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Teutonic Mythology
Gods and Godde of the N
By
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IAHJAV
Ph.D.,
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J. W. BUEL, Ph.D.
MANAGINO K D1TOR.
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VOL. n.
NORRCENA SOCIETY,
, NHAGEN STOCKHOLM BERLIN NEW YORK 1906
VALKYRIES BRINGING THE BODY OF A SLAIN WARRIOR TO VALHALLA.
(From an etching by I. ore it:. Frulicli.)
HEIMDAL, the god of light, father of men, sire of kings, wa warder of the gates of Valhalla and lived in a castle at tht end of the rainbow (Bifrost bridge). He possessed a trumpet called Gjallarhorn with which he summoned together the gods at Ragnarok. He is represented as the zealous gate-keeper win received and admitted to Valhalla the bodies of warriors slait in battle, when brought hence by Valkyrie maidens who gath ered them from battle-fields. Valhalla was the abode of Odin in Asgard which was situated in Gladsheim, the valley of joy In this paradise dead warriors were revived and spent all after time righting, feasting and drinking as the guests of Odin, pur suing those pleasures that most delighted them when in the flesh
Teutonic Mythology
Gods and Goddesses of the Northland
IN
THREE VOLUMES
By VIKTOR RYDBBRG, PH.D.,
MEMBER OF THE SWEDISH ACADEMY; AUTHOR OF "THE LAST ATHENIAN' AND OTHER WORKS.
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE SWEDISH
BY
RASMUS B. ANDERSON, LL.D.,
EX-TJNITED STATES MINISTER TO DENMARK; AUTHOR OF "NORSE MYTHOIAJGY," " VIKING TALES," ETC.
HON. RASMUS B. ANDERSON, LL.D., Ph.D.,
EDITOR IN CHIEF.
J. W. BUEL, Ph.D.
MANAGING EDITOR.
VOL. II.
ITTBLISHED BY THE
NORRCENA SOCIETY,
LONDON COPENHAGEN STOCKHOLM BERLIN NEW YORK 1906
'3
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
VOLUME TWO
Page Myth in Regard to the Lower World 353
Myth Concerning Mimer's Grove 379
Mimer's Grove and Regeneration of the World 389
Gylfaginning's Cosmography 395
The Word Hel in Linguistic Usage 406
Border Mountain Between Hel and Nifelhel 414
Description of Nifelhel 426
Who the Inhabitants of Hel are 440
The Classes of Beings in Hel 445
The Kingdom of Death 447
Valkyries, Psycho-messengers of Diseases 457
The Way of Those who Fall by the Sword 462
Risting with the Spear-point 472
Loke's Daughter, Hel 476
Way to Hades Common to the Dead 482
The Doom of the Dead 485
The Looks of the Thingstead 505
The Hades Drink 514
The Hades Horn Embellished with Serpents 521
Page
The Lot of the Blessed 528
Arrival at the Na-gates 531
The Places of Punishment 534
The Hall in Nastrands 540
Loke's Cave of Punishment 552
The Great World-Mill 565
The World-Mill makes the Constellations Revolve 579
Origin of the Sacred Fire 586
Mundilfore's Identity with Lodur 601
Nat, Mother of the Gods 608
Narfi, Nat's Father 611
Giant Clans Descended from Ymer 624
Identity of Mimer and Nidhad 630
Review of Mimer's Names and Epithets 641
The Mead Myth 644
The Moon and the Mead 669
Myths of the Moon-God 680
LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURES.
VOL. II.
Frontispiece — Valkyries Bringing the Body of a Slain Warrior to Valhalla.
Page Thor Destroys the Giant Thrym 456
The Punishment of Loke 552
Gefion and King Gylphi 616
THE MYTH IN REGARD TO THE LOWER WORLD.
(Part IV. Continued from Volume /.) 53.
AT WHAT TIME DID LIF AND LEIFTHRASER GET THEIR PLACE OF REFUGE IN MIMER^S GROVE ? THE ASMEGIR.
MIMER'S POSITION IN MYTHOLOGY. THE NUMINA off
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 thadan af aldir alas: "Thence (from Lif and Leifthraser in Mimer's grove) races are born." Codex Upsalensis has instead — ok thar um alldr alaz: "And they (Lif and Leifthraser) have there (in Mimer'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 Leif- thraser 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
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
the age of the manuscripts, then the one in Codex Up- salensis, 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, I simply point out the fact that the oldest version we possess of the passage says that Lif and Leif- thraser live through ages in Mimer'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 dsmegir. 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 Fjols- vinnsmal.
The young Svipdag, the hero in Grogalder and in Fjolsvinnsmal, is in the latter poem represented as stand- ing before the gate of a citadel which he never saw be- fore, 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 gate-keeper, and calls himself Fjolsvinn. He and Svipdag enter into con- versation. The conversation turns chiefly upon the re- markable objects which Svipdag has before his eyes.
*S. Bugge, Saemund. Edda, xxvi. Thorl. J6nsson's Edda, Snorra St., viii.
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Svipdag asks questions about them, and Fjolsvinn gives him information. But before Svipdag came to the cas- tle, 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 re- quires, the present tense of the verb (as in strophe 35 — segdu mer hvat that bjarg heitir, er ek se brudi a). When he speaks of what he has seen before and else- where, he employs the past tense of the verb. In strophe 33 he says:
Segdu mer that, Fjolsvidr, er ek thik fregna mun ok ek vilja vita; hverr that gordi, er ek fyr gard sak innan asmaga?
"Tell me that which I ask you, and which I wish to know, Fjolsvinn: Who made that which I saw within the castle wall of the dsmegir?"*
* 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 dsmegir made what I saw within the castle wall?" Against this formal possibility there are, however, several objec- tions of facts. Svipdag would then be asking Fjolsvinn who had made that which he once in the past had seen within a castle wall without inform- ing Fjolsvinn in regard to which particular castle wall he has reference. It also presupposes that Svipdag knew that the dsmegir had made the things in question which were within the castle wall, and that he onlry wished to complete his knowledge by finding out which one or ones of the dsmegir it was that had made them. 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. pi. dsmaga 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 case.
355
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY Fjolsvinn answers (str. 34) :
Uni ok Iri, Bari ok Ori, Varr ok Vegdrasil, Dori ok Uri; Dellingr ok vardar lithsci 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 dsmegir 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 en- trusted 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 awak- ened his astonishment and admiration, and caused him to ask Fjolsvinn about the name of its builder. Fjolsvinn 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 (i Dvalins lidi — Voluspa, 14).
*I follow the text in most of the manuscripts, of which Bugge has given various versions. One manuscript has in the text, another in the margin, Lidscialfr, written in one word (instead of lithsci alfr). Of this Munch made Lidskjalfr. The dative loki from lok, a gate (cp. luka loka, to close, enclose) has been interpreted as Loki, and thus made the con- fusion complete.
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The problem to the solution of which I am struggling on — namely, to find the explanation of what beings those are which are called dsmegir — demands first of all that we should find out where the myth located their dwelling seen by Svipdag, a fact which is of mythological impor- tance in other respects. This result can be gainexl, pro- viding Dvalin's and Delling's real home and the scene of their activity can be determined. This is particularly important in respect to Belling, since his office as gate- keeper at the castle of the dsmegir 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 word- ing of strophe 10 indicates that on a being by name Mod- sognir, Motsognir, was bestowed the dignity of chief* of the proposed artist-clan, and that he, with the assist- ance of Durin (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 com- pleted.
That Modsogner possessed a promethean power of creating.
*Thar (in the assembly of the gods) var Modsognir mcestr um ordinn dverga allra.
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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 mentioned anywhere else than in this place1 — we look in vain for the name Modsogner else- where—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 Mimer, who originally was the sole possessor of the mythic mead, and who daily drank of it (Voluspa, 29 — dreckr miod Mimir margin liver jan). Still nothing can be built simply on the defi- nition 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 be- ings to whom he belongs, for he is the only one of them all who is mentioned as having a number of his own
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kind as subjects (Voluspa, 14). The problem as to whether Modsogner is identical with Mimer should therefore be decided by the answers to the following questions: Is that which is narrated about Modsogner also narrated of Mimer? Do the statements which we have about Dvalin show that he was particularly con- nected with Mimer and with the lower world, the realm of Mimer?
Of Modsogner it. is said (Voluspa, 12) that he was m&str ordinn dverga allra: he became the chief of all dwarfs, or, in other words, the foremost among all ar- tists. Have we any similar report of Mimer?
The German middle-age poem, "Biterolf," relates that its hero possessed a sword, made by Mimer the Old, Mime der alte, who was the most excellent smith in the world. To be compared with him was not even Wie- land (Volund, Wayland), still less anyone else, with the one exception of Hertrich, who was Mimer's co-la- bourer, and assisted him in making all the treasures he produced :
Zuo siner (Mimer's) meisterschefte
ich nieman kan gelichen
in alien fiirsten richen
an einen, den ich nenne,
daz man in dar bi erkenne:
Der war Hertrich genant.
Durch ir sinne craft
so hseten sie geselleschaft
an werke und an alien dingen. (Biterolf, 144.)
Vilkinasaga, which is based on both German and Norse
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
sources, states that Mimer was an artist, in whose work- shop 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 Ecki- hard.
These echoes reverberating far down in Christian times of the myth about Mimer, as chief of smiths, we also perceive in Saxo. It should be remembered what he relates about the incomparable treasures which are pre- served in Gudmund-Mimer's domain, among which in addition to those already named occur arma humanorum corporum* hdbitu grandiora (i., p. 427), and about Mimin- gus, who possesses the sword of victory, and an arm- ring which produces wealth (i. 113, 114). If we consult the poetic Edda, we find Mimer mentioned as Hodd- Mimer, Treasure-Mimer (Vafthr. 45) ; as naddgofugr jotunn, the giant celebrated for his weapons (Grogalder, 14) ; as Hoddrofnir, or Hodd-dropnir, the treasure-drop- ping one (Sigrdr., 13) ; as Baugreginn, the king of the gold-rings (Solarlj., 56). And as shall be shown here- after, the chief smiths are in the poetic Edda put in con- nection with Mimer 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
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
they are "mortals," who by their merits acquire immor- tality. 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 "mead-drinker" is the chief and master of all these ar- tists. And on a closer examination it appears that Mi- mer'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 cele- brated Bolthorn's 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 Odr&rir:
Tha nam ec frovaz Then I began to bloom
oc frodr vera and to be wise,
oc vaxa oc vel hafaz; and to grow and thrive;
ord mer af ordi word came to me
orz leitadi, from word,
verc mer af verki deed came to me
vercs leitadi. from deed.
It is evident that Odin here means to say that the first drink which he received from Mimer's fountain was the turning-point in his life ; that before that time he had not
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blossomed, had made no progress in wisdom, had pos- sessed 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 sup- pose that he performed this greatest and wisest of his works before he began to develop fruit, and before he got wisdom 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 con- sidered himself able to perform after the drink from Mi- mer'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 Ymer, 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 Mimer's fountain and from Mimer's hand Odin has, therefore, received his creative power and his wisdom. We are thus able to understand why Odin re- garded this first drink from Odrserer so immensely im- portant 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 Mimer's foun- tain is endowed with creative power and wisdom, how
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can the conclusion be evaded, that the myth regarded Mimer 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, came from the lower world and from Mimer. The world-tree has also grown out of the lower world and is Mimer'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 Mimer. It is, therefore, per- fectly 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 per- sonified, just as Rigveda's Rubhus, who smithied flow- ers 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 Mimer was the profound counsellor and faithful friend of the Asas has already been shown. Thus we discover in Mimer 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 ar- tist. He is there said to have assisted in the fashioning of the sword Tyrfing (Fornald. Saga, i. 436), of Freyja's
2 363
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 Dvalin (hrynr fram ur Dvalin's grap— Fornm. Saga, x. 208; Flat., i. 582). This beau- tiful 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 Mimer'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 Mimer 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 (Hav- amal, 143). But all knowledge of runes came origin- ally from Mimer. As skald and runic scholar, Dvalin, therefore, stood in the relation of disciple under the ruler of the lower world.
The myth in regard to the runes (cp. No. 26) men- tioned three apprentices, who afterwards spread the knowledge of runes each among his own class of be- ings. Odin, who in the beginning was ignorant of the mighty and beneficent rune-songs (Havamal, 138-143), was by birth Mimer's chief disciple, and taught the knowledge of runes among his kinsmen, the Asas (Hav- amal, 143), and among men, his proteges (Sigdrifm.,
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
18). The other disciples were Dain (Ddinn) and Dva- lin (Dvalinn). Dain, 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 Ddins — 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 Asvidr. Since the other teachers of runes belong to the clans, to which they teach the knowledge of runes — "Odin among Asas, Dain among elves, Dvalin among dwarfs" — there can be no danger of making a mistake, if we assume that Asvidr was a giant. And as Mimer himself is a giant, and as the name Asvidr (=Asvinr) means Asa-friend, and as no one — particularly no one among the giants — has so much right as Mimer to this epithet, which has its counterpart in Odin's epithet, Mirn^s vinr (Mimer's friend), then caution dictates that we keep open the highly probable possibility that Mimer himself is meant by Asvidr.
All that has here been stated about Dvalin shows that the mythology has referred him to a place within the do- main of Mimer'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 re- ferring to a personal object, means a young girl, a mai- den, whom one keeps at his side, and in whose amuse- ment one takes part at least as a spectator. The exam- ples which we have of the use of the word indicate that
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 fos- ter-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 Delling's son. Delling is the watch- man of the castle of the dsmegir, which Dvalin's artists decorated.
Thus the whole group of persons among whom Dvalin is placed — Mimer, 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 Mimer's domain, and belong to the subterranean class of the numina of Teutonic mythol- ogy.
From regions situated below Midgard's horizon, Nat, Sol, and Dag draw their chariots upon the heavens. On the eastern border of the lower world is the point of de- parture for their regular journeys over the heavens of the upper world ("the upper heavens," upphiminn — - Voluspa, 3; Vafthr., 20, and elsewhere; uppheimr — Alvm., 13). Nat has her home and, as shall be shown hereafter, her birthplace in dales beneath the ash Ygdra-
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
sil. 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 Delling'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 divini- ties 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 thjodreyrir ("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" (afl asom, enn alfum frama, hyggio Hrop- taty — 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 stand- point it would therefore be possible to entrust the keeping of the castle of the dsmegir to the elf of dawn. The sun- set-glow has another genius, Billing, and he, too, is a crea- tion of Modsogner, if the dwarf-list is correct (Voluspa, 12). Sol, who on her way is pursued by two giant mon- sters in wolf-guise, is secure when she comes to her forest of the Yarns behind the western horizon ( til varna vridar — Grimn., 30). There in western halls (Vegtamskv., 11)
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
dwells Billing, the chief of the Varns (Billing veold Ver- num — 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 Mimer's domain, Delling of the eastern.
From this it follows:
That the citadel of the dsmegir is situated in Mimer's lower world, and there in the regions of the elf of dawn.
That Svipdag, who has seen the citadel of the dsmegir, 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 con- firmed by the other passage in the poetic Edda, where the dsmegir are mentioned by this name. Here we have an opportunity of taking a look within their castle, and of seeing the hall decorated with lavish splendour for the re- ception of an expected guest.
Vegtamskvida tells us that Odin, being alarmed in re- gard 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 :
hvseim eru bekkir baugum sanir, flset fagrlig floth gulli?
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
"For whom are the benches strewn with rings and the gold beautifully scattered through the rooms?" And the vala answers:
Her staendr Balldri of bruggin miodr, skirar vseigar, liggr skiolldr yfir sen asmegir i ofvseni.
"Here stands for Balder mead prepared, pure drink; shields are overspread, and the asmegir are waiting im- patiently."
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, strd bekki, bua bekki} with costly things, and the pure won- derful 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 Bal- der. 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 sacri- fice, 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 asmegir, and that is in Olaf
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Trygveson's saga, ch. 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, men- tions his interest in the heathen worship, and the good re- sults this was supposed to have produced for the jarl himself and for the welfare of his land. Einar says :
Ok hertharfir hverfa hlakkar mots til biota, raudbrikar fremst raekir rikr, asmegir, sliku. Nu graer jord sem adan, &c.
Put in prose: Ok hertharfir asmegir hverfa til biota; hlakkar mots raudbrikar rikr rcekir fremst sliku. Nu grazr jord sem adan.
Translation : "And the asmegir required in war, turn themselves to the sacrificial feasts. The mighty pro- moter 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 asmegir 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
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prose form is simply this: "Hakon's men again devote themselves to the divine sacrifices. This is both an hon- our 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 back- ground. The persons in this background are the asmegir and a mythical being called "the promoter of the red tar- get," raudbrikar r&kir. 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 fur- nished with adjectives which emphasise the specific dif- ference between the original mythic lenders and the real borrowers. Thus Hakon's subjects are allowed to bor- row the appellation asmegir, but this is then furnished with the adjective hertharfir (required in war), whereby they are specifically distinguished from the asmegir of the mythical background, and Hakon on his part is allowed to borrow the appellation raudbrikar rcekir (the promoter of the red target), but this appellation is then furnished with the adjective phrase hlakkar mots (of the meeting of the goddess of war), whereby Hakon is specifically dis- tinguished from the raudbrikar r&kir 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 re-
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lation between the persons in the foreground. Hakon's men stand in a subordinate relation to Hakon himself; and so must the dsmegir stand in a subordinate relation to that being which is called raudbrikar rakir, providing the skald in this strophe as in the others has produced a tenable parallel. Hakon is, for his subjects, one who ex- horts them to piety and fear of the gods. Raudbrikar rcekir, his counterpart in the mythological background, must have been the same for his dsmegir. Hakon's sub- jects offer sacrifices, and this is an advantage and an hon- our to Hakon, and the earth grows green again. In the mythology the dsmegir must have held some sacrificial feast, and raudbrikar rcekir 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 pre- sented 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 logi- cally such figures of comparison. We shall later on give other examples of this.
Who is, then, this raudbrikar rcekir, "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 continu- ation of the paraphrase adapted to Hakon. A common paraphrase for the shield is the sun with suitable adjec-
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tives, and thus raudbrik is applied here. The adjective phrase is here hlakkar mots, "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 r&kir of the background, is changed to a shield, which becomes an attribute of the historical r&kir of the foreground, namely Hakon jarl, the mighty warrior. Accordingly, raudbrikar rcekir 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 mots raudbrikar rakir would equally well designate him as Hakon, and thus it could not be used to designate Ha- kon alone, as it then would contain neither a nota charac- teristica for him nor a differentia specifica to distinguish him from the mythic person, whose epithet raudbrikar r&kir 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 dsmegir referred to the domain of Mimer, 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 dsmegir. From this or these sacrificial feasts the peaceful sun-god must have derived advantage and hon- our, and thereupon the earth must have regained a fer- tility, which before that had been more or less denied it.
From all this it follows with certainty that raudbrikar
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rcekir of the mythology is Balder. The fact suggested by the Vellekla strophe above analysed, namely, that Bal- der, physically interpreted, is a solar divinity, the mytho- logical 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 asmegir, who impatiently awaited his arri- val, and that they sacrifice to him that bright mead of the lower world, whose wonderfully beneficial and brac- ing 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 has- tened 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 Mimer'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 hertharfir asmegir. When they are permitted to borrow the name of the asmegir, then the adjective hertharfir, if chosen with the proper care, is to contain a specific distinction be-
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tween them and the mythological beings whose name they have borrowed. In other words, if the real dsmegir were of such a nature that they could be called hertharfir, then that adjective would not serve to distinguish Ha- kon's men from them. The word hertharfir means "those who are needed in war," "those who are to be used in war." Consequently, the dsmegir are beings who are not to be used in war, beings whose dwelling, environ- ment, 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 (asmegir).
at the instigation of their
chief,
the sun-god Balder (raudbri- kar raekir).
go to offer sacrifices.
The peaceful Balder is there- by benefited.
The earth grows green again.
ok asmegir, hverfa til biota; raudbrikar rikr raekir
fremst sliku. Nu graer jordsem adan.
History.
Warlike inhabitants of the earth (hertharfir asme- gir).
at the instigation of their chief,
the shield's Balder, Hakon (hlakkar mots raudbri- kar raekir),
go to offer sacrifices.
The shield's Balder is thereby benefited.
The earth grows green again,
ok hertharfir asmegir
hverfa til biota
hlakkar mots raudbrikar rikr
raekir
fremst sliku. Nu grser jord sem adan.
In the background which Einar has given to his poeti- cal paraphrase, we thus have the myth telling how the
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sun-god Balder, on his descent to the lower world, was strengthened by the soma-sacrifice brought him by the dsmegir, and how he sent back with Hermod the treas- ures 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 dsmegir then be- long? We have seen the word applied as a technical term in a restricted sense. The possibilities of applica- tion which the word with reference to its definition sup- plies are:
(1) The word may be used in the purely physical sense of Asa-sons, Asa-descendants. In this case the subterranean dsmegir 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 men. They are the children of the Asa- father in a double sense: the first human pair was created by Odin and his brothers (Volusp., 16, 17; Gylfag., 9), and their offspring are also in a moral sense Odin's children, as they are sub- ject to his guidance and care. He is Alfather, and the father of the succeeding generations (allfadir, aldafadir). A word resembling dsmegir in character is dsasynir, 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 concep-
*Sol Tieitir med monnom, enn sunna med godum, Ualla dvergar Dvalin's leika eyglo iotnar, alfar fagra hvel alscir asa synir.
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
tion 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 journey on the earth and visit to the patriarchs of the various classes is connected.*
The true meaning of the word in this case is deter- mined by the fact that the dsmegir 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 dsmegir meant Asas, Einar would never have called the inhabitants of Norway, the subjects of jarl Hakon, hertharfir dsmegir, for hertharfir 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 dsmegir 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 de- scended to Hades. To subterranean human beings re-
*Cp. also Gylfag.. 9, in regard to Odin : Ok fyrir thvi ma harm heita Allfodr, at hann er fadir alra godanna ok manna ok alls thess, er af honom ok hans krapti var fullgjort.
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fers 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 dslithar, a word which Gudbrand Vigfusson has rightly assumed to be identical with dsmegir.
Thus it is also demonstrated that the dsmegir are iden- tical with the subterranean human persons Lif and Leif- thraser and their descendants in Mimer's grove. The care with which the mythology represents the citadel of the dsmegir kept, shown by the fact that the elf Belling, 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 out- side of whose door the song of 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 dsmegir in the lower world are permitted to enjoy the society of Balder is explained by the fact that Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring are after Ragnarok to accompany Bal- der to dwell under his sceptre, and live a blameless life corresponding to his wishes. They are to be his disci- ples, knowing their master's commandments and having them written in their hearts.
We have now seen that the dsmegir already before Balder's death dwell in Mimer's grove. We have also
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seen that Svipdag on his journey in the lower world had observed a castle, which he knew belonged to the dsmegir. The mythology knows two fimbul-winters : the former raged in time's morning, the other is to precede Rag- narok. The former occurred when Freyja, the goddess of fertility, was treacherously delivered into the power of the frost-giants and all the air was blended with corrup- tion (Volusp., 26) ; when there came from the Elivogs stinging, ice-cold arrows of frost, which put men to death and destroyed the greenness of the earth ( Pornspjallsl- jod) ; when King Snow ruled, and there came in 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 fimbul-winter. 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 Mimer'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 log- ically met this claim of poetic justice.
54.
THE IRANIAN MYTH CONCERNING MIMER^S GROVE.
In connection with the efforts to determine the age of the Teutonic myths, and their kinship with the other
3 379
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 regen- erated 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 same 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 psy- chological similarity of races may, on account of the lim- itations of the human fancy, and in the midst of similar conditions and environments, create myths which resem- ble 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 them- selves for the accomplishment of the end, and the same universal conceptions of form were active in the develop- ment of the problems. Comparative mythology will never become a science in the strict sense of this word
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before it ceases to build hypotheses on a solitary similarity, or even on several or many resemblances between mytho- logical systems geographically separated, unless these resemblances unite themselves and form a whole, a myth- ical 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 suf- ficient 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 antiq- uity. A hymn of sacrifice, dedicated to the sacred mead, the liquid of inspiration (homa, thesoma and soma-madhu
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 mead 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 whom 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, never- theless, was in possession of the true wisdom.]
It is mentioned (in Gosh Jasht and Ram 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
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
the ruler of the air and wind in Rigveda, the mighty god Vayu-Vata.
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 Vendi-dad re- lates the following :*
A vest a.
21. A meeting was held with the holy angels of Ahu- ramazda, the creator. To this meeting came, with the best men, Jima, the king rich in flocks.
22. Then said Ahuramazda to Jima: "Happy Jima Vivan- ghana! In the material world there shall come an evil win- ter, and consequently a hard, killing frost."
23. From three places, O Jima, the cows should be driven to well-enclosed shel- ters; whether they are in the wildernesses, or in 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, O Jima, in the
/ Zend.
A meeting was held with the best men of Jima, the king, the one rich in flocks. To this meeting came, with the holy angels, Ahuramazda, the creator.
In the material world there shall come an evil winter, consequently much snow shall fall on the highest moun- tains, on the tops of the rocks.
From three places, O Jima, the cows should be driven to well-enclosed shelters; whether they are in the wil- derness, or on the heights of the mountains, or in the depths of the valleys.
*The outlines of the contents are given here from the interpretation found in Haug- West's Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis (Lon- don, 1878).
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material world, water-soaked places, in which were visible the footprints of the cattle and their offspring.
25. Now give this enclo- sure (above, "the well-en- closed 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 ha- thra. 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.
Now give the enclosure the length of one ... on each of its four sides as a dwelling for men, and give the same length to each of the four sides as a field for the cows.
27. Bring thither seed of all men and women, who are the largest, best, and most fair on this earth. Bring thither seed of all domestic animals that are the largest, best, and fair- est 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 unceas- ingly, in order that these be- ings may have their existence in the enclosures.
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29. There shall be no pride, no despondency, no sluggish- ness, no poverty, no deceit, no dwarf-growths, no blem- ish ... nor aught else of those signs which are Angro-main- yush'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 en- closure, and a self-luminous window on the inside.
33. Then Jima made the enclosure.
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 per- sons are born by two per- sons. These persons enjoy the greatest bliss in the en- closures made by Jima.
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42. Just creator! Who preached the pure faith in the enclosures which Jima made? Ahuramazda an- swered: The bird Karshipta.
Jima's garden has accordingly been formed in connec- tion 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 the unparalleled frost, and as the valleys are no more pro- tected 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 pre- 386
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
serves through all the historical ages those treasures of uncorrupted men, animals, and plants which in the begin- ning 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 king- dom 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 Manu, 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 Manu by the side of Bhriga, refer to an ancient patriarch of human descent. If the derivation of the word Mimer, Miml, pointed out by several linguists, last by Mullenhoff (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.
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What the Aryan-Asiatic myth here given has in com- mon with the Teutonic one concerning the subterranean persons in Mimer's grove can be summarised in the fol- lowing 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 des- troy everything on the surface of the earth. Then the ruler of the lower world built on his domain a well-forti- fied 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 most beautiful and useful trees and plants. The purpose of this garden is not sim- ply 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.
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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 mythlogy. Both are there put in theogonic connection with Mimer. The one is the celestial lord of the wind, Vayush, Rig- veda's Vayu-Vata. Vata is thought to be the same name as Wodan, Odinn (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 Mimer's sister Bestla, and with her becomes the father of Odin (Havam., 140 ; Gylfag., 6).
55.
THE PURPOSE OP MIMER'S GROVE IN THE REGENERATION OP THE WORLD.
We now know the purpose of Odaimakr, Mimer's land and Mimer'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 Mimer'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
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virtue and piety. The grove protects, as we have seen, the dsmegir during Ragnarok, whose flames do not pene- trate thither. Thus the grove, and the land in which it is situated, exist after the flames of Ragnarok are extin- guished. Was it thought that the grove after the regen- eration 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. Volusp., 54, 2—Sigr fold i mar, with Hyndlulj., 42, 1-3— Haf gengr hridium vid himinn sialfann, lidr land 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 (Volusp., 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 no 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 " a new earth, which on its very rising possesses living beings and is clothed in green. The fact
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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
iord or segi
ithia graena (str. 56).
The earth risen from the deep has mountains and cas- cades, 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
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 Para- dise, 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 other- wise.
Among the mountains which rise on the new earth are found those which are called Nida fjoll (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 Voluspa, there is also a hall of gold on Nide's plains (a Nitha vollum — str. 36), and from Solarljod (str. 56) we learn — a statement con- firmed by much older records — that Nide is identical with Mimer (see No. 87). Thus, Nide's mountains are situated on Mimer's fields. Voluspa'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 imme- morial 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," can-
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not 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 Voluspa'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 Mimer'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.
Voluspa gives one more proof of this.
In their youth, free from care, the Asas played with strange tablets. But they had the tablets only i arla- daga, in the earliest time (Volusp., 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- Mimer was in the habit of playing with tablets (Fornalder Sagas, i. 443; iii. 391-392; iii. 626, &c. In the last pas- sages 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 Mimer's
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domain before. Voluspa (str. 58) also relates that they were found in its grass :
Thar muno eptir undrsamligar gullnar tavlor i grasi finaz.
"There were the wonderful tablets found left in the grass (Unas 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 Mimer'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 Mimer's domain. Nide's mountains, and Nidhog with them, have been raised out of the sea, together with the rejuvenated earth, since these mountains are located in Mimer'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 — Voluspa (str. 56) calls the earth rising from the sea idjagrcsna'.
Ser hon upp koma audro sinni iord or aegi ithia graena.
The common interpretation is ithia grozna, "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 Gud-
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mund-Mimer's domain. Thus the idea contained in the expression H adding jalands oskurna ax (see Nos. 72, 73) recurs in Voluspa's statement that the fields unsown yield harvests in the new earth. Meanwhile the com- position idja-grcena has a perfectly abnormal appearance, and awakens suspicion. Miillenhoff {Deutsche Alt.} reads idja, grcena, 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 ida, an eddying body of water. Ida has originally had a / in the stem (it is related to id and idi), and this / 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., Odre- ris alda thytr in Einar Skalaglam and Bodnar bdra 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 GYIvFAGINNINC'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
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 sup- plies 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 foun- tain 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 Gylfaginning lived and wrote in the 13th century, more than 200 years after the introduction of Christianity in Iceland, and that his statements accord- ingly 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
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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 cos- mography 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 (thar ncsst gerdu their ser borg i midjum heimi, er kallat er Asgardr; that kollum ver Troj'a; thar bygdu gudin ok czttir theirra ok gfordust thadan af morg tidindi ok greinir Ixzdi a jord ok a lopti — ch. 9).
The first mythic tradition which supplies material for the structure which Gylfaginning builds on this founda- tion is the bridge Bifrost. The myth had said that this bridge united the celestial abodes with a part of the uni- verse 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 gjordu bru til himins af jordu. — ch. 13).
The second mythic tradition employed is Urd's foun- tain. The myth had stated that the gods daily rode from their celestial abodes on the bridge Bifrost to Urd's (sub- terranean) fountain. Thence Gylfaginning draws the correct conclusion that Asgard 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
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if Asgard-Troy is situated on the surface of the earth Urd's fountain must 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 rida> cesir thangat u$p um Bi frost" — 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 Voluspa (19), this foun- tain 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 Bif rost, 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
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
myth was taken from Voluspa, where it was learned that Mimer's fountain is situated below the sacred world-tree; the other was Grimnismal (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, popu- lar traditions told that Gudmund-Mimer was of giant descent (see the middle-age sagas narrated above). From this Gylfaginning draws the conclusion that Mimer was a frost-giant, and it identifies the root which extends to the frost-giants with the root that extends to Mimer'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, border- 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 Mimer'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 con- sistency, and Ygdrasil's third root, which in the mytho-
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logy 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 Mimer'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 Loke'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
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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 Loke. 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 be fore belonged to Destiny personified, so that the same gods who before had cast the horrible child Loke 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 make this matter intelligible can produce no other picture of Ygdrasil, in accord with the statements of Gylfaginning, than the following :
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
The root over heaven and over Urd's foun- tain.
The root over Jotun- heim and over Mi- ner's well.
The root over the lower world and over Hvergelmer's fountain.
Ygdrasil's trunk.
But Gylfaginning is not disposed to draw this con- clusion. 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 Mythology.
1. Ygdrasil has three roots.
2. All three roots are subter- ranean.
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.
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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 subter- ranean roots dwells the god- dess of death and fate, Urd, who is also called Hel, and in her realm is Urd's fountain.
5. Under the other (subter- ranean) root dwells Mimer. In his realm is Mimer's foun- tain and Mimer's grove, where a subterranean race of men are preserved for the fu- ture world. This root may, therefore, be said to stand over mennskir menn (Grim- nersmal).
6. Under the third (subter- ranean) root dwell frost- giants. Under this root is the well Hvergelmer, and the realm of the frost-giants is
3. To each root corre- sponds a fountain and a realm; the realms are the heavens, Jotunheim, and the lower world, which are lo- cated each under its root.
4. Under one of the roots, that is the one which stands over heaven, dwells Urd the goddess of fate, and there is Urd's fountain.
It is said that one of the roots stands over mennskir menn (Grimnersmal). By this is meant, according to Gyl- faginning, not the root over Mimer'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
403
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
Nifelhel (Nifelheim). Under Nifelhel are nine regions of torture.
7. The sister of the Mid- gard-serpent and of the Fen- ris-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.
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 Mid- gard-serpent and of the Fen- ris-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 Nifel- hel 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.
8. The name Hel can be ap- plied 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 Loke-daughter in Nifelhel is her slave and must obey her commands.
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 hell, 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 descrip- tion 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
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ages, Gylfaginning throws Nidhog down into Hvergel- mer, which it also fills with serpents and dead bodies found in Grimnismal (Str. 34, 35), where they have no connection with Hvergelmer. According to Voluspa it is in Nastrands that Nidhog sucks and the wolf tears the dead bodies (ndir}. Gylfaginning follows Voluspa in speaking of the other terrors in Nastrands, but rejects Voluspa' s statements about Nidhog and the wolf, and casts both these beasts down into the Hvergelmer foun- tain. 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 Bi frost a connection between Troy and heaven. This done, Gylfaginning distributes as best it can the divine halls and abodes of bliss men- tioned in the mythology between Troy on the earth and the thing-stead in heaven.
This may be sufficient to show that Gylfaginning's pre- tended 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
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methods of thought, with which the author interpreted the heathen myths accessible to him, is simply a mon- strous 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 HEX 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 divin- ity. It is believed to be related to the Latin oc-cul-ere, eel-are, clam, and to mean the one who "hides," "con- ceals," "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
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distinguishing with suitable words between the two realms of the lower world mentioned in the New Testament, Hades and Gehenna (geen a).
Hades, the middle condition, and the locality corres- ponding to this condition, which contains both fields of bliss and regions of torture, he translated with Halja, doubtless because the signification of this word corres- ponded 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, Hel- lawisi, belongs to the form which afterwards predomi- nated in Scandinavia. Both the compounds bear testi- mony 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,thatpartofthe 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 Hdlvete, 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
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Christianity, the Roman Church had very nearly oblite- rated 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 out- lines, 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 possi- ble 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 there- of. Gylfaginning's representation of the heathen Hades is based less on the then existing confusion of the tradi-
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tions 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 significa- tion 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 hjal (sla ihjal, svalta ihjal, frysa ihjal, &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 punish- ment. 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 Hel jar, to await Hel (death} ; buask til Hel jar, to become equipped for the journey to Hel (to be shrouded) ; liggja milli helms ok Heljar, to lie between this world and Hel (between life and death) ; liggja a Heljar thremi, to
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i
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 and torture in the minds of those employing it.
58.
THE WORD HEL IN VEGTAMSKVIDA AND IN VAFTHRUD-
NERSMAL.
When Odin, according to Vegtamskvida, resolved to get reliable information in the lower world in regard to the fate whch 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 con- tinued 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 Hel far rann. The
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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 borders 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 dsmegir longingly waited for the arrival of Balder. Thus Vegtamskvida :
2. Raeid hann (Odin) nidr thathan Niflhaeljar til,
maetti hann hvselpi theim ser or haeliu kom.
3. Sa var blodugr um briost framan ok galldrs fodur gol um laengi.
4. Framm raeid Odinn, foldvaegr dundi, ban kom at hafu Haeliar ranni.
7. Her standr Balldri of brugginn miodr. Ok asmegir i ofvseno.
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
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
to Gylfaginning, belongs to the queen of the lower world. In Vafthrudnersmal (43) the old giant says:
Fra iotna runom Of the runes of giants
oc allra goda and of all the gods
ec kann segia satt, I can speak truly;
thviat hvern hefi ec for I have been
heim um komit: in every world.
nio kom ec heima In nine worlds I came
fyr Niflhel nedan, below Nifelhel,
hinig deyja or Helio halir. thither die "halir" from Hel.
Like Vegtamskvida, so Vafthrudnersmal also distin- guishes distinctly between Hel and Nifelhel, particularly in those most remarkable words that thither, i.e., to Nifel- hel 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 border from
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 dsmegir 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 border 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 border-line which a second death draws between Hel and Nifelhel is the bound- ary 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 con- trary, Hel were the realm of unhappiness and Nifelhel offered a better lot, then' why should they who are destined
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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 HEX IN GRIMNERSMAL. HVERGELMER^S FOUN- TAIN AND ITS DEFENDERS. THE BORDER MOUNTAIN BETWEEN HEL AND NIEEI/HEL. THE WORD HEI/- BLOTINN 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 (thadan 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 foun- tain, 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
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knowledge.) Three of them are mentioned in other records — namely, SUdr in Voluspa, 36, Gjoll in that account of Hermod's journey to Hel's realm, which in its main 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 realms of tor- ture, and whirls weapons in its eddies, presumably to hin- der or frighten anybody from attempting to cross. Over Gjoll 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 Hel jar, str. 28). Thus these are all subter- ranean. 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 Bi frost 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 Thjo-
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dolf gives us a brilliant description in the poem Haust- laung. 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 ther 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 treas- ure), 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 Jerusa- lem 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 dsmegir 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 Hvergel-
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mer 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 ncer — 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 may 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 Hvergel- mer 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,
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and combined they form the whole lower world. Hence it follows that the land on the other side of the Hvergel- mer 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-Mimer'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 scala, 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 Nifel- hel, just as he in the story about Hadding's journey to the lower world translated Glasisvellir (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 nephek 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 appli- cation to a territory embracing the whole kingdom of
418
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
death — else it could not be used as a part of the com- pound 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 "Ymer 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 descrip- tion 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,
419
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 "horse 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 in the gate, or gates, which in the Gorm story separates Gudmund-Mimer'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 moun- tain, 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 the north down into Nifelhel. The rivers Gjoll and Leiptr fall down into Hel, and Gjoll is, as already indicated, characterised by a bridge of gold, Leiptr by a shining, clear, and most holy
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
water. Down there in the South are found the mystic Hodd-goda, surrounded by other Hel-rivers; Balder's and the dsmegir's citadel (perhaps identical with Hodd- goda) ; Mimer'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 (Voluspa), and in whose silver-white waters swans swim; and the sacred thing- stead of the Asas, to which they daily ride down over Bi frost. 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 Grimners- mal is of course true of the greatest of all waters, the ocean. The myth about Hvergelmer and its subter- ranean 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: /zzwr=kettle ; galm=Anglo
421
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 super- abundance 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 (Diaco- nus), 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).
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. ^gir's wife received them hospitably, according to the Icelandic sagas of the middle age. She had a hall 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, Sona- torrek).
*"Et ecce instabilis Oceani Euripus, ad initia qusedam fontis sui arcana recurrens, infelices nautas jam desperates, immo de morte sola cogitantes, vehementisslmo inrpetu traxit ad Chaos. Hanc dicunt esse voraglnem abyssi, illud profundum, in quo fama est omnes maris recursus, qui decres- cere videntur, absorber! et denuo removi, quod fluctuatio dici solet" (De sitit Danive, ed. Mad., p. 159).
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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 mon- sters 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 south- ward 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 ndir (corpses), now on the Nida Mountains, whence the vala in Voluspa sees him flying away with ndir 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 Mimer'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. Mimer, with his sons and the beings subject to him, protects and guards his root of the tree, Urd and her sisters hers, and 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
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demons, and of the damned, and was Hvergelmer, which waters this root and received sd important a position in the economy of the world-tree, left in the mythology without protection and without a guardian? Hvergel- mer we know is situated on the watershed, where we have the death-borders 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 o>f 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 Elivdgar, which in its extreme north froze into that ice, which, when it melted, formed out of its dropping venom the primeval giant Ymer (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. Elivdgar, 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 Elivagar and Hraunn, like the parent stream (cp. Hymer- skv., 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
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"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 Hvergel- mer 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 "sseter" is called "Ides sseter" (Thorsdrapa, 1). The services which he as watcher on Mt. Hvergelmer and on the Eliva- gar 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 wor- shipped in Hel who scatters the clouds which rise storm- threatening over the mountain of the lower world," hel- blotinn hneitr undir-fjalfrs bliku (Thorsdr., 19). The storm-clouds which Are, Hrcesvelgr, and other storm- demons of Nifelheim send to the elysian fields of the death-kingdom, must, in order to get there, surmount Mt. Hvergelmer, 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 Jotunheim. Next after Thor, he was the most formid- able 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
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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 Helblotinn. 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 NlEELHEIy. THE MYTHIC MEANING OE NAR, NAIR. THE HADES-DIVISION OF THE FROST-GIANTS AND SPIRITS OE 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
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something to relieve it, and so Skirner was sent to the home of the giant to ask for the hand of Gerd on Prey'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 Prey's magnificient 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, blodvondr, hjaltvondr, hridvondr, hvit- vondr, mordvondr, sarvondr, benteinn, eggteinn, h&va- teinn, hjorteinn, hr&teinn, sarteinn, valteinn, mutelteinn.
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 Draup- nir, 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 thu thenna maki, mey, &c.), and he threatens to strike her with the
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"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 thic drep, enn ec thic temia mun, mer! at minom munom; that skaltu ganga er thic gumna synir sithan eva se (str. 26).
This is the former threat of death repeated in another form. The former did not frighten her. But tihat which now overwhelms her with dismay is the description Skir- ner 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 (gamban- reidi). She shall then come to that region whith is situated below the Na-gates (fyr ndgrindr nethan — 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 ndgrindr nethan must have been a stereotyped eschatological term applied to a particular division, a particular realm in the lower wodd. In Loka- senna (str. 63), Thor says to Loke, after the latter has emptied his phials of rash insults upon the gods, that if he does not hold his tongue the hammer M joiner shall send him to Hel fyr ndgrindr nethan. Hel is here used in its widest sense, and this is limited by the addition of
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the words "below the Na-gates," so as to refer to a partic- ular division of the lower world. As we find by the application of the phrase to Loke, 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 ndr (pi. 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 demon- strates 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 con- scious, 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 mytho- logical eschatology. One of the abodes of torture lying within the Na-gate is called Nastrands (Ndstrandir) , and
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is described in Voluspa as filled with terrors. And the victims, which Nidhog, the winged demon of the lower world, there sucks, are called ndir framgenga, "the corpses of those departed."
It is manifest that the word ndr thus used cannot have its common meaning, but must be used in a special mytho- logical sense, which had its justification and its explana- tion 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 Gragas (ii. 185) enumerates four categories within which the word ndr is applicable to a person yet living. Gallows-wzr, can be called, even while living, the person who is hung; grave- ndr, the person placed in a grave; skerry-war or rock-war may, while yet alive, he be called who has been exposed to die on a skerry or rock. Here the word ndr is accord- ingly applied to persons who are conscious and capable of suffering, but on the supposition that they are such per- sons 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 ndir 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 trans-
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ferred across the border to Nifelhel and the world of torture. When they are overtaken by this second death they are for the second time ndir. And, as this occurs at the gates of Nifelhel, it was perfectly proper to call the gates ndgrindr.
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 border of heathendom, speaks of damned ones whose breasts were risted (carved) with bloody runes, and Havamal of runes which restore consciousness to ndir. Such runes are known by Odin. If he sees in a tree a gallows-war (zrirgil-ndr), then he can rist runes so that the body comes down to him and talks with him (see No. 70).
E'f ec se a tre uppi
vafa virgilna,
sva ec rist
oc i runom fac,
at sa gengr gumi
oc maelir vith mic (Havamal, 157).
Some of the subterranean ndir have the power of motion, and are doomed to wade in "heavy streams." Among them are perjurers, murderers, and adulterers (Voluspa, 38). Among these streams is Vadgelmer, in
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
which they who have slandered others find their far-reach- ing retribution (Sigurdarkv., ii. 4). Other ndir 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 repro- duced in his accounts of Hadding's and Gorm's journeys in the lower world the word ndir 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 Niflhel — Gylfag., ch. 43.) King Gorm saw in the lower world the giant Geirrod and both his daughters. According to Grimners-
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mal (str. 31), frost-giants dwell under one of Ygdrasil's roots — consequently in the lower world; and Forspjalls- Ijod says that hags (giantesses) and thurses (giants), ndir, dwarfs, and swarthy elves go to sleep under the world-tree's farthest root on the north border of Jormun- grund* (the lower world), when Dag on a chariot spark- ling 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 prime- val ancestors of the giant-maid were relegated when Bor's sons opened the veins of Ymer'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 Ymer, 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 Ymer, called by the giants Aurgelmer (Vafthr., 31; Gylfag., 5). Thrudgelmer
*With this name of the lower world compare Gudmund-Mimer's abode d Grund (see No. 45), and Helligrund (Heliand., 44, 22), and neowla grund (Caedmon, 267, 1, 270, 16).
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begat Bergelmer countless winters 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 um lagidr. At least Vafth- rudmer is able to do this (Vafthr., 35).
When the original giants had to abandon the fields populated by Bor's sons (Voluspa, 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.
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 their clan. One is named Rimgrimner (Hrimgrimnir — str. 35), the other Rimner (Hrimnir — str. 28).
Grimner is one of Odin's many surnames (Grimners-
*Compare the phrase iotna gaurthum i (str. 30, 3) with til hrimthursa hallar (30, 4).
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mal, 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 hesita- tion 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 para- phrases, even when the latter referred to celebrated princes and heroes. Glum Geirason is the first known exception to the rule. He calls a king Mdlm-Odinn. The above epithet places Rimgrimner in the same relation to the frost-giants as Odin-Grimner sustains to the asas; it characterises 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. Ymer can- not 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 Voluspa, 9; cp. Gylfag., ch. 14). But they have other points of resemblance. Thrud- gelmer is "strange-headed" in Vafthrudnersmal; Rim- grimner 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 pro- genitor of the same frost-giants. The "strange-headed" giant of the former poem, which is a somewhat indefinite or obscure 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 Rimgrimner, and also a weakness for which both Thrud-
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gelmer 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 he 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, Heyri iotnar,
Hear, frost-giants, heyri hrimthursar,
Ye sons of Suttung — synir Suttunga,
Nay, thou race of the Asa-god!* — sjalfir aslithar
*With race of the Asa-god dslidar there can hardly be meant others than the dsmegir gathered in the lower world around 'Balder. This is the only place where the word dslidar occurs.
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how I forbid, hve ec fyr byd,
how I banish hve ec fyrir banna
man's gladness from the maid, manna glaum mani
man's enjoyment from the maid! manna nyt mani.
Rimgrimner is the giant's name Hrimgrimner heiter thurs,
who shall possess thee er thic hafa seal
below the Na-gates. fyr nagrindr nedan.
More plainly, it seems to me, Skirner in speaking to Gerd could not have expressed the negative quality of Rim- grimner in question. Thor also expresses himself clearly on the same subject when he meets the dwarf Alvis carry- ing home a maid over whom Thor has the right of mar- riage. 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 con- sists : thursa lid thicci mer a ther vera; erat thu till bntdar 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 Rim- grimner 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 rime-thurses and giants. But whether she is at home or abroad, demons and tormenting spirits shall
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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., ch. 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 thurs veldr kvenna kvillu, "thurs causes sickness of women." In this connection it should be remembered that the daughter of Loke, 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 Voluspa [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 subter- ranean regions of bliss. Toward Hel she shall long to come in vain :
Ara thufo a
scaltu ar sitja
horfa ok snugga Heljar til.
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"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 exer- tions, 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 gocjs 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 Ygdrasil'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 Vafth- rudnersmal, Grimnersmal, Vegtamskvida, and Thors- drapa (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 that one, referred to by Gylfaginning, can impossibly be meant under which Mimer's glorious foun- tain, and Mimer's grove, and all his treasures stored for a future world, are situated.
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61.
WORD HElv IN VOLUSPA. WHO THE INHABITANTS OF
ARE.
We now pass to Voluspa, 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 fettered 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 con- fusion 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 Helvcgum. 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. Austr- vegr, Sudruegr, Norvegr; and Allvism., 10, according to
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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 Quakes Ygdrasil's
askr standandi, Ash standing,
ymr hid alldna tre The old tree trembles,
enn iotunn losnar; The giant gets loose;
hraedaz allir All are frightened
a Helvegum On the Helways (in Hel's regions)
adr Surtar thann ere Surt's spirit (or kinsman)
sevi of gleypir. swallows him (namely, the giant).
Suit'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 inhabit- ants 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 and their proteges in Hel. The word thann (him), which occurs in the seventh line of the strophe (in the last of the translation) can impossi- bly refer to any other than the giant mentioned in the
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fourth line (iotunn}. There are in the strophe only two masculine words to which the masculine thann can be referred — iotunn and Yggdrasils askr. lotunn, which stands nearest to thann, 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 Suit, then thann must naturally be referred to the iotunn.
Here Voluspa 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 con- flagration 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 what- ever in the 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 dsmegir Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring, and that they are not hertharfir; they are not to be employed in war, since their very destiny forbids their taking an active part in the 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
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interpreters of this much abused passage have failed to see, the seeress in Voluspa has not forgotten, that, namely, during the lapse of countless thousands of years, innumer- able 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 inhabi- tants. 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 battle- field 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 testi-
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mony — 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 impossi- ble 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 dsmegir, and the women, children, and the agents of the
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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 back- ground and contents of the Voluspa 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
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 among gods,
Vindofner among Vans,
Uppheim among giants.
Elves say Fager-tak (Fairy-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
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 inhabi- tants 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), dsasy- nir (str. 16), and halir (str. 28).
The very name upregin suggests that it refers to beings of a 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, Dag, Mane, Sol.
Asasynir has the same signification as dsmegir. As this is the case, and as the dsmegir dwell in the lower world and the dsasynir likewise, then they must be identi- cal, 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 Allvismal employs the word
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
Hel in such a manner that it embraces those regions where Nat and Dag, Mane and Sol, the living human inhabitants of Mimer'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 con- ceive them as having a nomenclature in common with gods, asmegw, 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 Voluspa, Vafthrudnersmal, Grimnersmal, Skirnersmal, Vegtamskvida, and Thorsdrapa.
63.
THE WORD HEL IN OTHER PASSAGES. THE RESULT OF THE INVESTIGATION FOR THE COSMOGRAPHY AND FOR THE MEANING OE THE WORD HEL. HEL IN A LOCAL, SENSE THE KINGDOM OE DEATH, PARTICULARLY ITS REALMS OF BLISS. HEL IN A PERSONAL SENSE IDEN- TICAL WITH THE GODDESS OF FATE AND DEATH, THAT IS, URD.
While a terrible winter is raging, the gods, according to Forspjallsljod,* send messengers, with Heimdal as chief, down to a lower-world goddess (dis), who is
*Of the age and genuineness of Forspjallsljod I propose to publish a
separate treatise.
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designated as Gj oil'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, helms of vissi, drtith, aft, 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 back- ground by the definite antithesis in which the word Hel, used in its more common and special sense of the subter- ranean 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 Mimer'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 Loke's daughter, whom they had hurled into the deep abysses of Nifelhel, and that he should make the wise goddess by Gjoll weep bitter tears over the future of the sister of the Fenris-wolf, is possible in the sense that it cannot be refuted by any definite words of the old records ; but we may be permitted to regard it as highly improbable.
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Among the passages in which the word Hel occurs in the poetic Edda's mythological songs we have yet to men- tion Harbardsljod (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 in- sulting Harbard) ; and also Voluspa (str. 42), Fjolls- vinnsmal (str. 25), and Grimnersmal (str. 31).
Voluspa (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 Fjollsvinnsmal (str. 25), Svipdag asks with what weapon one might be able to bring down to Hel's home (a Heljar sjot) that golden cock Vidofner, which sits in Mimer'stree(thQ world-tree), and doubtless is identical with Goldcomb. That Vidol- ner has done nothing for which he deserves to be punished in the home of Loke's daughter may be regarded as prob- able. Hel is here used to designate the kingdom of death in general, and all that Spivdag seems to mean is that Vid- ofner, 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
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of Loke's daughter is nowhere mentioned, and 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" (Kahrkat&s). 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 care- fully 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 information — brief and scant, it is
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true, but nevertheless valuable — in regard to Ygdrasil's three roots, and it speaks of Hel in an unmistakable, dis- tinctly personal sense.
In regard to the roots of the world-tree and their po- sition, our investigation so far, regardless of Grimners- mal (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 Mimer's fountain and spreads over the land where Mimer's fountain and grove are located. In Mimer's grove dwell those living (not dead) beings called Asmeglr and Asasynir, L,if and Leifthraser and their offspring, whose destiny it is to peo- ple 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 • Nifel- hel (with the regions thereto belonging) and Hel, — Nifelhel situated north of the Hvergelmer mountain, and Hel south of it. Accordingly both the land where Mi- mer's well and grove are situated and the land 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 south- ern 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
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
is manifest from the following circumstances. Eilif Gud- runson, 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 un- less his hearers had retained from the faith of their child- hood the idea that Urd's fountain was situated south of the other fountains. Forspjallsljod puts upon Urd's foun- tain the task of protecting the world-tree against the de- vastating cold during the terrible winter which the poem describes. Othhrarir skyldi Urthar geyma m&ttk at veria mestum thorra. — "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 south- ern, and that over Hvergelmer and the frost-giants the northern, it follows that Mimer's well was conceived as situated between those two. The memory of this fact Gylfaginning has in its fashion preserved, where in chap- ter 15 it says that Mimer's fountain is situated where Ginungagap formerly was — that is, between the northern Nifelheim and the southern warmer region (Gylfagin- ning's "Muspelheim").
Grimnersmal (str. 31) says:
Thrir raetr standa Three roots stand
a thria vega on three ways
undan asci Yggdrasils: below Ygdrasil's ash:
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Hel byr und einni, Hel dwells under one,
annari hrimthursar, under another frost-giants,
thridio mennzkir menn. under a third human-"men."
The root under which the frost-giants dwell we already know as the root over Hvergelmer and the Nifelhel in- habited by frost-giants.
The root under which human beings, living persons, mennskir menn, dwell we also know as the one over Mi- mer's well and Mimer's grove, where the human beings Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring have their abode, where jord lifanda manna is situated.
There remains one root : the one under which the god- dess of fate, Urd, has her dwelling. Of this Grimners- mal 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 signifi- cation, the realm of death, and the special but most fre- quent signification, the elysium of the kingdom of death. As a person, the meaning of the word Hel must be analo- gous 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,
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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 Loke cast into the abyss of Nifelhel is the queen of the king- dom 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 sis- ter of those foes of the gods and of the world, the Mid- gard-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 Mimer, 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 force which does not yield to objections simply stated, but must be
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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 indi- cates, or is thought by the linguists to indicate, that it belongs to the most ancient Teutonic timeSj when it prob- ably had the form Vorthi.
There can be no doubt that Urd also among other Teu- tonic branches than the Scandinavian has had the mean- ing of goddess of fate. Expressions handed down from the heathen time and preserved in Old English docu- ments 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:
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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; Dod is at hendi: death is near.
And there are also other expressions, as Thiu Wurth ndhida thus: Urd (death) then approached; Wurth ina benam: Urd (death) took him away (cp. J. Grimm, Deutsche Myth., i. 373).
Thus Urd, the goddess of fate, was, among the Teu- tonic branches in Germany and England, identical with death, conceived as a queen. So also in the North. The norns made laws and chose life and orlog (fate) for the children of time (Voluspa). The word orlog (Nom. PI. ; the original meaning seems to be urlagarne, that is, the original laws) frequently has a decided leaning to the idea of death (cp. Voluspa: Bk sd Baldri orlog folgin}. Hakon Jarl's orlog was that Kark cut his throat (Nj., 156). To receive the "judgment of the norns" was iden- tical 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 person- ality in the mythology. The ruler of death was that one who could resolve death; but the one who could deter- mine 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
456
.
> THE GIANT THRYM.
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.Vurth is at h
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ly related, r the mytl: ;Id resol the length !:ind of deat-1 st blend
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goddess
• ' the
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
Urd used to designate death, just as in Heliand and Beo- wulf, 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 Urdr at him. Far down in the Christian centuries the memory sur- vived 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 pre- dict 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. Urdr or Hel with "Proserpina" (Hist., i. 43).
64.
URD'S MAID-SERVANTS : (1) MAID-SERVANTS OF UEE
NORNS, DISKS OF BIRTH, HAMINGJES, GIPTES, FYLGIES; (2) MAID-SERVANTS OE DEATH — VAI,- KYRIES, THE PSYCHO-MESSENGERS OE DISEASES AND ACCIDENTS.
As those beings for whom Urd determines birth, posi- tion 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.
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Most intimately associated with her are her two sis- ters. With her they have the authority of judges. Com- pare Voluspa, 19, 20, and the expressions norna domr, norna kiridr. And they dwell with her under the world- tree, which stands for ever green over her gold-clad foun- tain.
As maid-servants under Urd there are countless hamingjes (fylgjes) and giptes (also called gafes, audnes, heilles). The hamingjes are fostered among be- ings of giant-race (who hardly can be others than the norns and Mimer). 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 discs, 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 ap- pear 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
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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 inspirations, and how the draumkona (dream- woman) of the good inspirations said to him in sleep : "Be not the first cause of a murder ! ex- cite 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 naming jes 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 discs ! 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 Pornm., iii.
The giptes seem to have carried out such of Urd's re- solves, on account of which the favourite received an un- expected, as it were accidental, good fortune.
Not only for separate individuals, but also for families and clans, there were guardian spirits (kynfylgjur, attar-
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 and famous man, Urd herself and her sisters may be present for the above purpose (see No. 30 in regard to Half dan'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 kjosa wuzdr frd maugum. The expression kjosa mcedr frd maugum, "to choose mothers from descendants," seems obscure, and can under all circumstances not mean simply "to deliver mothers of children." The word kjosa 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 whom it has not yet been determined which descendant each one is to call hers among the great waiting crowd, until those norns 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
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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 regen- eration of the world, and that the mythology has asso- ciated him intimately with the elf of the morning dawn, Delling, who guards the citadel of the race of regenera- tion against all that is evil and all that ought not to enter (see No. 53). There are reasons (see No. 95) for as- suming that these discs of birth were Honer's maid-ser- vants at the same time as they were Urd's, just as the valkyries are Urd's and Odin's maid-servants at the same 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 (psycho- pomps), the attendants of the 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-horns to the Asas and einherjes, when they do not ride on Valfather's errands (Voluspa, 31 ; Grimners- mal, 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.
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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 foun- dation with their hoofs. But such a mode of travel was not the rule, even among the gods, and, when it did hap- pen, 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 As- gard and Urd's subterranean realm if it had been unnec- essary in the mythological world of fancy. Mane's way in space would not have been regarded as a road in the concrete sense, that quakes and rattles when Thor's thun- der-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 from them. The mythology had to be prepared for such questions, and in this, as in others cases, it had answers wherewith to sat- isfy that claim on causality and consistency which even
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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 their a bru 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. The one method is more adequate to the purpose than the other. The solid connections which were used by the gods and which the mythology built in space are, accordingly, objects of ad- vantage and convenience. The valkyries, riding at the head of their chosen heroes, as well as the gods, have found solid roads advantageous, and the course they took with their favourites was not the one presented in our mythological text-books. Grimnersmal (str. 21; see No. 93) informs us that the breadth of the atmospheric sea is too great and 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 Saud Isle. While they were searching for him there, he had stolen to the vicinity of the place where the boat lay in which those in pursuit had rowed across. Three warriors guarded the boat. Egil succeeded in surprising them, and in giv- ing one of them his death-wound ere the latter was able to defend himself. The second fell in a duel on the
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 ex- ploit to his brother Thorolf and his friend Arinbjorn, whom he met after his flight from Saud Isle. There he says:
at thrytnreynis thjonar thrir nokkurrir 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 the lower world, to Hel's high hall."
The fallen ones were king's men and warriors. They were slain by weapons and fell at their posts of duty, one from a sudden, unexpected wound, the others in open con- flict. According to the conception of the mythological text-books, these sword-slain men should have beeen con- ducted by valkyries through the air to Valhal. But the skald Egil, who as a heathen born about the year 904, and who as a contemporary of the sons of Harald Fair- hair must have known the mythological views of his fel- low-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 cer- tainly 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
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 con- flict with Egil's idea, but that they all, on the contrary, fully agree with his words, and that this harmony con- tinues 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 come to Asgard, if they have deserved this destiny.
In Gisle Surson's saga (ch. 24) is mentioned the cus- tom of binding Hel-shoes on the feet of the dead. War- riors in regard to whom there was no doubt that Valhal was their final destiny received Hel-shoes like all others, that er tidska at binda nwnnum helsko, sem menn, skulo a ganga till Valhallar. It would be impossible to ex- plain 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 a Helvegum. Wherever this custom prevailed, Egil's view in regard to the fate which immediately awaited sword-fallen men was general.
When Hermod betook himself to the lower world to find Balder he came, as we know, to the golden bridge across the river Gjoll. 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. Con- sequently 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 litera-
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
ture, 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 army or a di- vision of an army in line of battle, is most intimately connected. This indicates with sufficient clearness 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 pre- supposes that men fallen by the sword, whose final des- tination 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 same realm as had received Balder and Nanna after death.
It has already been pointed out that Bifrost is the only connecting link between Asgard and the lower regions of the universe. The air was regarded as an ether sea which the bridge spanned, and although the horses of mythology were able to swim in this sea, the solid con- nection was of the greatest importance. The gods used the bridge every day (Grimnismal, Gylfaginning) . Frost giants and mountain-giants are anxious to get pos- session of it, for it is the key to Asgard. It therefore has its special watchman in the keen-eyed and vigilant Heim- dal. When in Ragnarok the gods ride to the last con- flict they pass over Bifrost (Fafnersmal). The bridge does not lead to Midgard. Its lower ends were not con- ceived 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
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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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 topo- graphical arrangement it follows of necessity that the valkyries at the head of the chosen slain must take their course through the lower world, by the 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.
n ft:K!> t#ei» «f T»rt«»t
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 at- tendants of fallen warriors, come riding up thither, the gods hear on their approach a mighty din, as if the foun- dations 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 sup- pose that the chosen heroes came on horses that swim in
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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 return- ing to the 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 riders must have journeyed in Hel, across Gjoll, and past the thingstead 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 destina- tion.
In his grand poem "Hakonarmal," Eyvind Skaldaspil- ler makes Odin send the valkyries Gandul 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 Mid- gard, 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
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on his coat-of-mail, and immediately thereupon begins the brilliantly-described 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 Ska- gul, "maids on horseback, with wisdom in their counte- nances, with helmets on their heads, and with shields be- fore 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 conversa- tion begins between Hakon and Skagul, who confirms what Gandul has said, and does so with the following words :
Rida vit nu skulum, kvad hin rika Skagul, grsena heima goda Odni 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 green realms of the gods (worlds, heimar}.
With these green realms Eyvind has not meant the
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blue ether. He distinguishes between blue and green. The sea he calls blue (bldmar — see Heimskringla). .What he expressly states, and to which we must confine ourselves, is that, according to his cosmological concep- tion and that of his heathen fellow-believers, there were realms clothed in green and inhabited by divinities on the route the valkyries had to take when they from a battle- field 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 be the connecting link between the realms decked with green and Asgard. The gr&ncur heimar through which the valkyries have to pass are therefore the realms 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 be character- ised as the green. Their groves and blooming meadows and fields of waving grain were never touched by decay or frost, and 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 the expression groni godes wang (Hel., 94, 24) . That the green realms of the lower world are called realms of the gods is also proper, 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 are to dwell until Ragnarok; there Delling,
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Billing, Rind, Dag, Mane, and Sol, and all the clan of artists gathered around Mimer, they who "smithy" liv- ing beings, vegetation, and ornaments, 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 Hermod's journey to Hel, that "fylkes" of dead riders gallop over the sub- terranean gold-bridge, on the other side of which glori- ous regions are situated, and with the statement in Veg- tamskvida 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 in- troduction of Christianity, the memory survives that the heroes journey to the lower world. Sigurd Fafners- bane comes to Hel. Of one of Atle's brothers who fell by Gudrun's sword it is said, i Helju hmi thana hafdi (Atlam., 51). In the same poem, strophe 54, one of the Niflungs says of a sword-fallen foe that they had him lamdan til Heljar.
The mythic tradition is supported by linguistic usage, which, in such phrases as berja i Hel, drepa i Hel, drepa til Heljar, fara til Heljar, indicated that those fallen by the sword also had to descend to the realm 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
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY
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), the 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 recol- lection that the valkyries were not only in Odin's service, but also in that of the lower world goddess Urd (com- pare 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 "RIST- ING WITH THE SPEAR-POINT/"'
If death on the battle-field, 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 the 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 ein-
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herjes, 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, pos- sessed 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 he feared that he might have to relinquish the hero for ever, in case the latter, not being chosen on this battle- field, 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 con- queror the wounded Hakon remained on the battlefield; still he 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 (yarun tho verdir gagns frd godum). When he enters Valhal he has a keener reproach on his lips to the welcoming Odin : illudigr mjok thykkir oss Odinn vera, sjam ver hans of hugi.
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Doubtless it was for our ancestors a glorious prospect to be permitted to come 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 from 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, the mythical eschatology could not have made death from disease an 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 he- roes, and it would have demanded from faithful be- lievers 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 ever entertained it and given it ex- pression 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 nec- essary 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 and 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 circumstances re-
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sorted: they risted (marked, scratched) themselves with the spear-point (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 more 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 from heathen times, all Northern and German heroic songs, are unanimously and stubbornly silent about the existence of the 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, and on 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 many 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 con- tributions to our knowledge of the Teutons have a single word to say about it; nor the heroic poems. The Scan- dinavian records, and the more or less historical sagas, tell of many heathen kings, chiefs, and 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 Yng- lingasaga, ch. 10, where Odin, changed to a king in Svithiod, is said, when death was approaching, to have
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let marka sik geirs-oddi. Out of this statement has been constructed a custom among kings and heroes of antic- ipating 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 statement 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-MESSENGERS QE THOSE NOT E ALLEN BY THE SWORD. POKE'S DAUGHTER (PSEUDO-HEL IN GYL- EAGINNING) 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, and spear. To those not destined to fall by the sword Urd sends other maid-servants, who, like the former, may come on horseback, and who, as it appears, are of very different appearance, varying in accordance with the manner of death of those persons whose departure they attend. She who comes to those who sink beneath the weight of years has been conceived as a very benevolent dis, to judge from the solitary pass-
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age where she is characterised, that is in Ynglingatal and in Ynglingasaga, 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 hlifinauma}. The burden which Elli (age), Utgard-Loke'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 Nifel- hel (see No. 60). King Vanlande is tortured to death by a being whose epithet, vitta vattr and trollkund, shows that she belongs to the same group as Heidr, the prototype of witches, and who is contrasted with the valkyrie Hild by the appellation Ijona lids bdga Grim- hildr (Yngl., ch. 16). The same vitta v&ttr 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 mentioned in Ynglingasaga's Thjodolf-strophes (ch. 20 and 52) as visited by a being called in the one instance Loke's kinswoman (Loka mar}, and in the other Hvedrung's kinswoman (Hved- rungs mar}. That this Loke's kinswoman has no au- thority to determine life and death, but only carries out the dispensations of the norns, 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, does not imply that the person invited is to be counted among the damned, although she herself, the kinswoman of Loke, the daughter of Loke, surely does not belong to
the regions of bliss.
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Ok til things thridja jofri hvedrungs maer or heimi baud, tha er Halfdan, sa er a Holti bjo norna doms 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 un- happy 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 tor- ture. Those dead from disease, who have the subter- ranean kinswoman of Loke as a guide, may be destined for the realms of bliss — then she delivers them there; or be destined for Nifelhel — 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.
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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, Loke's kinswoman came and made him leikinn (Allvald Yngva thjodar Loka mar um leikinn hefir). The person who became leikinn is accordingly visited by Loke'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 Loke's kinswoman — and she too is a giantess — exercises when she makes a oerson leikinn. Of this personal Leikin we get the fol- lowing 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 thu 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 horse- woman of the night, is a misunderstanding. Compare Vigfusson's Diet., sub voce "Kveld."
4. The horse which this woman of torture and death rides is black, untamed, difficult to manage (styggr), and ugly-grown (Ijotvaxinn). It drinks human blood, and is accompanied by other horses belonging to Leikin, black and bloodthirsty like it. (All this is stated by Hallfred
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Vandradaskald. ) * Perhaps these loose horses are in- tended for those persons whom the horsewomen of tor- ture causes to die from disease, and whom she is to con- duct 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