, rich in
treasures, keep themselves concealed in lower-world caves within walls
surrounded by water.


It has already been demonstrated that Dvalinn is a son of Mimir (see
No. 53). Sindre-Dvalin and his kinsmen are therefore Mimir's offspring
(Mims synir). The golden citadel situated near the fountain of the
maelstrom is therefore inhabited by the sons of Mimir.


It has also been shown that, according to Solarljod, the sons of
Mimir-Nidi come from this region (from the north in Mimir's domain), and
that they are in all seven:


Nordan sa ek rida Nidja sonu. ok varu sjau saman;


that is to say, that they are the same number as the "economical
months," or the changes of the year (see No. 87).


In the same region Mimir's daughter Nat has her hall, where she takes
her rest after her journey across the heavens is accomplished (see No.
93). The "chateau dormant" of Teutonic mythology is therefore situated
in Nat's udal territory, and Dvalin, "the slumberer," is Nat's brother.
Perhaps her citadel is identical with the one in which Dvalin and his
brothers sleep. According to Saxo, voices of women are heard in the
tabernaculum belonging to the sleeping men, and glittering with weapons
and treasures, when Thorkil and his men come to plunder the treasures
there. Nat has her court and her attendant sisters in the Teutonic
mythology, as in Rigveda (Ushas). Sinmara (see Nos. 97, 98) is one of
the dises of the night. According to the middle-age sagas, these discs
and daughters of Mimir are said to be twelve in number (see Nos. 45, 46).


Mimir', as we know, was the ward of the middle root of the world-tree.
His seven sons, representing the changes experienced by the world-tree
and nature annually, have with him guarded and tended the holy tree and
watered its root with aurgom forsi from the subterranean horn,
"Valfather's pledge ". When the god-clans became foes, and the Vans
seized weapons against the Asas, Mimir was slain, and the world-tree,
losing its wise guardian, became subject to the influence of time. It
suffers in crown and root (Grimnersmal), and as it is ideally identical
with creation itself, both the natural and the moral, so toward the
close of the period of this world it will betray the same dilapidated
condition as nature and the moral world therm are to reveal.


Logic demanded that when the world-tree lost its chief ward, the lord
of the well of wisdom, it should also lose that care which under his
direction was bestowed upon it by his seven sons. These, voluntarily or
involuntarily, retired, and the story of the seven men who sleep in the
citadel full of treasures informs us how they thenceforth spend their
time until Ragnarok. The details of the myth telling how they entered
into this condition


cannot now be found; but it may be in order to point out, as a possible
connection with this matter, that one of the older Vanagods, Njord's
father, and possibly the same as Mundilfore, had the epithet Svafr,
Svafrţorinn (Fjölsvinnsmal). Svafr means sopitor, tIne sleeper, and
Svafrţorinn seems to refer to svefnţorn, "sleepthorn ". According to the
traditions, a person could be put to sleep by laying a "sleep-thorn" in
his ear, and he then slept until it was taken out or fell out.


Popular traditions scattered over Sweden, Denmark, and Germany have to
this very day been preserved, on the lips of the common people, of the
men sleeping among weapons and treasures inn underground chambers or in
rocky halls. A Swedish tradition makes them equipped not only with
weapons, but also with horses which in their stalls abide the day when
their masters are to awake and sally forth. Common to the most of these
traditions, both the Northern and the German, is the feature that this
is to happen whenthe greatest distress is at hand, or when the end of
the world approaches amid the day of judgment comes. With regard to the
German sagas on this point I refer to Jacob Grimm's Mythology. I simply
wish to point out here certain features which are of special importance
to the subject under discussion, and which the popular memory in certain
parts of Germany has preserved from the heathen myths. When the heroes
who have slept through centuries sally forth, the trumpets of the last
day sound, a great battle with the powers of evil (Antichrist) is to be
fought, an immensely old tree, which has withered, is to grow gr'een
again, and a happier age is to begin.


This immensely old tree, which is withered at the chose of the present
period of the world, and which is to become green again in a happier age
after a decisive conflict between the good and evil, can be no other
than the world-tree of Teutonic mythology, the Ygdrasil of our Eddas.
The angel trumpets, at whose blasts the men who sleep within the
mountains sally forth, have their prototype in Heimdal's horn, which
proclaims the destruction of the world; and the battle to be fought with
Antichrist is the Bagnarok conflict, clad in Christian robes, between
the gods and the destroyers of the world. Here Mimir's seven sons also
have their task to perform. The last great struggle also concerns the
lower world, whose regions of bliss demand protection against the
thursclans of Nifelhel, the more so since these very regions of bliss
constitute the new earth, which after Ragnarok rises from the sea to
become the abode of a better race of men (see No. 55). The "wall rock"
of the Hvergelmer mountain and its "stone gates" (Völuspa; cp. Nos. 46,
75) require defenders able to wield those immensely large swords which
are kept in the sleeping castle on Nat's udal fields, and Sindre-Dvalin
is remembered not only as the artist of antiquity, spreader of Mimir's
runic wisdom, enemy of Loki, and father of the man-loving dises (see No.
53), but also as a hero. The name of the horse he rode, and probably is
to ride in the Ragnarok conflict, is, according to a strophe cited in
the Younger Edda, Moinn; the middle-age sagas have connected his nanne
to a certain viking, Sindri, and to Sintram of the German heroic poetry.


I now come back to the Völuspa strophe, which was the starting-point in
the investigation contained in this chapter:


Leika Mims synir en mjotudr kyndisk at hinu gamla gjallarhorni; hatt
biaess Heimdallr, hor'n er a loţti.


"Mimir's sons spring up, for the fate of the world is proclaimed by the
old gjallar-horn. Loud blows Heimdal'the horn is raised."


In regard to leika, it is to be remembered that its old meaning, "to
jump," "to leap," "to fly up," reappears not only in Ulfilas, who
translates s k i r t a n of the New
Testament with laikan. (Luke i. 41, 44, and vi. 23; in the former
passage in reference to the child slumbering in Elizabeth's womb; the
child "leaps" at her meeting with Mary), but also in another passage in
Voluspa, where it is said in regard to Ragnarok, leikr' har hiti vid
himin sjalfan' high leaps (plays) " the fire against heaven itself ''.
Further, we must point out the preterit form kyndisk (from kynna, to
make known) by the side of the present form leika. This juxtaposition
indicates that the sons of Mimir "rush up," while the fate of the world,
the final destiny of creation in advance and immediately beforehand, was
proclaimed "by the old gjallar-horn ". The bounding up of Mimir's sons
is the effect of the first powerful blast. One or more of these follow.
"Loud blows Heimdal'the horn is raised; and Odin speaks with Mimir's
head." Thins we have found the meaning of leika Mims synir. Their waking
and appearance is one of the signs best remembered in the chronicles in
popular traditions of Ragnarok's approach and the return of the dead,
and in this strophe Voluspa has preserved the memory of the "chateau
dormant" of Teutonic mythology.


Thus a comparison of the mythic fragments extant with the popular
traditions gives us the following outline of the Teutonic myth
concerning the seven sleepers:


The world-tree'the representative of the physical and moral laws of the
world'grew in time's morning gloriously out of the fields of the three
world-fountains, and during the first epochs of the mythological events
(ar alda) it stood fresh and green, cared for by the subterranean
guardians of these fountains. But the times became worse. The feminine
counterpart of Loki, GulveigHeid, spreads evil runes in Asgard amid
Midgard, and he and she cause disputes and war between those god-clans
whose task it is to watch over and sustain the order of the world in
harmony. In the feud between the Asas and Vans, the middle and most
important world-fountain'the fountain of wisdom, the one from which the
good runes were fetched'became robbed of its watchman. Mimir was slain,
and his seven sons, tIme superintendents of the seven seasons, who saw
to it that these season-changes followed each other within the limits
prescribed by the world-laws, were put to sleep, and fell into a stupor,
which continues throughout the historical time until Ragnarok.
Consquently the world-tree cannot help withering and growing old during
the historical age. Still it is not to perish. Neither fire nor sword
can harm it; and when evil has reached its climax, and when the present
world is ended in the Ragnarok conflict and in Surt's flames, then it is
to regain that freshness and splendour which it had in time's morning.


Until that time Sindre-Dvalin and Mimir's six other sons slumber in
that golden hall which stands toward the north in the lower world, on
Mimir's fields. Nat, their sister, dwells in the same region, and
shrouds the chambers of those slumbering in darkness. Standing toward
the north beneath the Nida mountains, the hall is near Hvergelmer's
fountain, which causes the famous maelstrom. As sons of Mimir, the great
smith of antiquity, the seven brothers were themselves great smiths of
antiquity, who, during the first happy epoch, gave to the gods and to
nature the most beautiful treasures (Mjolner, Brisingamen, Slidrugtanne,
Draupner). The hall where they now rest is also a treasure-chamber,
which preserves a number of splendid products of their skill as smiths,
and among these are weapons, too large to be wielded by human hands, but
intended to be employed by the brothers themselves when Ragnarok is at
hand and the great decisive conflict comes between the powers of good
and of evil. The seven sleepers are there clad in splendid mantles of
another cut than those common among men. Certain mortals have had the
privilege of seeing the realms of the lower world and of inspecting the
hall where the seven brothers have their abode. But whoever ventured to
touch their treasures, or was allured by the splendour of their mantles
to attempt to secure any of them, was punished by the drooping and
withering of his limbs.


When Ragnarok is at hand, the aged and abused world-tree trembles, and
Heimdal's trumpet, until then kept in the deepest shade of the tree, is
once more in the hand of the god, and at a world-piercing blast from
this trumpet Mimir's seven sons start up from their sleep and arm
themselves to take part in the last conflict. This is to end with the
victory of the good; the world-tree will grow green again and flourish
under the care of its former keepers; "all evil shall then cease, and
Balder shall come back ". The Teutonic myth in regard to the seven
sleepers is thus most intimately connected with the myth concerning the
return of the dead Balder and of the other dead men from the lower
world, with the idea of resurrection and the regeneration of the world.
It forms an integral part of the great epic of Teutonic mythology, and
could not be spared. If the world-tree is to age during the historical
epoch, and if the present period of time is to progress toward ruin,
then this must have its epic cause in the fact that the keepers of the
chief root of the tree were severed by the course of events from their
important occupation. Therefore Mimir dies ; therefore his sons sink
into the sleep of ages. But it is necessary that they should wake and
resume their occupation, for there is to be a regeneration, and the
world-tree is to bloom with new freshness.


Both in Germany and in Sweden there still prevails a popular belief
which puts "the seven sleepers" in connection with the weather. If it
rains on the day of the seven sleepers, then, according to this popular
belief, it is to rain for seven weeks thereafter. People have wondered
how a weather prophecy could be connected with the sleeping saints, and
the matter would also, in reality, be utterly incomprehensible if the
legend were of Christian origin; but it is satisfactorily explained by
the heathen-Teutonic mythology, where the seven sleepers represent those
very seven so-called economic months'the seven changes of the weather'
which gave rise to the division of the year into the months' gormánudr,
frerm., hrutm., einm., sólm., selm., and kornskurdarmánudr. Navigation
was also believed to be under the protection of the seven sleepers, and
this we can understand when we remember that the hall of Mimir's sons
was thought to stand near the Hvergelmer fountain and the Grotte of the
skerry, "dangerous to seamen," and that they, like their father, were
lovers of men. Thorkil, the great navigator of the saga, therefore
praises GudmundMinier as a protector in dangers.


The legend has preserved the connection found in the myth between the
above meaning and the idea of a resurrection of the dead. But in the
myth concerning Mimir's seven sons this idea is most intimately
connected with the myth itself, and is, with epic logic, united with the
whole mythological system. In the legend, on the other hand, the
resurrection idea is put on as a trade-mark. The seven men in Ephesus
are lulled into their long sleep, and are waked again to appear before
Theodosius, the emperor, to preach a sermon illustrated by their own
fate against the false doctrine which tries to deny the resurrection of
the dead.


Gregorius says that he is the first who recorded in the Latin language
this miracle, not before known to the Church of Western Europe. As his
authority he quotes "a certain Syrian" who had interpreted the story for
him. There was also need of a man from the Orient as an authority when a
hitherto unknown miracle was to be 'presented 'a miracle that had
transpired in a cave near Ephesus. But there is no absolute reason for
assuming that Gregorius presents a story of his own invention. The
reference of the legend to Ephesus is explained by the antique
saga-variation concerning Endymion, according to which the latter was
sentenced to confinement and eternal sleep in a cave in the mountain
Latmos. Latmos is south of Ephesus, and not very far from there. This
saga is the antique root-thread of the legend, out of which rose its
localisation, but not its contents and its details. The contents are
borrowed from the Teutonic mythology. That Syria or Asia Minor was the
scene of its transformation into a Christian legend is possible, and is
not surprising. During and immediately after the time to which the
legend itself refers the resurrection of the seven sleepers, the time of
Theodosius, the Roman Orient, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt were full of
Teutonic warriors who had permanent quarters there. A Not itia
dignitatum from this age speaks of hosts of Goths, Alamannians, Franks,
Chamavians, and Vandals, who there had fixed military quarters. There
then stood an ala Francorum, a cohors Alamannorum, a cohors Chamavorum,
an ala Vandilorum, a cohors Gothorum, and no doubt there, as elsewhere
in the Roman Empire, great provinces were colonised by Teutonic veterans
and other immigrants. Nor must we neglect to remark that the legend
refers the falling asleep of the seven men to the time of Decius. Decius
fell in battle against the Goths, who, a few years later, invaded Asia
Minor and captured among other places also Ephesus.


95.


ON THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE MYTHOLOGY.


The account now given of the myths concerning the lower world shows
that the hierologists and skalds of our heathendom had devehoped the
doctrine in a perspicuous manner even down to the minutest details. The
lower world and its kingdom of death were the chief subjects with which
their fancy was occupied. The many sagas and traditions which flowed
from heathen sources and which described Svipdag's, Hadding's, Gorm's,
Thorkil's, and other journeys down there are proof of this, and the
complete agreement of statements from totally different sources in
regard to the topography of the lower world and the life there below
shows that the ideas were reduced to a systematised and perspicuous
whole. Svipdag's and Hadding's journeys in the lower world have been
incorporated as episodes' in the great epic concerning the Teutonic
patriarchs, the chief outlines of which I have presented in the
preceding pages. This is done in the same manner as the visits of
Ulysses and Ćneas in the lower world have become a part of the great
Greek and Roman epic poems.


Under such circumstances it may seem surprising that Icelandic records
from the middle ages concerning the heathen belief in regard to the
abodes after death should give us statements which seem utterly
irreconcilable with one another. For there are many proofs that the dead
were believed to live in hills and rocks, or in grave-mounds where their
bodies were buried. How can this be reconciled with the doctrine that
the dead descended to the lower world, and were there judged either to
receive abodes in Asgard or in the realms of bliss in Hades, or in the
world of torture'


The question has been answered too hastily to the effect that the
statements cannot be harmonised, and that consequently the
heathen-Teutonic views in regard to the day of judgment were in this
most important part of the religious doctrine unsupported.


The reason for the obscurity is not, however, in the matter itself,
which has never been thoroughly studied, but in the false premises from
which the conclusions have been drawn. Mythologists have simply assumed
that the popular view of the Christian Church in regard to terrestrial
man, conceiving him to consist of two factors, the perishable body and
the imperishable soul, was the necessary condition for every belief in a
life hereafter, and that the heathen Teutons accordingly also cherished
this idea.


But this duality did not enter into the belief of our heathen fathers.
Nor is it of such a kind that a man, having conceived a life hereafter,
in this connection necessarily must conceive the soul as the simple,
indissoluble spiritual factor of human nature. The division into two
parts, lif ok sala, likamr ok sala, body and soul, came with
Christianity, and there is every reason for assuming, so far as the
Scandinavian peoples are concerned, that the very word soul, sála, sal,
is, like the idea it represents, an imported word. In Old Norse
literature the word occurs for the first time in Olaf Trygveson's
contemporary Halfred, after he had been converted to Christianity. Still
the word is of Teutonic root. Ulfilas translates the New Testament y
n c h with saiwala, but this he does with his mind on the
Platonic New Testament view of man as consisting of three factors:
spirit (p n e n m a ), soul (y n c
h ), and body (s w m a ). Spirit (p n e
n m a ) Ulfilas translates with ahma.


Another assumption, likewise incorrect in estimating the
anthropological-eschatological belief of tIne Teutons, is that they are
supposed to have distinguished between matter and mind, which is a
result reached by tIme philosophers of the Occident in their abstract
studies. It is, on the contrary, certain that such a distinction never
enitered the system of heathen Teutonic views. In it all things were
material, an efni of coarse or fine grain, tangible or intangible,
visible or invisible. The imperishable factors of nian were, like the
perishable, material, and a force could not be conceived which was not
bound to matter, or expressed itself in matter, or was matter.


The heathen Teutonic conception of human nature, and of the factors
composing it, is most like the Aryan-Asiatic as we find the latter
preserved in the traditions of Buddhism, which assume more than three
factors in a human being, amid deny the existence of a soul, if this is
to mean that all that is not corporal in man consists of a single
simple, and therefore indissoluble, element, the soul.


The anthropological conception presented in Völuspa is as follows : Man
consists of six elements, namely, to begin with tIne lower and coarser
and to end with the highest and noblest:


(1) The earthly matter of which the body is formed.


(2) A formative vegetative force.


(3) and (4) Loder's gifts.


(5) Honer's gifts.


(6) Odin's gifts.


Völuspa's words are these: The gods

fundu a landi
liii megandi
Ask ok Eredbla
orlanglausa.
Aund ţau ne átto,
óţ ţau ne haufo,
ha ne lćti,
ne lito goa.
Aund gaf Odin,
oţ gaf Henir,
ha gaf Lodar
ok lito goda..
 	found on the land
with little power,
Ask and Embla
without destiny.
Spirit they had not,
"odr" they had not,
neither " lá " nor " laeti,"
nor the form of tIme gods.
Spirit gave Odin,
"odr" gave Honer,
"la" gave Loder
and the form of the gods.


The two lowest factors, the earthly material and the vegetative force,
were already united in Ask and Embla when the three gods found them
"growing as trees ". These elements were able to unite themselves simply
by the course of nature without any divine interference. When the sun
for the first time shone from the south on "the stones of the hall," the
vegetative force united with the matter of the primeval giant Yimir, who
was filled with the seed of life from Audhumbla's milk, and then the
"ground was overgrown with green herbs ".


Thus man was not created directly from the crude earthly matter, but
had already been organised and formed when the gods came and from the
trees made persons with blood, motion, and spiritual qualities. The
vegetative force must not be conceived in accordance with modern ideas,
as an activity separated from the matter by abstraction and at the same
time inseparably joined with it, but as an active matter joined with the
earthly matter.


Loder's first gift la with lćti makes Ask and Embla animal beings.
Egilsson's view that la means blood is confirmed by the connection inn
which we find the word used. The laeti united with la (compare the
related Swedish word "later'," manners) means the way in which a
conscious being moves and acts. The blood and the power of a motion
which is voluntary were to the Teutons, as to all other peophe, the
marks distinguishing animal from vegetable life. And thus we are already
within the domain of psychical elements. The inherited features, growth,
gait, and pose, which were observed as forming race- and family-types,
were regarded as having the blood as efni and as being concealed
therein. The blood which produced the family-type also produced the
family-tie, even though it was not acquired by the natural process of
generation. A person not at all related to the family of another man
could become his blói, his blood-kinsman, if they resolved at blanda
blói saman. They thereby entered into the same relations to each other
as if they had the same mother and father.


Loder also gave at the same time another gift, litr goda. To understand
this expression (hitherto translated with "good complexion "), we must
bear in mind that the Teutons, like the Hellenes and Romans, conceived
the gods in human form, and that the image which characterises man was
borne by the gods alone before man's creation, and originally belonged
to the gods. To the hierologists and the skalds of the Teutons, as to
those of the Greeks and Romans, man was created in effigiem deorum and
had in his nature a divine image in tIne real sense of this word, a litr
goda. Nor was this litr goda a mere abstraction to the Teutons, or an
empty form, but a created efni dwelling in man and giving shape and
character to the earthly body which is visible to the eye. The common
meaning of the word litr is something presemiting itself to the eye
without being actually tangible to the hands. The Gothic forni of the
word is wlits, which Ulfilas uses in translating the Greek p r
o s w p o n 'look, appearance, expression.
Certain persons were regarded as able to separate their litr from its
unmion with the other factors of their being, and to lend it, at least
for a short time, to sonie other person in exchange for his. This was
called to skipta litum, vixla litum. It was done by Sigurd and Gunnar ma
the song of Sigurd Fafnersbane (i. 37-42). That factor in Guannar"s
being which causes his earthly body to present itself in a peculiar
individual manner to the eyes of others is transmitted to Sigurd, whose
exterior, affected by Gunniar's litr', accommnodates itself to the
latter, while the spiritual kernel in Sigurd's personality suffers no
change.


Lit hefir ţu Gunnar's oc lćti hans, mćlsco ţina oc megirchyggior (Sig.,
i. 39).


Thus man has within him an inner body made in the image of the gods and
consisting of a finer material, a body which is his litr, by virtue of
which his coarser tabernacle, formed from the earth, receives that form
by which it inipresses itself on the minds of others. The recollection
of the belief in this inner body has been preserved in a more or less
distorted form in traditions banded down even to our days (see for
exaniple, Hylten-Cavallius, Varend och Virdarnc, i. 343-360; Raaf in
Smaland, Beskr. ofver Ydre, p. 84).


The appearance of the outer body therefore depends on the condition of
the litr, that is, of the inner beinig. Beautiful wonien have a 'joyous
fair litr" (Havamal, 93). An eniotion has influence upon the litr, and
through it on the blood amid the appearance of the outward body. A
sudden blushing, a sudden paleness, are among the results thereof and
can give rise to the question, Hefir ţu lit brugit' 'Have you changed
your litr' (Fornald., i. 426). To translate this with Have you changed
colour' is absurd. The questioner sees the change of colour, and does
not need to ask the other one, who cannot see it.


On account of its mythological signification and application, it is
very natural that the word litr should in every-day life acquire on the
one hand the meaning of complexion in general, and on the other hand the
signification of hamr, guise, an earthly garb which persons skilled in
magic could put on and off. Skipta litum, vixla litum, have in Christian
times been used as synonymous with skipta homum, vixla homum.


In physical death the coarser elements of an earthly person's nature
are separated from the other constituent parts. The tabernacle formed of
earth and the vegetative material united therewith are eliminated like
the animal element and remain on earth. But this does not imply that the
deceased descend without form to Hades. The form in which they travel in
"deep dales," traverse the thorn-fields, wade across the subterranean
rivers, or ride over the gold-clad Gjallar-bridge, is not a new
creation, but was worn by them in their earthly career. It can be none
other than their hits', their umbra et imago. It also shows distinctly
what the dead man has been in his earthly life, and what care has been
bestowed on his dust. The washing, combing, dressing, ornamenting, and
supplying with Hel-shoes of the dead body has influence upon one's looks
in Hades, on one's looks when he is to appear before his judge.


Separated from the earthly element, from the vegetative material, and
from the blood, the lit is almost imponderable, and does not possess the
qualities for an intensive life, either in bliss or in torture. Five
fylkes of dead men who rode over the Gjallar-bridge produced no greater
din than Hermod alone riding on Sleipner; and the woman watching the
bridge saw that Her-mod's exterior was not that of one separated from
the earthly element. It was not litr daudra manna (Gylfaginning). But
the litr of the dead is compensated for what it has lost. Those who in
the judgment on dauan hvern are pronounced worthy of bliss are permitted
to drink from the horn decorated with the serpentsymbol of eternity, the
liquids of the three world-fountains which give life to all the world,
and thereby their litr gets a higher grade of body and nobler blood (see
Nos. 72, 73). Those sentenced to torture must also drink, but it is a
drink eitri blandinn miok, "much mixed with venom," and it is illu
heilli, that is, a warning of evil. This drink also restores their
bodies, but only to make theni feel the burden of torture. The liquid of
life which they imbibe in this drink is the same as that which was
thought to flow in the veins of the demons of torture. When Hadding with
his sword wounds the demon-hand which grasps after Hardgrep and tears
her into pieces (see No. 41), there flows from the wound "more venom
than blood" (plus tabi quam cruoris'Saxo, Hist., 40).


When Loder had given Ask and Embla litr goa, an inner body formed in
the innage of the gods, a body which gives to their earthly tabernacle a
human-divine type, they received from Honer the gift which is called
ódr. In signification this word corresponds most closely to the Latin
mens, the Greek n o u V (cp. Vigfusson's Lexicon), and
means that material which forms the kernel of a human personality, its
ego, and whose manifestations are understanding, memory, fancy, and will.


Vigfusson has called attention to the fact that the epithet langifótr
and aurkonungr, "Longleg" and "Mireking" applied to Honer, is applicable
to the stork, and that this cannot be an accident, as the very name
Hćnir suggests a bird, and is related to the Greek k u k
n o V and the Sanscrit sakunas (Corpus Poet. Bor., i. p.
cii.). It should be borne in mind inn this connection that the stork
even to


 There is a story of the creation of man by three wandering gods, who
become in mediaeval stories Jesus and SS. Peter and Paul walking among
amen, as in Champfleury's pretty apologue of the bonhomme misere, so
beautifully illnstrated hy Legros. In the eddic legend one of these gods
is called Haene; he is the speech-giver of Wolospa, and is described in
praises takemi from lost poems as "the long-legged one" [langifotr],
"the lord of the ooze" [aur. konungr]. Strange epithets, but easily
explainable when one gets at the etymology of Haene = hohni Sansc.
sakunas = Gr. k u k n o V = the white bird,
swan, or stork, that stalks along in the mud, lord of the niarsh; and it
is now easy to see that this bird is the Creator walking in chaos,
brooding over the primitive mish-mash or tohu-bohu, and finally hatching
the egg of the world. Hohni is also, one would fancy, to be identified
with Heimdal, the walker, who is also a creator-god, who sleeps more
lightly than a bird, who is also the "fair Anse," and the "whitest of
the Anses," the " waker of the gods," a celestial chanticleer as it were
(Vigfusson, Corpus Poeticum Borealc, vol. i., Introduction, p. cii.,
quoted by the translator).


this day is regarded as a sacred and protected bird, and that among
Scandinavians and Germans there still exists a nursery tale telling how
the stork takes from some saga-pond the little fruits of mann and brings
them to their mothers. The tale which now belongs to the nursery has its
root in the myth, where Honer gives our first parents that very gift
which in a spiritual sense makes them human beings and contains the
personal ego. It is both possible and probable that the conditions
essential to the existence of every person were conceived as being
analogous with the conditions attending the creation of the first human
pair, and that the gifts which were then given by the gods to Ask and
Embla were thought to be repeated in the case of each one of their
descendants'that Honer consequently was believed to be continually
active in the same manner as when the first human pair was created,
giving to the mother-fruit the ego that is to be. The fruit itself out
of which the child is developed was conceived as grown on the
world-tree, which therefore is called manna mjötur (Fjölsvinnsmal, 22).
Every fruit of this kind (aldin) that matured (and fell from the
branches of the world-tree into the mythic pond [']) is fetched by tIme
winged servants of the gods, and is born a eld into the maternal lap,
after being menitally fructified by Honer.


Ut af hans (Mimameids) aldni skal a eld bera fyr' kelisjukar konur;
utar hverfa ţaz ţćr innar' skyli, sá er hann rne monnum mjotudr


Above, in No. 83, it has been shown that Lodurr is identical with
Mundilfori, the one producing fire by friction, and that Haenir and
Lourr are Odin's brothers, also called Vei and Vili. With regard to the
last name it should be reniarked that its meaning of "will" developed
out of tIme meaning "desire," "longing," and that the word presenved
this older meaning also in the secondary sense of cupido, libido, sexual
desire. This epithet of Lodurr corresponds both with the nature of the
gifts he bestows on the human child which is to be'that is, the blood
and the human, originally divine, form'and also with his quality of
fire-producer, if, as is probable, tIme friction-fire had the sanie
symbolic meaning in the Teutonic mythology as in tIme Rigveda. Like
Honer, Loder causes the knitting together of the human generations.
While the former fructifies the embryo developing on time world-tree
with ódr, it receives from Loder the warmth of the blood and human
organism. The expression Vilja byrdr, " Vili's burden," "that which Vili
has produced," is from this point of view a well-chosen and at the same
tinme an ambiguous paraphrase for a hunman body. The paraphrase occurs
in Ynglingatal (Yuglingasaga, 17). When Visbur loses his life in the
flames it is there said of him that the fire consumed his Vilja byrdi,
his corporal life.


To Loder's and Honer's gifts tIme highest Asa-god adds the best element
in human nature, önd, spirit, that by which a human being becomes
participator in the divine also in an inner sense, and not only as to
form. Time divine nmust here, of course, be understood inn time sense
(far different froni the ecclesiastical) in which it was used by our
heathen ancestors, to whom time divine, as it can reveal itself in men,
chiefly consisted in power of thought, courage, honesty, veracity, and
niercy, hint who knew no other humility than that of patiently bearing
such misfortunes as cannot be averted by human ingenuity.


These six elements, united into one in human nature, were of course
constantly in reciprocal activity. The personal kernel ódr is on the one
hand influenced by ond, the spirit, and on tIme other hand by the
animal, vegetative, and corporal elements, and the personality being
endowed with will, it is responsible for the result of this reciprocal
activity. If the spirit becomes superior to the other elements then it
penetrates and sanctifies not only the personal kerniel, but also the
animal, vegetative, and corporal elements. Then human nature becomes a
being that may be called divine, and deserves divine honour. When such a
person dies the lower elements which are abandoned and consigned to the
grave have been permeated by, and have beconie participators in, the
personality which they have served, and may thereafter in a wonderful
manner diffuse happiness and blessings around them. When Halfdan the
Black died different places competed for tIme keeping of his remains,
and the dispute was settled by dividing the corpse between Hadaland,
Ringerike, amid Vestfold (Fagerskinna, Heimskringla). The vegetative
force in the remains of certain persons might also manifest itself in a
strange mmmanner. Thorgrim's grave-mound in Gisle's saga was always
green on one side, and Laugarbrekku-Einar's grave-mound was entirely
green both winter and summer (Landa., ii. 7).


The elements of the dead buried in the grave continued for more or less
time their reciprocal activity, and formed a sort of unity which, if
permeated by his ódr and önd, preserved some of' his personality and
qualities. The grave-mound might in this manner contain an alter ego of
him who had descended to the realm of death. This alter' ego, called
after his dwelling haugbui, hill-dweller, was cliaracterised by his
nature as a draugr, a branch which, though cut off from its life-root,
still maintains its conisistency, but gradually, though slowly, pays
tribute to corruption and progresses toward its dissolution. In
Christian times the word draugr acquired a bad, demoniacal meaning,
which did not belong to it exclusively in heathen times, to judge f'roni
the compounds in which it is found : eldraugr, herdraugr, hirdidaugr,
which were used in paraphrases for "warriors"; óaldraugr, "rightful
owner," &c. The alter' ego of the deceased, his representative dwelling
in the grave, retained his character: was good and kind if the deceased
had been so in life; in the opposite case, evil and dangerous. As a rule
lie was believed to sleep in his grave, especially in the daytime, but
might wake up in the night, or could be waked by the influence of prayer
or time powers of conjuration. Ghosts of the good kind were hollar
vćttir, of the evil kind uvćttir. Respect for the fathers and the idea
that the men of the past were more pious and more noble than those of
the present time caused the alter egos of the fathers to be regarded as
beneficent and working for the good of time race, and for this reason
family grave-mounds where the bones of the ancestors rested were
generally near the home. If there was no grave-mound in the vicinity,
but a rock or hill, the alter egos in question were believed to
congregate there when sometIming of iniportance to the family was
impending. It might also happen that the lower elements, when abandoned
by ódr and ond, became an alter ego in whom the vegetative and animal
elements exclusively asserted themselves. Such an one was always
tormented by animal desire of food, and did not seem to have any feeling
for or memnory of bonds tied in life. Saxo (Hist., 244) gives a horrible
account of one of this sort. Two foster-brothers, Asmund and Asvid, had
agreed that if the one died before the other the survivor should confine
himself in the foster-brother's grave-chamber and remain there. Asvid
died and was buried with horse and dog. Asmund kept his agreement, and
ordered himself to be confined in the large, roomy grave, but discovered
to his horror that his foster-brother had become a haugbui of the
last-named kind, who, after eating horse and dog, attacked Asmund to
make him a victim of his hunger. Asmund conquered the haugbui, cut off
his head, and pierced his heart with a pole to prevent his coming to
life again. Swedish adventurers who opened the grave to plunder it freed
Asmund from his prison. In such instances as this it must have been
assumed that the lower elements of the deceased consigned to the grave
were never in his lifetime sufficiently permeated by his ódr and önd to
enable these qualities to give the corpse an impression of the rational
personality and human character of the deceased. The same idea is the
basis of belief of the Slavic people in the vampire. In one of this sort
the vegetative element united with his dust still asserts itself, so
that hair and nails continue to grow as on a living being, and the
animal element, which likewise continued to operate in the one buried,
visits him with hunger and drives him in the night out of the grave to
suck the blood of surviving kinsmen.


The real personality of tIne dead, the one endowed with litr, ódr, and
ond, was and remained in the death kingdom, although circumstances might
take place that would call him back for a short time. The drink which
the happy dead person received inn Hades was intended not only to
strengthen his litr, but also to soothe that longing which the earthly
life and its memories might cause him to feel. If' a dearly-beloved
kinsman or friend mourned the deceased too violently, this sorrow
disturbed his happiness in the death kingdom, and was able to bring him
back to earth. Then he would visit his grave-mound, and lie and his
alter ego, the haagbui, would become one. This was the case with Helge
Hundingsbane (Helge Hund., ii. 40, &c.). The sorrow of Sigrun, his
beloved, caused him to return froni Valhal to earth and to ride to his
grave, where Sigma came to him and wanted to rest in his arnis during
the night. But when Helge had told her that her tears pierced his breast
with pain, and had assured her that she was exceedingly dear to him, and
had predicted that they together should drink the sorrow-allaying
liquids of the lower world, he rode his way again, in order that, before
the crowing of the cock, he might be back among the departed heroes.
Prayer was another means of calling the dead back. At the entrance of
his deceased mother's grave-chamber Svipdag beseeches her to awake. Her
ashes kept in the grave-chamber (er til moldar er komin) and her real
personality from the realm of death (er ór' ljodheimum er lidn) then
unite, amid Groa speaks out of the grave to her son (Grogaldr., i. 2). A
third means of revoking the dead to earth lay in conjuration. But such a
use of conjuration was a great sin, which relegated the sinner to the
demnons. (Cp. Saxo's account of Hardgrep.)


Thus we understand why the dead descended to Hades and still inhabited
the grave-mounds. One died "to Hel" and "to the grave" at the same time.
That of which earthly man consisted, in addition to his corporal garb,
was not the simple being, "the soul," which cannot be divided, but there
was a combination of factors, which in death could be separated, and of
which those remaining on earth, while they had long been the covering of
a personal kernel (ódr), could themselves in a new combination form
another ego of the person who had descended to Hades.


But that too consisted of several factors, litr, ódr, and ond, and they
were not inseparably united. We have already seen that the sinner,
sentenced to torture, dies a second death in the lower world before lie
passes through the Na-gates, the death from Hel to Nifelhel, so that he
becomes a nar, a corpse in a still deeper sense than that which nar has
in a physical sense. The second death, like the first (physical), must
consist in the separation of one or more of the factors from the being
that dies. And in the second death, that which separates itself from the
damned one and changes his remains into a lower-world nár, must be those
factors that have no blame in connection with his sins, and consequently
should not suffer his punishment, and which in their origin are too
noble to become the objects of the practice of demons in the art of
torturing. The venom drink which the damned person has to empty deprives
him of that image of the gods in which he was made, and of the spirit
which was the noble gift of the Asa-father. Changed into a monster', he
goes to his destiny fraught with misfortunes.


The idea of a regeneration was not foreign to the faith of the Teutonic
heathens. To judge from the very few statements we have on this point,
it would seem that it was only the very best and the very worst who were
thought to be born anew in the present world. Gulveig was born again
several tinies by the force of her own evil will. But it is only ideal
persons of whom it is said that they are born again'e.g., Helge
Hjorvardson, Helge Hundingsbane, and Olaf Geirstadaralf, of whom the
last was believed to have risen again in Saint Olaf. With the exception
of Gulveig, the statements in regard to the others from Christian times
are an echo from the heathen Teutonic doctrine which it would be most
interesting to become better acquainted with'also from the standpoint of
comparative Aryan mythology, since this same doctrine appears in a
highly-developed form in the Asiatic-Aryan group of myths.


III.


THE IVALDE RACE.


96.


SVIPDAG AND GROA.


GROA'S son Svipdag is mentioned by this name in two Old Norse songs,
Grogalder and Fjölsvinnsmal, which, as Bugge has shown, are mutually
connected, and describe episodes from the same chain of events.


The contents of Grogalder are as follows:


Groa is dead when the event described in the song takes place. Svipdag
is still quite young. Before her death she has told him that he is to go
to her grave and call her if he needs her help. The grave is a
grave-chamber niade of large fiat stones raised over a stone floor, and
forming when seen fronn the outside a mound which is furnished with a
door (str. 1, 15).


Svipdag's father has married a second time. The stepmother commands her
stepson to go abroad and find Menglodum, "those fond of ornaments ".
From Fjölsvinnsmal we learn that one of those called by this name is a
young maid who becomes Svipdag's wife. Her real name is not given: she
is continually designated as Menglod, Menglad, one of "those fond of
ornaments," whom Svipdag has been commanded to find.


This task seenis to Svipdag to exceed his powers. It must have been one
of great adventures and great dangers, for lie mow considers it the
proper time to ask his deceased mother for help. He has become
suspicious of his stepmother's intentions; he comisiders her lćvis
(cunning), and her proposition is "a cruel play which she has put before
him" (str. 3).


He goes to Groa's grave-chamber, probably in the night (verda auflgari
allir a nottum dauţir'Helge Hund., ii. 51), bids her wake, and reminds
her of her promise. That of Groa which had become dust (er til moldar er
komin), and that of her which had left this world of man and gone to the
lower world (er ór ljódheimum lidin), become again united under the
influence of maternal love and of the son's prayer, and Svipdag hears
out of the grave-chamber his mother's voice asking him why he has come.
He speaks of the errand on which he has been sent by his stepmother
(str. 3, 4).


The voice from the grave declares that long journeys lie before Svipdag
if he is to reach the goal indicated. It does not, however, advise hinn
to disobey the comnnand of his stepmother, but assures him that if he
will but patiently look for a good outcome of the matter, then the norn
will guide the events into their right course (str. 4).


The son therm requests his mother to sing protecting incantations over
him. She is celebrated in mythology as one mighty in incantations of the
good kind. It was Groa that sang healing incantations over Thor when
with a wounded forehead he returned from the conflict with the giant
Hrungner (Gylfag.).


Groa hears his prayer, and sings from the grave an incantation of
protection against the dangers which her prophetic vision has discovered
on those journeys that now lie before Svipdag: first, the incantation
that can inspire the despondent youth who lacks confidence in himself
with courage and reliance in his own powers. It ins, Groa says, the same
incantation as another mother before her sang over a son whose strength
had not yet been developed, and who had a similar perilous task to
perform. lt is an incantation, says Groa, which Rind, Vale's mother,
sang over Ránr. This synonym of Vale is of saga-historical interest.
Saxo calls Vale Bous, the Latinised form for Beowulf, and Beowulf's
grave-mound, according to the Old English poem which bears his name, is
situated on Hrones nćss, Ránr's ness. Here too a connection between Vale
and the name Ranr is indicated.


Groa's second incantation contains a prayer that when her son, joyless,
travels his paths and sees scorn and evil before his eyes, he may always
be protected by Urd's lokur (an ambiguous expression, which may on the
one hand refer to the bonds and locks of the goddess of fate, on the
other hand to Groa's own prophetic magic song: lokur means both songs of
a certain kind and locks and prisons).


On his journey Svipdag is to cross rivers, which with swelling floods
threaten his life; but Groa's third incanntation commands these rivers
to flow down to Hel and to fall for her son. The rivers which have their
course to Hel (falla til Heljar hean' Grimnersmal, 28) are subterranean
rivers rising on the Hvergelmer mountain (59, 93).


Groa's fourth and fifth incantations indicate that Svipdag is to
encounter enemies and be put in chains. Her songs are then to operate in
such a manner that the hearts of the foes are softened into
reconciliation, and that the chains fall from the limbs of her son. For
this purpose she gives him that power which is called "Leifnir's fires"
(see No. 38), which loosens fetters from enchanted limbs (str. 9, 10).


Groa's sixth incantation is to save Svipdag from perishing in a gale on
the sea. In the great world-mill (ludr) which produces the maelstrom,
ocean currents, ebb and flood tide (see Nos. 79-82), calm and war are to
"gang thegither" in harmony, be at Svipdag's service and prepare him a
safe voyage.


The seventh incantation that comes from the grave-chamber speaks of a
journey which Svipdag is to make over a mountain where terrible cold
reigns. The song is to save him from becoming a victim of the frost there.


The last two incantations, the eighth and the ninth, show what was
already suggested by the third, namely, that Svipdag's adventurous
journeys are to be crowned with a visit in the lower world. He is to
meet Nat a Niflvegi, "on the Nifel-way," "in Nifel-land ". The word nifi
does not occur in the Old Norse literature except in reference to the
northern part of the Teutonic Hades, the forecourt to the worlds of
torture there. Nifihel and Niflheim are, as we know, the names of that
forecourt. Niflfarinn is the designation, as heretofore mentioned, of a
deceased whose soul has descended to Nifelhel; Niflgódr is a nithing,
one deserving to be damned to the tortures of the lower world. Groa's
eighth incantation is to protect her son against the perilous
consequences of encountering a "dead woman" (daud kona) on his journey
through Nifelhel. The ninth incantation shows that Svipdag, on having
traversed the way to tIme northern part of the lower world, crosses the
Hvergelmer mountain and comes to the realm of Mimir; for he is to meet
and talk with "the weapon-honoured giant," Mimir himself, under
circumstances which demand "tongue and brains" on the part of Groa's son:


ef ţu vid inn náddgofga ordum skiptir jotun: máls ok mannvits se ţer' a
Mimis hjarta gnóga of getit.


In the poenn Fjölsvinnsmal, which I am now to discuss, we read with
regard to Svipdag's adventures in the lower world that on his journey in
Mimir's domain he had occasion to see the ásmegir's' citadel and the
splendid things within its walls (str. 33; cp. No. 53).


97.


SVIPDAG OUTSIDE OF THE GATES OF ASGARD. MENGLAD'S IDENTITY WITH FREYJA.


In the first stanzas of Fjölsvinnsmal we see Svipdag making his way to
a citadel which is furnished with forgordum'that is to say, ramparts in
front of the gate in the wall which surrounds the place. On one of these
ramparts stands a watchman who calls himself Fjölsvinnr, which is an
epithet of Odin (Grimnersmal, 47).


The first strophe of the poem calls Svipdag ţursa ţjóar sjólr (sjóli),
"the leader of the Thurs people ". The reason why he could be designated
thus has already been given (see Nos. 24, 33):


During the conflicts between the powers of winter and the sons of
Ivalde, and the race connected with them, on the one side, and the
Teutonic patriarch Halfdan, favoured by the Asa-gods, on the other side,
Svipdag opposed the latter and finally defeated him (see No. 93).


From the manner in which Fjölsvin receives the traveller it appears
that a "leader of time Thur's people" need not look for a welcome
outside of such a citadel as this. Fjölsvia calls him a flag, a vargr,
and advises him to go back by "moist ways," for within this wall such a
being can never come. Meanwhile these severe words do not on this
occasion appear to be spoken in absolute earnest, for the watchman at
the same time encourages conversation, by asking Svipdag what his errand
is. The latter corrects the watchman for his rough manner of receiving
him, and explains that he is not able to return, for the burgh he sees
is a beautiful sight, and there he would be able to pass a happy life.


When the watchman now asks him about his parents and family he answers
in riddles. Himself "the leader of the Thurs people," the former ally of
the powers of frost, he calls Windcold, his father he calls Springcold,
and his grandfather Verycold (Fjölkaldr). This answer gives the key to
the character of the whole following conversation, in which Svipdag is
the questioner, whose interrogations the watchman answers in such a
manner that he gives persons and things names which seldom are their
usual ones, but which refer to their qualities.


What castle is this, then, before which Svipdag stopped, and within
whose walls he is soon to find Menglad, whom he seeks '


A correct answer to this question is of the greatest importance to a
proper understanding of the events of mythology and their connection.
Strange to say, it has hitherto been assumed that the castle is the
citadel of a giant, a resort of thurses, and that Menglad is a giantess.


Svipdag has before him a scene that enchants his gaze and fills him
with a longing to remain there for ever. It is a pleasure to the eyes,
he says, which no one willingly renounces who once has seen a thing so
charming. Several "halls," that is to say, large residences or palaces,
with their "open courts," are situated on these grounds. The halls
glitter with gold, which casts a reflection over the plains in front of
them (gardar gloa mer ţykkja af gull sali' str. 5). One of the palaces,
a most magnificent one (an audrann), is surrounded by "wise Vaferflame,"
and Fjölsvin says of it that from time immemorial there has been a
report among men in regard to this dwelling. He calls it Hyrr, "the
gladdening one," "the laughing one," "the soul-stirring one ". Within
the castle wall there rises a hill or rock, which the author of the song
conceived as decorated with flowers or in some other ravishing way, for
he calls it a joyous rock. There the fair Menglad is seen sitting like
an image ţruma), surrounded by lovely dises. Svipdag here sees the
world-tree, invisible cnn earth, spreading its branches loaded with
fruits (aldin) over all lands. In the tree sits the cock Vidofnir, whose
whole plumage glitters like gold (str. 19, 22, 23, 31, 32, 35, 49).


The whole place is surrounded by a wall, "so solid that it shall stand
as long as the world" (str. 12). It is built of Lerbrimer's (Yimir's)
limbs, and is called Gastrofnir, "the same one as refuses admittance to
uninvited guests ". In the wall is inserted the gate skilfully made by
Solblinde's sons, the one which I have already mentioned in No. 36.
Svipdag, who had been in the lower world and had there seen the balls of
the gods and the well-fortified castle of the ásmegir (see No. 53),
admires the wall and the gate, and remarks that no more dangerous
contrivances (for uninvited guests) than these were seen among the gods
(str. 9-12).


The gate is guarded by two "garms," wolf-dogs. Fjölsvin explains that
their names are Gifr and Geri, that they are to live and perform their
duty as watch-dogs to the end of the world (unz rjufask regin), and that
they are the watchers of watchers, whose number is eleven (varir ellifu,
er ţeir var'a'str. 14).


Just as the mythic personality that Svipdag met outside of the castle
is named by the Odin-epithet Fjölsvidr, so we here find one of the
watching dogs called after one of Odin's wolf-dogs, Geri (Grimnersmal,
19). Their duty of watching, which does not cease before Ragnarok, they
perfornn in connection with eleven mythic persons dwelling within the
citadel, who are themselves called vardir, an epithet for world
-protecting divinities. Heimdal is vordr goda, Balder is vordr Hálfdanar
jarda. The nuniber of the Asas is eleven after Balder descended to the
lower world. Hyndluljod says: Voru ellifu ćsir taldir, Balldr er hne vi
banaţufu.


These wolf-dogs are foes of giants amid trolls. If a vćttr came there
he would not be able to get past them (str. 16'ok kemt ţa vaettr, ef ţa
korn). The troll-beings that are called gifr and kveldridur (Völuspa,
50; Helge Hjorv., 15), and that fly about in the air with lim (bundles
of sticks) in their hands, have been made to fall by these dogs. They
have made gifr-lim into a "land-wreck" (er gjordu gífrlim reka fyrir
löndin'str. 13). As one of the dogs is himself called Gifr, his ability,
like that of those chased by him, to fly in the air seems to be
indicated. The old tradition about Odin, who with his dogs flies through
the air high above the earth, has its root in the myth concerning the
duty devolving upon the Asa-father, in his capacity of lord of the
heavens, to keep space free from gifr, kveddr'iur, tunridur, who "leika
a lopti," do their mischief in the air (cp. Havamal, 155).


The ball in which Menglad lives, and that part of the wall-surrounded
domain which belongs to her, seems to be situated directly in front of
the gate, for Svipdag, standing before it, asks who is the ruler of the
domain which he sees before him, and Fjolsvin answers that it is Menglad
who there holds sway, owns the land, and is mistress of the
treasure-chambers.


The poem tells us in the most unmistakable manner that Menglad is an
asynje, and that one of the very noblest ones. "What are the names,"
asks Svipdag, "of the young women who sit so pleasantly together at
Menglad's feet '" Fjolsvin answers by naming nine, among whom are the
goddess of healing, Eir (Prose Edda, i. 114), and the dises Hlif "the
protectress," Bjort, "the shining," Bli, "the blithe," and Frid, "the
fair ". Their place at Menglad's feet indicates that they are
subordinate to her and belong to her attendants. Nevertheless they are,
Fjolsvin assures us, higher beings, who have sanctuaries and altars
(str. 40), and have both power and inclination quickly to help men who
offer sacrifices to them. Nay, "no so severe evil can happen to the sons
of men that these maids are not able to help them out of their distress
". It follows with certainty that their mistress Menglad, "the one fond
of ornaments," must be one of the highest and most worshipped goddesses
in the mythology. And to none of the asynjes is the epithet "fond of
ornaments" (Menglad) more applicable than to the fair owner of the first
among female ornaments, Brisingamen'to Freyja, whose daughters Hnoss and
Gersami are called by names that mean "ornaments," and of whose fondness
for beautiful jewels even Christian saga authors speak. To the court of
no other goddess are such dises as Bjort, Blid, and Frid so well suited
as to hers. And all that Fjolsvinnsmal tells about Menglad is in harmony
with this.


Freyja was the goddess of love, of matrimony, and of fertility, and for
this reason she was regarded as the divine ruler and helper, to whom
loving maids, wives who are to bear children, and sick women were to
address themselves with prayers and offerings. Figuratively this is
expressed in Fjölsvinnsmal with the words that every sick woman who
walks up the mountain on which Menglad sits regains her health. " That
mountain has long been the joy of the sick and wounded" (str. 26). The
great tree whose foliage spreads over Menglad's palace bears the fruits
that help kelisjukar konur, so that uiar hverva ţat ţaer innar skyli
(str. 22). In the midst of the fair discs who attend Menglad the poem
also mentions Aurboda, the giantess, who afterwards becomes the
mother-in-law of Freyja's brother, and whose appearance in Asgard as a
maidservant of Freyja, and as one of those that bring fruits from the
world-tree to kelisjukar konur, has already been mentioned in No. 35. If
we now add that Menglad, though a mighty goddess, is married to Svipdag,
who is not one of the gods, and that Freyja, despite her high rank among
the goddesses, does not have a god for her husband, but, as Gylfaginning
expresses it, giţtist ţeim manni er Odr heitir, and, finally, that
Menglad's father is characterised by a name which refers to Freyja's
father, Njord, then these circumstances alone, without the additional
and decisive proofs which are to be presented as this investigation
progresses, are sufficient to form a solid basis for the identity of
Menglad and Freyja, and as a necessary consequence for the identity of
Svipdag and Odr, also called Ottarr.


The glorious castle to which Svipdag travelled "up" is therefore
Asgard, as is plain from its very description'with its gold-glittering
palace, with its wall standing until Ragnarok, with its artistic gate,
with its eleven watchers, with its Fjölsvin-Odin, with its asynje Eir,
with its benevolent and lovely dises worshipped by men, with its two
wolf-dogs who are to keep watch so long as the world stands, and which
clear the air of tunridur, with its shady arbour formed by the
overhanging branches of the world-tree, and with its gold-feathered cock
Vidofnir (Völuspa's Gullinkambi).


 In strophe 8 Fjölsvin says of Menglad: Menglöd of heitir, en hana
modir of gat vid Svafrdorins syni. Svafr alone, or as a part of a
compound, indicates a Vana-god. According to an account narrated as
history in Fornaldersaga (i. 415), a daughter of Thjasse was married to
"king" Svafrlami. In the mythology it is Freyja's a's father, the
Vana-god Njord, who gets Thjasse's daughter for his wife. The Sun-song
(str. 79, 80) mentions Njord's daughters together with Svafr and
Svafrlogi. The daughters are nine, like Menglad and her dises.


Svipdag comes as a stranger to Asgard's gate, and what he there sees he
has never before seen. His conversation with Fjolsyin is a series of
curious questions in regard to the strange things that he now witnesses
for the first time. His designation as ţursa ţjodar sjólr indicates not
only that he is a stranger in Asgard, but also that he has been the foe
of the Asgards. That he under such circumstances was able to secure
admittance to the only way that leads to Asgard, the bridge Bifrost;
that he was allowed unhindered to travel up this bridge and approach the
gate unpunished, and without encountering any other annoyances than a
few repelling words from Fjölsvin, who soon changes his tone and gives
him such information as he desires'all this presupposes that the
mythology must have had strong and satisfactory reasons for permitting a
timing so unusual to take place. In several passages in Grogalder and in
Fjolsvinnsmal it is hinted that the powers of fate had selected Svipdag
to perform extraordinary things and gain an end the attaining of which
seemed impossible. That the norns have some special purpose with him,
and that Urd is to protect him and direct his course with invisible
bonds, however erratic it may seem, all this gleams forth from the words
of his mother Groa in the grave-chamber. And when Svipdag finally sees
Menglad hasten to throw herself into his arms, he says himself that it
is Urd's irresistible decree that has shaped things thus: Urdar ordi
kver' engi mar. But Urd's resolve alone cannot be a sufficient reason in
the epic for Svipdag's adoption in Asgard, and for his gaining, though
he is not of Asa-birth, the extraordinary honour and good luck of
becoming the husband of the fairest of the asynjes and of one of the
foremost of the goddesses. Urd must have arranged the chain of events in
such a manner that Menglad desir'es to possess him, that Svipdag has
deserved her love, and that the Asa-gods deem it best for themselves to
secure this opponent of theirs by bonds of kinship.


98.


SVIPDAG BRINGS TO ASGARD THE SWORD OF REVENGE FORGED BY VOLUND.


The most important question put to Fjolsvin by Svipdag is, of course,
the one whether a stranger can enter. Fjölsvin's answer is to the effect
that this is, and remains, impossible, unless the stranger brings with
him a certain sword. The wall repels an uninvited corner; the gate holds
him fast if he ventures to lay hands on it; of the two wolf-dogs one is
always watching while the other sleeps, and no one can pass them without
permission.


To this assurance on the part of Fjölsvin are added a series of
questions and answers, which the author of the poem has planned with
uncommon acumen. Svipdag asks if it is not, after all, possible to get
past the watching dogs. There must be something in the world delicate
enough to satisfy their appetite and thus turn away their attention.
Fjolsvin admits that there are two delicacies that might produce this
effect, but they are pieces of flesh that lie in the limbs of the cock
Vidofner (str. 17, 18). He who can procure these can steal past the
dogs. But the cock Vidofner sits high in the top of the world-tree and
seems to be inaccessible. Is there, then, asks Svipdag, any weapon that
can bring him down dead Yes, says Fjolsvin, there is such a weapon. It
was made outside of Na-gate (nagrindr). The smith was one Loptr. He was
robbed (ruinn) of this weapon so dangerous to the gold-glittering cock,
and now it is in the possession of Sinmara, who has laid it in a chest
of tough iron beneath nine njard-locks (str. 25, 26).


It must have been most difficult and dangerous to go to the place where
Sinmara has her abode and try to secure the weapon so well kept. Svipdag
asks if anyone who is willing to attempt it has any hope of returning.
Fjölsvin answers that in Vidofner's ankle-bones (volum) lies a bright,
hook-shaped bone. If one can secure this, bring it to Lur (the place of
the lower-world mill), and give it to Sinmara, then she can be induced
to part with the weapon in question (str. 27-30).


It appears from this that the condition on which Svipdag can get into
the castle where Menglad dwells is that he shall be in possession of a
weapon which was smithied by an enemy of the gods, here called Loptr,
and thus to be compared with Loki, who actually bears this epithet. If
he does not possess this weapon, which doubtless is fraught with danger
to the gods, and is the only one that can kill the gold-glittering cock
of the world-tree, then the gate of the citadel is not opened to him,
and the watching wolf-dogs will not let hini pass through it.


But Fjölsvin also indicates that under ordinary circumstances, and for
one who is not particularly chosen for this purpose by Fate, it is
utterly impossible to secure possession of the sword in question. Before
Sinmara can be induced to lend it, it is necessary to bring Vidofner
dead down from the branches of the world-tree. But to kill the cock that
very weapon is needed which Sinmara cannot otherwise be induced to part
with.


Meanwhile the continuation of the poem shows that what was impossible
for everybody else has already been accomplished by Svipdag. When he
stands at the gate of the castle in conversation with Fjölsvin he has
the sword by his side, and knows perfectly well that the gate is to be
opened so soon as it pleases him to put an end to the talk with Fjölsvin
and pronounce his own name. The very moment he does this the gate swings
on its hinges, the mighty wolf-dogs welcome (fagna) him, and Menglad,
informed by Fjölsvin of his arrival, hastens eagerly to meet hinn (str.
42, &c.). Fjölsvinnsmal, so far as acumnen in plot and in execution is
concerned, is the finest old poem that has been handed down to our time,
but it would be reduced to the most absurd nonsense if the sword were
not in Svipdag's possession, as the gate is never to be opened to anyone
else than to him who brings to Menglad's castle the sword inn question.


So far as the sword is concerned we have now learned:


That it was made by an artist who nnust have been a foe of the gods,
for Fjolsvin designates him by the Loki-epithet Loptr;


That the place where the artist dwelt when he made the weapon was
situated fyr nágridr nean;


That while he dwelt there, and after he had finished the sword, lie was
robbed of it (Loptr ruinn fyr nágrindr nean);


That lie or they who robbed him of it must have been closely related to
Nat and the night dises, for tIme sword was thereafter in the keeping of
the night-being Sinmara;


That she regarded it as exceedingly precious, amid also dangerous if it
canie into improper hands, since she keeps it in a "tough iron chest"
beneath nine magical locks


That the eleven guards that dwell in the same castle with Menglad
regard it as of the greatest importance to get the sword within their
castle wall


That it has qualities like no other weapon in the world: this sword,
and it alone, can kill the golden cock on the world-tree'a quality which
seems to indicate that it threatens the existence of the world and the gods.


It is evident that the artist who made this incomparable and terrible
weapon was one of the most celebrated smiths in mythology. The question
now is, whether the information given us by Fjölsvinnsmal in regard to
him is sufficient to enable us to determine with certainty who he is.


The poem does not name him by any of his names, but calls him by the
Loki-epithet Loptr, "the airy ". Among the ancient smiths mentioned in
our mythic fragments there is one who refers to himself with the epithet
Byrr, "Wind," suggesting to us the same person'this one is Volund. After
he in his sleep had been made prisoner by Mimir-Niar and his Njarians
(see No. 87), he says when he awakes:


Hverir 'ro iofrar ţeir er a laugo besti Byr' sima oc mic bundo '


"Who are the mighty, who with bonds (besti, dative of bostr) bound the
wind (laugdo sima a Byr) and fettered me '" The expression implies that
it is as easy to bind the wind as Volund. He was also able to secure his
liberty again in spite of all precautions.


According to the Norse version of the Volund saga, one of the
precautions resorted to is to sever the sinews of his knees (str. 17 and
the prose). It is Nidadr's queen who causes this cruel treatment. In
Fjölsvinnsmal the nameless mythic personality who deprived the "airy
one" of his weapon has left it to be kept by a feminine person, Sinmara.
The name is composed of sin, which means "sinew," and mara, which means
"the one that maims ". (Mara is related to the verb merja, "to maim
"'see Vigfusson's Diet.) Thus Sinmara means "the one who maims by doing
violence to the sinews ". The one designated by this epithet in
Fjölsvinnsmal has therefore acted the same part as Mimir-Nidadr's queen
in the Volundarkvida.


Mimir-Nidadr, who imprisons Volund and robs him of his sword and the
incomparable arm-ring, is the father of Nat and her sisters (see No.
85). He who robs "the airy one" of his treasures must also have been
intimately related to the dises of night, else he would not have
selected as keeper of the weapon Sinmara, whose quality as a being of
night is manifested by the meaning incubus nocturnes which is the name
Mara acquired. In Fjölsvinnsmal (str. 29) Sinmara is called hin folva
gygr, "the ashes-coloured giantess "'a designation pointing in the same
direction.


She is also called Eir aurglasis (str. 28), an expression which, as I
believe, has been correctly interpreted as "the dis of the shining
arm-ring"(cp. Bugge Edda, p. 348). In Volundarkvida the daughter of
Mimir-Nidadr receives Volund's incomparable arm-rmng to wear.


According to Fjolsvinnsmal "the airy one" makes his weapon fyr nagrindr
nedan. The meaning of this expression has already been discussed in No.
60. The smith has his abode in the frost-cold and foggy Nifelheim, while
he is at work on the sword. Nifelheim, the land fyr nágrindr nean, as we
already know, is the northern subterranean -land of Mimir's domain. The
two realms are separated by Mount Hvergelmer, on which the Na-gates are
set, and where the world-mill, called Eyludr and Ludr have their
foundation-structure (see Nos. 59, 60, 79, 80). In its vicinity below
the southern slope of the Hvergelmer mountain Nat has her hall (Nos. 84,
93). According to Fjölsvinnsmal Sinmara also dwells here. For Fjolsvin
says that if Svipdag is to borrow the sword which she keeps, he must
carry the above-mentioned hooked bone "to Ludr and give it to Sinmara"
(ljósan lja skaltu i Ludr bera Sinmora at selja' str. 30). Ludr, the
subterranean world-mill, which stands on the Nida mountain above Nat's
hall, has given its name to the region where it stands. In Volundarkvida
Mimir-Nidadr suddenly appears with his wife and daughter and armed
Njarians in the remote cold Wolfdales, where Volund thinks himself
secure, and no one knows whence these foes of his come. The explanation
is that the "Wolfdales" of the heroic saga were in the mythology
situated in Nifelheim, the -land of Mimir's realm. Like "the airy one,"
Volund made his sword fyr nágrindr nedan; the latter, like the former,
was robbed of the weapon as soon as it was finished by a lower-world
ruler, whose kinswomen are dises of the night; and in the saga of the
one, as of the other, one of these night dises ha caused a maiming by
injuring the sinews.


Thus we can also understand why Svipdag must travers Nifelheim, "meet
Nat on Nifelway," visit the world-mill, wad across Hel-rivers, and
encounter Mimir himself, "the weapon honoured ". If Svipdag wants the
sword made by Loptr, he mans risk these adventures, since the sword is
kept in the lower world by a kinswoman of Mimir.


The heroic saga about Volund is therefore identical with th( myth
concerning the maker of the sword which opens Asgard fo Svipdag. The
former, produced in Christian times, is only a new version of the
latter. Volund is a foe of the gods, an elf-prince whc was deeply
insulted by beings more powerful than himself (No. 87) "The airy one"
must likewise be a foe of the gods, since the weapon he has made is
dangerous to the golden cock of the world-tree, and is bought by "the
eleven wards" with the opening of Asgard's gate and the giving of
Menglad as wife to Svipdag. Its danger to Asgard must also be suggested
by Fjölsvin 's statement, that the splendid hall, called Hyrr, "the
gladdener," "the soul-stirring," that hall which is situated within the
castle wall, which is encircled by vaferfiames, and which from time out
of mind has been celebrated among men'that this hall has already long
trembled á brodds oddi, "on the point of the sword" (str. 32). No other
weapon can here be meant than one which was fraught with the greatest
danger to the safety of the gods, and which filled them with anxiety;
and unless we wish to deny that there is sense and conniection in the
poem, this sword can be no other than that which Svipdag now has with
him, and which, having been brought to Asgard, relieves the gods of
their anxiety. And to repeat the points of similarity, Volund, like
"Loptr," makes his weapon in the northern land of Mimir's domain; and
when the sword is finished he is surprised by subterranean powers. In
Loptr's saga, as in Volund's, a magnificent arm-ring is mentioned, and
in both a dis of night received this ring to wear. In Loptr's saga, as
in Volund's, a night-dis is mentioned who injures sinews. And Volund
himself calls himself Byrr, "the wind," which is a synonym of Loptr.


Thus Svipdag has made a journey to the lower world to get possession of
the sword of Volund, and he has been successful.


99.


SVIPDAG'S FATHER ORVANDEL, THE STAR-HERO. EXPLANATION OF HIS EPITHET
SOLBJARTR.


The conversation between Fjolsvin and Svipdag ends when the latter
gives his name, and requests the former to ask Menglad if she wishes to
possess his love. Menglad then hastens to meet him, but before she shows
what she feels for him, he must confirm with his own name and that of
his father's that he really is the one he pretends to be'the one she has
long been longing for. The young hero then says: Svipdagr ek heitir,
Sólbjrartr het minn fadir (str. 47).


When Fjölsvin asked Svipdag what the name of his father was, he
answered: Springcold, Várkaldr (str. 6); and I have already stated the
reason why he was so called. Now he gives another name of his
father'Sólbjarir'which also is a mere epithet, but still, as Svipdag
must here speak plainly, it has to be such a name as can refer to his
father in a distinct and definite manner.


Svipdag's mother, Groa, was married to Orvandill hinn frćkni (Younger
Edda, 276-278). The epithet Sólbjartr, "he who has a brightness like
that of the sun," it' it really refers to Orvandel, nnust be justified
and explained by something that the mythology had to report of him. Of
Orvandel, we know from the Younger Edda that lie and Groa had at least
for a time been good friends of Thor; that on one of his expeditions in
Jotunheim, north of the Elivagar rivers, the latter had met Orvandel and
had carried him in his provision-basket across the water to his honne;
that Orvandel there froze his toe; that Thor broke this off, and, in
honour of Orvandel, threw it up into the heavens, where it became that
star which is called Orvandel's toe. Of ancient Teutonic star-names but
very few have been handed down to our timne, amid it is natural that
thiose now extant must be those of constellations or separate stars,
which attracted attention on account of their appearance, or
particularly on account ot' the strength of their light. One of them was
"Orvandel's toe ". By the name Orvandel (Earendel) a star was also known
among the Teutons in Great Britain. After being converted to
Christianity they regarded the Earendel star as a symbol of Christ. The
Church had already sanctified such a view by applying to Christ the
second epistle of Peter i. 19:


"We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that
ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the
day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts ". The morning star
became, as we read in a Latin hymn, "typus Christi".


But it would be a too hasty conclusion to assume that Orvandel's star
and the morning star were identical in heathen times. All that we can
assert with certainty is that the former must have been one of the
brightest, for the very name Earendel gradually became in the Old
English an abstract word meaning "splendour".


Codex Exoniensis has preserved a hymn to Christ, the introductory
stanzas of which appear to be borrowed from the memory of a heathen hymn
to Orvandel, and to have been adapted to Christ with a slight change:


Eala Earendel

engla beor'htast,

ofer Middangeard

monnum sended

sodfasta

sunnan leoma,

tohrt ofer tunglas

ţu tida gehvane

of sylfum ţe

symle inlihtes.


	

O Orvandel,

brightest shining of angels,

thou who over Midgard

art sent to men, and

thou true

beam of the sun

shining above

the lights of heaven,

thou who always

of thyself givest light.


From this Old English song it appears as if the Orvandel epithet
Sólbjartr was in vogue among the Saxon tribes in England. We theme find
an apparent interpretation of the epithet in the phrases adapted to
Earendel, "brightest (beorhtast) of angels" and "true beam of the sun ".
That Svipdag's name was well known in England, and that a Saxon royal
dynasty counted him among their mythical forefathers, can be
demonstrated by the genealogy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. That Svipdag
with sufficient distinctness might characterise his father as Sólbjartr
is accordingly explained by the fact that Orvandel is a star-hero, and
that the star bearing his name was one of the "brightest" in the
heavens, and in brilliancy was like "a beam from the sun".


100.


SVIPDAG RESCUED FREYJA FROM THE HANDS OF THE GIANTS. SAXO ON OTHARUS
AND SYRITHA. SVIPDAG IDENTICAL WITH OTHARUS.


When Menglad requests Svipdag to nanne his race and his name, she does
so because she wants jartegn (legal evidence; compare the expression med
vitnum ok jartegnum) that he is the one as whose wife she had been
designated by the norns (ef ek var ţer kván of kvedin'str. 46), and that
her eyes had not deceived hen'. She also wishes to know something about
his past life that may confirm that he is Svipdag. When Svipdag had
given as a jartegn his own nanne and an epithet of his father, he makes
only a brief statement in regard to his past life, but to Menglad it is
an entirely sufficient proof of his identity with her intended husband.
He says that the winds drove him on cold paths from his father's house
to frosty regions of the world (str. 47). The word used by him, "drove"
(reka), implies that lie did not spontaneously leave his home, a fact
which we also learn in Grogalder. On the conimand of his stepmother, and
contrary to his own will, he departs to find Menglads, "the women fond
of ornaments ". His answer further shows that after he had left his
father's house he had niade journeys in frost-cold regions of the world.
Such regions are Jotunheim and Nifelheim, which was in fact regarded as
a subterranean part of Jotunheim (see Nos. 59, 63).


Menglad has eagerly longed for the day when Svipdag should come. Her
mood, when Svipdag sees her within the castle wall sitting on "the
joyous mount" surrounded by asynjes and dises, is described in the poem
by the verb ţruma, "to be sunk into a lethargic, dreamy condition ".
When Fjölsvin approaches her and bids her "look at a stranger who may be
Svipdag" (str. 43), she awakes in great agony, and for a moment she can
scarcely control herself. When she is persuaded that she has not been
deceived either by Fjölsvin's words or by her own eyes, she at once
seals the arrival of the youth with a kiss. The words which the poem
makes her lips utter testify, like her conduct, that it is not the first
time she and Svipdag have met, but that it is a "meeting again," and
that she long ere this knew that she possessed Svipdag's love. She
speaks not only of her own longing for him, but also of his longing and
love for her (str. 48-50), and is happy that "he has come again to her
halls" (at ţu est aptr komin, mógr, til minna sala'str. 49). This
"again" (back), which indicates a previous meeting between Menglad and
Svipdag, is found in all the manuscripts of Fjolsvinnsmal, and that it
has not been added by any "betterer"' trying to mend the metres of the
text is demonstrated by the fact that the metre would be improved by the
absence of the word aptr'.


Meanwhile it appears with certainty from Fjölsvinnsmal that Svipdag
never before had seen the castle within whose walls Men-glad has riki,
eign ok audsolum. (str. 7, 8). He stands before its gate as a wondering
stranger, and puts question after question to Fjolsvin in regard to the
remarkable sights before his eyes. It follows that Menglad did not have
her halls within this citadel, but dwelt somewhere else, at the time
when she on a previous occasion met Svipdag and became assured that he
loved her.


In this other place she niust have resided when Svipdag's stepmother
commanded him to find Menglodum, that is to say, Menglad, but also some
one else to whom the epithet "ornament-glad" might apply. This is
confirmued by the fact that this other person to whom Grogalder's words
refer is not at all mentioned in Fjolsvinnsmal. It is manifest that many
things hind happened, anid that Svipdag had encounitered many
adventures, between the episode described in Grogalder, when he hind
just been commanded by his stepmother to find "those loving ornaments,"
and the episode in Fjölsvinnsmal, when lie seeks Menglad again in Asgard
itself.


Where can he have met her before ' Was there any time when Freyja did
not dwell in Asgard' Völuspa answers this question, as we know, in the
affirmative. The event threatening to the gods and to the existence of
the world once happened that the goddess of fertility and love canine
into the power of the giants. Then all the high-holy powers assembled to
consider "who had mixed the air within corruption amid given Od's maid
to the race of ginants ". But none of our Icelandic niythic records
mentions how and by whom Freyja was liberated from the hands of the
powers of frost. Under the name Svipdag our hero is mentioned only in
Grogalder and Fjölsvininsnial; all we learn of him under the name Odr
and Ottarr is that he was Freyja's lover and husband (Völuspa,
Hyndluljod); that lie went far, far away; that Freyja then wept for him,
that her tears became gold, that she sought hinn among unknown peoples,
and that she in her search assumed many names: Mardoll, Horn, Gefn, Syr
(Younger Edda, 114). To get further contributions to the Svipdag myth we
must turn to Saxo, where the name Svipdag should be found as
Svipdagerus, Ottar' as Otharus or Hotharus, and Odr as Otherus or
Hotherus. 


There cannot be the least doubt that Saxo's Otharus is a figure
borrowed from the mythology and from the heroic sagas therewith
connected, since in the first eight books of his History not a single
person can be shown who is not originally found in the mythology. But
the mythic records that have come down to our time know only one Ottarr,
and he is the one who wins Freyja's heart. This alone makes it the duty
of the mythologist to follow this hint here given and see whether that
which Saxo relates about his Otharus confirms his identity with
Svipdag-Ottar.


The Danish king Syvaldus had, says Saxo, an uncommonly beautiful
daughter, Syritha, who fell into the hands of a giant. The way this
happened was as follows: A woman who had a secret understanding with the
giant succeeded in nestling herself in Syritha's confidence, in being
adopted as her maidservant, and in enticing her to a place where the
giant lay in ambush. The latter hastened away with Syritha and concealed
her in a wild mountain district. When Otharus learned this he started
out in search of the young maiden. He visited every recess in the
mountains, found the maiden and slew the giant. Syritha was in a strange
condition when Otharus liberated her. The giant had twisted and pressed
her locks together so that they formed on her head one hard mass which
hardly could be combed out except with the aid of an iron tool. Her eyes
stared in an apathetic manner, and she never raised them to look at her
liberator. It was Otharus' determination to bring a pure virgin back to
her kinsmen. But the coldness and indifference she seemed to manifest
toward him was more than he could endure, and so he abandoned her on the
way. While she now wandered alone through


 In Saxo, as in other sources of about the same time, aspirated names
do not usually occur within aspiration. I have already referred to the
examples Handunanus, Andvani, Helias, Elias, Hershernus, Esbiorn,
Hevindus, Eyvindr, Horvendillus, Orvandill, Hestia, Estland, Holandia,
Oland.


the wilderness she came to the abode of a giantess. The latter made the
maiden tend her goats. Still, Otharus must have regretted that he
abandoned Syritha, for he went in search of her and liberated her a
second time. The mythic poem from which Saxo borrowed his story niust
have contained a song, reproduced by him in Latin paraphrases, and in
which Otharus explained to Syritha his love, and requested her, "whom he
had suffered so much in seeking and finding," to give him a look from
her eyes as a token that under his protection she was willing to be
brought back to her father and mother. But her eyes continually stared
on the ground, and apparently she remained as cold and indifferent as
before. Otharus then abandoned her for the second time. From the thread
of the story it appears that they were then not far from that which
separates Jotunheim from the other realms of the world. Otharus crossed
that water, which in the old records is probably called the Elivagar
rivers, on the opposite side of which was his father's borne. Of Syritha
Saxo, on the other hand, says cautiously and obscurely that "she in a
manner that sometimes happened in antiquity hastened far away down the
rocks "'more pristino decursis late scopulis (Hist., 333)'an expression
which leads us to suppose that in the mythic account she had flown away
in the guise of a bird. Meanwhile fate brought her to the home of
Otharus' parents. Here she represented herself to be a poor trayeller,
born of parents who had nothing. But her refined manners contradicted
her statement, and the mother of Otharus received her as a noble guest.
Otharus himself had already come home. She thought she could remain
unknown to him by never raising the veil with which she covered her
face. But Otharus well knew who she was. To find out whether she really
had so little feeling for him as her manners seemed to indicate, a
pretended wedding hetween Otharus and a young maiden was arranged, whose
nanie and position Saxo does not mention. When Otharus went to the
bridal bed, Syritha was probably near him as bridesmaid, and carried the
candle. The light or the flame burnt down, so that the fire came in
contact with her hand, but she felt no pain, for there was in her heart
a still more burning pain. When Otharus then requested her to take care
of her hand, she finally raised her gaze froni the ground, and their
eyes met. Therewith the spell resting on Syritha was broken: it was
plain that they loved each other and the pretended wedding was changed
into a real one between Syritha and Otharus. When her father learned
this he became exceedingly wroth; but after his daughter had made a full
explanation to him, his anger was transformed into kindness and
graciousness, and he himself thereupon married a sister of Otharus.


In regard to the person who enticed Svritha into the snare laid by the
giant, Saxo is not quite certain that it was a woman. Others think, he
says, that it was a man in the guise of a woman.


It has long since attracted the attention of mythologists that in this
narrative there are found two names, Otharus and Syritha, which seem to
refer to the myth concerning Freyja. Otharus is no doubt a Latinised
form of Ottar, and, as is well known, the only one who had this name in
the mythology is, as stated, Freyja's lover and husband. Syritha, on the
other hand, may be a Latinised form of Freyja's epithet Syr, in which
Saxo presumably supposed he had found an abbreviated form of Syri (Sin,
Sigrid). In Saxo's narrative Syritha is abducted by a giant (gigas),
with the aid of an ally whom he had procured among Freyja's attendants.
In the mythology Freyja is abducted by a giant, and, as it appears from
Völuspa's words, likewise by the aid of some ally who was in Freyja's
service, for it is there said that the gods hold council as to who it
could have been who "gave," delivered Freyja to the race of the giants
(hverr hefdi ćtt jötuns Ods mey gefna). In Saxo Otharus is of lower
descent than Syritha. Saxo has not made him a son of a king, but a youth
of' humble birth as compared with his bride; and his courage to look up
to Syritha, Saxo remarks, can only be explained by the great deeds he
had performed or by his reliance on his agreeable manners and his
eloquence (sive gestarum rerum magnitudine sive comitatis et facundić
fiducia accensus). In the mythology Or was of lower birth than Freyja:
he did not by birth belong to the number of higher gods; and Svipdag
had, as we know, never seen Asgard before he arrived there under the
circumstances described in Fjölsvinnsmal. That the most beautiful of all
the goddesses, and the one second in rank to Frigg alone, she who is
particularly desired by all powers, the sister of the harvest god Frey,
the daughter of Njord, the god of wealth, she who with Odin shares the
privilege of choosing heroes on the battlefield'that she does not become
the wife of an Asa-god, but "is married to the man called Or," would
long since have been selected by the mythologists as a question both
interesting and worthy of investigation had they cared to devote any
attention to epic coherence and to premisses and denouement in the
mythohogy in connection with the speculations on the signification of
the myths as symbols of nature or on their ethical meaning. The view
would then certainly have been reached that this Or in the epic of the
mythology must have been the author of exploits which balanced his
humbler descent, and the mythologists would thus have been driven to
direct the investigation first of all to the question whether Freyja,
who we know was for some time in the power of the giants, but was
rescued therefrom, did not find as her liberator this very Or, who
afterwards became her husband, and whether Or did not by this very act
gain her love and become entitled to obtain her hand. The adventure
which Saxo relates actually dovetails itself into and fills a gap in
that chain of events which are the result of the analysis of Grogalder
and Fjölsvinnsmal. We understand that the young Svipdag is alarmed, and
considers the task imposed on him by the stepmother to find Menglad far
too great for bins strength, mf it is necessary to seek Menglad in
Jotunheim and rescue her thence. We understand why on his arrival at
Asgard he is so kindly received, after he has gone through the formality
of giving his name, when we know that he comes not only as the feared
possessor of the Volund sword, but also as the one who has restored to
Asgard the most lovely and most beautiful asynje. We can then understand
why the gate, which holds fast every uninvited guest, opens as of itself
for him, and why the savage wolf-dogs hick him. That his words: ţadan
(from his paternal home) rákumk vinda kalda vegu, are to Menglad a
sufficient answer to her question in regard to his previous journeys can
be understood if Svipdag has, as Ottar, searched through the frost-cold
Jotunheim's eastern mountain districts to find Menglad; and we can then
see that Menglad in Fjolsvinnsmal can speak of her meeting with Svipdag
at the gate of Asgard as a "meeting again," although Svipdag never
before had been in Asgard. And that Menglad receives him as a husband to
whom she is already married, with whom she is now to be "united for
ever" (Fjolsvinnsmal, 58), is likewise explained by the improvised
wedding which Otharus celebrated with Syrithia before she returns to her
father.


The identity of Otharus with the Ottarr-Odr-Svipdagr of the mythology
further appears from the fact that Saxo gives him as father an Ebbo,
which a comparative investigation proves to be identical with Svipdag's
father Orvandel. Of the name Ebbo and the person to whom it belongs I
shall have something to say in Nos. 108 and 109. Here it must be
remarked that if Otharus is identical with Svipdag, then his father
Ebbo, like Svipdag's father, should appear in the history of the mythic
patriarch Halfdan and be the enemy of the latter (see Nos. 24, 33). Such
is also the case. Saxo produces Ebbo on the scene as an enemy of Halfdan
Berggram (Hist., 329, 330). A woman, Groa, is the cause of the enmity
between Halfdan and Orvandel. A woman, Sygrutha, is the cause of the
enmity between Hahfdan and Ebbo. In the one passage Halfdan robs
Orvandel of his betrothed Groa; in the other passage Halfdan robs Ebbo
of his bride Sygrutha. In a third passage in his history (p. 138) Saxo
has recorded the tradition that Horvendillus (Orvandel) is slain by a
rival, who takes his wife, there called Gerutha. Halfdan kills Ebbo.
Thus it is plain that the same story is told about Svipdag's father
Orvandel and about Ebbo the father of Otharus, and that Groa, Sygrutha,
and Gerutha are different versions of the same dis of vegetation.


According to Saxo, Syritha's father was afterwards married to a sister
of Otharus. In the mythology Freyja's father Njord marries Skade, who is
the foster-sister and systrunga (sister's child) of Ottar-Svipdag (see
Nos. 108, 113, 114, 115).


Freyja's surname Horn (also Horn) may possibly be explained by what
Saxo relates about the giant's manner of treating her hair, which he
pressed into one snarled, stiff, and hard mass. With the myth concerning
Freyja's locks, we must compare that about Sif's hair. The hair of both
these goddesses is subject to the violence of the hands of giants, and
it may be presumed that both myths symbolised some feature of nature.
Loki's act of violence on Sif's hair is made good by the skill and
good-will of the ancient artists Sindre and Brok (Younger Edda, i. 340).
In regard to Freyja's locks, the skill of a "dwarf" may have been
resorted to, since Saxo relates that an iron instrument was necessary to
separate and comb out the horn-hard braids. In Völuspa's list of ancient
artists there is a smith by name Hornbori, which possibly has some
reference to this.


Reasons have already been given in No. 35 for the theory that it was
Gulveig-Heid who betrayed Freyja and delivered her into the hands of the
giants. When Saxo says that this treachery was committed by a woman, but
also suggests the possibility that it was a man in the guise of a woman,
then this too is explained by the mythology, in which Gulveig-Heid, like
her fellow culprit, has an androgynous nature. Loki becomes "the
possessor of the evil woman" (kvidugr af konu illri). In Fjölsvinnsmal
we meet again with Gulveig-Heid, born again and called Aurboda, as one
of Freyja's attendants, into whose graces she is nestled for a second time.


101.


SVIPDAG IN SAXO'S ACCOUNT OF HOTHERUS


From the parallel name Otharus, we must turn to the other parallel name
Hotherus. It has already been shown that if the Svipdag synonym Odr
occurs in Saxo, it must have been Latinised into Otherus or Hotherus.
The latter form is actually found, but under circumstances making an
elaborate investigation necessary, for in what Saxo narrates concerning
this Hotherus, he has to the best of his ability united sketches and
episodes of two different mythic persons, and it is therefore necessary
to separate these different elements borrowed from different sources.
One of these mythic persons is Hor the Asa-god, and the other is
Odr-Svipdag. The investigation will therefore at the same time contain a
contribution to the researches concerning the original records of the
myth of Balder.


Saxo's account of Hotherus (Hist., 110, &c.), is as follows:


"Hotherus, son of Hothbrodus (Hödbrodd), was fostered in the home of
Nanna's father, King Gevarus (Gevarr; see Nos. 90-92), and he grew up to
be a stately youth, distinguished as a man of accomplishments among the
contemporaries of his age. He could swim, was an excellent archer and
boxer, and his skill on various musical instruments was so great that he
had the human passions under his control, and could produce at pleasure
, gladness, sorrow, sympathy, or hate. Nanna, the daughter of Gevarus,
fell in love with the highly gifted youth and he with her.


Meanwhile, fate brought it to come to pass that Balder, the son of the
idol Odin, also fell in love with Nanna. He had once seen her bathing,
and had been dazzled by the splendour of her limbs. In order to remove
the most dangerous obstacle between himself and her, he resolved to slay
Hotherus.


As Hotherus on afoggyday was hunting in the woods he got lost and came
to a house, where there sat three wood-nymphs. They greeted him by name,
and in answer to his question they said they were the maids who
determine the events of the battle, and give defeat or success in war.
Invisible they come to the battlefield, and secretly give help to those
whom they wish to favour. From them Hotherus learned that Balder was in
hove with Nanna, but they advised him not to resort to weapons against
him, for he was a demigod born of supernatural seed. When they had said
this, they and the house in which Hotherus had found them disappeared,
and to his joy be found himself standing on a field under the open sky.


When he arrived home, he mentioned to Gevarus what he had seen and
heard, and at once demanded the hand of his daughter. Gevarus answered
that it would have been a pleasure to him to see Hotherus and Nanna
united, but Balder had already made a similar request, and he did not
dare to draw the wrath of the latter down upon himself, since not even
iron could harm the conjured body of the demigod.


But Gevarus said he knew of a sword with which Balder could be slain,
but it lies locked up behind the strongest bars, and the place where it
is found is scarcely accessible to mortals. The way thither'if we may
use the expression where no road has been made'is filled with obstacles,
and leads for the greater part through exceedingly cold regions. But
behind a span of swift stags one ought to be able to get safe across the
icy mountain ridges. He who keeps the sword is the forest-being
Mimingus, who also has a wonderful wealth-producing arm-ring. If
Hotherus gets there, lie should place his tent in such a manner that its
shadow does not fall into the cave where Mimingus dwells, for at the
sight of this strange eclipse the latter would withdraw farther into the
mountain. Observing these rules of caution, the sword and arm-ring might
possibly be secured. The sword is of such a kind that victory never
fails to attend it, and its value is quite inestimable.


Hotherus, who carefully followed the advice of Gevarus, succeeded in
securing the sword and the ring, which Mimingus, surprised and bound by
Hotherus, delivered as a ransom for his life.


When Gelder, the king of Saxony, learned that the treasure of Mimingus
had been robbed, he resolved to make war against Hotherus. The
foreknowing Gevarus saw this in advance, and advised Hotherus to receive
the rain of javelins from the enemy patiently in the battle, and not to
throw his own javelins before the enemy's supply of weapons was
exhausted. Gelder was conquered, and had to pray for peace. Hotherus
received him in the most friendly manner, and now he conquered him with
his kindness as he had before done with hiis cunning as a warrior.


Hotherus also had a friend in Helgo, the king of Halogaland. The
chieftain of the Finns and of the Bjarmians, Cuso (Guse), was the father
of Thora, whose hand Helgo sought through messengers. But Helgo had so
ugly a blemish on his mouth that he was ashamed to converse, not only
with strangers, but also with his own household and friends. Cuso had
already refused his offer of marriage, but as he now addressed himself
to Hotherus asking f'or assistance, the latter was able to secure a
hearing from the Finnish chieftain, so that Helgo secured the wife he so
greatly desired.


While this happened in Halogaland, Balder had invaded the territory of
Gevarus with an armed force, to demand Nanna's hand. Gevarus referred
him to his daughter, who was herself permitted to determine her fate.
Nanna answered that she was of too humble birth to be the wife of a
husband of divine descent. Gevarus informed Hotherus of what had
happened, and the latter took counsel with Helgo as to what was now to
be done. After having considered various things, they finally resolved
on making war.


And it was a war in which one should think men fought with gods. For
Odin, Thor, and the hosts sanctified by the gods fought on Balder's
side. Thor had a heavy club, with which he smashed shields and
coats-of-mail, and slew all before him. Hotherus would have seen his
retreating army defeated had he not himself succeeded in checking Thor's
progress. Clad in an impenetrable coat-of-mail, he went against Thor,
and with a blow of his sword lie severed the handle from Thor's club and
made it unfit for use. Then the gods fled. Thereupon the warriors of
Hotherus rushed upon Balder's fleet and destroyed and sank it. In the
same war Gelder fell. On a funeral pile kindled on Gelder's ship his
body was burnt on a heap of fallen warriors, and Hotherus buried with
great solemnity his ashes in a large and magnificent grave-mound. Then
Hotherus returned to Gevarus, celebrated his wedding with Nanna, and
made great presents to Helgo and Thora.


But Balder had no peace. Another war was declared, and this tinme
Balder was the victor. The defeated Hotherus took refuge with Gevarus.
In this war a water-famine occurred in Balder's army, but the latter dug
deep wells and opened new fountains for his thirsty men. Meanwhile
Balder was afflicted in his dreams by ghosts which had assumed Nanna's
form. His love and longing so consumed him that he at last was unable to
walk, but had to ride in a chariot on his journeys.


Hotherus had fled to Sweden, where he retained the royal authority; but
Balder took possession of Seeland, and soon acquired the devotion of the
Danes, for he was regarded as having martial merits, amid was a man of
great dignity. Hotherus again declared war against Balder, but was
defeated in Jutland, and was obliged to return to Sweden alone and
abandoned. Despondent on account of his defeats, weary of life and the
light of day, he went into the wilderness and traversed most desolate
forests, where the fall of mortal feet is seldom heard. Then he came to
a cave in which sat three strange women. From such women he had once
received the inipenetrable coat-of-mail, and he recognised them as those
very persons. They asked him why he had come to these regions, and he
told them how unsuccessful he had been in his last battle. He reproached
them, saying that they had deceived him, for they had promised him
victory, but he had had a totally different fate. The women responded
that he nevertheless had done his enemies great harm, and assured him
that victory would yet perch on his banners if he should succeed in
finding the wonderful nourishment which was invented for the increasing
of Balder's strength. This was sufficient to encourage hini to make
another wan', although there were those among his friends who dissuaded
him therefrom. From different sides men were gathered, and a bloody
battle was fought, which was not decided at the fall of night. The
uneasiness of Hotherus hindered him from sleeping, and lie went out in
the darkness of the night to reconnoitre the condition amid position of
the enemy. When he had reached the camp of the enemy he perceived that
three dises, who were wont to prepare Balder's mysterious food, had just
left. He followed their footprints in the bedewed grass and reached
their abode. Asked by them who he was, he said he was a player on the
cithern. One of them then handed him a cithern, and he played for them
magnificently. They had three serpents, with whose venom Balder's food
was mixed. They were now engaged in preparing this food. One of them had
the goodness to offer Hotherus some of the food; but the eldest said:
"It would be treason to Balder to increase the strength of his foe ".
The stranger said that he was one of the men of Hotherus, and not
Hotherus himself. He was then permitted to taste the food.  The women
also presented him with a beautiful girdle of victory.


On his way home Hotherus met his foe and thrust a weapon into his side,
so that he fell half-dead to the ground. This produced joy in the camp
of Hotherus, but sorrow in the Danish camp. Balder, who knew that he was
going to die, but was unwilling to abide death in his tent, renewed the
battle the following day, and had himself carried on a stretcher into
the thickest of the fight. The following night Proserpina (the goddess
of death) came to him and announced to him that he should be her guest
the next day. He died from his wound at the tinie predicted, and was
buried in a mound with royal splendour. Hotherus took the sceptre in
Denmark after Balder.


Meanwhile it had happened that King Gevarus had been attacked and
burned in his house by a jarl under him, by name Guano. Hotherus avenged
the death of Gevarus, and burnt Gunno alive on a funeral pyre as a
punishment for his crime.


Rinda and Odin had a son by name Bous. The latter, to avenge the death
of his brother Balder, attacked Hotherus, who fell in the conflict. But
Bous himself was severely wounded and died the following day from his
wounds. Hotherus was followed on the Danish throne by his son Röricus.


In the examination of this narrative in Saxo there is no hope of
arriving at absolutely positive results unless the student lays aside
all current presuppositions and, in fact, all notions concerning the


 According to Gheysmer's synopsis, Saxo himself says nothing of the
kind. The present reading of the passage in Saxo is distinctly mutilated.


origin and age of the Balder-myth, concerning a special Danish myth in
opposition to a special Norse-Icelandic, &c. If the latter conjecture
based on Saxo is correct, then this is to appear as a result of the
investigation; but the conjecture is not to be used as a presupposition.


That which first strikes the reader is that the story is not
homogeneous. It is coniposed of elements that could not be blended into
one harmonious whole. It suffers from intrinsic contradictions. The
origin of these contradictions must first of all be explained.


The most persistent contradiction concerns the sword of victory of
which Hotherus secured possession. We are assured that it is of immense
value (ingens prćmium), and is attended with the success of victory
(belli foriuna comitaretur), and Hotherus is, in fact, able with the
help of this sword to accomplish a great exploit; put Thor and other
gods to flight. But then Hotherus is conquered again a ad again by
Balder, and finally also defeated by Bous and slain, in spite of the
fact that Gevarus had assured him that this sword should always be
victorious. To be sure, Hotherus succeeds after several defeats in
giving Balder his death-wound, but this is not done in a battle, and can
hardly be counted as a victory; and Hotherus is not able to commit this
secret murder by aid of this sword alone, but is obliged to own a belt
of victory and to eat a wonderful food, which gives Balder his strength,
before he can accomplish this deed.


There must be some reason why Saxo fell into this contradiction, which
is so striking, and is maintained throughout the narrative. If
Hotherus-Hodr in the mythology possessed a sword which always gives
victory and is able to conquer the gods themselves, then the mythology
can not have contained anything about defeats suffered by him after he
got possession of this sword, nor can he then have fallen in conflict
with Odin's and Rind's son. The only way in which this could happen
would be that Hotherus-Hödr, after getting possession of the sword of
victory, and after once having used it to advantage, in some manner was
robbed of it again. But Saxo has read nothing of the sort in his
sources, otherwise he would have mentioned it, if for no other reason than


 This Bugge, too, has observed, and he rightly assunies that the
episode concerning the sword has been interpolated from some other source.


for the purpose of giving a cause for the defeat suffered by his hero,
and it is doubtless his opinion that the sword with which Balder is
mortally wounded is the same as the one Hotherus took from Mimingus.
Hence, either Hodr has neither suffered the defeats mentioned by Saxo
nor fallen by the sword of the brother-avenging son of Odin and Rind, or
he has never possessed the sword of victory here mentioned. It is not
necessary to point out in which of these alternatives we have the
mythological fact. Hodr has never possessed the irresistible sword.


But Saxo has not himself invented the episode concerning the sword of
victory, nor has he introduced this episode in his narrative about
Hotherus without thinking he had good reason therefor.


It follows with certainty that the episode belongs to the saga of
another hero, and that things were found in that saga which made it
possible for Saxo to confound him with Hodr.


The question then arises who this hero was. The first thread the
investigation finds, and has to follow, is the name itself, Hotherus,
within which Latin form Oder can lie concealed as well as Hodr.


In the mythology Odr, like Hodr, was an inhabitant of Asgard, but
nevertheless, like Hödr, he has had hostile relations to Asgard, and in
this connection lie has fought with Thor (see No. 103). The similarity
of the names and the similarity of the mythological situation are
sufficient to explain the confusion on the part of Saxo. But there are
several other reasons, of which I will give one. The weapon with which
Hoder slew Balder in the mythology was a young twig, Mistelteinn. The
sword of victory niade by Volund, with hostile intentions against the
gods, could, for the very reason that it was dangerous to Asgard, be
compared by skalds with the mistletoe, and be so called in a
poetic-rhetorical figure. The fact is, that both in Skirnersmal and in
Fjolsvinnsmal tIme Volund sword is designated as a teinn; that the
mistletoe is included in the list of sword-names in the Younger Edda;
and that in tIme later Icelandic saga-literature mistelteinn is a sword
which is owned in succession by Saming, Thráinn, and Romund Greipson;
and finally, that all that is there said about this sword mistelteirnn
is a faithful echo of the sword of victory made by Volund, though the
facts are more or less confused. Thus we find, for example, that it is
Máni Karl who informs Romund where the sword is to be sought, while in
Saxo it is the moon-god Gevar, Nanna's father, who tells Hotherus where
it lies hid. That the god Máni and Gevar are identical has already been
proved (see Nos. 90, 91, 92). Already before Saxo's time the mistelteinn
and the sword of victory of tIne mythology had been confounded with each
other, and Hoder's and Oder's weapons had received the same name. This
was another reason for Saxo to confound Hoder and Oder and unite them in
Hotherus. And when he found in some of his sources that a sword
mistelteinn was used by Oder, and in others that a mistelteinn was
wielded by Hoder, it was natural that he as a historian should prefer
the sword to the fabulous mistletoe (see more below).


The circumstance that two mythical persons are united into one in
Hotherus has given Saxo free choice of making his Hotherus the son of
the father of the one or of the other. In the mythology Hoder is the son
of Odin; Oder-Svipdag is the son of Orvandel. Saxo has made him a son of
Hoddbrodd, who is identical with Orvandel. It has already been
demonstrated (see No. 29) that Helge Hundingsbane is a copy of the
Teutonic patriarch Halfdan. The series of parallels by which this
demonstration was made clear at the same time makes it manifest that
Helge's rival Hoddbrodd is Halfdan's rival Orvandel. The same place as
is occupied in the Halfdan myth by Orvandel, Hoddbrodd occupies in the
songs concerning Helge Hundingsbane. What we had a right to expect,
namely, that Saxo, when he did not make Hotherus the son of Hoder's
father, should make him a son of Oder's, has actually been done, whence
there can be no doubt that Hoder and Oder were united into one in Saxo's
Hotherus.


With this poiiit perfectly established, it is possible to analyse
Saxo's narrative point by point, resolve it into its constituent parts,
and refer them to the one of the two myths concerning Hoder and Oder to
which they belong. It has already been noted that Saxo was unable to
unite organic ally with his narration of Hoder's adventure the episode
concerning the sword of victory taken from Mimingus. The introduction of
this episode has made the story of Hotherus a chain of contradictions.
On the other hand, the same episode naturally adapts itself to the
Svipdag-Oder story, which we already know. We have seen that Svipdag


 This analysis will be given in the second part of this work in the
treatise on the Balder-myth.


descends to the lower world and there gets into possession of the
Volund sword. Hence it is Svipdag-Oder, not Hoder, who is instructed by
the moon-god Gevar as to where the sword is to be found. It is he who
crosses the frost-mountains, penetrates into the specus guarded by
Mimingus, and there captures the Volund sword and the Volund ring. It is
Svipdag, not Hoder, who, thanks to this sword, is able as ţursar ţjóar
sjóli to conquer the otherwise indomitable Halfdan'nay, even more,
compel Halfdan's co-father and protector, the Asa-god Thor, to yield.


Thus Saxo's accounts about Otharus and Hotherus fill two important gaps
in the records preserved to our time in the Icelandic sources concerning
the Svipdag-myth. To this is also to be added what Saxo tells us about
Svipdag under this very name (see Nos. 24, 33): that he carries on an
implacable war with Halfdan after the latter had first secured and then
rejected Groa; that after various fortunes of war he conquers him and
gives him a mortal wound; that he takes Halfdan's and Groa's son Gudhorm
into his good graces and gives him a kingdom, but that he pursues and
wars against Halfdan's and Alveig-Signe's son Hadding, and finally falls
by his hand.


Hotherus-Svipdag's perilous journey across the frosty niountains,
mentioned by Saxo, is predicted by Groa in her seventh incantation of
protection over her son:


ţann gel ek ţer in sjaunda, ef ţik sćkja kemr frost a fjalli ha
hávetrar kuldi megit ţínu holdi fara, ok haldisk ć lik at lidum.


102.


SYIPDAG'S SYNONYM EIREKR.. ERICUS DISERTUS IN SAXO.


We have not yet exhausted Saxo's contributions to the myth comicerning
Svipdag. In two other passages in his Historia Danica Svipdag reappears,
namely, in tIne accounts of the reigns of Frode III. anid of Halfdan
Berggram, in both under the name Ericus (Eirekr'), a name applied to
Svipdag in the mythology also (see No. 108).


The first reference showing that Svipdag and Erik are identical appears
in the following analogies:


Halfdan (Gram), who kills a Swedish king, is attacked in war by Svipdag.


Halfdan (Berggram), who kills a Swedish king, is attacked in war by Erik.


Svipdag is the son of the slain Swedish king's daughter.


Erik is the son of the slain Swedish king's daughter.


Saxo's account of King Frode is for the greater part the myth about
Frey told as history. We might then expect to find that Svipdag, who
becomes Frey's brother-in-law, should appear in some róle in Frode's
history. The question, then, is whether any brother-in-law of Frode
plays a part therein. This is actually the case. Frode's brother-in-law
is a young hero who is his general and factotum, and is called Ericus,
with the surname Disertus, the eloquent. The Ericus who appears as
Halfdan's enemy accordingly resembles Svipdag, Halfdan's enemy, in the
fact that he is a son of the daughter of the Swedish king slain by
Halfdan. The Ericus who is Frode-Frey's general, again, resembles
Svipdag in the fact that lie marries Frode-Frey's sister. This is
another indication that Erik and Svipdag were identical in Saxo's mythic
sources.


Let us now pursue these indications and see whether they are confirmed
by the stories which Saxo tells of Halfdan's enemy Erik and Frode-Frey's
brother-in-law, Erik the eloquent.


Saxo first brings us to the paternal home of Erik the eloquent. In the
beginning of the narrative Erik's mother is already dead and his father
is mnarried a second time (Hist., 192). Compare with this the beginning
of Svipdag's history, where his mother, according to Grogalder, is dead,
and his father is married again.


The stepmother has a son, by name Rollerus, whose position in the myth
I shall consider hereafter. Erik and Roller leave their paternal home to
find Frode-Frey and his sister Gunvara, a maiden of the most
extraordinary beauty. Before they proceed on this adventurous journey
Erik's stepmother, Roller's mother, has given them a wisdom-inspiring
food to eat, in which one of the constituent parts was the fat of three
serpents. Of this food the cunning Erik knew how to secure the better
part, really intended for Roller. But the half-brothers were faithful
friends.


From Saxo's narrative it appears that Erik had no desire at all to make
this journey. It was Roller who first made the promise to go in search
of Frode and his sister, and it was doubtless Erik's stepmother who
brought about that Erik should assist his brother in the accomplishment
of the task. Erik himself regarded the resolve taken by Roller as
surpassing his strength (Hist., 193).


This corresponds with what Grogalder tells us about Svipdag's
disinclination to perform the task imposed on him by his stepmother.
This also gives us the key to Grogalder's words, that Svipdag was
commanded to go and find not only "the one fond of ornaments," but
"those fond of ornaments" (koma móti Menglödum). The plural indicates
that there is more than one "fond of ornanients" to be sought. It is
necessary to bring back to Asgard not only Freyja, but also Frey her
brother, the god of the harvests, for whom the ancient artists made
ornaments, and who as a symbol of nature is the one under whose
supremacy the forces of vegetation mu nature decorate the meadows with
grass and the fields with grain. He, too, with his sister, was in the
power of the giant-world in the great fimbul-winter (see below).


The food to which serpents must contribute one of the constituent parts
reappears in Saxo's account of Hotherus (Hist., 123; No. 101), and is
there described with about the same words. In both passages three
serpents are required for the purpose. That Balder should be nourished
with this sort of food is highly improbable. The serpent food in the
stories about Hotherus and Ericus has been borrowed from the Svipdag-myth.


The land in which Erode and his beautiful sister live is difficult of
access, and magic powers have hitherto made futile every effort to get
there. The attendants of the brother and sister thnene are described as
the most savage, the most impudent, and the most disagreeable that can
be conceived. They are beings of the inmost disgusting kind, whose
manners are as unrestrained as their words. To get to this country it is
necessary to cross an ocean, where storms, conjured up by witchcraft,
threaten every sailor with destruction. Groa has predicted this journey,
and has sung a magic song of protection over her son against the dangers
which he is to meet on the magic sea:


ţann gel ek ţer inn setta ef ţu sjó kemr meira en menn viti: logn ok
logr gangi ţer i ludr saman ok ljái ţer ae fridrjugrar farar.


When Erik and Roller, defying the storms, had crossed this sea and
conquered the magic power which hindered the approach to the country,
they entered a harbour, near which Erode and Gunvara are to be sought.
On the strand they meet people who belong to the attendants of the
brother and sister. Among them are three brothers, all named Grep, and
of whom one is Gunvara's pressing and persistent suitor. This Grep, who
is a poet and orator of the sort to be found in that land, at once
enters into a discussion with Erik. At the end of the discussion Grep
retires defeated and angry. Then Erik and Roller proceed up to the abode
where they are to find those whom they seek. Erode and Gunvara are met
amid attendants who treat them as princely persons, and look upon
themselves as their court-circle. But the royal household is of a very
strange kind, and receives visitors with great hooting, barking of dogs,
and insulting manners. Erode occupies the high-seat in the hall, where a
great fire is burning as a protection against the bitter cold. It is
manifest from Saxo's description that Erode and Gunvara, possibly by
virtue of the sorcery of the giants, are in a spiritual condition in
which they have almost forgotten the past, but without being happy in
their present circumstances. Erode feels unhappy and degraded. Gunvara
loathes her suitor Grep. The days here spent by Erik and Roller, before
they get an opportunity to take flight with Gunvara, form a series of
drinking-bouts, vulgar songs, assaults, fights, and murders. The jealous
Grep tries to assassinate Erik, but in this attempt he is slain by
Roller's sword. Erode cannot be persuaded to accompany Erik, Roller, and
Gunvara on this flight. He feels that his life is stained with a spot
that cannot be removed, and he is unwilling to appear with it among
other men. In the mythology it is left to Njord himself to liberate his
son. In another passage (Hist., 266, 267) Saxo says that King Fridlevus
(Njord) liberated a princely youth who bad been robbed by a giant. In
the mythology this youth can hardly be anyone else than the young Frey,
the son of the liberator. Erik afterwards marries Gunvara.


Among the poetical paraphrases from heathen times are found some which
refer to Frey's and Freyja's captivity among the giants. In a song of
the skald Kormak the mead of poetry is called jastrin fontanna Syrar
Greppa, "the seething flood of the sea ranks (of the skerry) of Syr (of
Freyja) of the Greps ". This paraphrase evidently owes its existence to
an association of ideas based on the same myth as Saxo has told in his
way. Syr, as we know, is one of Freyja's surnames, and as to its
meaning, one which she must have acquired during her sojourn in
Jotunheim, for it is scarcely applicable to her outside of Jotunheim.
Greppr, the poet there, as we have already seen, is Freyja's suitor. He
has had brothers also called Greppr, whence the plural expression Syrs
Greppa (" Syr's Greps "), wherein Freyja's surname is joined with more
than one Grep, receives its mythological explanation. The giant abode
where Frode and Gunvara sojourn, is according to Saxo, situated not far
from the harbour where Erik and Roller entered (portum a quo Frotho non
longe deversabatur'Hist., 198). The expression "the Greps of Syr's
skerries" thus agrees with Saxo.


A northern land uninhabited by man is by Eyvind Skaldaspiller called
utrost Belja dolgs, "the most remotely situated abode of Bele's enemy
(Frey) ". This paraphrase is also explained by the myth concerning
Frey's and Freyja's visit in Jotunheim. Beli is a giant-name, and means
"the howler ". Erik and Roller, according to Saxo, are received with a
horrible howl by the giants who attend Frey. "They produced horrible
sounds like those of howling animals" (ululantium more horrisonas dedere
voces). To the myth about how Frey fell into the power of the giants I
shall come later (see Nos. 109, 111, 112).


Erik is in Saxo called disertus, the eloquent. The Svipdag epithet Odr
originally had a meaning very near to this. The impersonal odr means
partly the reflecting element in man, partly song and poetry, the
ability of expressing one's self skilfully and of joining the words in
an agreeable and persuasive manner (cp. the Gothic weit-wodan, to
convince). Erik demonstrates the propriety of his name. Saxo makes him
speak in proverbs and sentences, certainly for the reason that his
Northern source has put them on the hips of the young hero. The same
quality characterises Svipdag. In Grogalder his mother sings over him:
"Eloquence and social talents be abundantly bestowed upon you"; and the
description of him in Fjölsvinnsmal places before our eyes a ninible and
vivacious youth who well understands the watchman's veiled words, and on
whose lips the speech develops into proverbs which fasten themselves on
the mind. Compare augrma gamans, &c. (str. 5), and the often quoted Urar
ordi kvedr engi madr (str. 47).


Toward Gunvara Erik observes the same chaste and chivalrous conduct as
Otharus toward Syritha (intacta illi pudicitia manet'p. 216). As to
birth, he occupies the same subordinate position to her as Odr to
Freyja, Otharus to Syritha, Svipdag to Menglad.


The adventures related in the mythology from Svipdag's journey, when he
went in search of Freyja-Menglad, are by Saxo so divided between Ericus
Disertus and Otharus that of the former is told the most of what
happened to Svipdag during his visit in the giant abode, of the latter
the niost of what happened to him on his way thence to his home.


Concerning Erik's family relations, Saxo gives sonie facts which, from
a mythological point of view, are of great value. It has already been
stated that Erik's mother, like Svipdag's, is dead, and that his father,
like Svipdag's, is married a second time where his saga begins. The
father begets with his second wife a son, whom Saxo calls Rollerus. When
Erik's father also is dead, Roller's mother, according to Saxo, marries
again, and this time a powerful chanipion called Brac (Hist., 217), who
in the continuation of the story (p. 217, &c.) proves himself to be
Asa-Brage, the god Thor (cp. No. 105), to whom she brings her son
Roller. In our mythological records we learn that Thor's wife was Sif,
the goddess of vegetation, and that Sif had been married and had had a
son, by name Ullr, before she became the wife of the Asa-god, and that
she brought with her to Asgard this son, who became adopted aniong the
gods. Thus the mythic records and Saxo correspond iii these points, and
it follows that Rollerus is the same as Uller, whom Saxo elsewhere
(Hist., 130, 131; cp. No. 36) mentions as Ollerus. The forms Ollerus and
Rollerus are to each other as Olfr to Hrólfr. Hrólfr is a contraction of
Hród-ulfr; Rollerus indicates a contraction of Hród-Ullr, Hrid-Ullr. The
latter form occurs in the paraphrase Hrídullr hrotta, "the sword's
storm-Ull," a designation of a warrior (Grett., 20, 1). It has already
been pointed out that in the great war between Odin's clan and the Vans,
Ull, although Thor's stepson, takes the side of the Vans and identifies
his cause with that of Frey and Svipdag. Saxo also describes the
half-brothers as faithfully united, and, in regard to Roller's reliable
fraternity, makes Erik utter a sentence which very nearly corresponds to
the Danish:


"End svige de Some og ikke de Baarne"


(Hist., 207'optima est affinium opera opis indigo). Saxo's account of
Erik and Roller thus gives us the key to the mythological statements,
not otherwise intelligible, that though Ull has in Thor a friendly
stepfather (cp. the expression gulli Ullar'Yonger Edda, i. 302), and in
Odin a clan-chief who distinguishes him (cp. Ullar hylli,
&c.'Grimnersmal, 42), nevertheless he contends in this feud on the same
side as Erik-Svipdag, with whom he once set out to rescue Frey from the
power of the giants. The mythology was not willing to sever those bonds
of fidelity which youthful adventures shared in common had established
between Frey, Ull, and Svipdag. Both the last two therefore associate
themselves with Frey when the war breaks out between the Asas and Vans.


It follows that Sif was the second wife of Orvandel the brave before
she became Thor's, and that Ull is Orvandel's son. The intimate relation
between Orvandel on the one side and Thor on the other has already been
shown above. When Orvandel was out on adventures in Jotunheim his first
wife Groa visited Thor's halls as his guest, where the dis of vegetation
might have a safe place of refuge during her husband's absence. This
feature preserved in the Younger Edda is of great mythological
importance, and, as I shall show further on, of ancient Aryan origin.
Orvandel, the great archer and star-hero, reappears in Rigveda and also
in the Greek mythology'in the latter under the name Orion, as Vigfusson
has already assumed. The correctness of the assumption is corroborated
by reasons, which I shall present later on.


103.


THE SYIPDAG SYNONYM EIRIKR (continued).


We now pass to that Erik whom Saxo mentions in his narrative concerning
Halfdan-Berggram, and who, like Svipdag, is the son of a Swedish king's
daughter. This king had been slain by Halfdan. Just as Svipdag
undertakes an irreconcilable war of revenge against Halfdan-Gram, so
does Erik against Halfdan-Berggram. In one of their battles Halfdan was
obliged to take flight, despite his superhumnan strength and martial
luck. More than this, he has by his side the "champion Thoro," and Saxo
himself informs us that the latter is no less a personage than the
Asa-god Thor, but he too must yield to Erik. Thor's Mjolner and
Halfdan's club availed nothing against Erik. In conflict with hini their
weapons seemed edgeless (Hist.,323, 324).


Thus not only Halfdan, but even Thor himself, Odin's mighty son, he who
alone outweighs in strength all the other descendants and clanmen of
Odin. was obliged to retreat before a mythical hero; and that his
lightning hammer, at other tinnes irresistible, Sindre's wonderful work,
is powerless in this conflict, must in the mythology have had particular
reasons. The mythology has scarcely permitted its favourite, "Hlodyn's
celebrated son," to be subjected to such a humiliation more than once,
and this fact must have had such a motive, that the event might be
regarded as a solitary exception. It must therefore be borne inn niind
that, in his narrative concerning Hotherus, Saxo states, that after the
latter had acquired the sword of victory guarded by Mimingus, he meets
the Asa-god Thor in a battle and forces him to yield, after the former
has severed the hammer from its handle with a blow of the sword (Hist.,
118; see No. 101). It has already been shown that Odr-Svipdag, not Hodr,
is the Hotherus who captured the sword of victory and accomplished this
deed (see No. 101). Erik accordingly has, in common with Svipdag, not
only those features that he is the daughter-son of a Swedish king whom
Halfdan had slain, and that he persists in making war on the latter, but
also that he accomplished the unique deed of putting Thor to flight.


Thus the hammer Mjolner is found to have been a weapon which, in spite
of its extraordinary qualities, is inferior to the sword of victory
forged by Volund (see Nos. 87, 98). Accordingly the mythology has
contained two famous judgments on products of the ancient artists. The
first judgment is passed by the Asa-gods mu solemn consultation, and in
reference to this very hammer, Mjolner, explains that Sindre's products
are superior to those of Ivalde's sons. The other judgment is passed on
the field of battle, and confirms the former judgment of the gods.
Mjolaer proves itself useless in conflict with the sword of victory. If
now the Volund of the heroic traditions were one of the Ivalde sons who
fails to get the prize in the mythology, then an epic connection could
be found between the former and the latter judgment: the insulted Ivalde
son has then avenged himself on the gods and re-established his
reputation injured by them. I shall recur to the question whether Volund
was a son of Ivalde or not.


The wars between Erik and Halfdan were, according to Saxo, carried on
with changing fortunes. In one of these conflicts, which must have taken
place before Erik secured the irresistible sword, Halfdan is victorious
and takes Erik prisoner; but the heart of the victor is turned into
reconciliation toward the inexorable foe, and he offers Erik his life
amid friendship if the latter will serve his cause. But when Erik
refuses the offered conciliation, Halfdan binds him fast to a tree in
order to make hinn the prey of the wild beasts of the forest and
abandons him to his fate. Halfdan's desire to become reconciled with
Erik, and also the circumstance that he binds him, is predicted, in
Grogalder (strs. 9, 10), by Svipdag's mother among the fortunes that
await her son:


ţann gel ete ţer inn fjórda ef ţik fjándr standa grovir á galgvegi:
hugr ţeim hverfi til handa ţer mćtti, ok snuisk ţeim til sátta sefi.
ţann gel ek per inn fimta ef ţer fjöturr verdr, borinn at boglimum
Leifnis elda lćt ek ţer fyr legg of kvedinn, ok stokkr ţa láss af limum,
en af fótum fjöturr.


The Svipdag synonyms so far met with are: Odr (Hotherus), Ottarr
(Otharus), and Eirekr (Ericus).


It is remarkable, but, as we shall find later, easy to explain, that
this saga-hero, whom the mythology niade Freyja's husband, and whose
career was adorned with such strange adventures, was not before the
ninth century, and that in Sweden, accorded the same rank as the
Asa-gods, and this in spite of the fact that he was adopted in Asgard,
and despite the fact that his half-brother Ull was clothed with the same
dignity as that of the Asa-gods. There is no trace to show that he who
is Freyja's husband and Frey's brother-in-law was gene rally honoured
with a divine title, with a temple, and with sacrifices. He reniained to
the devotees of the mythology what he was'a brilliant hero, but nothing
more; and while the saga on the remote antiquity of the Teutons made him
a ruler of North Teutonic tribes, whose leader he is in the war against
Halfdan and Hadding (see Nos. 33, 38), he was honoured as one of the
oldest kings of the Scandinavian peoples, but was not worshipped as a
god. As an ancient king he has received his place in the middle-age
chronicles and genealogies of rulers now under the name Svipdag, now
under the name Erik. But, at the same time, his position in the epic was
such that, if the Teutonic Olympus was ever to be increased with a
divinity of Asa-rank, no one would have a greater right than he to be
clothed with this dignity. From this point of view light is shed on a
passage in oh. 26 of Vita Ansgarii. It is there related, that before
Ansgarius arrived in Birka, where his impending arrival was not unknown,
there came thither a man (doubtless a heathen priest or skald) who
insisted that he had a mission from the gods to the king and the people.
According to the nian's statement, the gods had held a meeting, at which
he himself had been present, and in which they unanimously had resolved
to adopt in their council that King Erik who in antiquity had ruled over
the Swedes, so that he henceforth should be one of the gods (Ericum,
quondam. regem vestrum, nos unanimes in collegiam nostrum. ascisimus, ut
sit unus de numero deorum) ; this was done because they had perceived
that the Swedes were about to increase the number of their present gods
by adopting a stranger (Christ) whose doctrine could not be reconciled
with theirs, and who accordingly did not deserve to be worshipped. If
the Swedes wished to add another god to the old ones, under whose
protection the country had so long enjoyed happiness, peace, and plenty,
they ought to accord to Erik, and not to the strange god, that honour
which belongs to tIme divinities of the land. What the man who came to
Birka with this mission reported was made public, and created much stir
and agitation. When Ansgarius landed, a temple had already been built to
Erik, in which supplications and sacrifices were offered to him. This
event took place at a time foreboding a crisis for the ancient Odinic
religion. Its last bulwarks on the Teutonic continent had recently been
levelled with the ground by Charlemagne's victory over the Saxons. The
report of the cruelties practised by the advocates of the doctrine,
which invaded the country from the south and the west, for the purpose
of breaking the faith of the Saxon Odin worshippers towards their
religion, had certainly found its way to Scandinavia, and doubtless had
its influence in encouraging that mighty effort made by the northern
peoples in the ninth century to visit and conquer on their own territory
their Teutonic kinsmen who had been converted to Christianity. It is of
no slight mythological mnterest to learn that zealous men among the
Swedes hoped to be able to inspire the old doctrine with new life by
adopting among the gods Freyja's husband, the most brilliant of the
ancient mythic heroes and the one most celebrated by tine skalds. I do
not deem it impossible that this very attempt made Erik's name hated
among some of the Christians, and was the reason why "Old Erik" became a
name of the devil. Vita Ansgarii says that it was the devil's own work
that Erik was adopted among the gods.


The Svipdag synonym Erik reappears in the Christian saga about Erik
Vidforle (the far-travelled), who succeeded in finding and entering
Odainsakr (see No. 44). This is a reminiscence of Svipdag's visit in
Mimir's realm. The surname Vidförli has beconie connected with two
nanies of Svipdag: we have Eirikr hinn vidfórli and Odr (Oddr) hinn
vidforli in the later Icelandic sagas.


104.


THE LATER FORTUNES OF THE VOLUND SWORD.


I have now given a review of the manner in which I have found the
fragments of the myth concerning Svipdag up to the point where he
obtains Freyja as his wife. The fragments dovetail into each other and
form a consecutive whole. Now, a few words in regard to the part
afterwards played by the Volund sword, secured by Svipdag in the lower
world, in the mythology, and in the saga. The sword, as we have seen, is
the prize for which Asgard opens its gate and receives Svipdag as
Freyja's husband. We subsequently find it in Frey's possession. Once
niore the sword becomes the price of a bride, and passes into the hands
of the giant Gymer and his wife. It has already been demonstrated that
Gymer's wife is the same Angerboda who, in historical times and until
Ragnarok, dwells in the Ironwood (see No. 35). Her shepherd, who in the
woods watches her monster flocks, also keeps the sword until the
fire-giant Fjalar shall appear in his abode in the guise of the red cock
and bring it to his own father Surt, in whose hand it shall cause Frey's
death, and contribute to the destruction of the world of gods.


A historian, Prisons, who was Attila's contemporary, relates that the
Hun king got possession of a divine sword that a shepherd had dug out of
the ground and presented to him as a gift. The king of the Huns, it is
added, rejoiced in the find ; for, as the possessor of the sword that
had belonged to the god "Mars," he considered himself as armed with
authority to undertake and carry on successfully any war he pleased (see
Jordanes, who quotes Priscus).


On the Teutonic peoples the report of this pretended event must have
made a mighty impression. It may be that the story was invented for this
purpose; for their myths told of a sword of victory which was owned by
that god who, since the death of Balder, amid since Tyr became
one-handed, was, together with Thor, looked upon as the bravest of the
warlike gods, which sword had been carried away from Asgard to the
unknown wildernesses of the East, where it had been buried, not to be
produced again before the approach of Ragnarok, when it was to be
exhumed and delivered by a shepherd to a foe of mankind. Already, before
this time, the Teutons had connected the appearance of the Huns with
this myth. According to Jordanes, they believed that evil trollwomen,
whom the Gothic king Filimer had banished from his people, had taken
refuge in the wildernesses of the East, and there given birth to
children with forest giants (" satyres "), which children became the
progenitors of the Huns. This is to say, in other words, that they
believed the Huns were descended from Angerboda's progeny in the
Ironwood, which, in the fulness of time, were to break into Midgard with
the monster Hate as their leader. The sword which the god Frey had
possessed, and which was concealed in the Ironwood, becomes in Jordanes
a sword which the god "Mars" had owned, and which, thereafter, had been
concealed in the earth. Out of Angerboda's shepherd, who again brings
the sword into daylight and gives it to the world-hostile Fjalar,
becomes a shepherd who exhumes the sword and gives it to Attila, the foe
of the Teutonic race.


The memory 'of the sword survived the victory of Clnristianity, and was
handed down through the centuries inn nnany variations. That Surt at the
end of the world was to possess the sword of course fell away, and
instead now one and then another was selected as the hero who was to
find and take it ; that it was watched by a woman and by a man (in the
mythology Angerboda and Eggther); and that the woman was an even more
disgusting being than the man, were features that tIme saga retained
both on the Continent and in England.


The Beowulf poem makes a nionster, by name Grendel (" the destroyer "),
dwell with his mother below a marsh in a forest, which, though referred
to Denniark and to the vicinity of the splendid castle of a Danish king,
is described in a manner which makes it highly probable that the
prototype used by the Christian poet was a heathen skald's description
of the Ironwood. There is, says he, tIme mysterious land in which the
wolf conceals himself, full of narrow valleys, precipices, and abysses,
full of dark and deep forests, marshes shrouded in gloom, lakes shaded
with trees, nesses lashed by the sea, mountain torrents and bogs, which
in the night shine as of fire, and shelter demoniac beings and dragons
in their turbid waves. The hunted game prefers being torn into pieces by
dogs to seeking its refuge on this unholy ground, from which raging
stornis chase black clouds until the heavens are darkened and the rain
pours down in torrents. The English poet may honestly have located the
mthological Ironwood in Denmark. The sanie old -land, which to this very
day is called "Danische wold," was still in the thirteenth century
called by the Danes Jarnwith, the Ironwood. From his abode in this
wilderness Grendel makes nightly excursions to the Danish royal castle,
breaks in there, kills sleeping champions with his iron hands, sucks out
their blood, and carries their corpses to the enchanted marsh in order
to eat them there. The hero, Beowulf, who has heard of this, proceeds to
Denmark, penetrates into the awful forest, dives, armed with Denmark's
best sword, down into the magic marsh to Grendel's and his mother's
hall, and kills them after a conflict in which the above-mentioned sword
was found useless. But down there line finds another which Grendel and
his mother kept concealed, gets possession of it, and conquers with its aid.


Of this remarkable sword it is said that it was "rich in victory," that
it hailed from the past, that "it was a good and excellent work of a
smith," and that the golden hilt was the work of the wonder-smith ". On
the blade was risted (engraved) "that ancient war" when " the billows of
the raging sea washed over the race of giants," and on a plate made of
the purest gold was written in runes "the name of him for whom this
weapon was first made ". The Christian poet found it most convenient for
his purpose not to name this name for his readers or hearers. But all
that is here stated is applicable to the mythological sword of victory.
"The Wonder-smith" in the Old English tale is Volund (Weland). The coat
of mail borne by Beowulf is "Welandes geweorc ". "Deor the Scald's
Complaint" sings of Weland, and King Alfred in his translation of
Boethius speaks of "the wise Weland, the goldsmith, who, in ancient
times, was the most celebrated". That the Weland sword was "the work of
a giant" corresponds with the Volund myth (see below); and as we here
learn that the blade was engraved with pictures representing the
destructions of the ancient giant-artists in the waves of the sea (the
blood of the primeval giant Yimir), then this illustrates a passage in
Skirnersmal, where it is likewise stated that the sword was risted with
images and "that it fights of itself against the giant race"
(Skirnersmal, 8, 23, 25; see No. 60). This expression is purposely
ambiguous. One meaning is emphasised by Frey's words in Skirnersmal,
that it fights of itself "if it is a wise man who owns it " (ef sá er
horser en' hefir'). The other meaning of the expression appears from the
Beowulf poem. The sword itself fights against the giant race in the
sense that the "wonder smith" (Weland), by the aid of pictures on the
blade of the sword itself, represented that battle which Odin and his
brothers fought against the primeval giants, when the former drowned the
latter in the blood of their progenitor, the giant Yimir.


Grendel is the son of the troll-woman living in the marsh, just as Hate
is Angerboda's. The author identifies Grendel with Cain banished from
the sight of his Creator, and makes giants, thurses, and "elves" the
progeny of the banished one. Grendel's mother is a "she-wolf of the
deep" and a niermaid (merewif). Angerboda is the mother of the wolf
progeny in the Ironwood and "drives the ships into Ćgir's jaws ". What "
Beowulf" tells about Grendel reminds us in some of the details so
strongly of Völuspa's words concerning Hate that the question may be
raised whether the English author did not have in mind a strophe
resembling the one in Völuspa which treats of him. Völuspa's Hate
fyllisk fjörvi-feigra manna, " satiates himself with the vital force of
men selected for death ". Beowulf's Grendel sucks the blood of his
chosen victims until life ebbs out of them. Völuspa's Hate rydr ragna
slot naudum dreyra, "colours the princely abode with red blood from the
wounds ". Grendel steals into the royal castle and stains it with blood.
The expression here reappears almost literally. Völuspa's ragna sjöt and
dreyri correspond perfectly to "Beowulf's" driht-sele and dreor.


In Vilkinasaga we read that Nagelring, the best sword in the world, was
concealed in a forest, and was there watched by a woman and a man. The
man had the strength of twelve men, but the woman was still stronger.
King Thidrek and his friend Hildebrand succeeded after a terrible
conibat iii slaying the monster. The woman had to be slain thrice in
order that she should not conie to life again. This feature is also
borrowed from the myth about Angerboda, the thrice slain.


Historia Pontificum (from time middle of the twelfth century) informs
us that Duke Wilhelm of Angouleme (second half of the tenth century)
possessed an extraordinary sword made by Volund. But this was not the
real sword of victory. From Jordanes history it was known in the middle
age that this sword bad fallen into Attila's hands, and the question was
naturally asked what afterwards became of it. Sagas answered the
question. The sword remained with the descendants of the Huns, the
Hungarians. The mother of the Hungarian king Solomon gave it to one Otto
of Bavaria. He lent it to the margrave of Lausitz, Dedi tIme younger.
After the murder of Dedi it came into the hands of Emperor Henry IV.,
who gave it to his favourite, Leopold of Merseburg. By a fall from his
horse Leopold was wounded by the point of the sword, and died from the
wound. Even in hater times the sword was believed to exist, and there
were those who believed that the Duke of Alba bore it at his side.


105.


THE SVIPDAG EPITHET SKIRNER. THE VOLUND SWORDS NAME GAMBANTEIN.


After Svipdag's marriage with Freyja the saga of his life niay be
divided into two parts'the time before his visit in Asgard as Freyja's
happy husband and Frey's best friend, and the time of his absence from
Asgard and his change and destruction.


To the former of these divisions belongs his journey, celebrated in
song, to the abode of the giant Gymer, whither he proceeds to ask, on
Frey's behalf, for tIme hand of Gerd, Gymer's and Aurboda's fair
daughter. It has already been pointed out that after his marriage with
Gunvara-Freyja, Erik-Svipdag appears in Saxo as FrothoFrey's right hand,
ready to help and a trusted man in all things. Among other things the
task is also imposed on him to ask, on behalf of Frotho, for the hand of
a young maiden whose father in the mythology doubtless was a giant. He
is described as a deceitful, treacherous being, hostile to the gods, as
a person who had laid a plan with his daughter as a bait to deceive
Frotho and win Gunvara for himself. The plan is frustrated by Svipdag
(Ericus), Ull (Rollerus), and Thor (Bracus), the last of whom here
appears in his usual role as tIme conqueror of giants. At the very point
when Frotho's intended father-in-law thinks he has won the game Thor
rushes into his halls, and the sehemer is compelled to save himself by
flight (Hist., 221, &c.). In tIme excellent poeni Skirnersmal, the
Icelandic mythic fragments have preserved the nieniory of Frey's
courtship to a giant-maid, daughter of Aurboda's terrible husband, tIne
giant-chief Gymer. Here, as in Saxo, the Vana-god does miot himself go
to do the courting, but sends a messenger, who ma the poem is named by
the epithet Skirner. All that is there told about this Skirner finds its
explanation in Svipdag's saga. The very epithet Skirnir, "the shining
one," is justified by the fact that Solbjart-Orvandel, the star-hero, is
his father. Skirner dwells in Asgard, but is not one of the ruling gods.
The one of the gods with whom he is most intimately united is Frey. Thus
his position in Asgard is the same as Svipdag's. Skirner's influence
with Freyja's brother is so great that when neither Njord nor Skade can
induce the son to reveal the cause of the sorrow which afflicts him,
they hope that Skirner may be able to do so. Who, if not Svipdag, who
tried to rescue Frey from the power of the giants, and who is his
brother-in-law, and in Saxo his all in all, would be the one to possess
such influence over him ' Skirner also appeals to the fact that They and
he have in days past had adventures together of such a kind that they
ought to have faith in each other, and that Frey ought not to have any
secret which he may not safely confide to so faithful a friend (str. 5).
Skirner is wise and poetic, and has proverbs on his lips like
Svipdag-Erik (cp. str. 13 in Skirnersmal with str. 47 in Fjölsvinnsmal).
But the conclusive proof of their identity is the fact that Skirner,
like Svipdag, had made a journey to the lower world, had been in Mimir's
realm at the root of Ygdrasil, and there had fetched a sword called
Gamubantein, which is the same sword as the one Frey lays in his hand
when he is to go on his errand of courtship'the sanie sword as Frey
afterwards parts with as time price paid to Gymer and Aurboda for the
bride. When Gerd refuses to accept the courtship-presents that Skirner
brings with him, lie draws his sword, shows its blade to Gerd, threatens
to send her with its edge to Nifelhel, the region below the Na-gates,
the Hades-dwelling of Hrimner, Hrimgrimner, and of other giants of
antiquity, tIme abode of the furies of physical sicknesses (see No. 60),
and tells her how this terrible weapon originally came into his possession:


Til holtz ec geec oc til hrás vidar gambantein at geta, gambantein ec gat.


" I went to Holt And to the juicy tree Gambantein to get, Gambantein I
got."


The word teinn, a branch, a twig, has the meaning of sword in all time
compounds where it occurs : benteinn, bifteinn, eggteinar, hćva' teinn
(homateinn), hjörteinn, hrćteinn, sarteinn, valteinn. Mistelteinn has
also become the name of a sword (Younger Edda, i. 564; Fornald., i. 416,
515; ii. 371 ; cp. No. 101), and the same weapon as is here called
gambanteinn is called hćvateinn, homateinn (see further No. 116) in
Fjölsvinnsmal.


In the mythology there is only one single place which is called Holt.
It is Mimis holt, Hoddmimis holt, tIme subterranean grove, where the
children who are to be the parents of the future race of man have their
secure abode until the regeneration of tIme world (see Nos. 52, 53),
living on the morning-dew which falls from the world-tree, hrár' vir,
"the tree rich in sap" (see No. 89). Mimir-Nidhad also comes from Holt
when he imprisons Volund (Volund., 14). It has already been proved above
that, on his journey in the lower world, Svipdag also came to Mimis
holt, and saw the citadel within which the ásmegir have their asylum.


Saxo has known n either the above-cited strophe or another resembling
it, and, when his Erik-Svipdag speaks of his journey in ambiguous words
(obscura umbage), Saxo niakes him say: Ad trunca sylvarum robora
penetravi . . . ibi cuspis a robore regis excussa est (Hist., 206). With
the expression ad robora sylvarum penetravi we must compare til holtz ec
gece. The words r'obur regis refer to the tree of the lower world king,
Mimir, Mimameidr, the world-tree. Erik-Svipdag's purpose with his
journey to this tree is to secure a weapon. Saxo calls this weapon cusp
is. Fjölsvinasmal calls it, with a paraphrase, broddr. Cuspis is a
translation of broddr.


Thus there can be no doubt concerning tIme identity of Skirner with
Svipdag.


106.


SVIPDAG'S LATER FORTUNES. HIS TRANSFORMATION AND DEATH.


FREYJA GOES IN SEARCH OF HIM. FREYJA'S EPITHET MARDOLL. THE SEA-KIDNEY,
BRISINGAMEN. SVIPDAG'S EPITHET HERMODR.


When time war between time Asas and the Vans had broken out, Svipdag,
as we have learned, espouses the cause of the Vans (see Nos. 33, 38), to
whoiii lie naturally belongs as the husband of the Vana-dis Freyja amid
Frey's niost intimate friend. The happy issue of the wan' for time Vans
gives Svipdag free hands in regard to Halfdan's hated son Hadding, the
son of the wonian for whose sake Svipdag's mother Groa was rejected.
Meanwhile Svipdag offers Hadding reconciliation, peace, and a throne
among the Teutons (see No. 38). When Hadding refuses to accept gifts of
niercy froni the slayer of his father, Svipdag persecutes hini with
irreconcilable hate. This hatred finally produces a turning-point in
Svipdag's fortunes and darkens the career of tIme brilliant hero. After
the Asas and Vans had become reconciled again, one of them' first
thoughts must have been to put an end to the feud between the Teutonic
tribes, since a continuation of the latter was not in harmony with the
peace restored among the gods (see No. 41). Nevertheless the war was
continued in Midgard (see No. 41), and the cause is Svipdag. He has
become a rebel against both Asas and Vans, and herein we must look for
the reason why, as we read in the Younger Edda, lie disappeared from
Asgard (Younger Edda, 114). But line disappears not only from thie world
of the gods, but finally also from the terrestrial seat of' war, and
that god or those gods who were to blame for this conceal his unhappy
and humiliating fate from Freyja. It is at this tinie that the faithful
and devoted Vana-dis goes forth to seek her lover in all worlds me
ukunnum ţjódum.


Saxo gives us two accounts of Svipdag's death'tIme one clearly
converted into history, the other corresponiding faithfully with the
mythology. The former reports that Hadding conquered and slew Svipdag in
a naval battle (Hist., 42). The latter gives ins the following account
(Hist., 48)


While Hadding lived in exile in a northern wilderness, after his great
defeat in conflict with the Swedes, it happened, on a sunny, warm day,
that lie went to the sea to bathe. While he was washing himself in tIme
cold water lie saw an animal of a most peculiar kind (bellua inauditi
generis), and came into combat with it. Hadding slew it with quick blows
and dragged it on shore. But while he rejoiced over this deed a woman
put herself inn his way and sang a song, in which she let him know that
the deed he had now perpetrated should bring fearful consequences until
lie succeded in reconciling the divine wrath which this murder had
called down upon his head. All the forces of nature, wind and wave,
heaven and earth, were to be his enemies unless he could propitiate the
angry gods, for the being whose life he had taken was a celestial being
concealed in the guise of an animal, one of the super-terrestrial.


Quippe unum e superis alieno corpore tectum Sacrilegć necuere manus:
sic numinis almi Interfector ades.


It appears, however, from the continuation of the narrative, that
Hadding was unwilling to repent what lie had done, although lie was told
that the one he had slain was a supernatural being, and that he long
refused to propitiate those gods whose sorrow and wrath lie had awakened
by the murder. Not until the predictions of the woman were confirmed by
terrible visitations does Hadding make up his mind to reconcile the
powers in question. And this he does by instituting the sacrificial
feast, which is called Frey's offering, and thenceforth was celebrated
in honour of Frey (Pro deo rem diviniam furvis hostiis fecit).


Hadding's refusal to repent what he had done, and the defiance he
showed the divine powers, whom he had insulted by the murder lie had
committed, can only be explained by the fact that these powers were the
Vana-gods who long gave succour to his enemies (see No. 39), and that
the supernatural being itself, which, concealed in the guise of an
animal, was slain by him, was some one whose defeat gave him pleasure,
and whose death he considered himself bound and entitled to cause. This
explanation is fully corroborated by the fact that when he learns that
Odin and the Asas, whose favourite he was, no longer hold their
protecting hands over him, and that the propitiation advised by the
prophetess becomes a necessity to him, he institutes the great annual
offering to Frey, Svipdag's brother-in-law. That this god especially
must be propitiated can, again, have no other reason than the fact that
Frey was a nearer kinsman than any of the Asa-gods to the supernatural
being, from whose slayer he (Frey) demanded a ransom. And as Saxo has
already informed us that Svipdag perished in a naval engagement with
Hadding, all points to the conclusion that in the celestial person who
was concealed in the guise of an animal and was slain in the water we
must discover Svipdag Freyja's husband.


Saxo does not tell us what animal guise it was. It must certainly have
been a purely fabulous kind, since Saxo designates it as bellua inauditi
generis. An Anglo-Saxon record, which is to be cited below, designates
it as uyrm and draca. That Svipdag, sentenced to wear this guise, kept
himself in the water near the shore of a sea, follows from the fact that
Hadding meets and kills him in the sea where he goes to bathe. Freyja,
who sought her lost lover everywhere, also went in search for him to the
realms of Ćgir and Rán. There are reasons for assuming that she found
him again, and, in spite of his transformation and the repulsive
exterior he thereby got, she remained with him and sought to soothe his
misery with her faithful love. One of Freyja's surnames shows that she
at one time dwelt in the bosom of the sea. The name is Mardóll. Another
proof of this is the fragment preserved to our time of the myth
concerning the conflict between Heimdal and Loki in regard to
Brisiagamen. This neck- and breast-ornament, celebrated in song both
among the Teutonic tribes of England and those of Scandinavia, one of
the most splendid works of the ancient artists, belonged to Freyja
(Thrymskvida, Younger Edda). She wore it when she was seeking Svipdag
and found him beneath the waves of the sea; and the splendour which her
Brisingamen diffused from the deep over the surface of the sea is the
epic interpretation of the name mardöll from marr, "sea," and doll,
feminine of dallr (old English deall, "glittering" (compare the names
Heimdallr and Delling). Mardoll thus means "the one diffusing a
glimmering in the sea ". The fact that Brisingamen, together with its
possessor, actually was for a time in Ćger's realm is proved by its
epithet fagrt hafnyra, "the fair kidney of the sea," which occurs in a
strophe of Uhf Uggeson (Younger Edda, 268). There was also a skerry,
Vágasker, Singasteinn, on which Brisingamen lay and glittered, when
Loki, clad inn the guise of a seal, tried to steal it. But before he
accomplished his purpose, there crept upon the skerry another seal, in
whose looks'persons in disguise were not able to change their eyes'the
evil and cunning descendant of Farbaute must quickly have recognised his
old opponent Heimdal. A conflict arose in regard to the possession of
the ornament, and the brave son of the nine mothers became the victor
and preserved the treasure for Asgard.


To the Svipdag synonyms Odr (Hotharus), Ottar (Otharus), Eirekr
(Ericus), and Skirnir, we must finally add one more, which is, perhaps,
of Anglo-Saxon origin: Hermodr, Heremod.


From the Norse mythic records we learn the following in regard to Hermod:


(a) He dwelt in Asgard, but did not belong to the number of time ruling
gods. He is called Odin's sveinn (Younger Edda, 174), and he was the
Asa-father's favourite, and received from him helmet and cuirass
(Hyndluljod, 2).


(b) He is called cnn hvati (Younger Edda, 174), the rapid. When Frigg
asks if anyone desires to earn her favour and gratitude by riding to
tIme realm of death amid offering Hel a ransom for Balder, Hermod offers
to take upon himself this task. He gets Odin's horse Sleipmner to ride,
proceeds on his way to Hel, comes safely to that citadel in the lower
world, where Balder and Nanna abide the regeneration of the earth, spurs
Sleipner over the castle wall, and returns to Asgard with Hel's answer,
and with the ring Draupner, and with presents from Nanna to Frigg amid
Fulla (Younger Edda, 180).


From this it appears that Hermod has a position in Asgard resembling
Skirner's; that lie, like Skirner, is employed by the gods as a
messenger when important or venturesome errands are to be undertaken;
and that he, like Skirner, then gets that steed to ride, which is able
to leap over vaferflames and castle - walls. We should also bear in mind
that Skirner-Svipdag had made celebrated journeys in the same world to
which Hermod is now sent to find Balder. As we know, Svipdag had before
his arrival in Asgard travelled all over the lower world, and had there
fetched the sword of victory. After his adoption in Asgard, lie is sent
by the gods to the lower world to get the chain Gleipner.


(c) In historical times Hermod dwells in Valhal, and is one of the
chief einherjes there. When Hakon the Good was on the way to the hall of
the Asa-f'ather, the latter sent Brage and Hermod to meet him


Hermódr ok Bragi kva Hroptatyr gangit i gegn grami ţvi at konungr ferr
sá er kappi ţykkir, til hallar hinnig (Hakonarmal).


This is all there is in the Norse sources about Hermod.


Further information concerning him is found in the Beowulf poem, which
in two passages (str. 1747, &c., and 3419, &c.) compares him with its
own unselfish and blameless hero, Beowulf, in order to make it clear
that the latter was in moral respects superior to the famous hero of
antiquity. Beowulf was related by marriage to the royal dynasty then
reigning in his land, and was reared in the king's halls as an older
brother of his sons. The comparisons make these circumstances, common to
Beowulf and Hermod, the starting-point, and show that while Beowulf
became the most faithful guardian of his young foster-brothers, and in
all things maintained their rights, Hermod conducted himself in a wholly
different manner. Of Hermod the poem tells us:


(a) He was reared at the court of a Danish king (str. 1818, &c., 3422,
&c.).


(b) He set out on long journeys, and became the most celebrated
traveller that man ever heard of (se wćs wreecena wide mćrost ofer'
wer-ţeóde'str. 1800-1802).


(c) He performed great exploits (str. 1804).


(d) He was endowed with powers beyond all other men (str. 3438-39).


(e) God gave him a higher position of power than that accorded to
mortals (str. 3436, &c.).


(f) But although he was reared at the court of the Danish king, this
did not turn out to the advantage of the Skjoldungs, but was a damage to
them (str. 3422, &c.), for there grew a bloodthirsty heart in his breast.


(g) When the Danish king died (the poem does not say how) he left young
sons.


(h) Hermod, betrayed by evil passions that got the better of him, was
the cause of the ruin of the Skjoldungs, and of a terrible plague among
the Danes, whose fallen warriors for his sake covered the battlefields.
His table-companions at the Danish court he consigned to death in a fit
of anger (str. 3426, &c.).


(i) The war continues a very long time (str. 1815, &c., str. 3447).


(k) At last there came a change, which was unfavourable to Hermod,
whose superiority in martial power decreased (str. 1806).


(l) Then he quite unexpectedly disappeared (str. 3432) from the sight
of men.


(m) This happened against his will. He had suddenly been banished and
delivered to the world of giants, where "waves of sorrow" hong oppressed
him (str. 1809, &c.).


(n) He had become changed to a dragon (wyrm, draca).


(o) The dragon dwelt near a rocky island in the sea under harne stan
(beneath a grey rock).


(p) There he slew a hero of the Volsung race (in the Beowulf poem
Sigemund'str. 1747, &c.).


All these points harmonise completely with Svipdag's saga, as we have
found it in other sources. Svipdag is the stepson of Halfdan the
Skjoldung, and has been reared in his halls, and dwells there until his
mother Groa is turned out and returns to Orvandel. lie sets out like
Hermod on long journeys, and is doubtless the most famous traveller
mentioned in the mythology; witness his journey across the Elivagar, and
his visit to Jotunheim while seeking Frey and Freyja; his journey across
the frosty mountains, and his descent to the lower world, where he
traverses Nifelheim, sees the Eylud mill, conies into Mimir's realm,
procures the sword of victory, and sees the glorious castle of the
ásmegir; witness his journey over Bifrost to Asgard, and his warlike
expedition to the remote East (see also Younger Edda, i. 108, where
Skirner is sent to Svartalfaheirn to fetch the chain Glitner). He is,
like Hermod, endowed with extraordinary strength, partly on account of
his own inherited character, partly on account of the songs of
incantation sung over him by Groa, on account of the nourishment of
wisdom obtained from his stepmother, and finally on account of the
possession of the indomitable sword of victory. By being adopted in
Asgard as Freyja's husband, he is, like Hermod, elevated to a position
of power greater than that which mortals may expect. But all this does
not turn out to be a blessing to the Skjoldungs, but is a misfortune to
them. The hatred he had cherished toward the Skjoldung Halfdan is
transferred to the son of the latter, Hadding, and he persecutes him and
all those who are faithful to Hadding, makes war against him, and is
unwilling to end the long war, although the gods demand it. Then he
suddenly disappears, the divine wrath having clothed him with the guise
of a strange animal, and relegated him to the world of water-giants,
where he is slain by Hadding (who in the Norse heroic saga becomes a
Volsung, after Halfdan, under the name Helge Hundingsbane, was made a
son of the Volsung Sigmund).


Hermod is killed on a rocky island under harne stan. Svipdag is killed
in the water, probably in the vicinity of the Vagasker and the
Singasteinn, where the Brisinganien ornanient of his faithful Mardol is
discovered by Loki and Heimdal.


Freyja's love and sorrow may in the mythology have caused the gods to
look upon Svipdag's last sad fate and death as a propitiation of his
faults. The tears which the Vana-dis wept over her lover were
transformed, according to the mythology, into gold, and this gold, the
gold of a woman's faithfulness, may have been regarded as a sufficient
compensation for the sins of her dear one, and doubtless opened to
Svipdag the sanie Asgard-gate which he had seen opened to him during his
life. This explains that Hermod is in Asgard in the historical time, and
that, according to a revelation to the Swedes in the ninth century, the
ancient King Erik was unanimously elevated by the gods as a member of
their council.


Finally, it should be pointed out that the Svipdag synonym Odr has the
same meaning as mód in Heremöd, and as ferh in Svidferhd, the epithet
with which Hermod is designated in the Beowulf strophe 1820. Or means
"the one endowed with spirit," Heremod "the one endowed with martial
spirit," Svidherhd "the one endowed with mighty spirit ".


Heimdal's and Loki's conflict in regard to Brisingamen has undoubtedly
been an episode in the mythic account of Svipdag's last fortunes and
Freyja's abode with him in the sea. There are many reasons for this
assuniption. We should bear in niind that Svipdag's closing career
constituted a part of the great epic of the first world war, and that
both Heimdal and Loki take part in this war, time former on Hadding's,
the latter on Gudhorm-Jormunrek's and Svipdag's side (see Nos. 38, 39,
40). It should further be remembered that, according to Saxo, at the
time when he slays the monster, Hadding is wandering about as an exile
in the wildernesses, and that it is about this time that Odin gives him
a companion and protector in Liserus - Heimdal (see No. 40). The unnamed
woman, who after the murder had taken place puts herself in Hadding's
way, informs him whom he has slain, and calls the wrath of the gods and
the elements down upon him, must be Freyja herself, since she witnessed
the deed and knew who was concealed in the guise of the dragon. So long
as the latter lived Brisingamen surely had a faithful watcher, for it is
the nature of a dragon to brood over the treasures he finds. After being
slain and dragged on shore by Hadding, his "bed," the gold, lies exposed
to view on Vagasker, and the glimmer of Brisingamen reaches Loki's eyes.
While the woman, in despair on account of Svipdag's death, stands before
Hadding and speaks to him, the ornament has no guardian, and Loki finds
the occasion convenient for stealing it. But Heimdal, Hadding's
protector, who in the mythology always keeps his eye on the acts of Loki
and on his kinsmen hostile to the gods, is also present, and he too has
seen Brisingamen. Loki has assumed the guise of a seal, while the
ornament lies on a rock in the sea, Vágasker, and it can cause no
suspicion that a seal tries to find a resting-place there. Heimdal
assumes the same guise, the seals fight on the rock, and Loki must
retire with his errand unperfornied. The rock is also called Siagastein
(Younger Edda, i. 264, 268), a name in which I see the Anglo-Saxon
Sincastán, "the ornament rock ". An echo of the combat about Brisingamen
reappears in the Beowulf poem, where Heimdal (not Hamdir) appears under
tIne name Hama, and where it is said that "Hama has brought to the
weapon-glittering citadel (Asgard) Brosingamene," which was "the best
ornament under heaven"; whereupon it is said that Hama fell "into
Eormenric's snares," with which we should compare Saxo's account of the
snares laid by Loki, Jormenrek's adviser, for Liserus-Heimdal and Hadding.


As Jordanes confounded the mythological Gudhorm-Jormunrek with the
historical Ermanarek, amid connected with the history of the latter the
heroic saga of Ammius-Hamdir, it lay close at hand to confound Hamdir
with Heimdal, who, like Hamdir, is the foe of the mythical Jormunrek.


107.


REMINISCENCES OF THE SVIPDAG-MYTH.


The mythic story about Svipdag and Freyja has been handed down in
popular tales and songs, even to our time, of course in an ever varying
and corrupted form. Among the popular tales there is one about Mćrţoll,
put in writing by Konrad Maurer, and published in Modern Icelandic
Popular Tales.


The wondrous fair heroine in this tale bears Freyj a's well-known
surname, Mardol, but little changed. And as she, like Freyja, weeps
tears that change into gold, it is plain that she is originally
identical with the Vana-dis, a fact which Maurer also points out.


Like Freyja, she is destined by the norn to be the wife of a princely
youth. But when he courted her difficulties arose which remind us of
what Saxo relates about Otharus and Syritha.


As Saxo represents her, Syritha is bound as it were by an enchantment,
not daring to look up at her lover or to answer his declarations of
love. She flies over the mountains more pristino, "in the manner usual
in antiquity," consequently in all probability in the guise of a bird.
In the Icelandic popular tale Marthol shudders at the approaching
wedding night, since she is then destined to be changed into a sparrow.
She is about to renounce the embrace of her lover, so that he may not
know anything about the enchantment in which she is fettered.


In Saxo the spell resting on Syritha is broken when the candle of the
wedding night burns her hand. in the popular tale Marthol is to wear the
sparrow guise for ever if it is not burnt on the wedding night or on one
of the two following nights.


Both in Saxo and in the popular tale another maiden takes Mardol's
place in the bridal bed on the wedding night. But the spell is broken by
fire, after which both the lovers actually get each other.


The original identity of the mythological Freyja-Mardol, Saxo's
Syritha, and the Mćrţoll of the Icelandic popular tale is therefore evident.


In Danish and Swedish versions of a ballad (in Syv, Nyerup, Arwidsson,
Geijer and Afzelius, Grundtvig, Dybeck, Hofberg; compare Bugge's Edda,
p. 352, &c.) a young Sveidal (Svedal, Svendal, Svedendal, Silfverdal) is
celebrated, who is none other than Svipdag of the mythology. Svend
Grundtvig and Bugge have called attention to time comispicuous
similarity between this ballad on the one hand, and Grogalder and
Fjölsvinnsmal on the other. From time various versions of the ballad it
is necessary to mention here only those features which best preserve the
most striking resemblance to the mythic prototype. Sveidal is commanded
by his stepmother to find a maiden "whose sad heart had long been
longing". He then goes first to the grave of his deceased mother to get
advice from her. The mother speaks to him from time grave and promises
him a horse, which can bear him over sea and land, and a sword hardened
in the blood of a dragon and resembling fire. The narrow limits of the
ballad forbade telling how Sveidal came into possession of the treasures
promised by the mother or giving an account of the exploits he performed
with the sword. This plays no part in the ballad; it is only indicated
that events not recorded took place before Sveidal finds the longing
maid. Riding through forests and over seas, he comes to the country
where she has her castle. Outside of this he meets a shepherd, with whom
he enters into conversation. The shepherd informs him that within is
found a young maiden who has long been longing for a young man by name
Sveidal, and that none other than he can enter there, for the timbers of
the castle are of iron, its gilt gate of steel, and within the gate a
lion and a white bear keep watch. Sveidal approaches the gate ; the
locks fall away spontaneously ; and when he enters the open court the
wild beasts crouch at his feet, a linden-tree with golden leaves bends
to the ground before him, and the young maiden whom he seeks welcomes
him as her husband.


One of the versions makes him spur his horse over the castle wall;
another speaks of seven young men guarding the wall, who show him the
way to the castle, and who in reality are "god's angels under the
heaven, the blue ".


The horse who bears his rider over the salt sea is a reminiscence of
Sleipner, which Svipdag rode on more than one occasion; and when it is
stated that Sveidal on this horse galloped over the castle wall, this
reminds us of Skirner-Svipdag when lie leaps over the fence around
Gymer's abode, and of Hermod-Svipdag when he spurs Sleipner over the
wall to Balder's lower-world castle. The shepherds, who are "god's
angels," refer to the watchmen mentioned in Fjolsvinnsmal, who are gods;
the wild beasts in the open court to the two wolf-dogs who guard
Asgard's gate; the shepherd whom Sveidal meets outside of the wall to
Fjolsvin; the linden-tree with the golden leaves to Mimameidr and to the
golden grove growing in Asgard. One of the versions makes two years pass
while Sveidal seeks the one he is destined to marry. In Germany, too, we
have fragments preserved of the myth about Svipdag and Freyja. These
remnants are, we admit, parts of a structure built, so to speak, in the
style of the monks, but they nevertheless show in the most positive
manner that they are borrowed from the fallen and crumbled arcades of
the heathen mythology. We rediscover in them the old medieval poem about
Christ's unsewed grey coat ".


The hero in the poem is Svipdag, here called by his father's name
Orendel, Orentel'that is, Orvandel. The father himself, wino is said to
be a king in Trier, has received another name, which already in the
niost ancient heathen times was a synonym of Orvandel, and which I shall
consider below. This in connection with the circumstance that the
younger Orentel's (Svipdag's) patron saint is called "the holy Wieland,"
and thus has the name of a person who, in the mythology, as shall be
shown below, was Svipdag's uncle (father's brother) and helper, and
whose sword is Svipdag's protection and pledge of victory, proves that
at least in solitary instances not only the events of the myth but also
its names and family relations have been preserved in a most remarkable
and faithful manner through centuries in the minds of the German people.


In the very nature of things it cannot in the monkish poem be the task
of the young Svipdag-Orentel to go in search of the heathen goddess
Freyja and rescue her from the power of the giants. In her stead appears
a "Frau Breyde," who is the fairest of all women, and the only one
worthy to be the young Orentel's wife. In the heathen poem the goddess
of fate Urd, in the German medieval poem God Himself, resolves that
Orentel is to have the fairest woman as his bride. In the heathen poem
Freyja is in the power of giants, and concealed somewhere in Jotunheim
at the time when Svipdag is commanded to find her, and it is of the
greatest moment for the preservation of the world that the goddess of
love and fertility should be freed from the hands of the powers of
frost. In the German poem, written under the influence of the efforts of
the Christian world to reconquer the Holy Land, Frau Breyde is a
princess who is for the tinie being in Jerusalem, surrounded and watched
by giants, heathens, and knights tennplar, the last of whom, at the time
when the poem received its present form, were looked upon as worshippers
of the devil, and as persons to be shunned by the faithful. To Svipdag's
task of liberating the goddess of love corresponds, in the monkish poem,
Orentel's task of liberating Frau Breyde from her surrounding of giants,
heathens, and knights templar, and restoring to Christendom the holy
grave in Jerusalem. Orentel proceeds thither with a fleet. But although
the journey accordingly is southward, the mythic saga, which makes
Svipdag journey across the frost-cold Elivagar, asserts itself; and as
his fleet could not well be hindered by pieces of ice on the coast of
the Holy Land, it is made to stick fast in "dense water," and remain
there for three years, until, on the supplication of the Virgin Mary, it
is liberated therefrom by a storm. The Virgin Mary's prayers have
assumed the sanie place in the Christian poems as Groa's incantations in
the heathen. The fleet, made free from the "dense water," sails to a
land which is governed by one Belian, who is conquered by Orentel in a
naval engagement. This Belian is the mythological Beli, one of those
"howlers" who surrounded Frey and Freyja during their sojourn in
Jotunheim and threatened Svipdag's life. In the Christian poem Bele was
made a king in Great Babylonia, doubtless for the reason that his name
suggested the biblical "Bel in Babel ". Saxo also speaks of a naval
battle in which SvipdagEricus conquers the mythic person, doubtless a
storm-giant, who by means of witchcraft prepares the ruin of sailors
approaching the land where Frotho and Gunvara are concealed. After
various other adventures Orentel arrives in the Holy Land, and the angel
Gabriel shows hinn the way to Frau Breyde, just as "the seven angels of
God" in one of the Scandinavian ballads guide Sveidal to the castle
where his chosen bride abides. Lady Breyde is found to be surrounded by
none but foes of Christianity'knights templar, heathens, and giants'who,
like Gunvara's giant surroundings in Saxo, spend their time in fighting,
but still wait upon the fair lady as their princess. The giants and
knights templar strive to take Orentel's life, and, like Svipdag, he
must constantly be prepared to defend it. One of the giants slain by
Orentel is a "banner-bearer ". One of the giants, who in the mythology
tries to take Svipdag's life, is Grep, who, according to Saxo, meets him
in derision with a banner on the top of whose staff is fixed the head of
an ox.


Meanwhile Lady Breyde is attentive to Orentel. As Menglad receives
Svipdag, so Lady Breyde receives Orentel with a kiss and a greeting,
knowing that he is destined to be her husband.


When Orentel has conquered the giants he celebrates a sort of wedding
with Lady Breyde, but between them lies a two-edged sword, and they
sleep as brother and sister by each other's side. A wedding of a similar
kind was mentioned in the mythology in regard to Svipdag and Menglad
before they met in Asgard and were finally united. The chaste chivalry
with which Freyja is met in the mythology by her rescuer is emphasised
by Saxo both in his account of Ericus-Svipdag and Gunvara and in his
story about Otharus and Syritha. He makes Ericus say of Gunvara to
Frotho : Iniacta illi pudicitia manet (Hist., 126). And of Otharus he
declares: Neque puellam stupro violare sustinuit, nec splendido loco
natam obscuro concubitus genere macularet (Hist., 331). The first
wedding of Orenitel and Breyde is therefore as if it had not been, and
the Gernian narrative makes Orentel, after completing other warlike
adventures, sue for the hand of Breyde for the second tinne. In the
mythology the second and real wedding between Svipdag and Freyja must
certainly have taken place, inasmuch as he becamne reunited with her in
Asgard.


The sword which plays so conspicuous a part in Svipdag's fortunes has
not been forgotten in the German medieval tale. It is mentioned as being
concealed deep down in the earth, and as a sword that is always attended
by victory.


On one occasion Lady Breyde appears, weapon in hand, and fights by the
side of Orentel, unider circumstances which remind us of the above-cited
story from Saxo (see No. 102), when EricusSvipdag, Gunvara-Freyja, and
Rollerus-Ull are in the abode of a treacherous giant, who tries to
persuade Svipdag to deliver Gunvara to him, and when Bracus-Thor breaks
into the giant abode, and either slays the inmates or puts them to
flight. Gunvara then fights by the side of Ericus-Svipdag, muliebri
corpore virilem animum ćquans (Hist., 222).


In the German Orentel saga appears a "fisherman," who is called master
Yse. Orentel has at one time been wrecked, and comes floating on a plank
to his island, where Yse picks him up. Yse is not a common fisherman. He
has a castle with seven towers, and eight hundred fishermen serve under
him. There is good reason for assuming that this mighty chieftain of
fishermen originally was the Asa-god Thor, who in the northern ocean
once had the Midgard-serpent on his hook, and that the episode of the
picking up of the wrecked Orentel by Yse has its root in a tradition
concerning the mythical adventure, when the real Orvandel, Svipdag's
father, feeble and cold, was niet by Thor and carried by him across the
Elivagar. In the mythology, as shall be shown hereafter, Orvandel the
brave was Thor's "sworn" man, and fought with him against giants before
the hostility sprang up between Ivalde's sons amid the Asa-gods. In the
Orentel saga Yse also regands Orentel as his "thrall ". The latter
emancipates himself from his thraldom with gold. Perhaps this ransom is
a reference to the gold which Freyja's tears gave as a ransom for Svipdag.


Orentel's father is called Eigel, king in Trier. In Vilkinasaga we find
the archer Egil, Volund's brother, mentioned by time name-variation
Eigill. The German Orentel's patron saint is Wieland, that is, Volund.
Thus in the Onentel saga as in the Volundarkvida and in Vilkinasaga we
find both these names Egil and Volund combined, and we have all the more
reason for regarding King Eigei in Trier as identical with the
mythological Egil, since the latter, like Orvandel, is a famous archer.
Below, I shall demonstrate that the archer Orvandel and the archer Egil
actually were identical in the mythology.


But first it may be in order to point out the following circumstances.
Tacitus tells us in his Germania (3): "Some people think, however, that
Ulysses, too, on his long adventurous journeys was carried into this
ocean (the Germanic), and visited the countries of Germany, and that he
founded and gave name to Asciburgium, which is situated on the Rhine,
and is still an inhabited city; nay, an altar consecrated to Ulysses,
with the name of his father Laertes added, is said to have been found
there ". To determine the precise location of this Asciburgium is not
possible. Ptolemy (ii. 11, 28), and after him Marcianus Heracleota
(Peripl., 2, 36), inform us that an Askiburgon was situated on the
Rhine, south of and above the delta of the river. Tabula Peutingeriana
locates Asceburgia between Gelduba (Gelb) and Vetera (Xanten). But from
the history of Tacitus it appears (iv. 33) that Asciburgium was situated
between Neuss and Mainz (Mayence). Read the passage : Aliis a Novćsio,
aliis a Mogontiaco universas copias advenisse credentibus. The passage
refers to the Roman troops sent to Asciburgium and there attacked'those
troops which expect to be relieved fronn the nearest Roman quarters in
the north or south. Its location should accordingly be looked for either
on or near that part of the Rhine, which on the east ed the old
archbishopric Trier.


Thus the German Orentel saga locates King Eigel's realm and Oreatel's
native country in the same regions, where, according to Tacitus'
reporter, Ulysses was said to have settled for sonic time and to have
founded a citadel. As is well known, the Romans believed they found
traces of the wandering Ulysses in well-nigh all lands, and it was only
necessary to hear a strange people mention a far-travelled mythic hero,
and he was at once identified either as Ulysses or Hercules. The
Teutonic mythology had a hero a la Ulysses in the younger Orentel,
Odr-Svipdag-Heremod, whom the Beowulf poem calls "incomparably the most
celebrated traveller among mankind" (wreccena wide mćrost ofer
wer-ţeóde). Mannhardt has already pointed out an episode (Orentel's
shipwreck and arrival in Yse's land) which calls to mind the shipwreck
of Odysseus and his arrival in the land of the Pheaces. Within the
limits which the Svipdag-myth, according to my own investigations,
proves itself to have had, other and more conspicuous features common to
both, but certainly not boirowed from either, can be pointed out, for
instance Svipdag's and Odysseus' descent to the lower world, and the
combat in the guise of seals between Heimdal and loke, which reminds us
of the conflict of Menelaos clad in seal-skin with the seal-watcher
Proteus (Odyss., iv. 404, &c.). Just as there are words in the Aryan
languages that in their very form point to a common origin, but not to a
borrowing, so there are also myths in the Aryan religions which in their
very form reveal their growth from an ancient common Aryan root, but
produce no suspicion of their being borrowed. Among these are to be
classed those features of the Odysseus and Svipdag myths which resemble
each other.


It has already been demonstrated above, that Germania's Mannus is
identical with Halfdan of time Norse sources, and that Yngve-Svipdag has
his counterpart in Ingaevo (see No. 24). That informer of Tacitus who
was able to interpret Teutonic songs about Mannus and his sons, the
three original race heroes of the Teutons, must also in those very songs
have heard accounts of Orvandel's and Svipdag's exploits and adventures,
since Orvandel and Svipdag play a most decisive part in the fortunes of
Mannus-Halfdan. If the myth about Svipdag was composed in a later time,
then Mannus-Halfdan's saga must have undergone a change equal to a
complete transformation after the day of Tacitus, and for such an
assumption there is not the slightest reason. Orvandel is not a niythic
character of later make. As already pointed out, and as shall be
demonstrated below, he has ancient Aryan ancestry. Time centuries
between Tacitus and Paulus Diaconus are unfortunately almost wholly
lacking in evidence concerning the condition of the Teutonic myths and
sagas; but where, as in Jordanes, proofs still gleam forth from the
prevailing darkness, we find mention of Arpantala, Amala, Fridigernus,
Vidigoia (Jord., v.). Jordanes says that in the most ancient times they
were celebrated in song and described as heroes who scarcely had their
equals (quales vix heroas fuisse miranda jactat antiquitas). Previous
investigators have already recognised in Arpantala Orvandel, in Amala
Hanial, in Vidigoia Wittiche, Wieland's son (Vidga Volundson), who in
the mythology are cousins of Svipdag (see No. 108). Fridigernus,
Fridgjarn, means "he who strives to get the beautiful one," an epithet
to which Svipdag has the first claim aniong amicient Teutonic heroes, as
Freyja herself has the first claim to the name Fri (beautiful). In
Fjölsvinnsmal it belongs to a dis, who sits at Freyja's feet, and
belongs to her royal household. This is in analogy with the fact that
the name Hlin belongs at the sanie time to Frigg herself (Völuspa), and
to a goddess belonging to her royal household (Younger Edda, i. 196).


What Tacitus tells about the stone found at Asciburgium, with the names
of Ulysses and Laertes inscribed thereon, can of course be nothing but a
conjecture, based on the idea that the famous Teutonic traveller was
identical with Odysseus. Doubtless this idea has been strengthened by
the similarity between the names Odr, Goth. Vods, and Odysseus,. amid by
the fact that the name Laertes (ace. Laerten) has sounds in common with
the name of Svipdag's father. If, as Tacitus seem's to indicate,
Asciburgium was named after its founder, we would find in Asc- an
epithet of Orvandel's son, common in the first century after Christ and
later. In that case it lies nearest at hand to think of aiska (Fick,
iii. 5), the English "ask," the Anglo-Saxon ascian, the Swedish aska,
"to seek," "search for," "to try to secure," which easily adapted itself
to Svipdag, who goes on long and perilous journeys to look for Freyja
and the sword of victory. I call attention to these possibilities
because they appear to suggest an ancient connection, but not for the
purpose of building hypotheses thereon. Under all circumstances it is of
interest to note that the Christian medieval Orentel saga locates the
Teutonic migration hero's home to the same part of Germany where Tacitus
in his time assumed that he had founded a citadel. The tradition, as
heard by Tacitus, did not however make the regions about the Rhine the
native land of the celebrated traveller. He came thither, it is said in
Germania, from the North after having navigated in the Northern Ocean.
And this corresponds with the mythology, which makes Svipdag an
Inguaeon, and Svion, a member of the race of the Skilfing-Ynglings,
makes hini in the beginning fight on the side of the powers of frost
against Halfdan, and afterwards lead not only the north Teutonic
(Inguaeonian) but also the west Teutonic tribes (the Hermiones) against
the east Teutonic war forces of Hadding (see Nos. 38-40).


Memories of the Svipdag-myth have also been preserved in the story
about Hamlet, Saxo's Amlethus (Snćbjorn's Amlodi), son of Horvendillus
(Orvandel). In the medieval story Hamlet's father, like Svipdag's father
in the mythology, was slain by the same man, who marries the wife of the
slain man, amid, like Svipdag in the myth, Hamlet of the medieval saga
becomes the avenger of his father Horvendillus and the slayer of his
stepfather. On more than one occasion the idea occurs in the Norse sagas
that a lad whose stepfather had slain his father broods over his duty of
avenging the latter, and then plays insane or half idiot to avoid the
suspicion that he may become dangerous to the murderer. Svipdag,
Orvandel's son, is reared in his stepfather's house amid all the
circumstances that might justify or explain such a hypocrisy. Therefore
he has as a lad received the epithet Amlodi, the meaning of which is
"insane," and the myth having at the same time described him as
highly-gifted, clever, and sharp-witted, we have in the words which the
mythology has attributed to his lips the key to the ambiguous words
which make the cleverness, which is veiled under a stupid exterior,
gleam forth. These features of the mythic account of Svipdag have been
transferred to the middle-age saga anent Hamlet'a saga which already in
Saxo's time had been developed into an independent narrative. I shall
return to this theme in a treatise on the heroic sagas. Other
reminiscences of the Svipdag-myth reappear in Danish, Swedish, and
Norwegian ballads. The Danish ballads, which, with surprising fidelity,
have preserved certain fundamental traits and details of the
Svipdagniyth even down to our days, I have already discussed. The
Norwegian ballad about "Hermod the Young" (Landstad Nor'ske Folkeviser,
p. 28), and its Swedish version, "Bergtrollet," which corresponds still
more faithfully with the myth (Arvidson, i. 123), have this peculiar
interest in reference to mythological synonymies and the connection of
the mythic fragments preserved, that Svipdag appears in the former as in
the Beowulf poem and in the Younger Edda under the name Hermod, and that
both versions have for their theme a story, which Saxo tells about his
Otharus when he describes the flight of the latter through Jotunheim
with the rediscovered Syritha. It has already been stated above (No.
100) that after Otharus had found Syritha and slain a giant in whose
power she was, he was separated from her on their way home, but found
her once more and liberated her from a captivity into which she had
fallen in the abode of a giantess. This is the episode which forms the
theme of the ballad about "Hermod the Young," and of the Swedish version
of it. Brought together, the two ballads give us the following contents.


The young Hermod secured as his wife a beautiful maiden whom he
liberated from the hands of a giantess. She had fallen into the hands of
giants through a witch, "gigare," originally gygr, a troll-woman,
Aurboda, who in a great crowd of people had stolen her out of a church
(the divine citadel Asgard is changed into a "house of God"). Hermod
hastens on skees "through woods and caverns and recesses," comes to "the
wild sea-strand" (Elivagar) and to the "mountain the blue," where the
giantess resides who conceals the young maiden in her abode. It is
Christmas Eve. Hermod asks for lodgings for the night in the mountain
dwelling of the giantess and gets it. Resorting to cunning, he persuades
the giantess the following morning to visit her neighbours, liberates
the fair maiden during her absence, and flies on his skees with her
"over the high mountains and down the low ones ". When the old giantess
on her return home finds that they have gone she hastens (according to
the Norwegian version accompanied by eighteen giants) after those who
have taken flight through dark forests with a speed which makes every
tree bend itself to the ground. When Hermod with his young maiden had
come to the salt fjord (Elivagar) the giantess is quite near them, but
in the decisive moment she is changed to a stone, according to the Norse
version, by the influence of the sun, which just at that time rose;
according to the Swedish version, by the influence of a cross which
stood near the fjord and its "long bridge".


The Swedish version states, in addition to this, that Hermod had a
brother; in the mythology, Ull the skilful skee-runner. In both the
versions, Hermod is himself an excellent skee-man. The refrains in both
read: "He could so well on the skees run ". Below, I shall prove that
Orvandel, Svipdag's and Ull's father, is identical with Egil, the
foremost skee-runner in the mythology, and that Svipdag is a cousin of
Skade, "the dis of the skees ". Svipdag-Hermod belongs to the celebrated
skee-race of the mythology, and in this respect, too, these ballads have
preserved a genuine trait of the mythology.


In their way, these ballads, therefore, give evidence of Svipdag's
identity with Hermod, and of the latter's identity with Saxo's Otherus.


Finally, a few words about the Svipdag synonyms. Of these, Odr and
Hermodr (and in tine Beowulf poem Sviferh) form a group, which, as has
already been pointed out above, refer to the qualities of his mind.
Svipdag (" the glimmering day ") and Skirner (" the shining one ") form
another group, which refers to his birth as the son of the star-hero
Orvandel, who is "the brightest of stars," and "a true beani from the
sun" (see above). Again, anent the synonym Eirekr, we should bear in
mind that Svipdag's half-brother Gudhorm had the epithet Jormunrekr,
amid the half-brother of the latter, Hadding, the epithet ţjódrekr. They
are the. three half-brothers who, after the patriarch Mannus-Halfdan,
assume the government of the Teutons; and as each one of them has large
domains, and rules over many Teutonic tribes, they are, in
contradistinction to the princes of the separate tribes, great kings or
emperors. It is the dignity of a great king which is indicated, each in
its own way, by all these parallel names'Eirekr, Jormunrekr, and ţjódrekr.


108.


SVIPDAG'S FATHER ORVANDEL. EVIDENCE THAT HE IS IDENTICAL WITH VOLUND'S
BROTHER EGIL. THE ORVANDEL SYNONYM EBBO (EBUR, IBOR).


Svipdag's father, Orvandel, must have been a mortal enemy of Halfdan,
who abducted his wife Groa. But hitherto it is his son Svipdag whom we
have seen carry out the feud of revenge against Halfdan. Still, it must
seem incredible that the brave archer himself should remain inactive and
leave it to his young untried son to fight against Thor's favourite, the
mighty son of Borgar. The epic connection demands that Orvandel also
should take part in this war and it is necessary to investigate whether
our mythic records have preserved traces of the satisfaction of this
demand in regard to the mythological epic.


As his nanie indicates, Orvandel was a celebrated archer. That Or- in
Orvandel, in heathen times, was conceived to be the word or, "arrow
"'though this meaning does not therefore need to be the most original
one'is made perfectly certain by Saxo, according to whom Orvandill's
father was named Geirvandill (Gervandillus, Hist., 135). Thus the father
is the one "busy with the spear," the son "the one busy with the arrow".


Taking this as the starting point, we must at the very threshold of our
investigation present the question : Is there among Halfdan's enemies
mentioned by Saxo anyone who bears the name of a well-known archer'


This is actually the fact. Halfdan Berggram has to contend with two
mythic persons, Toko and Anundus, who with united forces appear against
him (Hist., 325). Toko, Toki, is the well-known nanie of an archer. In
another passage in Saxo (Hist., 265, &c.) one Anundus, with the help of
Avo (or Ano) sagittarius, fights against one Halfdan. Thus we have the
parallels


The archer Orvandel is an enemy of Halfdan.


The man called archer Toko and Anundus are enemies of Halfdan.


The archer Avo and Anundus are enemies of Halfdan.


What at once strikes us is the fact that both the one called Toko (an
archer's nanie) and the archer Avo have as comrade one Anundus in the
war against Halfdan. Whence did Saxo get this Anundus' We are now in the
domain of mythology related as history, and the name Anund must have
been borrowed thence. Can any other source throw light on any mythic
person by this name'


There was actually an Anund who held a conspicuous place in mythology,
and he is none other than Volund. Volundarkvida informs us that Volund
was also called Anund. When the three swan-in aids came to the
Wolfdales, where the three brothers, Volund, Egil, and Slagfin, had
their abode, one of them presses Egil "in her white embrace," the other
is Slagfin's beloved, and the third "lays her arms around Anund's white
neck ".


cnn in ţr'iţia ţeirra systir' varţi hvitan hals Onondar.


Volund is the only person by name Anund found in our mythic records. If
we now eliminate'of course only for the present and with the expectation
of confirmatory evidence'the name Anund and substitute Volund, we get
the following parallels:


Volund and Toko (the name of an archer) are enemies of Halfdan.


Volund and the archer named Avo are enemies of Halfdan.


The archer Orvandel is an enemy of Halfdan.


From this it would appear that Volund was very intimately associated
with one of the archers of the mythology, and that both had some reason
for being enemies of Halfdan. Can this be corroborated by any other source'


Volund's brothers are called Egill and Slagfidr (Slagfinnr) in
Volundarkvida. The Icelandic - Norwegian poems from heathen times
contain paraphrases which prove that the mythological Egil was famous as
an archer and skee-runner. The bow is "Egil's weapon," the arrows are
"Egil's weapon-hail" (Younger Edda, 422), and "the swift herring of
Egil's hands" (Har. Cr., p. 18). A ship is called Egil's skees,
originally because he could use his skees also on the water. In
Volundarkvida he makes hunting expeditions with his brothers on skees.
Vilkinasaga also (29, 30) knows Egil as Volund's brother, and speaks of
him as a wonderfully skilful archer.


The same Volund, who in Saxo under the name Anund has Toko (the name of
an archer) or the archer Avo by his side in the conflict with Halfdan,
also has the archer Egil as a brother in other sources.


Of an archer Toko, who is mentioned in Hist., 487-490, Saxo tells the
same exploit as Vilkinasaga attributes to Volund's brother Egil. In Saxo
it is Toko who performs the celebrated masterpiece which was afterwards
attributed to William Tell. In Vilkinasaga it is Egil. The one like the
other, amid similar secondary circumstances, shoots an apple from his
son's head. Egil's skill as a skeerunner and the serviceableness of his
skees on the water have not been forgotten in Saxo's account of Toko. He
runs on skees down the mountain, sloping precipitously down to the sea,
Kullen in Scania, and is said to have saved himself on board a ship.
Saxo's Toko was therefore without doubt identical with Volund's brother
Egil, and Saxo's Anund is the same Volund of whom the Volundarkvida
testifies that he also had this name in the mythology.


Thus we have demonstrated the fact that Volund and Egil appeared in the
saga of the Teutonic patriarch Halfdan as the enemies of the latter, and
that the famous archer Egil occupied the position in which we would
expect to find the celebrated archer Orvandel, Svipdag's father.
Orvandel is therefore either identical with Egil, and then it is easy to
understand why the latter is an enemy of Halfdan, who we know had robbed
his wife Groa; or he is not identical with Egil, and then we know no
motive for the appearance of the latter on the same side as Svipdag, and
we, moreover, are confronted by the improbability that Orvandel does
nothing to avenge the insult done to him.


Orvandel's identity with Egil is completely confirmed by the following
circumstances.


Orvandel has the Elivagar and the coasts of Jotunheim as the scene of
his exploits during the time in which lie is the friend of the gods and
the opponent of the giants. To this tinne we must refer Horvendillus
victories over Collerus (Kollr) and his sister Sela (cp. the name of a
monster Selkolla'Bisk S., i. 605) mentioned by Saxo (Hist., 135-138).
His surname inn fraekni, the brave, alone is proof that the myth refers
to important exploits carried out by him, and that these were performed
against the powers of frost in particular'that is to say, in the service
of the gods and for the good of Midgard'is plain from the narrative in
the Younger Edda (276, 277). This shows, as is also demanded by the epic
connection, that the Asa-god Thor and the archer Orvandel were at least
for a time confidential friends, and that they had met each other on
their expeditions for similar purposes in Jotunheim. When Thor, wounded
in his forehead, returns from his combat with the giant Hrungnir to his
home, ţrudvángr (ţrudvángar, ţrudheimr), Orvanidel's wife Groa was there
and tried to help him with healing sorcery, wherein she would also have
succeeded if Thor could have made himself hold his tongue for a while
concerning a report he brought with him about her husband, and which he
expected would please her. And Groa did become so glad that she forgot
to continue the magic song and was unable to complete the healing. The
report was, as we know, that, on the expedition to Jotunheim from which
he had now come home, Thor bad met Orvandel, carried him in his basket
across the Elivagar, and thrown a toe which the intrepid adventurer had
frozen up to heaven and made a star thereof. Thor added that before long
Orvandel would come "home"; that is to say, doubtless, "home to Thor,"
to fetch his wife Groa. It follows that, when he had carried Orvandel
across the Elivagar, Thor had parted with him somewhere on the way, in
all probability in Orvandel's own home, and that while Orvandel wandered
about in Jotunheim, Groa, the dis of growth, had a safe place of refuge
in the Asa-god's own citadel. A close relation between Thor and Orvandel
also appears from the fact that Thor afterwards marries Orvandel's
second wife Sif, and adopts his son Ull, Svipdag's half-brother (see No.
102), in Asgard.


Consequently Orvandel's abode was situated south of the Elivagar (Thor
carried him nordan or Jotunheimum'Younger Edda, 276), in the direction
Thor had to travel when going to and from the land of the giants, and
presumably quite near or on the strand of that mythic water-course over
which Thor' on this occasion carried him. When Thor goes from Asgard to
visit the giants he rides the most of the way inn his chariot drawn by
the two goats Tanngnjóstr and Tanngrisnir. In the poem Haustlaung there
is a particularly vivid description of his journey in his thunder
chariot through space when he proceeded to the meeting agneed upon with
the giant Hrungner, on the return from which be met and helped Orvandel
across Elivagar (Younger Edda, 276). But across this water and through
Jotunheim itself Thor never travels in his car. He wades across the
Elivagar, he travels on foot in the wildernesses of the giants, and
encounters his foe face to face, breast to breast, instead of striking
him from above with lightning. In this all accounts of Thor's journeys
to Jotunheim agree. Hence south of the Elivagar and somewhere near them
there must have been a place where Thor left his chariot and his goats
in safety before he proceeded farther on his journey. And as we already
know that the archer Orvandel, Thor's friend, and like him hostile to
the giants, dwelt on the road travelled by the Asa-god, and south of the
Elivagar, it lies nearest at hand to assume that Orvandel's castle was
the stopping-place on his journey, and the place where he left his goats
and car.


Now in Hymerskvida (7, 37, 38) we actually read that Thor, on his way
to Jotunheim, had a stopping-place, where his precious car and goats
were housed and taken care of by the host, who accordingly had a very
important task, and must have been a friend of Thor and the Asa-gods in
the mythology. The host bears the archer name Egil. From Asgard to
Egil's abode, says Hymerskvida, it is about one day's journey for Thor
when he rides behind his goats on his way to Jotunheim. After this day's
journey he leaves the draught-animals, decorated with horns, with Egil,
who takes care of them, and the god continues his journey on foot. Thor
and Tyr being about to visit the giant Hymer' Foro drivgom


dag ţann fram Asgar'di fra, unz til Egils quomo; hirdi hann hafra
horngaufgasta hurfo at haullo er' Hymir átti.


(" Nearly all the day they proceeded their way from Asgard until they
came to Egil's. He gave the horn-strong goats care. They (Thor and Tyr)
continued to the great hall which Hynier owned.")


From Egil's abode both the gods accordingly go on foot. From what is
afterwards stated about adventures on their way home, it appears that
there is a long distance between Egil's house and Hymer's (cp. str.
35'foro lengi, ar, &c.). It is necessary to journey across the Elivagar
first'byr fyr' austan, Elivága hundviss Hymir' (str. 5). In the Elivagar
Hymer has his fishing-grounds, and there he is wont to catch whales on
hooks (cp. str. 17' a vag roa); but still he does not venture far out
upon the water (see str. 20), presumably because he has enemies on the
southern strand where Egil dwells. Between the Elivagar and Hymer's
abode there is a considerable distance through woody mountain recesses
(holtr'i'str. 27) and past rocks in whose caverns dwell monsters
belonging to Hymer's giant-clan (str. 35). Thor resorts to cunning in
order' to secure a safe retreat. After he has been out fishing with the
giant, instead of making his boat fast in its proper place on the
strand, as Hymer requests him to do, he carries the boat with its
belongings all the difficult way up to Hymer's hall. He is also attacked
on his way home by Hymer and all his giant-clan, and, in order to be
able to wield Mjolner freely, he must put down the precious kettle which
he has captured from the frost-giant and was carrying on his broad
shoulders (str. 35, 36). But the undisturbed retreat across the Elivagar
he has secured by the above-nientioned cunning.


Egil is called hraunbui (str. 38), an epithet the ambiguous meaning of
which should not be unobserved. It is usually translated with
rock-dweller, but it here means "he who lives near or at Hraunn"
(Hrónn). Hraunn is one of the names of the Elivagar (see Nos. 59, 93;
cp. Younger Edda, 258, with Grimnersmal, 38).


After their return to Egil's, Thor and Tyr again seat themselves in the
thunder-chariot aiid proceed to Asgard with the captured kettle. But
they had not driven far before the strength of one of the horn-decorated
draught animals failed, and it was found that the goat was lame (str.
37). A misfortune had happened to it while in Egil's keeping, and this
had been caused by the cunning Loki (str. 37). The poem does not state
the kind of misfortune'the Younger Edda gives us information on this
point'but if it was Loki's purpose to make enmity between Thor and his
friend Egil he did not succeed this time. Thor', to be sure, demanded a
ransom for what had happened, and the ransom was, as Hymerskvida informs
us, two children who were reared in Egil's house. But Thor became their
excellent foster-father and protector, and the punishment was therefore
of such a kind that it was calculated to strengthen the bond of
friendship instead of breaking it.


Gylfaginning also (Younger Edda, i. 142, &c.) has preserved traditions
showing that when Thor is to make a journey from Asgard to Jotunheim it
requires more than one day, and that he therefore puts up in an inn at
the end of the first day's travel, where lie eats his supper and stops
over night. There he leaves his goats and travels the next day eastward
(north), "across the deep sea" (hafit ţat hit djupa), on whose other
side his giant foes have their abode. The sea in question is the
Elivagar, and the tradition correctly states that the inn is situated on
its southern (western) side.


But Gylfaginning has forgotten the name of the host in this inn.
Instead of giving his name it simply calls him a buandi (peasant); but
it knows and states on the other hand the names of the two children
there reared, Thjalfe and Roskva; and it relates how it happened that
one of Thor's goats became lame, but without giving Loki the blame for
the misfortune. According to Gylfaginning the event occurred when Thor
was on his way to Utgarde-Loki. In Gylfaginning, too, Thor takes the two
children as a ransom, and makes Thjalfe (ţjálfi) a hero, who takes an
honourable part in the exploits of the god.


As shall be shown below, this inn on the road from Asgard to Jotunheim
is presupposed as well known in Eilif Gudrunson's Thorsdrapa, which
describes the adventures Thor met with on his journey to the giant
Geirrod. Thorsdrapa gives facts of great mythological importance in
regard to the inhabitants of the place. They are the " sworn" helpers of
the Asa-gods, and when it is necessary Thor can thence secure brave
warriors, who accompany him across Elivagar into Jotunheim. Among them
an archer plays the chief part in connection with Thjalfe (see No. 114).


On the north side of Elivagar dwell accordingly giants hostile to gods
and men; on the south side, on the other hand, beings friendly to the
gods and bound in their friendship by oaths. The circumstance that they
are bound by oaths to the gods (see Thorsdrapa) implies that a treaty
has been made with them and that they owe obedience. Manifestly tIme
uttermost picket guard to the north against the frost-giants is
entrusted to them.


This also gives us an explanation of the position of the starhero
Orvandel, the great archer, in the mythological epic. We can it is
understand why he is engaged to the dis of growth Groa, as it is his
duty to defend Midgard against the destructions of frost; and why he
fights on the Elivagar and in Jotunheim against the sanie enemies as
Thor; and why the mythology has made bini and the lord of thunder
friends who visit each other. With the tenderness of a father, and with
the devotion of a fellow-warrior, the mighty son of Odin bears on his
shoulders the weary and cold star-hero over the foggy Elivagar, filled
with magic terrors, to place him safe by his own hearth south of this
sea after he has honoured him with a token which shall for ever shine on
the heavens as a monument of Orvandel's exploits and Thor's friendship
for hini. In the meantime Groa, Orvandel's wife, stays in Thor's halls.


But we discover the same bond of hospitality between Thor and Egil.
According to Hymerskvida it is in Egil's house, according to
Gylfaginning in the house in which Thjalfe is fostered, where the
accident to one of Thor's goats happens. In one of the sources the youth
whom Thor takes as a ransom is called simply Egil's child; in the other
he is called Thjalfe. Two different mythic sources show that Thjalfe was
a waif, adopted in Egil's house, and consequently not a real brother but
a foster-brother of Svipdag and Ull. One source is Fornaldersaga (iii.
241), where it is stated that Groa in a flćdarmál found a little boy and
reared him together with her own son. Flćdarmál is a place which a part
of the time is flooded with water and a part of the time lies dry. The
other source is the Longobard saga, in which the mythological Egil
reappears as Agelmund, the first king of the Longobardians who emigrated
from Scandinavia (Origo Longob., Paulus Diac., 14, 15; cp. No. 112).
Agelmund, it is said, had a foster-son, Lamicho (Origo Longob.), or
Lamissio (Paulus Diac.), whom he found in a dam and took home out of
pity. Thus in the one place it is a woman who bears the name of the
archer Onvandel's wife, in the other it is the archer Egil himself, who
adopts as foster-son a child found in a damn or in a place filled with
water. Paulus Diaconus says that the lad received the name Lamissio to
commemorate this circumstance, "since he was fished up out of a dam or
dyke," which in their (the Longobardian) language is called lama (cp.
lehm, mud). The name Thjalfe (ţjálfi) thus suggests a similar idea. As
Vigfusson has already pointed out, it is connected with the English
delve, a dyke; with the Anglo-Saxon delfan; the Dutch delven, to work
the ground with a spade, to dig. The circumstances under which the lad
was found presaged his future. In the mythology he fells the clay-giant
Mokkr-kalfi (Younger Edda, i. 272-274). In the migration saga lie is the
discoverer of land and circumnavigates islands (Korm., 19, 3; Younger
Edda, i. 496), and there he conquers giants (HarbardsIjod, 39) in order
to make the lands inhabitable for immigrants. In the appendix to the
Gotland law he appears as Thjelvar, who lands in Gotland, liberates the
island from trolls by carrying fire, colonises it and becomes the
progenitor of a host of ennigrants, who settle in southern countries. In
Paulus Diaconus he grows up to be a powerful hero; in the mythology he
develops into tIme Asa-god Thor's brave helper, who participates in his
and the great archer's adventures on the Elivagar and in Jotunheim.
Paulus (ch. 15) says that when Agelmund once came with his Longobard
ians to a river, "amazons" wanted to hinder him from crossing it. Then
Lamissio fought, swimming in the river, with the bravest one of the
amazons, and killed her. In the mythology Egil himself fights with the
giantess Sela, mentioned in Saxo as an amazon: piraticis exercita rebus
ac bellici perita muneris (Hist., 138), while Thjalfe combats with
giantesses on Hlessey (Harbardslj., 39), and at the side of Thor and the
archer he fights his way through the river waves, in which giantesses
try to drown him (Thorsdrapa). It is evident that Paulus Diaconus'
accounts of Agelmund and Lamissio are nothing but echoes related as
history of the myths concerning Egil and Thjalfe, of which the Norse
records fortunately have preserved valuable fragments.


Thus Thjalfe is the archer Egil's and Groa's foster-son, as ms apparent
from a bringing together of the sources cited. From other sources we
have found that Groa is the archer Orvandel's wife. Orvandel dwells near
the Elivagar and Thor is his friend, and visits him on his way to and
from Jotunheim. These, are the evidences of Orvandel's and Egil's
identity which lie nearest at hand.


It has already been pointed out that Svipdag's father Orvandel appears
in Saxo by the name Ebbo (see Nos. 23, 100). It is Otharus-Svipdag's
father whom he calls Ebbo (Hist., 329-333). Halfdan slays Orvandel-Ebbo,
while the latter celebrates his wedding with a princess Sygrutha (see
No. 23). In the mythology Egil. had the same fate: an enemy and rival
kills him for the sake of a woman. "Franks Casket," an old work of
sculpture now preserved in England, and reproduced in George Stephens'
great work on the runes, represents Egil defending his house against a
host of assailants who storm it. Within the house a wonian is seen, and
she is the cause of the conflict. Like Saxo's Halfdan, one of the
assailants carries a tree or a branched club as his weapon. Egil has
already hastened out, bow in hand, and his three famous arrows have been
shot. Above hini is written in runes his name, wherefore there can be no
doubt about his identity. The attack, according to Saxo, took place, in
the night (noctuque nuptiis superveniens'Hist., p. 330).


In a similar manner, Paulus Diaconus relates the story concerning
Egil-Agelmund's death (oh. 16). He is attacked, so it is stated, in the
night time by Bulgarians, who slew him and carried away his only
daughter. During a part of their history the Longobardians had the
Bulgarians as neighbours, with whom they were on a war-footing. In the
mythology it was "Borgarians," that is to say, Borgar's son Halfdan and
his men, who slew Orvandel. In history the "Borgarians" have been
changed into Bulgarians for the natural reason that accounts of wars
fought with Bulgarians were preserved in the tradititions of the
Longobardians.


The very name Ebbo reappears also in the saga of the Longobardians. The
brothers, under whose leadership the Longobardians are said to have
emigrated from Scandinavia, are in Saxo (Hist., 418) called Aggo and
Ebbo; in Origo Longobardorum, Ajo and Ybor; in Paulus (ch. 7), Ajo and
Ibor. Thus the namne Ebbo is another form for Ibor, the German Ebur, the
Norse Jofurr, " a wild boar ". The Ibor of the Longobard saga, the
emigration leader, and Agelmund, the first king of the emigrants, in the
mythology, and also in Saxo's authorities, are one and the same person.
The longobardian emigration story, narrated in the form of history, thus
has its root in the universal Teutonic emigration myth, which was
connected with the enmity caused by Loki between the gods and the
primeval artists'an enmity in which the latter allied Runic Monuments,
by George Stephens. themselves with the powers of frost, and, at the
head of the Skilfing-Yngling tribes, gave the impetus to that migration
southward which resulted in the populating of the Teutonic continent
with tribes from South Scandia and Denmark (see Nos. 28, 32).


Nor is the mythic hero Ibor forgotten in the German sagas. He is
mentioned in Notker (about the year 1000) and in the Vilkinasaga. Notker
simply mentions him in passing as a saga-hero well known at that time.
He distinguishes between the real wild boar (Eber) roaming in the woods,
and the Eber (Ebur) who "wears tIne swan-ring ". This is all he has to
say of him. But, according to Volundarkvida, the mythological Ebur-Egil
is married to a swanmaid, and, like his brother Volund, he wore a ring.
The signification of the swan-rings was originally the same as that of
Draupner: they were symbols of fertility, and were made and owned for
this reason by the primeval artists of mythology, who, as we have seen,
were the personified forces of growth in nature, and by their beloved or
wives, the swan-maids, who represented the saps of vegetation, the
bestowers of the mythic "mead" or "ale ". The swan-maid who loves Egil
is, therefore, in Volundarkvida called Olrun, a parallel to the name
Olgefion, as Groa, Orvandel's wife, is called in Haustlaung (Younger
Edda, i. 252). Saxo, too, has heard of the swan-rings, and says that
from three swans singing in the air fell a eingulum inscribed with names
down to King Fridlevus (Njord), which infornied him where he was to find
a youth who had been robbed by a giant, and whose liberation was a
matter of great importance to Fridlevus. The context shows that the
unnamed youth was in the mythology Fridlevus-Njord's own son Frey, the
lord of harvests, who had been robbed by the powers of frost.
Accordingly, a swan-ring has co-operated in the mythology in restoring
the fertility of the earth.


In Vilkinasaga appears Villifer. The author of the saga says himself
that this name is identical with Wild-Ebur, wild boar. Villifer, a
splendid and noble-minded youth, wears on his arm a gold ring, and is
the elder friend, protector, and saviour of Vidga Volundson. Of his
family relations Vilkinasaga gives us no information, but the part it
gives him to play finds its explanation in the myth, where Ebur is
Volund's brother Egil, and hence the uncle of his favourite Vidga.


If we now take into consideration that in the German Orentel saga,
which is based on the Svipdag-myth, the father of the hero is called
Eigel (Egil), and his patron saint Wieland (Volund), and that in the
archer, who in Saxo fights by the side of AnuadVolund against Halfdan,
we have re-discovered Egil where we expected Orvandel; then we here find
a whole chain of evidence that Ebur, Egil, and Orvandel are identical,
and at the same time the links in this chain of evidence, taken as 'they
are from the Icelandic poetry, and from Saxo, from England, Germany, and
Italy, have demonstrated how widely spread among the Teutonic peoples
was the myth about Orvandel-Egil, his famous brother Volund, and his no
less celebrated son Svipdag. The result gained by the investigation is
of the greatest importance for the restoration of the epic connection of
the mythology. Hitherto the Volundarkvida with its hero has stood in the
gallery of myths as an isolated torso with no trace of connection with
the other myths and mythic sagas. Now, on the other hand, it appears,
and as the investigation progresses it shall become more and more
evident, that the Volund-myth belongs to the central timbers of the
great epic of Teutonic mythology, and extends branches through it in all
directions.


In regard to Svipdag's saga, the first result gained is that the
mythology was not inclined to allow Volund's sword, concealed in the
lower world, to fall into the hands of a hero who was a stranger to the
great artist and his plans. If Volund forged the sword for a purpose
hostile to the gods, in order to avenge a wrong done him, or to elevate
himself and his circle of kinsmen among the elves at the expense of the
ruling gods, then his work was not done in vain. If Volund and his
brothers are those Ivalde sons who, after having given the gods
beautiful treasures, became offended on account of the decision which
placed Sindre's work, particularly Mjohner, higher than their own, then
the mythology has also completely indemnified them in regard to this
insult. Mjolner is broken by the sword of victory wielded by Volund's
nephew; Asgard trembles before the young elf, after he had received the
incomparable weapon of his uncle; its gate is opened for him and other
kinsmen of Volund, and the most beautiful woman of the world of gods
becomes his wife.


109.


FREY FOSTERED IN THE HOME OF ORVANDEL-EGIL AND VOLUND. ORVANDEL'S
EPITHET ISOLFR. VOLUND'S EPITHET AGGO.


The mythology has handed down several names of the coast region near
the Elivagar, where Orvandel-Egil and his kinsmen dwelt, while they
still were the friends of the gods, and were an outpost active in the
service against the frost-powers. That this coast region was a part of
Alfheim, and the most northern part of this mythic land, appears already
from the fact that Volund and his brothers are in Volundarkvida
elf-princes, sons of a mythic "king ". The rule of the elf-princes must
be referred to Alfheim for the same reason as we refer that of the Vans
to Vanaheim, and that of the Asa-gods to Asgard. The part of Alfheim
here in question, where Orvandel-Egil's citadel was situated, was in the
mythology called Ydalir, Ysetr' (Grimnersmal, 5; Olaf Trygveson's saga,
ch. 21). This is also suggested by the fact that Ullr, elevated to the
dignity of an Asa-god, he who is the son of Orvandel-Egil, and Svipdag's
brother (see No. 102), according to Grimnersmal, has his halls built in
Ydalir. Divine beings who did not originally belong to Asgard, but were
adopted in Odin's clan, and thus became full citizens within the
bulwarks of the Asa-citadel, still retain possession of the land, realm,
and halls, which is their udal and where they were reared. After he
became a denizen in Asgard, Njord continued to own and to reside
occasionally in the Vanacitadel Notatun beyond the western ocean (see
Nos. 20, 93). Skade, as an asynje, continues to inhabit her father
Thjasse's halls in Thrymheim (Grimnersmal, 11). Vidar's grass and
brush-grown realm is not a part of Asgard, but is the large plain on
which, in Ragnarok, Odin is to fall in combat with Fearer (Grimnersmal,
17; see No. 39). When Ull is said to have his halls in Ydaler, this must
be based on a similar reason, and Ydaler must be the land where he was
reared and which he inherited after his father, the great archer. When
Grimnersmal enumerates the homes of the gods, the series of them begins
with Thrudheim, Thor's realm, and next thereafter, and in connection
with Alfheim, is mentioned Ydaler, presumably for the reason that Thor's
land and OrvandelEgil's were, as we have seen, most intimately connected
in mythology.


Land er heilact, er ec liggia se asom oc olfom nćr; en i ţruheimr, seal
ţórr' vera, unz um rivfaz regin. Ydalir heita. ţar er Ullr hefir' ser um
gorva sali; Alfheim Frey gáfo i ardaga tivar at tannfć.


Ydalir means the "dales of the bow" or "of the bows ". Ysetr is "the
chalet of the bow" or "of the bows ". That the first part of these
compound words is yr, "a bow," is proved by the way in which the local
name Ysetr can be applied in poetical paraphrases, where the bow-holding
hand is called Ysetr. The names refer to the mythical rulers of the
region, namely, the archer Ull and his father the archer Orvandel-Egil.
The place has also been called Geirvadills setr, Geirvandills setr,
which is explained by the fact that Orvandel's father bore the epithet
Geirvandel (Saxo, Hist., 135). Hakon Jarl, the ruler of northern Norway,
is called (Fagrsk., 37, 4) Geirvadills seirs Ullr, "the Ull of
Geirvandel's chalet, a paraphrase in which we find the mythological
association of Ull with the chalet which was owned by his father
Orvandel and his grandfather Geirvandel. The Ydales were described as
rich in gold. Ysetrs eldr is a paraphrase for gold. With this we must
compare what Volund says (Volundarkvida, 14) of the wealth of gold in
his and his kinsmen's home. (See further, in regard to the same passage,
Nos. 114 and 115.)


In connection with its mention of the Ydales, Grimnersmal states that
the gods gave Frey Alfheim as a tooth-gift. Tannfe (tooth-gift) was the
name of a gift which was given (and in Iceland is still given) to a
child when it gets its first tooth. The tender Frey is thus appointed by
the gods as king over Alfheim, and chief of the elf-princes there, among
whom Volund and Orvandel-Egil, judging from tIme mythic events
themselves, must have been the foremost and most celebrated. It is also
logically correct, from the standpoint of nature symbolism, that the god
of growth and harvests receives the government of elves and primeval
artists, the personified powers of culture. Through this arrangement of
the gods, Volund and Orvandel become vassals under Njord and his son.


In two passages in Saxo we read mythic accounts told as history, from
which it appears that Njord selected a foster-father for his son, or let
him be reared in a home under the care of two fosterers. In the one
passage (Hist., 272) it is Fridlevus-Njord who selects Avo the archer as
his son's foster-father; in the other passage (Hist., 181) it is the
tender Frotho, son of Endlevus and future brother-in-law of
Ericus-Svipdag, who receives Isulfus and Aggo as guardians.


So far as the archer Avo is concerned, we have already met him above
(see No. 108) in combat by the side of Anundus-Volund against one
Halfdan. He is a parallel figure to the archer Toko, who likewise fights
by the side of Anundus-Volund against Halfdan, and, as has already been
shown, he is identical with the archer Orvandel-Egil.


The name Aggo is borne by one of the leaders of the emigration of the
Loagobardians, brother of Ebbo-Ibor, in whom we have already discovered
Orvandel-Egil.


The name Isolfr, in the Old Norse poetic language, designates the bear
(Younger Edda, i. 589; ii. 484). Vilkinasaga makes Ebbo (Wild-Ebur)
appear in the guise of a bear when he is about to rescue Volund's son
Vidga from the captivity into which he had fallen. In his shield Ebbo
has images of a wild boar and of a bear. As the wild boar refers to one
of his names (Ebur), the image of the bear should refer to another (Isolfr).


Under such circumstances there can be no doubt that Orvandel-Egil and
one of his brother's, the one designated by the name Aggo (Ajo), be this
Volund or Slagfin, were entrusted in the mythology with the duty of
fostering the young Frey. Orvandel also assumes, as vassal under Njord,
the place which foster-fathers held in relation to the natural fathers
of their proteges.


Frey, accordingly, is reared in Alfheim, and in the Ydales he is
fostered by elf-princes belonging to a circle of brothers, among whom
one, namely, Volund, is the most famous artist of mythology. His
masterpiece, the sword of victory, in time proves to be superior to
Sindre's chief work, the hammer Mjolner. And as it is always Volund whom
Saxo mentions by Orvandel-Egil's side among his brothers (see No. 108),
it is most reasonable to suppose that it is Volund, not Slagfin, who
appears here under the name Aggo along with the great archer, and, like
the latter, is entrusted with the fostering of Frey. It follows that
Svipdag and Ull were Frey's foster-brothers. Thus it is the duty of a
foster-brother they perform when they go to rescue Frey from the power
of giants, and when they, later, in the war between the Asas and Vans,
take Frey's side. This also throws additional light on Svipdag-Skirner's
words to Frey in Skirnersmal, 5:


ungir saman varom i árdaga, vel mćttim tvćir truasc.


110.


SYIPDAG'S GRANDFATHER IS IVALDE. ORVANDEL, VOLUND, AND SLAGFIN
THEREFORE IDENTICAL WITH IVALDE'S SONS.


In the mythology we read that elves smithied splendid treasures for
Frey (Grimnersmal, 42; Younger Edda, i. 140, 340). Among these treasures
were the remarkable ship Skidblanir and the gold-glittering boar
Slidrugtanni, also called Gullinbursti (Younger Edda, i. 176, 264,
340-344), both clearly symbols of vegetation. The elves that smithied
these treasures are called Ivalde's sons, and constitute the same group
of brothers whose gifts to the gods, at the instigation of Loki, are
subjected to a public examination by the Asas and by them found wanting
as compared with Sindre's products. It would be most surprising, nay,
quite incredible, if, when other artists made useful presents to Frey,
the elf-prince Volund and his brothers did not do likewise, inasmuch as
he is the chief smith of them all, and inasmuch as he, with his brother
Orvandel-Egil, has taken upon himself the duties of a foster-father
toward the young harvest-god, aniong which duties one was certainly to
care for his good and enable him to perform the important task devolving
on him in the administration of the world.


From this standpoint already it is more than probable that the same
artist who in the heroic saga of the Teutonic tribes, under the name
Volund, Wieland, Weland, by the side of Mimir, plays the part of the
foremost smith that antiquity knew is the same one as in the mythology
was the niost excellent smith; that is, the most skilful one among
Ivalde's sons. This view is perfectly confirmed as to its correctness by
the proofs which I shall now present.


Of Ivalde, Fornspjallsljod says that he had two groups of children, and
that Idun, the goddess of vegetation, belonged to one of these groups:


Alfa ćttar Jţunni heto Ivallds ellri yngsta barna.


Idun is, therefore, a sister of the celebrated artists, the sons of
Ivalde. In Volundarkvida, Volund and Slagfin are brothers or
half-brothers of the dises of vegetation, who are together with them in
the Wolfdales (see str. 2). According to Fornspjallsljod, Idun was for a
time absent from Asgard, and stayed in a winter-cold laud near
Narfe-Mimir's daughter Nat, and in company with persons whose names and
epithets indicate that they were smiths, primeval artists (Rognir and
Regin; see Nos. 113, 115, and the epithet viggiar', a synonym of
smidiar'Younger Edda, i. 587). Thus we read precisely the same of Idun
as of the swan-maids and vegetation-dises who dwelt for a time in the
Wolfdales with Volund and his brothers. Further on it shall be
demonstrated that the name of Volund's father in the introduction of
Volundarkvida and the name given to the father of Volund's and Slagfin's
swan-maids are synonyms, and refer to one and the same person. But if we
for the present leave this proof out, and confine ourselves to the
evidences already presented, then the question concerning the identity
of the Ivalde sons with the group of brothers Volund, Egil, and Slagfin
assumes the following form:


1. (a) There is in the mythology a group of brothers, the Ivalde sons,
from whose hands the most wonderful works proceeded, works which were
presented to the gods, and by the latter were compared with those of the
primeval artist Sindre.


(b) In the heroic saga there is a group of brothers, to whom Volund
belongs, the most celebrated of the smiths handed down from the mythology.


2. (a) Ivalde is an elf and his sons elves.


(b) Volund, Egil, and Slagfin are elves (Volundarkvida, 32).


3. (a) Ivalde's sons are brothers or half-brothers of the goddess of
vegetatiOn, Idun.


(b) Volund, Egil, and Slagfin are brothers or half-brothers of
swan-maids and discs of vegetation.


4. (a) Of Idun, the sister of Ivalde's sons, it is stated that she was
for a time absent from the gods, and dwelt with the primeval artists in
a winter-cold land, near Nat, the daughter of NarfiMimer.


(b) Volund and his brothers' swan-maids dwell for a time in a
winter-cold land, which, as my researches have already shown, is
situated fyr nágrindr nedan, consequently in the lower world, near the
realm of Nat.


5. (a) Ivalde's sons were intimately associated with Frey and gave him
precious treasures.


(b) Volund and Egil were intimately associated with Frey, and were his
fosterers and wards.


6. (a) Ivalde's sons were most deeply insulted by the gods.


(b) Volund has been most deeply insulted by the Asas. He and Egil
become their foes, and ally themselves with the powers of frost.


7. (a) The insult given to Ivalde's sons consisted in the fact that
their works were judged inferior as compared with the hammer Mjolner
made by Sindre.


(b) The best smith-work produced by Volund is a sword of such a quality
that it is to prove itself superior to Mjolner in battle.


These circumstances alone force us to assume the identity of Ivalde's
sons with Volund and his brothers. We must either admit the identity, or
we are obliged to assume that the epic of the mythology contained two
such groups of brothers, and made them identical in descent, functions,
and fortunes. Besides, it must then have made the one group avenge not
an insult offened to itself, but an insult to the other. I have
abstained from the latter assumption, because it is in conflict with the
best rules for a logical investigation'causć non sunt prćter
necessitatem multiplicandae. And the identity gains confirmation from
all sides as the investigation progresses.


111.


THE RESULTS OF THE JUDGMENT PASSED ON THE WORKS OF ART PRODUCED BY THE
IVALDE SONS. PARALLEL MYTHS IN RIGVEDA.


In the Younger Edda, which speaks of the judgment passed by the gods on
the art works of the Ivalde sons (p. 340, &c.), there is nothing said
about the consequences of the judgment; and the mythologists seem
therefore to have assumed that no results followed, although it was
prepared by the "father of misfortunes," the far-calculating and
evil-scheming Loki. The judgment would in that case be an isolated
event, without any influence on the future, and without any connection
with the other mythic events. On the other band, no possible explanation
was found of Volund's words (Volundarkvida, 28), which he utters after
he has taken his terrible vengeance on Nidad and is prepared to fly away
in eagle guise from his prison: Nu hefi cc hefnt harma minna allra nema
einna iviţgjarnra'" Now I have avenged all the wrongs done to me,
excepting one, which demands a more terrible vengeance ". The wrong here
referred to by him is not done to him by Nidad, and did not happen to
him while he lived as an exile in the wilderness of the Wolfdales, but
belongs to an earlier time, when he and his brothers and their kinsmen
dwelt in the realm rich in gold, where, according to Volundarkvida (14),
they lived a happy life. This wrong was not avenged when he and his
brothers left their home abounding in gold, in order that far from his
enemies he might perfect his plan of revenge by making the sword of
victory. Volund's words refer to the judgment passed on the art work of
the Ivalde sons, and thus the mythic events unite themselves into a
continuous chain.


This judgment was in its consequences too important not to be referred
to in Völuspa, which makes all the danger-boding events of the mythology
pass one by one before our eyes in the order in which they happened, in
order to show how this world from an innocent and happy beginning sank
deeper and deeper into the misery which attains its maturity in
Ragnarok. That is the plan and purpose of the poem. As I shall show
fully and in detail in another part of this work, its purpose is not to
speak of Valfather's "art work," but of the treacherous deeds of Loki,
"the father of evil " (Vafodrs vel ' Cod. Hank.); not to speak of "the
traditions of the past," but of "the past events full of danger" (forn
spjöll fira). The happy time during which the Asas tefidu i tuni and
teitir varu passes away for ever, and is followed by an epoch in which
three dangerous thurs-maidens came from Jotunheim. These thurs-maidens
are not the norns, as has usually been assumed. Of the relation of the
norns to the gods I have given a full account already. The three
thurs-maids are the one who in her unity is triple and is thrice born of
different parents. Her name is Heid-GulveigAngerboda, and, in connection
with Loki, she constitutes the evil principle of Teutonic mythology,
like Angra Mainyu, and Jahi in the Iranian mythology (Bundehesh, 3). The
misfortune-boding event which happens after the first hypostasis of "the
three times born" came from Jotunheim is mentioned in connection with
its consequences in Völuspa (str. 8). The Asas had not hitherto suffered
from want of works of gold, but now came a time when such as might be of
use or pleasure to the gods were no longer to be had. Of the gold-metal
itself the gods have never been in want. Their halls glitter with this
metal, and it grows in the bright wood Glasir, outside of Valhal
(Younger Edda, i. 340). The poem, as the very words show, means golden
works of art, things made of gold, such as Gungnir, Draupnir, Sif's
hair, Brisingamen, and Slidrugtanni, things the possession of which
increased the power of the gods and the wealth of Midgard. Such ceased
to flow into the bands of the gods. The epoch in which Sindre's and the
Ivalde son's gifts increased Asgard's collection of world-protecting
weapons and fertility-producing ornaments was at an end, when Loki,
through Heid's arrival, found his other ego and when the evil principle,
hitherto barren, could as man and woman give birth to evil deeds. The
consequence of the first deceitful act was, as we see, that hands
skilful in art'hands which hitherto had made and given such
treasures'refused to serve the gods any longer. The arrangement whereby
Loki gained this end Völuspa does not mention, but it can be no other
than the judgment brought about by him, which insulted the sons of
Ivalde, and, at the same time, cheated the victorious Sindre out of the
prize agreed on, Loki's head. Both the groups of artists must have left
the divine court angry at the gods. When we remember that the primeval
artists are the creative forces of vegetation personified, then we can
also understand the significance of the conflict between them and the
gods, whom they hitherto had served. The first part of Voluspa is
interpolated partly with strophes from an old song of creation of great
mythological importance, partly with lists of names for the use of young
poets. If we remove these interpolations, there remains a chain of
primeval mythological mishaps, the first link of which is the event
which marks the end of the first epoch during which the primeval
artists, amicably united with the gods, made splendid weapons, means of
locomotion, and ornaments for the latter. On this conflict followed the
blending of the air with harmful elements'in other words, it was the
beginning of the great winter. Freyja was betrayed into the hands of the
giants ; the black art, sown by Heid, was disseminated among mankind;
the murder was committed against the one thrice born contrary to promise
and oath; there is war between the Asas and Vans; the first great war in
the world breaks out, when Asgard is stormed and Midgard is covered with
battlefields, on which brothers slay each other; Balder is killed by the
mistletoe; the host of monsters are born who, in the Ironwood, await
Ragnarok; on account of the sins of men, it became necessary to make
places of torture in the lower world. All these terrible events, which
happened in time's morning, are the cunning work of the father of
misfortunes and of his feminine counterpart. The seeress in Völuspa
relates all these events and deeds to show the necessity of the coming
destruction and regeneration of the world.


Above (see No. 54), it has already been shown that the fragments of old
Aryan mythology, which Avesta, Zend, and Bundehesh have preserved, speak
of a terrible winter, which visited the world. To rescue that which is
noblest and best among plants, animals, and men from the coming
destruction, Jima arranged in the lower world a separate enclosed
domain, within which selected organisms live an uncontaminated life
undisturbed by the events of this world, so that they may people a more
beautiful and a happier earth in the regenerated world. I have shown
that the same myth in all important details reappears in the Teutonic
doctrine anent Mimir's grove and the ásmegir living there. In the
Iranian records, we read that the great winter was the work of the evil
spirit, but they do not tell the details or the epic causes of the
destruction by the cold. Of these causes we get information in Rigveda,
the Indian sister of the Iranian mythology.


Clothed with divine rank, there lives among Rigveda's gods an
extraordinary artist, Tvashtar (Tvashtri), often mentioned and addressed
in Rigveda's hymns. The word means "the masterworkman," "the
handi-workman" (Bergaigne, Relig. Ved., iii. 45; Darmesteter, Ormazd,
63, 100). He is the one who forms the organisms in the maternal wombs,
the one who prepares and first possesses as his secret the strength- and
inspiration-giving somadrink (Rigv., ii. 53, &c.); it is he that
supports the races of men (Rigv., iii. 55, 19). Among the wonderful
things made by his hands are mentioned a goblet, which the gods drink
from, and which fills itself with blessings (Rigv., iii. 55, 20 ; x. 53,
9), and Indra's, the Hindooic Thor's, thunderbolt, corresponding to
Thor's Mjolner.


But among mortals brothers have been reared, themselves mortals, and
not of divine rank, but who have educated themselves into artists, whose
skill fills the world within astonishment. They are three in number,
usually called the Ribhus, but also Anus and Ayus, names which possibly
may have some original connection with the Volund names Anund and Ajo.
Most clever and enterprising in successful artistic efforts is the
youngest of the three (Rigv., iv. 34). They are also soma-brewers,
skalds, and heroes (Rigv., iv. 36, 5, 7), and one of them, like Volund's
brother Orvandel-Egil, is an unsurpassed archer (Rigv., iv. 36, 6). On
account of their handiwork, these mortal artists come in contact with
the gods (Rigv., iv. 35), and as Volund and Orvandel-Egil become Thor's
friends, allies, war-comrades, and servants, so the Ribhns become
Indra's (Rigv., i. 51, 2; vii. 37, 7); "with Indra, the helpful, allied
themselves the helpers; with Indra, the nimble, the Ribhus ". They make
weapons, coats-of-mail, and means of locomotion, and make wonderful
treasures for the gods. On earth they produce vegetation in the deserts,
and hew out ways for the fertlising streams (Rigv., v. 42, 12; iv. 33,
7). With Ivalde's sons, they, therefore, share the qualities of being at
the same time creators of vegetation, and smiths at the hearth, and
bestowers of precious treasures to the gods.


But some evil tongue persuaded the gods that the Ribhus had said
something derogatory of the goblet made by Tvashtar. This made Tvashtar
angry, and he demanded their death. The gods then sent the fire-god Agni
to the Ribhus. The Ribhus asked:


"Why has the most excellent, the most youthful one come to us' On what
errand does he come' " Agni told them that it was reported that they had
found fault with Tvashtar's goblet; they declared that they had not said
anything derogatory, but only talked about the material of which it was
made. Agni meanwhile stated the resolution of the gods, to the effect
that they were to make from Tvashtar's goblet four others of the same
kind. If they were unable to do this, then the gods would doubtless
satisfy Tvashtar's request and take their lives; but if they were able
to make the goblets, then they should share with the gods the right to
receive offerings. Moreover, they were to give the following proof of
mastership. They were to smithy a living horse, a living chariot, a
living cow, and they were to create a means of rejuvenation and
demonstrate its efficacy on two aged and enfeebled beings. The Ribhus
informed the gods that they would do what was demanded of them. So they
niade the wonderful chariot or the chariot-ship, which they gave to the
Asvinians'the beautiful twin-gods'on which they ride through the air and
on the sea (cp. Skidbladner, Frey's ship, and Hringhorne, Balder's, and
probably also Hoder's means of locomotion through the air and on the
sea). Of one horse they made two, and presented them to Indra. Out of an
empty cow's bide they smithied a cow (cp. Sindre's work of art when he
made tIme boar Slidringtanne out of an empty pig's skin). They made the
remedy of rejuvenation, and tested it successfully on their aged
parents. Finally, they do the great master-work of producing four
goblets of equal excellence from Tvashtar's. Thereupon they appear
before the gods who, "with insight," test their works. Tvashtar himself
could not help being astounded when he saw the goblets. But the result
of the test by the gods, and the judgment passed on the art-works of the
Ribhus, were fraught with danger for the future. Both Tvashtar and the
Ribhus became dissatisfied. Tvashtar abandoned the gods and betook
himself to the mountains with the dises of vegetation, in whose company
he is often mentioned. The Ribhus refused to accept from the gods the
proffered share in morning and noon sacrifices, and went away cursing
their adversaries. They proceeded on long journeys, and the gods knew
not where to find them (Rigv., i. 161, 1-13; iv. 33, 1-11, &c.).


The result of this trouble between the primeval artists them. selves,
and between them and the gods, becomes clear from the significance which
Tvashtar, he who nourishes the world, and the Ribhus, they who deck the
deserts with vegetation, and irrigate the valleys, have as symbols of
nature. The beneficent powers of nature, who hitherto had operated in
the service of the gods, abandon their work, and over the world are
spread that winter of which the Iranian mythology speaks, that darkness,
and that reign of giant-monsters which, according to Rigveda, once
prevailed, and during which time Indra, at the head of the gods, fought
valiantly to restore order and to bring back the sun.


Here we find remarkable points of contact, or rather contact surfaces,
between the Asiatic-Aryan groups of myths and the Teutonic. The question
is not as to similarity in special details. That kind of similarities
may be pointed omit in nearly all mythic groups in the world, and, as a
rule, altogether too bold hypotheses are built on the feeble foundations
they offer. The question here is in regard to identity in great,
central, connected collections of myths. Such are: The myths concerning
an original harmony between a divine clan on the one hand, and artists
subordinate to, and in the service of, the divine clan on the other
band. Artists who produce fertility, ornaments, and weapons for the
gods, know how to brew the strength- and inspiration-giving mead, and
are closely connected with dises of vegetation, who, as we shall show,
appear as swan-maids, not only in the Teutonic mythology but also in the
Hindooic; the myths telling how this harmony was frustrated by a
judgment in a competition, the contending parties being on the one hand
be who in the Hindooic mythology made Indra's thunderbolt, and in the
Teutonic Thor's thundering Mjolner; and on the other hand three
brothers, of whom one is an excellent archer; the myths concerning the
consequences of the judgment, the destruction of nature by frostpowers
and giant-monsters; the myths (in the Iranian and Teutonic records of
antiquity) concerning the subterranean paradise, in which a selection of
the best beings of creation are protected against annihilation, and
continue to live uncorrupted through centuries; the myths (in the
Iranian and Teutonic records of antiquity) of the destiny of these
beings, connected with the myths likewise common to the Iranian and
Teutonic mythologies concerning the destruction and regeneration of the
world. Common to the Hindooic and Teutonic mythology is also the idea
that a cunning, spying being, in Rigveda Dadhyak (Dadhyank), in the
Icelandic sources Loki, has lost his head to an artist who smithied the
bolt for Indra and the hammer for Thor, but saves his wager through cunning.


An important observation should here be pointed out. A comparison
between different passages in Rigveda shows, that of all the remarkable
works of art which were exhibited to the gods for their examination,
there was originally not one of metal. Tvashtar's goblet was not made of
gold, but of fire and water and a third element. Indra's thunderbolt was
made of the bones of the head of Dadhyak's horse, and it is in a later
tradition that it becomes bronze. Common to the Aryan-Asiatic and the
Teutonic mythology is the ability of the primeval artists to make
animals from empty skins of beasts, and of making from one work of art
several similar ones (the goblet of the Ribhus, Sindre's Draupner). In
the Teutonic mythology, Thor's hammer was not originally of metal, but
of stone, and the other works produced by Sindre and Ivalde's sons may
in the course of centuries have undergone similar changes. It should
also be noted that not a trace is to be found in the Asiatic groups of
myths of a single one to be compared with that concerning Svipdag and
the sword of victory. In the Teutonic heroic saga, Geirvandel, the
spear-hero, is the father of Orvandel, the archer, and of him is born
Svipdag, the sword-hero (cp. No. 123). The myth concerning the sword of
victory seems to be purely Teutonic, and to have sprung into existence
during one of the bronze or iron ages, while the myths concerning the
judgment passed on the primeval artists, and concerning the
fimbul-winter following, must hail from a time when metals were not yet
used by the Aryans. In the other event it would be most incredible to
suppose that the judgment should concern works of art, of which not a
single one originally suggested a product of metal.


112.


THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE JUDGMENT PASSED ON THE IVALDE SONS (continued).
NJORD'S EFFORTS TO BRING ABOUT A RECONCILIATION.


It has already been stated that Fridlevus-Njord rescues a princely
youth from the power of the giants. According to Saxo, the event was an
episode in the feud between Fridlevus-Njord and Anundus (Volund), and
Avo, the archer (Orvandel-Egil). This corroborates the theory that the
rescued youth was Frey, Volund's and Egil's foster-son. The first one of
the gods to be seized by fears on account of the judgment passed on
Ivalde's sons ought, naturally, to be Njord, whose son Frey was at that
time in the care and power of Volund and Egil (see No. 109). We also
learn from Saxo that Fridlevus took measures to propitiate the two
brothers. He first sends messengers, who on his behalf woo the daughter
of Anund-Volund, but the messengers do not return. Anund had slain them.
Thereupon Fridlevus goes himself, accompanied by others, and among the
latter was a "mediator". The name of the mediator was Bjorno, and he was
one of those champions who constituted the defence of that citadel,
which Fridlevus afterwards captured, and which we have recognised as
Asgard (see No. 36). Thus Bjorno is one of the Asas, and there are
reasons, which I shall discuss later, for assuming him to be Balder's
brother Hodr. The context shows that Fridlevus' journey to Ivalde's sons
and meeting with them takes place while there was yet hope of
reconciliation, and before the latter arrived in the inaccessible
Wolfdales, which are situated below the Na-gates in the subterranean
Jotunheim. On the way thither they must have been overtaken by
Fridhevus, and doubtless the event occurred there which Saxo relates,
and of which an account in historical form is preserved in the
Longobardian migration saga.


The meeting did not lead to reconcilation, but to war. Avo, the archer
(Orvandel-Egil; see Nos. 108, 109) appeared on the one side and
challenged Fridlevus-Njord to a duel. Bjorno became angry that a person
of so humble descent as this Avo dared to challenge the noble-born
Fridlevus, and in his wrath he drew his bow to fell "the plebeian" with
an arrow. Thus Bjorno also was an archer.


But Avo anticipated him, and an arrow from him severed Bjorno's
bow-string from the bow. While Bjorno was tying the string again, there
came from Avo a second arrow, which passed between his fingers without
hurting him, and then there came a third arrow, which shot away Bjorno's
arrow just as he was placing it on the string. Then the Ivalde sons
continued their departure. Bjorno let loose a molossus he had with him
to pursue them, probably the same giant-dog or giant wolf-dog which Saxo
describes in a preceding chapter (Hist., 260) as being in Bjorno's
possession, and which before had guarded the giant Offote's herds. But
this molossus was not able to prevent those fleeing from reaching their
destination in safety. In all probability Frey had already been
delivered by his wards to the giants when this happened. This must have
occurred on the way between the abode abounding in gold, where Ivalde's
sons had formerly lived in happiness, and the Wolfdales, and so within
Jotunheim, where the gods were surrounded by foes.


The story of this adventure on the journey of the emigrating Ivalde
sons reappears in a form easily recognised in Paulus Diaconus, where he
tells of the emigration of the Longobardians under Ibor (Orvandel-Egil;
see No. 108) and Ajo (Volund). In Saxo Avo-Egil, who belongs to the race
of elves, becomes a lowborn champion, while the Vana-god Njord becomes
King Fridlevus. In Paulus the saga is not content with making the great
archer of the emigrants a plebeian, but he is made a thrall who
challenges a chosen free-born warrior among the foes of the
Longobardians. In the mythology and inn Saxo the duel was fought with
bows and arrows, and the plebeian was found to be far superior to his
opponent. Paulus does not name the kind of weapons used, but when it had
ended with the victory of " the thrall," an oath was taken on an arrow
that the thralls were to be freed from their chains by the
Longobardians. Consequently the arrow must hnve been the thrall's weapon
of victory. In the mythology, the journey of the Ivalde sons to the
Wolfdales was down to the lower world Jotunheim and northward through
Nifelhel, inhabited by thurses and monsters. Both in Saxo and Paulus
this sort of beings take part in the adventures described. In Saxo,
Fridlevus' war-comrade Bjorno sends a monster in the guise of a dog
against the sons of Ivalde. In Paulus, according to the belief of their
enemies, the emigrants had as their allies "men with dog-heads ".


Bjorno is an Asa-god; and he is described as an archer who had
confidence in his weapon, though he proved to be inferior to Avo in the
use of it. Among the gods of Asgard only two archers are mentioned'Hodr
and Ullr. At the time when this event occurred Ull had not yet been
adopted in Asgard. As has been shown above (see No. 102), he is the son
of Orvandel-Egil and Sif. His abode is still with his parents when
Svipdag, his half-brother, receives instructions from Sif to seek Frey
and Freyja in Jotunheim (see No. 102), and he faithfully accompanies
Svipdag through his adventures on this journey. Thus Ull is out of the
question'the more so as he would in that case be opposing his own
father. Hoder (Hodr) is mentioned as an archer both in the Beowulf poem,
where he, under the name Haedcyn, shoots BalderHerebeald accidentally
with his "horn-bow," and in Saxo (arcus peritia pollebat'Hist., 111),
and in Christian tales based on myths, where he appears by the name
Hedinn. That Bjorno, mentioned by Saxo as a beautiful youth, is Hoder is
confirmed by another circumstance. He is said to be sequestris ordinis
vir (Hist., 270), an expression so difficult to interpret that scholars
have proposed to change it into sequioris or equestris ordinis vir. The
word shows that Bjorno in Saxo's mythological authorities belonged to a
group of persons whose functions were such that they together might be
designated as a sequestris ordo. Sequester means a mediator in general,
and in the law language of Rome it meant an impartial arbitrator to whom
a dispute might be referred. The Norse word which Saxo, accordingly,
translated with seguesiris ordo, "the mediators," "the arbitrators," can
have been none other than the plural ljónar, a mythological word, and
also an old legal term, of which it is said in the Younger Edda: Ljónar
heita ţeir menn, er ganga um saettir manna, "ljónan' are called those
men whose business it is to settle disputes ". That this word ljónar
originally designated a certain group of Asa-gods whose special duty it
was to act as arbitrators is manifest from the phrase ljona kindir, "the
children of the peacemakers," an expression inherited from heathendom
and applied to mankind far down in Christian times; it is an expression
to be compared with the phrase megir Heimdallar, "Heimdal's Sons," which
also was used to designate mankind. In Christian times the phrase
"children of men" was translated with the heathen expression ljóna
kindir, and when the recollection of the original meaning of ljónar was
obliterated, the word, on account of this usage, came to mean men in
general (yin, homines), a signification which it never had in the days
of heathendom.


Three Asa-gods are mentioned in our mythological records as
peacemakers'Balder, Hoder, and Balder's son, Forsete. Balder is
mentioned as judge in the Younger Edda (90). As such he is liksamastr'
that is, "the most influential peacemaker ". Of Forsete, who inherits
his father's qualities as judge, it is said in Grimnersmal (15) that he
svefer allar sacir, "settles all disputes ". Hoder, who both in name and
character appears to be a most violent and thoughtless person, seems to
be the one least qualified for this calling. Nevertheless he performed
the duties of an arbitrator by the side of Balder and probably under his
influence. Saxo (Hist., 122) speaks of him as a judge to whom men
referred their disputes' consueverat consulenti populo plebiscita
depromere'and describes him as gifted with great talents of persuasion.
He had eloquentiae suavitatem, and was able to subdue stubborn minds
with benignissimo sermone (Hisi., 116, 117). In Völuspa (60) the human
race which peoples the renewed earth is called burin' brora tvegia, "the
sons of the two brothers," and the two brothers mentioned in the
preceding strophe are Balder and Hoder. Herewith is to be compared ljóna
kindir in Völuspa (14). In Harbardsljod (42) the insolent mocker of the
gods, Harbard, refers to the miserable issue of an effort made by
jafnendr, "the arbitrator," to reconcile gods with certain ones of their
foes. I think it both possible and probable that the passage refers to
the mythic event above described, and that it contains an allusion to
the fact that the effort to make peace concerned the recovery of Frey
and Freyja, who were delivered as "brides" to naughty giants, and for
which "brides" the peacemakers received arrows and blows as
compensation. Compare the expression bćta mundi baugi and Thor's
astonishment, expressed in the next strophe, at the insulting words, the
worst of the kind he ever heard. Saxo describes the giant in whose power
Frey is, when he is rescued by his father, as a cowardly and enervated
monster whose enormous body is a moles destituta rubore (Hist., 268). In
this manner ended the effort of the gods to make peace. The three sons
of Ivalde continue their journey to the Wolfdales, inaccessible to the
gods, in order that they thence might send ruin upon the world.


113.


PROOFS THAT IVALDE'S SONS ARE IDENTICAL WITH OLVALDE'S.


Observations made in the course of niy investigations anent Ivalde and
his sons have time and again led me to the unexpected result that
Ivalde's sons, Slagfin, Egil, and Volund, are identical with
Olvalde-Alvalde's sons, who, in the Grotte-song, are called Idi, Urnir
or Aurnir' (Ornir), and ţjazi, and in the Younger Edda (p. 214) ţjazi,
Idi, and Gángr. This result was unexpected and, as it seemed to me in
the beginning, improbable, for the reason that where Thjasse is
nientioned in the Elder Edda, lie is usually styled a giant, while
Volund is called a prince or chief of elves in Volundarkvida. In
Grinmnersmal (11) Thjasse is designated as inn amátki iotunn; in
Harbardsljod (19) as enn ţrudmoţgi iotunn; in Hyndluljod (30) as a
kinsman of Gymer and Aurboda. The Grotte-song (9) says that Thjasse,
Ide, and Aurnir were brothers of those mountain giants who were the
fathers of Menja and Fenja. In the Younger Edda he is also called a
jötunn. In the beginning of my researches, and before Volund's position
in the mythology was clear to me, it appeared to nine highly improbable
that a prince among the elves and one of the chief artists in the
mythology could be characterised as a giant. Indeed I was already then
aware that the clan-names occurring in the mythiology'áss, vanr, álfr,
dvergr, and jötunn' did not exclusively designate the descent of the
beings, but could also be applied to them on account of qualities
developed or positions acquired, regardless of the clan to which they
actually belonged by their birth. In Thrymskvida (15), so to speak in
the same breath, Heimdal is called both ass and vanr''"ţá quaţ ţat
Heimdallr, hvitastr' ása, vissi han vel fram sem vanir áţrir ". And Loki
is designated both as áss and jotunn, although the Asas and giants
represent the two extrenmes. Neither Heimdal nor Loki are of the
Asa-clan by birth ; but they are adopted in Asgard, that is, they are
adopted Asas, and this explains the appellation. Elves and dwarfs are
doubtless by descent different classes of beings, but the word dwarf,
which in the earliest Christian times became the synonyni of a being of
diminutive stature, also meant an artist, a smith, whence both Vans and
elves, nay, even Fjalar, could be incorporated in the Völuspa
dwarf-list. When, during the progress of my investigations, it appeared
that Volund and his brothers in the epic of the mythology were the most
dangerous foes of the gods and led the powers of fn'ost in their efforts
to destroy the world, it could no longer surprise me that Volund, though
an elf prince, was characterised as inn (amátki iotunn, enn ţrudmoţgi
iotunn. But there was another difficulty in the way: according to
Hyndluljod and the Grottesong, Thjasse and his brothers were kinsmen of
giants, and must therefore undoubtedly have had giant-blood in their
veins. But there are kinsmen of the giants among the Asas too; and when
in tIme progress of the investigation it appears that Thjasse's mother
is a giantess, but his father a haţt, a god of lower rank, then his
maternal descent, and his position as an ally and chief of the giants,
and as the most powerful foe of Asgard and Midgard, are sufficient to
explain the apparent contradiction that he is at the same tinie a giant
and a kinsman of the giants, and still identical with the elf-prince,
Volund. It should also be observed that, as shall be shown below, the
tradition has preserved the memory of the fact that Volund too was
called a giant and had kinsmen among the giants.


The reasons which, taken collectively, prove conclusively, at least to
me, that Ivalde's sons and Olvalde's are identical are the following:


(1) In regard to the names themselves, we note in the first place that,
as has already been pointed out, the name of the father of Ide, of
Aurnir-Gang, and of Thjasse appears with the variations Allvaldi,
Olvaldi, and Auvaldi. To persons speaking a language in which the
prefixes I-, I-, and All- are equivalents and are substituted for one
another, and accustomed to poetics, in which it was the most common
thing to substitute equivalent nouns and names (for example, Grjótbjörn
for Arinbjörn, Fjallgyldir for Asólfr, &c.), it was impossible to see in
Ivaldi and Allvaldi anything but names designating the same person.


(2) Anent the variation Olvalde we have already seen that its
equivalents Olniodr and Sumbl (Finnakonungr, phinno rum rex) allude to
Slagfin's, Orvandel-Egil's, and Volund's father, while Olvalde himself
is said to be the father of Ide, Aurnir, and Thjasse.


(3) Ajo's and Ibor's mother is called Gambara in Origo Longobardorum
and in Paulus Diaconus. Aggo's and Ebbo's mother is called Gambaruc in
Saxo. In Ibor-Ebbo and Ajo-Aggo we have re-discovered Egil and Volund.
The Teutonic stem of which the Latinised Gambara was formed is in all
probability gambr, gammr, a synonym of gripr (Younger Edda, ii. 572),
the German Greif According to the Younger Edda (i. 314), Thjasse's
mother is the giantess Greip, daughter of Geirrodr. The forms grip,
neuter, and greip, feminine, are synonyms in the Old Norse language, and
they surely grew out of the same root. While Gambara thus is Volund's
mother, Thjasse's mother bears a name to which Gambara alludes.


(4) The variation Audvaldi means "the one presiding over riches," and
the epithet finds its explanation in the Younger Edda's account of the
gold treasure left by Thjasse's father, and of its division among his
sons (p. 214). It is there stated that Thjasse's father was mjök
gullaudigr. Ivalde's sons, who gave the gods golden treasures, were
likewise rich in gold, and in Volundarkvida Volund speaks of his and his
kinsmen's golden wealth in their common home.


(5) Of the manner in which Thjasse and his brothers divided the golden
treasure the Younger Edda contains, in the above passage, the following
statement: "When Olvalde died and his sons were to divide the
inheritance, they agreed in the division to measure the gold by taking
their mouths full of gold an equal number of times. Hence gold is called
in poetry the words or speech of these giants."


It is both possible and assumable that in the mythology the brothers
divided the gold in silence and in harmony. But that it should have been
done in the manner here related may be doubted. There is reason to
suspect that the story of the division of the gold in the manner above
described was invented in Christian times in order to furnish an
explanation of the phrase ţingskil ţjaza in Bjarkamal, of Idja glysmál
in the sanie source, and of idja ord, quoted in Malskrudsfrćdi. More
than one pseudo-mythic story, created in the same manner and stamped by
the same taste, is to be found in the Younger Edda. It should not be
forgotten that all these phrases have one thing in common, and that is,
a public deliberation, a judicial act. Mál and ord do not necessary
imply such an allusion, for in addition to the legal meaning, they have
the more common one of speech and verbal statements in general; but to
get at their actual significance in the paraphrases quoted we must
compare them with ţingskil, since in these paraphrases all the
expressions, ţingskil, glysmal, and ord, must be founded on one and the
same mythic event. With ţingskil is meant that which can be produced
before a court by the defendant in a dispute to clear up his case; and
as gold ornaments are called Thjasse,s ţingskil in Bjarkamal, it should
follow that some judicial act was mentioned in the mythology, in which
gold treasures made or possessed by Thjasse were produced to clear up a
dispute which, in some way or other, touched him. From the same point
of' view Ide's glysmal and Ide's ord are to be interpreted. Ide's
glysmál are Ide's "glittering pleadings"; his or are the evidence or
explanation presented in court by the ornaments made by or belonging to
him. Now, we know from the mythology a court act in which precious works
of the smiths, "glittering pleadings," were produced in reference to the
decision of a case. The case or dispute was the one caused by Loki, and
the question was whether he had forfeited his head to Sindre or not. As
we know, the decision of the dispute depended on a comparison between
Brok's and Sindre's works on the one hand, and those of the Ivalde sons
on the other. Brok had appeared before the high tribunal, and was able
to plead his and his brother's cause. Ivalde's sons, on the other hand,
were not present, but the works done by them had to speak in their
behalf, or rather for themselves. From this we have, as it seems to me,
a simple and striking explanation of the paraphrases ţjaza ţingskil,
Idja glysmal, Idja ord. Their works of art were the glittering but mute
pleadings which were presented, on their part, for the decision of the
case. That gold carried in the mouth and never laid before the tribunal
should be called ţingskil I regard as highly improbable. From heathen
poems we cannot produce a single positive proof that a paraphrase of so
distorted and inadequate a character was ever used.


(6) Saxo relates that the same Fridlevus-Njord who fought with
Anund-Volund and Avo-Egil wooed Anund's daughter and was refused, but
was married to her after Anund's death. Thus it would seem that Njord
married a daughter of Volund. In the mythology he marries Thjasse's
daughter Skade. Thus Volund and Thjasse act the same part as
father-in-law of Njord.


(7) Saxo further relates that Freyja-Syritba's father was married to
the soror of Svipdag-Otharus. Soror' means sister, but also
foster-sister and playmate. If the word is to be taken in its strictest
sense, Njord marries a daughter of Volund's brother; if in its modified
sense, Volund's daughter.


(8) In a third passage (Hist., 50, 53), Skade's father appears under
the name Haquinus. The same name belongs to a champion (Hist., 323) who
assists Svipdag-Ericus in his combat with the Asa-god Thor and his
favourite Halfdan, and is the cause that Thor's and Halfdan's weapons
prove themselves worthless against the Volund sword wielded by
Svipdag-Ericus. There is, therefore, every reason for regarding Haquinus
as one of Saxo's epithets for Volund. The name Hákon, of which Haquinus
has been supposed to be the Latinised form, never occurs in the Norse
mythic records, but Haquinus is in this case to be explained as a
Latinisation with the aspirate usual in Saxo of the Old German Aki, the
Middle Gernnan Ecke, which occurs in the compositions Eckenbrecht,
Eckehard, and Eckesachs. In "Rosengarten," Eckenbrecht is a celebrated
weapon-smith. In Vilkinasaga, Eckehard is, like Volund, a smith who
works for Mimir; and Eckesacbs is a sword made by the three dwarfs, of
which in part the same story is told as of Volund's sword of victory.
Thus while Haquinus and what is narrated of Haquinus refers to the smith
Volund, a person who in Saxo is called Haquinus assumes the place which
belongs to Thjasse in his capacity of Skade's father.


(9) In Lokasenna (17), Loki reproaches Idun that she has embraced the
slayer of her own brother:


ţic queţ ec allra quenna vergjarnasta vera, sitztu arma ţina lagdir'
itrţvegna um ţinn broţurbana.


Idun is a daughter of Ivalde (Forspjallsljod), and hence a sister or
half-sister of the famous smiths, Ivalde's sons. From the passage it
thus appears that one of Ivalde's sons was slain, and Loki insists that
Idun had given herself to the man who was the cause of his death.


There is not the slightest reason to doubt that in this instance, as in
so many other cases, Loki boasts of the evil deeds he has committed, and
of the successes he has had among the asynjes, according to his own
assurances. With the reproches cast on Idun we should compare what he
affirms in regard to Freyja, in regard to Tyr's wife, in regard to Skade
and Sif, in reference to all of whom he claims that they have secretly
been his mistresses. Against Idun he could more easily and more
truthfully bring this charge, for the reason that she was at one time
wholly in his power, namely, when he stole into Thjasse's halls and
carried her away thence to Asgard (Younger Edda, i. 210-214). Under such
circumstances, that slayer of Idun's brother; whom she is charged with
embracing, can be none other than Loki himself. As a further allusion to
this, the author of the poem makes Loki speak of a circumstance
connected with the adventure'namely, that Idun, to sweeten the pleasure
of the critical hour, washed her arms shining white''a circumstance of
which none other than herself and her secret lover could know. Thus Loki
is the cause of the slaying of one of the famous artists, Ivalde's sons.
The murders of which Loki boasts in the poem are two only, that of
Balder and that of Thjasse. He says that he advised the killing of
Balder, and that he was the first and foremost in the killing of Thjasse
(fyrstr oc ofstr). Balder was not Idun's brother. So far as we can make
out from the mythic records extant, the Ivalde son slain must have been
identical with Thjasse, the son of Alvalde. There is no other choice.


(10) It has already been shown above that Volund and the swan-maid who
came to him in the Wolfdales were either brother and sister or
half-brother and half-sister. From what has been stated above, it
follows that Thjasse and Idun were related to each other in the same manner.


(11) Thjasse's house is called Brunn-akr (Younger Edda, i. 312). In
Volundarkvida (9) Volund is called Brunni.


(12) Idun has the epithet Snót (Younger Edda, 306), "the wise one,"
"the intlligent one ". Volund's swan-maid has the epithet Alvitr, "the
much-knowing one," "the very intelligent one" (Volundarkvida, 1). Volund
has the epithet Asólfr (Hyndluljod; cp. No. 109). Thjasse has the
epithet Fjallgylder (Younger Edda, 308), which is a paraphrase of Asólfr
(aas= fjöll, olfr = gyldir).


(13) One of Volund's brothers, namely Orvandel-Egil, had the epithet
"Wild boar"(Ibor, Ebur). One of Thjasse's brothers is called Urnir,
Aurnir. This name means "wild boar ". Compare the Swedish and Norwegian
peasant word orne, and the Icelandic word runi (a boar), in which the
letters are transposed.


(14) At least one of Alvalde's sons was a star-hero, viz., Thjasse,
whose eyes Odin and Thor fastened on the heavens (Harbardsljod, 18;
Younger Edda, i. 318, 214). At least one of Ivalde's sons was a
star-hero, viz., Orvandel-Egil (Younger Edda, i. 276, &c.). No star-hero
is mentioned who is not called a son of Alvalde or is a son of Ivalde,
and not a single name of a star or of a group of stars can with
certainty be pointed out which does not refer to Alvalde's or Ivalde's
sons. From the Norse sources we have the names Orvandilsta ţjaza augu
Lokabrenna and Reid Rognis. Lokabrenna, the Icelandic name of Sirius,
can only refer to the brenna (fire) caused by Loki when Thjasse fell
into the vaferfiames kindled around Asgard. In Reid Rognis, Rogner's
car, Rogner is, as shall be shown below, the epithet of a mythic person,
in whom we rediscover both Volund and Thjasse. In Old English writings
the Milky Way is called Vaetliagastraet, Wathingestraet. The Watlings or
Vaetlings can only be explained as a patronymic meaning Vate's sons.
Vate is one of the names of the father of Volund and his brothers (see
No. 110). Another old English name of a star-group is Eburdrung,
Eburdring. Here Egil's surname Ebur, "wild boar," reappears. The name
Ide, borne by a brother of Thjasse, also seems to have designated a
star-hero in England.


At least two of these figures and names are very old and of ancient
Aryan origin. I do not know the reasons why Vigfusson assumes that
Orvandel is identical with Orion, but the assumption is corroborated by
mythological facts. Orion is the most celebrated archer and hunter of
Greek mythology, just as Orvandel is that of the Teutonic. Like
Orvandel-Egil, he has two brothers of whom the one Lykos (wolf) has a
Telchin name, and doubtless was originally identical with the Telchin
Lykos, who, like Volund, is a great artist and is also endowed with
powers to influence the weather. Orion could, so it is said, walk on the
sea as well as on the land. Orvandel-Egil has skees, with which he
travels on the sea as well as on the snow-fields, whence small ships are
called Egil's andrar, Egil's skees (Kormak, 5). Orion woos a daughter of
Oinopion. The first part of the word is o i n o V
(wine); and as Oinopion is the son of Bacchus, there is no room for
doubt that he originally had a place in the Aryan myth in regard to the
mead. Orvandel-Egil woos a daughter of Sumbl (Olvalde), the king of the
Finns, who in the Teutonic mythology is Oinopion's counterpart. Orion is
described as a giant, a tall and exceedingly handsome man, and is said
to be a brother of the Titans. His first wife, the beautiful Sida, he
soon lost by death; just as Orvandel lost Groa. Sida, s i d
a , with its Dorian variation Rhoa, r óa , means fruit. The
name Groa refers, like Sida, Rhoa, to vegetation, growth. After Sida's
decease, Orion woos Oinopion's daughter, just as Orvandel-Egil woos the
daughter of the Finnish king Sumbl after Groa's death. He has a third
erotic alliance with Eos. According to one record he is said to have
been killed because, in his love of the chase, he had said that he would
exterminate all ganne on earth. This statement may have its origin in
the myth preserved by the Teutons about Volund's and Orvandel-Egil's
effort to destroy all life on the earth by the aid of the powers of
frost. Hesiod says that the Pleiades (which set when Orion rises above
the horizon) save themselves from Orion in the stream of the ocean. The
abovementioned Old English name of a constellation Eburdrung may refer
to the Pleiades, since the part ţrung, dryng, refers to a dense cluster
of stars. The first part of the word, Ebur, as already stated, is a
surname of Orvandel-Egil. It should be added that the points of
similarity between the Orion and Orvandel myths are of such a nature
that they exclude all idea of being borrowed one from the other. Like
the most of the Greek myths in the form in which they have been handed
down to us, the Orion myth is without any organic connection with any
epic whole. The Orvandel myth, on the other hand, dovetails itself as a
part into a mythological epic which, in grand and original outlines,
represents the struggle between gods, patriarchs, ancient artists, and
frost-giants for the control of the world.


The name Thjasse, ţjazi, in an older and uncorrupted form ţizi, I
regard to be most ancient like the person that bears it. According to my
opinion, Thjasse is identical with the star-hero mentioned in Rigveda,
Tishya, the Tistrya of the Iranians, who in Rigveda (x. 64, 8) is
worshipped together with an archer, who presumably was his brother. The
German middle-age poetry has preserved the name Thjasse in the form
Desen (which is related to ţiazi as Delven is to ţialfi). In "Dieterichs
Flucht" Desen is a king, whose daughter marries Dieterich-Hadding's
father. In the Norse sources a sister of Thjasse (Alveig-Signe, daughter
of Sumbl, the king of the Finns) marries Hadding's father, Halfdan.
Comnion to the German and Norse traditions is, therefore, that Hadding's
father marries a near kinswoman of Thjasse.


(15) In the poem Haustlaung Thjasse's adventure is mentioned, when he
captured Loki with the magic rail. Here we get remarkable, hitherto
misunderstood, facts in regard to Thjasse's personality.


That they have been misunderstood is not owing to lack of attention or
acumen on the part of the interpreters. On the contrary, acumen has
beeii lavished thereon. In some cases the scholars have resorted to
text-changes in order to make the contents intelligible, and this was
necessary on account of the form in which our mythology hitherto has
been presented, and that for good reasons, since important studies of
another kind, especially of accurate editions of the Teutonic
mythological texts, have claimed the time of scholars and compelled them
to neglect the study of the epic connection of the niyths and of their
exceedingly rich and abundant synonymies. As a matter of course, an
examination of the synonymics and of the epic connection could not fail
to shed another light than that which could be gained without this study
upon a number of passages in the old mythological poems, and upon the
paraphrases based on the myths and occurring in the historical songs.


In Haustlaung Thjasse is called fadir morna, "the father of the swords
". Without the least reason it has been doubted that a mythic person,
that is so frequently called a giant, and whose connection with the
giant world and whose giant nature are so distinctly held forth in our
mythic sources, could be an artist and a maker of swords. Consequently
the text has been changed to fadir


 See for example Th. Wisen's investigations and Finnur Jonsson's Krit.
Stud. (Copenhagen, 1884).


mornar or fair morna, the father of consumption or of the
strength-consuming diseases, or of the feminine thurses representing
these diseases. But so far as our mythic records give us any
information, Thjasse had no other daughter than Skade, described as a
proud, bold, powerful maid, devoted to achievements, who was elevated to
the rank of an asynje, became the wife of the god of wealth, the tender
stepmother of the lord of harvests (Skirnersmal), Frigg's elja, and in
this capacity the progenitress of northern rulers, who boasted their
descent from her. That Thjasse had more daughters is indeed possible,
but they are not mentioned, and it must remain a conjecture on which
nothing can be built; and even if such were the case, it must be
adnnitted that as Skade was the foremost and most celebrated among them,
she is the first one to be thought of when there is mention of a
daughter or of daughters of Thjasse. But that Skade should be spoken of
as a morn, a consumption-witch, and that Hakon Jarl should be regarded
as descended from a demon of consumption, and be celebrated in song as
the scion of such a person, I do not deem possible. The text, as we have
it, tells us that Thjasse was the father of swords (mörnir = sword; see
Younger Edda, i. 567; ii. 560, 620). We must confine ourselves to this
reading and remember that this is not the only passage which we have
hitherto met with where his name is put in connection with works of a
smith. Such a passage we have already met with in ţjaza ţingskil.


(16) In the same poem, Haustlaung, Thjasse is called hapta snytrir,
"the one who decorated the gods," furnished them with treasures. This
epithet; too, appeared unintelligible, so long as none of the artists of
antiquity was recognised in Thjasse; hence text-changes were also
resorted to in this case in order to make sense out of the passage.


The situation described is as follows: Odin and Haenir, accompanied by
Loki are out on a journey. They have traversed mountains and
wildernesses (Bragaraedur, 2), and are now in a region which, to judge
from the context, is situated within Thjasse's domain, Thrymheim. The
latter, who is margspakr and lómhugadr (Haustl., 3, 12), has planned an
ambush for Loki in the very place which they have now reached: a valley
(Bragarćdur, 2) overgrown withi oak-trees (Haustl., 6), and the niore
inviting as a place of refreshment and rest, inasmuch as the Asas are
hungry after their long journey (Bragaraedur, 21), and see a herd of
"yoke-bears" pasturing in the grass near by. Thjasse has calculated on
this and makes one of the bears act the part of a decoy (tálhreinn = a
decoy reindeer'Haustlaung, 3; see Vigfusson's Diet., 626), which permits
itself to be caught by the travellers. That the animal belongs to
Thjasse's herds follows from the fact that it (str. 6) is said to belong
to the "dis of the bow-string," Skade, his daughter. The animal is
slaughtered and a fire is kindled, over which it is to be roasted. Near
the place selected for the eating of the meal there lies, as it were
accidenitally, a rail or stake. It resembles a common rail, but is in
fact one of Thjasse's smith-works, having magic qualities. When the
animal is to be carved, it appears that the "decoy reindeer was quite
hard between the bones for the gods to cut" (tálhreinn van' medal beina
torrnidladr tífum'str. 3). At the same time tIme Asas had seen a great
eagle flying toward them (str. 2), and alighting near the place where
they prepared their feast (str. 3). Fronn the context it follows that
they took it for granted that the eagle guise concealed Thjasse, the
ruler of the region. The animal being found to be so hard to carve, the
Asas at once guess that Thjasse, skilled in magic arts, is the cause,
and they immediately turn to him with a question, which at the same time
tells him that they know who he is:


Hvat, quoţo, hapta snytrir hjalmfaldinn, ţvi valda '


"They (the gods) said (quoţo): Why cause this (hvat ţvi valda) thou
ornament-giver of the gods (hjálmfaldinn hapta snytrir), concealed in a
guise (eagle guise)'" He at once answers that he desires his share of
the sacred nieal of the gods, and to this Odin gives his consent.
Nothing indicates that Odin sees a foe in Thjasse. There is then no
difficulty in regard to the roast ; and when it is ready and divided
into four parts Thjasse flies down, but, to plague Loki, he takes so
much that the latter, angry, and doubtless also depending on Odin's
protection if needed, seizes the rail lying near at hand and strikes the
eagle a blow across the back. But Loki could not let go his hold of the
rail; his hand stuck fast to one end while the other end clung to the
eagle, and Thjasse flew with him and did not let go of him before he had
forced him to swear an oath that he would bring Idun into Thjasse's hands.


So long as it was impossible to assume that Thjasse had been the friend
of the gods before this event happened, and in the capacity of ancient
artist had given them valuable products of his skill, and thus become a
hapta snytrir, it was also impossible to see in him, though he was
concealed in the guise of an eagle, the hjálmfaldinn here in question,
since hjálmfaldinn manifestly is in apposition to hapta snytrir, "the
decorator of the gods ". (The common meaning of hjálmr, as is well
known, is a covering, a garb, of which hjálmr in the sense of a helmet
is a specification.) It therefore became necessary to assume that Odin
was meant by hjalmfaldinn and hapta snytrir. This led to the changing of
quoţo to quad and to the insertion in the manuscripts of a mun not found
there, and to the exclusion of a ţvi found there. The result was,
moreover, that no notice was taken of the use made of the expressions
hjálmfaldinn and snytrir in a poem closely related to Haustlaung, and
evidently ref erring to its description of Thjasse. This poem is Eirar
Skalaglam's "Vellekla," which celebrates Hakon Jarl, the Great. Hakon
Jarl regarded himself as descended from Thjasse through the latter's
daughter, Skade (Haleygjatal), and on this account Vellekla contains a
number of allusions to the mythic progenitor. The task (from a poetic
and rhetorical point of view) which Einar has undertaken is in fact that
of taking, so far as possible, the kernel of those paraphrases with
which he celebrates Hakon Jarl (see below) from the myth concerning
Thjasse, and the task is performed with force and acumen. In the
execution of his poem Einar has had before him that part of Thjodulf's
Haustlaung which concerned Thjasse. In str. 6 he calls Thjasse's
descendant ţjóar snytrir, taking his cue from Haustlaung, which calls
Thjasse hapta snyirir. In str. 8 he gives Hakon the epithet hjalmi
faldinn, having reference to Haustlaung, which makes Thjasse appear
hjálm-faldinn. In str. 10 Hakon is a gard-Rögnir, just as Thjasse is a
ving-Rognir in Haustlaung. In str. 11 Hakon is a midjungr, just as
Thjasse is a midjungr in Haustlaung. In str. 16 an allusion is made in
the phrase vildi Yggs nidr fridar bidja to Haustlaung's málunautr hvats
matti friar bija. In str. 21 Hakon is called hlym-Narfi, just as Thjasse
in Haustlaung is called grjót Nidadr (Narfi and Niar are epithets of
Mimir; see Nos. 85, 87). In str. 22 Hakon is called fangsćll, and
Thjasse has the same epithet in Haustlaung. Some of the paraphrases in
Vellekla, to which the myth about Thjasse furnishes the kernel, I shall
discuss below. There can, therefore, be no doubt whatever that Einar in
Haustlaung's hjálmfaldinn and hapta snytrir saw epithets of Thjasse, and
we arrive at the same result if we interpret the text in its original
reading and make no emendations.


Thus we have already found three paraphrases which inform us that
Thjasse was an ancient artist, one of the great smiths of mythology: (1)
ţiaza ţingskil, golden treasures produced as evidence in court owned or
made by Thjasse; (2) hapta snytrir, he who gave ornaments to the gods;
(3) fair morna, the father of the swords.


Thjasse's claim to become a table-companion of the gods and to eat with
them, af helgu skutli, points in all probability to an ancient
mythological fact of which we find a counterpart in the Iranian records.
This fact is that, as a compensation for the services he had rendered
the gods, Thjasse was anxious to be elevated to their rank and to
receive sacrifices from their worshippers. This demand from the Teutonic
star-hero Thjasse is also made by the Iranian star-hero Tistrya,
Rigveda's Tishya. Tistrya complains in Avesta that he has not sufficient
strength to oppose the foe of growth, Apaosha, since nien do not worship
him, Tistrya, do not offer sacrifices to him. If they did so, it is
said, then he would be strong enough to conquer. Tishya-Tistrya does not
appear to have obtained complete rank as a god; but still he is
worshipped in Rigveda, though very seldom, and in cases of severe dry
weather the Iranians were commanded to offer sacrifices to him.


(17) Inn Haustlaung Thjasse is called ving-Rognir vagna, "the Rogner of
the winged cars," and fjardarblad's leik-Regin, "the Regin of the motion
of tIme feather-leaf (the wing) ". In the mythology Thjasse, like
Volund, wears an eagle guise. In an eagle guise Volund flies away from
his prison at Mimir-Nidadr's. When Thjasse, through Lake's deceit, is
robbed of Idun, he hastens mini wild despair, with the aid of his eagle
guise, after the robber, gets his wings burned in the vaferfiames
kindled around Asgard, falls pierced by the javelins of the gods, and is
slain by Thor. The original meaning of Regin is maker, creator,
arranger, worker.


The meaning has been preserved through the ages, so that the word
regin, though applied to all the creative powers (Völuspa), still
retained even in Christian times the signification of artist, smith, and
reappears in the heroic traditions in the name of the smith Reginn.
When, therefore, Thjasse is called "the Regin of the motion of the
feather-leaf," there is no reason to doubt that the phrase alludes not
only to the fact that he possessed a feather guise, but also to the idea
that he was its "smith" ; the less so as we have already seen him
characterised as an ancient artist in the phrases ţiaza ţingskil, hapta
snytrir, and fair mörna. Thus we here have a fourth proof of the same
kind. The phrase "the Rognir of the winged cars" connects him not only
with a single vehicle, but with several. "Wing-car" is a paraphrase for
a guise furnished with wings, and enabling its owner to fly through the
air. The expression "wing-car" may be applied to several of the strange
means used by the powers for locomotion through the air and over the
sea, as, for instance, the cars of Thor and Frey, Balder's ship
Ringhorn, Frey's ship Skidbladner, and the feather garbs of the
swan-maids. The mythology which knew from whose hands Skidbladner
proceeded certainly also had something to say of the masters who
produced Ringhorn and the above-mentioned cars and feather garbs. That
they were niade by ancient artists and not by the highest gods is an
idea of ancient Aryan birth. In Rigveda it was the Ribhus, the
counterparts of the Ivalde sons, who smithied the wonderful car-ship of
the Asvinians and Indra's horses.


The appellations Rognir and Regin also occur outside of Haustlaung in
connection with each other, and this even as late as in the Skida-Rima,
composed between 1400 and 1450, where Regin is represented as a smith
(Rognir kallar Begin til sin; rammliga skaltu smia'str. 102). In
Forspjallsljod (10) we read Galdr gólo, gaundom riţo Rognir ok Regin at
ranni heinais' "Rogner and Regin sang magic songs at the edge of the
earth and constructed magic implements ". They who do this are artists,
sniiths. In strophe 8 they are called viggiar, and viggi is a synonym of
smidr (Younger Edda, i. 587). While they do this Idun is absent froni
Asgai'd (Forspjallsljod, str. 6), and a terrible cold threatens to
destroy the earth. The words in Voluspa, with which the terrible
fimbul-winter of antiquity is characterised, loptr lćvi blandinn, are
adopted by Forspjallsljod (str. 6'lopti med lćvi), thus showing that the
same mythic event is there described. The existence of the order of the
world is threatened, the earth and the source of light are attacked by
evil influences, the life of nature is dying, from the north (east),
from the Ehivagar rivers come piercing, rime-cold arrows of frost, which
kill men and destroy the vegetation of the earth. The southern source of
the lower world, whose function it is to furnish warming saps to the
world-tree, was not able to prevent the devastations of the frost. "It
was so ordained," it is said in Forspjallshjod, str. 2, "that Urd's
Odraerir (Urd's fountain) did not have sufficient power to supply
protection against the terrible cold." The destruction is caused by
Rogner and Regin. Their magic songs are heard even in Asgard. Odin
listens in Lidskjalf and perceives that the song comes from the
uttermost end of the world. The gods are seized by the thought that the
end of the world is approaching, and send their messengers to the lower
world in order to obtain there from the wise norn a solution of the
problem of the world and to get the impeniding fate of the world proclaimed.


In the dictionaries and in the mythological text-books Rognir is said
to be one of Odin's epithets. In his excellent commentary on Vellekla,
Freudenthal has expressed a doubt as to the correctness of this view. I
have myself made a list of all the passages in the Old Norse literature
where the name occurs, and I have thereby reached the conclusion that
the statement in the dictionaries and in the text-books has no other
foundation than the name-list in Eddubrott and the above-cited
Skidarima, composed in the fifteenth century. The conceptions of the
latter in regard to heathen mythology are of such a nature that it
should never in earnest be regarded as an authority anent this question.
In the Old Norse records there cannot be found a single passage where
Rognir is used as an epithet of Odin. It is everywhere used in reference
to a mythic being wIno was a smith and a singer of magic songs, and
regularly, and without exception, refers to Thjasse. While Thjodolf
designates Thjasse as the Rogner of the wing-cars,


 The editions have cbanged Urdar to Urdr, and thereby converted the
above-cited passage into nonsense, for which in turn the author of
Forspjallsljod was blamed, amid it was presented as an argument to prove
that the poem is spurious.


his descendant Hakon Jarl gets the same epithet in Einar Skalaglam's
paraphrases. He is hjörs brak-Rognir, "the Rogner of the sword-din," and
geirrásar-gard-Rognir, "the Rogner of the wall of the sword-flight (the
shield) ". The Thjasse descendant, Sigurd Hladejarl, is, in harmony
herewith, called fens furs Rognir. ţrym-Rognir (Eg., 58) alludes to
Thjasse as ruler in Thrymheim. A parallel phrase to ţrym-Rognir is
ţrym-Regin (Younger Edda, i. 436). Thus, while Thjasse is characterised
as Rognir, Saxo has preserved the fact that Volund's brother,
Orvandel-Egil, bore the epithet Regin. Saxo Latinises Regin into
Regnerus, and gives this name to Ericus-Svipdag's father (Hist., 192).
The epithet Rognir confines itself exclusively to a certain group'to
Thjasse and his supposed descendants. Among thenn it is, as it were, an
inheritance.


The paraphrases in Vellekla are of great mythological importance. While
other mythic records relate that Thjasse carried away Idun, the goddess
of vegetation, the goddess who controls the regenerating forces in
nature, and that he thus assisted in bringing about the great winter of
antiquity, we learn from Vellekla that it was he who directly, and by
separate magic acts, produced this winter, and that he, accordingly,
acted the same part in this respect as Rogner and Regin do in
Fornspjallsljod.


Thus, for example, the poem on Hakon Jarl, when the latter fought
against the sons of Gunhild, says: Hjörs brak-Rognir skók bogna hagl or
Hlakkar seglum, "the Rogner of the sword-din shook the hail of the bows
from the sails of the valkyrie". The mythic kernel of the paraphrase is:
Rognir skók hagl ur seglum, "Rogner shook hails from the sails". The
idea is still to be found in the sagas that men endowed with magic
powers could produce a hailstorm by shaking napkins or bags, filling the
air with ashes, or by untying knots. And in Christian records it is
particularly stated of Hakon Jarl that he held in honour two mythic
beings'Thorgerd and Irpa'who, when requested, could produce storms,
rain, and hail. No doubt this tradition is connected with Hakon's
supposed descent from Thjasse, the cause of hailstorms and of the
fimbulwinter. By making Rogner the "Rogner of the sword-din," and the
hail sent by him "the hail of the bows," and the sails or napkins shook
by him "the sails of the valkyrie "'that is to say, the shields ' the
skald makes the mythological kernel pointed out develop into figures
applicable to the warrior and to the battle.


In other paraphrases Vellekla says that the descendant of Thjasse,
Hakon, made "the death-cold sword-storm grow against the life of udal
men in Odin's storm," and that he was "an elf of the earth of the
wood-land" coming from the north, who, with "murder-frost," received the
warriors of the south (Emperor Otto's army) at Dannevirke. Upon the
whole Vellekla chooses the figures used in describing the achievenients
of Hakon from the domain of cold and storm, and there can be no doubt
that it does so in imitation of the Thjasse-myth.


In another poem to Hakon Jarl, of which poem there is only a fragment
extant, the skald Einar speaks of Hakon's generosity, and says: Verk
Rognis mer hogna, "Rogner's works please me ". We know that Hakon Jarl
once gave Einar two gilt silver goblets, to which belonged two scales in
the forni of statuettes, the one of gold, the other of silver, which
scales were thought to possess magic qualities, and that Hakon on
another occasion gave him an exceedingly precious engraved shield,
inlaid between the engraved parts with gold and studded with precious
stones. It was customary for the skalds to make songs on such gifts. It
follows, therefore, that the "works of Rogner," with which Einar says he
was pleased, are the presents which Hakon, the supposed descendant of
RognerThjasse, gave him; and I find this interpretation the more
necessary for the reason that we have already found several unanimous
evidences of Thjasse's position in the mythology as an artist of the
olden time.


Forspjallsljod's Rogner "sings magic songs and "concocts witchcraft" in
order to encourage and strengthen by these means of magic the attack of
the powers of frost on the world protected by the gods. Haustlaung calls
Thjasse ramman remud Jotunheima, "the powerful reimud of Jotunheim ".
The word reimud occurs nowhere else. It is thought to be connected with
reimt and reimleikar, words which in the writings of Christian times
refer to ghosts, supernatural phenomena, and reimudr Jötunheima has
therefore been interpreted as "the one who made Jotunheim the scene of
his niagic ants and ghost-like appearances ". From what has been stated
above, it is manifest that this interpretation is correct.


A passage in Thorsdrapa (str. 3), to which I shall recur below, informs
us that at the time when Thor made his famous journey to the fire-giant
Geirrod, Rogner bad not yet come to an agreement with Loki in regard to
the plan of bringing ruin on the gods. Rogner was, therefore, during a
certain period of his life, the foe of the gods, but during a preceding
period he was not an enemy. The same is true of Thjasse. He was for a
time hapta snyrir, "the one giving the gods treasures ". At another time
he carried away Idun, and appeared as one changed into dólgr ballastr
vallar, "the most powerful foe of the earth" (Hanstl., 6), an expression
which characterises him as the cause of the fimbul-winter.


There still remain one or two important passages in regard to the
correct interpretation of the epithet Rogner. In Atlakvida (33) it is
said of Gudrun when she goes to meet her husband Atle, who has returned
home, carrying in her hand a golden goblet, that she goes to reifa gjöld
Rognis, "to present that requital or that revenge which Rogner gave ".
To avenge her brothers, Gudrun slew in Atle's absence the two young sons
she had with him and made goblets of their skulls. Into one of these she
poured the drink of welcome for Atle. A similar revenge is told about
Volund. The latter secretly kills Nidadr's two young sons and makes
goblets out of their skulls for their father. In the passage it is
stated that the revenge of Gudrun against Atle was of the same kind as
Rogner's revenge against some one whom he owed a grudge. So far as our
records contain any information, Volund is the only one to whom the
epithet Rogner is applicable in this case. Of no one else is it reported
that he took a revenge of such a kind that Gudrun's could be compared
therewith. In all other passages the epithet Rogner refers to "the
father of the swords," to the ancient artist Thjasse, the son of
Alvalde. Here it refers to the father of the most excellent sword, to
the ancient artist Volund, the son of Ivalde.


The strophe in Vellekla, which compares the Thjasse descendant Hakon
Jarl with the hail-producing Rogner, also alludes to another point in
the myth concerning him by a paraphrase the kernel of which is: Varot
svanglyjadi at fryja of byrjar ne drifu, "it was impossible to defy the
swan-pleaser in the matter of storm and bad weather ". The paraphrase is
made applicable to Hakon by making the "swan-pleaser" into the "pleaser
of the swan of the sword's high-billowing fjord "'that is to say, the
one who pleases the bird of the battlefield, that is, the raven. The
storm is changed into "the storm of arrows," and the bad weather into
the "bad weather of the goddess of the battle ". The mytho. logical
kernel of this paraphrase, and that which sheds light on our theme, is
the fact that Rogner in the mythology was "one who pleased the swans ".
In the heroic poem three swan-maids are devoted in their love to Volund
and his brothers. Volundarkvida says that the third one lays her arms
around Volund-Anund's white neck.


We will now combine the results of this investigation concerning
Rogner, and in so doing we will first consider what is said of him when
the name occurs independently, and not connected with paraphrases, and
then what is said of him in paraphrases in which his name constitutes
the kernel.


Forspjalhsljod describes Rogner as dwelling on the northernmost edge of
the earth at the time when Idun was absent from Asgard. There he sings
magic songs and concocts witchcraft, by which means he sends a
destructive winter out upon the world. He is a "smith," and in his
company is found one or more than one mythic person called Regin. (Regin
may be singular or plural.)


Einar Skalaglam, who received costly treasures from Hakon Jan, speaks
in his song of praise to the latter of the "works of Rogner," which
please him, and which must be the treasures he received from the Jarl.


In Thorsdrapa, Eilif Gudrunson relates that Rogner had not yet
"associated himself" with Loki when Thor made his expedition to Geirrod.


Atlakvida states that he revenged himself on some one, with which
revenge the song compares Gudrun's when she hands to Atle tIme goblets
made of the skulls of the two young sons of the latter.


All the facts presented in these passages are rediscovered in the myth
concerning Ivalde's sons'Volund, Egil, and Slagfin. There was a time
when they were the friends of the gods and smithied for them costly
treasures, and there was another time when they had the same plans as
Loki tried to carry out in a secret manner'that is, to dethrone the gods
and destroy what they had created. They deliver their foster-son Frey,
the young god of


harvests, to the giants (see Nos. 109, 112)'an event which, like Idun's
disappearance from Asgard, refers to the coming of the fimbul-winter'and
they depart to the most northern edge of the lower world where they
dwell with swan-maids, dises of growth, who, like Idun in Forspjallsljod
(str. 8), must have changed character and joined the world-hostile plots
of their lovers. (Of Idun it is said, in the strophe mentioned, that she
clothed herself in a wolf-skin given her by the smiths, and lyndi
breytti, lek at laevisi, litom skipti.) The revenge which Volund, during
his imprisonment by Nidad, takes against the latter explains why
Atlakvida characterises Gudrun's terrible deed as "Rogner's revenge ".
In regard to the witchcraft (gand) concocted by Rogner and Regin, it is
to be said that the sword of victory made by Volund is a gandr in the
original sense of this word'an implement endowed with magic powers, and
it was made during his sojourn in the Wolfdales.


One passage in Volundarkvida (str. 5), which hitherto has defied every
effort at interpretation, shows that his skill was occupied with other
magic things while he dwelt there. The passsage reads:


Lucţi hann alla lindbauga vel. The "lind" -rings in question, smithied
of "red gold" (see the preceding lines in strophe 5), are, according to
the prefix, lind, linnr, serpent-formed rings, which again are gand-
(witchcraft) rings on account of the mysterious qualities ascribed to
the serpent. Lindbaugi is another form for linnbaugi, just as lindból is
another form for linnból. The part played by the serpent in the magic
arts made it, when under the influence or in the possession of the
magician, a gand, whence linnr, a serpent, could be used as a paraphrase
of gandr, and gandr could in turn, in the compound Jormungandr, be used
as an epithet for the Midgard-serpent. The rings which Volund "closed
well together" are gand-rings. The very rope (bast, bostr'Volundarkvida,
7, 12) on which he hangs the seven hundred gand-rings he has finished
seems to be a gand, an object of witchcraft, with which Volund can bind
and from which he can release the wind. When Nidad's men surprised
Volund in his sleep and bound him with this rope, he asks ambiguously
who "had bound the wind" with it (str. 12). In two passages in
Volundarkvida (str. 4, 8) he is called vereygr, "the storm-observer," or
"the storm-terrible ". The word may have either meaning. That Volund for
his purposes, like Rogner, made use of magic songs is manifest from Saxo
(Hist., 323, 324). According to Saxo it was by means of VolundHaquinus'
magic song that the Volund-sword, wielded by SvipdagEricus, was able to
conquer Thor's hammer and Halfdan's club.


Passing now to the passages where the name Rogner occurs in
paraphrases, I would particularly emphasise what I have already
demonstrated: that Haustlaung with this name refers to Tbjasse; that
poems of a more recent date than Haustlaung, and connected with the same
celebrated song, apply it to the supposed descendants of Thjasse, Hakon
Jarl and his kinsmen; that all of these paraphrases represent Rogner as
a producer of storm, snow, and hail; and that Rogner made "wind-cars,"
was a "Regin of the motion of the feather-leaf" (the wing), and "one who
pleased the swans ". Therefore (a) Rogner is an epithet of Thjasse, and
at the same time it designates Volund; (b) all that is said of Rogner,
when the name in the paraphrases is a Thjasse-epithet, applies to
Volund; (c) all that is said of Rogner, independently of paraphrases,
applies to Volund.


(18) A usage in the Old Norse poetry is to designate a person by the
name of his opponent, when, by means of an additional characterisation,
it can be made evident that the former and not the latter is meant.
Thus, a giant can be called berg-ţórr or grjót-Módi, because he once had
Thor or Thor's son Mode as an opponent, and these epithets particularly
apply to giants who actually fought with Thor or Mode in the mythology.
In contrast with their successors in Christian times, the heathen skalds
took great pains to give their paraphrases special justification and
support in some mythological event. For the same reason that a giant who
had fought with Mode could be called grjót-Módi, Volund, as Nidad's foe,
could be called grjót-Nidudr. This epithet also occurs a single time in
the Old Norse poetry, namely, in Haustlaung, and there it is applied to
Thjasse. The paraphrase shows that the skald had in his mind a
corresponding (antithetic) circumstance between Thjasse and Nidadr
(Nidudr). What we are able to gather from our sources is, that Volund
and Nidadr had had an encounter, and that one of so decisive a
character, that the epithet grjotNidudr naturally would make the hearers
think of Volund.


(19) When Loki had struck Thjasse, who was in eagle guise, with the
magic pole, Thjasse flew up; and as Loki's hand was glued fast to one
end of the pole and the eagle held fast to the other end, Loki had to
accompany the eagle on its flight. Haustlaung says that Thjasse, pleased
with his prey, bore him a long distance (of veg lángan) through the air.
He directed his course in such a manner that Loki's body fared badly,
probably being dragged over trees and rocks (sva at slitna sundr ulfs
fodor mundi.) Then follows in the poem the lines given below, which I
quote from Codex Regius, with the exception of a single word (midjungs,
instead of mildings), which I cite from Codex Wormianus. Here, as
elsewhere, I base nothing on text emendations, because even such, for
which the best of reasons may be given, do not furnish sufficient
foundation for mythological investigation, when the changes are not
supported by some manuscript, or are in and of themselves absolutely
necessary.


ţá vard ţórs ofrunni, ţungr var Loptr, of sprunginn; málunautr hvats
mátti midjungs fridar bidja.


The contents of these lines, in the light of what has now been stated,
are as follows:


Thjasse's pleasure in dragging Loki with him, and making his limbs come
in disagreeable contact with objects on their way, was so great that he
did not abstain therefrom, before he felt that he had over-exerted
himself. Strong as he was, this could not but happen, for he had been
flying with his burden very far from the place where he captured Loki in
the ambush he had laid; and, besides, Loki was heavy. The badly-hurt
Loki had during the whole time desired to beg for mercy, but during the
flight he was unable to do so. When Thjasse finally sank to the ground,
Loki obtained a breathing space, so that he could sue for mercy.


In the four lines there are four paraphrases. Thjasse is called thór's
of runnni or ţórs ofruni, "he who made Thor run," or "he who was Thor's
friend," and midjungr, a word the meaning of which it is of no
importance to investigate in connection with the question under
consideration. Loki is called Loptr, a surnanie which is applied to him
many times, and malunautr hvats midjungs, "he who had journeyed with the
female companion of the powerful Midjung (Thjasse) ". The female
companion (mala) of Thjasse is Idun, and the paraphrase refers to the
myth telling how Loki carried Idun away from Thjasse's halls, and flew
with her to Asgard. With these preparatory remarks I am ready to present
a literal translation of the passage:


(Thjasse flew a long way with Loki, so that the latter came near being
torn into pieces), ". . . thereupon (ţa = deinde) became he who caused
Thor to run (vard ţór's ofrunni) ' or who became Thor's friend (ţórs
ofruni)'tired out (ofspringinn), [for] Lopt was heavy (ţungr var Lopir).
He (Loki) who had made a journey with the powerful Midjung's (Thjasse's)
female companion (malunautr hvats midjungs) could (now finally) sue for
peace (matti friar bidja)."


In the lines' ţá varţórs ofrunni ţungr var Loptr, ofsprunginn' ţungr
var Loptr clearly stands as an intermediate sentence, which, mn
connection with what has been stated above, namely, that Thjasse had
been flying a long way with his burden, will justify and explain why
Thjasse, though exceedingly strong, stronger than Hrungnir (the
Grotte-song), still was at the point of succumbing from over-exertion.
The skald has thus given the reason why Thjasse, "rejoicing in what he
had caught," sank to the earth with his victim, before Loki became more
used up than was the case. To understand the connection, the word matti
in the third line is of importance. Hitherto the words málunautr hvats
mátti midjungs friar bidja have been interpreted as if they meant that
Loki "was compelled" to ask Thjasse for peace. Mátti has been understood
to mean coactus est. Finnur Jonsson (Krit. Stud., p. 48) has pointed out
that not a single passage can with certainty or probability be found
where the verb mega, mátti, means "to be compelled ". Everywhere it can
be translated "to be able ". Thus the words mátti friar bij'a mean that
Loki could, was able to, ask Thjasse for peace. The reason why he was
able is stated above, where it is said that Thjasse got tired of flying
with his heavy burden. Before that, and during the flight and the
disagreeable collisions between Loki's body and objects with which he
came in contact, he was not able to treat with his capturer; but when
the latter had settled on the ground, Loki got a breathing space, and
could beg to be spared. The half strophe thus interpreted gives the most
logical connection, and gives three causes and three results: (1) Loki
was able to use his eloquent tongue on speaking to Thjasse, since the
latter ceased to fly before Loki was torn into pieces; (2) Thor's
ofrunni or ofruni ended his air-journey, because he, though a very
powerful person, felt that he had over- exerted himself; (3) he felt
wearied because Loki, with whom he had been flying, was heavy. But from
this it follows with absolute certainty that the skald, with Thor's
ofrunni or ofruni, meant Thjasse and not Loki, as has hitherto been
supposed. The epithet Thor's ofrunni, "he who made Thor run," must
accordingly be explained by some mythic event, which shows that Thor at
one time had to take flight on account of Thjasse. A single circumstance
has come to our knowledge, where Thor retreats before an opponent, and
it is hardly credible that the mythology should allow its favourite to
retreat conquered more than once. On that occasion it is Volund's sword,
wielded by Svipdag, which cleaves Thor's hammer and compels him to
retire. Thus Volund was at one time Thor's ofrunni. In Haustlaung it is
Thjasse. Here, too, we therefore meet the fact which has so frequently
come to the surface in these investigations, namely, that the same thing
is told of Volund and of Thjasse.


But by the side of ofrunni we have another reading which must be
considered. Codex Wormianus has ofruni instead of ofrunni, and, as Wis6n
has pointed out, this runi must, for the sake of the metre, be read
runi. According to this reading Thjasse must at some time have been
Thor's ofruni, that is, Thor's confidential friend. This reading also
finds its support in the mythology, as shall be demonstrated further on.
I may here be allowed to repeat what I have remarked before, that of two
readings only the one can be the original, while both may be justified
by the mythology.


(20) In the mythology are found characters that form a group by
themselves, and whose characteristic peculiarity is that they practise
skee-running in connection with the use of the bow and arrow. This group
consists of the brothers Volund, Egil, Slagfin, Egil's son Ull, and
Thjasse's daughter Skade. In the introduction to Volundarkvida it is
said of the three brothers that they ran on skees in the Wolfdales and
hunted. We have already referred to Egil's wonderful skees, that could
be used on the water as well as on the snow. Of Ull we read in
Gylfaginning (Younger Edda, i. 102): "He is so excellent an archer and
skee-runner that no one is his equal"; and Saxo tells about his Ollerus
that he could enchant a bone (the ice-shoe formed of a bone, the pendant
of the skee), so that it became changed into a ship. Ull's skees
accordingly have the same qualities as those of his father Egil, namely,
that they can also be used on the sea. Ull's skees seem furthermore to
have had another very remarkable character, namely, that when their
possessor did not need them for locomotion on land or on sea, they could
be transformed into a shield and be used in war. In this way we explain
that the skalds could employ skip Ullar, Ullar far, knorr Orva ass, as
paraphrases for shields, and that, according to one statement in the
Edda Lovasina, Ulir atti skip ţat, er Skjöldr het. So far as his
accomplishments are concerned, Ull is in fact the counterpart of his
father Egil, and the same may be said of Skade. While UII is called "the
god of the skees," Skade is called "the goddess of the skees," "the dis
of the skees," and "the dis of the sea-bone," saevar beins dis, a
paraphrase which manifestly has the same origin as Saxo's account of the
bone enchanted by Ull. Thus Thjasse's daughter has an attribute
belonging to the circle of Volund's 'kinsmen.


The names also connect those whom we find to be kinsmen of Volund with
Thjasse's. Alvalde is Thjasse's father; Ivalde is Volund's. Ivaldi is
another form for Ivaldi. The long prefixed Í in Ívaldi is explained by
the disappearance of đ from Iđvaldi. Iđ reappears in the name of
Ivalde's daughter Idunn and Thjasse's brother Iđi, and these are the
only mythological names in which Iđ appears. Furthermore, it has already
been pointed out, that of Alvalde's (Olvaldi's) three sons there is one
who has the epithet Wildboar (Aurnir, Urnir); and that among Ivalde's
three sons there is one'namely, Orvandel-Egil' who has the same epithet
(Ibor, Ebur, Ebbo); and that among Alvalde's sons one'namely,
Thjasse'has the epithet Fjallgyldir, "mountain-wolf" (Haustlaung); while
among Ivalde-Olmod's sons there is one'namely, Volund'who has the
epithet Asolfr, which also means "mountain-wolf ".


In this connection it must not be forgotten that tradition has attached
the qualities of giants, not only to Thjasse, but also to Volund. That
this does not appear in the Elder Edda depends simply on the fact that
Volund is not mentioned by this name in the genuine mythic songs, but
only in the heroic fragment which we have in Volundarkvida. The memory
that Volund, though an elf-prince in the mythology, and certainly not a
full-blooded giant on his father's side, was regarded and celebrated in
song as an iotunn,'the memory of this not only survives in Vilkinasaga,
but appears there in an exaggeration fostered by later traditions, to
the effect that his father Vade (see No. 110) is there called a giant,
while his father's mother is said to have been a mermaid. In another
respect, too, there survives in Vilkinasaga the memory of a relationship
between Volund and the most famous giant-being. He and the giants Etgeir
(Eggţer) and Vidolf are cousins, according to chapter 175. If we examine
the Norse sources, we find Vidolf mentioned in Hyndluljod (53) as
progenitor of all the mythological valas, and Aurboda, the most
notorious of the valas of mythology, mentioned in strophe 30 as a
kinswoman of Thjasse. Thus while Hyndluljod makes Thjasse, the
Vilkinasaga makes Volund, a kinsman of the giant Vidolf.


Though in a form greatly changed, the Vilkinasaga has also preserved
the memory of the manner in which Volund's father closed his career.
With some smiths (" dwarfs ") who lived in a remote mountain, Vade had
made an agreement, according to which, in return for a certain
compensation, his son Volund should learn their wonderful art as smiths.
When, toward the close of the time agreed upon, Vade appeared outside of
the mountain, he was, before entering, killed by an avalanche in
accordance with a treacherous arrangement of these smiths.


In the mythology Thjasse's father is the great drink-champion who,
among his many names and epithets, as we have seen, also has some that
refer to his position in the mythology in regard to fermented beverage:
Svigdir (the great drinker) Olvaldi, Olmódr, Sumbl Finnakonungr. In
regard to Svigdir's death, it has already been shown (see No. 89) that,
on his complete disappearance from the mythology, he is outside of a
mountain in which Suttung and Suttung's sons, descendants of
Surt-Durinn, with Mimir the most ancient smith (see No. 89), have their
halls; that on his arrival a treacherous dwarf, the doorkeeper of
Suttung's sons, goes to meet him, and that he is "betrayed" by tIme
dwarf, never enters the rocky halls, and consequently must have died
outside.


Vilkinasaga's very late statements (probably taken from German
traditions), in regard to the death of Volund's father, thus correspond
in the main features with what is related in the Norse records as to how
Thjasse's father disappeared from the scene of mythology.


In regard to the birth and rank of Thjasse's father among the mythic
powers, the following statements in poems from the heathen time are to
be observed. When Haustlaung tells how Thjasse falls into the
vaferfiames kindled around Asgard, it makes use of the words Greipar
bidils son svidnar, "the son of Greip's wooer is scorched ". Thus
Thjasse's mother is the giantess Greip, who, according to a stanza cited
in the Younger Edda, i. 288, is a daughter of the giant Geirrödr and a
sister of Gjalp. One of these sisters, and, so far as we can see, Greip,
is, in Thorsdrapa, called meinsvarans hapis arma farmr, "the embrace of
the arms of the perjurous hapt ". Höpt, sing. hapt, is, like bönd,
meaning the same, an appellation of lower and higher powers, nurnina of
various ranks. If by the perjurous mistress of the hapt Greip, and not
the sister Gjalp, is meant, then Thjasse's father is a being who
belonged to the number of the numina of the mythology, and who, with a
giantess whose biill he had been, begat the son Thjasse, and probably
also the latter's brothers Ii and Gángr (Aurnir). What rank this
perjurous hapt held among the powers is indicated in Vellekla, strophe
9, which, like the foregoing strophe 8, and the succeeding strophes 10,
11, treats of Hakon Jarl's conflicts at Dannnevirke, whither he was
summoned, in the capacity of a vassal under the Danish king, Harald
Blue-tooth, to defend the heathen North against Emperor Otto II.'s
effort to convert Denmark to Christianity by arms. The strophe, which
here, too, in its paraphrases presents parallels between Hakon Jarl and
his mythic progenitor Thjasse, says that the Danish king (femildr
konungr) desired that the Morkwood's Hlodyn's (Mork-wood's earth's, that
is to say, the woody Norway's) elf, he who canie from the North
(myrkmarkar Hlodynjar alfs, ţess er horn nordan), was to be tested in
"murder-frost," that is to say, in war (vi mord-frost freista), when he
(Denmark's king) angrily bade the cold-hard storm-watcher (stirdan
vedrhirdi, Hakon Jarl) of the Hordaland dwellers (of the Norsemen)
defend Dannevirke (Virki vara) against the southland Njords of the
shield-din (fyr serkja~hlym-val-Njördum, "the princes of the southland
warriors ").


Here, too, the myth about Thjasse and of the fimbul-winter forms the
kernel out of which the paraphrases adapted to Hakon Jarl have grown.
Hakon is clothed with the mask of the cold-hard storm-watcher who comes
from the North and can let loose the winter-winds. Emperor Otto and the
chiefs who led the southern troops under him are compared with Njord and
his kinsmen, who, in the mythology, fought with Volund and the powers of
frost, and the battle between the warriors of the South and the North is
compared with a "murder-frost," in which Hakon coming from the North
meets the Christian continental Teutons at Dannevirke.


Thins the mythical kernel of the strophe is as follows: The elf of the
Morkwood of Hlodyn, the cold-hard storm-watcher, tested his power with
frost-weather when he fought with Njord and his kinsmen.


The Hlodyn of the Morkwood'that is to say, the goddess of the Jotunheim
woods'is in this connection Thjasse's daughter Skade, who, in
Haleygjatal, is called Járnvidja of Járnvidr, the Ironwood, which is
identical with the Morkwood (Darkwood). Thjasse himself, whose father is
called "a perjurous hapt" in Thorsdrapa, is here called an elf. Alone,
this passage would not be sufficient to decide the question as to which
class of mythical beings Thjasse and his father belonged, the less so as
álfr, applied in a paraphrase, might allude to any sort of being
according to the characterisation added. But "perjurous hapt" cannot
possibly be a paraphrase for a giant. Every divinity that has violated
its oath is "a perjurous hapt," and the mythology speaks of such
perjuries. If a god has committed penjury, this is no reason why he
should be called a giant. If a giant has committed perjury, this is no
reason why he should be called a hapt, for it is nothing specially
characteristic of the giant nature that it commits perjury or violates
its oath. In fact, it seems to me that there should be the gravest
doubts about Thjasse's being a giant in the strictest and completest
sense of the word, from the circumstances that he is a star-hero; that
distinguished persons considered it an honour to be descended from him;
that Hakon Jarl's skalds never tired of clothing him with the appearance
of his supposed progenitor, and of comparing the historical achievements
of the one with the mythical exploits of the other; and that he,
Thjasse, not only robbed Idun, which indeed a genuine giant might do,
but that he also lived with her many long years, and, so far as we can
see, begat with her the daughter Skade. It should be remembered, from
the foregoing pages, what pains the mythology takes to get the other
asynje, Freyja, who had fallen into the hands of giants, back pure and
undefiled to Asgard, and it is therefore difficult to believe that Idun
should be humiliated and made to live for many years in intimacy with a
real giant. It follows from this that when Thjasse, in the above-cited
mythological kernel of the strophe of Vellekla, is called an alfr, and
when his father in Thorsdrapa is called a hapt, a being of higher or
lower divine rank, then álfr is a further definition of the idea hapt,
and informs us to which class of nimina Thjasse belonged'namely, the
lower class of gods called elves. Thus, on his father's side, Tbjasse is
an elf. So is Volund. In Volundarkvida he is called a prince of elves.
Furthermore, it should be observed that, in the strophe-kernel presented
above, Thjasse is represented as one who has fought with Njord and his
allies. In Saxo it is Anund-Volund and his brother the archer who fight
with Njord-Fridlevus and his companions; and as Njord in Saxo marries
Anund-Volund's daughter, while in the mythology he marries Thjasse's
daughter, then this is another recurrence of the fact which continually
comes to the surface in this investigation, namely, that whatever is
told of Volund is also told of Thjasse.


114.


PROOFS THAT IVALDE'S SONS ARE OLVALDE'S (continued). A REVIEW OF
THORSDRAPA.


(21) We now come to a mythic record in which Thjasse's brothers Ii and
Gangr, and he too, in a paraphrase, are mentioned under circumstances
well suited to throw light on the subject before us, which is very
important in regard to the epic connection of the mythology.


Of Thor's expedition to Geirrod, we have two very different accounts.
One is recorded by the author of Skaldskaparmal; the other is found in
Eilif Gudrunson's Thorsdrapa.


In Skaldskaparmal (Younger Edda, i. 284) we read:


Only for pleasure Loki made an expedition in Freyj a's feather guise,
and was led by his curiosity to seat himself in an opening in the wall
of Geirrod's house and peep in. There he was captured by one of
Geirrod's servants, and the giant, who noticed from his eyes that it was
not a real falcon, did not release him before he had agreed so to
arrange matters that Thor should come to Geirrod's hall without bringing
with him his hammer and belt of strength. This Loki was able to bring
about. Thor went to Geirrod without taking any of these implements'not
even his steel gloves'with him. Loki accompanied him. On the way thither
Loki visited the giantess whose name was Grídr, and who was Vidar the
Silent's mother. From her Thor learned the facts about Geirrod'namely,
that the latter was a cunning giant and difficult to get on with. She
lent Thor her own belt of strength, her own iron gloves, and her staff,
Grídarvolr. Then Thor proceeded to the river which is called Vimur, and
which is the greatest of all rivers. There he buckled on his belt of
strength, and supported himself in the stream on the Grídarvolr. Loki
held himself fast to the belt of strength. When Thor reached the middle
of the stream, the water rose to his shoulders. Thor then perceived that
up in a mountain chasm below which the river flowed stood Gjalp,
Geirrod's daughter, with one foot on each side of the river, and it was
she who caused the rising of the tide. Then Thor picked up a stone and
threw it at the giantess, saying: "At its mouth the river is to be
stopped ". He did not miss his mark. Having reached the other bank of
the river, he took hold of a rowan, and thus gained the land. Hence the
proverb: "Thor's salvation, the rowan ". And when Thor came to Geirrod a
goat-house was first given to him and Loki (according to Codex Regius;
according to the Upsala Codex a guest-house) as their lodgings. Then are
related the adventures Thor had with Geirrod's daughters Gjalp and
Greip, and how he, invited to perform games in Geirrod's hall, was met
by a glowing iron which Geirrod threw against him with a pair of tongs,
but which he caught with the iron gloves and threw back with so great
force that the iron passed through a post, behind which Geirrod had
concealed himself, and through Geirrod himself and his house wall, and
then penetrated into the earth.


This narrative, composed freely from mythical and pseudo-mythical
elements, is related to Thorsdrapa, composed in heathen times, about in
the same manner as Bragaraedur's account of Odin and Suttung is related
to that of Havamál. Just as in Bragaraedur punctum saliens lies in the
coarse jest about how poor poetry originated, so here a crude anecdote
built on the proverb, "A stream is to be stemmed at its mouth," seems to
be the basis of the story. In Christian times the mythology had to
furnish the theme not only for ancient history, heroic poems, and
popular traditions, but also for comic songs.


Now, a few words in regard to Thorsdrapa. This song, excellent from the
standpoint of poetry and important from a mythological point of view,
has, in my opinion, hitherto been entirely misunderstood, not so much on
account of the difficulties found in the text'for these disappear, when
they are considered without any preconceived opinion in regard to the
contents'as on account of the undeserved faith in Skaldskaparmal's
account of Thor's visit to Geirrod, and on account of the efforts made
under the influence of this misleading authority to rediscover the
statements of the latter in the heathen poem. ln these efforts the
poetics of the Christian period in Iceland have been applied to the
poem, and in this way all mythological names, whose real meaning was
forgotten in later times, have received a general faded signification,
which on a more careful examination is proved to be incorrect. With a
collection of names as an armoury, in which the names of real or
supposed "dwarfs," "giants," "sea-kings," &c., are brought together and
arranged as synonyms, this system of poetics teaches that from such
lists we may take whatever dwarf name, giant name, &c., we please to
designate which ever "dwarf," "giant," &c., we please. If, therefore,
Thorsdrapa mentions "Idi's chalet" and "Gángr's war-vans," then,
according to this system of poetics, Idi and Gangr'though they in
heathen times designated particular mythic persons who had their own
history, their own personal careers' have no other meaning than the
general one of "a giant," for the reason that Ii and Gángr are
incorpon'ated in the above-named lists of giant names. Such a system of
poetics could not arise before the most of the mythological names had
become mere empty sounds, the personalities to whom they belonged being
forgotten. The fact that they have been adapted, and still continue to
be adapted, to the poems of the heathen skalds, is one of the reasons
why the important contributions which names and paraphrases in the
heathen poetry are able to furnish in mythological investigations have
remained an unused treasure.


While Skaldskaparmal makes Loki and no one else accompany Thor to
Geirrod, and represents the whole matter as a visit to the giant by
Thor, we learn from Thorsdrapa that this journey to Jotunheim is an
expedition of war, which Thor makes at the head of his warriors against
the much-dreaded chief of giants, and that on the way thither he had to
fight a real battle with Geirrod's giants before he is able to penetrate
to the destination of his expedition, Geirrod's hall, where the giants
put to flight in the battle just mentioned gather, and where another
battle is fought. Thorsdrapa does not mention with a single word that
Loki accompanied Thor on this warlike expedition. Instead of this, we
learn that he had a secret understanding with one of Geirrod's
daughters, that he encouraged Thor to go, and gave him untruthful
accounts of the character of the road, so that, if not Thor himself,
then at least the allies who went with him, might perish by the ambush
laid in wait for them. That Loki, under such circumstances, should
accompany Thor is highly incredible, since his misrepresentations in
regard to the character of the way would be discovered on the journey,
and reveal him as a traitor. But since Skaldskaparmal states that Loki
was Thor's companion, the interpreters of Thorsdrapa have allowed him so
to remain, and have attributed to him'the traitor and secret ally of the
giants'and to Thjalfe (who is not mentioned in the Skaldskaparmal
account) the exploits which Thor's companions perform against the
giants. That the poem, for instance, in the expression ţjalfi me yta
sinni, "Thjalfe with his companions," in the most distinct manner
emphasises the fact that a whole host of warriors had Thor as their
leader on this expedition, was passed over as one of the obscure
passages in which the poem was supposed to abound, and the obscurity of
which simply consists in their contradicting the story in
Skaldskaparmal. Thorsdrapa does not mention with a single word that
Thor, on his journey to Geirrod, stopped at the home of a giantess
Grídr, and borrowed from her a staff, a belt of strength, and iron
gloves; and I regard it as probable that this whole episode in
Skaldskaparmal has no other foundation than that the staff which Thor
uses as his support on wading across the rapid stream is in Thorsdrapa
now called gridarvolr, "the safety staff," and again, brautar lid's
tollr, "the way-helping tree ". The name gridarvolr, and such proverbs
as at ósi shall a stemma and reynir er björg ţórs, appear to be the
staple wares by the aid of which the story in Skaldskaparmal was framed.
The explanation given in Skaldskaparmal of the proverb reynir er bjorg
ţórs, that, by seizing hold of a rowan growing on the river bank, Thor
succeeded in getting out of the river, is, no doubt, an invention by the
author of the story. The statement cannot possibly have had any support
in the mythology. In it Thor is endowed with ability to grow equal to
any stream he may have to cross. The rowan mentioned in the proverb is
probably none other than the "way-helping tree," the "safety staff," on
which he supports himself while wading, and which, according to
Thorsdrapa (19), is a brotningr skógar, a tree broken or pulled up in
the woods.


I now pass to the consideration of the contents of Thorsdrapa:


Strophe 1. The deceitful Loki encourages Thor to go from home and visit
Geirrod, "the master of the temple of the steep altars ". The great liar
assures him that green paths would take him to Geirrod's halls, that is
to say, they were accessible to travellers on foot, and not obstructed
by rivers.


NOTE.'For Thor himself the condition of the roads might be of less
importance. He who wades across the Elivagar rivers and subterranean
streams did not need to be very anxious about finding water-courses
crossing his paths. But from the continuation of the poem we learn that
this expedition to Jotunbeim was not a visit as a guest, or a meeting to
fight a duel, as when Thor went to find Hrungner, but this time he is to
press into Jotunheim with a whole army, and thus the character of the
road he was to travel was of some importance. The ambush laid in his way
does not concern Thor himself, but the giant-foes who constitute his
army. If the latter perish in the ambush,, then Geirrrod and his giants
will have Thor alone to fight against, and may then have some hope of
victory.


Strophe 2. Thor did not require much urging to undertake the
expedition. He leaves Asgard to visit Jotunheim. Of what happened on the
way between Asgard and the Elivagar rivers, before Thor penetrated into
Jotunheim, the strophe says:


 


ţa er gjardvenjodr
endr (= iterum, rursus)
rikri Idja Gandvikr-setrs skotum
gordist fra ţridia til Ymsa kindar,
fystust ţeir (Cod. Worm.)
fyrstuz ţeir (Cod. Reg.)
at ţrysta ţorns nidjum


	

When the belt-wearer (Thor, the possessor of the belt of strength)

now, as on former occasions,

strengthened by the men of Ide's chalet situated near Gandvik,

was on his way from Odin toYmse's (Yimir's) race,

it was to them (to Thor and to

the men of Ide's chalet) a joy (or they rushed thither)

to conquer Thorn's (Bolthorn--Yimir's) kinsmen.


NOTE.'The common understanding of this passage is (1) that endr has
nothing to do with the contents, but is a complementary word which may
be translated with "once upon a time," a part which endr has to play
only too often in the interpretation of the old poems; (2) that Ide is
merely a general giant name, applicable, like every other giant name, in
a paraphrase Idja setr, which is supposed to mean Jotunheim; (3) that
rikri Idja setrs skotum or rikri Gandvikr skotum was to give the hearers
or readers of Thorsdrapa the (utterly unnecessary) information that Thor
was stronger than the giants; and (4) that they who longed to subdue
Yimir's kinsmen were Thor and Loki'the same Loki who, in secret
understanding with the giant-chief and with one of his daughters (see
below), has the purpose of enticing Thor and his companions in arms into
a trap!


Rikri . . . skotum is to be regarded as an elliptical sentence in which
the instrumental preposition, as is often the case, is to be understood.
When Thor came from Asgard to the chalet of Ide, situated near Gandvik,
he there gets companions in arms, and through them he becomes rikri,
through them he gets an addition to his own powers in the impending
conflicts. The fact that when Thor invades Jotunheim he is at the head
of an army is perfectly evident from certain expressions in the poem,
and from the poem as a whole. Whence could all these warriors come all
of a sudden' They are not dwellers in Asgard, and he has not brought
them with him in his lightning chariot. They live near Gaudvik, which
means "the magic bay," the Elivagar. Gaudvik was a purely
mythological-geographical name before it became the name of the White
Sea in a late Christian time, when the sea between Greenland and America
got the mythic name Ginungagap. Their being the inhabitants on the coast
of a bay gives the author of Thorsdrapa an occasion further on to
designate them as vikings, bayings. We have already seen that it is a
day's journey between Asgard and the Elivagar (see No. 108), and that on
the southern coast Thor has an inn, where he stops, and where his
precious team and chariot are taken care of while he makes expeditions
into Jotunheim. The continuation of the poem shows that this time, too,
he stopped at this inn, and that he got his warriors there. Now, as
always before, he proceeds on foot, after having reached Jotunheim.


Strophe 3 first makes a mythic chronological statement, namely, that
the daughter of Geirrod, "skilled in magic," had come to an
understanding with Loki, before Rogner became the ally of the latter.
This mythic chronological statement shows (1) that there was a time when
Rogner did not share Loki's plans, which were inimical to the gods; (2)
that the events recounted in Thorsdrapa took place before Rogner became
a foe of the gods. Why Thorsdrapa thinks it necessary to give this
information becomes apparent already in the fourth strophe.


Then the departure from Ide's chalet is mentioned. The host hostile to
the giants proceeds to Jotunheim, but before it gets thither it must
traverse an intermediate region which is called Endil's meadow.


We might expect that instead of speaking of a meadow as the boundary
territory which had to be traversed before getting into Jotunheim, the
poem would have spoken of the body of water behind which Jotunheim lies,
and mentioned it by one of its names'Elivagar, Gandvik, or Hraun. But on
a more careful examination it appears that Endil's meadow is only a
paraphrase for a body of water. The proof of this is found in the fact
that "Endil's skees," Endils andrar, Endils itrski, is a common
paraphrase for ship. So is Endils eykr, "Endil's horse ". The meadow
which Endil crosses on such skees and on such a horse must therefore be
a body of water. And no other water can be meant than that which lies
between Endil's chalet and Jotunheim, that is, Elivagar, Gandvik.


The name Endill may be the same as Vendill, Vandill (Younger Edda, i.
548), and abbreviation of Orvandill. The initial V was originally a
semi-vowel, and as such it alliterated with other semi-vowels and with
vowels (compare the rhymes on an Oland runic stone, Vandils
jörmungrundar urgrandari). This easilydisappearing semi -vowel may have
been thrown out in later times where it seemed to obscure the
alliteration, and thus the form Endil may have arisen from Vendil,
Vandil. "Orvandel's meadow" is accordingly in poetic language synonymous
with Elivagar, and the paraphrase is a fitting one, since Orvandel-Egil
had skees which bore him over land and sea, and since Elivagar was the
scene of his adventures.


Strophe 4 tells that after crossing "Endil's meadow" the host of
warriors invaded Jotunheim on foot, and that information about their
invasion into the land of the giants came to the witches there.


Two important facts are here given in regard to these warriors:


they are called Gángs gunn-vanir and Vargs fridar, "Gang's
warrior'vans," and " Varg's defenders of the land ". Thus, in the first
strophes of Thorsdrapa, we meet with the names of Olvalde's three sons:
Rognir (Thjasse), Idi, and Gángr. The poem mentions Rogner's name in
stating that the expedition occurred before Rogner became the foe of the
gods; it names Ide's name when it tells that it was at his (Ide's)
chalet near Gandvik that Thor gathered these warriors around him; and it
names Gangr's name, and in connection therewith Vargr's name, when it is
to state who the leaders were of those champions who accompanied Thor
against Geirrod. Under such circumstances it is manifest that Thorsdrapa
relates an episode in which Ide, Gang, and Thjasse appear as friends of
Thor and foes of the giants, and that the poem locates their original
country in the regions on the south coast of Elivagar, and makes Ija
setr to be situated near the same strand, and play in Thor's expeditions
the same part as OrvandelEgil's abode near the Elivagar, which is also
called chalet, Geirvandil's setr, and Ysetr. The Vargr who is mentioned
is, therefore, so far as can be seen, Rogner-Thjasse himself, who in
Haustlaung, as we know, is called fjallgyldir, that is to say, wolf.


All the warriors accompanying Thor were eager to fight Yimir's
descendants, as we have seen in the second strophe. But the last lines
of strophe 4 represent one in particular as longing to contend with one
of the warlike and terrible giantesses of giant-land. This champion is
not mentioned by name, but he is characterised as bragdmildr, "quick to
conceive and quick to move',; as braedivaendr, "he who is wont to offer
food to eat"; and as bolkveitir or bolkvetir Loka, "he who compensated
Loki's evil deed ". The characterisations fit Orvandel-Egil, the nimble
archer and skee-runner, who, at his chalet, receives Thor as his guest,
when the latter is on his way to Jotunheim, and who gave Thor Thjalfe
and Roskva as a compensation, when Loki had deceitfully induced Thjalfe
to break a bone belonging to one of Thor's slaughtered goats for the
purpose of getting at the marrow. If Thorsdrapa had added that the
champion thus designated also was the best archer of mythology, there
could be no doubt that Egil was meant This addition is made further on
in the poem, and of itself confirms the fact that Egil took part in the
expedition.


Strop he 5, compared with strophes 6 and 7, informs us that Thor, with
his troop of champions, in the course of his march came into one of the
wild mountain-regions of Jotunheim. The weather is bad and hail-showers
fall. And here Thor finds out that Loki has deceived him in the most
insolent manner. By his directions Thor has led his forces to the place
where they now are, and here rushes forth from between the mountains a
river into which great streams, swelling with hail-showers, roll down
from the mountains with seething ice-water. To find in such a river a
ford by which his companions can cross was for Thor a difficult matter.


Strop he 6. Meanwhile the men from Ide's chalet had confidently
descended into the river. A comparison with strophes 7 and 8 shows that
they cautiously kept near Thor, and waded a little farther up the river
than he. They used their spears as staffs, which they put down into the
stony bottom of the river. The din of the spears, when their metallic
points came in contact with the stones of the bottom, blended with the
noise of the eddies roaring around the rocks of the river (Knatti hreggi
hggvinn hlymdel vid mol glymja, enn fjalla fellihryn ţaut med Fedju stedja).


Sirophe 7. In the meantime the river constantly rises and increases in
violence, and its ocean-like billows are already breaking against Thor's
powerful shoulders. If this is to continue, Thor will have to resort to
the power inherent in him of rising equally with the increase of the waves.


NOTE.'But the warriors from Ide's saeter, who do not possess this
power, what are they to do' The plan laid between Loki and the witches
of Jotunheim is manifestly to drown them. And the succeeding strophes
show that they are in the most imminent danger.


Strophes 8 and 9. These bold warriors waded with firm steps; but the
billowing masses of water increased in swiftness every moment. While
Thor's powerful hands hold fast to the staff of safety, the current is
altogether too strong for the spears, which the Gandvik champions have
to support themselves on. On the mountains stood giantesses increasing
the strength of the current. Then it happened that "the god of the bow,
driven by the violence of the billows, rushed upon Thor's shoulder
(kykva naudar ass, blasinn hronnjardar skafls hvetviri, ţurdi haudrs
runn of herdi), while Thjalfe with his comrades came, as if they had
been automatically lifted up, and seized hold of the belt of the
celestial prince" (Thor) (unnz ţjalfi med yta sinni kom sjalflopta a
himinsjóla skaunar-seil).


NOTE.'Thus the plan laid by Loki and the giantesses to drown the men
hostile to the giants, the men dwelling on the south coast of the
Elivagar, came near succeeding. They were saved by their prudence in
wading higher up the stream than Thor, so that, if they lost their
foothold, they could be hurled by the eddies against him. One of the
Gandvik champions, and, as the continuation of the poems shows, the
foremost one among them, here characterised as "the god of the bow," is
tossed by a storm-billow against Thor's shoulders, and there saves
himself. Thjalfe and the whole remaining host of the warriors of Ide's
saeter have at the same time been carried by the waves down against
Hlodyn's powerful son, and save themselves by seizing hold of his belt
of strength. With "the god of the bow" on his shoulders, and with a
whole host of warriors clinging to his waist, Thor continues his wading
across the stream.


In strophe 8, the Gandvik champions are designated by two paraphrases.
We have already seen them described as "Gang's warrior-vans" and as
"Varg's land-defenders ". Here they are called "the clever warriors of
the viking-saeter" (vikinga setrs snotrir gunnar runnar) and "Odin's
land-defenders, bound by oaths" (Gauta eidsvara fridar). That Ide's
saeter is called "the vikings' saeter" is explained by the fact that it
is situated near Gandvik, and that these bayings had the Elivagar as the
scene of their conflicts with the powers of frost. That they are Odin's
land-defenders, bound by oaths, means that they are mythical beings, who
in rank are lower than the Asas, and are pledged by oaths to serve Odin
and defend his territory against the giants. Their saeter (chalet) near
Gandvik is therefore an outpost against the powers of frost. It follows
that Ide, Gang, and Thjasse originally are numina, though of a lower,
serving rank; that their relation to the higher world of gods was of
such a character that they could not by their very nature be regarded as
foes of the giants, but are bound to the cause of the gods by oaths; but
on the other hand they could not be full-blooded giants of the race
produced from Yimir's feet (see No. 86). Their original home is not
Jotunheim itself, but a land ing on the home of the giants, and this
mytho-geographical locality must correspond with their
mytho-genealogical position. The last strophe in Thorsdrapa calls the
giants slain by the Gandvik champions "Alfheim's calves," Alfheim's
cattle to be slaughtered, and this seems to indicate that these
champions belong to the third and lowest of those clans into which the
divinities of the Teutonic mythology are divided, that is, the elves.


The Gaudvik champion who rescues himself on Thor's shoulders, while the
rest of them hold fast to his girdle, is a celebrated archer, and so
well known to the hearers of Thorsdrapa, that it was not necessary to
mention him by name in order to make it clear who he was. In fact, the
epithet applied to him, "the god of the bow" (áss kykva naudar, and in
strophe 18, tvividar Tyr), is quite sufficient to designate him as the
foremost archer of mythology, that is, Orvandel-Egil, who is here
carried on Thor's shoulders through the raging waves, just as on another
occasion he was carried by Thor in his basket across the Elivagar.
Already in strophe 4 he is referred to as the hero nimble in thought and
body, who is known for his hospitality, and who made compensation for
Loki's evil deed. The foremost one next after him among the Gandvik
champions is Thjaife, Egil's foster-son. The others are designated as
Thjalfe's yta sinni, his body of men.


Thus we find that the two foremost among "Gang's warriorvans," who with
Thor marched forth from "Ide's saeter," before Rogner (Thjasse) became
Loki's ally, are Volund's and Slagfin's brother Egil and Egil's
foster-son Thjalfe. We find that Egil and Thjalfe belong to the
inhabitants of Ide's saeter, where Thor on this occasion had stopped,
and where he had left his chariot and goats, for now, as on other
occasions, he goes on foot to Jotunheim. And as in other sources Egil is
mentioned as the one who on such occasions gives lodgings to Thor and
his goats, and as Thorsdrapa also indicates that he is the hospitable
host who had received Thor in his house, and had paid him a ransom for
the damage caused by Loki to one of his goats, then this must be a most
satisfactory proof that Ide's saeter is the same place as the Geirvadils
setr inhabited by Egil and his brothers, and that OrvandelEgil is
identical either with Ide or with Gang, from which it follows, again,
that Alvalde's (Olvalde's) sons, Ide, Gang, and Thjasse, are identical
with Ivalde's sons, Slagfin, Egil, and Volund.


That Egil is identical with Gang and not with Ide is apparent from a
comparison with the Grotte-song. There Olvalde's sons are called Idi,
Aurnir, and ţjazi, while in the Younger Edda they are called Idi, Gangr,
and ţjazi. Thus Aurnir is identical with Gángr, and as Aurnir means
"wild boar," and as "wild boar" (Ebur, Ibor, Ebbo) is an epithet of
Egil, Orvandel-Egil must be identical with Gang.


In regard to the rest of Thorsdrapa I may be brief, since it is of less
interest to the subject under discussion.


Strophe 10. In spite of the perilous adventure described above, the
hearts of Thjalfe and the Gandvik champions were no more terrified than
Thor's. Here they are designated as eids fiardar, "the men pledged by
oath," with which is to be compared eidsvara fridar in strophe 8.


Strophes 11, 12, show that Thor landed safely with his burden. Scarcely
had he and his companions got a firm foothold on the other strand before
Geirrod's giant-clan, "the world-tree-destroying folk of the sea-belt,"
came to the spot, and a conflict arose, in which the attacks of the
giants were firmly repulsed, and the latter were finally forced to retreat.


Strophe 13. After the victory Thor's terrible hosts pressed farther
into Jotunheim to open Geirrod's hall, and they arrived there amid the
din and noise of cave-dwellers.


The following strophes mention that Thor broke the backs of Geirrod's
daughters, and pressed with his warriors into Geirrod's hall, where he
was received with a piece of red-hot iron hurled by the latter, which,
hurled back by Thor, caused the death of the giant-chief. Thor had given
the glowing javelin such a force that some one who stood near him,
probably Egil, "drank so that he reeled in the air - current of the
piece of iron the air - drink of Hrimner's daughter" (svalg hrapmunum á
siu lopti Hrimnis drosar, lyptisylg). Hrimner's daughter is Gulveig-Heid
(Hyndluljod, 32), and her "air-drink" is the fire, over which the gods
held her lifted on their spears (Voluspa, 21).


As we see from the context, Geirrod's halls were filled with the men
who had fled from the battle near the river, and within the mountain
there arose another conflict, which is described in the last three
strophes of the poem. Geirrod's hall shook with the din of battle. Thor
swung his bloody hammer. "The staff' of safety," "the help-tree of the
way," the staff on which Thor supported himself in crossing the river,
fell into Egil's hands (kom at tvividar Tyvi brautar lid's tolir), who
did not here have room to use his bow, but who, with this "convenient
tree jerked (or broken) from the forest," gave death-blows to "the
calves of Alfheim ". The arrows from his quiver could not be used in
this crowded place against the men of the mountain-chief.


The fact that the giants in Thorsdrapa use the sling is of interest to
the question concerning the position of the various weapons of
mythology. Geirrod is called vegtaugar ţrjótr, "the industrious applier
of the sling's (str. 17), and almtaugar Ćgir, "the Ćgir of the sling
made of elm-bast ".


In the last strophe Egil is said to be helblótinn and hneitir,
undirfjalfs bliku, expressions to which I shall recur further on.


Like the relation between Volund and his swan-maids in Volundarkvida,
the relation between Rogner-Thjasse and Idun in Forspjallsljod is not
that of the robber to his unwilling victim, but one of mutual harmony.
This is confirmed by a poem which I shall analyse when the investigation
reaches a point that demands it, and according to which Idun was from
her childhood tied by bonds of love and by oath to the highly-gifted but
unhappy son of Ivalde, to the great artist who, by his irreconcilable
thirst for revenge, became the Lucifer of Teutonic mythology, while Loki
is its Mefisto. I presume that the means of rejuvenation, the divine
remedy against age (ellilyf eisa'Haustlaung), which Idun alone in Asgard
knows and possesses, was a product of Thjasse-Volund's art. The middle
age also remembered Volund (Wieland) as a physician, and this trait
seems to be from the oldest time, for in Rigveda, too, the counterparts
of the Ivalde sons, that is, the Ribhus, at the request of the gods,
invent means of rejuvenation. It may be presumed that the mythology
described his exterior personality in a clear manner. From his mother he
must have inherited his giant strength, which, according to the
Grotte-song, surpassed Hrungner's and that of the father of the latter
(Harr var Hrungnir ok hans fair, ţó var ţjazi ţeim auflgari'str. 9).
With his strength beauty was doubtless united. Otherwise,
Volundarkvida's author would scarcely have said that his swan-maid laid
her arms around Anund's (Volund's) "white" neck. That his eyes were
conceived as glittering may be concluded from the fact that they
distinguish him on the starry canopy as a star-hero, and that in
Volundarkvida Nidhad's queen speaks of the threatening glow in the gaze
of the fettered artist (amon ero augu ormi ţeim enom frána'str. 17).


Ivalde's sons'Thjasse-Volund, Aurnir-Egil, and Ide-Slagfin' are, as we
have seen, bastards of an elf and a giantess (Greip, Ganubara). Ivalde's
daughters, on the other hand (see No. 113), have as mother a sun-dis,
daughter of the ruler of the atmosphere, Nokver. In other sources the
statement in Forspjallsljod (6) is confirmed, that Ivalde had two groups
of children, and that she who "among the races of elves was called Idun"
belonged to one of them. Thus, while Idun and her sisters are
half-sisters to Ivalde's sons, these are in turn half-brothers to pure
giants, sons of Greip, and these giants are, according to the
Grotte-song (str. 9), the fathers of Fenja and Menja. The relationship
of the Ivalde sons to the gods on the one hand and to the giants on the
other may be illustrated by the following scheme:


 

Ivalde begets (1) with a sun-dis


 

|


 

Idun and her sisters.


 

(2) with the giantess Greip - Greip bears with a giant


 

        |                                        |               |


 

Thjasse-Volund and                    Giant         Giant


 

his giant brothersGiant                    Fenja         Menja.


115.


REVIEW OF THE PROOFS OF VOLUND'S IDENTITY WITH THJASSE.


The circumstances which first drew my attention to the necessity of
investigating whether Thjasse and Volund were not different names of the
same mythic personality, which the mythology particularly called
Thjasse, and which the heroic saga springing from the mythology in
Christian times particularly called Volund, were the following: (1) In
the study of Saxo I found in no less than three passages that Njord,
under different historical masks, marries a daughter of Volund, while in
the mythology he marries a daughter of Thjasse. (2) In investigating the
statements anent Volund's father in Volundarkvida's text and prose
appendix I found that these led to the result that Volund was a son of
Sumbl, the Finn king'that is to say, of Olvalde, Thjasse's father. (3)
My researches in regard to the myth about the mead produced the result
that SvigderOlvalde perished by the treachery of a dwarf outside of a
mountain, where one of the smith-races of the mythology, Suttung's sons,
had their abode. In Vilkinasaga's account of the death of Volund's
father I discovered the main outlines of the sanie mythic episode.


The correspondence of so different sources in so unexpected a matter
was altogether too remarkable to permit it to be overlooked in my
mythological researches. The fact that the name-variation itself,
Alvalde (for Olvalde), as Thjasse's father is called in Harbardsljod,
was in meaning and form a complete synonym of Ivalde I had already
observed, but without attaching any importance thereto.


The next step was to examine whether a similar proof of the identity of
Thjasse's and Volund's mother was to be found. In one Norse mythological
source Thjasse's mother is called Greip. Volund's and Egil's (Ayo's and
Ibor's, Aggo's and Ebbo's) mother is in Paulus Diaconus and in Origo
Longobardorum called Gainbara, in Saxo Gambaruc. The Norse stem in the
Latinised name Gambara is Gammr, which is a synonym of Greip, the name
of Thjasse's mother. Thus I found a reference to the identity of
Thjasse's mother amid Volund's mother.


From the parents I went to the brothers. One of Volund's brothers bore
the epithet Aurnir, "wild boar ". Aurnir's wife is remembered in the
Christian traditions as one who forebodes the future. Ebur's wife is a
mythological seeress. One of Thjasse's brothers, Ide, is the only one in
the mythology whose name points to an original connection with Ivalde
(Idvalde), Volund's father, and with Idun, Volund's half-sister. Volund
himself bears the epithet Brunne, and Thjasse's home is Bruansacre. One
of Thjasse's sons is slain at the instigation of Loki, and Loki, who in
Lokasenna takes pleasure in stating this, boasts in the same poem that
he has caused the slaying of Thjasse.


In regard to bonds of relationship in general, I found that on the one
side Volund, like Thjasse, was regarded as a giant, and had relations
among the giants, among whom Vidolf is mentioned both as Volund's and
Thjasse's relative, and that on the other band Volund is called an
elf-prince, and that Thjasse's father belonged to the clan of elves, and
that Thjasse's daughter is characterised, like Volund and his nearest
relatives, as a skee-runner and hunter, and in this respect has the same
epithet as Volund's nephew UII. I found, furthermore, that so far as
tradition has preserved the memory of star-heroes, every mythic person
who belonged to their number was called a son of Ivalde or a son of
Olvalde. OrvandelEgil is a star-hero and a son of Ivalde. The Watlings,
after whom the Milky Way is named, are descendants of Vate-Vade,
Volund's father. Thjasse is a star-hero and the son of Olvalde. Ide,
too, Thjasse's brother, "the torch-bearer," may have been a star-hero,
and, as we shall show later, the memory of Volund's brother Slagfin was
partly connected with the Milky Way and partly with the spots on the
moon; while, according to another tradition, it is Volund's father whose
image is seen in these spots (see Nos. 121, 123).


I found that Rogner is a Thjasse-epithet, and that all that is stated
of Rogner is also told of Volund. Rogner was, like the latter, first the
friend of the gods and then their foe. He was a "swan-gladdener," and
Volund the lover of a swan-maid. Like Volund he fought against Njord.
Like Volund he proceeded to the northernmost edge of the world, and
there he worked with magic implements through the powers of frost for
the destruction of the gods and of the world. And from some one he has
taken the same ransom as Volund did, when the latter killed Nidhad's
young sons and made goblets of their skulls.


I found that while Olvalde's sons, Ide, Aurner (Gang), and Thjasse,
still were friends of the gods, they had their abode on the south coast
of the Elivagar, where Ivalde had his home, called after him Geirvadils
setr, and where his son Orvandel-Egil afterwards dwelt; that Thor on his
way to Jotunheim visits Ide's setr, and that he is a guest in Egil's
dwelling; that the mythological warriors who dwell around Ide's setr are
called warrior-vans," and that these "Gang's warrior-vans" have these
very persons, Egil and his foster-son Thjalfe, as their leaders when
they accompany Thor to fight the giants, wherefore the setr of the
Olvalde sons Ide and Gang must be identical with that of the Ivalde
sons, and Ide, Gang, and Thjasse identical with Slagfin, Egil, and Volund.


On these foundations the identity of Olvalde's sons with Ivalde's sons
is sufficiently supported, even though our mythic records had preserved
no evidence that Thjasse, like Volund, was the most celebrated artist of
mythology. But such evidence is not wanting. As the real meaning of
Begin is "shaper," "workman," and as this has been retained as a
smith-name in Christian times, there is every reason to assume that
Thjasse, who is called fjadrar-blad's leik-Regin and vingvagna Rognir,
did himself make, like Volund, the eagle guise which he, like Volund,
wears. The son of Ivalde, Volund, made the most precious treasures for
the gods while he still was their friend, and the Olvalde son Thjasse is
called hapta snyirir', "the decorator of the gods," doubtless for the
meason that he had smithied treasures for the gods during a time when he
was their friend and Thor's ofruni (Thor's confidential friend). Volund
is the most famous and, so far as we can see, also the first
sword-smith, which seems to appear from the fact that his father Ivalde,
though a valiant champion, does not use the sword but the spear as a
weapon, and is therefore called Geirvandill. Thjasse was the first
sword-smith, otherwise he would not have been called fadir morna, "the
father of the swords ". Splendid implements are called verk Rognis and
ţjaza ţingskil, Idja glysmal, Idja ord'expressions which do not find
their adequate explanation in the Younger Edda's account of the division
of Olvalde's estate, but in the myth about the judgment which the gods
once proclaimed in the contest concerning the skill of Sindre and the
sons of Ivalde, when the treasures of the latter presented in court had
to plead their own cause.


116.


A. LOOK AT THE MYTH CONCERNING THJASSE-VOLUND. HIS EPITHET HLEBARDR.
HIS WORST DEED OF REVENGE.


What our mythic records tell us about the sons of Olvalde and the sons
of Ivalde is under such circumstances to be regarded as fragments which
come to us from one and the same original myth. When combined, the
fragments are found to dovetail together and form one whole.
Volundarkvida (28) indicates that something terrible, something that in
the highest degree aroused his indignation and awakened his deep and
satanic thirst for revenge, had happened to Volund ere he, accompanied
by his brothers, betook himself to the wintry wilderness, where he
smithied the sword of revenge and tIne gand rings; and the poem makes
Volund add that this injustice remained to be avenged when he left the
Wolf-dales. It lies in the nature of the case that the saga about Volund
did not end where the fragment of the Volundarkvida which we possess is
interrupted. The balance of the saga must have related what Volund did
to accomplish the revenge which he still had to take, and how the effort
to take vengeance resulted. The continuation probably also had something
to say about that swan-maid, that dis of vegetation, who by the name
Hervor Alvitr spends nine years with Volund in the Wolfdales, and then,
seized by longing, departs with the other swan-maids, but of whose
faithful love Volund is perfectly convinced (Volundarkvida, 10). While
Volund is Nidhad's prisoner, the hope he has built on the sword of
revenge and victory smithied by him seems to be frustrated. The sword is
in the power of Mimir-Nidhad, the friend of the gods. But the hope of
the plan of revenge must have awakened again when Svipdag, Volund's
nephew, succeeded in coming up from the lower world with t.he weapon in
his possessoion. The conflict between the powers of frost and the
kinsmen of Ivalde, who bad deserted the gods, on the one side, and the
gods and their favourite Halfdan, the Teutonic patriarch, on the other
side, was kindled anew (see No. 33). Halfdan is repulsed, and finally
falls in the war in which Volund got satisfaction by the fact that his
sword conquered Thor's Mjolner and made Thor retreat. But once more the
hope based on the sword of revenge is frustrated, this time by the
possessor of the sword itself, Volund's young kinsman, who' victor in
the war, but conquered by the love he cherished for Freyja, rescued by
him'becomes the husband of the fair asynje and gives the sword of Volund
to Frey, the god of the harvests. That, in spite of this crossing of his
plan of revenge, Volund still did not give it up may be taken for
granted. He is described not only as the most revengeful, but also as
the most persistent and patient person (see "Deor the Scald's
Complaint"), when patience could promote his plans. To make war on the
gods with the aid of the giants, when the sword of victory had fallen
into the hands of the latter, could not give him the least hope of
success. After the mythology has given Volund satisfaction for the
despicable judgment passed on the products of his skill, it unites the
chain of events in such a manner that the same weapon which refuted the
judgment and was to cause the ruin of the gods became their palladium
against its own maker. What was Volund able to do afterwards, and what
did line do' The answer to this question is given in the myth about
Thjasse. With Idun'the Hervor Alvitr of the heroic poem'he confined
himself in a mountain, whose halls he presumably decorated with all the
wonders which the sagas of the middle ages, describing splendid
mountain-halls and parks within the mountains, inherited from the
mythology. The mountain must have been situated in a region difficult of
access to the gods'according to Bragaraedur in Jotunheim. At all events,
Thjasse is there secure against every effort to disturb him, forcibly,
in his retreat. The means against the depredations of time and years
which Idun possesses have their virtue only when in her care. Without
this means, even the gods of Asgard are subject to the influence of
time, and are to grow old and die. And in the sense of a myth
symbolising nature, the same means must have had its share in the
rejuvenation of creation through the saps rising every year in trees and
herbs. The destruction of the world 'the approach of which Volund wished
to precipitate with his sword of revenge'must come slowly, but surely,
if Idun remains away from Asgard. This plan is frustrated by the gods
through Loki, as an instrument compelled by necessity'compelled by
necessity (Haustlaung, str. 11), although he delighted in the mischief
of deceiving even his allies. Near Thjasse's mountain-halls is a body of
water, on which he occasionally rows out to fish (Bragaraedur). Once,
when he rows out for this purpose, perhaps accompanied by Skade, Idun is
at home alone. Loki, who seems to have studied his customs, flies in a
borrowed feather guise into the mountain and steals Idun, who, changed
into a nut, is carried in his claws through space to Asgard. But the
robbing of Idun was not enough for Loki. He enticed Thjasse to pursue.
In his inconsiderate zeal, the latter dons his eagle guise and hastens
after the robber into Asgard's vaferflames, where he falls by the
javelins of the gods and by Thor's hammer. Sindre's work, the one
surpassed by Volund, causes his death, and is avenged. I have already
pointed out that this event explains Loki's words to Idun in Lokasenna,
where he speaks of the murder of one of the Ivalde sons, and insists
that she, Idun, embraced the one who caused his death.


The fate of the great artist and his tragical death help to throw light
on the character of Loki and on the part he played in the mythology.
Ivalde's sons are, in the beginning, the zealous friends of the gods,
and the decorators and protectors of their creation. They smithy
ornaments, which are the symbols of vegetation; and at their outpost by
the Elivagar they defend the domain of vegetation against Jotunheim's
powers of frost. As I have already stated, they are, like the Ribhus, at
the same time heroes, pronioters of growth, and artists of antiquity.
The mythology had also mannfestly endowed the sons of Ivalde with
pleasing qualities'profound knowledge of the mysteries of nature,
intelligence, strength, beauty, and with faithfulness toward their
beloved. We find that, in time of adversity, the brothers were firmly
united, and that their swan-maids love them in joy and in distress. For
the powers of evil it was, therefore, of the greatest moment to bring
about strife between the gods and these their "sworn men ". Loki, who is
a gedreynir (Thorsdrapa), "a searcher of the qualities of the soul," a
"tempter of the character," has discovered in the great artist of
antiquity the false but hitherto unawakened qualities of his
character'his ambition and irreconcilable thirst for revenge. These
qualities, particularly the latter, burst forth fully developed suddenly
after the injustice which, at Loki's instigation, the gods have done to
the sons of Ivalde. The thirst for revenge breaks out in ThjasseVolund
in a despicable misdeed. There is reason for assuming that the terrible
vengeance which, according to the heroic saga, he took against Nidhad,
and which had its counterpart in the mythology itself, was not the worst
crime which the epic of the Teutonic mythology had to blame him for.
Harbardsljod (20) alludes to another and worse one. Speaking of Thjasse
(str. 19), HárbardrLoke there boasts that' hardan jotun cc hugda
Hlebard vera, gaf han mer gambantein, en ec velta hann or viti.


Harbard-Loki here speaks of a giant who, in his mind, was a valiant
one, but whose "senses he stole," that is, whom he "cunningly deprived
of thought and reflection ". There are two circumstances to which these
words might apply. The one concerns the giant-builder who built the
Asgard-wall, and, angry on account of the trick by which Loki cheated
hini out of the compensation agreed on, rushed against the gods and was
slain by Thor. The other concerns Thjasse, who, seeming his beloved
carried away by Loki and his plan about to be frustrated, recklessly
rushed into his certain ruin. The real name of the giant alluded to is
not given, but it is indicated by tIme epithet Hlebardr, which,
according to the Younger Edda, (ii. 484), is a synonym of Vargr and
Gyldir. It has already been shown above that Vargr in Thorsdrapa and
Fjallgyldir in Haustlaung are epithets of Thjasse. Loki says that this
same giant, whose sense he cunningly robbed, had previously given him a
gambanteinn. This word means a weapon made by Volund.


Holtzmann and Bergmann have long since pointed out that Harbard is
identical with Loki. The idea that Harbard, who in every trait is Loki
in Lokasenna, and, like him, appears as a mocker of the gods and boasts
of his evil deeds and of his success with the fair sex, should be Odin,
is one of the proofs showing how an unmethodical symbolic interpretation
could go astray. In the second part of this work I shall fully discuss
Harbardsljod. Proofs are to be found froni the last days of heathendom
in Iceland that it was then well known that the Harbard who is mentioned
in this poem was a foe of the gods.


His sword of revenge and victory is called gambanteinn in Skirnersmal.
But gambanteinn is, at the same time, a synonyma of mistelteinn, hence,
in an Icelandic saga from the Christian time, Volund's sword of victory
also reappears by the name mistelteinn (see No. 60). Thus the giant
Hlebard gave Loki a weapon, which, according to its designation, is
either Volund's sword of victory or the mistletoe. It cannot be the
sword of victory. We know the hands to which this sword has gone and is
to go: Volund's, Mimir-Nidhad's, the night-dis Sinmara's, Svipdag's,
Frey's, Aurboda's and Eggther's, and finally Fjalar's and Surt's. The
weapon which Thjasse's namesake Hhebard gives Loki must, accordingly,
have been the mistletoe. In this connection we must bear in mind what is
said of the mistletoe. Unfortunately, the few words of Völuspa are the
only entirely reliable record we have on this subject; but certain
features of Gylfaginning's account (Younger Edda, i. 172-174) may be
mythologically correct. "Slender and fair"'not dangerous and fair to
behold'grew, according to Völuspa, the mistletoe, "higher than the
fields" (as a parasite on the trees) ; but from the shrub which seemed
innocent became "a dangerous arrow of pain," which Hodr hurled.
According to a poetic fragment united with Vegtamskvida ("Balder's
draumar"), and according to Gylfaginning, the gods had previously
exacted an oath from all things not to harm Balder; but, according to
Gylfaginning, they had omitted to exact an oath from one thing, namely,
the mistletoe. By cunning Loki found this out. He went and pulled up the
mistletoe, which he was afterwards able to put into Hoder's hand, while,
according to Gylfa- ginning, the gods were amusing themselves by seeing
how every weapon aimed at Balder hit him without harming him. But that
Loki should band Hoder this shrub in the form in which it had grown on
the tree, and that Hoder should use it in this form to shoot Balder, is
as improbable as that Hoder was blind. We must take


 When I come to consider the Balder-myth in the second part of this
work, I shall point out the source from which the author of
Gylfaginning, misunderstandingly, has drawn the conclusion that the man
of exploits, the warrior, the archer, and the hunter Hoder was blind.
The misunderstanding gave welcome support to the symbolic
interpretation, which, in the blind Hoder, found among other things a
symbol of night (but night has "many eyes").


Voluspa's words to mean that the shrub became an arrow, and we must
conceive that this arrow looked like every other arrow, and for this
very reason did not awaken suspicion. Otherwise the suspicion would at
once have been awakened, for they who had exacted the oath of things,
and Frigg who had sent the messengers to exact the oaths, knew that the
mistletoe was the only thing in the whole world that had not been sworn
The heathen songs nowhere betray such inconsistencies and such
thoughtlessness as abound in the accounts of the Younger Edda. The
former are always well conceived, at times incisive, and they always
reveal a keen sense of everything that may give even to the miraculous
the appearance of reality and logic. The mistletoe was made into an
arrow by some one who knew how to turn it into a "dangerous arrow of
pain" in an infallible manner. The unhappy shot depended on the magic
qualities that were given to the mistletoe by the hands that changed it
into an arrow. The event becomes comprehensible, and the statements
found in the various sources dovetail together and bear the test of
sound criticism, if Loki, availing himself of the only thing which had
not been bound by oath not to harni Balder, goes with this shrub, which
of itself was innocent and hardly fit for an arrow, to the artist who
hated the gods, to the artist who had smithied the sword of revenge, and
if the latter, with his magic skill as a smith, makes out of the
rnistelteinn a new gambanteinn dangerous to the gods, and gives the
weapon to Loki in order that he might accomplish his evil purpose
therewith. As Hlebard is a Thjasse-synonym, as this Thjasse-synonym is
connected with the weapon-name gambanteinn, which indicates a
Thjasse-work, and as Loki has treated Thjasse as he says he has treated
Hlebard'by a cunning act he robbed him of his senses'then all accessible
facts go to establish the theory that by Hlebard is meant the celebrated
ancient artist deceived by Loki. And as Hlebard has given him a weapon
which is designated by the name of the sword of revenge, but which is
not the sword of revenge, while the latter, on the other hand and for
corresponding reasons, also gets the name mistelteinn, then all the
facts go to show that the weapon which Hiebard gave to Loki was the
mistletoe fraught with woe and changed to an arrow. If Gylfaginning's
unreliable account, based on fragmentary and partly misunderstood mythic
records presented in a disjointed manner, had not been found, and if we
had been referred exclusively to the few but reliable statements which
are to be found in regard to the matter in the poetic songs, then a
correct picture of this episode, though not so complete as to details,
would have been the result of a compilation of the statements extant.
The result would then have been: (1) Balder was slain by an arrow shot
by Hoder (Völuspa, Vegtamskvida); (2) Hoder was not the real slayer, but
Loki (Lokasenna, 28) ; (3) the material of which the arrow was made was
a tender or slender (mjór) mistletoe (Völuspa) ; (4) previously all
things had sworn not to harm Balder (" Balder's draumar"), but the
mistletoe must, for some reason or other, have been overlooked by the
messengers sent out to exact the oaths, since Balder was mortally
wounded by it; (5) since it was Loki who arranged (red) matters so that
this happened, it must have been he who had charge of the mistletoe for
the carrying out of his evil purpose; (6) the mistletoe fell into the
hands of a giant-smith hostile to the gods, and mnentioned under
circumstances that refer to Thjasse (Harbardsljod); (7) by his skill as
a smith he gave such qualities to the mistletoe as to change it into "a
dangerous arrow of pain," and then gave the arrow to Loki
(Harbardsljod); (8) from Loki's hands it passed into Hoder's, and was
shot by the latter (Lokasenna, Völuspa).


It is dangerous to employ nature-symbolism as a means of mythological
investigation. It is unserviceable for that purpose, so long as it
cannot be subjected to the rules of severe methodics. On the other hand,
it is admissible and justifiable to consider from a natural symbolic
standpoint the results gained in a mythological investigation by the
methodological system. If, as already indicated, Hlebard is identical
with Thjasse-Volund, then he who was the cause of the fimbul-winter and
sent the powers of frost out upon the earth, also had his hand in the
death of the sun-god Balder and in his descent to the lower world. There
is logic in this. And there is logic in the very fact that the weapon
with which the sun-god is slain is made from the mistletoe, which
blossoms and produces fruit in the winter, and is a plant which rather
shuns than seeks the light of the sun. When we remember how the popular
traditions have explained the appearance and qualities of various
animals and plants by connecting them with the figures of mythology or
of legendary lore, then I suppose it is possible that the popular fancy
saw in the mistletoe's dread of light the effect of grief and shame at
having been an instrument in evil hands for evil purposes. Various
things indicate that the mistletoe originally was a sacred plant, not
only among the Celts, but also among the Teutons. The Hindooic Aryans
also knew sacred parasitical plants.


The word gamban which forms a part of gambanteinn means "compensation,"
"ransom," when used as a noun, and otherwise "retaliating ". In the
Anglo-Saxon poetry occurs (see Grein's Dictionary) the phrase gamban
gyldan, "to compensate," "to pay dues ". In the Norse sources gamban
occurs only in the cornpounids gambanteinn (Skirnersmal, 32;
Harbardsljod, 20), gambanreidi (Skirnersmal, 33), and gambansumbi
(Lokasenna, 8). In the song of Skirner, the latter threatens Gerd, who
refused Frey's offer of marriage, that she shall be struck by
gambanreidi goda, the avenging wrath of the gods. In Lokasenna, Loki
comes unbidden into the banquet of the gods in Ćgir's hall to mix
bitterness with their gladness, and he demands either a place at the
banquet table or to be turned out of doors. Brage answers that the gods
never will grant him a seat at a banquet, "since they well know for whom
among beings they are to prepare gambansumbl," a banquet of revenge or a
drink of revenge. This he manifestly mentions as a threat, referring to
the fate which soon afterwards happens to Loki, when he is captured and
bound, and when a venom-spitting serpent is fastened above his mouth.
For the common assumption that gamban means something "grand,"
"magnificent," "divine," there is not a single shadow of reason.
Gambanteinn is accordingly "the twig of revenge," and thus we have the
mythological reason why Thjasse-Volund's sword of revenge and the
mistletoe arrow were so called. With them he desires to avenge the
insult to which he refers in Volundarkvida, 28: Nu hefi ec hefnt harma
minna allra nema einna iviţgjarnra.


117.


THE GUARD AT HVERGELMER AND THE ELIVAGAR.


It has already been shown (see Nos. 59, 93) that the Elivagar have
their source in the subterranean fountain Hvergelmer, situated on a
mountain, which separates the subterranean region of bliss (Hel) from
Nifelhel. Here, near the source of the Elivagar, stands the great
world-mill, which revolves the starry heavens, causes the ebb and flood
of the ocean and regulates its currents, and grinds the bodies of the
primeval giants into layers of mould on the rocky substrata (see Nos.
79, 80). From Hvergelmer, the mother of all waters, the northern root of
the world-tree draws saps, which rise into its topmost branches,
evaporate into Eikţyrnir above Asgard, and flow thence as vafer-laden
clouds (see No. 36), which emit fructifying showers upon Midgard, and
through the earth they return to their original source, the fountain
Hvergelmer. The Hvergelmer mountain (the Nida-mountains, Nidafjöll)
cannot have been left without care and protection, as it is of so vast
importance in the economy of the world, and this the less since it at
the same time forms the boundary between the lower world's realm of
bliss and Nifelhel, the subterranean Jotunheim, whose frostthurses
sustain the same relation to the inhabitants on the evergreen fields of
bliss as the powers of frost in the upper Jotunheim sustain to the gods
of Asgard and to the inhabitants of Midgard There is no reason for
assuming that the guard of brave sworn warriors of the Asgard gods,
those warriors whom we have already seen in array near the Elivagar,
should have only a part of this body of water to keep watch over. The
clan of the elves, under their chiefs, the three sons of Ivalde, even
though direct evidence were wanting, must be regarded as having watched
over the Elivagar along their whole extent, even to their source, and as
having had the same important duty in reference to the giants of the
lower world as in reference to those of the upper. As its name
indicates, Nifelheim is shrouded in darkness and mist, against which the
peaks of the Hvergelmer mountain form the natural rampart as a
protection to the smiling fields of bliss. But gales and storms might
lift themselves above these peaks and enshroud even Mimir's and Urd's
realms in mist. The elves are endowed with power to hinder this. The
last strophe in Thorsdrapa, so interesting from a mythological
standpoint, confirms this view. Egil is there called hneitir
undir-fjálfs bliku, and is said to be helblótinn. Blika is a name for
clouds while they are still near the horizon and appear as pale vapours,
which to those skilled in regard to the weather forbode an approaching
storm (compare Vigfusson's Diet., 69). Undir-fjálfr is thought by
Egilson to mean subterranean mountains, by Vigfusson "the deep,"
abyssus. Hneitir undir -fjalfs bliku is "he wbo conquers (or resolves,
scatters) the clouds rising, storm-foreboding, from the abyss (or over
the lower-world mountain) ". As Egil can be thus character ised, it is
easy to explain why he is called helblótinn, "he who receives sacrifices
in the subterranean realm of bliss ". He guards the Teutonic elysian
fields against the powers of frost and the mists of Nifelheim, and
therefore receives tokens of gratitude from their pious inhabitants.


The vocation of the sons of Ivalde, as the keepers of the Hvergelmer
fountain and of the Elivagar, has its counterpart in the vocation which,
in the Iranian mythology, is attributed to Thjasse's prototype, the
star-hero Tistrya (Tishya). The fountain Hvergelmer, the source of the
ocean and of all waters, has in the Iranian mythology its counterpart in
the immense body of water Vourukasha. Just as the Teutonic world - tree
grows from its northern root out of Hvergelmer, the Iranian world-tree
Gaokerena grows out of Vourukasha (Bundehesh, 18). Vourukasha is guarded
by Tistrya, assisted by two heroes belonging to the class of
mythological beings that are called Yazatas (Izads; in the Veda
literature Yajata), "they who deserve offerings," and in the Iranian
mythology they form the third rank of divine beings, and thus correspond
to the elves of the Teutonic mythology. Assisted by these two heroes and
by the " ferves of the just," Tistrya defends Vourukasha, and
occasionally fights against the demon Apaosha, who desires to destroy
the world (Buadehesh, 7). Tistrya, as such, appears in three forms: as a
youth with bright and glistening eyes, as a wild boar, and as a horse.
Can it be an accident that these forms have their counterparts in the
Teutonic mythology in the fact that one of Thjasse's brothers
(EgilOrvandel-Ebur) has the epithet "wild boar," and that, as shall be
shown below, his other brother (Slagfin) bears the epithet Hengest, and
that Thjasse-Volund himself, who for years was possessor of, and
presumably invented, the "remedy against aging," which Idun, his
beloved, has charge of'that Thjasse-Volund himself was regarded as a
youth with a "white neck" (Volundarkvida, 2) and with glittering eyes
(Volundarkvida, 17), which after his death were placed in the heavens as
stars'


118.


SLAGFIN. HIS IDENTITY WITH GJUKE. SLAGFIN, EGIL, AND VOLUND ARE NIFLUNGS.


I now, come to the third Ivalde son, Slagfin. The name Slagfin
(Slagfir) occurs nowhere else than in Volundarkvida, and in the prose
introduction to the same. All that we learn of him is that, like Egil,
he accompanied his brother Volund to the Wolf-dales; that, like them, he
runs on skees and is a hunter; and that, when the swan-maids, in the
ninth year of their abode in the Wolf-dales, are overcome by longing and
return to the south, he goes away to find his beloved, just as Egil goes
to find his. We learn, furthermore, that Slagfin's swan-maid is a sister
of Volund's and a kinswoman of Egil's, and that she, accordingly, is
Slagfin's sister (half-sister). She is called Hlagur Svanhvit, likewise
a name which occurs nowhere else. Her (and accordingly also that of
Volund's swan-maid) mother is called Swan - feather, Svanfjödr
(Slagfin's beloved is Svanfjarar drós'str. 2). The name Svanfeather
reminds us of the Svanhild Gold-feather mentioned in Fornm., ii. 7, wife
of one Finalf. If Svanfeather is identical with Svanhild Gold-feather,
then Finalf must originally be identical with Ivalde, who also is an elf
and bears the name Finnakonungr, Sumblus Phinnorum rex. But this then
simply confirms what we already know, namely, that the Ivalde sons and
two of the swan-maids are brothers and sisters. It, however, gives us no
clue by which we can trace Slagfin in other sources, and rediscover him
bearing other names, and restore the myth concerning him which seems to
be lost. That he, however, played an important part in the mythology may
be assumed already from the fact that his brothers hold places so
central in the great epic of the mythology. It is, therefore, highly
probable that he is mentioned in our mythic fragments, though concealed
under some other name. One of these names, viz., Ide, we have already
found (see No. 114); and thereby we have learned that he, with his
brother Egil, had a citadel near the Elivagar, and guarded their coasts
against the powers of frost. But of his fate in general we are ignorant.
No extensive researches are required, however, before we find
circumstances which, compared with each other, give us the result that
Slagfin is Gjuke, and therewith the way is open for a nearer
acquaintance with his position in the heroic saga, and before that in
the mythology. His identity with Gjuke is manifest from the following
circumstances:


The Gjukungs, famous in the heroic saga, are, according to the saga
itself, the first ones who bear this name. Their father is Gjuke, from
whom this patronymic is derived. Through their father they belong to a
race that is called Hniflungs, Niflungs, Nebelungs. The Gjukungs form a
branch of the Niflung race, hence all Gjukungs are Nifiungs, but not all
Nifiungs Gjukungs. The Younger Edda says correctly, Af Niflunga ćtt var'
Gjuki (Younger Edda, i. 522), and Atlakvida (17) shows that the Gjukungs
constitute only a part of the Nifiungs. The identity of the Gjukungs in
this relative sense with the Niflungs is known and pointed out in
Atlamal (47, 52, 88), in Brot of Sigardarkvida (16), in Atlakvida (11,
17, 27), and in "Drap Nifiunga ".


Who the Niflung race are in the widest sense of the word, or what known
heroes the race embraced besides Gjuke and his sons'to this question the
saga of Helge Hundingsbane (i. 48) gives important information, inasmuch
as the passage informs us that the hostile race which Helge
Hundingsbane'that is 'to say, Halfdan Borgarson (see No. 29)'combats are
the Niflungs. Foremost among the Niflungs Hodbrod is mentioned in this
poem, whose betrothed Helge (Halfdan Borgarson) gets into his power. It
has already been shown that, in this heroic poem, Hodbrod is the copy of
the mythological Orvandel-Egil (see Nos. 29, 32, 101). It follows that
Volund, Orvandel-Egil, and Slagfin are Niflungs, and that Gjuke either
is identical with one of them or that he at all events is descended from
the same progenitor as they.


The great treasure of works smithied from gold and other precious
things which the Gjukungs owned, according to the heroic traditions, are
designated in the different sources in the same manner as inherited. In
Atlakvida (11) the Gjukung treasure is called arf Niflunga; so also in
Atlakvida (27). In Gudrunarkvida (ii. 25) the queen of the deceased
Gjuke promises her and Gjuke's daughter, Gudrun, that she is to have the
control of all the treasures after" (at) her dead father (fjöld allz
fjar at ţin fauur daudan), and we are told that those treasures,
together with the halls in which they were kept and the precious
carpets, are an inheritance after (at) Hlaudver," the fallen prince"
(hringa rauda Hlaudves sali, arsal allan at jofur fallin). From
Volundarkvida we gather that Volund's and Slagfin's swan-maids are
daughters of Hlaudver and sisters of their lovers. Thus Hlaudver is
identical with Ivalde, Volund's, Egil's, and Slagfin's father (see No.
123). Ivalde's splendidly decorated halls, together with at least one
son's share of his golden treasures, have thus passed as an inheritance
to Gjuke, and from Gjuke to his sons, the Gjukungs. While the first song
about Helge Hundingsbane tells us that Volund, Egil, and Slagfin were,
like Gjuke, Niflungs, we here learn that Gjuke was the heir of Volund's,
Egil's, and Slagfin's father. And while Thorsdrapa, compared with other
sources, has already informed us that IdeSlagfin and Gang-Egil inhabited
that citadel near the Elivagar which is called "Ide's chalet" and
Geirvadel's (Geirvandel's) chalet, and while Geirvandel is demonstrably
an epithet of Ivalde, and as Ivalde's citadel accordingly passed into
the possession of Slagfin and Egil, we here find that Ivalde's citadel
was inherited by Gjuke. Finally, we must compare herewith Bragaraedur
(oh. 2), where it is said that Ivalde (there called Olvalde) was
survived by his sons, who harmoniously divided his great treasures. Thus
Gjuke is one of the sons of Ivalde, and inherited halls and treasures
after Ivalde; and as he can be neither Volund nor Egil, whose fates we
already know, he must be Slagfin'a result confirmed by the evidence
which we shall gradually present below.


119.


THE NIFLUNG HOARD IS THE TREASURE LEFT BY VOLUND AND HIS BROTHERS.


When Volund and Egil, angry at the gods, abandoned Frey to the power of
the giants and set out for the Wolfdales, they were unable to take with
them their immense treasures inherited from their father and augmented
by themselves. Nor did they need them for their purposes. Volund carried
with him a golden fountain in his wealth-bringing arm-ring (see Nos. 87,
98, 101)


In Saxo Gervandillus (Geirvandill) is the father of Horvandillus
(Orvandill). Orvandel has been proved to be identical with Egil. And as
Egil is the son of Ivalde, Geirvandel is identical with Ivalde. from
which the seven hundred rings, that Nidhad to his astonishment
discovered in his smithy, must have come. But the riches left by the
brothers ought not to fall into the hands of the gods, who were their
enemmes. Consequently they were concealed. Saxo (Hist., 193) says of the
father of Svipdag-Ericus, that is to say, of Orvandel-Egil, that he long
had had great treasures concealed in earth caves (gazae, quas diu
clausae telluris antra. condiderant). The same is true of Gjuke-Slagfin,
who went with his brothers to the Wolfdales. Vilkinasaga (see below) has
rescued an account of a treasure which was preserved in the interior of
a mountain, and which he owned. The same is still more and particularly
applicable to Volund, as he was the most famous smith of the mythology
and of the heroic saga. The popular fancy conceived these treasures left
and concealed by Volund as being kept in earth caves, or in mountain
halls, guarded and brooded over by dragons. Or it conceived them as
lying on the bottom of the sea, or in the bottom of deep rivers ,
guarded by some dwarf inhabiting a rocky island near by. Many of the
songs and sagas of heathendom and of the older days of Christianity were
connected with the refinding and acquisition of' the Niblung hoard by
some hero or other as the Volsung Sigmund, the Borgar descendant
HaddingDieterich, and Siegfried-Sigurd-Fafnersbane. The Niflung
treasure, hodd Niflunga (Atlakvida, 26), Nibelunge Hon, is in its more
limited sense these Volund treasures, and in its most general
signification the golden wealth left by the three brothers. This wealth
the saga represents as gathered again largely in the hands of the
Gjukungs, after Sigurd, upon the victory over Fafner, has reunited the
most important one of Volund's concealed treasures with that of the
Gjukung's, and has married the Gjukung sister Gudrun. The German
tradition, preserved in middle-age poems, shows that the continental
Teutons long remembered that the Nibelunge Hort originally was owned by
Volund, Egil, and Slagfin-Gjuke. In Lied von Siegfried the treasure is
owned by three brothers who are "Niblungs ". Only one of them is named,
and he is called King Euglin, a name which, with its variation Eugel,
manifestly is a variation of Eigel, as be is called in the Orentel saga
and in Vilkinasaga, and of Egil as he is called in the Norse records.
King Euglin is, according to Lied von Siegfried, an interpreter of
stars. Siegfried bids him Lasz mich deyner kunst geniessen, Astronomey
genannt. This peculiar statement is explained by the myth according to
which Orvandel-Egil is a star-hero. Egil becomes, like Atlas of the
antique mythology, a king versed in astronomy in the historical
interpretation of mythology. In Nibelunge Noth the treasure is owned by
"the valiant" Niblungs, Schilbune and Niblune. Schilbune is the Norse
Skilfingr, and I have already shown above that IvaldeSvigder is the
progenitor of the Skilfings. The poem Biterolf knows that the treasure
originally belonged to Nibelót, der machet himele guldin; selber wolt er
got sin. These remarkable words have their only explanation in the myths
concerning the Niflung Volund, who first ornamented Asgard with golden
works of art, and subsequently wished to destroy the inhabitants of
Asgard in order to be god himself. The Norse heroic saga makes the
treasures brooded over by Fafner to have been previously guarded by the
dwarf Andvare, and makes the latter (Sigurdarkvida Fafn., ii. 3) refer
to the first owner. The saga characterises the treasure guarded by him
as ţat gull, er Gustr atti. In the very nature of the case the first
nnaker and possessor of these works must have been one of the most
celebrated artists of the mythology; and as Gustr. means "wind," "breath
of wind"; as, again, Volund in the mythology is the only artist who is
designated by a synonym of Gustr, that is, by Byrr, "wind"
(Volundarkvida, 12), and by Loptr, "the airy one" (Fjölsvinnsmal, 26) ;
as, furthermore, the song cycle concerning Sigurd Fafnersbane is
connected with the children of Gjuke, Volund's brother, and in several
other respects strikes roots down into the myth concerning Ivalde's
sons; and as, finally, the German tradition shows an original connection
between Nibelunge Hort and the treasures of the Ivalde sons, then every
fact goes to show that in Gastr we have an epithet of Volund, and that
the Niflung hoard, both in the Norse and in the German Sigurd-Siegfried
saga was the inheritance and the works of Volund and his brothers.
Vigfusson assumes that the first part of the compound Slagfin is slagr,
"a tone," "a melody," played on a stringed instrument. The correctness
of this opinion is corroborated by the fact that Slagfin-Gjuke's son,
Gunnar, is the greatest player on stringed instruments in the heroic
literature. In the den of serpents he still plays his harp, so that the
crawling venomous creatures are enchanted by the tones. This wonderful
art of his is explained by the fact that his father is "the stringed
instrument's" Finn, that is, Slagfin. The horse Grane, who carries
Sigurd and the hoard taken from Fafner, probably at one time bore Volund
himself, when he proceeded to the Wolfdales. Grane at all events had a
place in the Volund-myth. The way traversed by Volund from his own
golden realm to the Wolfdales, and which in part was through the
northern regions of the lower world (fyr nágrindr nedan'Fjolsvinnsmal,
26) is in Volundarkvida (14) called Granes way. Finally, it must here be
stated that Sigurdrifva, to whom Sigurd proceeds after he has gotten
possession of Fafner's treasure (Griperssaga, 13-15), is a mythic
character transferred to the heroic saga, who, as shall be shown in the
second part of this work, held a conspicuous position in the myths
concerning the Ivalde sons and their swan-maids. She is, in fact, the
heroic copy of Idun, and originally she had nothing to do with Budle's
daughter Brynhild. The cycle of the Sigurd songs thus attaches itself as
the last ring or circle in the powerful epic to the myth concerning the
Ivalde sons. The Sigurd songs arch themselves over the fateful treasures
which were smithied and left by the fallen Lucifer of the Teutonic
mythology, and which, like his sword of revenge and his arrow of
revenge, are filled with curses and coming woe. In the heroic poems the
Ivalde sons are their owners. The son's son Svipdag wields the sword of
revenge. The son's sons Gunnar and Hogne go as the possessors of the
Niblung treasure to meet their ruin. The myth concerning their fathers,
the Ivalde sons, arches itself over the enmity caused by Loki between
the gods on the one hand, and the great artists, the elf-princes, the
protectors of growth, the personified forces of the life of nature, on
the other hand. In connection herewith the myth about Ivalde himself
revolves mainly around "the mead," the soma, the strength-giving saps in
nature. He too, like his sons afterwards,gets into conflict with the
gods and rebels against them, seeks to deprive them of the soma sap
which he had discovered, allies himself with Suttung's sons, in whose
keeping the precious liquid is rediscovered, and is slain outside of
their door, while Odin is within and carries out the plan by which the
mead becomes accessible to gods and to men (see No. 89). This chain of
events thus continues through three generations. And interwoven with it
is the chain of events opposed to it, which develops through the
generations of the other great mythic race of heroes: that of the
Heimdal son Borgar, of the Borgar son Halfdan, and of the Halfdan sons
Hadding and Guthorm (Dieterich and Ermenrich). Borgar fights and must
yield to the assault of Ivalde, and subsequently of his sons from the
North in alliance with the powers of frost (see Nos. 22, 28). Halfdan
contends with Ivalde's sons, recaptures for vegetation the Teutonic
country as far as to "Svarin's mound," but is slain by Ivalde's grandson
Svipdag, armed wit.h the Volund sword (see Nos. 32, 33, 102, 103). In
the conflict between Svipdag and Guthorm-Ermenrich on the one side, and
Hadding on the other, we see the champions divided into two camps
according to the mythological antecedents of their families: Amalians
and Hildings on Hadding's side, the descendants of Ivalde on the other
(see Nos. 42, 43). Accordingly, the Gjukungs, "the kings on the Rhine,"
are in the German tradition on Ermenrich's side. Accordingly, Vidga
Volundson, in spite of his bond of friendship with HaddingDieterich,
also fights under Ermenrich's banner. Accordingly, Vildebur-Egil is
again called to life in the heroic saga, and there appears as the
protector and helper of the Volund son, his own nephew. And accordingly,
Vate-Walther, too (see No. 123), identical with Ivalde, Volund's father,
is reproduced in the heroic saga to bear the banner of Ermenrich in the
battles (cp. No. 43).


120.


SLAGFIN-GJUKE'S SYNONYMS: ŢANKRAT (DAKKRADR), IRUNG, ALDRIAN. SLAGFIN A
STAR-HERO LIKE HIS BROTHERS. ALDRIAN'S IDENTITY WITH CHELDRICUS-GELDERUS.


Slagfin-Gjuke has many names in the German traditions, as in the Norse.
Along with the name Gibich, Gibche (Gjuke), occur the synonyms Dankrat,
Irung, and Aldrian. In the latter part of Nibelunge Noth Gibich is
called Dankrat (cp. "Klage"; Biterolf also has the name Dankrat, and
speaks of it in a manner which shows that in some of the sources used by
the author Dankrat was a synonym of Gibich). In Vilkinasaga Gjuke
appears now as Irung, now as Aldrian. Aldrian is (Vilkinasaga, 150) king
of Niflungaland, and has the sons Hogne, Gunnar, Gernoz, and Gilzer.
Irung (Vilkin., 15) is also king of Niflungaland, and has the sons
Hogne, Gunnar, Gudzorm, Gemoz, and Gisler. As Gjuke also is a Niflung,
and has the sons Hogne, Gunnar, and Guthon'm, there can be no doubt that
Gjuke, Gibche, Dankrat, Irung, and Aldrian are synonyms, designating one
and the same person, namely, Volundarkvida's Slagfin, the Ide of the
mythology. Nibelunge Noth, too, speaks of Aldrian as the father of Hagen
(Hogne). Aldrian's wife is called Oda, Gibich's "Frau Uote," Dankrat's
"Frau Ute ".


The Norse form for Dankrat (Tancred) is ţakkradr, Thakkrad. This name
appears a single time in the Norse records, and then in connection with
Volund and Nidhad. In Volundarkvida (39) Thakkrad is mentioned as
Nidhad's chief servant, who still remains in his service when Volund,
his revenge accomplished, flies in an eagle's guise away from his
prison. That this servant bears a name that belongs to Slagfin-Gjuke,
Volund's brother, cannot be an accident. We must compare an account in
Vilkinasaga, according to which Volund's other brother Egil was in
Nidhad's service when Volund flew away. It follows that the heroic saga
made not only Volund, but also Slagfin and Egil, fall into Nidhad's
hands. Both in Volundarkvida itself and in its prose introduction we
read that when the home-sick swan-maids had left the Wolfdales, Egil and
Slagfin betook themselves thence, Egil going to the east to look for his
swan-maid Olrun, Slagfin going south to find his Svanhvit
(Volundarkvida, 4), and that Nidhad thereupon learned'the song does not
say how'that Volund was alone in the Wolfdales (Volundarkvida, 6). The
assumption here lies near at hand, that Nidhad found it out from the
fact that Slagfin and Egil, though going away in different directions,
fell into his power while they were looking for their beloved. Whether
this feature belonged to the myth or not cannot be determined. At all
events it is remarkable that we refind in Volundarkvida the Gjuke name
Thakkrad, as in Vilkinasaga we find Volund's brotlner Egil in Nidhad's
environment.


The name Irung, Iring, as a synonym of Gjuke, is of more iniportance
from a mythological point of view. Widukind of Corvei (about the year
950) tells us in ch. 13 of his Saxon Chronicle that "the Milky Way is
designated by Iring's name even to this day ". Just previously he has
mentioned a Saxon warrior by this nanie, whom he believes to have been
the cause of this appellation (. . . Iringi nomine, quem ita vocitant,
lacteus eaeli circulus sit vocalus; and in the Aursberg Chronicle,
according to J. Grimm, . . lacteus caeli circulus Iringis, nomine
Iringessiraza sit vocatus). According to Anglo-Saxon glossaries, the
Milky Way is called Iringes uueg. With this we should compare the
statements made above, that the Milky Way among the Teutonic population
of England was called the way of the Wathings (that is, the descendants
of Vate, i.e., Ivalde). Both the statements harmonise. In the one it is
the descendants of Ivalde in general, in the other it is SlagfinIring
whose name is connected with the Milky Way. Thus Slagfin, like Volund
and Orvandel-Egil, was a star-hero. In "Klage" it is said of Iring and
two other heroes, in whose company he appears in two other poems, that
they committed grave mnistakes and were declared banished, and that
they, in spite of efforts at reconciliation, remained under the penalty
to the end of their lives. Biterolf says that they were exiles and
threatened by their foes. Here we have a reverberation of the myth
concerning the conflict between the gods and the Ivalde sons, of Frey's
unsuccessful effort to reconcile the enemies, and of their flight to the
extreme north of the earth. In the German poems they take flight to Attila.


The Gjuke synonym Aldrian is a name formed in analogy with Aibrian,
which is a variation of Elberich. In analogy herewith Aidrian should be
a variation of Elderich, Helderich. In Galfrid of Monmouth's British
History there is a Saxon saga-hero Cheldricus, who, in alliance with a
Saxon chief Baldulf, fights with King Artus' general Cador, and is slain
by him. How far the name-forms Aldrian-Elderich have any connection with
the Latinised Cheldricus I think best to leave undetermined; but there
are other reasons which, independently of a real or apparent
name-identity, indicate that this Cheldricus is the same person as
AldrianGjuke. Bugge has already pointed out that Baldrian corresponds to
Balder, Cador to Hodr; that Galfrid's account has points of contact with
Saxo's about the war between Balder and Hoder, and that Galfrid's
Cheldricus corresponds to Saxo's King Gelderus, Geldr, who fights with
Hoder and falls in conflict with him.


That which at once strikes us in Saxo's account of Gelderus (see No.
101) is that he takes arms against Hotherus, when he learns that the
latter has got possession of the sword of victory and the
wealth-producing ring'treasures that were smithied by Volund, and in
that sense belonged to the Niblung hoard. That Saxo in this manner gave
a reason for the appearance of Gelderus can only be explained by the
fact that Gelderus had been in some way connected with the Niblung
hoard, and looked upon himself as more entitled to it than Hotherus.
This right could hardly be based on any other reason than the fact that
Gelderus was a Niflung, a kinsman of the maker and owner of the
treasures. In the Vilkinasaga the keeper and protector of the Niblung
hoard, the one who has the key to the rocky chambers where the hoard is
kept bears the very name Aldrian, consequently the very surname of
SlagfinGjuke, Volund's and Egil's brother. This of itself indicates that
Gelderus is Slagfin-Aldrian.


121.


SLAGFIN'S IDENTITY WITH HJUKE. HIS APPEARANCE IN THE MOON-MYTH AND IN
THE BALDER-MYTH. BIL'S IDENTITY WITH IDUN.


From Slagfin-Gelderus' part in the war between the two divine brothers
Balder and Hoder, as described both by Saxo and by Galfrid, we must draw
the conclusion that he is a mythic person historified, and one who had
taken an important part in the Balder-myth as Balder's friend, and also
as Hoder's, though he bore weapons against the latter. According to
Saxo, Hoder honours the dust of his slain opponent Gelderus in a manner
which indicates a previous friendly relation between them. He first
gives Gelderus a most splendid funeral (pulcherrimum funeris obsequium),
then he builds a magnificent grave-mound for him, and decorates it with
tokens of his respect (veneratio) for the dead one.


The position of Slagfin-Gelderus to the two contending divine brothers,
his brothership-in-arms with Balder, the respect and devotion he
receives from his opponent Hoder, can only be explained by the fact that
he had very intimate relations with the two brothers and with the
mythical persons who play a part in the Balder-myth, According to Saxo,
Hoder was fostered by Gevarr, the moon-god, Nanna's father. As Nanna's
foster-brother, he falls in love with her who becomes the wife of his
brother, Balder. Now the mythology actually mentions an individual who
was adopted by the moon-god, and accordingly was Hoder's foster-brother,
but does not in fact belong to the number of real gods. This foster-son
inherits in the old Norse records one of the names with which the
moon-god is designated in the Anglo-Saxon poems'that is, Hove, a name
identical with the Norse Hjuke. Hnaf (Hnaefr, Naefr, Nanna's father) is
also, as already shown, called Hoce in the Beowulf poem (see Nos. 90,
91). From the story about Bil and Hjuke, belonging to the myth about the
mead and preserved in the Younger Edda, we know that the moon-god took
these children to himself, when they were to carry to their father,
Vidfinnr, the precious burden which they had dipped out of the
mead-fountain, Byrger (see Nos. 90, 91).


That this taking up was equivalent to an adoption of these children by
the moon-god is manifest from the position Bil afterwards got in the
circle of gods. She becomes an asynje (Younger Edda, 1. 118, 556) and
distributes the Teutonic mythological soma, the creative sap of nature
and inspiration, the same liquid as she carried when she was taken up by
the moon-god. The skalds of earth pray to her (ef unna itr vildi Bil
skáldi !), and Asgard's skald-god, Brage, refreshes himself with her in
GevarrNokver's silver-ship (see Sonatorrek; cp. Nos. 90, 91). Odin came
to her every day and got a drink from the mead of the moon-ship, when
the latter was sinking toward the horizon in the west. The ship is in
Grimnersmal called Sokkvabekkr, "the setting or sinking ship," in which
Odin and Saga "daily drink from golden goblets," while "cool billows in
soughing sound flow over" the place where they sit. The cool billows
that roar over Sokvabek are the waves of the atmospheric sea, in which
Nokver's ship sails, and they are the waves of the ocean when the
silver-ship sinks into the sea. The epithet Saga is used in the same
manner as Bil, and it probably has the same reason for its origin as
that which led the skalds to call the bucket which Bil and Hjuke carried
Sćgr. Bil, again, is merely a synonym of Idun. In Haustlaung, Idun is
called Byrgis ar-Gefn, "Byrger's harvest-giving dis"; Thjasse is called
Byrgis ár'-Gefnar bjarga-Tyr, "Byrger's harvest-giving dis, mountain-Tyr
". Idun is thus named partly after the fountain from which Bil and Hj
uke fetched the mead, partly after the bucket in which it was carried.


That Hjuke, like Bil-Idun, was regarded by the moon-god as a
foster-child, should not be doubted, the less so as we have already seen
that he, in the Norse sources, bears his foster-father's name. As an
adopted son of the moon-god, he is a foster-brother of Hoder and Nanna.
Hjuke must therefore have occupied a position in the mythology similar
to that in which we find Gelderus as a brother-in-arms of Nanna's
husband, and as one who was held in friendship even by his opponent,
Hoder. As a brother of the Ivalde daughter, Bil-Idun, he too must be an
Ivalde son, and consequently one of the three brothers, either Slagfin,
or OrvandelEgil, or Volund. The mythic context does not permit his
identification with Volund or Egil. Consequently he must be Slagfin.
That Gelderus is Slagfin has already been shown.


This also explains how, in Christian times, when the myths were told as
history, the Niflungs-Gjukungs were said to be descended from Nćfr,
Nefir (Nefir er Nrflungar eru frá komnir' Younger Edda, i. 520). It is
connected with the fact that Slagfin, like his brothers, is a Nifiung
(see No. 118) and an adopted son of the moon-god, whose name he bore.


Bil's and Hjuke's father is called Vidfinnr. We have already seen that
Slagfin's and his brothers' father, Ivalde, is called Finnr,
Finnakonungr (Introduction to Volundarkvida), and that he is identical
with Sumbl Finnakonungr, and Finnalfr. In fact the name Finnr never
occurs in the mythic records, either alone or in compounds or in
paraphrases, except where it alludes to Ivalde or his son, Slagfin.
Thus, for instance, the byrnie, Finnzlesf in Ynglingsaga, is borne by a
historified mythic person, by whose name Saxo called a foster-son of
Gevarr, the moon-god. The reason why Ivalde got the name Finnr shall be
given below (see No. 123). And as Ivalde (Sumbl Finnakonungr'Olvalde)
plays an important part in the mead-myth, and as the same is true of
Vidfin, who is robbed of Byrger's liquid, then there is every reason for
the conclusion that Vidfin's, Hjuke's, and Bil-Idun's father is
identical with Finnakonungr, the father of Slagfin and of his sister.


Gjuke and Hjuke are therefore names borne by one and the same person'by
Slagfin, the Niflung, who is the progenitor of the Gjukungs. They also
look like analogous formations from different roots.


This also gives us the explanation of the name of the Asgard bridge,
Bilrost, "Bil's way ". The Milky Way is Bil-Idun's way, just as it is
her brother Hjuke's; for we have already seen that the Milky Way is
called Irung's way, and that Irung is a synonym of Slagfin-Gjuke. Bil
travelled the shining way when she was taken up to Asgard as an asynje.
Slagfin travelled it as Balder's and Hoder's foster-brother. If we now
add that the same way was travelled by Svipdag when he sought and found
Freyja in Asgard, and by Thjasse-Volund's daughter, Skade, when she
demanded from the gods a ransom for the slaying of her father, then we
find here no less than four descendants of Ivalde who have travelled
over the Milky Way to Asgard; and as Volund's father among his numerous
names also bore that of Vate, Vade (see Vilkinasaga), then this explains
how the Milky Way came to be called Watling Street in the Old English
literature.


In the mythology there was a circle of a few individuals who were
celebrated players on stringed instruments. They are Balder, Hoder,
Slagfin, and Brage. In the heroic poems the group is increased with
Slagfin-Gjuke's son, Gunnar, and with Hjarrandi, the Horund of the
German poem "Gudrun," to whom I shall recur in my treatise on the heroic
sagas. Balder's playing is remembered by Galfrid of Monmouth. Hoder's is
mentioned in Saxo, and perhaps also in the Edda's Hadarlag, a special
kind of metre or manner of singing. Slagfin's quality as a musician is
apparent from his name, and is inherited by his son, Gunnar.
Hjarrandi-Horund appears in the Gudrun epic by the side of Vate
(Ivalde), and there is reason for identifying him with Gevarr himself.
All these names and persons are connected with the myth concerning the
soma preserved in the moon. While the first drink of the liquid of
inspiration and of creative force is handed to Odin by Mimir, we
afterwards find a supply of the liquid preserved by the moon-god; and
those mythic persons who are connected with him are the very ones who
appear as the great harp-players. Balder is the son-in-law of the
moon-god, Hoder and Slagfin are his foster-sons, Gunnar is Slagfin's
son, Brage becomes the husband of Bil-Idun, and Hjarrandi is no doubt
the moon-god himself who sings so that the birds in the woods, the
beasts on the ground, and the fishes in the sea listen and are charmed
(" Gudrun," 1415-1418, 1523-1525, 1555-1558).


 Thus Vigfusson's opinion that the Asgard bridge is identical with the
Milky Way is correct. That the rainbow should be regarded as the Bilrost
with its bridge-heads is an invention by the author of Gylfaginning.


Both in Saxo and in Galfrid Hoder meets Slagfin with the bow in his
conflict with him (Cheldricus in Galfrid; Gelderus in Saxo). The bow
plays a chief part in the relation between the gods and the sons of
Ivalde. Hoder also met Egil in conflict with the bow (see No. 112), and
was then defeated, but Egil's noble-mindedness forbade his harming
Slagfin's foster-brother. Hoder, as an archer, gets satisfaction for the
defeat in Saxo, when with his favourite weapon he conquers Egil's
brother, Slagfin (Gelderus), who also is an archer. And finally, with an
arrow treacherously laid on Hoder's bow, Volund, in demoniac thirst for
revenge and at Loki's instigation, takes the life of Balder, Hoder's
brother.


122.


REVIEW OF THE SYNONYMS OF THE SONS OF IVALDE.


The names by which Slagfin is found in our records are accordingly Idi,
Gjuki, Dankrat (ţakkradr), Irung, Aldrian, Cheldriens, Gelderus, Hjuki.
We have yet to mention one more, Hengest (Hengist), to which I shall
return below. Of these names, Gelderus (Geldr), Cheldricus, and Aldrian
form a group by themselves, and they are possibly simply variations of
the same word. The meaning of the name Hengest, "a gelding," is
connected with the same group, and particularly to the variation Geldr.
The most important Slagfin epithets, from a mythological standpoint, are
Ide, Gjuke, Hjuke, and Irung.


The names of Volund (Wieland, Veland) in the various records are, as we
have seen, ţjazi, Ajo (Aggo), Anund (Onundr), Rognir, Brunni, Ásólfr,
Vargr, Fjallgyldir, Hlebardr, Byrr, Gustr, Loptr, Haquinus (Aki, Ecke).
Of these names and epithets Asólfr, Vargr, Fjallgyldir, and Hlebardr
form a group by themselves, and refer to his animal-symbol, the wolf.
The other brothers also have animal-symbols. Egil is symbolised as a
wild boar and a bear by the names Aurnir, Ebur, lsólfr. Slagfin is
symbolised as a horse in Hengest, and also in the paraphrase ondr-Jálkr,
"the gelding of the skees ". Like his brothers, he is a runner on skees.


The Volund epithet, Brunni, also alludes to skee-running. Rognir and
Begin are names of Volund and his brothers in their capacity of artists.
The names Ajo, Anund, and Thjasse (the sparkling) may have their origin
in ancient Aryan times.


The names of the third brother, Egil, are Gángr, Orvandill, Egill,
Agelmund, Eigel, Euglin, Hodbroddr, Toko, and Avo the archer; Ebur
(Ibor, Wild-Ebur, Villefer, Ebbo), Aurnir, Isólfr. Of these names Egill,
Agelmund, Eigel, and Euglin form a separate group; Orvandill, Hodbroddr,
Toko, and Avo sagittarius form another group, referring to his fame as
an archer; Ebur, Aurnir, and Isolfr a third, referring to his
animal-symbols.


123.


IVALDE.


In the course taken by our investigation we have already met with and
pointed out several names and epithets by which Ivalde occurs in the
mythology and in the heroic poems. Such are Geirvandill, with the
variation Geirvadill; Vadi (Vate), Allvaldi, Audvaldi, Olvaldi, Svigir
(Svegir), Olmódr, Sumbl Finnakonungr (Suniblus Phinnorum rex),
Finnakonungr, Vidfinnr, Finnálfr, Fin Folcvalding, Hlaudverr.


Of these names Ivaldi, Allvaldi, Audvaldi, and Olvaldi form a group by
themselves, inasmuch as they all have the part, valdi, valdr, "mighty,"
an epithet preserved from the mythology in those heroic sagas which have
treated distinct portions of the Ivaldemyth, where the hero reappears as
Walther, Valthari, Valdere, Valtarius Manufortis.


Another group is formed by Olvaldi, Olmodr, Svigdir, Sumbl
Finnakonungr. Svigir means, as already shown, "the great drinker," and
Sumbl is a synonym of "ale," "mead ". All the names in this group refer
to the quality of their bearer as a person belonging to the niyth about
the mead.


The name Sumbl Finnakonungr is at the same time connected with a third
group of names'Finnakonungr, Finnr, Vidfinnr, Finnalfr, Fin Folcvalding.
With this group the epithets Vadi and Vaill (in Geirvadill) have a real
mythological connection, which shall be pointed out below.


Finally, Geirvadill is connected with the epithet Geirvandill from the
fact that both belong to Ivalde on account of his place in the weapon-myth.


As has been shown above, Geirvandill means "the one occupied with the
spear," or, more accurately, "the one who exhibits great care and skill
in regard to the spear" (from geir, spear, and vanda, to apply care to
something in order that it may serve its purpose). In Saxo,
Gervandillus-Geirvandel is the father of Horvendillus-Orvandel; the
spear-hero is the father of the archer. It is evident that the epithets
of the son and father are parallel formations, and that as the one
designates the foremost archer in mythology, the other must refer to a
prominent spear-champion. It is of no slight importance to our knowledge
of the Teutonic weapon-myth that the foremost representatives of the
spear, the bow, and the sword among the heroes are grandfather, father,
and son. Svipdag, Ivalde's grandson, the son of OrvandelEgil, is above
all others the sword-champion, "the sword-elf" (sverdálfr'see Olaf
Trygv., 43, where Svipdag-Erik's namesake and supposed descendant, Erik
Jarl Hakonson, is called by this epithet). It is he who from the lower
world fetches the best and most terrible sword, which was also probably
regarded as the first of its kind in that age, as his uncle, who had
made it, was called "the father of swords" (see Nos. 113, 114, 115).
Svipdag's father is the most excellent archer whose memory still
survives in the story about William Tell. The grandfather, Ivalde, must
have been the most excellent marksman with the spear. The memory of this
survives not only in the epithets, Geirvandill and Geirvadill, but also
in the heroic poem, "Valtarius Manufortis," written before the year 950
by Eckehard in St. Gallen, and in Vilkinasaga, which has preserved
certain features of the Ivalde-myth.


Clad in an armour smithied by Volund (Vuelandia fabrica), Valtarius
appears as the great spear-champion, who despises all other weapons of
attack' Vualtarius erat vir maximus undique telis Suspectamque habuit
cuncto sibi tempori pugnam (v. 366-7). With the spear he meets a
sword-champion' lime gladio fidens hcic acer et ardaus hasta (v. 822)
and he has developed the use of the spear into an art, all of whose
secrets were originally known by him alone, then also by Hagano, who
learned them from the former (v. 336, 367). Vilkinasaga speaks of
Valthari as an excellent spear-champion. Sure of success, he wagers his
head in a competitive contest with this weapon.


It has already been shown above (see No. 89) that SvigdirIvalde in the
mythic saga concerning the race-heroes was the first ruler of the
Swedes, just as his sons, Volund and Egil, became those of the
Longobardians and Slagfin that of the Burgundians, and, as shall be
shown below, also that of the Saxons. Even in the Ynglingasaga, compiled
in the twelfth century, he remains by the name Svegir among the first
kings of the Yngling race, and in reality as the first hero; for his
forerunners, Fjölnir, Freyr, and Oinn, are prehuman gods (in regard to
Fjölnir, see Voluspa). That Svigir' was made the race-hero of the Swedes
is explained by the fact that Ivalde, before his sons, before he had yet
become the foe of the gods and a "perjured hapt," was the guardian of
the northern Teutonic world against the powers of frost, and that the
Sviones were the northernmost race of the Teutonic domain. The
elf-citadel on the southern coast of the Elivagar was GeirvadillIvalde's
setr before it became that of his sons (see Nos. 109, 113-115, 117,
118). The continental Teutons, like their kinsmen on the Scandian
peninsula, knew that north of the Swedes and in the uttermost north
lived a non-Teutonic people who ran on skees and practised hunting'the
Finns. And as the realm that was subject to the race-hero of the Swedes
in the mythology extended to the Elivagar, where his setr was situated,
even the Finns must have been subject to his sceptre. This explains his
surname, Finnakonungr, Finnr, Vidfinnr, Fin Folcvalding, and also the
fact that his descenndants form a group of skee-runners. To the location
of the setr near the Elivagar, at the point where Thor was wont to wade
across this body of water (see Nos. 109, 114), we have a reference in
the Ivalde epithets, Vadill, Vadi. They indicate his occupation as the
keeper of the ford. Vilkinasaga makes him a wader of the same kind as
Thor, and makes him bear his son, Volund, across a sound while the
latter was still a lad. Reasons which I may yet have an opportunity to
present indicate that Ivalde's mother was the mightiest amazon of
Teutonic mythology, whose memory survives in Saxo's account of Queen
Rusila, Rusla (Hist., 178, 365, 394-396), and in the German
heroic-saga's Rutze. This queen of the elves, dwelling south of the
Elivagar, is also remembered by Tacitus' informer. In Germania (45) we
read: Svionibus Sitonum gentes continuantur. Cetera similes uno
differunt quod femina dominatur. . . . Hic Suebić fines'" The Sviones
are bounded by the Sitones. While they are like each other in other
things they differ in the one respect, that a woman rules over the
Sitones. Here the confines of Suebia end." The name Sitones does not
occur elsewhere, and it would be vain to seek it in the domain of
reality. Beyond the domain of the Sviones extended at that time that of
the mythic geography. The Sitones, who were governed by a queen,
belonged to the Teutonic mythology, like the Hellusians and Oxionians,
mentioned elsewhere in Germania. It is not impossible that the name
Sitones, of which the stem is sit, is connected with the Norse
mythological name of the chief citadel in their country'setr
(Geirvadill's setr, Ide's setr; cp. setr-verjendr as a designation in
Ynglingasaga (17) of the descendants of Svigdir-Ivalde). The word setr
is derived from setja, a causative form of sitja, the Gothic sitan.


I now pass to the name Hlaudverr, in Volundarkvida. This poem does not
state directly who Volund's, Egil's, and Slagfin's father was, but it
does so indirectly by mentioning the name of the father of Volund's and
Slagfin's swan-maids, and by stating that these swan-maids were sisters
of the brothers. Volund's swan-maid is called ţeirn'a systir in str. 2.
Among the many uncalled-for "emendations" made in the text of the Elder
Edda is also the change of ţeirra to ţeirrar, made for the reason that
the student, forgetting that Volundarkvida was a poem born of mythology,
regarded it as impossible for a brother and sister to be husband and
wife, and for the reason that it was observed in the prose introduction
to Volundarkvida that the father of the three brothers was Finnakonungr.
Hlauverr is also found in a German source, "Biterolf" as King Liutwar.
There he appears in the war between Hadding-Dieterich and
Gudhorm-Ermenrich, and the poem makes him a champion on the side where
all who in the mythology were foes of the Asas generally got their
place, that is, on Ermenrich's. There he occupied the most conspicuous
place as Ermenrich's standard-bearer, and, with Sabene, leads his
forces. The same position as Ermenrich's standard - bearer occupies is
held in "Dieterich's Flucht" by Vate, that is to say, Vadi-Ivalde, and
in Vilkinasaga by Valthari, that is to say again, Ivalde. Liutwar, Vate,
and Valthari are origin ally one and the same person in these German
records, just as Hlaudver (corresponding to Liutwar), Vade
(corresponding to Vate), and Ivalde (corresponding to Valthan) are
identical in the Scandinavian. Volundarkvida's statement, that Volund's
and Slagfin's swan-maids are their sisters (halfsisters, as we shall
see), and, like them, daughters of Ivalde, is thus found to be correct
by the comparison of widely-separated sources.


While the father of these two swan-maids is called Hlaudverr in
Volundarkvida, the father of the third swan-maid, Egil's beloved, is
called King Kiarr in Valland. As Egil was first married to the dis of
vegetation, Groa, whose father is Sigtryg in the heroic saga, and then
to Sif, his swan-maid must be one of these two. In Volundarkvida, where
none of the swan-maids have their common mythological names, she is
called Olrun, and is said to be not a sister, but a kinswoman (kunn'str.
15) of both the others. Hlaudverr (Ivalde) and Kiarr are therefore
kinsmen. Who Kiarr was in the mythology I cannot now consider. Both
these kings of mythological descent reappear in the cycle of the Sigurd
songs. It has already been shown above (No. 118) that the Gjukungs
appear in the Sigurd saga as heirs and possessors of Hlaudverrs halls
and treasures; it is added that "they possess the whitest shield from
Kiarr's hall (Gudrunarkvida, ii. 25; Atlakvida, 7). Here we accordingly
once more find the connection already pointed out between the persons
appearing in Volundarkvida and those in the Gjukungsaga. The fathers of
the swan-maids who love Volund and his brothers reappear in the Sigurd
songs as heroes who had already left the scene of action, and who had
owned immense treasures, which after their death have passed by
inheritance into the possession of the Gjukungs. This also follows from
the fact that the Gjukungs are descendants of Gjuke-Slagfin, and that
Slagfin and his brothers are Niflings, heirs of HlaudverIvalde, who was
gullaudigr mjök (Younger Edda).


Like his sons, Ivalde originally stood in a friendly relation to the
higher reigning gods; he was their sworn man, and from his citadel near
the Elivagar, Geirvadills setr, he protected the creation of the gods
from the powers of frost. But, like his sons, and before them, he fell
into enmity with the gods and became "a perjured hapt ". The features of
the Ivalde-myth, which have been preserved in the heroic poems and shed
light on the relation between the moon-god and him, are told partly in
the account of Gevarus, Nanna's father, in Saxo, and partly in the poems
about Walther (Valtarins, Walthari) and Fin Folcvalding. From these
accounts it appears that Ivalde abducted a daughter of the moon-god;
that enmity arose between them; that, after the defeat of Ivalde,
Sunna's and Nanna's father offered him peace, and that the peace was
confirmed by oath; that Ivalde broke the oath, attacked Gevar-Nokver and
burnt him; that, during the hostilities between them, Slagfin-Gjuke,
though a son of Ivalde, did not take the side of his natural father, but
that of his foster-father; and that Ivalde had to pay for his own deeds
with ruin and death.


Concerning the point that Ivalde abducted a daughter of Gevar-Nokver
and married her, the Latin poems Valtarius Manufortis, Nibelunge Noth,
Biterolf Vilkinasaga, and Boguphalus (Chronicon Poloniae) relate that
Walther fled with a princess named Hildigund. On the flight he was
attacked by Gjukungs, according to Valtarius Manufortis. The chief one
of these (in the poem Gunthari, Gjuke's son) received in the battle a
wounid "clean to the hip-bone ". The statement anent the wound, which
Walther gave to the chief one among the Gjukungs, has its roots in the
mythology where the chief Gjukung, that is, Gjuke himself, appears with
surnames (Hengest, Geldr, ondr-Jálkr) alluding to the wound inflicted.
In the Anglo-Saxon heroic poem Fin Folcvalding is niarried to Hildeburh,
a daughter of Hnaef-Hoce, and in Hyndluljod (cp. str. 17 with str. 15)
Hildigunnr is the mother of Halfdan's wife Almveig, and consequently the
wife of Sumbl Finnakonungr, that is, Ivalde. Hildigunn's father is
called Saekonungr in Hyndluljod, a synonym of Nókkver ("the
ship-captain," the moon-god), and Hildigun's mother is called Svafa, the
same name as that by which Nanna is introduced in the poem. concerning
Helge Hjorvardson. Hildeburh, Hnaef-Hoce's daughter, is identical with
Hildigun, daughter of Sćkonungr. Compare furthermore str. 20 in
Hyndluljod, which speaks of Nanna as' Nokver's daughter, and thus refers
back to str. 17, where Hildigun is mentioned as the daughter of
Saekonungr. The phrase Nanna var naest ţar Nauckva dottir shows that
Nokkver and another elder laughter of his were named in one of the
immediately preceding strophes. But in these no man's name or epithet
occurs except Saekonungr, "the sea-king," which can refer to Nokkver,
"the shipowner" or "ship-captain," and the "daughter" last mentioned in
the poem is Hildigunnr.


Of the names of Ivalde's wife the various records contain the following
statements:


Hlaudver-Ivalde is married to Svanfeather (Svanfjödr, Volundarkvida).
Finnalf-Ivalde is married to Svanhild Gold-feather, daughter of Sol
(Fornal. saga). Fin Folcvalding-Ivalde is married to Hildeburh, daughter
of HnaefHoce (Beowulf poem). Walther-Ivalde is married to Hildigunt
(German poems). Sumbl-Finnakonungr is married to Hildigun, daughter of
Saekonungr Nokver, the same as Hnaefr, Hnefr, Nanna's father
(Hyndluljod, compared with Saxo and other sources).


She who is called Svanfeather, the sun-daughter Svanhild Gold-feather,
Hildeburh, Hildigunt, and Hildigun is accordingly a sister of the
moon-dis Nanna, and a daughter of the ruler of the atniosphere and of
the moon. She is herself a sun-dis. In regard to the composition of the
name, we must compare Hildigun, Hiltigunt, with Nanna's surname
Sinhtgunt. The Teutonic, or at all events the Norse, mythology knew two
divinities of the sun, mother and daughter. Grimnersmal (47) tells us
that the elder one, Alfraudull, has a daughter, who, not at the present
time, but in the future, is to drive the car of the sun (eina dottur
berr Alfraudull


The elder is the wife of the moon-god. The younger one is the Sunna
mentioned in the Merseburg formula (see No. 92), Sinhtgunt-Nanna's
sister. As a surname, Sunna also occurs in the Norse literature
(Alvissmal, 17; Younger Edda, i 472, and elsewhere).


In the Beowulf poem and in "Battle of Furnesburg," we find Fin
Folcvalding, Hildeburh's husband, as the foe of his father-in-law Hnaef,
and conquered by him and Hengest. After a war ending unluckily for him,
he makes peace with his victors, breaks the peace, attacks the citadel
in the night, and cremates the slain and wounded in an immense funeral
pyre. Hnaef is among those fallen, and Hildeburh weeps at his funeral
pyre; Hengest escapes and afterwards avenges Hnaef's death.


Saxo confirms the fact, that the historified person who in th mythology
is the moon-god is attacked and burnt by one of his "satraps," and
afterwards avenged. This he tells of his Gevarus Nanna's father (Hist.,
131). The correspondence on this point shows that the episode has its
root in the mythology, though it would be vain to try to find out the
symbolic significance from a standpoint of physical nature of the fact
that the moon-god was attacked and burnt by the husband of his daughter,
the sun-dis.


Meanwhile we obtain from these scattered mythic fragments preserved in
the heroic poems, when compared with the statements found in the
mythology itself; the following connected story as the myth about the mead:


Originally, the mead, the soma, belongs to Mimir alone. From an unknown
depth it rises in the lower world directly under the world-tree, whose
middle root is watered by the well of the precious liquid. Only by
self-sacrifice, after prayers and tears, is Odin permitted to take a
drink from this fountain. The drink increases his strength and wisdom,
and enables him to give order to the world situated above the lower
regions. From its middle root the worldtree draws liquids from the
mead-fountain, which bless the einherjes of Asgard as a beverage, and
bless the people of Midgard as a fructifying honey-dew. Still this mead
is not pure; it is mixed with the liquids from Urd's and Hvergelmer's
fountains. But somewhere in the Jotunhiems, the genuine mead was
discovered in the fountain Byrger. This discovery was kept secret. The
keeper of the secret was Ivalde, the sworn watchman near the Elivagar.
In the night he sent his son Slagfin (afterwards called after his
adopted father Hjuke) and his daughter Bil (Idun) to dip liquid from the
fountain Byrger and bring it to him. But the children never returned.
The moon-god had taken them and Byrger's liquids unto himself, and thus
the gods of Asgard were able to partake of this drink. Without the
consent of the moongod, Ivalde on his part secured his daughter the
sun-dis, and doubtless she bears to him the daughters Idun, Almveig, and
other dises of growth and rejuvenation, after he had begotten Slagfin,
Egil, and Volund with the giantess Greip. The moon-god and Ivalde have
accordingly taken children from each other. The circumstance that the
mead, which gives the gods their creative power amid wisdom, was robbed
from Ivalde'this find which he kept secret and wished to keep for
himself alone'makes him the irreconcilable foe of the moon-god, is the
cause of the war between them, and leads him to violate the oath which
he had taken to him. He attacks Gevar in the night, kills and burns him,
and recaptures the mead preserved in the ship of the moon. He is
henceforth for ever a foe of the gods, and allies himself with the worst
enemies of their world, the powers of frost and fire. Deep down in Hades
there has long dwelt another foe of the gods, SurtDunn, the clan-chief
of Suttung's sons, the father of Fjalar. In the oldest time he too was
the friend of the gods, and co-operated with Mimir in the first creation
(see No. 89). But this bond of friendship had now long been broken. Down
into the deep and dark dales in which this clan hostile to the gods
dwells, Ivalde brings his mead-treasure into safety. He apparently gives
it as the price of Fjalar's daughter Gunlad, and as a pledge of his
alliance with the world of giants. On the day of the wedding, Odin comes
before him, and clad in his guise, into Surt's halls, marries Gunlad,
robs the liquids of Byrger, and flies in eagle guise with them to
Asgard. On the wedding day Ivalde comes outside of Surt's
mountain-abode, but never enters. A dwarf; the keeper of the halls,
entices him into his rain. It has already been stated that he was
probably buried beneath an avalanche.


The myth concerning the carrying of the mead to the moon, and
concerning its fate there, has left various traces in the traditions of
the Teutonic people. In the North, Hjuke and Bil with their mead-burden
were the objects seen in the spots on the moon. In southern Sweden,
according to Ling, it was still known in the beginning of this century,
that the bucket carried by the figures in the moon was a "brewing
kettle," consequently containing or having contained a brewed liquid.
According to English traditions, not the two children of Vidfin, but a
drunken criminal (Ritson's Ancient Songs; cp. J. Grimm, Deut. Myth.,
681), dwelt in the full moon, and that of which he is charged in widely
circulated traditions is that he was gathering fagots for the purpose of
crime, or in an improper time (on the Sabbath). Both the statements'that
he is drunk and that his crime consists in the gathering of fagots'lead
us to suppose that this "man mu the moon" originally was Ivalde, the
drink-champion and the mendrobber, who attacked and burnt the moon-god.
His punishment is that he will never get to heaven, but will remain in
the moon, and there he is for ever to carry a bundle of thorn-fagots
(thus according to a German tradition, and also according to a tradition
told by Chaucer). Most probably, he has to carry the thorn-rod of the
moon-god burnt by him. The moon-god (see Nos. 75, 91) ruled over the
Teutonic Erynnies armed with rods (limar), and in this capacity he bore
the epithet Eylimi. A Dutch poem from the fourteenth century says that
the culprit in duitshe heet Ludergheer. A variation which J. Grimm
(Deut. Myth., 683) quotes is Lodeger. The name refers, as Grimm has
pointed out, to the Old High German Liutker, the Ludiger of the German
middle-age poem. In "Nibelunge Noth," Ludiger contends with the
Gjukungs; in "Dieterichs Flucht," he abandons Dieterich's cause and
allies himself with the evil Ermenrich. Like Liutwar, Ludiger is a
pendant to the Norse Hlaudver, in whom we have already rediscovered
Ivalde. While, according to the Younger Edda, both the Ivalde children
Hjuke and Bil appear in the moon, according to the English and German
traditions it is their criminal father who appears on the scene of the
fire he kindled, drunk with the mead he robbed, and punished with the
rod kept by his victim.


The statement in Forspjallsljod, that Ivalde had two groups of
children, corresponds with the result at which we have arrived. By the
giantess Greip he is the father of Slagfin, Egil, and Volund; by the
sun-dis Gevar, Nokver's daughter and Nanna's sister, he is the father of
discs of growth, among whom are Idun, who first is Volund's beloved or
wife, and thereupon is married to Brage. Another daughter of Ivalde is
the beloved of SlagfinGjuke, Auda, the "frau Ute" of the German heroic
saga. A third is Signe-Alveig, in Saxo the daughter of Sumblus Phinnorum
(Ivalde). At his wedding with her, Egil is attacked and slain by
Halfdan. Hadding is Halfdan's and her son.


Several things indicate that, when their father became a foe of the
gods, Ivalde's sons were still their friends, and that Slagfin
particularly was on the side of his foster-father in the conflict with
Ivalde. With this corresponds also the conduct of the Gjukungs toward
Valtarius, when he takes flight with Hildigun. In the Anglo-Saxon heroic
poetry, the name Hengest is borne by the person who there takes
Slagfin's place as Hnaef-Gevar's nearest mann. The introduction to the
Younger Edda has from its English authorities the statement that
Heingestr (Hengest) was a son of Vitta and a near kinsman of Svipdag.
If, as previous investigators have assumed, Vitta is Vade, then Hengest
is a son of Ivalde, and this harmonises with the statement anent his
kinship with Svipdag, who is a grandson of Ivalde. The meaning of the
word Hengest refers of itself to Slagfln-Geldr. The name Geldr is a
participle of gelda, and means castratus. The original meaning of
Hengest is "a gelding," equus castratus (in the modern German the word
got for the first time its present meaning). That the adjective idea
castratus was transferred to the substantive equus eastratus is
explained by the fact that Gils, Gisl, a mythic name for a horse
(Younger Edda, i. 70, 482), was also a Gjukung name. One of Hengest's
ancestors in his genealogy in Beda and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is
called Vict-gils; one of SlagfinGjuke's sons is named Gilser. A neither
mythic nor historic brother of Hengest added in later times is named
Horsa. The Ravenna geography says that when the Saxons left their old
abodes on the continent, they marched cum principe suo Anschis, and with
their chief Ans-gisl, who therefore here appears in the place of
Hengest. Synonymous with Hengest is the Norse Jalkr, equus castratus,
and that some member of the mythological group of skee-runners, that is,
some one of the male members of the Ivalde race, in the Norse version of
the Teutonic mythology, bore this epithet is proved by the paraphrase
ondr-Jalkr, "the equus castratus of the skeerunners ". The cause of the
designation is found in the event described above, which has been handed
down by the poem "Valtarius Manufortis ". The chief one of the Gjukungs,
originally Gjuke himself, there fights with Valtarius, who in the
mythology was his father, and receives in the conflict a wound "clean to
the thigh-bone ". This wound may have symbolic significance from the
fact that the fight is between father and son. According to the English
chronicler Nennius, Hengest had two brothers, Ochta and Ebissa. In spite
of their corruption these names remind us of Slagfin's brothers,
Aggo-Ajo (Volund) and Ibor-Ebbo (Egil).


According to the historified saga, Hengest was the leader of the first
Saxon army which landed in Britain. All scholars have long since agreed
that this Hengest is a mythical character. The migration saga of the
Teutonic mythology was transferred by the heathen Saxons to England, and
survived there until Christian times.


After the names of the real leaders of the Saxon immigration were
forgotten, Hengest was permitted to take their place, because in the
mythology he had been a leader of the Saxon emigrants from their
original country, the Scandian peninsula (see No. 16), and because this
immigration was blended in Christian times with the memory of the
emigration from Germany to Britain. Thus, while the Longobardians made
Volund and Egil (Ajo and Ibor) the leaders of their emigration, the
Saxons made Volund's and Egil's brother Slagfin (Hengest-Gjuke) their
leader. The Burgundians also regarded Slagfin (Gjuke) as their
emigration hero and royal progenitor. Of this there is evidence partly
in Lex Burgundionum, the preface of which enumerates Burgundian kings
who have Gjukung names; partly in Middle High German poem, which makes
the Gjukungs Burgundian kings. The Saxon migration saga and the
Burgundian are therefore, like those of the other Teutonic races,
connected with the Ivalde race and with the fimbul-winter.


END