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Völuspa gives an account of the events which forebode and lead up to Ragnarok. Among these we also find that leika Mims synir, that is, that the sons of Mimer “spring up,” “fly up,” “get into lively motion.” But the meaning of this has hitherto been an unsolved problem. In the strophe immediately preceding (the 44th) Völuspa describes how it looks on the surface of Midgard when the end of the world is at hand. Brothers and near kinsmen slay each other. The sacred bonds of morality are broken. It is the storm-age and the wolf-age. Men no longer spare or pity one another. Knives and axes rage. Volund’s world-destroying sword of revenge has already been fetched by Fjalar in the guise of the red cock (str. 41), and from the Ironwood, where it hitherto had been concealed by Angerboda and guarded by Egther; the wolf-giant Hate with his companions have invaded the world, which it was the duty of the gods |
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to protect. The storms are attended by eclipses of the sun (str. 40). Then suddenly the Gjallar-horn sounds, announcing that the destruction of the world is now to be fulfilled, and just as the first notes of this trumpet penetrate the world, Mimer’s sons spring up. “The old tree,” the world-tree, groans and trembles. When Mimer’s sons “spring up” Odin is engaged in conversation with the head of their father, his faithful adviser, in regard to the impending conflict, which is the last one in which the gods are to take a hand. I shall here give reasons for the assumption that the blast from the Gjallar-horn wakes Mimer’s sons from a sleep that has lasted through centuries, and that the Christian legend concerning the seven sleepers has its chief, if not its only, root in a Teutonic myth which in the second half of the fifth or in the first half of the sixth century was changed into a legend. At that time large portions of the Teutonic race had already been converted to Christianity: the Goths, Vandals, Gepidians, Rugians, Burgundians, and Swabians were Christians. Considerable parts of the Roman empire were settled by the Teutons or governed by their swords. The Franks were on the point of entering the Christian Church, and behind them the Alamannians and Longobardians. Their myths and sagas were reconstructed so far as they could be adapted to the new forms and ideas, and if they, more or less transformed, assumed the garb of a Christian legend, then this guise enabled them to travel to the utmost limits of Christendom; and if they also contained, as in |
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the case here in question, ideas that were not entirely foreign to the Greek-Roman world, then they might the more easily acquire the right of Roman nativity. In its oldest form the legend of “the seven sleepers” has the following outlines (Miraculorum Liber, vii., i. 92): “Seven brothers”* have their place of rest near the city of Ephesus, and the story of them is as follows: In the time of the Emperor Decius, while the persecution of the Christians took place, seven men were captured and brought before the ruler. Their names were Maximianus, Malchus, Martinianus, Constantius, Dionysius, Joannes, and Serapion. All sorts of persuasion was attempted, but they would not yield. The emperor, who was pleased with their courteous manners, gave them time for reflection, so that they should not at once fall under the sentence of death. But they concealed themselves in a cave and remained there many days. Still, one of them went out to get provisions and attend to other necessary matters. But when the emperor returned to the same city, these men prayed to God, asking Him in His mercy to save them out of this danger, and when, lying on the ground, they had finished their prayers, they fell asleep. When the emperor learned that they were in the above-mentioned cave, he, under divine influence, commanded that the entrance of the cave should be closed with large stones, “for,” said he, “as they are unwilling to offer sacrifices to our gods, they must perish there.”
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710 While this transpired a Christian man had engraved the names of the seven men on a leaden tablet, and also their testimony in regard to their belief, and he had secretly laid the tablet in the entrance of the cave before the latter was closed. After many years, the congregations having secured peace and the Christian Theodosius having gained the imperial dignity, the false doctrine of the Sadducees, who denied resurrection, was spread among the people. At this time it happens that a citizen of Ephesus is about to make an enclosure for his sheep on the mountain in question, and for this purpose he loosens the stones at the entrance of the cave, so that the cave was opened, but without his becoming aware of what was concealed within. But the Lord sent a breath of life into the seven men and they arose. Thinking they had slept only one night, they sent one of their number, a youth, to buy food. When he came to the city gate he was astonished, for he saw the glorious sign of the Cross, and he heard people aver by the name of Christ. But when he produced his money, which was from the time of Decius, he was seized by the vendor, who insisted that he must have found secreted treasures from former times, and who, as the youth made a stout denial, brought him before the bishop and the judge. Pressed by them, he was forced to reveal his secret, and he conducted them to the cave where the men were. At the entrance the bishop then finds the leaden tablet, on which all that concerned their case was noted down, and when he had talked with the men a messenger was despatched to the Emperor Theodosius. He came and kneeled on the |
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ground and worshipped them, and they said to the ruler: “Most august Augustus! there has sprung up a false doctrine which tries to turn the Christian people from the promises of God, claiming that there is no resurrection of the dead. In order that you may know that we are all to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ according to the words of the Apostle Paul, the Lord God has raised us from the dead and commanded us to make this statement to you. See to it that you are not deceived and excluded from the kingdom of God.” When the Emperor Theodosius heard this he praised the Lord for not permitting His people to perish. But the men again lay down on the ground and fell asleep. The Emperor Theodosius wanted to make graves of gold for them, but in a vision he was prohibited from doing this. And until this very day these men rest in the same place, wrapped in fine linen mantles. At the first glance there is nothing which betrays the Teutonic origin of this legend. It may seemingly have had an independent origin anywhere in the Christian world, and particularly in the vicinity of Ephesus. Meanwhile the historian of the Franks, Bishop Gregorius of Tours (born 538 or 539), is the first one who presented in writing the legend regarding the seven sleepers. In the form given above it appears through him for the first time within the borders of the christianised western Europe (see Gregorius’ Miraculorum Liber, i., ch. 92). After him it reappears in Greek records, and thence it travels on and finally gets to Arabia and Abyssinia. His account is not written before the year |
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571 or 572. As the legend itself claims in its preserved form not to be older than the first years of the reign of Theodosius, it must have originated between the year’s 379–572. The next time we learn anything about the seven sleepers in occidental literature is in the Longobardian historian Paulus Diaconus (born about 723). What he relates has greatly surprised investigators; for although he certainly was acquainted with the Christian version in regard to the seven men who sleep for generations in a cave, and although he entertained no doubt as to its truth, he nevertheless relates another — and that a Teutonic — seven sleepers’ legend, the scene of which is the remotest part of Teutondom. He narrates (i. 4): “As my pen is still occupied with Germany, I deem it proper, in connection with some other miracles, to mention one which there is on the lips of everybody. In the remotest western boundaries of Germany is to be seen near the sea-strand under a high rock a cave where seven men have been sleeping no one knows how long. They are in the deepest sleep and uninfluenced by time, not only as to their bodies but also as to their garments, so that they are held in great honour by the savage and ignorant people, since time for so many years has left no trace either on their bodies or on their clothes. To judge from their dress they must be Romans. When a man from curiosity tried to undress one of them, it is said that his arm at once withered, and this punishment spread such a terror that nobody has since then dared to touch them. Doubtless it will some day be apparent why Divine Providence |
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has so long preserved them. Perhaps by their preaching — for they are believed to be none other than Christians — this people shall once more be called to salvation. In the vicinity of this place dwell the race of the Skritobinians (‘the Skridfinns’).” In chapter 6 Paulus makes the following additions, which will be found to be of importance to our theme: “Not far from that sea-strand which I mentioned as lying far to the west (in the most remote Germany), where the boundless ocean extends, is found the unfathomably deep eddy which we traditionally call the navel of the sea. Twice a-day it swallows the waves, and twice it vomits them forth again. Often, we are assured, ships are drawn into this eddy so violently that they look like arrows flying through the air, and frequently they perish in this abyss. But sometimes, when they are on the point of being swallowed up, they are driven back with the same terrible swiftness.” From what Paulus Diaconus here relates we learn that in the eighth century the common belief prevailed among the heathen Teutons that in the neighbourhood of that ocean-maelstrom, caused by Hvergelmer (“the roaring kettle”), seven men slept from time immemorial under a rock. How far the heathen Teutons believed that these men were Romans and Christians, or whether this feature is to be attributed to a conjecture by Christian Teutons, and came through influence from the Christian version of the legend of the seven sleepers, is a question which it is not necessary to discuss at present. That they are some day to awake to preach Christianity to “the |
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stubborn,” still heathen Teutonic tribes is manifestly a supposition on the part of Paulus himself, and he does not present it as anything else. It has nothing to do with the saga in its heathen form. The first question now is: Has the heathen tradition in regard to the seven sleepers, which, according to the testimony of the Longobardian historian, was common among the heathen Teutons of the eighth century, since then disappeared without leaving any traces in our mythic records? The answer is: Traces of it reappear in Saxo, in Adam of Bremen, in Norse and German popular belief, and in Völuspa. When compared with one another these traces are sufficient to determine the character and original place of the tradition in the epic of the Teutonic mythology. I have already given above (No. 46) the main features of Saxo’s account of King Gorm’s and Thorkil’s journey to and in the lower world. With their companions they are permitted to visit the abodes of torture of the damned and the fields of bliss, together with the gold-clad world-fountains, and to see the treasures preserved in their vicinity. In the same realm where these fountains are found there is, says Saxo, a tabernaculum within which still more precious treasures are preserved. It is an uberioris thesauri secretarium. The Danish adventurers also entered here. The treasury was also an armoury, and contained weapons suited to be borne by warriors of superhuman size. The owners and makers of these arms were also there, but they were perfectly |
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715 quiet and as immovable as lifeless figures. Still they were not dead, but made the impression of being half-dead (semineces). By the enticing beauty and value of the treasures, and partly, too, by the dormant condition of the owners, the Danes were betrayed into an attempt to secure some of these precious things. Even the usually cautious Thorkil set a bad example and put his hand on a garment (amiculo manum inserens). We are not told by Saxo whether the garment covered anyone of those sleeping in the treasury, nor is it directly stated that the touching with the hand produced any disagreeable consequences for Thorkil. But further on Saxo relates that Thorkil became unrecognisable, because a withering or emaciation (marcor) had changed his body and the features of his face. With this account in Saxo we must compare what we read in Adam of Bremen about the Frisian adventurers who tried to plunder treasures belonging to giants who in the middle of the day lay concealed in subterranean caves (meridiano tempore latitantes antris subterraneis). This account must also have conceived the owners of the treasures as sleeping while the plundering took place, for not before they were on their way back were the Frisians pursued by the plundered party or by other lower-world beings. Still, all but one succeeded in getting back to their ships. Adam asserts that they were such beings quos nostri cyclopes appellant (“which among us are called cyclops”), that they, in other words, were gigantic smiths, who accordingly themselves had made the untold amount of golden treasures which the Frisians there saw. These northern |
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cyclops, he says, dwelt within solid walls, surrounded by a water, to which, according to Adam of Bremen, one first comes after traversing the land of frost (provincia frigoris), and after passing that Euripus, “in which the water of the ocean flows back to its mysterious fountain” (ad initia quaedam fontis sui arcani recurrens), “this deep subterranean abyss wherein the ebbing streams of the sea, according to report, were swallowed up to return,” and which “with most violent force drew the unfortunate seamen down into the lower world” (infelices nautos vehementissimo impetu traxit ad Chaos). It is evident that what Paulus Diaconus, Adam of Bremen, and Saxo here relate must be referred to the same tradition. All three refer the scene of these strange things and events to the “most remote part of Germany” (cp. Nos. 45, 46, 48, 49). According to all three reports the boundless ocean washes the shores of this saga-land which has to be traversed in order to get to “the sleepers,” to “the men half-dead and resembling lifeless images,” to “those concealed in the middle of the day in subterranean caves.” Paulus assures us that they are in a cave under a rock in the neighbourhood of the famous maelstrom which sucks the billows of the sea into itself and spews them out again. Adam makes his Frisian adventurers come near being swallowed up by this maelstrom before they reach the caves of treasures where the cyclops in question dwell; and Saxo locates their tabernacle, filled with weapons and treasures, to a region which we have already recognised (see Nos. 45-51) as belonging to Mimer’s lower-world realm, and situated |
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in the neighbourhood of the sacred subterranean fountains. In the northern part of Mimer’s domain, consequently in the vicinity of the Hvergelmer fountain (see Nos. 59, 93), from and to which all waters find their way, and which is the source of the famous maelstrom (see Nos. 79, 80, 81), there stands, according to Völuspa, a golden hall in which Sindre’s kinsmen have their home. Sindre is, as we know, like his brother Brokk and others of his kinsmen, an artist of antiquity, a cyclops, to use the language of Adam of Bremen. The Northern records and the Latin chronicles thus correspond in the statement that in the neighbourhood of the maelstrom or of its subterranean fountain, beneath a rock and in a golden hall, or in subterranean caves filled with gold, certain men who are subterranean artisans dwell. Paulus Diaconus makes a “curious” person who had penetrated into this abode disrobe one of the sleepers clad in “Roman” clothes, and for this he is punished with a withered arm. Saxo makes Thorkil put his hand on a splendid garment which he sees there, and Thorkil returns from his journey with an emaciated body, and is so lean and lank as not to be recognised. There are reasons for assuming that the ancient artisan Sindre is identical with Dvalinn, the ancient artisan created by Mimer. I base this assumption on the following circumstances: Dvalinn is mentioned by the side of Dáinn both in Havamál (43) and in Grimnersmal (33); also in the sagas, where they make treasures in company. Both |
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the names are clearly epithets which point to the mythic destiny of the ancient artists in question. Dáinn means “the dead one,” and in analogy herewith we must interpret Dvalinn as “the dormant one,” “the one slumbering” (cp. the Old Swedish dvale, sleep, unconscious condition). Their fates have made them the representatives of death and sleep, a sort of equivalents of Thanatos and Hypnos. As such they appear in the allegorical strophes incorporated in Grimnersmal, which, describing how the world-tree suffers and grows old, make Dáinn and Dvalinn, “death” and “slumber,” get their food from its branches, while Nidhog and other serpents wound its roots. In Hyndluljod (6) the artists who made Frey’s golden boar are called Dáinn and Nabbi. In the Younger Edda (i. 340-342) they are called Brokkr and Sindri. Strange to say, on account of mythological circumstances not known to us, the skalds have been able to use Dáinn as a paraphrase for a rooting four-footed animal, and Brokkr too has a similar signification (cp. the Younger Edda, ii. 490, and Vigfusson, Dict., under Brokkr). This points to an original identity of these epithets. Thus we arrive at the following parallels:
and the conclusion we draw herefrom is that in our mythology, in which there is such a plurality of names, Dvalinn, Sindri, and Nabbi are the same person, and |
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that Dáinn and Brokkr are identical. I may have an opportunity later to present further evidence of this identity. The primeval artist Sindre, who with his kinsmen inhabits a golden hall in Mimer’s realm under the Hvergelmer mountains, near the subterranean fountain of the maelstrom, has therefore borne the epithet Dvalinn, “the one wrapped in slumber.” “The slumberer” thus rests with his kinsmen, where Paulus Diaconus has heard that seven men sleep from time out of mind, and where Adam of Bremen makes smithying giants, rich in treasures, keep themselves concealed in lower-world caves within walls surrounded by water. It has already been demonstrated that Dvalinn is a son of Mimer (see No. 53). Sindre-Dvalin and his kinsmen are therefore Mimer’s offspring (Mims synir). The golden citadel situated near the fountain of the maelstrom is therefore inhabited by the sons of Mimer. It has also been shown that, according to Solarljod, the sons of Mimer-Nidi come from this region (from the north in Mimer’s domain), and that they are in all seven:
that is to say, that they are the same number as the “economical months,” or the changes of the year (see No. 87). In the same region Mimer’s daughter Nat has her hall, where she takes her rest after her journey across the heavens is accomplished (see No. 93). The “chateau |
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dormant” of Teutonic mythology is therefore situated in Nat’s udal territory, and Dvalin, “the slumberer,” is Nat’s brother. Perhaps her citadel is identical with the one in which Dvalin and his brothers sleep. According to Saxo, voices of women are heard in the tabernaculum belonging to the sleeping men, and glittering with weapons and treasures, when Thorkil and his men come to plunder the treasures there. Nat has her court and her attendant sisters in the Teutonic mythology, as in Rigveda (Ushas). Simmara (see Nos. 97, 98) is one of the dises of the night. According to the middle-age sagas, these dises and daughters of Mimer are said to be twelve in number (see Nos. 45, 46). Mimer, as we know, was the ward of the middle root of the world-tree. His seven sons, representing the changes experienced by the world-tree and nature annually, have with him guarded and tended the holy tree and watered its root with aurgom forsi from the subterranean horn, “Valfather’s pledge.” When the god-clans became foes, and the Vans seized weapons against the Asas, Mimer was slain, and the world-tree, losing its wise guardian, became subject to the influence of time. It suffers in crown and root (Grimnersmal), and as it is ideally identical with creation itself, both the natural and the moral, so toward the close of the period of this world it will betray the same dilapidated condition as nature and the moral world then are to reveal. Logic demanded that when the world-tree lost its chief ward, the lord of the well of wisdom, it should also lose that care which under his direction was bestowed upon |
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it by his seven sons. These, voluntarily or involuntarily, retired, and the story of the seven men who sleep in the citadel full of treasures informs us how they thenceforth spend their time until Ragnarok. The details of the myth telling how they entered into this condition cannot now be found; but it may be in order to point out, as a possible connection with this matter, that one of the older Vanagods, Njord’s father, and possibly the same as Mundilfore, had the epithet Svafr, Svafrthorinn (Fjölsvinnsmal). Svafr means sopitor, the sleeper, and Svafrthorinn seems to refer to svefnthorn, “sleep-thorn.” According to the traditions, a person could be put to sleep by laying a “sleep-thorn” in his ear, and he then slept until it was taken out or fell out. Popular traditions scattered over Sweden, Denmark, and Germany have to this very day been preserved, on the lips of the common people, of the men sleeping among weapons and treasures in underground chambers or in rocky halls. A Swedish tradition makes them equipped not only with weapons, but also with horses which in their stalls abide the day when their masters are to awake and sally forth. Common to the most of these traditions, both the Northern and the German, is the feature that this is to happen whenthe greatest distress is at hand, or when the end of the world approaches and the day of judgment comes. With regard to the German sagas on this point I refer to Jacob Grimm’s Mythology. I simply wish to point out here certain features which are of special importance to the subject under discussion, and which the popular memory in certain parts of Germany |
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has preserved from the heathen myths. When the heroes who have slept through centuries sally forth, the trumpets of the last day sound, a great battle with the powers of evil (Antichrist) is to be fought, an immensely old tree, which has withered, is to grow green again, and a happier age is to begin. This immensely old tree, which is withered at the close of the present period of the world, and which is to become green again in a happier age after a decisive conflict between the good and evil, can be no other than the world-tree of Teutonic mythology, the Ygdrasil of our Eddas. The angel trumpets, at whose blasts the men who sleep within the mountains sally forth, have their prototype in Heimdal’s horn, which proclaims the destruction of the world; and the battle to be fought with Antichrist is the Ragnarok conflict, clad in Christian robes, between the gods and the destroyers of the world. Here Mimer’s seven sons also have their task to perform. The last great struggle also concerns the lower world, whose regions of bliss demand protection against the thurs-clans of Nifelhel, the more so since these very regions of bliss constitute the new earth, which after Ragnarok rises from the sea to become the abode of a better race of men (see No. 55). The “wall rock” of the Hvergelmer mountain and its “stone gates” (Völuspa; cp. Nos. 46, 75) require defenders able to wield those immensely large swords which are kept in the sleeping castle on Nat’s udal fields, and Sindre-Dvalin is remembered not only as the artist of antiquity, spreader of Mimer’s runic wisdom, enemy of Loke, and father of the man-loving |
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dises (see No. 53), but also as a hero. The name of the horse he rode, and probably is to ride in the Ragnarok conflict, is, according to a strophe cited in Younger Edda, Modinn; the middle-age sagas have connected his name to a certain viking, Sindri, and to Sintram of the German heroic poetry. I now come back to the Völuspa strophe, which was the starting-point in the investigation contained in this chapter:
“Mimer’s sons spring up, for the fate of the world is proclaimed by the old Gjallarhorn. Loud blows Heimdal — the horn is raised.” In regard to leika, it is to be remembered that its old meaning, “to jump,” “to leap,” “to fly up,” reappears not only in Ulfilas, who translates skirtan of the New Testament with laikan. (Luke i. 41, 44, and vi. 23; in the former passage in reference to the child slumbering in Elizabeth’s womb; the child “leaps” at her meeting with Mary), but also in another passage in Völuspa, where it is said in regard to Ragnarok, leikr hár hiti vid himin sjalfan — “high leaps” (plays) “the fire against heaven itself.” Further, we must point out the preterit form kyndisk (from kynna, to make known) by the side of the present form leika. This juxtaposition indicates |
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that the sons of Mimer “rush up,” while the fate of the world, the final destiny of creation in advance and immediately beforehand, was proclaimed “by the old gjallarhorn.” The bounding up of Mimer’s sons is the effect of the first powerful blast. One or more of these follow: “Loud blows Heimdal — the horn is raised; and Odin speaks with Mimer’s head.” Thus we have found the meaning of leika Mims synir. Their waking and appearance is one of the signs best remembered in the chronicles in popular traditions of Ragnarok’s approach and the return of the dead, and in this strophe Völuspa has preserved the memory of the “chateau dormant” of Teutonic mythology. Thus a comparison of the mythic fragments extant with the popular traditions gives us the following outline of the Teutonic myth concerning the seven sleepers: The world-tree — the representative of the physical and moral laws of the world — grew in time’s morning gloriously out of the fields of the three world-fountains, and during the first epochs of the mythological events (ár alda) it stood fresh and green, cared for by the subterranean guardians of these fountains. But the times became worse. The feminine counterpart of Loke, Gulveig-Heid, spreads evil runes in Asgard and Midgard, and he and she cause disputes and war between those god-clans whose task it is to watch over and sustain the order of the world in harmony. In the feud between the Asas and Vans, the middle and most important world-fountain — the fountain of wisdom, the one from which the good runes were fetched — became robbed of its |
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watchman. Mimer was slain, and his seven sons, the superintendents of the seven seasons, who saw to it that these season-changes followed each other within the limits prescribed by the world-laws, were put to sleep, and fell into a stupor, which continues throughout the historical time until Ragnarok. Consquently the world-tree cannot help withering and growing old during the historical age. Still it is not to perish. Neither fire nor sword can harm it; and when evil has reached its climax, and when the present world is ended in the Ragnarok conflict and in Surt’s flames, then it is to regain that freshness and splendour which it had in time’s morning. Until that time Sindre-Dvalin and Mimer’s six other sons slumber in that golden hall which stands toward the north in the lower world, on Mimer’s fields. Nat, their sister, dwells in the same region, and shrouds the chambers of those slumbering in darkness. Standing toward the north beneath the Nida mountains, the hall is near Hvergelmer’s fountain, which causes the famous maelstrom. As sons of Mimer, the great smith of antiquity, the seven brothers were themselves great smiths of antiquity, who, during the first happy epoch, gave to the gods and to nature the most beautiful treasures (Mjolner, Brisingamen, Slidringtanne, Draupner). The hall where they now rest is also a treasure-chamber, which preserves a number of splendid products of their skill as smiths, and among these are weapons, too large to be wielded by human hands, but intended to be employed by the brothers themselves when Ragnarok is at hand and the great decisive conflict comes between the powers |
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of good and of evil. The seven sleepers are there clad in splendid mantles of another cut than those common among men. Certain mortals have had the privilege of seeing the realms of the lower world and of inspecting the hall where the seven brothers have their abode. But whoever ventured to touch their treasures, or was allured by the splendour of their mantles to attempt to secure any of them, was punished by the drooping and withering of his limbs. When Ragnarok is at hand, the aged and abused world-tree trembles, and Heimdal’s trumpet, until then kept in the deepest shade of the tree, is once more in the hand of the god, and at a world-piercing blast from this trumpet Mimer’s seven sons start up from their sleep and arm themselves to take part in the last conflict. This is to end with the victory of the good; the world-tree will grow green again and flourish under the care of its former keepers; “all evil shall then cease, and Balder shall come back.” The Teutonic myth in regard to the seven sleepers is thus most intimately connected with the myth concerning the return of the dead Balder and of the other dead men from the lower world, with the idea of resurrection and the regeneration of the world. It forms an integral part of the great epic of Teutonic mythology, and could not be spared. If the world-tree is to age during the historical epoch, and if the present period of time is to progress toward ruin, then this must have its epic cause in the fact that the keepers of the chief root of the tree were severed by the course of events from their important occupation. Therefore Mimer dies; |
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therefore his sons sink into the sleep of ages. But it is necessary that they should wake and resume their occupation, for there is to be a regeneration, and the world-tree is to bloom with new freshness. Both in Germany and in Sweden there still prevails a popular belief which puts “the seven sleepers” in connection with the weather. If it rains on the day of the seven sleepers, then, according to this popular belief, it is to rain for seven weeks thereafter. People have wondered how a weather prophecy could be connected with the sleeping saints, and the matter would also, in reality, be utterly incomprehensible if the legend were of Christian origin; but it is satisfactorily explained by the heathen-Teutonic mythology, where the seven sleepers represent those very seven so-called economic months — the seven changes of the weather — which gave rise to the division of the year into the months — gormánudr, frerm., hrútm., einm., sólm., selm., and kornskurdarmánudr. Navigation was also believed to be under the protection of the seven sleepers, and this we can understand when we remember that the hall of Mimer’s sons was thought to stand near the Hvergelmer fountain and the Grotte of the skerry, “dangerous to seamen,” and that they, like their father, were lovers of men. Thorkil, the great navigator of the saga, therefore praises Gudmund-Mimer as a protector in dangers. The legend has preserved the connection found in the myth between the above meaning and the idea of a resurrection of the dead. But in the myth concerning Mimer’s seven sons this idea is most intimately connected |
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with the myth itself, and is, with epic logic, united with the whole mythological system. In the legend, on the other hand, the resurrection idea is put on as a trade-mark. The seven men in Ephesus are lulled into their long sleep, and are waked again to appear before Theodosius, the emperor, to preach a sermon illustrated by their own fate against the false doctrine which tries to deny the resurrection of the dead. Gregorius says that he is the first who recorded in the Latin language this miracle, not before known to the Church of Western Europe. As his authority he quotes “a certain Syrian” who had interpreted the story for him. There was also need of a man from the Orient as an authority when a hitherto unknown miracle was to be presented — a miracle that had transpired in a cave near Ephesus. But there is no absolute reason for assuming that Gregorius presents a story of his own invention. The reference of the legend to Ephesus is explained by the antique saga-variation concerning Endymion, according to which the latter was sentenced to confinement and eternal sleep in a cave in the mountain Latmos. Latmos is south of Ephesus, and not very far from there. This saga is the antique root-thread of the legend, out of which rose its localisation, but not its contents and its details. The contents are borrowed from the Teutonic mythology. That Syria or Asia Minor was the scene of its transformation into a Christian legend is possible, and is not surprising. During and immediately after the time to which the legend itself refers the resurrection of the seven sleepers, the time of Theodosius, the Roman |
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Orient, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt were full of Teutonic warriors who had permanent quarters there. A Notitia dignitatum from this age speaks of hosts of Goths, Alamannians, Franks, Chamavians, and Vandals, who there had fixed military quarters. There then stood an ala Francorum, a cohors Alamannorum, a cohors Chamavorum, an ala Vandilorum, a cohors Gothorum, and no doubt there, as elsewhere in the Roman Empire, great provinces were colonised by Teutonic veterans and other immigrants. Nor must we neglect to remark that the legend refers the falling asleep of the seven men to the time of Decius. Decius fell in battle against the Goths, who, a few years later, invaded Asia Minor and captured among other places also Ephesus. 95. The account now given of the myths concerning the lower world shows that the hierologists and skalds of our heathendom had developed the doctrine in a perspicuous manner even down to the minutest details. The lower world and its kingdom of death were the chief subjects with which their fancy was occupied. The many sagas and traditions which flowed from heathen sources and which described Svipdag’s, Hadding’s, Gorm’s, Thorkil’s, and other journeys down there are proof of this, and the complete agreement of statements from totally different sources in regard to the topography of the lower world and the life there below shows that the ideas were |
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reduced to a systematised and perspicuous whole. Svipdag’s and Hadding’s journeys in the lower world have been incorporated as episodes in the great epic concerning the Teutonic patriarchs, the chief outlines of which I have presented in the preceding pages. This is done in the same manner as the visits of Ulysses and Æneas in the lower world have become a part of the great Greek and Roman epic poems. Under such circumstances it may seem surprising that Icelandic records from the middle ages concerning the heathen belief in regard to the abodes after death should give us statements which seem utterly irreconcilable with one another. For there are many proofs that the dead were believed to live in hills and rocks, or in grave-mounds where their bodies were buried. How can this be reconciled with the doctrine that the dead descended to the lower world, and were there judged either to receive abodes in Asgard or in the realms of bliss in Hades, or in the world of torture? The question has been answered too hastily to the effect that the statements cannot be harmonised, and that consequently the heathen-Teutonic views in regard to the day of judgment were in this most important part of the religious doctrine unsupported. The reason for the obscurity is not, however, in the matter itself, which has never been thoroughly studied, but in the false premises from which the conclusions have been drawn. Mythologists have simply assumed that the popular view of the Christian Church in regard to terrestrial man, conceiving him to consist of two factors, |
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the perishable body and the imperishable soul, was the necessary condition for every belief in a life hereafter, and that the heathen Teutons accordingly also cherished this idea. But this duality did not enter into the belief of our heathen fathers. Nor is it of such a kind that a man, having conceived a life hereafter, in this connection necessarily must conceive the soul as the simple, indissoluble spiritual factor of human nature. The division into two parts, lif ok sála, líkamr ok sála, body and soul, came with Christianity, and there is every reason for assuming, so far as the Scandinavian peoples are concerned, that the very word soul, sála, sál, is, like the idea it represents, an imported word. In Old Norse literature the word occurs for the first time in Olaf Trygveson’s contemporary Hallfred, after he had been converted to Christianity. Still the word is of Teutonic root. Ulfilas translates the New Testament psyche with saiwala, but this he does with his mind on the Platonic New Testament view of man as consisting of three factors: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body (soma). Spirit (pneuma) Ulfilas translates with ahma. Another assumption, likewise incorrect in estimating the anthropological-eschatological belief of the Teutons, is that they are supposed to have distinguished between matter and mind, which is a result reached by the philosophers of the Occident in their abstract studies. It is, on the contrary, certain that such a distinction never enitered the system of heathen Teutonic views. In it all things were material, an efni of coarse or fine grain, tangible or |
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intangible, visible or invisible. The imperishable factors of man were, like the perishable, material, and a force could not be conceived which was not bound to matter, or expressed itself in matter, or was matter. The heathen Teutonic conception of human nature, and of the factors composing it, is most like the Aryan-Asiatic as we find the latter preserved in the traditions of Buddhism, which assume more than three factors in a human being, and deny the existence of a soul, if this is to mean that all that is not corporal in man consists of a single simple, and therefore indissoluble, element, the soul. The anthropological conception presented in Völuspa is as follows: Man consists of six elements, namely, to begin with the lower and coarser and to end with the highest and noblest:
Völuspa’s words are these: The gods
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The two lowest factors, the earthly material and the vegetative force, were already united in Ask and Embla when the three gods found them “growing as trees.” These elements were able to unite themselves simply by the course of nature without any divine interference. When the sun for the first time shone from the south on “the stones of the hall,” the vegetative force united with the matter of the primeval giant Ymer, who was filled with the seed of life from Audhumla’s milk, and then the “ground was overgrown with green herbs.” Thus man was not created directly from the crude earthly matter, but had already been organised and formed when the gods came and from the trees made persons with blood, motion, and spiritual qualities. The vegetative force must not be conceived in accordance with modern ideas, as an activity separated from the matter by abstraction and at the same time inseparably joined with it, but as an active matter joined with the earthly matter. Loder’s first gift lá with lœti makes Ask and Embla animal beings. Egilsson’s view that lá means blood is confirmed by the connection in which we find the word used. The lœti united with lá (compare the related Swedish word “later,” manners) means the way in which a conscious being moves and acts. The blood and the power of a motion which is voluntary were to the Teutons, as to all other peophe, the marks distinguishing animal |
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from vegetable life. And thus we are already within the domain of psychical elements. The inherited features, growth, gait, and pose, which were observed as forming race- and family-types, were regarded as having the blood as efni and as being concealed therein. The blood which produced the family-type also produced the family-tie, even though it was not acquired by the natural process of generation. A person not at all related to the family of another man could become his blódi, his blood-kinsman, if they resolved at blanda blódi saman. They thereby entered into the same relations to each other as if they had the same mother and father. Loder also gave at the same time another gift, litr goda. To understand this expression (hitherto translated with “good complexion”), we must bear in mind that the Teutons, like the Hellenes and Romans, conceived the gods in human form, and that the image which characterises man was borne by the gods alone before man’s creation, and originally belonged to the gods. To the hierologists and the skalds of the Teutons, as to those of the Greeks and Romans, man was created in effigiem deorum and had in his nature a divine image in the real sense of this word, a litr goda. Nor was this litr goda a mere abstraction to the Teutons, or an empty form, but a created efni dwelling in man and giving shape and character to the earthly body which is visible to the eye. The common meaning of the word litr is something presenting itself to the eye without being actually tangible to the hands. The Gothic form of the word is wlits, which Ulfilas uses in translating the Greek prosopon — look, |
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appearance, expression. Certain persons were regarded as able to separate their litr from its union with the other factors of their being, and to lend it, at least for a short time, to some other person in exchange for his. This was called to skipta litum, vixla litum. It was done by Sigurd and Gunnar in the song of Sigurd Fafnersbane (i. 37-42). That factor in Gunnar”s being which causes his earthly body to present itself in a peculiar individual manner to the eyes of others is transmitted to Sigurd, whose exterior, affected by Gunnar’s litr, accommodates itself to the latter, while the spiritual kernel in Sigurd’s personality suffers no change (str. 39):
Thus man has within him an inner body made in the image of the gods and consisting of a finer material, a body which is his litr, by virtue of which his coarser tabernacle, formed from the earth, receives that form by which it impresses itself on the minds of others. The recollection of the belief in this inner body has been preserved in a more or less distorted form in traditions handed down even to our days (see for example, Hylten-Cavallius, Värend och Virdarne, i. 343-360; Rääf in Småland, Beskr. öfver Ydre, p. 84). The appearance of the outer body therefore depends on the condition of the litr, that is, of the inner being. Beautiful women have a “joyous fair litr“ (Havamál, 93). An emotion has influence upon the litr, and through |
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it on the blood and the appearance of the outward body. A sudden blushing, a sudden paleness, are among the results thereof and can give rise to the question, Hefir thu lit brugdit? — Have you changed your litr? (Fornald., i. 426). To translate this with, Have you changed colour? is absurd. The questioner sees the change of colour, and does not need to ask the other one, who cannot see it. On account of its mythological signification and application, it is very natural that the word litr should in every-day life acquire on the one hand the meaning of complexion in general, and on the other hand the signification of hamr, guise, an earthly garb which persons skilled in magic could put on and off. Skipta litum, vixla litum, have in Christian times been used as synonymous with skipta hömum, vixla hömum. In physical death the coarser elements of an earthly person’s nature are separated from the other constituent parts. The tabernacle formed of earth and the vegetative material united therewith are eliminated like the animal element and remain on earth. But this does not imply that the deceased descend without form to Hades. The form in which they travel in “deep dales,” traverse the thorn-fields, wade across the subterranean rivers, or ride over the gold-clad Gjallar-bridge, is not a new creation, but was worn by them in their earthly career. It can be none other than their litr, their umbra et imago. It also shows distinctly what the dead man has been in his earthly life, and what care has been bestowed on his dust. The washing, combing, dressing, ornamenting, and supplying |
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with Hel-shoes of the dead body has influence upon one’s looks in Hades, on one’s looks when he is to appear before his judge. Separated from the earthly element, from the vegetative material, and from the blood, the litr is almost imponderable, and does not possess the qualities for an intensive life, either in bliss or in torture. Five fylkes of dead men who rode over the Gjallar-bridge produced no greater din than Hermod alone riding on Sleipnir; and the woman watching the bridge saw that Hermod’s exterior was not that of one separated from the earthly element. It was not litr daudra manna (Gylfaginning). But the litr of the dead is compensated for what it has lost. Those who in the judgment on daudan hvern are pronounced worthy of bliss are permitted to drink from the horn decorated with the serpent-symbol of eternity, the liquids of the three world-fountains which give life to all the world, and thereby their litr gets a higher grade of body and nobler blood (see Nos. 72, 73). Those sentenced to torture must also drink, but it is a drink eitri blandinn miok, “much mixed with venom,” and it is illu heilli, that is, a warning of evil. This drink also restores their bodies, but only to make them feel the burden of torture. The liquid of life which they imbibe in this drink is the same as that which was thought to flow in the veins of the demons of torture. When Hadding with his sword wounds the demon-hand which grasps after Hardgreip and tears her into pieces (see No. 41), there flows from the wound “more venom than blood” (plus tabi quam cruoris — Saxo, Hist., 40). |
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When Loder had given Ask and Embla litr goda, an inner body formed in the image of the gods, a body which gives to their earthly tabernacle a human-divine type, they received from Honer the gift which is called ódr. In signification this word corresponds most closely to the Latin mens, the Greek nous (cp. Vigfusson’s Lexicon), and means that material which forms the kernel of a human personality, its ego, and whose manifestations are understanding, memory, fancy, and will. Vigfusson has called attention to the fact that the epithet langifótr and aurkonungr, “Long-leg” and “Mire-king” applied to Honer, is applicable to the stork, and that this cannot be an accident, as the very name Hœnir suggests a bird, and is related to the Greek kuknos and the Sanscrit sakunas (Corpus Poet. Bor., i. p. cii.).* It should be borne in mind in this connection that the stork even to this day is regarded as a sacred and protected bird, and that among Scandinavians and Germans there still exists a nursery tale telling how the stork takes from some saga-pond the little fruits of man and brings them to their mothers. The tale which now belongs to the nursery has its root in the myth, where Honer gives our * There is a story of the creation of man by three wandering gods, who become in mediaeval stories Jesus and SS. Peter and Paul walking among men, as in Champfleury’s pretty apologue of the bonhomme misére, so beautifully illustrated by Legros. In the eddic legend one of these gods is called Hœne; he is the speech-giver of Wolospa, and is described in praises taken from lost poems as “the long-legged one” [langifotr], “the lord of the ooze” [aurkonungr]. Strange epithets, but easily explainable when one gets at the etymology of Hœne = hohni = Sansc. sakunas = Gr. kuknos = the white bird, swan, or stork, that stalks along in the mud, lord of the marsh; and it is now easy to see that this bird is the Creator walking in chaos, brooding over the primitive mish-mash or tohu-bohu, and finally hatching the egg of the world. Hohni is also, one would fancy, to be identified with Heimdal, the walker, who is also a creator-god, who sleeps more lightly than a bird, who is also the “fair Anse,”and the “whitest of the Anses,” the “waker of the gods,” a celestial chanticleer as it were (Vigfusson, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, vol. i., Introduction, p. cii., quoted by the translator). |
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first parents that very gift which in a spiritual sense makes them human beings and contains the personal ego. It is both possible and probable that the conditions essential to the existence of every person were conceived as being analogous with the conditions attending the creation of the first human pair, and that the gifts which were then given by the gods to Ask and Embla were thought to be repeated in the case of each one of their descendants — that Honer consequently was believed to be continually active in the same manner as when the first human pair was created, giving to the mother-fruit the ego that is to be. The fruit itself out of which the child is developed was conceived as grown on the world-tree, which therefore is called manna mjötudr (Fjölsvinsmal, 22). Every fruit of this kind (aldin) that matured (and fell from the branches of the world-tree into the mythic pond [?]) is fetched by the winged servants of the gods, and is born á eld into the maternal lap, after being mentally fructified by Honer.
Above, in No. 83, it has been shown that Lodurr is identical with Mundilföri, the one producing fire by friction, and that Hænir and Lodurr are Odin’s brothers, also called Vei and Vili. With regard to the last name it should be remarked that its meaning of “will” developed |
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out of the meaning “desire,” “longing,” and that the word preserved this older meaning also in the secondary sense of cupido, libido, sexual desire. This epithet of Lodurr corresponds both with the nature of the gifts he bestows on the human child which is to be — that is, the blood and the human, originally divine, form — and also with his quality of fire-producer, if, as is probable, the friction-fire had the same symbolic meaning in the Teutonic mythology as in the Rigveda. Like Honer, Loder causes the knitting together of the human generations. While the former fructifies the embryo developing on the world-tree with ódr, it receives from Loder the warmth of the blood and human organism. The expression Vilja byrdr, “Vili’s burden,” “that which Vili has produced,” is from this point of view a well-chosen and at the same time an ambiguous paraphrase for a human body. The paraphrase occurs in Ynglingatal (Ynglingasaga, 17). When Visbur loses his life in the flames it is there said of him that the fire consumed his Vilja byrdi, his corporal life. To Loder’s and Honer’s gifts the highest Asa-god adds the best element in human nature, önd, spirit, that by which a human being becomes participator in the divine also in an inner sense, and not only as to form. The divine must here, of course, be understood in the sense (far different from the ecclesiastical) in which it was used by our heathen ancestors, to whom the divine, as it can reveal itself in men, chiefly consisted in power of thought, courage, honesty, veracity, and mercy, but who knew no other humility than that of patiently bearing |
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such misfortunes as cannot be averted by human ingenuity. These six elements, united into one in human nature, were of course constantly in reciprocal activity. The personal kernel ódr is on the one hand influenced by önd, the spirit, and on the other hand by the animal, vegetative, and corporal elements, and the personality being endowed with will, it is responsible for the result of this reciprocal activity. If the spirit becomes superior to the other elements then it penetrates and sanctifies not only the personal kernel, but also the animal, vegetative, and corporal elements. Then human nature becomes a being that may be called divine, and deserves divine honour. When such a person dies the lower elements which are abandoned and consigned to the grave have been permeated by, and have become participators in, the personality which they have served, and may thereafter in a wonderful manner diffuse happiness and blessings around them. When Halfdan the Black died different places competed for the keeping of his remains, and the dispute was settled by dividing the corpse between Hadaland, Ringerike, and Vestfold (Fagerskinna, Heimskringla). The vegetative force in the remains of certain persons might also manifest itself in a strange manner. Thorgrim’s grave-mound in Gisle’s saga was always green on one side, and Laugarbrekku-Einar’s grave-mound was entirely green both winter and summer (Landn., ii. 7). The elements of the dead buried in the grave continued for more or less time their reciprocal activity, and formed a sort of unity which, if permeated by his ódr and önd, |
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742 preserved some of his personality and qualities. The grave-mound might in this manner contain an alter ego of him who had descended to the realm of death. This alter ego, called after his dwelling haugbúi, hill-dweller, was characterised by his nature as a draugr, a branch which, though cut off from its life-root, still maintains its conisistency, but gradually, though slowly, pays tribute to corruption and progresses toward its dissolution. In Christian times the word draugr acquired a bad, demoniacal meaning, which did not belong to it exclusively in heathen times, to judge from the compounds in which it is found: eldraugr, herdraugr, hirdidraugr, which were used in paraphrases for “warriors”; ódaldraugr, “rightful owner,” &c. The alter ego of the deceased, his representative dwelling in the grave, retained his character: was good and kind if the deceased had been so in life; in the opposite case, evil and dangerous. As a rule he was believed to sleep in his grave, especially in the daytime, but might wake up in the night, or could be waked by the influence of prayer or the powers of conjuration. Ghosts of the good kind were hollar vœttir, of the evil kind úvœttir. Respect for the fathers and the idea that the men of the past were more pious and more noble than those of the present time caused the alter egos of the fathers to be regarded as beneficent and working for the good of the race, and for this reason family grave-mounds where the bones of the ancestors rested were generally near the home. If there was no grave-mound in the vicinity, but a rock or hill, the alter egos in question were believed to congregate there when something of importance |
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743 to the family was impending. It might also happen that the lower elements, when abandoned by ódr and önd, became an alter ego in whom the vegetative and animal elements exclusively asserted themselves. Such an one was always tormented by animal desire of food, and did not seem to have any feeling for or memory of bonds tied in life. Saxo (Hist., 244) gives a horrible account of one of this sort. Two foster-brothers, Asmund and Asvid, had agreed that if the one died before the other the survivor should confine himself in the foster-brother’s grave-chamber and remain there. Asvid died and was buried with horse and dog. Asmund kept his agreement, and ordered himself to be confined in the large, roomy grave, but discovered to his horror that his foster-brother had become a haugbúi of the last-named kind, who, after eating horse and dog, attacked Asmund to make him a victim of his hunger. Asmund conquered the haugbúi, cut off his head, and pierced his heart with a pole to prevent his coming to life again. Swedish adventurers who opened the grave to plunder it freed Asmund from his prison. In such instances as this it must have been assumed that the lower elements of the deceased consigned to the grave were never in his lifetime sufficiently permeated by his ódr and önd to enable these qualities to give the corpse an impression of the rational personality and human character of the deceased. The same idea is the basis of belief of the Slavic people in the vampire. In one of this sort the vegetative element united with his dust still asserts itself, so that hair and nails continue to grow as on a living being, and the animal element, which |
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likewise continued to operate in the one buried, visits him with hunger and drives him in the night out of the grave to suck the blood of surviving kinsmen. The real personality of the dead, the one endowed with litr, ódr, and önd, was and remained in the death kingdom, although circumstances might take place that would call him back for a short time. The drink which the happy dead person received in Hades was intended not only to strengthen his litr, but also to soothe that longing which the earthly life and its memories might cause him to feel. If a dearly-beloved kinsman or friend mourned the deceased too violently, this sorrow disturbed his happiness in the death kingdom, and was able to bring him back to earth. Then he would visit his grave-mound, and he and his alter ego, the haugbúi, would become one. This was the case with Helge Hundingsbane (Helge Hund., ii. 40, &c.). The sorrow of Sigrun, his beloved, caused him to return from Valhal to earth and to ride to his grave, where Sigrun came to him and wanted to rest in his arms during the night. But when Helge had told her that her tears pierced his breast with pain, and had assured her that she was exceedingly dear to him, and had predicted that they together should drink the sorrow-allaying liquids of the lower world, he rode his way again, in order that, before the crowing of the cock, he might be back among the departed heroes. Prayer was another means of calling the dead back. At the entrance of his deceased mother’s grave-chamber Svipdag beseeches her to awake. Her ashes kept in the grave-chamber (er til moldar er komin) and her real personality from the realm |
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of death (er ór ljodheimum er lidin) then unite, and Groa speaks out of the grave to her son (Grogaldr., i. 2). A third means of revoking the dead to earth lay in conjuration. But such a use of conjuration was a great sin, which relegated the sinner to the demons. (Cp. Saxo’s account of Hardgrep.) Thus we understand why the dead descended to Hades and still inhabited the grave-mounds. One died “to Hel” and “to the grave” at the same time. That of which earthly man consisted, in addition to his corporal garb, was not the simple being, “the soul,” which cannot be divided, but there was a combination of factors, which in death could be separated, and of which those remaining on earth, while they had long been the covering of a personal kernel (ódr), could themselves in a new combination form another ego of the person who had descended to Hades. But that too consisted of several factors, litr, ódr, and önd, and they were not inseparably united. We have already seen that the sinner, sentenced to torture, dies a second death in the lower world before he passes through the Na-gates, the death from Hel to Nifelhel, so that he becomes a nár, a corpse in a still deeper sense than that which nár has in a physical sense. The second death, like the first (physical), must consist in the separation of one or more of the factors from the being that dies. And in the second death, that which separates itself from the damned one and changes his remains into a lower-world nár, must be those factors that have no blame in connection with his sins, and consequently should not suffer his punishment, and which in their origin are too noble to |
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become the objects of the practice of demons in the art of torturing. The venom drink which the damned person has to empty deprives him of that image of the gods in which he was made, and of the spirit which was the noble gift of the Asa-father. Changed into a monster, he goes to his destiny fraught with misfortunes. The idea of a regeneration was not foreign to the faith of the Teutonic heathens. To judge from the very few statements we have on this point, it would seem that it was only the very best and the very worst who were thought to be born anew in the present world. Gulveig was born again several times by the force of her own evil will. But it is only ideal persons of whom it is said that they are born again — e.g., Helge Hjorvardson, Helge Hundingsbane, and Olaf Geirstadaralf, of whom the last was believed to have risen again in Saint Olaf. With the exception of Gulveig, the statements in regard to the others from Christian times are an echo from the heathen Teutonic doctrine which it would be most interesting to become better acquainted with — also from the standpoint of comparative Aryan mythology, since this same doctrine appears in a highly-developed form in the Asiatic-Aryan group of myths. |
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