Some
explanation is needed of the form of spelling I have adopted in transcribing
Norse proper names. The spirants þ and ð are represented by th
and d, as being more familiar to readers unacquainted with the original.
Marks of vowel-length are in all cases omitted. The inflexional -r of
the nominative singular masculine is also omitted, whether it appears as -r
or is assimilated to a preceding consonant (as in Odinn, Eysteinn, Heindall,
Egill) in the Norse form, with the single exception of the name Tyr, where I
use the form which has become conventional in English.
December 1901.
Page
1
The
Icelandic Eddas are the only vernacular record of Germanic heathendom as it
developed during the four centuries which in
This
use of the word Edda is incorrect and unhistorical, though convenient and
sanctioned by the use of several centuries. It was early used as a general term
for the rules and materials for versemaking, and applied in this sense to
Snorri's Page 2work. When the poems on which his paraphrase
is founded were discovered, Icelandic scholars by a misunderstanding applied
the name to them also; and as they attributed the collection quite arbitrarily
to the historian Saemund (1056–1133), it was long known as Saemundar Edda, a
name now generally discarded in favour of the less misleading titles of Elder
or Poetic Edda. From its application to this collection, the word derives a
more extended use, (1) as a general term for Norse mythology; (2) as a
convenient name to distinguish the simpler style of these anonymous narrative
poems from the elaborate formality of the Skalds.
The
poems of the Edda are certainly older than the MS., although the old opinion as
to their high antiquity is untenable. The majority probably date from the tenth
century in their present form; this dating does not necessitate the ascription
of the shape in which the legends are presented, still less of their substance,
to that period. With regard to the place of their composition opinions vary
widely,
Roughly
speaking, the first two-fifths of the MS. is mythological, the rest heroic. I
propose to observe this distinction, and to deal in this study with the stories
of the Gods. In this connexion, Snorri's Edda and the mythical Ynglinga Saga
may also be considered, but as both were compiled a couple of centuries or more
after the introduction of Christianity into Iceland, it is uncertain how much
in them is literary explanation of tradition whose meaning was forgotten; some
also, especially in Snorri, is probably pure invention, fairy tale rather than
myth.
Many
attempts have been made to prove that the material of the Edda is largely
borrowed. The strength and distinction of Icelandic poetry rest rather on the
fact that it is original and national and, like that of
Omitting
the heroic poems, there are in Codex Regius the following: (1) Of a more or
less comprehensive character, Völuspa, Vafthrudnismal, Grimnismal,
Lokasenna, Harbardsljod; (2) dealing with episodes, Hymiskvida,
Thrymskvida, Skirnisför. Havamal is a collection of proverbs, but contains
two interpolations from mythical poems; Alvissmal, which, in the form of
a dialogue between Thor and a dwarf Alviss, gives a list of synonyms, is a kind
of mythologico-poetical glossary. Several of these poems are found in another
thirteenth-century vellum fragment, with an additional one, variously styled Vegtamskvida
or Baldr's Dreams; the great fourteenth-century codex Flateybook
contains Hyndluljod, partly genealogical, partly an imitation of Völuspa;
and one of the MSS. of Snorri's Edda gives us Rigsthula.
Völuspa, though not one of the earliest poems,
forms an appropriate opening. Metrical considerations forbid an earlier date
than the first quarter of the eleventh century, and the last few lines are
still later. The material is, however, older: the poem is an outline, in
allusions often obscure to us, of traditions and beliefs familiar to its first
hearers. Page 5The very bareness of the outline is
sufficient proof that the material is not new. The framework is apparently imitated
from that of the poem known as Baldr's Dreams, some lines from which are
inserted in Völuspa. This older poem describes Odin's visit to the Sibyl
in hell-gates to inquire into the future. He rides down to her tomb at the
eastern door of Nifl-hell and chants spells, until she awakes and asks: “What
man unknown to me is that, who has troubled me with this weary journey? Snow
has snowed on me, rain has beaten me, dew has drenched me, I have long been
dead.” He gives the name Wegtam, or Way-wise, and then follow question and
answer until she discovers his identity and will say no more. In Völuspa
there is no descriptive introduction, and no dialogue; the whole is spoken by
the Sibyl, who plunges at once into her story, with only the explanatory words:
“Thou, Valfather, wouldst have me tell the ancient histories of men as far as I
remember.” She describes the creation of the world and sky by Bor's sons; the
building by the Gods of a citadel in Ida-plain, and their age of innocence till
three giant-maids brought greed of gold; the creation of the dwarfs; the
creation of the first man and woman out of two trees by Odin, Hoeni and Lodur;
the world-ash and the spring beside it where dwell the three Norns who order
the fates of men. Then follows an allusion to the Page
6war between the
Aesir and the Vanir, the battle with the giants who had got possession of the
goddess Freyja, and the breaking of bargains; an obscure reference to Mimi's
spring where Odin left his eye as a pledge; and an enumeration of his war-maids
or Valkyries. Turning to the future, the Sibyl prophesies the death of Baldr,
the vengeance on his slayer, and the chaining of Loki, the doom of the Gods and
the destruction of the world at the coming of the fire-giants and the release
of Loki's children from captivity. The rest of the poem seems to be later; it
tells how the earth shall rise again from the deep, and the Aesir dwell once
more in Odin's halls, and there is a suggestion of Christian influence in it
which is absent from the earlier part.
Of
the other general poems, the next four were probably composed before 950; in
each the setting is different. Vafthrudnismal, a riddle-poem, shows Odin
in a favourite position, seeking in disguise for knowledge of the future. Under
the name of Gangrad (Wanderer), he visits the wise giant Vafthrudni, and the
two agree to test their wisdom: the one who fails to answer a question is to
forfeit his head. In each case the questions deal first with the past.
Vafthrudni asks about Day and Night, and the river which divides the Giants
from the Gods, matters of common knowledge; and then puts a question as to the
future: “What is the Page 7plain where Surt and the blessed Gods
shall meet in battle?” Odin replies, and proceeds to question in his turn;
first about the creation of Earth and Sky, the origin of Sun and Moon, Winter
and Summer, the Giants and the Winds; the coming of Njörd the Wane to the Aesir
as a hostage; the Einherjar, or chosen warriors of Valhalla. Then come
prophetic questions on the destruction of the Sun by the wolf Fenri, the Gods
who shall rule in the new world after Ragnarök, the end of Odin. The poem is
brought to a close by Odin's putting the question which only himself can
answer: “What did Odin say in his son's ear before he mounted the pyre?” and
the giant's head is forfeit.
In
the third poem of this class, Grimnismal, a prose introduction relates
that Odin and Frigg quarrelled over the merits of their respective
foster-children. To settle the question, Odin goes disguised as Grimni, “the Hooded
One,” to visit his foster-son Geirröd; but Frigg, to justify her charge of
inhospitality against Geirröd, sends her maiden Fulla to warn him against the
coming stranger. Odin therefore meets with a harsh reception, and is bound
between two fires in the hall. Geirröd's young son, Agnar, protests against
this rude treatment, and gives wine to the guest, who then begins to instruct
him in matters concerning the Gods. He names the halls of the Aesir, describes
“Thou
art drunk, Geirröd, thou hast drunk too deep; thou art bereft of much since
thou hast lost my favour, the favour of Odin and all the Einherjar. I have told
thee much, but thou hast minded little. Thy friends betray thee: I see my
friend's sword lie drenched in blood. Now shall Odin have the sword-weary
slain; I know thy life is ended, the Fates are ungracious. Now thou canst see
Odin: come near me, if thou canst.”
[Prose.]
“King Geirröd sat with his sword on his knee, half drawn. When he heard that
Odin was there, he stood up and would have led Odin from the fires. The sword slipt
from his hand; the hilt turned downwards. The king caught his foot and fell
forwards, the sword standing towards him, and so he met his death. Then Odin
went away, and Agnar was king there long afterwards.”
Harbardsljod is a dialogue, and humorous. Thor on his
return from the east comes to a channel, at the farther side of which stands
Odin, disguised as a ferryman, Greybeard. He refuses to ferry Thor across, and
they question each other as to their past feats, with occasional threats from
Thor and taunts from Odin, until the former goes off vowing vengeance on the
ferryman:
Thor. “Thy skill in words would serve thee
ill if I waded across the water; I think thou wouldst cry Page 9louder than the wolf, if thou shouldst get a blow from the
hammer.”
Odin. “Sif has a lover at home, thou shouldst
seek him. That is a task for thee to try, it is more proper for thee.”
Thor. “Thou speakest what thou knowest most
displeasing to me; thou cowardly fellow, I think that thou liest.”
Odin. “I think I speak true; thou art slow on
the road. Thou wouldst have got far, if thou hadst started at dawn.”
Thor. “Harbard, scoundrel, it is rather thou
who hast delayed me.”
Odin. “I never thought a shepherd could so
delay Asa-Thor's journey.”
Thor. “I will counsel thee: row thy boat
hither. Let us cease quarrelling; come and meet Magni's father.”
Odin. “Leave thou the river; crossing shall
be refused thee.”
Thor. “Show me the way, since thou wilt not
ferry me.”
Odin. “That is a small thing to refuse. It is
a long way to go: a while to the stock, and another to the stone, then keep to
the left hand till thou reach Verland. There will Fjörgyn meet her son Thor,
and she will tell him the highway to Odin's land.”
Thor. “Shall I get there to-day?”
Odin. “With toil and trouble thou wilt get
there about sunrise, as I think.”
Thor. “Our talk shall be short, since thou
answerest with mockery. I will reward thee for refusing passage, if we two meet
again.”
Odin. “Go thy way, where all the fiends may
take thee.”
Page 10
Lokasenna also is in dialogue form. A prose
introduction tells how the giant Oegi, or Gymi, gave a feast to the Aesir. Loki
was turned out for killing a servant, but presently returned and began to
revile the Gods and Goddesses, each one in turn trying to interfere, only to
provoke a taunt from Loki. At last Thor, who had been absent on a journey, came
in and threatened the slanderer with his hammer, whereupon Loki said, “I spoke
to the Aesir and the sons of the Aesir what my mind told me; but for thee alone
I will go away, for I know thou wilt strike.” Some of the poem is rather
pointless abuse, but much touches points already suggested in the other poems.
Hyndluljod is much later than the others, probably
not before 1200. The style is late, and the form imitated from Völuspa.
It describes a visit paid by Freyja to the Sibyl to learn the genealogy of her
favourite Ottar. The larger part deals with heroic genealogies, but there are
scanty allusions to Baldr, Frey, Heimdal, Loki's children, and Thor, and a
Christian reference to a God who shall come after Ragnarök “when Odin shall
meet the wolf.” It tells nothing new.
We
have here then, omitting Hyndluljod, five poems (four of them belonging
to the first half of the tenth century) which suggest a general outline of Norse
mythology: there is a hierarchy of Gods, the Aesir, who live together in a
citadel, Odin Page 11being the chief. Among them are several
who are not Aesir by origin: Njörd and his son and daughter, Frey and Freyja,
are Vanir; Loki is really an enemy and an agent in their fall; and there are
one or two Goddesses of giant race. The giants are rivals and enemies to the
Gods; the dwarfs are also antagonistic, but in bondage. The meeting-place of
the Gods is by the World-Ash, Yggdrasil, on whose well-being the fate of Gods
and men depends; at its root lies the World-Snake. The Gods have foreknowledge
of their own doom, Ragnarök, the great fight when they shall meet Loki's
children, the Wolf and the Snake; both sides will fall and the world be
destroyed. An episode in the story is the death of Baldr. This we may assume to
be the religion of the Viking age (800–1000 A.D.), a compound of the beliefs of
various ages and tribes.
The
Aesir.—The number of the
Aesir is not fixed. Hyndluljod says there were twelve (“there were
eleven Aesir when Baldr went down into the howe”). Snorri gives a list of
fourteen Aesir or Gods (Odin, Thor, Baldr, Njörd, Frey, Tyr, Bragi, Heimdal,
Höd, Vidar, Vali, Ullr, Forseti, Loki), and adds Hoeni in another list, all the
fifteen occurring in the poems; and sixteen Goddesses (Asynjor), the majority
of whom are merely personified epithets, occurring nowhere else. Of the
sixteen, Frigg, Gefion, Freyja and Saga (really an Page
12epithet only) are
Goddesses in the poems, and Fulla is Frigg's handmaid. In another chapter,
Snorri adds Idunn, Gerd, Sigyn and Nanna, of whom the latter does not appear in
the Elder Edda, where Idunn, Gerd (a giantess) and Sigyn are the wives of
Bragi, Frey and Loki; and two others, the giantess Skadi and Sif, are the wives
of Njörd and Thor.
A
striking difference from classical mythology is that neither Tyr (who should
etymologically be the Sky-god), nor Thor (the Thunder-god), takes the highest
place. Tyr is the hero of one important episode, the chaining of the Wolf,
through which he loses his right hand. This is told in full by Snorri and
alluded to in Lokasenna, both in the prose preface (“Tyr also was there,
with only one hand; the Fenris-wolf had bitten off the other, when he was
bound”) and in the poem itself:
Loki. “I must remember that right hand which
Fenri bit off thee.”
Tyr. “I am short of a hand, but thou of the
famous wolf; to each the loss is ill-luck. Nor is the wolf in better plight,
for he must wait in bonds till Ragnarök.”
Otherwise,
he only appears in connexion with two more popular Gods: he speaks in Frey's
defence in Lokasenna, and in Hymiskvida he is Thor's companion in
the search for a cauldron; the latter poem represents him as a giant's son.
Thor,
on the other hand, is second only to his Page
13father Odin; he is
the strongest of the Gods and their champion against the giants, and his
antagonist at Ragnarök is to be the World-Snake. Like Odin, he travels much,
but while the chief God generally goes craftily and in disguise, to gain
knowledge or test his wisdom, Thor's errands are warlike; in Lokasenna
he is absent on a journey, in Harbardsljod and Alvissmal he is
returning from one. His journeys are always to the east; so in Harbardsljod:
“I was in the east, fighting the malevolent giant-brides.... I was in the east
and guarding the river, when Svarang's sons attacked me.” The Giants live in
the east (Hymiskvida 5); Thor threatened Loki: “I will fling thee up
into the east, and no one shall see thee more” (Lokasenna 59); the
fire-giants at Ragnarök are to come from the east: “Hrym comes driving from the
east, he lifts his shield before him.... A ship comes from the east, Muspell's
sons will come sailing over the sea, and Loki steers” (Völuspa 50, 51).
It would not, perhaps, be overstraining the point to suggest that this is a
reminiscence of early warfare between the Scandinavians and eastern nations,
either Lapps and Finns or Slavonic tribes.
Thor
is the God of natural force, the son of Earth. Two of the episodical poems deal
with his contests with the giants. Thrymskvida, the story of how Thor
won back his hammer, Mjöllni, from the giant Thrym, is the finest and one of
the oldest Page 14of the mythological poems; a translation
is given in the appendix, as an example of Eddic poetry at its best. Loki
appears as the willing helper of the Gods, and Thor's companion. The
Thunderer's journey with Tyr in quest of a cauldron is related with much humour
in Hymiskvida: Hymi's beautiful wife, who helps her guests to outwit her
husband, is a figure familiar in fairy-tales as the Ogre's wife.
The
chief God of the Scandinavians is, it must be confessed, an unsympathetic
character. He is the head of the Valhalla system; he is Val-father (Father of
the Slain), and the Valkyries are his “Wishmaidens,” as the Einherjar are his
“Wishsons.” He naturally takes a special interest in mortal heroes, from whom
come the chosen hosts of Valhalla. But, in spite of the splendour of his
surroundings, he is wanting in dignity. The chief of the Gods has neither the
might and unthinking valour of Thor, nor the self-sacrificing courage of Tyr.
He is a God who practises magic, and it is as Father of Spells that he is
powerful. He is the wisest of the Gods in the sense that he remembers most
about the past and foresees most about the future; yet he is powerless in
difficulty without the craft of Loki and the hammer of Thor. He always wanders
in disguise, and the stories told of him are chiefly love-adventures; this is
true of all the deeds he mentions in Harbardsljod, and also of Page 15the two interpolations in Havamal, though one of the two
had an object, the stealing of the mead of inspiration from the giant Suptung,
whose daughter Gunnlöd guarded it.
Völuspa makes him one of three creative deities,
the other two being Lodur (probably Loki) and Hoeni, of whom nothing else is
known except the story that he was given as hostage to the Vanir in exchange
for Njörd. The same three Gods (Odin, Loki and Hoeni) are connected with the
legend of the Nibelung treasure; and it was another adventure of theirs,
according to Snorri, which led to the loss of Idunn.
Of
the other Gods, Bragi is a later development; his name means simply king or
chief, and his attributes, as God of eloquence and poetry, are apparently
borrowed from Odin. Heimdal, the watchman and “far-seeing like the Vanir,” who
keeps guard on the rainbow bridge Bifröst, is represented in the curious poem Rigsthula
as founder of the different social orders. He wandered over the world under the
name of Rig, and from his first journey sprang the race of thralls, swarthy,
crooked and broad-backed, who busied themselves with fencing land and tending
goats and swine; from his second, the churls, fine and ruddy, who broke oxen,
built houses and ploughed the land; from his third, the earls, yellow-haired,
rosy, and keen-eyed, who broke horses and strung bows, Page 16rode, swam, and hurled spears; and the youngest of the earls' race
was Konung the king, who knew all mysteries, understood the speech of birds,
could quench fire and heal wounds. Heimdal is said to be the son of nine
mothers, and to have fought with Loki for Freyja's Brising-necklace. His horn
is hidden under Yggdrasil, to be brought out at Ragnarök, when he will blow a
warning blast. His origin is obscure. Still less is known of Vidar and Vali,
two sons of Odin, one of whom is to avenge Baldr's death, the other to slay the
wolf after it has swallowed up the chief God at Ragnarök. Thor's stepson Ullr
(Glory) is probably, like his sons Modi and Magni (Wrath and Strength), a mere epithet.
Frigg,
Odin's wife and the chief Goddess, daughter of Earth, is not very distinctly
characterised, and is often confused with Freyja. Gefion should be the
sea-goddess, since that seems to be the meaning of her name, but her functions
are apparently usurped by the Wane Njörd; according to Snorri, she is the
patron of those who die unwedded.
Baldr.—The story of Baldr is the most debated
point in the Edda. The chief theories advanced are: (1) That it is the oldest
part of Norse mythology, and of ritual origin; (2) that Baldr is really a hero
transformed into a God; (3) that the legend Page
17is a solar myth
with or without Christian colouring; (4) that it is entirely borrowed from
Mediæval Greek and Christian sources. This last theory is too ingenious to be
credible; and with regard to the third, there is nothing essentially Christian
in the chief features of the legend, while the solar idea leaves too much
unexplained. The references to the myth in the Elder Edda are:
(1) Vegtamskvida
(about 900 A.D.). Odin questions the Sibyl as to the meaning of Baldr's dreams:
Odin. “For whom are the benches (in hell)
strewn with rings, the halls fairly adorned with gold?”
Sibyl. “Here the mead, clear drink, stands
brewed for Baldr; the shields are spread. The sons of the Aesir are too merry.”
Odin. “Who will be Baldr's slayer and rob
Odin's son of life?”
Sibyl. “Höd bears thither the high branch of
fame: he will be Baldr's slayer and rob Odin's son of life.”
Odin. “Who will avenge the deed on Höd and
bring Baldr's slayer to the funeral pyre?”
Sibyl. “Rind bears a son, Vali, in the halls
of the west. He shall not wash his hands nor comb his hair till he bears
Baldr's foe to the pyre.”
(2)
In Lokasenna Frigg says: “If I had a son like Baldr here in Oegi's
halls, thou shouldst not pass out from the sons of the Aesir, but be slain here
in thy anger”; to which Loki replies, “Wilt thou that I speak more ill words,
Frigg? I am Page 18the cause that thou wilt never more see
Baldr ride into the hall.”
(3)
In Vafthrudnismal the only reference is Odin's question, “What said Odin
in his son's ear when he mounted the pyre?”
(4)
In Völuspa the Sibyl prophesies, “I saw doom threatening Baldr, the
bleeding victim, the son of Odin. Grown high above the meadows stood the mistletoe,
slender and fair. From this stem, which looked so slender, grew a fatal and
dangerous shaft. Höd shot it, and Frigg wept in Fenhall over Valhall's woe.”
The following lines, on the chaining of Loki, suggest his complicity.
(5) Hyndluljod
has one reference: “There were eleven Aesir by number when Baldr went down into
the howe. Vali was his avenger and slew his brother's slayer.”
Besides
these there is a fragment quoted by Snorri: “Thökk will weep dry tears at
Baldr's funeral pyre. I had no good of the old man's son alive or dead; let Hel
keep what she has.” Grimnismal assigns a hall to Baldr among the Gods.
There
are, in addition, two prose versions of the story by later writers: the
Icelandic version of Snorri (1178–1241) with all the details familiar to every
one; and the Latin one of the Dane Saxo Grammaticus (about thirty years
earlier), which makes Baldr and Höd heroes instead of Gods, and Page 19completely alters the character of the legend by making a rivalry
for Nanna's favour the centre of the plot and cause of the catastrophe. On the
Eddic version and on Saxo's depend the theories of Golther, Detter, Niedner and
other German scholars on the one hand, and Dr. Frazer on the other.
It
has often been pointed out that there is no trace of Baldr-worship in other
Germanic nations, nor in any of the Icelandic sagas except the late
Frithjofssaga. This, however, is true of other Gods, notably of Tyr, who is
without question one of the oldest. The only deities named with any suggestion
of sacrifice or worship in the Icelandic sagas proper are Odin, Thor, Frey,
Njörd, Frigg and Freyja. The process of choice is as arbitrary in mythology as
in other sciences. Again, it is more likely that the original version of the
legend should have survived in Iceland than in Denmark, which, being on the
mainland, was earlier subject to Christian and Romantic influences; and that a
heathen God should, in the two or three centuries following the establishment
of Christianity in the North, be turned into a mortal hero, than that the
reverse process should have acted at a sufficiently late date to permit of both
versions existing side by side in the thirteenth century. A similar gradual
elimination of the supernatural may be found in the history of the Volsung
myth. Snorri's version is merely an amplification of that in the Elder Page 20Edda, which, scanty as its account of Baldr is, leaves no doubt as
to his divinity.
The
outline gathered from the poems is as follows: Baldr, Odin's son, is killed by
his brother Höd through a mistletoe spray; Loki is in some way concerned in his
death, which is an overwhelming misfortune to the Gods; but it is on Höd that
his death is avenged. He is burnt on a pyre (Snorri says on his ship, a feature
which must come from the Viking age; Hyndluljod substitutes
howe-burial). He will be absent from the great fight at Ragnarök, but Völuspa
adds that he will return afterwards. Nanna has nothing to do with the story.
The connexion with the hierarchy of the Aesir seems external only, since Baldr
has no apparent relation to the great catastrophe as have Odin, Thor, Frej, Tyr
and Loki; this, then, would point to the independence of his myth.
The
genuineness of the myth seems to depend on whether the mistletoe is an original
feature of it or not, and on this point there can be little real doubt. The
German theory that Baldr could only be killed by his own sword, which was
therefore disguised by enchantment and used against him, and that the Icelandic
writers misunderstood this to mean a mistletoe sprig, is far-fetched and
romantic, and crumbles at a touch. For if, as it is claimed, the Icelanders had
no mistletoe, why should they introduce it into a story to which it did not
belong? Page 21They might preserve it by tradition, but
they would hardly invent it. Granting this, the mistletoe becomes the central
point of the legend. The older mythologists, who only saw in it a sun-myth,
overlooked the fact that since any weapon would have done to kill the God with,
the mistletoe must have some special significance; and if it is a genuine part
of the story, as we have no reason to doubt, it will be hard to overturn Dr.
Frazer's theory that the Baldr-myth is a relic of tree-worship and the ritual
sacrifice of the God, Baldr being a tree-spirit whose soul is contained in the
mistletoe.
The
contradictions in the story, especially as told by Snorri (such as the
confusion between the parts played by Höd and Loki, and the unsuspicious
attitude of the Gods as Loki directs Höd's aim) are sometimes urged against its
genuineness. They are rather proofs of antiquity. Apparent contradictions whose
explanation is forgotten often survive in tradition; the inventor of a new
story takes care to make it consistent. It is probable, however, that there
were originally only two actors in the episode, the victim and the slayer, and
that Loki's part is later than Höd's, for he really belongs to the Valhall and
Ragnarök myth, and was only introduced here as a link. The incident of the oath
extracted from everything on earth to protect Baldr, which occurs in Snorri and
in a paper MS. of Baldr's Dreams, was probably invented to Page 22explain the choice of weapon, which would certainly need
explanation to an Icelandic audience. If Dr. Frazer's theory be right, Vali,
who slew the slayer, must also have been an original figure in the legend. His
antiquity is supported by the fact that he plays the part of avenger in the
poems; while in Snorri, where he is mentioned as a God, his absence from the
account of Baldr's death is only a part of that literary development by which
real responsibility for the murder was transferred from Höd to Loki.
Snorri
gives Baldr a son, Forseti (Judge), who is also named as a God in Grimnismal.
He must have grown out of an epithet of Baldr's, of whom Snorri says that “no
one can resist his sentence”; the sacred tree would naturally be the seat of
judgment. * * * * *
The
Wanes.—Three of the
Norse divinities, Njörd and his son and daughter, are not Aesir by descent. The
following account is given of their presence in Asgard:
(1)
In Vafthrudnismal, Odin asks:
“Whence
came Njörd among the sons of the Aesir? for he was not born of the Aesir.”
Vafthrudni. “In Vanaheim wise powers ordained and
gave him for a hostage to the Gods; at the doom of the world he shall come
back, home to the wise Wanes.”
Page 23
(2)
There is an allusion in Völuspa to the war which caused the giving of
hostages:
“Odin
shot into the host: this was the first war in the world. Broken was the wall of
the citadel of the Aesir, so that the Wanes could tread the fields of war.”
(3)
Loki taunts Njörd with his position, in Lokasenna:
“Thou
wast sent from the east as a hostage to the Gods....”
Njörd. “This is my comfort, though I was sent
from far as a hostage to the Gods, yet I have a son whom no one hates, and he
is thought the best of the Aesir.”
Loki. “Stay, Njörd, restrain thy pride; I
will hide it no longer: thy son is thine own sister's son, and that is no worse
than one would expect.”
Tyr. “Frey is the best of all the bold
riders of Asgard.”
There
is little doubt that Njörd was once a God of higher importance than he is in
the Edda, where he is overshadowed by his son. Grimm's suggestion that he and
the goddess Nerthus, mentioned by Tacitus, were brother and sister, is
supported by the line in Lokasenna; it is an isolated reference, and the
Goddess has left no other traces in Scandinavian mythology. They were the
deities, probably agricultural, of an earlier age, whose adoption by the later
Northmen was explained by the story of the compact between Aesir and Vanir.
Then Page 24their places were usurped by Frey and
Freyja, who were possibly created out of epithets originally applied to the
older pair; Njörd was retained with lessened importance, Nerthus passed out
altogether. The Edda gives Njörd a giant-bride, Skadi, who was admitted among
the Gods in atonement for the slaying of her father Thiazi; she is little more
than a name. Frey and Freyja have other marks of agricultural deities, besides
their relationship. Nothing is said about Frey's changing shape, but Freyja
possesses a hawk-dress which Loki borrows when he wishes to change his form;
and, according to Snorri, Frey was sacrificed to for the crops. Njörd has an
epithet, “the wealthy,” which may have survived from his earlier connexion with
the soil. In that case, it would explain why, in Snorri and elsewhere, he is
God of the sea and ships, once the province of the ocean-goddess Gefion; the
transference is a natural one to an age whose wealth came from the sea.
In
spite of their origin, Frey and Freyja become to all intents and purposes
Aesir. Frey is to be one of the chief combatants at Ragnarök, with the
fire-giant Surt for his antagonist, and a story is told to explain his defeat:
he fell in love with Gerd, a giant-maid, and sacrificed his sword to get her;
hence he is weaponless at the last fight. Loki alludes to this episode in Lokasenna:
“With gold didst thou buy Gymi's daughter, and gavest Page 25thy sword for her; but when Muspell's sons ride over Myrkwood,
thou shalt not know with what to fight, unhappy one.” The story is told in full
in Skirnisför.
Freyja
is called by Snorri “the chief Goddess after Frigg,” and the two are sometimes
confused. Like her father and brother, she comes into connexion with the
giants; she is the beautiful Goddess, and coveted by them. Völuspa says
that the Gods went into consultation to discuss “who had given the bride of Od
(i.e., Freyja) to the giant race”; Thrymskvida relates how the
giant Thrym bargained for Freyja as the ransom for Thor's hammer, which he had
hidden, and how Loki and Thor outwitted him; and Snorri says the giants
bargained for her as the price for building Valhalla, but were outwitted. Sir
G.W. Dasent notices in the folk-tales the eagerness of trolls and giants to
learn the details of the agricultural processes, and this is probably the clue
to the desire of the Frost-Giants in the Edda for the possession of Freyja.
Idunn, the wife of Bragi, and a purely Norse creation, seems to be a double of
Freyja; she, too, according to Snorri, is carried away by the giants and
rescued by Loki. The golden apples which she is to keep till Ragnarök remind us
of those which Frey offered to Gerd; and the gift of eternal youth, of which
they are the symbols, would be appropriate enough to Freyja as an agricultural
deity. Page 26
The
great necklace Brising, stolen by Loki and won back in fight by Heimdal
(according to the tenth-century Skalds Thjodulf and Ulf Uggason), is Freyja's
property. On this ground, she has been identified with the heroine of Svipdag
and Menglad, a poem undoubtedly old, though it has only come down in paper
MSS. It is in two parts, the first telling how Svipdag aroused the Sibyl Groa,
his mother, to give him spells to guard him on his journey; the second
describing his crossing the wall of fire which surrounded his fated bride
Menglad. If Menglad is really Freyja, the “Necklace-glad,” it is a curious
coincidence that one poem connects the waverlowe, or ring of fire, with Frey
also; for his bride Gerd is protected in the same way, though his servant
Skirni goes through it in his place:
Skirni. “Give me the horse that will bear me
through the dark magic waverlowe, and the sword that fights of itself against
the giant-race.”
Frey. “I give thee the horse that will bear
thee through the dark magic waverlowe, and the sword that will fight of itself
if he is bold who bears it.” (Skirnisför.)
The
connexion of both with the Midsummer fires, originally part of an agricultural
ritual, can hardly be doubted. * * * * *
Loki, or Lopt, is a strange figure. He is
admitted among the Aesir, though not one of them Page
27by birth, and his
whole relation to them points to his being an older elemental God. He is in
alliance with them against the giants; he and Odin have sworn
blood-brothership, according to Lokasenna, and he helps Thor to recover
his hammer that Asgard may be defended against the giants. On the other hand,
while in present alliance with the Gods, he is chief agent in their future
destruction, and this they know. In Snorri, he is a mischievous spirit of the
fairy-tale kind, exercising his ingenuity alternately in getting the Gods into
difficulties, and in getting them out again. So he betrays Idunn to the giants,
and delivers her; he makes the bargain by which Freyja is promised to the giant-builders
of Valhalla, and invents the trick by which they are cheated of their prize; by
killing the otter he endangers his own head, Odin's and Hoeni's, and he obtains
the gold which buys their atonement. Hence, in the systematising of the Viking
religion, the responsibility for Baldr's death also was transferred to him. At
the coming of the fire-giants at Ragnarök, he is to steer the ship in which
Muspell's sons sail (Völuspa), further evidence of his identity as a
fire-spirit. Like his son the Wolf, he is chained by the Gods; the episode is
related in a prose-piece affixed to Lokasenna:
“After
that Loki hid himself in Franangr's Foss in the form of a salmon. There the
Aesir caught him. He was bound with the guts of his son Nari, but his Page 28son Narfi was changed into a wolf. Skadi took a poisonous snake
and fastened it up over Loki's face, and the poison dropped down. Sigyn, Loki's
wife, sat there and held a cup under the poison. But when it was full she
poured the poison away, and meanwhile poison dropped on Loki, and he struggled
so hard that all the earth shook; those are called earthquakes now.”
Völuspa inserts lines corresponding to this
passage after the Baldr episode, and Snorri makes it a consequence of Loki's
share in that event.
He is
more especially agent of the doom through his children: at Ragnarök, Fenri the
Wolf, bound long before by Tyr's help, will be freed, and swallow the sun (Vafthrudnismal)
and Odin (Vafthrudnismal and Völuspa); and Jörmungandr, the
Giant-Snake, will rise from the sea where he lies curled round the world, to
slay and be slain by Thor. The dragon's writhing in the waves is one of the
tokens to herald Ragnarök, and his battle with Thor is the fiercest combat of
that day. Only Völuspa of our poems gives any account of it: “Then comes
the glorious son of Hlodyn, Odin's son goes to meet the serpent; Midgard's
guardian slays him in his rage, but scarcely can Earth's son reel back nine
feet from the dragon.”
When
Thor goes fishing with the giant Hymi, he terrifies his companion by dragging
the snake's head out of the sea, but he does not slay it; it must wait there
till Ragnarök: Page 29
“The
protector of men, the only slayer of the Serpent, baited his hook with the ox's
head. The God-hated one who girds all lands from below swallowed the bait.
Doughtily pulled mighty Thor the poison-streaked serpent up to the side; he
struck down with his hammer the hideous head of the wolf's companion. The
monster roared, the wilderness resounded, the old earth shuddered all through.
The fish sank back into the sea. Gloomy was the giant when they rowed back, so
that he spoke not a word.”
There
is nothing to suggest that Jörmungandr, to whom the word World-Snake
(Midgardsorm) always refers in the Edda, is the same as Nidhögg, the serpent that
gnaws at Yggdrasil's roots; but both are relics of Snake-worship. * * * * *
The
World-Ash, generally
called Yggdrasil's Ash, is one of the most interesting survivals of
tree-worship. It is described by the Sibyl in Völuspa: “I know an ash
called Yggdrasil, a high tree sprinkled with white moisture (thence come the
dews that fall in the dales): it stands ever-green by Urd's spring. Thence come
three maids, all-knowing, from the hall that stands under the tree”; and as a
sign of the approaching doom she says: “Yggdrasil's ash trembles as it stands;
the old tree groans.” Grimnismal says that the Gods go every day to hold
judgment by the ash, and describes it further:
“Three
roots lie three ways under Yggdrasil's ash: Hel dwells under one, the
frost-giants under the second, Page
30mortal men under
the third. The squirrel is called Ratatosk who shall run over Yggdrasil's ash;
he shall carry down the eagle's words, and tell them to Nidhögg below. There
are four harts, with necks thrown back, who gnaw off the shoots.... More
serpents lie under Yggdrasil's ash than any one knows. Ofni and Svafni I know
will ever gnaw at the tree's twigs. Yggdrasil's ash suffers more hardships than
men know: the hart bites above, the side decays, and Nidhögg gnaws below.... Yggdrasil's
ash is the best of trees.”
The
snake and the tree are familiar in other mythologies, though in most other
cases the snake is the protector, while here he is the destroyer. Both Nidhögg
and Jörmungandr are examples of the destroying dragon rather than the
treasure-guardian. The Ash is the oracle: the judgment-place of the Gods, the
dwelling of the Fates, the source of the spring of knowledge. * * * * *
Ragnarök.—The Twilight of the Gods (or Doom of
the Gods) is the central point of the Viking religion. The Regin (of which Ragna
is genitive plural) are the ruling powers, often called Ginnregin (the great
Gods), Uppregin (the high Gods), Thrymregin (the warrior Gods). The word is
commonly used of the Aesir in Völuspa; in Alvissmal the Regin
seem to be distinguished from both Aesir and Vanir. The whole story of the
Aesir is overshadowed by knowledge of this coming doom, the time when they
shall meet foes more terrible than the giants, Page
31and fall before
them; their constant effort is to learn what will happen then, and to gather
their forces together to meet it. The coming Ragnarök is the reason for the
existence of Valhalla with its hosts of slain warriors; and of all the Gods,
Odin, Thor, Tyr and Loki are most closely connected with it. Two poems of the
verse Edda describe it:
(1) Vafthrudnismal:
V.
“What is the plain called where Surt and the blessed Gods shall meet in
battle?”
O.
“Vigrid is the name of the place where Surt and the blessed Gods shall meet in
battle. It is a hundred miles every way; it is their destined battle-field.” *
* * * *
O.
“Whence shall the sun come on the smooth heaven when Fenri has destroyed this
one?”
V.
“Before Fenri destroy her, the elf-beam shall bear a daughter: that maid shall
ride along her mother's paths, when the Gods perish.”
O.
“Which of the Aesir shall rule over the realms of the Gods, when Surt's fire is
quenched?”
V.
“Vidar and Vali shall dwell in the sanctuary of the Gods when Surt's fire is
quenched. Modi and Magni shall have Mjöllni at the end of Vingni's (i.e.,
Thor's) combat.”
O.
“What shall be Odin's end, when the Gods perish?”
V.
“The Wolf will swallow the father of men; Vidar will avenge it. He will cleave
the Wolf's cold jaws in the battle.”
(2) Völuspa:
“A
hag sits eastward in Ironwood and rears Fenri's children; one of them all, in
troll's shape, shall be the Page 32sun's destroyer. He shall feed on the
lives of death-doomed men; with red blood he shall redden the seat of the Gods.
The sunshine shall grow black, all winds will be unfriendly in the
after-summers.... I see further in the future the great Ragnarök of the Gods of
Victory.... Heimdal blows loudly, the horn is on high; Yggdrasil's ash trembles
as it stands, the old tree groans.”
The
following lines tell of the fire-giants and the various combats, and the last
section of the poem deals with a new world when Baldr, Höd and Hoeni are to
come back to the dwelling-place of the Gods.
The
whole points to a belief in the early destruction of the world and the passing
away of the old order of things. Whether the new world which Vafthrudnismal
and Völuspa both prophesy belongs to the original idea or not is a
disputed point. Probably it does not; at all events, none of the old Aesir,
according to the poems, are to survive, for Modi and Magni are not really Gods
at all, Baldr, Höd and Vali belong to another myth, Hoeni had passed out of the
hierarchy by his exchange with Njörd, and Vidar's origin is obscure. * * * * *
The
Einherjar, the great
champions or chosen warriors, are intimately connected with Ragnarök. All
warriors who fall in battle are taken to Odin's hall of the slain, Valhalla.
According to Grimnismal, he “chooses every day men dead by the Page 33sword”; his Valkyries ride to battle to give the victory and bring
in the fallen. Hence Odin is the giver of victory. Loki in Lokasenna
taunts him with giving victory to the wrong side: “Thou hast never known how to
decide the battle among men. Thou hast often given victory to those to whom
thou shouldst not give it, to the more cowardly”; this, no doubt, was in order
to secure the best fighters for Valhalla. That the defeated side sometimes
consoled themselves with this explanation of a notable warrior's fall is proved
by the tenth-century dirge on Eirik Bloodaxe, where Sigmund the Volsung asks in
Valhalla: “Why didst thou take the victory from him, if thou thoughtest him
brave?” and Odin replies: “Because it is uncertain when the grey Wolf will come
to the seat of the Gods.” There are similar lines in Eyvind's dirge on Hakon
the Good. In this way a host was collected ready for Ragnarök: for Grimnismal
says: “There are five hundred doors and eighty in Valhalla; eight hundred
Einherjar will go out from each door, when they go to fight the wolf.”
Meanwhile they fight and feast: “All the Einherjar in Odin's courts fight every
day: they choose the slain and ride from the battle, and sit then in peace
together” (Vafthrudnismal,) and the Valkyries bear ale to them (Grimnismal).
It is
often too hastily assumed that the Norse Ragnarök with the dependant Valhalla
system are Page 34in great part the outcome of Christian
influence: of an imitation of the Christian Judgment Day and the Christian
heaven respectively. Owing to the lateness of our material, it is, of course,
impossible to decide how old the beliefs may be, but it is likely that the
Valhalla idea only took form at the systematising of the mythology in the
Viking age. The belief in another world for the dead is, however, by no means
exclusively Christian, and a reference in Grimnismal suggests the older
system out of which, under the influence of the Ragnarök idea, Valhalla was
developed. The lines, “The ninth hall is Folkvang, where Freyja rules the
ordering of seats in the hall; half the slain she chooses every day, Odin has
the other half,” are an evident survival of a belief that all the dead went to
live with the Gods, Odin having the men, and Freyja (or more probably Frigg)
the women; the idea being here confused with the later system, under which only
those who fell in battle were chosen by the Gods. Christian colouring appears
in the last lines of Völuspa and in Snorri, where men are divided into
the “good and moral,” who go after death to a hall of red gold, and the
“perjurers and murderers,” who are sent to a hall of snakes.
For
Ragnarök also a heathen origin is at least as probable as a Christian one. I
would suggest as a possibility that the expectation of the Twilight of Page 35the Gods may have grown out of some ritual connected with the
eclipse, such as is frequent among heathen races. Such ceremonies are a tacit
acknowledgment of a doubt, and if they ever existed among the Scandinavians,
the possibility, ever present to the savage mind, of a time when his efforts to
help the light might be fruitless, and the darkness prove the stronger, would
be the germ of his more civilised descendant's belief in Ragnarök.
By
turning to the surviving poems of the Skalds, whose dates can be approximately
reckoned from the sagas, we can fix an inferior limit for certain of the
legends given above, placing them definitely in the heathen time. Reference has
already been made to the corroboration of the Valhalla belief supplied by the
elegies on Eirik Bloodaxe and Hakon the Good. In the former (which is
anonymous, but must have been written soon after 950, since it was composed, on
Eirik's death, by his wife's orders), Odin commands the Einherjar and Valkyries
to prepare for the reception of the slain Eirik and his host, since no one
knows how soon the Gods will need to gather their forces together for the great
contest. Eyvind's dirge on Hakon (who fell in 970) is an imitation of this:
Odin sends two Valkyries to choose a king to enter his service in Valhalla;
they find Hakon on the battle-field, and he is slain with many of his
followers. Great Page 36preparation is made in Valhalla for his
reception, and the poet ends by congratulating Hakon (who, though a Christian,
having been educated in England, had not interfered with the heathen altars and
sacrifices) on the toleration which has secured him such a welcome. A still
earlier poet, Hornklofi, writing during the reign of Harald Fairhair (who died
in 933), alludes to the slain as the property of “the one-eyed husband of
Frigg.”
Several
Skalds mention legends of Thor: his fishing for the World-Snake is told by
Bragi (who from his place in genealogies must have written before 900), and by
Ulf Uggason and Eystein Valdason, both in the second half of the tenth century;
and Thjodulf and Eilif (the former about 960, the latter a little later) tell
tales of his fights with the giants. Turning to the other Gods, Egil
Skallagrimsson (about 970) names Frey and Njörd as the givers of wealth; Bragi
tells the story of Gefion's dragging the island of Zealand out of Lake Wener
into the sea; and Ulf Uggason speaks of Heimdal's wrestling with Loki.
The
legend of Idunn is told by Thjodulf much as Snorri tells it: Odin, Hoeni and
Loki, while on a journey, kill and roast an ox. The giant Thiazi swoops down in
eagle's shape and demands a share; Loki strikes the eagle, who flies off with
him, releasing him only on condition that he will betray to the giants Idunn,
“the care-healing maid who Page 37understands the renewal of youth.” He
does so, and the Gods, who grow old and withered for want of her apples, force
him to go and bring her back to Asgard.
The
poet of Eiriksmal, quoted above, alludes to the Baldr myth: Bragi,
hearing the approach of Eirik and his host, asks “What is that thundering and
tramping, as if Baldr were coming back to Odin's hall?” The funeral pyre of Baldr
is described by Ulf Uggason: he is burnt on his ship, which is launched by a
giantess, in the presence of Frey, Heimdal, Odin and the Valkyries.
Though
heathen writers outside of Scandinavia are lacking, references to Germanic
heathendom fortunately survive in several Continental Christian historians of
earlier date than any of our Scandinavian sources. The evidence of these,
though scanty, is corroborative, and the allusions are in striking agreement
with the Edda stories in tone and character.
Odin
(Wodanus) is always identified by these writers with the Roman Mercurius (whom
Tacitus named as the chief German God). This identification occurs in the
eighth-century Paulus Diaconus, and in Jonas of Bobbio (first half of the
seventh century), and probably rests on Odin's character as a wandering God
(Mercury being διάκτορος),
his disguises, and his patronage of poetry and eloquence (as Mercury is λόγιος). Odin Page 38is not himself in general the conductor of dead souls (ψυχοπομπός), like
the Roman God, his attendant Valkyries performing the office for him. The equation
is only comprehensible on the presumption of the independence of Germanic
mythology, and cannot be explained by transmission. For if Odin were in any
degree an imitation of the Roman deity, other notable attributes of the latter
would have been assigned to him: whereas in the Edda the thieving God (κλέπτης) is not Odin
but Loki, and the founder of civilisation is Heimdal.
The
legend of the origin of the Lombards given by Paulus Diaconus illustrates the
relations of Odin and Frigg. The Vandals asked Wodan (Odin) to grant them
victory over the Vinili; the latter made a similar prayer to Frea (Frigg), the
wife of Wodan. She advised them to make their wives tie their hair round their
faces like beards, and go with them to meet Wodan in the morning. They did so,
and Wodan exclaimed, “Who are these Long-beards?” Then Frea said that
having given the Vinili a name, he must give them the victory (as Helgi in the
Edda claims a gift from Svava when she names him). As in Grimnismal,
Odin and Frigg are represented as supporting rival claims, and Frigg gains the
day for her favourites by superior cunning. This legend also shows Odin as the
giver of victory.
Few
heathen legends are told however by these Page
39early Christian
writers, and the Gods are seldom called by their German names. An exception is
the Frisian Fosite mentioned by Alcuin (who died 804) and by later writers; he
is to be identified with the Norse Forseti, the son of (probably at first an
epithet of) Baldr, but no legend of him is told. It is disappointing that these
writers should have said so little of any God except the chief one. A very
characteristic touch survives in Gregory of Tours (died 594), when the Frank
Chlodvig tells his Christian wife that the Christian God “cannot be proved to
be of the race of the Gods,” an idea entirely in keeping with the Eddic
hierarchy. Before leaving the Continental historians, reference may be made to
the abundant evidence of Germanic tree-worship to be gathered from them. The
holy oak mentioned by Wilibald (before 786), the sacred pear-tree of
Constantius (473), with numerous others, supply parallels to the World-Ash
which is so important a feature of Norse mythology.
A
study of this subject would be incomplete without some reference to the
mythology of Saxo Grammaticus. His testimony on the old religion is unwilling,
and his effort to discredit it very evident. The bitterness of his attack on
Frigg especially suggests that she was, among the Northmen, a formidable rival
to the Virgin. When he repeats a legend of the Gods, he transforms them into Page 40mortal heroes, and when, as often happens, he refers to them
accidentally as Gods, he invariably hastens to protest that he does so only
because it had been the custom. He describes Thor and Odin as men versed in
sorcery who claimed the rank of Gods; and in another passage he speaks of the
latter as a king who had his seat at Upsala, and who was falsely credited with
divinity throughout Europe. His description of Odin agrees with that in the
Edda: an old man of great stature and mighty in battle, one-eyed, wearing a
great cloak, and constantly wandering about in disguise. The story which Saxo
tells of his driving into battle with Harald War-tooth, disguised as the
latter's charioteer Brun, and turning the fight against him by revealing to his
enemy Ring the order of battle which he had invented for Harald's advantage, is
in thorough agreement with the traditional character of the God who betrayed
Sigmund the Volsung and Helgi Hundingsbane. Saxo's version of the Baldr story
has been mentioned already. Baldr's transformation into a hero (who could only
be slain by a sword in the keeping of a wood-satyr) is almost complete. But
Odin and Thor and all the Gods fight for him against his rival Hother, “so that
it might be called a battle of Gods against men”; and Nanna's excuse to Baldr
that “a God could not wed with a mortal,” preserves a trace of his origin. The
chained Loki appears in Saxo as Page
41Utgarda-Loki, lying
bound in a cavern of snakes, and worshipped as a God by the Danish king Gorm
Haraldsson. Dr. Eydberg sees the Freyja myth in Saxo's story of Syritha, who
was carried away by the giants and delivered by her lover Othar (the Od of the
Edda): an example, like Svipdag and Menglad, of the complete
transformation of a divine into an heroic myth. In almost all cases Saxo
vulgarises the stories in the telling, a common result when a mythical tale is
retold by a Christian writer, though it is still more conspicuous in his
versions of the heroic legends.
Page
42
Thrymskvida.
1.
Then Wing-Thor was angry when he awoke, and missed his hammer. He shook his
beard, he tossed his hair, the son of Earth groped about for it.
2.
And first of all he spoke these words: “Hear now, Loki, what I tell thee, a
thing that no one in earth or heaven above has heard: the Asa has been robbed
of his hammer!”
3.
They went to the dwelling of fair Freyja, and these words he spoke first of
all: “Wilt thou lend me, Freyja, thy feather dress, to see if I can find my
hammer?”
4. Freyja. “I would give it thee, though it were of gold;
I would grant it, though it were of silver.”
5.
Then Loki flew, the feather-coat rustled, until he came out of Asgard and into
Jötunheim.
6.
Thrym, lord of the Giants, sat on a howe; he twisted golden bands for his
greyhounds and trimmed his horses' manes.
7. Thrym. “How is it with the Aesir? How is it with the
Elves? Why art thou come alone into Jötunheim?”
Loki. “It is ill with the Aesir, it is ill
with the Elves; hast thou hidden the Thunderer's hammer?”
8. Thrym. “I have hidden the Thunderer's hammer eight
miles below the earth. No man shall bring it back, unless he bring me Freyja to
wife.”
9.
Then Loki flew, the feather-coat rustled, until he came out of Jötunheim and
into Asgard. Thor met Page 43him in the middle of the court, and these
words he spoke first:
10.
“Hast thou news in proportion to thy toil? Tell me from on high thy distant
tidings, for a sitting man often breaks down in his story, and he who lies down
falls into falsehood.”
11. Loki. “I bring news for my toil: Thrym, lord of the
Giants, has thy hammer; no man shall bring it back, unless he take him Freyja
as a bride.”
12.
They went to see fair Freyja, spoke to her first of all these words: “Bind on
the bridal veil, Freyja, we two must drive to Jötunheim.”
13.
Angry then was Freyja; she panted, so that all the hall of the Aesir trembled,
and the great Brising necklace fell: “Eager indeed for marriage wouldst thou
think me, if I should drive with thee to Jötunheim.”
14.
Then all the Aesir went into council, and all the Asynjor to consultation, and
the mighty Gods discussed how they should recover the Thunderer's hammer.
15.
Then spoke Heimdal, whitest of the Aesir; he could see into the future like the
Vanir: “Let us bind on Thor the bridal veil; let him have the great necklace
Brising.
16.
“Let the keys jingle, and let women's weeds fall about his knees; let us put
broad stones on his breast, and a hood dexterously on his head.”
17.
Then spoke Thor, the mighty Asa: “Vile would the Aesir call me, if I let the
bridal veil be bound on me.”
18.
Then spoke Loki, Laufey's son: “Speak not such words, Thor! soon will the
Giants dwell in Asgard, unless thou bring home thy hammer.”
19.
Then they bound on Thor the bridal veil, and the great necklace Brising; they
let the keys jingle and women's weeds fall about his knees, and they put broad Page 44stones on his breast, and the hood dexterously on his head.
20.
Then spoke Loki, Laufey's son: “I also will go with thee as thy maiden; we two
will drive together to Jötunheim.”
21.
Then the goats were driven out, urged forward in their harness; well must they
run. Rocks were riven, the earth burned in name: Odin's son was driving into
Jötunheim.
22.
Then spoke Thrym, lord of the Giants: “Stand up, giants, and strew the benches!
They are bringing me now Freyja my bride, Njörd's daughter from Noatun.
23.
“Gold-horned kine run in the court, oxen all-black, the giant's delight. I have
many treasures, I have many jewels, Freyja only is lacking.”
24.
The guests assembled early in the evening, and ale was carried to the Giants.
One ox did Sif's husband eat, and eight salmon, and all the dishes prepared for
the women; three casks of mead he drank.
25.
Then spoke Thrym, lord of the Giants: “Who ever saw a bride eat so eagerly? I
never saw a bride make such a hearty meal, nor a maid drink so deep of mead.”
26.
The prudent handmaid sat near, and she found answer to the Giant's words:
“Eight nights has Freyja eaten nothing, so eager was she to be in Jötunheim.”
27.
He looked under the veil, he longed to kiss the bride, but he started back the
length of the hall: “Why are Freyja's eyes so terrible? Fire seems to burn from
her eyes.”
28.
The prudent handmaid sat near, and she found answer to the Giant's speech:
“Eight nights has Freyja had no sleep, so eager was she to be in Jötunheim.”
29.
In came the Giants' wretched sister, she dared to ask for a bridal gift: “Take
from thine arms the red rings, if thou wouldst gain my love, my love and all my
favour.” Page 45
30.
Then spoke Thrym, lord of the Giants: “Bring the hammer to hallow the bride.
Lay Mjöllni on the maiden's knee, hallow us two in wedlock.”
31.
The Thunderer's heart laughed in his breast, when the bold of soul felt the
hammer. Thrym killed he first, the lord of the Giants, and all the race of the Giants
he struck.
32.
He slew the Giants' aged sister, who had asked him for a bridal gift. She got a
blow instead of shillings, and a stroke of the hammer for abundance of rings.
So Odin's son got back his hammer. Page
46
(1) Poetic
Edda.—The classic edition, and on the whole the best, is Professor Bugge's
(Christiania, 1867); the smaller editions of Hildebrand (Die Lieder der
Aelteren Edda, Paderborn, 1876), and Finnur Jónsson (Eddalieder,
Halle, 1888–90) are also good; the latter is in two parts, Göttersage
and Heldensage. The poems may also be found in the first volume of
Vigfusson and Powell's Corpus Poeticum Boreale (Oxford, 1883),
accompanied by translations; but in many cases they are cut up and rearranged,
and they suffer metrically from the system adopted of printing two short lines
as one long one, with no dividing point. There is an excellent palaeographic
edition of the Codex Regius of the Elder Edda, by Wimmer and Finnur
Jónsson (Copenhagen, 1891), with photographic reproductions interleaved with a
literal transcription.
(2) Snorra
Edda.—The most recent edition of the whole is Dr. Finnur Jónsson's
(Copenhagen, 1875). There is a useful edition of the mythological portions (i.e.,
Gylfaginning, Bragaraedur, and the narrative parts of Skaldskaparmal)
by Ernst Wilken (Die Prosäische Edda, Paderborn, 1878).
(3) Dictionaries
and Grammars.—For the study of the Poetic Edda, Gering's Glossar zu den
Liedern der Edda (Paderborn, 1896) will be found most useful; it is complete
Page 47and trustworthy, and in small compass. A similar service has been
performed for Snorra Edda in Wilken's Glossar (Paderborn, 1883),
which forms a second volume to his edition, mentioned above. Both are, of
course, in German. The only English dictionary is the lexicon of Cleasby and
Vigfusson (Oxford).
Of
Grammars, the best are German; those of Noreen (Altnordische Grammatik,
Halle, 1892), of which there is an abbreviated edition, and Kahle (Altisländisches
Elementarbuch, Heidelberg, 1896) being better suited for advanced students;
the English grammars included in Vigfusson and Powell's Icelandic Reader
(Oxford) and Sweet's Icelandic Primer (Oxford) are more elementary, and
therefore hardly adequate for the study of the verse literature.
There
are English translations of the Elder Edda by Anderson (Chicago, 1879) and
Thorpe (1866), as well as the translations in the Corpus Poeticum, which
are, of course, liable to the same objection as the text. The most accurate
German translation is Gering's (Leipzig, 1893); in Simrock's (Aeltere und
Jüngere Edda, Stuttgart, 1882), the translations of the verse Edda are
based on an uncritical text. Snorra Edda was translated into English by Dasent
(Stockholm, 1842); also by Anderson (Chicago, 1880).
To
the works on Northern mythology mentioned below in the note on the Baldr
theories, must be added Dr. Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology (English
version by R.B. Anderson, London, 1889), which devotes special attention to Saxo.
Page 48
Home
of the Edda. (Page 2.)
The
chief apologists for the British theory are Professor Bugge (Studien über
die Entstehung der nordischen Götter- und Heldensagen, München, 1889), and
the editors of the Corpus Poeticum Boreale (see the Introduction to that
work, and also the Prolegomena prefixed to their edition of the Sturlunga
Saga, Oxford). The case for Norway and Greenland is argued by Dr. Finnur
Jónsson (Den oldnorsk og oldislandske Literaturs-Historie, Copenhagen).
The cases for both British and Norwegian origin are based chiefly on rather
fanciful arguments from supposed local colour. The theory of the Corpus
Poeticum editors that many of the poems were composed in the Scottish isles
is discredited by the absence of Gaelic words or traces of Gaelic legend.
Professor Bugge's North of England theory is slightly stronger, being supported
by several Old English expressions in the poems, but these are not enough to
prove that they were composed in England, since most Icelanders travelled east
at some time of their lives.
(Page
3.)
A
later study will deal with the Heroic legends. Page
49
Ynglinga
Saga. (Page 3.)
Ynglinga
Saga is prefixed to the
Lives of the Kings in the collection known as Heimskringla (edited by
Unger, Christiania, 1868, and by Finnur Jónsson, Christiania, 1893); there is
an English translation in Laing's Lives of the Kings of Norway (London,
1889).
Völuspa. (Page 4.)
A
poem of similar form occurs among the heroic poems. Gripisspa, a
prophetic outline of Sigurd's life, introduces the Volsung poems, as Völuspa
does the Asgard cycle.
Riddle-poems. (Page 6.)
So
many of the mythological poems are in this form that they suggest the question,
did the asking of riddles form any part of Scandinavian ritual?
The
Aesir. (Page 11.)
Ynglinga
Saga says that Odin and
the Aesir came to Norway from Asia; a statement due, of course, to a false
etymology, though theories as to the origin of Norse mythology have been based
on it.
Tyr. (Page 12.)
Tyr
is etymologically identical with Zeus, and with the Sanskrit Dyaus (Sky-God).
The
Baldr theories are stated in the following authorities: Page 50
(1)
Ritual origin: Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. 3.
(2)
Heroic origin: Golther, Handbuch der Germanischen Mythologie (Leipzig,
1895); Niedner, Eddische Fragen (Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum,
new series, 29), Zur Lieder-Edda (Zeitschr. f. d. Alt. vol. 36).
(3)
Solar myth: Sir G.W. Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations (London, 1870);
Max Müller, Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 4.
(4)
Borrowed: Bugge, Studien über die Entstchung der nordischen Götter- und
Heldensagen (transl. Brenner, München, 1889).
Vegtamskvida. (Page 17.)
The
word hroðrbaðm (which I have given as “branch of fame”) would perhaps be
more accurately translated “tree of fame,” which Gering explains as a kenning
for Baldr. But there are no kennings of the same sort in the poem, and the line
would have no meaning. If it refers to the mistletoe, as most commentators
agree, it merely shows that the poet was ignorant of the nature of the plant,
which would be in favour of its antiquity, rather than the reverse.
Saxo
Grammaticus. (Page 18.)
English
translation by Professor Elton (London, D. Nutt, 1894). As Saxo's references to
the old Gods are made in much the same sympathetic tone as that adopted by Old
Testament writers towards heathen deities, his testimony on mythological
questions is of the less value.
The
Mistletoe. (Page 20.)
It
seems incredible that any writers should turn to the Page
51travesty of the
Baldr story given in the almost worthless saga of Hromund Gripsson in support
of a theory. In it “Bildr” is killed by Hromund, who has the sword Mistilteinn.
It must be patent to any one that this is a perverted version of a story which
the narrator no longer understood.
Loki. (Page 26.)
It is
hardly necessary to point out the parallel between Loki and Prometheus, also
both helper and enemy of the Gods, and agent in their threatened fall, though
in the meantime a prisoner. In character Loki has more in common with the
mischievous spirit described by Hesiod, than with the heroic figure of
Aeschylus. The struggles of Loki (p. 28) find a parallel in those of the
fire-serpent Typhon, to which the Greeks attributed earthquakes.
Eclipse
Ritual. (Page 35.)
Mr.
Lang, in Myth, Ritual, and Religion, (
The
Skalds. (Page 35.)
All
the Skaldic verses will be found, with translations, in the Corpus Poeticum.
Printed
by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.