Teutonic Mythology

TO HIS MAJESTY KING OSCAR II.,

HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON,

United States Minister, Copenhagen, Denmark.

DEAR SIR,

It gives me pleasure to authorise you to translate into English my work entitled "Researches in Teutonic Mythology," being convinced that no one could be found better qualified for this task than yourself. Certainly no one has taken a deeper interest than you in spreading among our Anglo-Saxon kinsmen, not only a knowledge of our common antiquity, but also of what modern Scandinavia is contributing to the advancement of culture—a work in which England and the United States of America are taking so large a share.

Yours faithfully,

VIKTOR RYDBERG.

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 archæological 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. MEDIÆAL 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 Sæming 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 (þridi). 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 Ægir. 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 Ægir. 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 Æneas.

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 Æneas 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 Mæler 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 Æneas 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 Æneas, king of the Trojans. There were great battles and much bloodshed, and the greater part of the Trojans fell. Æneas 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 Æneas 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 Æneas, 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 Sæmund 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 Æneids Sicily, the very home of the Ænean 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 Æneas 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 Trojæ (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 Getæ, 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 Æneis, 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 Hæmus (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. (Æneid, 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 Æneas, 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 Cæsar’s time the Roman senate had in its letters to the Æduans, often called them the " brothers and kinsmen" of the Romans (fratres consanguineique—Cæsar, 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 Chaldæans, 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 Cumæan, a prophetess from Cumæ in southern Italy. . Both versions could easily be harnionised, for Cumæ 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 Cumæan. From Asia Minor she was supposed to have come to Cumæ.

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 Cumæan, 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 Cumæan 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 Cumæ 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 Cumæ, and from Cumæ to Rome in the time of the kings. How it came there is not known. The story about the Cumæan 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 Erythræ, 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 Æneas, 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 (Æneid, 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 naïve 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, Bjæf, 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 Cumæan 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 þriði. 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 , Snær, 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 (Goðan) 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, Snær, &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, GEPIDÆ, 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, Ostrogothæ, Finnaithæ (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 Gepidæ. The Gepidæ 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 Gepidæ. 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, Gepidæ, 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 quærebant, 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 (præter 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 óðr, they had no lá or læti or litr goa, but Odin gave them önd, Honer gave them óðr, Loder gave them lá and litr goða. In reference to the meaning of these words I refer my readers to No. 95, simply noting here that litr goða, 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 sævarströndu) 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 Matthæus 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, quæ dicitur Scani, armis circumdatus," &c.

‡‡ Matthæus 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.

Matthæus 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 ætt edr skjoldunga ætt. The Younger Edda also (i. 522) knows Skelfir, and says he was a famous king whose genealogy er köllut skilvinga ætt. 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 niðr, 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 Schedæ 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 Ægir’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 Ægir’s hall says to the Van Njord : " You were sent from here to the East as a hostage to the gods" (Þu 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 (við jarðar þraum), 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 jarðar magn scalkaldr sær and Sonar dreyri. It is necessary to comnpare these expressions with Urðar magn, svalkaldr seer and Sónar dreyri in Guðrunarkvida, 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. Jarðar magn (the earth’s strength) is in reality the same as Urðar 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 sær, 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 görðu). 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 Faðir’s and Moðir’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 Faðir'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 Faðir’s son, begotten with Móðir, 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 Ingævonians (Ingavones), those who dwell in the centre Hermionians (Hermiones, Herminones), and the rest Istævonians (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 Uðr, Unnr, the ruler of the sea, also called Auðr (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 auðigr sem Njörðr 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 Ingævo, Halfdan has a stepson Yngve, Inge (Svipdag). The sccoiid son of Mannus is named Hermio. Halfdan’s son with Groa is called Guðhormr. 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 Istævo. 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.   |                 |                 |   Ingævo.       Hermio.       Istævo.

Norse documents.   Tivi= Odin and the goddess Jord.   |   Tivi’s son Thor.   |   Halfdan, progenitor of the royal families.   |                   |                   |   Yngve.      Guðhormnr.     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 leiÞa langvini, undir randir cc gel, en þeir meþ 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, æfinrunar ok alldrrunar. Meir kunni hann mönnum bjarga eggjar deyfa, ægi legia, klök nam fugla, kyrra ellda, sæva ok svfia, sorgir lægia.

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-HEIðR, 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 þorri (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 cæsariem tantus comæ 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 Guldfjæder, 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 Viðlfr—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 piratæ), and among them the prototype of pirates — that terrible character, remembered also in Icelandic poetry, called Roði (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, Auðvaldi, 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 (Ið) 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 Auðvaldi produce different meanings of the compound word. But the records give most satisfactory evidence that Olvaldi and Auðvaldi 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 Auðvaldi. 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— þeir 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 Holandiæ 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 Scndzæ insulæ 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 vcrþa börr oc bróþir).

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 þat yr arar gullo, af himinfjollum; þá hafþi Helga inn hugom stora Borghildr borit i Bralundi. Nott varþ i bee, nornir qvomo, þer er auþlingi aldr um scopo ; þann baþo fylci frægstan verþa oc buþlanga beztan ticcia. Snero þer af afli aurlaugþátto, þa er Borgarr braut i Brálundi; þer um greiddo gullin simo oc und manasal miþian festo. þer austr oc vestr enda fálo: þar átti lofdungr land a milli; brá nipt Nera a nordrvega einni festi ey baþ hon halda. Etti var at angri Ylfinga niþ oc þeirre meyio yr nunuþ fæddi; hrafn gvaþ at hrafni —sat a hám meiþi andvanr áto :— "Ec veit noceoþ !

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, dægrs eins gamall, nu er dagr kominn; hversir augo sem hildingar, sa er varga vinr, viþ scolom teitir. Drótt þotti sa dauglingr vera quado meþ gumnom god-ár kominn; sialfr gece visi or vig þrimo ungom færa 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 Hephæstos, or Hephæstos Dædalos. 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 Kæmpebane 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 þrimo, 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 Kæmpebane’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 ættar Iþunni 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:

þer austr oc vestr enda fâlo, þar átti lofdungr land a milli; brá nipt Nera a nordrvega einni festi, ey baþ 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 Þursaþjoar 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. þat man hon folevig fyrst i heimi er Gullveig geirum studdu oc i haull Hárs hana brendo.

Str. 22. þrysvar brendo þrysvar borna opt osialdan þo 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. þá gengo regin oll a raukstola ginheilog god oc um þat gettuz hvart scyldo esir afra gialda eþa scyldo goin aull gildi ciga.

Str. 25. Eleyge Odin oc ifole um seáut þat 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: æ 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 ættar 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 þotti skars allra feikna.zst þat var brodur fra Byleistz komit. Loki af hiarta lindi brendu, fann hann haalfsuidinn hugstein konu; yard Loptr kvidugr af konu illri; þadani 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:

þu vart vaulra I Varinseyio, scollvis kona bartu scrauc saman; þu vart, en sceþa, scass valkgria, autul, amátlig at Alfaudar ; mundo einherjar allir beriaz, svevis koua, um sakar þinar. Nio atta viþ a neri Sagu ulfa alna cc var einn faþir þeirra.

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 Hrossþiofr (Heidr ok Hrorsþiofr 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 haliorunæ; 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 (Egþerr—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 ættar, 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 Bragerædur'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 þar a haugi oc sló haurpo gygjar hirþir gladr Egþer. Gol um hanom i galgviþi 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 þitt sva sverþ; Enn er Muspells synir ria myreviþ yfir veizta þu þu, vesall, hve þa 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 fæminam subornat, quæ cum obtenta virginis familiaritate, ejus aliquamdiu pedissequam egisset, hanc tandem a paternis procul penatibus, quæsita callidius digres— sione, reduxit; quam ipse max irruens in arctiora montauæ 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:

þa gengo regin oll A ráukstola, ginheilog god oc um þat gettuz hverir hefi lopt alt levi blandit eþa ett iotuns Oþs mey gefna þorr ein þar va þrungin 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:

Færir björn, þar er bára brestr, undinna festa, Opt i Ægis kjopta úrsvöl Gymis völva.

"Gymer’s ancient-cold vala often carries the ship amid breaking billows into the jaws of Ægir." 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 Ægir, 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 iarnviþi (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; þrymgjöll—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 þat 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 Bragarædur 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, Eikþyrnir, 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 þann 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, Eikþyrnir, 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 þann 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 (forgarðir) 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 forgarðir (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 Ásgarð of þrek varðan.

"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 : Njorðr kla uf Herjans hurðir—" Njord broke Odin’s doors open," which should be compared with the poetical paraphrase for battle-axe : Gauts megin-hurðar 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 (præaltum 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 Höðr, 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 (trophæis gentium celebres, spoliis locupletes).

(d) The island on which they are confined is fortified, like the Asa citadel, by an immensely high wall (præaltum 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, Eikþynir’, 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 præaltum? 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 obeþit en se ofbloþit ey ser til gildis giuf; betrec en’ osennt enn se ofsóit. Sva þundr urn reist fyr þioþa raue, þar huann up um reis er hann aptr of kom.

The expression,þar 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 Goþjodar

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 Sviþiod 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 (grandævus 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 siþan a Sviioþu framvisar tvær i folk stigum; beiddum biornu, en brutum skioldu gengum igegnum graserkiat lit. Steyptom stilli, studdum annan, veittum goþum 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 ærest mid Eástdenum geseven seegum od he siddan eást ofer’ væg gevât. Væn æfter ran; þus Heardingas þone 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 præsidia 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 þa 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 hrærir 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 ætatis incognitæ et supra humanum terminum prolixe; qui Frothonem transfugæ 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 Miþgarþi.

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 (cælesti 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 æquaverant 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 Cæsar 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 Ælianus (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 (þjódrekr, 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 (þjódrekr) 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 Kæmpbane’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 Kæmpebane’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 Kæmpebane’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 Kæmpebane’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-þjódrekr 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-þjódrekr became the son of Thiudemer, and that his descent from the Teuton patriarchs was cut off.

(b) That Hadding-þjódrekr 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-þjódrekr 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-þjódrekr, 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-þjórekr’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-þjódrekr.

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 Haddingþjódrekr 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 þjódrekr and Ottar of mythical traditions.

As the Hadding-þjódrekr 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 þrittig wintra in exile at Mæringaburg. 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.

Mæringaburg 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. Mæringaburg means a citadel inhabited by noble, honoured, and splendid persons: compare the Old Norse mæringr. But the original meaning of mærr, Old German mâra, is "glittering" "shining" "pure," and it is possible that, before mæringr 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 "mæringar" 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 Mærings, 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, Mæringaburg 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-þjódrekr, 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-þjódrekr’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 læt 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-þjódrekr'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 þjódrekr, 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 Ingvæones (Ingævones), and possibly also Hadding’s to that of the Istævones (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 istævones, istvæones, 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 Istævo Ostius, Hostius.

As to geography, both the Roman and Teutonic records agree that the northern Teutonic tribes were Ingævones. In the myths they are Scandiniavians and neighbours to the Ingævones. In the Beowulf poem the king of the Danes is called codor’ Inguina, the protection of the Ingævones, and freâ Inguina, the lord of the Ingævones. Tacitus says that they live nearest to the ocean (Germ., 2); Pliny says that Cimbrians, Teutons, and Chaucians were Ingævones (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 Istævones, 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-þjódrekr 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 Ingævones 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 Ingævones. 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 Ingævones, Hermiones, and Istævones. 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 (Glæsisvellir). 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 Bæarmagn’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 Bæarmagn 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 Bæarmagn 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 Bæarmagn’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 Orærir, Bon, and Son applied. In Havamál (107) Odin expresses his joy that Orærir 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 Odrærir. 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 Odrærir. 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 Odrærer 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 Odrærer (Odhrærir 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 Odhrærir’, Bodn, and Són (Brogarædur, 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 Odrærir, 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 niþr, 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 (Leifþrasir), 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 (Vafþrúdnir) put questions to each other, and among others Odin asks this question:

Fiolþ ec for, fiolþ ec freistaþac, fiolþ ec um reynda regin: hvat lifir manna, þa er inn mæra liþr fimbulvetr meþ 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 Leifþrasir, enn þau leynaz muno i holti Hoddmimis; morgindauggvar þau ser at mat hafa enn þadan 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 þaan af aldir alaz: "Thence (from Lif and Leifthraser in Mimir’s grove) races are born ". Codex Upsalensis has instead—ok þar 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, Sæmund. 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 þat 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 þat, Pjölsvidr, er ek þik fregna mun ok ek vilja vita; hverr þat 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 liþsci alfr, loki.

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

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.

± 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 liþsci 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

* þar (in the assembly of the gods) var Modsognir mæstr 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 mæstr 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 hæten 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 Odrærir:

þa 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 Odrærer 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 þjódreyrir (" 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:

hvæim eru bekkir baugum sanir, flæt fagrlig

"For whom are the benches strewn with rings and the gold beautifully scattered through the rooms?"

And the vala answers:

Her stændr Balldri of bruggin miodr, skirar væigar, liggr skiolldr yfir æn ásmegir I ofvæni.

"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 herþarfir hverfa hlakkar móts til blóta, raudbríkar fremst rækir rikr, ásmegir, sliku. Nu grær jörd sem adan, &c.

Put in prose: Ok herþarfir ásmegir hverfa til blóta; hlakkar móts raudbríkar rikr rækír fremst sliku. Nu grær 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 rækir. 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 herþarfir (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 rækir (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 rækir 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 rækir, 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 rækir, 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 rækir 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 rækir, "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 rækir of the background, is changed to a shield, which becomes an attribute of the historical rækir of the foreground, namely Hakon jarl, the mighty warrior. Accordingly, raudbríkar rækir 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 rækir 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 rækir 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’ rækir 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 herþarfir ásmegir. When they are permitted to borrow the name of the ásmegir, then the adjective herþarfir, 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 herþarfir, then that adjective would not serve to distinguish Hakon’s men from them. The word herþarfir 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 rækir) go to offer sacrifices. The peaceful Balder is thereby benefited. The earth grows green again. ok asmegir, hverfa til blóta; raudbríkar rikr rækir Na grær jord scm ádan.

History Warlike inhabitants of the earth (herþarfir ásmegir), at the instigation of their chief, the shield’s Balder, Hakon (hlakkar móts raudbrikar rækir), go to offer sacrifices, The shield’s Balder is thereby benefited. The earth grows green again. ok herþarfir asmegir hverfa til blóta hlakkar móts raudbrikar rikr rækir fremst slika. Nu grær 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, herþarfir ásmegir, for herþarfir 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 ásliþar, 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 þvi ma hann heita Allfodr, at hann er fadir alra godanna ok manna ok alls þess, 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. <large Gap here fill with 27-28 Zend> 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.     <large Gap here fill with 39-42 Zend>

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.   <large Gap here fill with 24 Avesta >   (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. <large Gap here fill with 26 Avesta>   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.       <large Gap here fill with 29-33 Avesta>     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 ægi iþia græna (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 Niþa 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:

þar’ 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 græna:

Sen’ hon upp koma audro sinni iord or’ aegi iþia graena.

The common interpretation is iþia 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 þytr 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 (þar naest gerdu þeir ser borg i midjum heimi, er kallat er Asgardr ; þat kollum ver Trója; þar bygdu gudin ok aettir þeirra ok gjördust þudan 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 æsir þangat 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:

<note view of tree sideways top toward the right and bottom left>

 

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).   <gap fill with 5 of Gylfaginning> 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. <gap fill with 5 of eddic mythology> 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 (slå 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 þremi, 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 þaþan Niflhaeljar til, maetti hann hvaelpi þeim 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, þviat 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 (þadan 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—þer 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. Ægir’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 sæter" (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, hævateinn, hjörteinn, hræteinn, 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 þu þenna 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 þic drep, enn ec þic temia mun, mer! at minom munom; þar skaltu ganga er þic gumna synir siþan 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 neþan—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 neþan. 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 neþan. 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 viþ 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 asliþar hve ec fyr byd, hve ec fyrir banna manna glaum mani manna nyt mani. Hrímgrimner heiter þurs, er þic 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:

þursa lici þicci mer a þer vera; erat þu 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 þurs 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 þufo 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 þann 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 þann (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 þann can be referred— iotncnn and Yggdrasils askr. Iotunn, which stands nearest to þann, 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 þann 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 herþarfir; 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. Oþhraerir skyldi Urþar geyrna maettk at veria mestum þorra.—" 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:

þriar’ raetr standa a þria vega undan asciYggdrasils: Hel byr und einni, annari hrimþursar, þriio 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, ættarfylgjur).

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 mædr fra maugum. The expression kjósa mædr 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 þeir 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 þrymreynis þjónar þrir 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, þat 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, græna 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 (blamær—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 grænar 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, færa 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 þó verir’ gagns frá godum). When he enters Valhal line has a keener reproach on his lips to the welcoming Odin: illudigr mjók þykkir 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 vættr 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 vættr 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 mær), and in the other Hvedrung’s kinswoman (Hvedrungs mær). 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 þings þrida jofri hvedrungs mær or’ heimi baud, þa 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 þjodar Loka mær 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 þu 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 Bragarædur 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 þingi, 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 : Æsir ‘ro a þingi). 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 þings þridja jofri Hvedrungs maer or heimi baud.

þing-bod means a legal summons to appear at a Thing, at the seat of judgment. Bjoda til þings is to perform this legal summons. Here it is Hvedrung’s kinswoman who comes with sickness and death and þing-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 NAMÆLI.

In Sigrdrifumal (str. 12) we read:

Malrunar skaltu kunna, vilt-ar magni þer heiptom gjaldi harm; þaer um vindr, þaer um vefr, þær um setr allar saman a þvi þingi, er þjoþir 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 mæla (speak). Odin employs mal-runes when he rists i runom, so that a corpse from the gallows comes and rnælir 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 (þjódir), 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 mæla (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 þvi, 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 frændr, deyr sialfr it sama; enn orztirn deyr aldr’egi hveim er ser godan getr.

Str. 77. Deyr’ fæ, deyja frændr, 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 frændr, 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 frændr. 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, þann 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, nálægjast, 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 : nakvæmi, nakvæmliga, 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 námæli is ords tirr, that judgment which gives the dead fair renown, and both kinds of judgments are embraced in the phrase domr um daudan. Námæli 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 þularstóli 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 þer 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 námæli, 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 þó 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. Færdi mer Grimildr full at dreeka svalt oc sarlict, ne ec sacar mundac; þar var um aukit Urar magni, svalcauldom see oc Sonar’ dreyra.

Str. 22. Voro i horni hverskyns stafir ristnir oc ronir, raþa 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" (glævalds 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 þokk 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 þola), 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 þic Hrimnir hari, a þic 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 hæla 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 (larvæ atræ; 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 þunga strauma menn meinsvara ok mordvarga ok þanns annar’s glepr eyraruna; þar’ 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 þar 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 þar vada þunga strauma menn meinsvara ok mordvarga ok þanns 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 þar vada þunga strauma menn meinsvara ok rnordvarga ok þann’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 þar vada

(2) þunga strauma

(3) menn meinsvara (4) ok mordvarga;

(5) ……………….

(6) ……………….

(7) þann’s annars glepr

(8) eyrarunu.

and in one of the dotted lines the verb must have been found which governed the accusative object þann. 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 þann 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 dæla, 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 þa var byttu-austr, eigi dælu-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 þar vaa þunga strauma menn meinsvara ok mordvarga; (en) á fellr austr eitrdaela þann’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 cæno 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 eitrdæla, and the introducing of these words before þanns 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 larvæ—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 inusitatæ 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—þar 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, þeim 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 Myrcviþ 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 þessum gny Klofnar himininn, ok ridu þadan 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 goþar 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" (þvi 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: þaer 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: þann kalla jotnar Bergelmi; hann fór upp a ludr sinn oh kona hans, oh helzt þar, ok eru af þeim 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 Ægir, 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 oþli ettac sem ingunar-Freyr oc sva sælict setr, mergi smæra maul þa ec þa meincraco oc lemþa alla i liþo.   Loki answers:   Str. 44 Hvat er þat iþ litla er ec þat lauggra sec oc snapvist snapir; att egrom Freys mundu ae vera oc und kvernom klaka. Bygver:   Str. 45 Beyggvir ec heiti, enn mic braþan kveda god aull oc gumar: þvi em ec her hrodugr, at drecca Hroptz megir allir aul saman.   Loki.   Str. 46 þegi þu, Beyggvir! þu kunnir aldregi deila meþ 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" (hræra 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 þat, 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 þraurn (Hyndl., 35) near the edge of the earth, on the outer rim of the earth, amid that is where they gave him life (báru þann man vid jardar þraum). 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 þrimu, 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, Næfr), 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 Hænir (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 injuriæ 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, þa 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! Oreiþom augom litiþ ocr þinig 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, bæi 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:
   

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 þaer 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.