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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 alaz: “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 Leifthraser were still remembered. Examples of versions equally justifiable from a mythological standpoint can be cited from other literatures than the Norse. If we in the choice between the two versions pay regard only to |
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the age of the manuscripts, then the one in Codex Upsalensis, which is copied about the year 1300,* has the preference. It would, however, hardly be prudent to put the chief emphasis on this fact. Without drawing any conclusions, I simply point out the fact that the oldest version we possess of the passage says that Lif and Leifthraser 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 ásmegir. 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 Fjölsvinnsmal. The young Svipdag, the hero in Grogalder and in Fjölsvinnsmal, is in the latter poem represented as standing before the gate of a citadel which he never saw before, but within the walls of which the maid whom fate has destined to be his wife resides. Outside of the gate is a person who is or pretends to be the gatekeeper, and calls himself Fjolsvinn. He and Svipdag enter into conversation. The conversation turns chiefly upon the remarkable objects which Svipdag has before his eyes. * S. Bugge, Sæmund. Edda, xxvi. Thorl. Jonsson’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 castle, within which his chosen one awaits him, he has made a remarkable journey (alluded to in Grogalder), and he has seen strange things (thus 9, 11, 33) which he compares with those which he now sees, and in regard to which he also desires information from Fjolsvinn. When the questions concern objects which are before him at the time of speaking, he employs, as the logic of language requires, the present tense of the verb (as in strophe 35 — segdu mèr hvat that bjarg heitir, er ek sè brudi á). When he speaks of what he has seen before and elsewhere, he employs the past tense of the verb. In strophe 33 he says:
“Tell me that which I ask of you, and which I wish to know, Fjolsvinn: Who made that which I saw within the castle wall of the ásmegir?”* * 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 ásmegir made what I saw within the castle wall?” Against this formal possibility there are, however, several objections of facts. Svipdag would then be asking Fjolsvinn who had made that which he once in the past had seen within a castle wall without informing Fjolsvinn in regard to which particular castle wall he has reference. It also presupposes that Svipdag knew that the ásmegir had made the things in question which were within the castle wall, and that he only wished to complete his knowledge by finding out which one or ones of the ásmegir 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. pl. ásmaga has as its nearest neighbour gard, not hver, and should therefore be referred to gard, not to hver, even though both the translations gave an equally satisfactory meaning so far as the facts related are concerned; but that is not the case. |
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Fjolsvinn answers (str. 34):
“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 ásmegir dwell. It is well enclosed and guarded by the elf Delling. The myth must have laid great stress on the fact that the citadel was well guarded, since Delling, whose cunning is especially emphasised, has been entrusted with this task. The citadel must also have been distinguished for its magnificence and for other qualities, since what Svipdag has seen within its gates has awakened his 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 Völuspa. Both are said to be dwarfs in Dvalin’s group of attendants or servants (i Dvalins lidi — Völuspa, 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 confusion 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 ásmegir — demands first of all that we should find out where the myth located their dwelling seen by Svipdag, a fact which is of mythological importance in other respects. This result can be gained, providing Dvalin’s and Delling’s real home and the scene of their activity can be determined. This is particularly important in respect to Delling, since his office as gate-keeper at the castle of the ásmegir 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 Völuspa makes all holy powers assemble to consult as to who shall create “the dwarfs,” the artist-clan of the mythology. The wording of strophe 10 indicates that on a being by name Modsognir, Motsognir, was bestowed the dignity of chief of the proposed artist-clan, and that he, with the assistance 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 completed. That Modsogner possessed a promethean power of creating. * Thar (in the assembly of the gods) var Modsognir mœstr 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 place — we look in vain for the name Modsogner elsewhere — or this name is merely a skaldic epithet, which has taken the place of a more common name, and which by reference to a familiar nota characteristica indicates a mythic person well known and mentioned elsewhere. It cannot be disputed that the word looks like an epithet. Egilsson (Lex. Poet.) defines it as the mead-drinker. If the definition is correct, then the epithet were badly chosen if it did not refer to Mimer, who originally was the sole possessor of the mythic mead, and who daily drank of it (Völuspa, 29 — dreckr miód Mimir morgin hverjan). Still nothing can be built simply on the definition of a name, even if it is correct beyond a doubt. All the indices which are calculated to shed light on a question should be collected and examined. Only when they all point in the same direction, and give evidence in favour of one and the same solution of the problem, the latter can be regarded as settled. Several of the “dwarfs” created by Modsogner are named in Völuspa, 11-13. Among them is Dvalin. In the opinion of the author of the list of dwarfs, Dvalin must have occupied a conspicuous place among the beings to whom he belongs, for he is the only one of them all who is mentioned as having a number of his own |
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kind as subjects (Völuspa, 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 connected with Mimer and with the lower world, the realm of Mimer? Of Modsogner it is said (Völuspa, 12) that he was mœstr ordinn dverga allra: he became the chief of all dwarfs, or, in other words, the foremost among all artists. Have we any similar report of 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 Wieland (Volund, Wayland), still less anyone else, with the one exception of Hertrich, who was Mimer’s co-labourer, and assisted him in making all the treasures he produced:
Vilkinasaga, which is based on both German and Norse |
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sources, states that Mimer was an artist, in whose workshop the sons of princes and the most famous smiths learned the trade of the smith. Among his apprentices are mentioned Velint (Volund), Sigurd-Sven, and Eckihard. These echoes reverberating far down in Christian times of the myth about Mimer, as chief of smiths, we also perceive in Saxo. It should be remembered what he relates about the imcomparable treasures which are preserved in Gudmund-Mimer’s domain, among which in addition to those already named occur arma humanorum corporum habitu grandiora (i, p. 427), and about Mimingus, who possesses the sword of victory, and an arm-ring which produces wealth (i. 113, 114). If we consult the poetic Edda, we find Mimer mentioned as Hodd-Mimer, Treasure-Mimer (Vafthr. 45); as naddgöfugr jotunn, the giant celebrated for his weapons (Grogalder, 14); as Hoddrofnir, or Hodd-dropnir, the treasure-dropping one (Sigrdr., 13); as Baugreginn, the king of the gold-rings (Solarlj., 56). And as shall be shown hereafter, the chief smiths are in the poetic Edda put in connection with 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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they are “mortals,” who by their merits acquire immortality. In the Teutonic mythology Sindre and Brokk 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 artists. And on a closer examination it appears that Mimer’s mead-well is the source of all these powers, which in the mythology are represented as creating, forming, and ordaining with wisdom. In Havamál (138-141) Odin relates that there was a time when he had not yet acquired strength and wisdom. But by self-sacrifice he was able to prevail on the celebrated Bolthorn’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 Odrœrir:
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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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 Völuspa endowed the “mead-drinker” is rediscovered in Mimer. It is, therefore, perfectly logical when the mythology makes him its first smith and chief artist, and keeper of treasures and the ruler of a group of dwarfs, underground artists, for originally these were and remained creative forces personified, just as Rigveda’s Ribhus, who smithied flowers, and grass, and animals, and opened the veins of the earth for fertilising streams, while they at the same time made implements and weapons. That 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 artist. He is there said to have assisted in the fashioning of the sword Tyrfing (Fornald. Saga, i. 436), of Freyja’s |
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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 greip — Fornm. Saga, x. 208; Flat., i. 582). This beautiful poetical figure is all the more appropriately applied, since Dvalin was not only the producer of the beautiful works of the smith, but also sage and skald. He was one of the few chosen ones who in time’s morning were permitted to taste of 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 (Havamál, 143). But all knowledge of runes came originally 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) mentioned three apprentices, who afterwards spread the knowledge of runes each among his own class of beings. Odin, who in the beginning was ignorant of the mighty and beneficent rune-songs (Havamál, 138-143), was by birth Mimer’s chief disciple, and taught the knowledge of runes among his kinsmen, the Asas (Havamál, 143), and among men, his protégés (Sigrdrifm., 18). |
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The other disciples were Dain (Dáinn) and Dvalin (Dvalinn). Dain, like Dvalin, is an artist created by Modsogner (Völuspa, 11, Hauks Codex). He is mentioned side by side with Dvalin, and like him he has tasted the mead of poesy (munnvigg Dáins — Fornm. Saga, v. 209). Dain and Dvalin taught the runes to their clans, that is, to elves and dwarfs (Havamál, 143). Nor were the giants neglected. They learned the runes from Ásvidr. 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 Ásvidr was a giant. And as Mimer himself is a giant, and as the name Ásvidr (= Ásvinr) 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, Mims vinr (Mimer’s friend), then caution dictates that we keep open the highly probable possibility that Mimer himself is meant by Ásvidr. All that has here been stated about Dvalin shows that the mythology has referred him to a place within the domain 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; Alvíssm, 17; Younger Edda, i. 472, 593). Leika, as a feminine word and referring to a personal object, means a young girl, a maiden, whom one keeps at his side, and in whose amusement one takes part at least as a spectator. The examples which we have of the use of the word indicate that |
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the leika herself, and the person whose leika she is, are presupposed to have the same home. Sisters are called leikur, since they live together. Parents can call a foster-daughter their leika. In the neuter gender leika means a plaything, a doll or toy, and even in this sense it can rhetorically be applied to a person. In the same manner as Sol is called Dvalin’s leika, so the son of Nat and Delling, Dag, is called leikr Dvalins, the lad or youth with whom Dvalin amused himself (Fornspjal., 24.) We have here found two points of contact between the mythic characters Dvalin and Delling. Dag, who is Dvalin’s leikr, is Delling’s son. Delling is the watchman of the castle of the ásmegir, 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 mythology. 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 departure for their regular journeys over the heavens of the upper world (“the upper heavens,” upphiminn — Völuspa, 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 Ygdrasil. |
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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 divinities of nature as the dawn and the glow of sunrise among the phenomena of nature. And outside the doors of Delling, the king of dawn, mythology has also located the dwarf thjódreyrir (“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 Hroptaty — Havam., 160). Unlike his kinsmen, Nat, Dag, and Sol, Delling has no duty which requires him to be absent from home a part of the day. The dawn is merely a reflection of Midgard’s eastern horizon from Delling’s subterranean dwelling. It can be seen only when Nat leaves the upper heaven and before Dag and Sol have come forward, and it makes no journey around the world. From a mythological standpoint it would therefore be possible to entrust the keeping of the castle of the ásmegir to the elf of dawn. The sunset-glow has another genius, Billing, and he, too, is a creation of Modsogner, if the dwarf-list is correct (Völuspa, 12). Sol, who on her way is pursued by two giant monsters in wolf-guise, is secure when she comes to her forest of the Varns behind the western horizon (til varna vidar — Grimn., 30). There in western halls (Vegtamskv., 11) |
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dwells Billing, the chief of the Varns (Billing veold Vernum — Cod. Exon. 320). There rests his daughter Rind bright as the sun on her bed, and his body-guard keeps watch with kindled lights and burning torches (Havam., 100). Thus Billing is the watchman of the western boundary of Mimer’s domain, Delling of the eastern. From this it follows: That the citadel of the ásmegir 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 ásmegir, has made a journey in the lower world before he found Menglod and secured her as his wife. The conclusion to which we have arrived in regard to the subterranean situation of the citadel is entirely confirmed by the other passage in the poetic Edda, where the ásmegir 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 reception of an expected guest. Vegtamskvida tells us that Odin, being alarmed in regard to the fate of his son Balder, made a journey to the lower world for the purpose of learning from a vala what foreboded his favourite son. When Odin had rode through Nifelhel and come to green pastures (foldvegr), he found there below a hall decorated for festivity, and he asks the prophetess:
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“For whom are the benches strewn with rings and the gold beautifully scattered through the rooms?” And the vala answers:
“Here stands for Balder mead prepared, pure drink; shields are overspread, and the ásmegir are waiting impatiently.” Thus there stands in the lower world a hall splendidly decorated awaiting Balder’s arrival. As at other great feasts, the benches are strewn (cp. breida bekki, strá bekki, bua bekki) with costly things, and the pure wonderful mead of the lower world is already served as an offering to the god. Only the shields which cover the mead-vessel need to be lifted off and all is ready for the feast. Who or what persons have, in so good season, made these preparations? The vala explains when she mentions the ásmegir and speaks of their longing for Balder. It is this longing which has found utterance in the preparations already completed for his reception. Thus, when Balder gets to the lower world, he is to enter the citadel of the ásmegir and there be welcomed by a sacrifice, consisting of the noblest liquid of creation, the strength-giving soma-madhu of Teutonic mythology. In the old Norse heathen literature there is only one more place where we find the word ásmegir, and that is in Olaf |
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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, mentions his interest in the heathen worship, and the good results this was supposed to have produced for the jarl himself and for the welfare of his land. Einar says:
Put in prose: Ok hertharfir ásmegir hverfa til blóta; hlakkar móts raudbríkar ríkr rœkír fremst sliku. Nu grær jörd sem ádan. Translation: “And the ásmegir required in war, turn themselves to the sacrificial feasts. The mighty promoter of the meeting of the red target of the goddess of war has honour and advantage thereof. Now grows the earth green as heretofore.” There can be no doubt that “the ásmegir required in war” refer to the men in the territory ruled by Hakon, and that “the mighty promoter of the meeting of the red target of the goddess of war” refers to the warlike Hakon himself, and hence the meaning of the passage in its plain |
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prose form is simply this: “Hakon’s men again devote themselves to the divine sacrifices. This is both an honour and an advantage to Hakon, and the earth again yields bountiful harvests.” To these thoughts the skald has given a garb common in poetry of art, by adapting them to a mythological background. The persons in this background are the ásmegir and a mythical being called “the promoter of the red target,” raudbríkar rœkir. The persons in the foreground are the men in Hakon’s realm and Hakon himself. The persons in the foreground are permitted to borrow the names of the corresponding persons in the background, but on the condition that the borrowed names are furnished with adjectives which emphasise the specific difference between the original mythic lenders and the real borrowers. Thus Hakon’s subjects are allowed to borrow the appellation ásmegir, but this is then furnished with the adjective hertharfir (required in war), whereby they are specifically distinguished from the ásmegir of the mythical background, and Hakon on his part is allowed to borrow the appellation raudbríkar rœkir (the promoter of the red target), but this appellation is then furnished with the adjective phrase hlakkar móts (of the meeting of the goddess of war), whereby Hakon is specifically distinguished from the raudbríkar rœkir of the mythical background. The rule also requires that, at least on that point of which the skald happens to be treating, the persons in the mythological background should hold a relation to each other which resembles, and can be compared with, the relation |
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between the persons in the foreground. Hakon’s men stand in a subordinate relation to Hakon himself; and so must the ásmegir stand in a subordinate relation to that being which is called raudbríkar rœkir, providing the skald in this strophe as in the others has produced a tenable parallel. Hakon is, for his subjects, one who exhorts them to piety and fear of the gods. Raudbríkar rœkir, his counterpart in the mythological background, must have been the same for his ásmegir. Hakon’s subjects offer sacrifices, and this is an advantage and an honour to Hakon, and the earth grows green again. In the mythology the ásmegir must have held some sacrificial feast, and raudbríkar rœkir must have had advantage and honour, and the earth must have regained its fertility. Only on these conditions is the figure of comparison to the point, and of such a character that it could be presented unchallenged to heathen ears familiar with the myths. It should be added that Einar’s greatness as a skald is not least shown by his ability to carry out logically such figures of comparison. We shall later on give other examples of this. Who is, then, this raudbríkar rœkir, “the promoter of the red target”? In the mythological language raudbrík (red target) can mean no other object than the sun. Compare rödull, which is frequently used to designate the sun. If this needed confirmation, then we have it immediately at hand in the manner in which the word is applied in the continuation of the paraphrase adapted to Hakon. A common paraphrase for the shield is the sun with suitable adjectives, |
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and thus raudbrík is applied here. The adjective phrase is here hlakkar móts, “of the meeting of the war-goddess” (that is, qualifying the red target), whereby the red target (= sun), which is an attribute of the mythic rœkir of the background, is changed to a shield, which becomes an attribute of the historical rœkir of the foreground, namely Hakon jarl, the mighty warrior. Accordingly, raudbríkar rœkir of the mythology must be a masculine divinity standing in some relation to the sun. This sun-god must also have been upon the whole a god of peace. Had he not been so, but like Hakon a war-loving shield-bearer, then the paraphrase hlakkar móts raudbríkar rœkir would equally well designate him as Hakon, and thus it could not be used to designate Hakon alone, as it then would contain neither a nota characteristica for him nor a differentia specifica to distinguish him from the mythic person, whose epithet raudbríkar rœkir he has been allowed to borrow. This peaceful sun-god must have descended to the lower world and there stood in the most intimate relation with the ásmegir referred to the domain of 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 ásmegir. From this or these sacrificial feasts the peaceful sun-god must have derived advantage and honour, and thereupon the earth must have regained a fertility, which before that had been more or less denied it. From all this it follows with certainty that raudbríkar |
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rœkir of the mythology is Balder. The fact suggested by the Vellekla strophe above analysed, namely, that Balder, physically interpreted, is a solar divinity, the mythological scholars are almost a unit in assuming to be the case on account of the general character of the Balder myth. Though Balder was celebrated for heroic deeds he is substantially a god of peace, and after his descent to the lower world he is no longer connected with the feuds and dissensions of the upper world. We have already seen that he was received in the lower world with great pomp by the ásmegir, who impatiently awaited his arrival, and that they sacrifice to him that bright mead of the lower world, whose wonderfully beneficial and bracing influence shall be discussed below. Soon afterwards he is visited by Hermod. Already before Balder’s funeral pyre, Hermod upon the fastest of all steeds hastened to find him in the lower world (Gylfag., 51, 52), and Hermod returns from him and Nanna with the ring Draupnir for Odin, and with a veil for the goddess of earth, Fjorgyn-Frigg. The ring from which other rings drop, and the veil which is to beautify the goddess of earth, are symbols of fertility. Balder, the sun-god, had for a long time before his death been languishing. Now in the lower world he is strengthened with the bracing mead of Mimer’s domain by the ásmegir who gladly give offerings, and the earth regains her green fields. Hakon’s men are designated in the strophe as hertharfir ásmegir. When they are permitted to borrow the name of the ásmegir, then the adjective hertharfir, if chosen with the proper care, is to contain a specific distinction between |
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them and the mythological beings whose name they have borrowed. In other words, if the real ásmegir were of such a nature that they could be called hertharfir, then that adjective would not serve to distinguish Hakon’s men from them. The word hertharfir means “those who are needed in war,” “those who are to be used in war.” Consequently, the ásmegir are beings who are not to be used in war, beings whose dwelling, environment, and purpose suggest a realm of peace, from which the use of weapons is banished. Accordingly, the parallel presented in Einar’s strophe, which we have now discussed, is as follows:
In the background which Einar has given to his poetical 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 ásmegir, and how he sent back with Hermod the treasures of fertility which had gone with him and Nanna to the lower world, and which restored the fertility of the earth. To what category of beings do the ásmegir then belong? We have seen the word applied as a technical term in a restricted sense. The possibilities of application which the word with reference to its definition supplies are: (1) The word may be used in the purely physical sense of Asa-sons, Asa-descendants. In this case the subterranean ásmegir would be by their very descent members of that god-clan that resides in Asgard, and whose father and clan-patriarch is Odin. (2) The word can be applied to men. They are the children of the Asa-father in a double sense: the first human pair was created by Odin and his brothers (Völusp., 16-17; Gylfag., 9), and their offspring are also in a moral sense Odin’s children, as they are subject to his guidance and care. He is Allfather, and the father of the succeeding generations (allfadir, aldafadir). A word resembling ásmegir in character is ásasynir, and this is used in Alvismal, 16, in a manner which shows that it does not refer to any of those categories of beings that are called gods (see further, No. 62).* The conception
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of men as sons of the gods is also implied in the all mankind embracing phrase, megir Heimdallar (Völusp., 1), with which the account of Rig-Heimdal’s journeys on the earth and visits to the patriarchs of the various classes is connected.* The true meaning of the word in this case is determined by the fact that the ásmegir 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 ásmegir meant Asas, Einar would never have called the inhabitants of Norway, the subjects of jarl Hakon, hertharfir ásmegir, 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 ásmegir are, therefore, human beings excluded from the surface of the earth, from the mankind which dwell in Midgard, and are inhabitants of the lower world, where they reside in a splendid castle kept by the elf of dawn, Delling, and enjoy the society of Balder, who descended to Hades. To subterranean human beings refers * Cp. also Gylfag., 9, in regard to Odin: Ok fyrir thvi má hann heita Alfodr, at hann er fadir alra godanna ok manna ok alls thess, er af honom ok hans krapti var fullgjört. |
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also Grimnersmal 31, 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 áslithar, a word which Gudbrand Vigfusson has rightly assumed to be identical with ásmegir. Thus it is also demonstrated that the ásmegir are identical with the subterranean human persons Lif and Leifthraser and their descendants in Mimer’s grove. The care with which the mythology represents the citadel of the ásmegir kept, shown by the fact that the elf Delling, the counterpart of Heimdal in the lower world, has been entrusted with its keeping, is intelligible and proper when we know that it is of the greatest importance to shield Lif and Leifthraser’s dwelling from all ills, sickness, age, and moral evil (see above). It is also a beautiful poetic thought that it is the elf of the morning dawn — he outside of whose door the song of awakening and bliss is sung to the world — who has been appointed to watch those who in the dawn of a new world shall people the earth with virtuous and happy races. That the ásmegir in the lower world are permitted to enjoy the society of Balder is explained by the fact that Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring are after Ragnarok to accompany Balder to dwell under his sceptre, and live a blameless life corresponding to his wishes. They are to be his disciples, knowing their master’s commandments and having them written in their hearts. We have now seen that the ásmegir 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 ásmegir. The mythology knows two fimbul-winters: the former raged in time’s morning, the other is to precede Ragnarok. 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 corruption (Völusp., 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 (Fornspjallsljod); 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 logically met this claim of poetic justice. 54. In connection with the efforts to determine the age of the Teutonic myths, and their kinship with the other |
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before it ceases to build hypotheses on a solitary similarity, or even on several or many resemblances between mythological systems geographically separated, unless these resemblances unite themselves and form a whole, a mythical unity, and unless it appears that this mythical unity in turn enters as an element into a greater complexity, which is similar in fundamental structure and similar in its characteristic details. Especially should this rule be strictly observed when we compare the myths of peoples who neither by race nor language can be traced back to a prehistoric unity. But it is best not to relax the severity of the rules even when we compare the myths of peoples who, like the Teutons, the Iranians, and the Rigveda-Aryans, have the same origin and same language; who through centuries, and even long after their separation, have handed down from generation to generation similar mythological conceptions and mythical traditions. I trust that, as this work of mine gradually progresses, a sufficient material of evidence for the solution of the above problem will be placed in the hands of my readers. I now make a beginning of this by presenting the Iranian myth concerning Jima’s grove and the subterranean human beings transferred to it. In the ancient Iranian religious documents Jima is a holy and mighty ancient being, who, however, does not belong to the number of celestial divinities which surround the highest god, Ahuramazda, but must be counted among “the mortals,” to the oldest seers and prophets of antiquity. A hymn of sacrifice, dedicated to the sacred mead, the liquid of inspiration (homa, the soma and soma-madhu |
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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, nevertheless, was in possession of the true wisdom.] It is mentioned (in Gosh Jasht and Râm Jasht) that Jima held two beings in honour, which did not belong to Ahuramazda’s celestial circle, but were regarded as worthy of worship. These two were: 1. The cow (Gosh), that lived in the beginning of time, and whose blood, when she was slain, fertilised the earth with the seed of life. 2. Vajush, the heavenly breeze. He is identical with |
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the ruler of the air and wind in Rigveda, the mighty god Vâyu-Vâta. In regard to the origin and purpose of the kingdom ruled by Jima, in which neither frost nor drought, nor aging nor death, nor moral evil, can enter, Vendidad relates the following:*
* The outlines of the contents are given here from the interpretation found in Haug-West’s Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis (London, 1878). |
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Jima’s garden has accordingly been formed in connection with a terrible winter, which, in the first period of time, visited the earth, and it was planned to preserve that which is noblest and fairest and most useful within the kingdoms of organic beings. That the garden is situated in the lower world is not expressly stated in the above-quoted passages from Vendidad; though this seems to be presupposed by what is stated; for the stars, sun, and moon do not show themselves in Jima’s garden excepting after long, defined intervals — at their rising and setting; and as the surface of the earth is devastated by the unparalleled frost, and as the valleys are no more protected therefrom than the mountains, we cannot without grave doubts conceive the garden as situated in the upper world. That it is subterranean is, however, expressly stated in Bundehesh, ch. 30, 10, where it is located under the mountain Damkan; and that it, in the oldest period of the myth, was looked upon as subterranean follows from the fact that the Jima of the ancient Iranian records is identical with Rigveda’s Jama, whose domain and the scene of whose activities is the lower world, the kingdom of death. As Jima’s enclosed garden was established on account of the fimbul-winter, which occurred in time’s morning, it continues to exist after the close of the winter, and preserves |
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through all the historical ages those treasures of uncorrupted men, animals, and plants which in the beginning of time were collected there. The purpose of this is mentioned in Minokhird, a sort of catechism of the legends and morals of the Avesta religion. There it is said that after the conflagration of the world, and in the beginning of the regeneration, the garden which Jima made shall open its gate, and thence men, animals, and plants shall once more fill the devastated earth. The lower world, where Jima, according to the ancient Iranian records, founded this remarkable citadel, is, according to Rigveda, Jama’s kingdom, and also the kingdom of death, of which Jama is king (Rigv., x. 16, 9; cp. i. 35, 6, and other passages). It is a glorious country, with inexhaustible fountains, and there is the home of the imperishable light (Rigv., ix. 7, 8; ix. 113, 8). Jama dwells under a tree “with broad leaves.” There he gathers around the goblet of mead the fathers of antiquity, and there he drinks with the gods (Rigv., x. 135, 1). Roth, and after him Abel Bergaigne (Religion Ved., i. 88 ff.), regard Jama and Mann, mentioned in Rigveda, as identical There are strong reasons for the assumption, so far as certain passages of Rigveda are concerned; while other passages, particularly those which mention Mann by the side of Bhriga, refer to an ancient patriarch of human descent. If the derivation of the word Mimer, Mimi, pointed out by several linguists, last by Müllenhoff (Deutsche Alt., vol. v. 105, 106), is correct, then it is originally the same name as Manu, and like it is to be referred to the idea of thinking, remembering. |
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What the Aryan-Asiatic myth here given has in common with the Teutonic one concerning the subterranean persons in Mimer’s grove can be summarised in the following words: The lower world has a ruler, who does not belong to the group of immortal celestial beings, but enjoys the most friendly relations with the godhead, and is the possessor of great wisdom. In his kingdom flow inexhaustible fountains, and a tree grown out of its soil spreads its foliage over his dwelling, where he serves the mead of inspiration, which the gods are fond of and which he was the first to prepare. A terrible winter threatened to destroy everything on the surface of the earth. Then the ruler of the lower world built on his domain a well-fortified citadel, within which neither destructive storms, nor physical ills, nor moral evil, nor sickness, nor aging, nor death can come. Thither he transferred the best and fairest human beings to be found on earth, and decorated the enclosed garden with the most beautiful and useful trees and plants. The purpose of this garden is not simply to protect the beings collected there during the great winter; they are to remain there through all historical ages. When these come to an end, there comes a great conflagration and then a regeneration of the world. The renewed earth is to be filled with the beings who have been protected by the subterranean citadel. The people who live there have an instructor in the pure worship of the gods and in the precepts of morality, and in accordance with these precepts they are to live for ever a just and happy life. |
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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 mythology. Both are there put in theogonic connection with Mimer. The one is the celestial lord of the wind, Vayush, Rigveda’s Vâyu-Vâta. Vâta is thought to be the same name as Wodan, Odinn (Zimmer, Haupt’s Zeitschr., 1875; cp. Mannhardt and Kaegi). At all events, Vâta’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. Audhumla liberates from the frost-stones in Chaos Bure, the progenitor of the Asa race, and his son Bor is married to Mimer’s sister Beistla, and with her becomes the father of Odin (Havam., 140; Gylfag., 6). 55. We now know the purpose of Odainsakr, 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 ásmegir during Ragnarok, whose flames do not penetrate thither. Thus the grove, and the land in which it is situated, exist after the flames of Ragnarok are extinguished. Was it thought that the grove after the regeneration was to continue in the lower world and there stand uninhabited, abandoned, desolate, and without a purpose in the future existence of gods, men, and things? The last moments of the existence of the crust of the old earth are described as a chaotic condition in which all elements are confused with each other. The sea rises, overflows the earth sinking beneath its billows, and the crests of its waves aspire to heaven itself (cp. Völusp., 54, 2 — Sigr fold i mar, with Hyndlujl., 42, 1-3 — Haf gengr hridum vid himinn sialfann, lidr lond yfir). The atmosphere, usurped by the sea, disappears, as it were (loft bilar — Hyndlulj., 42, 4). Its snow and winds (Hyndlulj., 42, 5-6) are blended with water and fire, and form with them heated vapours, which “play” against the vault of heaven (Völusp., 54, 7-8). One of the reasons why the fancy has made all the forces and elements of nature thus contend and blend was doubtless to furnish a sufficiently good cause for the dissolution and disappearance of the burnt crust of the earth. At all events, the earth is gone when the rage of the elements is subdued, and thus it is not impediment to the act of regeneration which takes its beginning beneath the waves. This act of regeneration consists in the rising from the depths of the sea of a new earth, which on its very rising possesses living beings and is clothed in green. The fact |
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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 Völuspa sees after Ragnarok —
The earth risen from the deep has mountains and cascades, which, from their fountains in the fells, hasten to the sea. The waterfalls contain fishes, and above them soars the eagle seeking its prey (Völusp., 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 |
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had been the lower world before it came out of the deep, and a paradise-region in the lower world had for centuries been the abode of Lif and Leifthraser. It is more than unnecessary to imagine that the lower world with this Paradise was duplicated by another with a similar Paradise, and that the living creatures on the former were by some magic manipulation transferred to the latter. Mythology has its miracles, but it also has its logic. As its object is to be trusted, it tries to be as probable and consistent with its premises as possible. It resorts to miracles and magic only when it is necessary, not otherwise. Among the mountains which rise on the new earth are found those which are called Nida fjöll (Völusp., 62), Nide’s mountains. The very name Nide suggests the lower world. It means the “lower one.” Among the abodes of Hades, mentioned in Völuspa, there is also a hall of gold on Nide’s plains (a Nitha vollum — str. 36), and from Solarljod (str. 56) we learn — a statement confirmed by much older records — that Nide is identical with Mimer (see No. 87). Thus, Nide’s mountains are situated on Mimer’s fields. Völuspa’s seeress discovers on the rejuvenated earth Nidhog, the corpse-eating demon of the lower world, flying, with dead bodies under his wings, away from the rocks, where he from time immemorial had had his abode, and from which he carried his prey to Nastrands (Völusp., 39). There are no more dead bodies to be had for him, and his task is done. Whether the last line of Völuspa has reference to Nidhog or not, when it speaks of some one “who must sink,” cannot |
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be determined. Müllenhoff (Deutsche Alt.) assumes this to be the case, and he is probably right; but as the text has hon (she) not han (he), and as I, in this work, do not base anything even on the most probable text emendation, this question is set aside, and the more so, since Völuspa’s description of the regenerated earth under all circumstances shows that Nidhog has naught there to do but to fly thence and disappear. The existence of Nide’s mountains on the new earth confirms the fact that it is identical with 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. Völuspa gives one more proof of this. In their youth, free from care, the Asas played with strange tablets. But they had the tablets only í árladaga, in the earliest time (Völusp., 8, 58). Afterwards, they must in some way or other have lost them. The Icelandic sagas of the middle ages have remembered this game of tablets, and there we learn, partly that its strange character consisted in the fact that it could itself take part in the game and move the pieces, and partly that it was preserved in the lower world, and that Gudmund-Mimer was in the habit of playing with tablets (Fornalder Sagas, i. 443; iii. 391-392; iii. 626, &c. In the last passages the game is mentioned in connection with the other subterranean treasure, the horn.) If, now, the mythology had no special reason for bringing the tablets from the lower world before Ragnarok, then they naturally should be found on the risen earth, if the latter was Mimer’s |
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domain before. Völuspa (str. 58) also relates that they were found in its grass:
“There, again, were the wonderful tablets found left in the grass (finaz eptir).” Thus, the tablet-game was refound in the grass, in the meadows of the renewed earth, having from the earliest time been preserved in 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 — Völuspa (str. 56) calls the earth rising from the sea idjagrœna:
The common interpretation is ithia grœna, “the ever green” or “very green,” and this harmonises well with the idea preserved in the sagas mentioned above, where it was stated that the winter was not able to devastate Gudmund-Mimer’s |
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domain. Thus the idea contained in the expression Haddingjalands oskurna ax (see Nos. 72, 73) recurs in Völuspa’s statement that the fields unsown yield harvests in the new earth. Meanwhile the composition idja-grœna has a perfectly abnormal appearance, and awakens suspicion. Müllenhoff (Deutsche Alt.) reads idja, grœna, 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 j in the stem (it is related to id and idi), and this j must also have been heard in the inflections. From various metaphors in the old skalds we learn that they conceived the fountains of the lower world as roaring and in commotion (e.g., Odreris alda thytr in Einar Skalaglam and Bodnar bára 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. 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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evidence, of how the mythology conceived the world-tree and its roots, is of interest not only in regard to the cosmography of the mythology, to which Ygdrasil supplies the trunk and the main outlines, but especially in regard to the mythic conception of the lower world and the whole eschatology; for it appears that each one of the Ygdrasil roots stands not alone above its particular fountain in the lower world but also over its peculiar lower-world domain, which again has its peculiar cosmological character and its peculiar eschatological end. The first condition, however, for a fruitful investigation is that we consider the heathen or heathen-appearing records by themselves without mixing their statements with those of Gylfaginning. We must bear in mind that the author of Gylfaginning lived and wrote in the 13th century, more than 200 years after the introduction of Christianity in Iceland, and that his statements accordingly are to be made a link in that chain of documents which exist for the scholar, who tries to follow the fate of the myths during a Christian period and to study their gradual corruption and confusion. This caution is the more important for the reason that an examination of Gylfaginning very soon shows that the whole cosmographical and eschatological structure which it has built out of fragmentary mythic traditions is based on a conception wholly foreign to Teutonic mythology, that is, on the conception framed by the scholars in Frankish cloisters, and then handed down from chronicle to chronicle, that the Teutons were descended from the Trojans, and that their gods were originally Trojan chiefs |
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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 cosmography and eschatology of Gylfaginning developed themselves out of this assumption: — The Asas were originally men, and dwelt in the Troy which was situated on the centre of the earth, and which was identical with Asgard (thar nœst gerdu their ser borg i midjum heimi, er kallat er Asgardr; that köllum ver Trója; thar bygdu gudin ok œttir theirra ok gjördust thadan af mörg tidindi ok greinir bœdi á jord ok á lopti — ch. 9). The first mythic tradition which supplies material for the structure which Gylfaginning builds on this foundation is the bridge Bifrost. The myth had said that this bridge united the celestial abodes with a part of the universe situated somewhere below. Gylfaginning, which makes the Asas dwell in Troy, therefore makes the gods undertake an enterprise of the greatest boldness, that of building a bridge from Troy to the heavens. But they are extraordinary architects and succeed (Gudin gjördu brú til himins af jördu — ch. 13). The second mythic tradition employed is Urd’s fountain. The myth had stated that the gods daily rode from their celestial abodes on the bridge Bifrost to Urd’s (subterranean) fountain. Thence Gylfaginning draws the correct conclusion that 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 œsir thangat upp um Bifröst — ch. 15). The third mythic tradition used as material is the world-tree, which went (down in the lower world) to Urd’s fountain. According to Völuspa (19), this fountain is situated beneath the ash Ygdrasil. The conclusion drawn by Gylfaginning by the aid of its Trojan premises is that since Urd’s fountain is situated in the heavens, and still under one of Ygdrasil’s roots, this root must be located still further up in the heavens. The placing of the root is also done with consistency, so that we get the following series of wrong localisations: — Down on the earth, Asgard-Troy; thence up to the heavens the bridge Bifrost; above Bifrost, Urd’s fountain; high above Urd’s fountain, one of Ygdrasil’s three roots (which in the mythology are all in the lower world). Since one of Ygdrasil’s roots thus had received its place far up in the heavens, it became necessary to place a second root on a level with the earth and the third one was allowed to retain its position in the lower world. Thus was produced a just distribution of the roots among the three regions which in the conception of the middle ages constituted the universe, namely, the heavens, the earth, and hell. In this manner two myths were made to do service in regard to one of the remaining Ygdrasil roots. The one |
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myth was taken from Völuspa, where it was learned that Mimer’s fountain is situated below the sacred world-tree; the other was Grimnersmal (31), where we are told that frost-giants dwell under one of the three roots. At the time when Gylfaginning was written, and still later, popular traditions told that Gudmund-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, bordering 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 consistency, and Ygdrasil’s third root, which in the mythology |
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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 before belonged to Destiny personified, so that the same gods who before had cast the horrible child of 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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But Gylfaginning is not disposed to draw this conclusion. On the contrary, it insists that Ygdrasil stands erect on its three roots. How we, then, are to conceive its roots as united one with the other and with the trunk of this it very prudently leaves us in ignorance, for this is beyond the range of human imagination. The contrast between the mythological doctrine in regard to the three Ygdrasil roots, and Gylfaginning’s view of the subject may easily be demonstrated by the following parallels:
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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 description of the heathen Gehenna. No doubt because the old dragon, which is hurled down into the abyss (Revelation, chap. 20), is to be found in the hell-fountain of the middle |
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ages, Gylfaginning throws Nidhog down into Hvergelmer, which it also fills with serpents and dead bodies found in Grimnersmal (Str. 34, 35), where they have no connection with Hvergelmer. According to Völuspa it is in Nastrands that Nidhog sucks and the wolf tears the dead bodies (náir). Gylfaginning follows Völuspa in speaking of the other terrors in Nastrands, but rejects Völuspa’s statements about Nidhog and the wolf, and casts both these beasts down into the Hvergelmer fountain. As shall be shown below, the Hvergelmer of the mythology is the mother-fountain of all waters, and is situated on a high plain in the lower world. Thence its waters flow partly northward to Nifelheim, partly south to the elysian fields of heathendom, and the waves sent in the latter direction are shining, clear, and holy. It was an old custom, at least in Iceland, that booths for the accommodation of the visitors were built around a remote thing-stead, or place for holding the parliament. Gylfaginning makes its Trojan Asas follow the example of the Icelanders, and put up houses around the thing-stead, which they selected near Urd’s fountain, after they had succeeded in securing by Bifrost a connection between Troy and heaven. This done, Gylfaginning distributes as best it can the divine halls and abodes of bliss mentioned in the mythology between Troy on the earth and the thing-stead in heaven. This may be sufficient to show that Gylfaginning’s pretended account of the old mythological cosmography is, on account of its making Troy the starting-point, and doubtless also to some extent as a result of the Christian |
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methods of thought, with which the author interpreted the heathen myths accessible to him, is simply a monstrous caricature of the mythology, a caricature which is continued, not with complacency and assurance, but in a confused and contradictory manner, in the eschatology of Gylfaginning. My chief task will now be to review and examine all the passages in the Elder Edda’s mythological songs, wherein the words Hel and Nifelhel occur, in order to find out in this manner in which sense or senses these words are there employed, and to note at the same time all the passages which may come in my way and which are of importance to the myth concerning the lower world. 57. The Norse Hel is the same word as the Gothic Halja, the Old High German Hella, the Anglo-Saxon Hellia, and the English Hell. On account of its occurrence with similar signification in different Teutonic tongues in their oldest linguistic monuments, scholars have been able to draw the conclusion that the word points to a primitive Teutonic Halja, meaning lower world, lower world divinity. It is believed to be related to the Latin oc-cul-ere, cel-are, clam, and to mean the one who “hides,” “conceals,” “preserves.” When the books of the New Testament were for the first time translated into a Teutonic tongue, into a Gothic dialect, the translator, Ulfilas, had to find some way of |
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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 corresponding to this condition, which contains both fields of bliss and regions of torture, he translated with Halja, doubtless because the signification of this word corresponded most faithfully with the meaning of the word Hades. For Gehenna, hell, he used the borrowed word gaiainna. The Old High German translation also reproduces Hades with the word Hella. For Gehenna it uses two expressions compounded with Hella. One of these, Hellawisi, belongs to the form which afterwards predominated in Scandinavia. Both the compounds bear testimony that the place of punishment in the lower world could not be expressed with Hella, but it was necessary to add a word, which showed that a subterranean place of punishment was meant. The same word for Gehenna is found among the Christian Teutons in England, namely, Hellewite; that is to say, the Hellia, that part of the lower world where it is necessary to do penance (vite) for one’s sins. From England the expression doubtless came to Scandinavia, where we find in the Icelandic Hel-víti, in the Swedish Hälvete, and in the Danish Helvede. In the Icelandic literature it is found for the first time in Hallfred, the same skald who with great hesitation permitted himself to be persuaded by Olaf Trygveson to abandon the faith of his fathers. Many centuries before Scandinavia was converted to |
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408 Christianity, the Roman Church had very nearly obliterated the boundary line between the subterranean Hades and Gehenna of the New Testament. The lower world had, as a whole, become a realm of torture, though with various gradations. Regions of bliss were no longer to be found there, and for Hel in the sense in which Ulfilas used Halja, and the Old High German translation Hella, there was no longer room in the Christian conception. In the North, Hel was therefore permitted to remain a heathen word, and to retain its heathen signification as long as the Christian generations were able or cared to preserve it. It is natural that the memory of this signification should gradually fade, and that the idea of the Christian hell should gradually be transferred to the heathen Hel. This change can be pretty accurately traced in the Old Norse literature. It came slowly, for the doctrine in regard to the lower world in the Teutonic religion addressed itself powerfully to the imagination, and, as appears from a careful examination, far from being indefinite in its outlines, it was, on the contrary, described with the clearest lines and most vivid colours, even down to the minutest details. Not until the thirteenth century could such a description of the heathen Hel as Gylfaginning’s be possible and find readers who would accept it. But not even then were the memories (preserved in fragments from the heathen days) in regard to the lower world doctrine so confused, but that it was possible to present a far more faithful (or rather not so utterly false) description thereof. Gylfaginning’s representation of the heathen Hades is based less on the then existing confusion of the traditions |
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than on the conclusions drawn from the author’s own false premises. In determining the question, how far Hel among the heathen Scandinavians has had a meaning identical with or similar to that which Halja and Hella had among their Gothic and German kinsmen — that is to say, the signification of a death-kingdom of such a nature that it could not with linguistic propriety be used in translating Gehenna — we must first consult that which really is the oldest source, the usage of the spoken language in expressions where Hel is found. Such expressions show by the very presence of Hel that they have been handed down from heathendom, or have been formed in analogy with old heathen phrases. One of these modes of speech still exists: i hjäl (slå ihjäl, svälta ihjäl, frysa ihjäl, &c.), which is the Old Norse í Hel. We do not use this expression in the sense that a person killed by a weapon, famine, or frost is relegated to the abyss of torture. Still less could the heathens have used it in that sense. The phrase would never have been created if the word Hel had especially conveyed the notion of a place of punishment. Already in a very remote age í 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 í Hel also applies to such phrases as bida Heljar, to await Hel (death); buask til Heljar, to become equipped for the journey to Hel (to be shrouded); liggja milli heims ok Heljar, to lie between this world and Hel (between life and death); liggja á Heljar thremi, to |
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lie on Hel’s threshold. A funeral could be called a Helför (a Hel-journey); fatal illness Helsótt (Hel-sickness); the deceased could be called Helgengnir (those gone to Hel). Of friends it is said that Hel (death) alone could separate them (Fornm., vii. 233). Thus it is evident that Hel, in the more general local sense of the word, referred to a place common for all the dead, and that the word was used without any additional suggestion of damnation amid torture in the minds of those employing it. 58. When Odin, according to Vegtamskvida, resolved to get reliable information in the lower world in regard to the fate which threatened Balder, he saddled his Sleipnir and rode thither. On the way he took he came first to Nifelhel. While he was still in Nifelhel, he met on his way a dog bloody about the breast, which came from the direction where that division of the lower world is situated, which is called Hel. Thus the rider and the dog came from opposite directions, and the former continued his course in the direction whence the latter came. The dog turned, and long pursued Odin with his barking. Then the rider reached a foldvegr, that is to say, a road along grass-grown plains. The way resounded under the hoofs of the steed. Then Odin finally came to a high dwelling, which is called Heljarrann or Heljar rann. The |
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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 ásmegir longingly waited for the arrival of Balder. Thus Vegtamskvida:
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to Gylfaginning, belongs to the queen of the lower world. In Vafthrudnersmal (43) the old giant says:
Like Vegtamskvida, so Vafthrudnersmal also distinguishes distinctly between Hel and Nifelhel, particularly in those most remarkable words that thither, i.e., to Nifelhel and the regions subject to it, die “halir” from Hel. Halir means men, human beings; applied to beings in the lower world halir means dead men, the spirits of deceased human beings (cp. Allvism. 18, 6; 20, 6; 26, 6; 32, 6; 34, 6, with 28, 3). Accordingly, nothing less is here said than that deceased persons who have come to the realm called Hel, may there be subject to a second death, and that through this second death they come to Nifelhel. Thus the same sharp distinction is here made between life in Hel and in Nifelhel as between life on earth and that in Hel. These two subterranean realms must therefore represent very different conditions. What these different conditions are, Vafthrudnersmal does not inform us, nor will I anticipate the investigation on this point; still less will I appeal to Gylfaginning’s assurance that the realms of torture lie under Nifelhel, and that it is wicked men (vândir menn) who are obliged to cross the border from |
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Hel to Nifelhel. So far it must be borne in mind that it was in Nifelhel Odin met the bloody dog-demon, who barked at the Asa-majesty, though he could not hinder the father of the mighty and protecting sorceries from continuing his journey; while it was in Hel, on the other hand, that Odin saw the splendid abode where the ásmegir had already served the precious subterranean mead for his son, the just Balder. This argues that they who through a second death get over the 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 boundary between a realm of bliss and a realm of suffering, and in this case, whether Hel or Nifelhel is the realm of bliss. This expression in Vafthrudnersmal, hinig deyja or Helio halir, also forces to the front another question, which, as long as it remains unanswered, makes the former question more complicated. If Hel is a realm of bliss, and if Nifelhel with the regions subject thereto is a realm of unhappiness, then why do not the souls of the damned go at once to their final destination, but are taken first to the realm of bliss, then to the realm of anguish and pain, that is, after they have died the second death on the boundary-line between the two? And if, on the contrary, Hel were the realm of unhappiness and Nifelhel offered a better lot, then why should they who are destined |
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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. 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 fountain, and after completing their circuits they return thither. The liquids or saps which rise in the world-tree’s stem to its branches and leaves around Herfather’s hall (Valhal) return in the form of rain to Hvergelmer (Grimnersmal, 26). Forty rivers rising there are named. (Whether they were all found in the original text may be a subject of doubt. Interpolators may have added from their own |
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415 knowledge.) Three of them are mentioned in other records — namely, Slidr in Völuspa, 36, Gjöll 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. 49), 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 torture, and whirls weapons in its eddies, presumably to hinder or frighten anybody from attempting to cross. Over Gjöll there is a bridge of gold to Balder’s subterranean abode. Leiptr (which name means “the shining one”) has clear waters, which are holy, and by which solemn oaths are sworn, as by Styx. Of these last two rivers flowing out of Hvergelmer it is said that they flow down to Hel (falla til Heljar, str. 28). Thus these are all subterranean. The next strophe (29) adds four rivers — Körmt and Örmt, and the two Kerlögar, of which it is said that it is over these Thor must wade every day when he has to go to the judgment-seats of the gods near the ash Ygdrasil. For he does not ride like the other gods when they journey down over Bifrost to the thingstead near Urd’s fountain. The horses which they use are named in strophe 30, and are ten in number, like the asas, when we subtract Thor who walks, and Balder and Hödr who dwell in Hel. Nor must Thor on these journeys, in case he wished to take the route by way of Bifrost, use the thunder-chariot, for the flames issuing from it might set fire to the Asa-bridge and make the holy waters glow (str. 29). That the thunder-chariot also is dangerous for higher regions when it is set in motion, thereof Thjodolf |
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gives us a brilliant description in the poem Haustlaung. Thor being for this reason obliged to wade across four rivers before he gets to Urd’s fountain, the beds of these rivers must have been conceived as crossing the paths travelled by the god journeying to the thingstead. Accordingly they must have their courses somewhere in Urd’s realm, or on the way thither, and consequently they too belong to the lower world. Other rivers coming from Hvergelmer are said to turn their course around a place called Hodd-goda (str. 27 — 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 treasure), and at the same time a protected sacred place. In the German poem Heliand the word hord, corresponding to hodd, is used about the holiest of holies in the Jerusalem temple. As we already know, there is in the lower world a place to which these references apply, namely, the citadel guarded by Delling, the elf of dawn, and decorated by the famous artists of the lower world — a citadel in which the ásmegir and Balder — and probably Hodr too, since he is transferred to the lower world, and with Balder is to return thence — await the end of the historical time and the regeneration. The word goda in Hodd-goda shows that the place is possessed by, or entrusted to, beings of divine rank. From what has here been stated in regard to Hvergelmer |
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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 (gumnum nœr — 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 Hvergelmer is called is not stated in Grimnersmal. But from Vafthrudnersmal and Vegtamskvida we already know that Hel is bounded by Nifelhel. In Vegtamskvida Odin rides through Nifelhel to Hel; in Vafthrudnersmal halir die from Hel to Nifelhel. Hel and Nifelhel thus appear to be each other’s opposites, and to complement each other, |
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and combined they form the whole lower world. Hence it follows that the land on the other side of the Hvergelmer mountain is Nifelhel. It also seems necessary that both these Hades realms should in the mythology be separated from each other not only by an abstract boundary line, but also by a natural boundary — a mountain or a body of water — which might prohibit the crossing of the boundary by persons who neither had a right nor were obliged to cross. The tradition on which Saxo’s account of Gorm’s journey to the lower world is based makes Gorm and his men, when from Gudmund-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 scalœ, steps on the mountain wall, or ladders, above which the gates are placed, that open to a city “resembling most a cloud of vapour” (vaporanti maxime nubi simile — i. 425). This is Saxo’s way of translating the name Nifelhel, just as he in the story about Hadding’s journey to the lower world translated Glœsisvellir (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 application to a territory embracing the whole kingdom of |
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death — else it could not be used as a part of the compound word Nifelhel — partly a more limited meaning, in which Hel, as in Vafthrudnersmal and Vegtamskvida, forms a sharp contrast to Nifelhel, and from the latter point of view it is that division of the lower world which is not enveloped in mist and fog. According to the cosmography of the mythology there was, before the time when “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 description also mentions the ancient cow Audhumla, which is nowhere else named in our mythic records, but is not utterly forgotten in our popular traditions, and which is a genuine Aryan conception, this is the strongest argument in favour of his having had genuine authorities for his theo-cosmogony at hand, though he used them in an arbitrary manner. The Teutons may also be said to have been compelled to construct a cosmogony in harmony with their conception of that world with which they were best acquainted, their own home between the cold North and the warmer South. Nifelhel in the lower world has its counterpart in Nifelheim in chaos. Gylfaginning identifies the two (ch. 6 and 34). Forspjallsljod does the same, and locates Nifelheim far to the north in the lower world (nordr at Nifelheim — str. 26), behind Ygdrasil’s farthest root, |
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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 is 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 mountain, which stands under Ygdrasil’s northern root, sends, as already stated, rivers down to both sides — to Nifelhel in the North and to Hel in the South. Of the most of these rivers we now know only the names. But those of which we do know more are characterised in such a manner that we find that it is a sacred land to which those flowing to the South towards Hel hasten their course, and that it is an unholy land which is sought by those which send their streams to the north down into Nifelhel. The rivers Gjöll and Leiptr fall down into Hel, and Gjöll is, as already indicated, characterised by a bridge of gold, Leiptr by a shining, clear, and most holy |
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water. Down there in the South is found the mystic Hodd-goda, surrounded by other Hel-rivers; Balder’s and the ásmegir’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 (Völuspa), and around whose reed-wreathed edge the seed of poetry grows (Eilif Gudrunson); the Glittering Fields, with flowers which never fade and with harvests which never are gathered; Urd’s fountain, over which Ygdrasil stands for ever green (Völuspa), and in whose silver-white waters swans swim; and the sacred thing-stead of the Asas, to which they daily ride down over Bifrost. North of the mountain roars the weapon-hurling Slid, and doubtless is the same river as that in whose “heavy streams” the souls of nithings must wade. In the North sólu fjarri stands, also at Nastrands, that hall, the walls of which are braided of serpents (Völuspa). Thus Hel is described as an Elysium, Nifelhel with its subject regions as a realm of unhappiness. Yet a few words about Hvergelmer, from and to which “all waters find their way.” This statement in Grimnersmal is of course true of the greatest of all waters, the ocean. The myth about Hvergelmer and its subterranean connection with the ocean gave our ancestors the explanation of ebb- and flood-tide. High up in the northern channels the bottom of the ocean opened itself in a hollow tunnel, which led down to the “kettle-roarer,” “the one roaring in his basin” (this seems to be the meaning of Hvergelmir: hverr = kettle; galm = Anglo-Saxon |
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gealm, a roaring). When the waters of the ocean poured through this tunnel down into the Hades-well there was ebb-tide; when it returned water from its superabundance there was flood-tide (see Nos. 79, 80, 81). Adam of Bremen had heard this tunnel mentioned in connection with the story about the Frisian noblemen who went by sea to the furthest north, came to the land of subterranean giants, and plundered their treasures (see No. 48). On the way up some of the ships of the Frisians got into the eddy caused by the tunnel, and were sucked with terrible violence down into the lower world.* Charlemagne’s contemporary, Paul Varnefrid (Diaconus), relates in his history of the Longobardians that he had talked with men who had been in Scandinavia. Among remarkable reports which they gave him of the regions of the far north was also that of a maelstrom, which swallows ships, and sometimes even casts them up again (see Nos. 15, 79, 80, 81). Between the death-kingdom and the ocean there was, therefore, one connecting link, perhaps several. Most of the people who drowned did not remain with Ran. Ægir’s wife received them hospitably, according to the Icelandic sagas of the middle age. She had a 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, Sonatorrek). * “Et ecce instabilis Oceani Euripus, ad initia quædam fontis sui arcana recurrens, infelices nautas jam desperatos, immo de morte sola cogitantes, vehementissimo impetu traxit ad Chaos. Hanc dicunt esse voraginem abyssi, illud profundum, in quo fama est omnes maris recursus, qui decrescere videntur, absorberi et denuo remnovi, quod fluctuatio dici solet” (De situ Daniæ, 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 monsters which have their abode in Nifelhel and those lower regions, and which seek to injure that root of the world-tree which is nearest to them, that is the northern one, which stands over Nifelhel and stretches its rootlets southward over Mount Hvergelmer and down into its great water-reservoir (Grimnersmal, 34, 35). Like all the Aryan mythologies, the Teutonic also knew this sort of monsters, and did so long before the word “dragon” (drake) was borrowed from southern kinsmen as a name for them. Nidhog abides now on Nastrands, where, by the side of a wolf-demon, it tortures náir (corpses), now on the Nida Mountains, whence the vala in Völuspa sees him flying away with náir under his wings. Nowhere (except in Gylfaginning) is it said that he lives in the well Hvergelmer, though it is possible that he, in spite of his wings, was conceived as an amphibious being which also could subsist in the water. Tradition tells of dragons who dwell in marshes and swamps. The other two subterranean fountains, Urd’s and 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 so important a position in the economy of the world-tree, left in the mythology without protection and without a guardian? Hvergelmer we know is situated on the watershed, where we have the death-border between Hel and Nifelhel fortified with abysses and gates, and is consequently situated in the immediate vicinity of beings hostile to gods and men. Here, if anywhere, there was need of valiant and vigilant watchers. Ygdrasil needs its northern root as well as the others, and if Hvergelmer was not allowed undisturbed to conduct the circuitous flow of all waters, the world would be either dried up or drowned. Already, long before the creation of the world, there flowed from Hvergelmer that broad river called Elivágar, which in its extreme north froze into that ice, which, when it melted, formed out of its dropping venom the primeval giant 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. Elivágar, also called Hraunn, Hraunn, sends in its upper course, where it runs near the crust of the earth, a portion of its waters up to it, and forms between Midgard and the upper Jotunheim proper, the river Vimur, which is also called Elivágar and Hraunn, like the parent stream (cp. Hymerskv., 5, 38; Grimnism., 28; Skaldskaparm., ch. 3, 16, 18, 19; and Helg. Hj., 25). Elivágar separates the realm of the giants and frost-giants from the other “worlds.” South of Elivágar the gods have an “outgard,” a |
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425 “sæther” which is inhabited by valiant watchers — snotrir vikingar they are called in Thorsdrapa, 8 — who are bound by oaths to serve the gods. Their chief is Egil, the most famous archer in the mythology (Thorsdrapa, 1, 8; cp. Hymiskv., 7, 38; Skaldskap., ch. 16). As such he is also called Orvandel (the one busy with the arrow). This Egil is the guardian entrusted with the care of Hvergelmer and Elivágar. Perhaps it is for this reason that he has a brother and fellow-warrior who is called Ide (Ide from ida, a fountain with eddying waters). The “sæter” is called “Ides sæter” (Thorsdrapa, 1). The services which he as watcher on Mt. Hvergelmer and on the Elivágar renders to the regions of bliss in the lower world are so great that, although he does not belong to the race of the gods by birth or by adoption, he still enjoys among the inhabitants of Hel so great honour and gratitude that they confer divine honours on him. He is “the one worshipped in Hel who scatters the clouds which rise storm-threatening over the mountain of the lower world,” helblotinn hneitr undir-fjálfrs bliku (Thorsdr., 19). The storm-clouds which Ari, Hrœsvelgr, 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 formidable foe of the giants, and in connection with Heimdal he zealously watched their every movement. The myth in regard to him is fully discussed in the treatise on |
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the Ivalde-sons which forms a part of this work, and there the proofs will be presented for the identity of Orvandel and Egil. I simply desire to point out here, in order to present complete evidence later, that Ygdrasil’s northern root and the corresponding part of the lower world also had their defenders and watchmen, and I also wished to call attention to the manner in which the name Hel is employed in the word Helblótinn. We find it to be in harmony with the use of the same word in those passages of the poetic Edda which we have hitherto examined. 60. 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 Frey’s behalf. As bridal gifts he took with him eleven golden apples and the ring Draupner. He received one of the best horses of Asgard to ride, and for his defence Frey’s magnificent sword, “which fights of itself against the race of giants.” In the poem this sword receives the epithets Tams-vöndr (str. 26) and Gambanteinn (str. 32). Tams-vöndr, 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 vöndr or teinn. We find, as names for swords, benvöndr, blodvondr, hjaltvondr, hridvondr, hvitvondr, mordvondr, sarvondr, benteinn, eggteinn, hœvateinn, hjorteinn, hrœteinn, sarteinn, valteinn, mistelteinn. Skirner rides over damp fells and the fields of giants, leaps, after a quarrel with the watchman of Gymer’s citadel, over the fence, comes in to Gerd, is welcomed with ancient mead, and presents his errand of courtship, supported by the eleven golden apples. Gerd refuses both the apples and the object of the errand. Skirner then offers her the most precious treasure, the ring Draupnir, but in vain. Then he resorts to threats. He exhibits the sword so dangerous to her kinsmen; with it he will cut off her head if she refuses her consent. Gerd answers that she is not to be frightened, and that she has a father who is not afraid to fight. Once more Skirner shows her the sword, which also may fell her father (ser thu thenna mœki, 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.
This is the former threat of death repeated in another form. The former did not frighten her. But that which now overwhelms her with dismay is the description Skirner gives her of the lot that awaits her in the realm of death, whither she is destined — she, the giant maid, if she dies by the avenging wrath of the gods (gambanreidi). She shall then come to that region which is situated below the Na-gates (fyr nágrindr 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 nágrindr nethan must have been a stereotyped eschatological term applied to a particular division, a particular realm in the lower world. In Lokasenna (str. 63), Thor says to Loke, after the latter has emptied his phials of rash insults upon the gods, that if he does not hold his tongue the hammer Mjolner shall send him to Hel fyr nágrindr 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 particular 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 nár (pl. náir), which means corpse, dead body. Thus Na-gates means Corpse-gates. The name must seem strange, for it is not dead bodies, but souls, released from their bodies left on earth, which descend to the kingdom of death and get their various abodes there. How far our heathen ancestors had a more or less material conception of the soul is a question which it is not necessary to discuss here (see on this point No. 95). Howsoever they may have regarded it, the very existence of a Hades in their mythology demonstrates that they believed that a conscious and sentient element in man was in death separated from the body with which it had been united in life, and went down to the lower world. That the body from which this conscious, sentient element fled was not removed to Hades, but went in this upper earth to its disintegration, whether it was burnt or buried in a mound or sunk to the bottom of the sea, this our heathen ancestors knew just as well as we know it. The people of the stone-age already knew this. The phrase Na-gates does not stand alone in our mythological eschatology. One of the abodes of torture lying within the Na-gates is called Nastrands (Nástrandir), and |
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is described in Völuspa as filled with terrors. And the victims, which Nidhog, the winged demon of the lower world, there sucks, are called náir framgenga, “the corpses of those departed.” It is manifest that the word nár thus used cannot have its common meaning, but must be used in a special mythological sense, which had its justification and its explanation in the heathen doctrine in regard to the lower world. It not unfrequently happens that law-books preserve ancient significations of words not found elsewhere in literature. The Icelandic law-book Grágás (ii. 185) enumerates four categories within which the word nár is applicable to a person yet living. Gallows-nár can be called, even while living, the person who is hung; grave-nár, the person placed in a grave; skerry-nár or rock-nár may, while yet alive, he be called who has been exposed to die on a skerry or rock. Here the word nár is accordingly applied to persons who are conscious and capable of suffering, but on the supposition that they are such persons as have been condemned to a punishment which is not to cease so long as they are sensitive to it. And this is the idea on the basis of which the word náir is mythologically applied to the damned and tortured beings in the lower world. If we now take into account that our ancestors believed in a second death, in a slaying of souls in Hades, then we find that this same use of the word in question, which at first sight could not but seem strange, is a consistent development of the idea that those banished from Hel’s realms of bliss die a second time, when they are transferred |
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across the border to Nifelhel and the world of torture. When they are overtaken by this second death they are for the second time náir. And, as this occurs at the gates of Nifelhel, it was perfectly proper to call the gates nágrindr. We may imagine that it is terror, despair, or rage which, at the sight of the Na-gates, severs the bond between the damned spirit and his Hades-body, and that the former is anxious to soar away from its terrible destination. But however this may be, the avenging powers have runes, which capture the fugitive, put chains on his Hades-body, and force him to feel with it. The Sun-song, a Christian song standing on the scarcely crossed border of heathendom, speaks of damned ones whose breasts were risted (carved) with bloody runes, and Havamál of runes which restore consciousness to náir. Such runes are known by Odin. If he sees in a tree a gallows-nár (virgil-nár), then he can rist runes so that the body comes down to him and talks with him (see No. 70).
Some of the subterranean náir have the power of motion, and are doomed to wade in “heavy streams.” Among them are perjurers, murderers, and adulterers (Völuspa, 38). Among these streams is Vadgelmer, in |
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which they who have slandered others find their far-reaching retribution (Sigurdarkv., ii. 4). Other náir have the peculiarity which their appellation suggests, and receive quiet and immovable, stretched on iron benches, their punishment (see below). Saxo, who had more elaborate descriptions of the Hades of heathendom than those which have been handed down to our time, translated or reproduced in his accounts of Hadding’s and Gorm’s journeys in the lower world the word náir with exsanguia simulacra (p. 426). That place after death with which Skirner threatens the stubborn Gerd is also situated within the Na-gates, but still it has another character than Nastrands and the other abodes of torture, which are situated below Nifelhel. It would also have been unreasonable to threaten a person who rejects a marriage proposal with those punishments which overtake criminals and nithings. The Hades division, which Skirner describes as awaiting the giant-daughter, is a subterranean Jotunheim, inhabited by deceased ancestors and kinsmen of Gerd. Mythology has given to the giants as well as to men a life hereafter. As a matter of fact, mythology never destroys life. The horse which was cremated with its master on his funeral pyre, and was buried with him in his grave-mound, afterwards brings the hero down to Hel. When the giant who built the Asgard wall got into conflict with the gods, Thor’s hammer sent him “down below Nifelhel” (nidr undir Niflhel — Gylfag., ch. 43). King Gorm saw in the lower world the giant Geirrod and both his daughters. According to Grimnersmal (str. 31), |
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frost-giants dwell under one of Ygdrasil’s roots — consequently in the lower world; and Forspjallsljod says that hags (giantesses) and thurses (giants), náir, dwarfs, and swarthy elves go to sleep under the world-tree’s farthest root on the north border of Jormungrund* (the lower world), when Dag on a chariot sparkling with precious stones leaves the lower world, and when Nat after her journey on the heavens has returned to her home (str. 24, 28). It is therefore quite in order if we, in Skirner’s description of the realm which after death awaits the giant-daughter offending the gods, rediscover that part of the lower world to which the drowned primeval ancestors of the giant-maid were relegated when Bor’s sons opened the veins of 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 á 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 Vafthrudner is able to do this (Vafthr., 35). When the original giants had to abandon the fields populated by Bor’s sons (Völuspa, 4), they received an abode corresponding as nearly as possible to their first home, and, as it seems, identical with it, excepting that Nifelheim now, instead of being a part of chaos, is an integral part of the cosmic universe, and the extreme north of its Hades. As a Hades-realm it is also called Nifelhel. 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 (höll), 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 (Hrímgrimnir — str. 35), the other Rimner (Hrímnir — str. 28). Grimner is one of Odin’s many surnames (Grimnersmal, 47, * Compare the phrase iotna gaurthum i (str. 30, 3) with til hrimthursa hallar (30, 4). |
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435 and several other places; cp. Egilsson’s Lex. Poet.). Rimgrimner means the same as if Odin had said Rim-Odin, for Odin’s many epithets could without hesitation be used by the poets in paraphrases, even when these referred to a giant. But the name Odin was too sacred for such a purpose. Upon the whole the skalds seem piously to have abstained from using that name in paraphrases, even when the latter referred to celebrated princes and heroes. Glum Geirason is the first known exception to the rule. He calls a king Málm-Odinn. The above epithet places Rimgrimner in the same relation to the frost-giants as Odin-Grimnir 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 cannot be regarded as the special clan-chief of the frost-giants, since he is also the progenitor of other classes of beings (see Vafthr., 33, and Völuspa, 9; cp. Gylfag., ch. 14). But they have other points of resemblance. Thrudgelmer is “strange-headed” in Vafthrudnersmal; Rimgrimner is “three-headed” in Skirnersmal (str. 31; cp. with str. 35). Thus we have in one poem a “strange-headed” Thrudgelmer as progenitor of the frost-giants; in the other poem a “three-headed” Rimgrimner as progenitor of the same frost-giants. The “strange-headed” giant of the former poem, which is a somewhat indefinite or obscure phrase, thus finds in “three-headed” of the latter poem its further definition. To this is to be added a power which is possessed both by Thrudgelmer and by Rimgrimner, and also a weakness for which both Thrudgelmer |
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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 Skirnirsmal 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 therefore 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:
* With race of the Asa-god áslidar, there can hardly be meant others than the ásmegir gathered in the lower world around Balder. This is the only place where the word áslidar occurs. |
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Descended to Nifelhel, Gerd must not count on a shadow of friendship and sympathy from her kinsmen there. It would be best for her to confine herself in the solitary abode which there awaits her, for if she but looks out of the gate, staring gazes shall meet her from Rimner and all the others down there; and she shall there be looked upon with more hatred than Heimdal, the watchman of the gods, who is the wise, always vigilant foe of the rimethurses and giants. But whether she is at home or abroad, demons and tormenting spirits shall |
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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 Ari, a subterranean eagle-demon has his perch (doubtless the same Ari which, according to Völuspa [47], is to join with his screeches in Rymer’s shield-song, when the Midgard-serpent writhes in giant-rage, and the ship of death, Nagelfar, gets loose). Up there she shall sit early in the morning, and constantly turn her face in the same direction — in the direction where Hel is situated, that is, south over Mt. Hvergelmer, toward the subterranean regions of bliss. Toward Hel she shall long to come in vain:
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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 exertions, so that when it dawns in the foggy Nifelhel, she may get a glimpse of that land of bliss to which she may never come; she who rejected a higher happiness — that of being with the gods and possessing Frey’s love. I have been somewhat elaborate in the presentation of this description in Skirnersmal, which has not hitherto been understood. I have done so, because it is the only evidence left to us of how life was conceived in the fore-court of the regions of torture, Nifelhel, the land situated below 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 Vafthrudnersmal, Grimnersmal, Vegtamskvida, and Thorsdrapa (as we have already seen), has used the word Hel in the sense of a place of bliss in the lower world. It is also evident that with the root under which the frost-giant dwells impossibly can be meant, as supposed by Gylfaginning, that one under which Mimer’s glorious fountain, and Mimer’s grove, and all his treasures stored for a future world, are situated. |
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