820 from Asgard (Younger Edda, 114). But he disappears not only from the world of the gods, but finally also from the terrestrial seat of war, and that god or those gods who were to blame for this conceal his unhappy and humiliating fate from Freyja. It is at this time that the faithful and devoted Vana-dis goes forth to seek her lover in all worlds (med ukunnum thjódum). Saxo gives us two accounts of Svipdag’s death — the one clearly converted into history, the other corresponiding faithfully with the mythology. The former reports that Hadding conquered and slew Svipdag in a naval battle (Hist., 42). The latter gives us the following account (Hist., 48): While Hadding lived in exile in a northern wilderness, after his great defeat in conflict with the Swedes, it happened, on a sunny, warm day, that he went to the sea to bathe. While he was washing himself in the cold water he saw an animal of a most peculiar kind (bellua inauditi generis), and came into combat with it. Hadding slew it with quick blows and dragged it on shore. But while he rejoiced over this deed a woman put herself in his way and sang a song, in which she let him know that the deed he had now perpetrated should bring fearful consequences until he succeded in reconciling the divine wrath which this murder had called down upon his head. All the forces of nature, wind and wave, heaven and earth, were to be his enemies unless he could propitiate the angry gods, for the being whose life he had taken was a celestial being concealed in the guise of an animal, one of the super-terrestrial:

821 Quippe unum e superis alieno corpore tectum Sacrilegæ necuere manus: sic numinis almi Interfector ades. It appears, however, from the continuation of the narrative, that Hadding was unwilling to repent what he had done, although he was told that the one he had slain was a supernatural being, and that he long refused to propitiate those gods whose sorrow and wrath he had awakened by the murder. Not until the predictions of the woman were confirmed by terrible visitations does Hadding make up his mind to reconcile the powers in question. And this he does by instituting the sacrificial feast, which is called Frey’s offering, and thenceforth was celebrated in honour of Frey (Fro deo rem divinam furvis hostiis fecit). Hadding’s refusal to repent what he had done, and the defiance he showed the divine powers, whom he had insulted by the murder he had committed, can only be explained by the fact that these powers were the Vana-gods who long gave succour to his enemies (see No. 39), and that the supernatural being itself, which, concealed in the guise of an animal, was slain by him, was some one whose defeat gave him pleasure, and whose death he considered himself bound and entitled to cause. This explanation is fully corroborated by the fact that when he learns that Odin and the Asas, whose favourite he was, no longer hold their protecting hands over him, and that the propitiation advised by the prophetess becomes a necessity to him, he institutes the great annual offering to Frey, Svipdag’s brother-in-law. That this god especially must be propitiated can, again, have no other reason

822 than the fact that Frey was a nearer kinsman than any of the Asa-gods to the supernatural being, from whose slayer he (Frey) demanded a ransom. And as Saxo has already informed us that Svipdag perished in a naval engagement with Hadding, all points to the conclusion that in the celestial person who was concealed in the guise of an animal and was slain in the water we must discover Svipdag Freyja’s husband. Saxo does not tell us what animal guise it was. It must certainly have been a purely fabulous kind, since Saxo designates it as bellua inauditi generis. An Anglo-Saxon record, which is to be cited below, designates it as uyrm and draca. That Svipdag, sentenced to wear this guise, kept himself in the water near the shore of a sea, follows from the fact that Hadding meets and kills him in the sea where he goes to bathe. Freyja, who sought her lost lover everywhere, also went in search for him to the realms of Ægir and Rán. There are reasons for assuming that she found him again, and, in spite of his transformation and the repulsive exterior he thereby got, she remained with him and sought to soothe his misery with her faithful love. One of Freyja’s surnames shows that she at one time dwelt in the bosom of the sea. The name is Mardöll. Another proof of this is the fragment preserved to our time of the myth concerning the conflict between Heimdal and Loke in regard to Brisingamen. This neck- and breast-ornament, celebrated in song both among the Teutonic tribes of England and those of Scandinavia, one of the most splendid works of the ancient artists, belonged to Freyja (Thrymskvida, Younger Edda).

823 She wore it when she was seeking Svipdag and found him beneath the waves of the sea; and the splendour which her Brisingamen diffused from the deep over the surface of the sea is the epic interpretation of the name Mardöll from mar, “sea,” and döll, feminine of dallr (old English deall, “glittering” (compare the names Heimdallr and Delling). Mardöll thus means “the one diffusing a glimmering in the sea.” The fact that Brisingamen, together with its possessor, actually was for a time in Ægir’s realm is proved by its epithet fagrt hafnýra, “the fair kidney of the sea,” which occurs in a strophe of Ulf Uggeson (Younger Edda, 268). There was also a skerry, Vágasker, Singasteinn, on which Brisingamen lay and glittered, when Loke, clad in the guise of a seal, tried to steal it. But before he accomplished his purpose, there crept upon the skerry another seal, in whose looks — persons in disguise were not able to change their eyes — the evil and cunning descendant of Farbauti must quickly have recognised his old opponent Heimdal. A conflict arose in regard to the possession of the ornament, and the brave son of the nine mothers became the victor and preserved the treasure for Asgard. To the Svipdag synonyms Ódr (Hotharus), Óttar (Otharus), Eirekr (Ericus), and Skirnir, we must finally add one more, which is, perhaps, of Anglo-Saxon origin: Hermodr, Heremod. From the Norse mythic records we learn the following in regard to Hermod: (a) He dwelt in Asgard, but did not belong to the number of the ruling gods. He is called Odin’s sveinn (Younger Edda, 174),

824 and he was the Asa-father’s favourite, and received from him helmet and cuirass (Hyndluljod, 2). (b) He is called enn hvati (Younger Edda, 174), the rapid. When Frigg asks if anyone desires to earn her favour and gratitude by riding to the realm of death and offering Hel a ransom for Balder, Hermod offers to take upon himself this task. He gets Odin’s horse Sleipnir to ride, proceeds on his way to Hel, comes safely to that citadel in the lower world, where Balder and Nanna abide the regeneration of the earth, spurs Sleipnir over the castle wall, and returns to Asgard with Hel’s answer, and with the ring Draupner, and with presents from Nanna to Frigg and Fulla (Younger Edda, 180). From this it appears that Hermod has a position in Asgard resembling Skirner’s; that he, like Skirner, is employed by the gods as a messenger when important or venturesome errands are to be undertaken; and that he, like Skirir, then gets that steed to ride, which is able to leap over vafurflames and castle-walls. We should also bear in mind that Skirner-Svipdag had made celebrated journeys in the same world to which Hermod is now sent to find Balder. As we know, Svipdag had before his arrival in Asgard travelled all over the lower world, and had there fetched the sword of victory. After his adoption in Asgard, he is sent by the gods to the lower world to get the chain Gleipner. (c) In historical times Hermod dwells in Valhal, and is one of the chief einherjes there. When Hakon the Good was on the way to the hall of the Asa-father, the latter sent Brage and Hermod to meet him:

825 Hermódr ok Bragi, kvad Hroptatýr gangit i gegn grami thvi at konungr ferr sá er kappi thykkir til hallar hinig. (Hakornmal) This is all there is in the Norse sources about Hermod. Further information concerning him is found in the Beowulf poem, which in two passages (str. 1747, &c., and 3419, &c.) compares him with its own unselfish and blameless hero, Beowulf, in order to make it clear that the latter was in moral respects superior to the famous hero of antiquity. Beowulf was related by marriage to the royal dynasty then reigning in his land, and was reared in the king’s halls as an older brother of his sons. The comparisons make these circumstances, common to Beowulf and Hermod, the starting-point, and show that while Beowulf became the most faithful guardian of his young foster-brothers, and in all things maintained their rights, Hermod conducted himself in a wholly different manner. Of Hermod the poem tells us: (a) He was reared at the court of a Danish king (str. 1818, &c., 3422, &c.). (b) He set out on long journeys, and became the most celebrated traveller that man ever heard of (se wæs wreccena wide mœrost ofer wer-theóde — str. 1800-1802). (c) He performed great exploits (str. 1804). (d) He was endowed with powers beyond all other men (str. 3438-39). (e) God gave him a higher position of power than that accorded to mortals (str. 3436, &c.).

826 (f) But although he was reared at the court of the Danish king, this did not turn out to the advantage of the Skjoldungs, but was a damage to them (str. 3422, &c.), for there grew a bloodthirsty heart in his breast. (g) When the Danish king died (the poem does not say how) he left young sons. (h) Hermod, betrayed by evil passions that got the better of him, was the cause of the ruin of the Skjoldungs, and of a terrible plague among the Danes, whose fallen warriors for his sake covered the battlefields. His table-companions at the Danish court he consigned to death in a fit of anger (str. 3426, &c.). (i) The war continues a very long time (str. 1815, &c., str. 3447). (k) At last there came a change, which was unfavourable to Hermod, whose superiority in martial power decreased (str. 1806). (l) Then he quite unexpectedly disappeared (str. 3432) from the sight of men. (m) This happened against his will. He had suddenly been banished and delivered to the world of giants, where “waves of sorrow” long oppressed him (str. 1809, &c.). (n) He had become changed to a dragon (wyrm, draca). (o) The dragon dwelt near a rocky island in the sea under harne stan (beneath a grey rock). (p) There he slew a hero of the Volsung race (in the Beowulf poem Sigemund — str. 1747, &c.). All these points harmonise completely with Svipdag’s

827 saga, as we have found it in other sources. Svipdag is the stepson of Halfdan the Skjoldung, and has been reared in his halls, and dwells there until his mother Groa is turned out and returns to Orvandel. He sets out like Hermod on long journeys, and is doubtless the most famous traveller mentioned in the mythology; witness his journey across the Elivagar, and his visit to Jotunheim while seeking Frey and Freyja; his journey across the frosty mountains, and his descent to the lower world, where he traverses Nifelheim, sees the Eylud mill, comes into Mimer’s realm, procures the sword of victory, and sees the glorious castle of the ásmegir; witness his journey over Bifrost to Asgard, and his warlike expedition to the remote East (see also Younger Edda, i. 108, where Skirner is sent to Svartalfaheim to fetch the chain Glitner). He is, like Hermod, endowed with extraordinary strength, partly on account of his own inherited character, partly on account of the songs of incantation sung over him by Groa, on account of the nourishment of wisdom obtained from his stepmother, and finally on account of the possession of the indomitable sword of victory. By being adopted in Asgard as Freyja’s husband, he is, like Hermod, elevated to a position of power greater than that which mortals may expect. But all this does not turn out to be a blessing to the Skjoldungs, but is a misfortune to them. The hatred he had cherished toward the Skjoldung Halfdan is transferred to the son of the latter, Hadding, and he persecutes him and all those who are faithful to Hadding, makes war against him, and is unwilling to end the long war, although the gods demand

828 it. Then he suddenly disappears, the divine wrath having clothed him with the guise of a strange animal, and relegated him to the world of water-giants, where he is slain by Hadding (who in the Norse heroic saga becomes a Volsung, after Halfdan, under the name Helge Hundingsbane, was made a son of the Volsung Sigmund). Hermod is killed on a rocky island under harne stan. Svipdag is killed in the water, probably in the vicinity of the Vágasker and the Singasteinn, where the Brisingamen ornament of his faithful Mardol is discovered by Loke and Heimdal. Freyja’s love and sorrow may in the mythology have caused the gods to look upon Svipdag’s last sad fate and death as a propitiation of his faults. The tears which the Vana-dis wept over her lover were transformed, according to the mythology, into gold, and this gold, the gold of a woman’s faithfulness, may have been regarded as a sufficient compensation for the sins of her dear one, and doubtless opened to Svipdag the same Asgard-gate which he had seen opened to him during his life. This explains that Hermod is in Asgard in the historical time, and that, according to a revelation to the Swedes in the ninth century, the ancient King Erik was unanimously elevated by the gods as a member of their council. Finally, it should be pointed out that the Svipdag synonym Ódr has the same meaning as môd in Heremôd, and as ferhd in Svidferhd, the epithet with which Hermod is designated in the Beowulf strophe 1820. Ódr means “the one endowed with spirit,” Heremôd “the one endowed with martial spirit,” Svidherhd “the one endowed with mighty spirit.”

829 Heimdal’s and Loke’s conflict in regard to Brisingamen has undoubtedly been an episode in the mythic account of Svipdag’s last fortunes and Freyja’s abode with him in the sea. There are many reasons for this assuniption. We should bear in mind that Svipdag’s closing career constituted a part of the great epic of the first world war, and that both Heimdal and Loke take part in this war, the former on Hadding’s, the latter on Gudhorm-Jormunrek’s and Svipdag’s side (see Nos. 38, 39, 40). It should further be remembered that, according to Saxo, at the time when he slays the monster, Hadding is wandering about as an exile in the wildernesses, and that it is about this time that Odin gives him a companion and protector in Liserus-Heimdal (see No. 40). The unnamed woman, who after the murder had taken place puts herself in Hadding’s way, informs him whom he has slain, and calls the wrath of the gods and the elements down upon him, must be Freyja herself, since she witnessed the deed and knew who was concealed in the guise of the dragon. So long as the latter lived Brisingamen surely had a faithful watcher, for it is the nature of a dragon to brood over the treasures he finds. After being slain and dragged on shore by Hadding, his “bed,” the gold, lies exposed to view on Vagasker, and the glimmer of Brisingamen reaches Loke’s eyes. While the woman, in despair on account of Svipdag’s death, stands before Hadding and speaks to him, the ornament has no guardian, and Loke finds the occasion convenient for stealing it. But Heimdal, Hadding’s protector, who in the mythology always keeps his eye on the acts of Loke and on his kinsmen

830 hostile to the gods, is also present, and he too has seen Brisingamen. Loke has assumed the guise of a seal, while the ornament lies on a rock in the sea, Vágasker, and it can cause no suspicion that a seal tries to find a resting-place there. Heimdal assumes the same guise, the seals fight on the rock, and Loke must retire with his errand unperformed. The rock is also called Singasteinn (Younger Edda, i. 264, 268), a name in which I see the Anglo-Saxon Sincastân, “the ornament rock.” An echo of the combat about Brisingamen reappears in the Beowulf poem, where Heimdal (not Hamdir) appears under the name Hâma, and where it is said that “Hâma has brought to the weapon-glittering citadel (Asgard) Brosingamene,” which was “the best ornament under heaven”; whereupon it is said that Hâma fell “into Eormenric’s snares,” with which we should compare Saxo’s account of the snares laid by Loke, Jormenrek’s adviser, for Liserus-Heimdal and Hadding.* 107. REMINISCENCES OF THE SVIPDAG-MYTH. The mythic story about Svipdag and Freyja has been handed down in popular tales and songs, even to our time, of course in an ever varying and corrupted form. Among the popular tales there is one about Mœrthöll, put in writing * As Jordanes confounded the mythological Gudhorm-Jormunrek with the historical Ermanarek, and connected with the history of the latter the heroic saga of Ammius-Hamdir, it lay close at hand to confound Hamdir with Heimdal, who, like Hamdir, is the foe of the mythical Jormunrek.

831 by Konrad Maurer, and published in Modern Icelandic Popular Tales. The wondrous fair heroine in this tale bears Freyja’s well-known surname, Mardol, but little changed. And as she, like Freyja, weeps tears that change into gold, it is plain that she is originally identical with the Vana-dis, a fact which Maurer also points out. Like Freyja, she is destined by the norn to be the wife of a princely youth. But when he courted her, difficulties arose which remind us of what Saxo relates about Otharus and Syritha. As Saxo represents her, Syritha is bound as it were by an enchantment, not daring to look up at her lover or to answer his declarations of love. She flies over the mountains more pristino, “in the manner usual in antiquity,” consequently in all probability in the guise of a bird. In the Icelandic popular tale Marthol shudders at the approaching wedding night, since she is then destined to be changed into a sparrow. She is about to renounce the embrace of her lover, so that he may not know anything about the enchantment in which she is fettered. In Saxo the spell resting on Syritha is broken when the candle of the wedding night burns her hand. In the popular tale Marthol is to wear the sparrow guise for ever if it is not burnt on the wedding night or on one of the two following nights. Both in Saxo and in the popular tale another maiden takes Mardol’s place in the bridal bed on the wedding night. But the spell is broken by fire, after which both the lovers actually get each other.

832 The original identity of the mythological Freyja-Mardol, Saxo’s Syritha, and the Mœrthöll of the Icelandic popular tale is therefore evident. In Danish and Swedish versions of a ballad (in Syv, Nyerup, Arwidsson, Geijer and Afzelius, Grundtvig, Dybeck, Hofberg; compare Bugge’s Edda, p. 352, &c.) a young Sveidal (Svedal, Svendal, Svedendal, Silfverdal) is celebrated, who is none other than Svipdag of the mythology. Svend Grundtvig and Bugge have called attention to the conspicuous similarity between this ballad on the one hand, and Grogalder and Fjölsvinnsmal on the other. From the various versions of the ballad it is necessary to mention here only those features which best preserve the most striking resemblance to the mythic prototype. Sveidal is commanded by his stepmother to find a maiden “whose sad heart had long been longing.” He then goes first to the grave of his deceased mother to get advice from her. The mother speaks to him from the grave and promises him a horse, which can bear him over sea and land, and a sword hardened in the blood of a dragon and resembling fire. The narrow limits of the ballad forbade telling how Sveidal came into possession of the treasures promised by the mother or giving an account of the exploits he performed with the sword. This plays no part in the ballad; it is only indicated that events not recorded took place before Sveidal finds the longing maid. Riding through forests and over seas, he comes to the country where she has her castle. Outside of this he meets a shepherd, with whom he enters into conversation. The shepherd informs him that within is found

833 a young maiden who has long been longing for a young man by name Sveidal, and that none other than he can enter there, for the timbers of the castle are of iron, its gilt gate of steel, and within the gate a lion and a white bear keep watch. Sveidal approaches the gate; the locks fall away spontaneously; and when he enters the open court the wild beasts crouch at his feet, a linden-tree with golden leaves bends to the ground before him, and the young maiden whom he seeks welcomes him as her husband. One of the versions makes him spur his horse over the castle wall; another speaks of seven young men guarding the wall, who show him the way to the castle, and who in reality are “god’s angels under the heaven, the blue.” The horse who bears his rider over the salt sea is a reminiscence of Sleipnir, which Svipdag rode on more than one occasion; and when it is stated that Sveidal on this horse galloped over the castle wall, this reminds us of Skirner-Svipdag when he leaps over the fence around Gymer’s abode, and of Hermod-Svipdag when he spurs Sleipnir over the wall to Balder’s lower-world castle. The shepherds, who are “god’s angels,” refer to the watchmen mentioned in Fjölsvinnsmal, who are gods; the wild beasts in the open court to the two wolf-dogs who guard Asgard’s gate; the shepherd whom Sveidal meets outside of the wall to Fjölsvin; the linden-tree with the golden leaves to Mimameidr and to the golden grove growing in Asgard. One of the versions makes two years pass while Sveidal seeks the one he is destined to marry.

834 In Germany, too, we have fragments preserved of the myth about Svipdag and Freyja. These remnants are, we admit, parts of a structure built, so to speak, in the style of the monks, but they nevertheless show in the most positive manner that they are borrowed from the fallen and crumbled arcades of the heathen mythology. We rediscover in them the old medieval poem about “Christ’s unsewed grey coat.” The hero in the poem is Svipdag, here called by his father’s name Orendel, Orentel — that is, Orvandel. The father himself, who is said to be a king in Trier, has received another name, which already in the most ancient heathen times was a synonym of Orvandel, and which I shall consider below. This in connection with the circumstance that the younger Orentel’s (Svipdag’s) patron saint is called “the holy Wieland,” and thus has the name of a person who, in the mythology, as shall be shown below, was Svipdag’s uncle (father’s brother) and helper, and whose sword is Svipdag’s protection and pledge of victory, proves that at least in solitary instances not only the events of the myth but also its names and family relations have been preserved in a most remarkable and faithful manner through centuries in the minds of the German people. In the very nature of things it cannot in the monkish poem be the task of the young Svipdag-Orentel to go in search of the heathen goddess Freyja and rescue her from the power of the giants. In her stead appears a “Frau Breyde,” who is the fairest of all women, and the only one worthy to be the young Orentel’s wife. In the

835 heathen poem the goddess of fate Urd, in the German medieval poem God Himself, resolves that Orentel is to have the fairest woman as his bride. In the heathen poem Freyja is in the power of giants, and concealed somewhere in Jotunheim at the time when Svipdag is commanded to find her, and it is of the greatest moment for the preservation of the world that the goddess of love and fertility should be freed from the hands of the powers of frost. In the German poem, written under the influence of the efforts of the Christian world to reconquer the Holy Land, Frau Breyde is a princess who is for the time being in Jerusalem, surrounded and watched by giants, heathens, and knights templar, the last of whom, at the time when the poem received its present form, were looked upon as worshippers of the devil, and as persons to be shunned by the faithful. To Svipdag’s task of liberating the goddess of love corresponds, in the monkish poem, Orentel’s task of liberating Frau Breyde from her surrounding of giants, heathens, and knights templar, and restoring to Christendom the holy grave in Jerusalem. Orentel proceeds thither with a fleet. But although the journey accordingly is southward, the mythic saga, which makes Svipdag journey across the frost-cold Elivagar, asserts itself; and as his fleet could not well be hindered by pieces of ice on the coast of the Holy Land, it is made to stick fast in “dense water,” and remain there for three years, until, on the supplication of the Virgin Mary, it is liberated therefrom by a storm. The Virgin Mary’s prayers have assumed the same place in the Christian poems as Groa’s incantations in the

836 heathen. The fleet, made free from the “dense water,” sails to a land which is governed by one Belian, who is conquered by Orentel in a naval engagement. This Belian is the mythological Beli, one of those “howlers” who surrounded Frey and Freyja during their sojourn in Jotunheim and threatened Svipdag’s life. In the Christian poem Bele was made a king in Great Babylonia, doubtless for the reason that his name suggested the biblical “Bel in Babel.” Saxo also speaks of a naval battle in which Svipdag-Ericus conquers the mythic person, doubtless a storm-giant, who by means of witchcraft prepares the ruin of sailors approaching the land where Frotho and Gunvara are concealed. After various other adventures Orentel arrives in the Holy Land, and the angel Gabriel shows him the way to Frau Breyde, just as “the seven angels of God” in one of the Scandinavian ballads guide Sveidal to the castle where his chosen bride abides. Lady Breyde is found to be surrounded by none but foes of Christianity — knights templar, heathens, and giants — who, like Gunvara’s giant surroundings in Saxo, spend their time in fighting, but still wait upon the fair lady as their princess. The giants and knights templar strive to take Orentel’s life, and, like Svipdag, he must constantly be prepared to defend it. One of the giants slain by Orentel is a “banner-bearer.” One of the giants, who in the mythology tries to take Svipdag’s life, is Grepp, who, according to Saxo, meets him in derision with a banner on the top of whose staff is fixed the head of an ox. Meanwhile Lady Breyde is attentive to Orentel. As Menglad receives Svipdag, so Lady Breyde receives

837 Orentel with a kiss and a greeting, knowing that he is destined to be her husband. When Orentel has conquered the giants he celebrates a sort of wedding with Lady Breyde, but between them lies a two-edged sword, and they sleep as brother and sister by each other’s side. A wedding of a similar kind was mentioned in the mythology in regard to Svipdag and Menglad before they met in Asgard and were finally united. The chaste chivalry with which Freyja is met in the mythology by her rescuer is emphasised by Saxo both in his account of Ericus-Svipdag and Gunvara and in his story about Otharus and Syritha. He makes Ericus say of Gunvara to Frotho: Intacta illi pudicitia manet (Hist., 126). And of Otharus he declares: Neque puellam stupro violare sustinuit, nec splendido loco natam obscuro concubitus genere macularet (Hist., 331). The first wedding of Orentel and Breyde is therefore as if it had not been, and the German narrative makes Orentel, after completing other warlike adventures, sue for the hand of Breyde for the second time. In the mythology the second and real wedding between Svipdag and Freyja must certainly have taken place, inasmuch as he becamne reunited with her in Asgard. The sword which plays so conspicuous a part in Svipdag’s fortunes has not been forgotten in the German medieval tale. It is mentioned as being concealed deep down in the earth, and as a sword that is always attended by victory. On one occasion Lady Breyde appears, weapon in hand, and fights by the side of Orentel, under circumstances

838 which remind us of the above-cited story from Saxo (see No. 102), when Ericus-Svipdag, Gunvara-Freyja, and Rollerus-Ull are in the abode of a treacherous giant, who tries to persuade Svipdag to deliver Gunvara to him, and when Bracus-Thor breaks into the giant abode, and either slays the inmates or puts them to flight. Gunvara then fights by the side of Ericus-Svipdag, muliebri corpore virilem animum œquans (Hist., 222). In the German Orentel saga appears a “fisherman,” who is called master Yse. Orentel has at one time been wrecked, and comes floating on a plank to his island, where Yse picks him up. Yse is not a common fisherman. He has a castle with seven towers, and eight hundred fishermen serve under him. There is good reason for assuming that this mighty chieftain of fishermen originally was the Asa-god Thor, who in the northern ocean once had the Midgard-serpent on his hook, and that the episode of the picking up of the wrecked Orentel by Yse has its root in a tradition concerning the mythical adventure, when the real Orvandel, Svipdag’s father, feeble and cold, was met by Thor and carried by him across the Elivagar. In the mythology, as shall be shown hereafter, Orvandel the brave was Thor’s “sworn” man, and fought with him against giants before the hostility sprang up between Ivalde’s sons and the Asa-gods. In the Orentel saga Yse also regands Orentel as his “thrall.” The latter emancipates himself from his thraldom with gold. Perhaps this ransom is a reference to the gold which Freyja’s tears gave as a ransom for Svipdag. Orentel’s father is called Eigel, king in Trier. In

839 Vilkinasaga we find the archer Egil, Volund’s brother, mentioned by the name-variation Eigill. The German Orentel’s patron saint is Wieland, that is, Volund. Thus in the Orentel saga as in the Volundarkvida and in Vilkinasaga we find both these names Egil and Volund combined, and we have all the more reason for regarding King Eigel in Trier as identical with the mythological Egil, since the latter, like Orvandel, is a famous archer. Below, I shall demonstrate that the archer Orvandel and the archer Egil actually were identical in the mythology. But first it may be in order to point out the following circumstances. Tacitus tells us in his Germania (3): “Some people think, however, that Ulysses, too, on his long adventurous journeys was carried into this ocean (the Germanic), and visited the countries of Germany, and that he founded and gave name to Asciburgium, which is situated on the Rhine, and is still an inhabited city; nay, an altar consecrated to Ulysses, with the name of his father Laertes added, is said to have been found there.” To determine the precise location of this Asciburgium is not possible. Ptolemy (ii. 11, 28), and after him Marcianus Heracleota (Peripl., 2, 36), inform us that an Askiburgon was situated on the Rhine, south of and above the delta of the river. Tabula Peutingeriana locates Asceburgia between Gelduba (Gelb) and Vetera (Xanten). But from the history of Tacitus it appears (iv. 33) that Asciburgium was situated between Neuss and Mainz (Mayence). Read the passage: Aliis a Novœsio, aliis a Mogontiaco universas copias advenisse credentibus.

840 The passage refers to the Roman troops sent to Asciburgium and there attacked — those troops which expect to be relieved from the nearest Roman quarters in the north or south. Its location should accordingly be looked for either on or near that part of the Rhine, which on the east bordered the old archbishopric Trier. Thus the German Orentel saga locates King Eigel’s realm and Orentel’s native country in the same regions, where, according to Tacitus’ reporter, Ulysses was said to have settled for some time and to have founded a citadel. As is well known, the Romans believed they found traces of the wandering Ulysses in well-nigh all lands, and it was only necessary to hear a strange people mention a far-travelled mythic hero, and he was at once identified either as Ulysses or Hercules. The Teutonic mythology had a hero à la Ulysses in the younger Orentel, Oder-Svipdag-Heremod, whom the Beowulf poem calls “incomparably the most celebrated traveller among mankind” (wreccena wide mœrost ofer wer-theóde). Mannhardt has already pointed out an episode (Orentel’s shipwreck and arrival in Yse’s land) which calls to mind the shipwreck of Odysseus and his arrival in the land of the Pheaces. Within the limits which the Svipdag-myth, according to my own investigations, proves itself to have had, other and more conspicuous features common to both, but certainly not borrowed from either, can be pointed out, for instance Svipdag’s and Odysseus’ descent to the lower world, and the combat in the guise of seals between Heimdal and Loke, which reminds us of the conflict of Menelaos clad in seal-skin with the seal-watcher Proteus

841 (Odyss., iv. 404, &c.). Just as there are words in the Aryan languages that in their very form point to a common origin, but not to a borrowing, so there are also myths in the Aryan religions which in their very form reveal their growth from an ancient common Aryan root, but produce no suspicion of their being borrowed. Among these are to be classed those features of the Odysseus and Svipdag myths which resemble each other. It has already been demonstrated above, that Germania’s Mannus is identical with Halfdan of the Norse sources, and that Yngve-Svipdag has his counterpart in Ingævo (see No. 24). That informer of Tacitus who was able to interpret Teutonic songs about Mannus and his sons, the three original race heroes of the Teutons, must also in those very songs have heard accounts of Orvandel’s and Svipdag’s exploits and adventures, since Orvandel and Svipdag play a most decisive part in the fortunes of Mannus-Halfdan. If the myth about Svipdag was composed in a later time, then Mannus-Halfdan’s saga must have undergone a change equal to a complete transformation after the day of Tacitus, and for such an assumption there is not the slightest reason. Orvandel is not a mythic character of later make. As already pointed out, and as shall be demonstrated below, he has ancient Aryan ancestry. The centuries between Tacitus and Paulus Diaconus are unfortunately almost wholly lacking in evidence concerning the condition of the Teutonic myths and sagas; but where, as in Jordanes, proofs still gleam forth from the prevailing darkness, we find mention of Arpantala, Amala, Fridigernus, Vidigoia (Jord., v.).

842 Jordanes says that in the most ancient times they were celebrated in song and described as heroes who scarcely had their equals (quales vix heroas fuisse miranda jactat antiquitas). Previous investigators have already recognised in Arpantala Orvandel, in Amala Hamal, in Vidigoia Wittiche, Wieland’s son (Vidga Volundson), who in the mythology are cousins of Svipdag (see No. 108). Fridigernus, Fridgjarn, means “he who strives to get the beautiful one,” an epithet to which Svipdag has the first claim among ancient Teutonic heroes, as Freyja herself has the first claim to the name Frid (beautiful). In Fjölsvinnsmal it belongs to a dis, who sits at Freyja’s feet, and belongs to her royal household. This is in analogy with the fact that the name Hlin belongs at the same time to Frigg herself (Völuspa), and to a goddess belonging to her royal household (Younger Edda, i. 196). What Tacitus tells about the stone found at Asciburgium, with the names of Ulysses and Laertes inscribed thereon, can of course be nothing but a conjecture, based on the idea that the famous Teutonic traveller was identical with Odysseus. Doubtless this idea has been strengthened by the similarity between the names Ódr, Goth. Vods, and Odysseus, and by the fact that the name Laertes (acc. Laerten) has sounds in common with the name of Svipdag’s father. If, as Tacitus seems to indicate, Asciburgium was named after its founder, we would find in Asc- an epithet of Orvandel’s son, common in the first century after Christ and later. In that case it lies nearest at hand to think of aiska (Fick, iii. 5), the English “ask,” the Anglo-Saxon ascian, the Swedish

843 äska, “to seek,” “search for,” “to try to secure,” which easily adapted itself to Svipdag, who goes on long and perilous journeys to look for Freyja and the sword of victory. I call attention to these possibilities because they appear to suggest an ancient connection, but not for the purpose of building hypotheses thereon. Under all circumstances it is of interest to note that the Christian medieval Orentel saga locates the Teutonic migration hero’s home to the same part of Germany where Tacitus in his time assumed that he had founded a citadel. The tradition, as heard by Tacitus, did not however make the regions about the Rhine the native land of the celebrated traveller. He came thither, it is said in Germania, from the North after having navigated in the Northern Ocean. And this corresponds with the mythology, which makes Svipdag an Inguæon, and Svion, a member of the race of the Skilfing-Ynglings, makes him in the beginning fight on the side of the powers of frost against Halfdan, and afterwards lead not only the north Teutonic (Inguæonian) but also the west Teutonic tribes (the Hermiones) against the east Teutonic war forces of Hadding (see Nos. 38-40). Memories of the Svipdag-myth have also been preserved in the story about Hamlet, Saxo’s Amlethus (Snæbjorn’s Amlodi), son of Horvendillus (Orvandel). In the medieval story Hamlet’s father, like Svipdag’s father in the mythology, was slain by the same man, who marries the wife of the slain man, and, like Svipdag in the myth, Hamlet of the medieval saga becomes the avenger of his father Horvendillus and the slayer of his stepfather. On

844 more than one occasion the idea occurs in the Norse sagas that a lad whose stepfather had slain his father broods over his duty of avenging the latter, and then plays insane or half idiot to avoid the suspicion that he may become dangerous to the murderer. Svipdag, Orvandel’s son, is reared in his stepfather’s house amid all the circumstances that might justify or explain such a hypocrisy. Therefore he has as a lad received the epithet Amlodi, the meaning of which is “insane,” and the myth having at the same time described him as highly-gifted, clever, and sharp-witted, we have in the words which the mythology has attributed to his lips the key to the ambiguous words which make the cleverness, which is veiled under a stupid exterior, gleam forth. These features of the mythic account of Svipdag have been transferred to the middle-age saga anent Hamlet — a saga which already in Saxo’s time had been developed into an independent narrative. I shall return to this theme in a treatise on the heroic sagas. Other reminiscences of the Svipdag-myth reappear in Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian ballads. The Danish ballads, which, with surprising fidelity, have preserved certain fundamental traits and details of the Svipdag-myth even down to our days, I have already discussed. The Norwegian ballad about “Hermod the Young” (Landstad Norske Folkeviser, p. 28), and its Swedish version, “Bergtrollet,” which corresponds still more faithfully with the myth (Arvidson, i. 123), have this peculiar interest in reference to mythological synonymies and the connection of the mythic fragments preserved, that Svipdag appears in the former as in the Beowulf poem and

845 in the Younger Edda under the name Hermod, and that both versions have for their theme a story, which Saxo tells about his Otharus when he describes the flight of the latter through Jotunheim with the rediscovered Syritha. It has already been stated above (No. 100) that after Otharus had found Syritha and slain a giant in whose power she was, he was separated from her on their way home, but found her once more and liberated her from a captivity into which she had fallen in the abode of a giantess. This is the episode which forms the theme of the ballad about “Hermod the Young,” and of the Swedish version of it. Brought together, the two ballads give us the following contents: The young Hermod secured as his wife a beautiful maiden whom he liberated from the hands of a giantess. She had fallen into the hands of giants through a witch, “gigare,” originally gýgr, a troll-woman, Aurboda, who in a great crowd of people had stolen her out of a church (the divine citadel Asgard is changed into a “house of God”). Hermod hastens on skees “through woods and caverns and recesses,” comes to “the wild sea-strand” (Elivagar) and to the “mountain the blue,” where the giantess resides who conceals the young maiden in her abode. It is Christmas Eve. Hermod asks for lodgings for the night in the mountain dwelling of the giantess and gets it. Resorting to cunning, he persuades the giantess the following morning to visit her neighbours, liberates the fair maiden during her absence, and flies on his skees with her “over the high mountains and down the low ones.” When the old giantess on her return home

846 finds that they have gone she hastens (according to the Norwegian version accompanied by eighteen giants) after those who have taken flight through dark forests with a speed which makes every tree bend itself to the ground. When Hermod with his young maiden had come to the salt fjord (Elivagar) the giantess is quite near them, but in the decisive moment she is changed to a stone, according to the Norse version, by the influence of the sun, which just at that time rose; according to the Swedish version, by the influence of a cross which stood near the fjord and its “long bridge.” The Swedish version states, in addition to this, that Hermod had a brother; in the mythology, Ull the skilful skee-runner. In both the versions, Hermod is himself an excellent skee-man. The refrains in both read: “He could so well on the skees run.” Below, I shall prove that Orvandel, Svipdag’s and Ull’s father, is identical with Egil, the foremost skee-runner in the mythology, and that Svipdag is a cousin of Skade, “the dis of the skees.” Svipdag-Hermod belongs to the celebrated skee-race of the mythology, and in this respect, too, these ballads have preserved a genuine trait of the mythology. In their way, these ballads, therefore, give evidence of Svipdag’s identity with Hermod, and of the latter’s identity with Saxo’s Otherus. Finally, a few words about the Svipdag synonyms. Of these, Ódr and Hermodr (and in the Beowulf poem Svidferhd) form a group, which, as has already been pointed out above, refer to the qualities of his mind. Svipdag (“the glimmering day”) and Skirner (“the shining one”)

847 form another group, which refers to his birth as the son of the star-hero Orvandel, who is “the brightest of stars,” and “a true beam from the sun” (see above). Again, anent the synonym Eirekr, we should bear in mind that Svipdag’s half-brother Gudhorm had the epithet Jormunrekr, and the half-brother of the latter, Hadding, the epithet thódrekr. They are the three half-brothers who, after the patriarch Mannus-Halfdan, assume the government of the Teutons; and as each one of them has large domains, and rules over many Teutonic tribes, they are, in contradistinction to the princes of the separate tribes, great kings or emperors. It is the dignity of a great king which is indicated, each in its own way, by all these parallel names — Eirekr, Jormunrekr, and thjódrekr. 108. SVIPDAG’S FATHER ORVANDEL. EVIDENCE THAT HE IS IDENTICAL WITH VOLUND’S BROTHER EGIL. THE ORVANDEL SYNONYM EBBO (EBUR, IBOR) Svipdag’s father, Orvandel, must have been a mortal enemy of Halfdan, who abducted his wife Groa. But hitherto it is his son Svipdag whom we have seen carry out the feud of revenge against Halfdan. Still, it must seem incredible that the brave archer himself should remain inactive and leave it to his young untried son to fight against Thor’s favourite, the mighty son of Borgar. The epic connection demands that Orvandel also should take part in this war and it is necessary to investigate

848 whether our mythic records have preserved traces of the satisfaction of this demand in regard to the mythological epic. As his name indicates, Orvandel was a celebrated archer. That Ör- in Orvandel, in heathen times, was conceived to be the word ör, “arrow” — though this meaning does not therefore need to be the most original one — is made perfectly certain by Saxo, according to whom Örvandill’s father was named Geirvandill (Gervandillus, Hist., 135). Thus the father is the one “busy with the spear,” the son “the one busy with the arrow.” Taking this as the starting point, we must at the very threshold of our investigation present the question: Is there among Halfdan’s enemies mentioned by Saxo anyone who bears the name of a well-known archer? This is actually the fact. Halfdan Berggram has to contend with two mythic persons, Toko and Anundus, who with united forces appear against him (Hist., 325). Toko, Toki, is the well-known name of an archer. In another passage in Saxo (Hist., 265, &c.) one Anundus, with the help of Avo (or Ano) sagittarius, fights against one Halfdan. Thus we have the parallels: The archer Orvandel is an enemy of Halfdan. The man called archer Toko and Anundus are enemies of Halfdan. The archer Avo and Anundus are enemies of Halfdan. What at once strikes us is the fact that both the one called Toko (an archer’s name) and the archer Avo have as comrade one Anundus in the war against Halfdan. Whence did Saxo get this Anundus? We are now in the

849 domain of mythology related as history, and the name Anund must have been borrowed thence. Can any other source throw light on any mythic person by this name? There was actually an Anund who held a conspicuous place in mythology, and he is none other than Volund. Volundarkvida informs us that Volund was also called Anund. When the three swan-maids came to the Wolfdales, where the three brothers, Volund, Egil, and Slagfin, had their abode, one of them presses Egil “in her white embrace,” the other is Slagfin’s beloved, and the third “lays her arms around Anund’s white neck.” enn in thrithia theirra systir varthi hvitan hals Onondar. Volund is the only person by name Anund found in our mythic records. If we now eliminate — of course only for the present and with the expectation of confirmatory evidence — the name Anund and substitute Volund, we get the following parallels: Volund and Toko (the name of an archer) are enemies of Halfdan. Volund and the archer named Avo are enemies of Halfdan. The archer Orvandel is an enemy of Halfdan. From this it would appear that Volund was very intimately associated with one of the archers of the mythology, and that both had some reason for being enemies of Halfdan. Can this be corroborated by any other source?

850 Volund’s brothers are called Egill and Slagfidr (Slagfinr) in Volundarkvida. The Icelandic-Norwegian poems from heathen times contain paraphrases which prove that the mythological Egil was famous as an archer and skee-runner. The bow is “Egil’s weapon,” the arrows are “Egil’s weapon-hail” (Younger Edda, 422), and “the swift herring of Egil’s hands” (Har. Gr., p. 18). A ship is called Egil’s skees, originally because he could use his skees also on the water. In Volundarkvida he makes hunting expeditions with his brothers on skees. Vilkinasaga also (29, 30) knows Egil as Volund’s brother, and speaks of him as a wonderfully skilful archer. The same Volund, who in Saxo under the name Anund has Toko (the name of an archer) or the archer Avo by his side in the conflict with Halfdan, also has the archer Egil as a brother in other sources. Of an archer Toko, who is mentioned in Hist., 487-490, Saxo tells the same exploit as Vilkinasaga attributes to Volund’s brother Egil. In Saxo it is Toko who performs the celebrated masterpiece which was afterwards attributed to William Tell. In Vilkinasaga it is Egil. The one like the other, amid similar secondary circumstances, shoots an apple from his son’s head. Egil’s skill as a skee-runner and the serviceableness of his skees on the water have not been forgotten in Saxo’s account of Toko. He runs on skees down the mountain, sloping precipitously down to the sea, Kullen in Scania, and is said to have saved himself on board a ship. Saxo’s Toko was therefore without doubt identical with Volund’s brother Egil, and Saxo’s Anund is the same Volund of whom

851 the Volundarkvida testifies that he also had this name in the mythology. Thus we have demonstrated the fact that Volund and Egil appeared in the saga of the Teutonic patriarch Halfdan as the enemies of the latter, and that the famous archer Egil occupied the position in which we would expect to find the celebrated archer Orvandel, Svipdag’s father. Orvandel is therefore either identical with Egil, and then it is easy to understand why the latter is an enemy of Halfdan, who we know had robbed his wife Groa; or he is not identical with Egil, and then we know no motive for the appearance of the latter on the same side as Svipdag, and we, moreover, are confronted by the improbability that Orvandel does nothing to avenge the insult done to him. Orvandel’s identity with Egil is completely confirmed by the following circumstances. Orvandel has the Elivagar and the coasts of Jotunheim as the scene of his exploits during the time in which he is the friend of the gods and the opponent of the giants. To this time we must refer Horvendillus’ victories over Collerus (Kollr) and his sister Sela (cp. the name of a monster Selkolla — Bisk S., i. 605) mentioned by Saxo (Hist., 135-138). His surname inn frœkni, the brave, alone is proof that the myth refers to important exploits carried out by him, and that these were performed against the powers of frost in particular — that is to say, in the service of the gods and for the good of Midgard — is plain from the narrative in the Younger Edda (276, 277). This shows, as is also demanded by the epic connection,

852 that the Asa-god Thor and the archer Orvandel were at least for a time confidential friends, and that they had met each other on their expeditions for similar purposes in Jotunheim. When Thor, wounded in his forehead, returns from his combat with the giant Hrungnir to his home, thrúdvángr (thrúdvángar, thrudheimr), Orvandel’s wife Groa was there and tried to help him with healing sorcery, wherein she would also have succeeded if Thor could have made himself hold his tongue for a while concerning a report he brought with him about her husband, and which he expected would please her. And Groa did become so glad that she forgot to continue the magic song and was unable to complete the healing. The report was, as we know, that, on the expedition to Jotunheim from which he had now come home, Thor bad met Orvandel, carried him in his basket across the Elivagar, and thrown a toe which the intrepid adventurer had frozen up to heaven and made a star thereof. Thor added that before long Orvandel would come “home”; that is to say, doubtless, “home to Thor,” to fetch his wife Groa. It follows that, when he had carried Orvandel across the Elivagar, Thor had parted with him somewhere on the way, in all probability in Orvandel’s own home, and that while Orvandel wandered about in Jotunheim, Groa, the dis of growth, had a safe place of refuge in the Asa-god’s own citadel. A close relation between Thor and Orvandel also appears from the fact that Thor afterwards marries Orvandel’s second wife Sif, and adopts his son Ull, Svipdag’s half-brother (see No. 102), in Asgard. Consequently Orvandel’s abode was situated south of

853 the Elivagar (Thor carried him nordan or Jötunheimum), in the direction Thor had to travel when going to and from the land of the giants, and presumably quite near or on the strand of that mythic water-course over which Thor on this occasion carried him. When Thor goes from Asgard to visit the giants he rides the most of the way in his chariot drawn by the two goats Tanngnjóstr and Tanngrisnir. In the poem Haustlaung there is a particularly vivid description of his journey in his thunder chariot through space when he proceeded to the meeting agreed upon with the giant Hrungner, on the return from which he met and helped Orvandel across Elivagar (Younger Edda, 276). But across this water and through Jotunheim itself Thor never travels in his car. He wades across the Elivagar, he travels on foot in the wildernesses of the giants, and encounters his foe face to face, breast to breast, instead of striking him from above with lightning. In this all accounts of Thor’s journeys to Jotunheim agree. Hence south of the Elivagar and somewhere near them there must have been a place where Thor left his chariot and his goats in safety before he proceeded farther on his journey. And as we already know that the archer Orvandel, Thor’s friend, and like him hostile to the giants, dwelt on the road travelled by the Asa-god, and south of the Elivagar, it lies nearest at hand to assume that Orvandel’s castle was the stopping-place on his journey, and the place where he left his goats and car. Now in Hymerskvida (7, 37, 38) we actually read that Thor, on his way to Jotunheim, had a stopping-place,

854 where his precious car and goats were housed and taken care of by the host, who accordingly had a very important task, and must have been a friend of Thor and the Asa-gods in the mythology. The host bears the archer name Egil. From Asgard to Egil’s abode, says Hymerskvida, it is about one day’s journey for Thor when he rides behind his goats on his way to Jotunheim. After this day’s journey he leaves the draught-animals, decorated with horns, with Egil, who takes care of them, and the god continues his journey on foot. Thor and Tyr being about to visit the giant Hymer — Foro drivgom dag thann fram Asgardi fra, unz til Egils quomo; hirdi hann hafra horngaufgasta hurfo at haullo er Hymir átti. (“Nearly all the day they proceeded their way from Asgard until they came to Egil’s. He gave the horn-strong goats care. They (Thor and Tyr) continued to the great hall which Hymer owned.”) From Egil’s abode both the gods accordingly go on foot. From what is afterwards stated about adventures on their way home, it appears that there is a long distance between Egil’s house and Hymer’s (cp. 35 — foro lengi, adr., &c.). It is necessary to journey across the Elivagar first — byr fyr austan Elivága hundviss Hymer (str. 5). In the Elivagar Hymer has his fishing-grounds,

855 and there he is wont to catch whales on hooks (cp. str. 17 — a vâg roa); but still he does not venture far out upon the water (see str. 20), presumably because he has enemies on the southern strand where Egil dwells. Between the Elivagar and Hymer’s abode there is a considerable distance through woody mountain recesses (holtrid — str. 27) and past rocks in whose caverns dwell monsters belonging to Hymer’s giant-clan (str. 35). Thor resorts to cunning in order to secure a safe retreat. After he has been out fishing with the giant, instead of making his boat fast in its proper place on the strand, as Hymer requests him to do, he carries the boat with its belongings all the difficult way up to Hymer’s hall. He is also attacked on his way home by Hymer and all his giant-clan, and, in order to be able to wield Mjolner freely, he must put down the precious kettle which he has captured from the frost-giant and was carrying on his broad shoulders (str. 35, 36). But the undisturbed retreat across the Elivagar he has secured by the above-mentioned cunning. Egil is called hraunbúi (str. 38), an epithet the ambiguous meaning of which should not be unobserved. It is usually translated with rock-dweller, but it here means “he who lives near or at Hraunn” (Hrönn). Hraunn is one of the names of the Elivagar (see Nos. 59, 93; cp. Younger Edda, 258, with Grimnersmal, 38). After their return to Egil’s, Thor and Tyr again seat themselves in the thunder-chariot and proceed to Asgard with the captured kettle. But they had not driven far before the strength of one of the horn-decorated draught

856 animals failed, and it was found that the goat was lame (str. 37). A misfortune had happened to it while in Egil’s keeping, and this had been caused by the cunning Loke (str. 37). The poem does not state the kind of misfortune — the Younger Edda gives us information on this point — but if it was Loke’s purpose to make enmity between Thor and his friend Egil he did not succeed this time. Thor, to be sure, demanded a ransom for what had happened, and the ransom was, as Hymerskvida informs us, two children who were reared in Egil’s house. But Thor became their excellent foster-father and protector, and the punishment was therefore of such a kind that it was calculated to strengthen the bond of friendship instead of breaking it. Gylfaginning also (Younger Edda, i. 142, &c.) has preserved traditions showing that when Thor is to make a journey from Asgard to Jotunheim it requires more than one day, and that he therefore puts up in an inn at the end of the first day’s travel, where he eats his supper and stops over night. There he leaves his goats and travels the next day eastward (north), “across the deep sea” (hafit that hit djúpa), on whose other side his giant foes have their abode. The sea in question is the Elivagar, and the tradition correctly states that the inn is situated on its southern (western) side. But Gylfaginning has forgotten the name of the host in this inn. Instead of giving his name it simply calls him a buandi (peasant); but it knows and states on the other hand the names of the two children there reared, Thjalfe and Roskva; and it relates how it happened that

857 one of Thor’s goats became lame, but without giving Loke the blame for the misfortune. According to Gylfaginning the event occurred when Thor was on his way to Utgard-Loke. In Gylfaginning, too, Thor takes the two children as a ransom, and makes Thjalfe (thjálfi) a hero, who takes an honourable part in the exploits of the god. As shall be shown below, this inn on the road from Asgard to Jotunheim is presupposed as well known in Eilif Gudrunson’s Thorsdrapa, which describes the adventures Thor met with on his journey to the giant Geirrod. Thorsdrapa gives facts of great mythological importance in regard to the inhabitants of the place. They are the “sworn” helpers of the Asa-gods, and when it is necessary Thor can thence secure brave warriors, who accompany him across Elivagar into Jotunheim. Among them an archer plays the chief part in connection with Thjalfe (see No. 114). On the north side of Elivagar dwell accordingly giants hostile to gods and men; on the south side, on the other hand, beings friendly to the gods and bound in their friendship by oaths. The circumstance that they are bound by oaths to the gods (see Thorsdrapa) implies that a treaty has been made with them and that they owe obedience. Manifestly the uttermost picket guard to the north against the frost-giants is entrusted to them. This also gives us an explanation of the position of the star-hero Orvandel, the great archer, in the mythological epic. We can understand why he is engaged to the dis of growth Groa, as it is his duty to defend Midgard against the destructions of frost; and why he fights on

858 the Elivagar and in Jotunheim against the same enemies as Thor; and why the mythology has made him and the lord of thunder friends who visit each other. With the tenderness of a father, and with the devotion of a fellow-warrior, the mighty son of Odin bears on his shoulders the weary and cold star-hero over the foggy Elivagar, filled with magic terrors, to place him safe by his own hearth south of this sea after he has honoured him with a token which shall for ever shine on the heavens as a monument of Orvandel’s exploits and Thor’s friendship for him. In the meantime Groa, Orvandel’s wife, stays in Thor’s halls. But we discover the same bond of hospitality between Thor and Egil. According to Hymerskvida it is in Egil’s house, according to Gylfaginning in the house in which Thjalfe is fostered, where the accident to one of Thor’s goats happens. In one of the sources the youth whom Thor takes as a ransom is called simply Egil’s child; in the other he is called Thjalfe. Two different mythic sources show that Thjalfe was a waif, adopted in Egil’s house, and consequently not a real brother, but a foster-brother of Svipdag and Ull. One source is Fornaldersaga (iii. 241), where it is stated that Groa in a flœdarmál found a little boy and reared him together with her own son. Flœdarmál is a place which a part of the time is flooded with water and a part of the time lies dry. The other source is the Longobard saga, in which the mythological Egil reappears as Agelmund, the first king of the Longobardians who emigrated from Scandinavia (Origo Longob., Paulus Diac., 14, 15; cp. No. 112). Agelmund,

859 it is said, had a foster-son, Lamicho (Origo Longob.), or Lamissio (Paulus Diac.), whom he found in a dam and took home out of pity. Thus in the one place it is a woman who bears the name of the archer Orvandel’s wife, in the other it is the archer Egil himself, who adopts as foster-son a child found in a dam or in a place filled with water. Paulus Diaconus says that the lad received the name Lamissio to commemorate this circumstance, “since he was fished up out of a dam or dyke,” which in their (the Longobardian) language is called lama (cp. lehm, mud). The name Thjalfe (thjálfi) thus suggests a similar idea. As Vigfusson has already pointed out, it is connected with the English delve, a dyke; with the Anglo-Saxon delfan; the Dutch delven, to work the ground with a spade, to dig. The circumstances under which the lad was found presaged his future. In the mythology he fells the clay-giant Mökkr-kalfi (Younger Edda, i. 272-274). In the migration saga he is the discoverer of land and circumnavigates islands (Korm., 19, 3; Younger Edda, i. 496), and there he conquers giants (Harbards-ljod, 39) in order to make the lands inhabitable for immigrants. In the appendix to the Gotland law he appears as Thjelvar, who lands in Gotland, liberates the island from trolls by carrying fire, colonises it and becomes the progenitor of a host of emigrants, who settle in southern countries. In Paulus Diaconus he grows up to be a powerful hero; in the mythology he develops into the Asa-god Thor’s brave helper, who participates in his and the great archer’s adventures on the Elivagar and in Jotunheim. Paulus (ch. 15) says that

860 when Agelmund once came with his Longobardians to a river, “amazons” wanted to hinder him from crossing it. Then Lamissio fought, swimming in the river, with the bravest one of the amazons, and killed her. In the mythology Egil himself fights with the giantess Sela, mentioned in Saxo as an amazon: piraticis exercita rebus ac bellici perita muneris (Hist., 138), while Thjalfe combats with giantesses on Hlessey (Harbardslj., 39), and at the side of Thor and the archer he fights his way through the river waves, in which giantesses try to drown him (Thorsdrapa). It is evident that Paulus Diaconus’ accounts of Agelmund and Lamissio are nothing but echoes related as history of the myths concerning Egil and Thjalfe, of which the Norse records fortunately have preserved valuable fragments. Thus Thjalfe is the archer Egil’s and Groa’s foster-son, as is apparent from a bringing together of the sources cited. From other sources we have found that Groa is the archer Orvandel’s wife. Orvandel dwells near the Elivagar and Thor is his friend, and visits him on his way to and from Jotunheim. These are the evidences of Orvandel’s and Egil’s identity which lie nearest at hand. It has already been pointed out that Svipdag’s father Orvandel appears in Saxo by the name Ebbo (see Nos. 23, 100). It is Otharus-Svipdag’s father whom he calls Ebbo (Hist., 329-333). Halfdan slays Orvandel-Ebbo, while the latter celebrates his wedding with a princess Sygrutha (see No. 23). In the mythology Egil had the same fate: an enemy and rival kills him for the sake of a woman. “Franks Casket,” an old work of sculpture

861 now preserved in England, and reproduced in George Stephens’ great work on the runes,* represents Egil defending his house against a host of assailants who storm it. Within the house a woman is seen, and she is the cause of the conflict. Like Saxo’s Halfdan, one of the assailants carries a tree or a branched club as his weapon. Egil has already hastened out, bow in hand, and his three famous arrows have been shot. Above him is written in runes his name, wherefore there can be no doubt about his identity. The attack, according to Saxo, took place, in the night (noctuque nuptiis superveniens — Hist., p. 330). In a similar manner, Paulus Diaconus relates the story concerning Egil-Agelmund’s death (ch. 16). He is attacked, so it is stated, in the night time by Bulgarians, who slew him and carried away his only daughter. During a part of their history the Longobardians had the Bulgarians as neighbours, with whom they were on a war-footing. In the mythology it was “Borgarians,” that is to say, Borgar’s son Halfdan and his men, who slew Orvandel. In history the “Borgarians” have been changed into Bulgarians for the natural reason that accounts of wars fought with Bulgarians were preserved in the tradititions of the Longobardians. The very name Ebbo reappears also in the saga of the Longobardians. The brothers, under whose leadership the Longobardians are said to have emigrated from Scandinavia, are in Saxo (Hist., 418) called Aggo and Ebbo; in Origo Longobardorum, Ajo and Ybor; in Paulus (ch. 7), * Runic Monuments, by George Stephens

862 Ajo and Ibor. Thus the namne Ebbo is another form for Ibor, the German Ebur, the Norse Jöfurr, “a wild boar.” The Ibor of the Longobard saga, the emigration leader, and Agelmund, the first king of the emigrants, in the mythology, and also in Saxo’s authorities, are one and the same person. The Longobardian emigration story, narrated in the form of history, thus has its root in the universal Teutonic emigration myth, which was connected with the enmity caused by Loke between the gods and the primeval artists — an enmity in which the latter allied themselves with the powers of frost, and, at the head of the Skilfing-Yngling tribes, gave the impetus to that migration southward which resulted in the populating of the Teutonic continent with tribes from South Scandia and Denmark (see Nos. 28, 32). Nor is the mythic hero Ibor forgotten in the German sagas. He is mentioned in Notker (about the year 1000) and in the Vilkinasaga. Notker simply mentions him in passing as a saga-hero well known at that time. He distinguishes between the real wild boar (Eber) roaming in the woods, and the Eber (Ebur) who “wears the swan-ring.” This is all he has to say of him. But, according to Volundarkvida, the mythological Ebur-Egil is married to a swanmaid, and, like his brother Volund, he wore a ring. The signification of the swan-rings was originally the same as that of Draupner: they were symbols of fertility, and were made and owned for this reason by the primeval artists of mythology, who, as we have seen, were the personified forces of growth in nature, and by their beloved or wives, the swan-maids, who represented

863 the saps of vegetation, the bestowers of the mythic “mead” or “ale.” The swan-maid who loves Egil is, therefore, in Volundarkvida called Olrun, a parallel to the name Olgefion, as Groa, Orvandel’s wife, is called in Haustlaung (Younger Edda, i. 282). Saxo, too, has heard of the swan-rings, and says that from three swans singing in the air fell a cingulum inscribed with names down to King Fridlevus (Njord), which informed him where he was to find a youth who had been robbed by a giant, and whose liberation was a matter of great importance to Fridlevus. The context shows that the unnamed youth was in the mythology Fridlevus-Njord’s own son Frey, the lord of harvests, who had been robbed by the powers of frost. Accordingly, a swan-ring has co-operated in the mythology in restoring the fertility of the earth. In Vilkinasaga appears Villifer. The author of the saga says himself that this name is identical with Wild-Ebur, wild boar. Villifer, a splendid and noble-minded youth, wears on his arm a gold ring, and is the elder friend, protector, and saviour of Vidga Volundson. Of his family relations Vilkinasaga gives us no information, but the part it gives him to play finds its explanation in the myth, where Ebur is Volund’s brother Egil, and hence the uncle of his favourite Vidga. If we now take into consideration that in the German Orentel saga, which is based on the Svipdag-myth, the father of the hero is called Eigel (Egil), and his patron saint Wieland (Volund), and that in the archer, who in Saxo fights by the side of Anund-Volund against Halfdan,

864 we have re-discovered Egil where we expected Orvandel; then we here find a whole chain of evidence that Ebur, Egil, and Orvandel are identical, and at the same time the links in this chain of evidence, taken as they are from the Icelandic poetry, and from Saxo, from England, Germany, and Italy, have demonstrated how widely spread among the Teutonic peoples was the myth about Orvandel-Egil, his famous brother Volund, and his no less celebrated son Svipdag. The result gained by the investigation is of the greatest importance for the restoration of the epic connection of the mythology. Hitherto the Volundarkvida with its hero has stood in the gallery of myths as an isolated torso with no trace of connection with the other myths and mythic sagas. Now, on the other hand, it appears, and as the investigation progresses it shall become more and more evident, that the Volund-myth belongs to the central timbers of the great epic of Teutonic mythology, and extends branches through it in all directions. In regard to Svipdag’s saga, the first result gained is that the mythology was not inclined to allow Volund’s sword, concealed in the lower world, to fall into the hands of a hero who was a stranger to the great artist and his plans. If Volund forged the sword for a purpose hostile to the gods, in order to avenge a wrong done him, or to elevate himself and his circle of kinsmen among the elves at the expense of the ruling gods, then his work was not done in vain. If Volund and his brothers are those Ivalde sons who, after having given the gods beautiful treasures, became offended on account of the decision

865 which placed Sindre’s work, particularly Mjolner, higher than their own, then the mythology has also completely indemnified them in regard to this insult. Mjolner is broken by the sword of victory wielded by Volund’s nephew; Asgard trembles before the young elf, after he had received the incomparable weapon of his uncle; its gate is opened for him and other kinsmen of Volund, and the most beautiful woman of the world of gods becomes his wife. 109. FREY FOSTERED IN THE HOME OF ORVANDEL-EGIL AND VOLUND. ORVANDEL’S EPITHET ISOLFR. VOLUND’S EPITHET AGGO. The mythology has handed down several names of the coast region near the Elivagar, where Orvandel-Egil and his kinsmen dwelt, while they still were the friends of the gods, and were an outpost active in the service against the frost-powers. That this coast region was a part of Alfheim, and the most northern part of this mythic land, appears already from the fact that Volund and his brothers are in Volundarkvida elf-princes, sons of a mythic “king.” The rule of the elf-princes must be referred to Alfheim for the same reason as we refer that of the Vans to Vanaheim, and that of the Asa-gods to Asgard. The part of Alfheim here in question, where Orvandel-Egil’s citadel was situated, was in the mythology called Ýdalir, Ýsetr (Grimnersmal, 5; Olaf Trygveson’s saga, ch. 21). This is also suggested by the fact that Ullr, elevated to the

866 dignity of an Asa-god, he who is the son of Orvandel-Egil, and Svipdag’s brother (see No. 102), according to Grimnersmal, has his halls built in Ýdalir. Divine beings who did not originally belong to Asgard, but were adopted in Odin’s clan, and thus became full citizens within the bulwarks of the Asa-citadel, still retain possession of the land, realm, and halls, which is their udal and where they were reared. After he became a denizen in Asgard, Njord continued to own and to reside occasionally in the Vana-citadel Notatun beyond the western ocean (see Nos. 20, 93). Skade, as an asynje, continues to inhabit her father Thjasse’s halls in Thrymheim (Grimnersmal, 11). Vidar’s grass and brush-grown realm is not a part of Asgard, but is the large plain on which, in Ragnarok, Odin is to fall in combat with Fenrer (Grimnersmal, 17; see No. 39). When Ull is said to have his halls in Ydaler, this must be based on a similar reason, and Ydaler must be the land where he was reared and which he inherited after his father, the great archer. When Grimnersmal enumerates the homes of the gods, the series of them begins with Thrudheim, Thor’s realm, and next thereafter, and in connection with Alfheim, is mentioned Ydaler, presumably for the reason that Thor’s land and Orvandel-Egil’s were, as we have seen, most intimately connected in mythology. Land er heilact, er ec liggia se asom oc olfom nær; en i thrudheimi scal thórr vera, unz um rivfaz regin.

867 Ydalir heita, thar er Ullr hefir ser úm gorva sali; Alfheim Frey gáfo i árdaga tivar at tannfæ. Ýdalir means the “dales of the bow” or “of the bows.” Ýsetr is “the chalet of the bow” or “of the bows.” That the first part of these compound words is ýr, “a bow,” is proved by the way in which the local name Ýsetr can be applied in poetical paraphrases, where the bow-holding hand is called Ysetr. The names refer to the mythical rulers of the region, namely, the archer Ull and his father the archer Orvandel-Egil. The place has also been called Geirvadills setr, Geirvandills setr, which is explained by the fact that Orvandel’s father bore the epithet Geirvandel (Saxo, Hist., 135). Hakon Jarl, the ruler of northern Norway, is called (Fagurskinna, 37, 4) Geirvadills setrs Ullr, “the Ull of Geirvandel’s chalet,” a paraphrase in which we find the mythological association of Ull with the chalet which was owned by his father Orvandel and his grandfather Geirvandel. The Ydales were described as rich in gold. Ysetrs eldr is a paraphrase for gold. With this we must compare what Volund says (Volundarkvida, 14) of the wealth of gold in his and his kinsmen’s home. (See further, in regard to the same passage, Nos. 114 and 115.) In connection with its mention of the Ydales, Grimnersmal states that the gods gave Frey Alfheim as a tooth-gift. Tannfé (tooth-gift) was the name of a gift which was given (and in Iceland is still given) to a child when

868 it gets its first tooth. The tender Frey is thus appointed by the gods as king over Alfheim, and chief of the elf-princes there, among whom Volund and Orvandel-Egil, judging from the mythic events themselves, must have been the foremost and most celebrated. It is also logically correct, from the standpoint of nature symbolism, that the god of growth and harvests receives the government of elves and primeval artists, the personified powers of culture. Through this arrangement of the gods, Volund and Orvandel become vassals under Njord and his son. In two passages in Saxo we read mythic accounts told as history, from which it appears that Njord selected a foster-father for his son, or let him be reared in a home under the care of two fosterers. In the one passage (Hist., 272) it is Fridlevus-Njord who selects Avo the archer as his son’s foster-father; in the other passage (Hist., 181) it is the tender Frotho, son of Fridlevus and future brother-in-law of Ericus-Svipdag, who receives Isulfus and Aggo as guardians. So far as the archer Avo is concerned, we have already met him above (see No. 108) in combat by the side of Anundus-Volund against one Halfdan. He is a parallel figure to the archer Toko, who likewise fights by the side of Anundus-Volund against Halfdan, and, as has already been shown, he is identical with the archer Orvandel-Egil. The name Aggo is borne by one of the leaders of the emigration of the Longobardians, brother of Ebbo-Ibor, in whom we have already discovered Orvandel-Egil. The name Isolfur, in the Old Norse poetic language,

869 designates the bear (Younger Edda, i. 589; ii. 484). Vilkinasaga makes Ebbo (Wild-Ebur) appear in the guise of a bear when he is about to rescue Volund’s son Vidga from the captivity into which he had fallen. In his shield Ebbo has images of a wild boar and of a bear. As the wild boar refers to one of his names (Ebur), the image of the bear should refer to another (Isolfr). Under such circumstances there can be no doubt that Orvandel-Egil and one of his brothers, the one designated by the name Aggo (Ajo), be this Volund or Slagfin, were entrusted in the mythology with the duty of fostering the young Frey. Orvandel also assumes, as vassal under Njord, the place which foster-fathers held in relation to the natural fathers of their proteges. Frey, accordingly, is reared in Alfheim, and in the Ydales he is fostered by elf-princes belonging to a circle of brothers, among whom one, namely, Volund, is the most famous artist of mythology. His masterpiece, the sword of victory, in time proves to be superior to Sindre’s chief work, the hammer Mjolner. And as it is always Volund whom Saxo mentions by Orvandel-Egil’s side among his brothers (see No. 108), it is most reasonable to suppose that it is Volund, not Slagfin, who appears here under the name Aggo along with the great archer, and, like the latter, is entrusted with the fostering of Frey. It follows that Svipdag and Ull were Frey’s foster-brothers. Thus it is the duty of a foster-brother they perform when they go to rescue Frey from the power of giants, and when they, later, in the war between the Asas and Vans, take Frey’s side. This also throws

870 additional light on Svipdag-Skirner’s words to Frey in Skirnersmal, 5: ungir saman vorom i árdaga, vel mættim tvæir truasc. 110. SVIPDAG’S GRANDFATHER IS IVALDE. ORVANDEL, VOLUND, AND SLAGFIN THEREFORE IDENTICAL WITH IVALDE’S SONS. In the mythology we read that elves smithied splendid treasures for Frey (Grimnersmal, 42; Younger Edda, i. 140, 340). Among these treasures were the remarkable ship Skidbladner and the gold-glittering boar Slidrugtanni, also called Gullinbursti (Younger Edda, i. 176, 264, 340-344), both clearly symbols of vegetation. The elves that smithied these treasures are called Ivalde’s sons, and constitute the same group of brothers whose gifts to the gods, at the instigation of Loke, are subjected to a public examination by the Asas and by them found wanting as compared with Sindre’s products. It would be most surprising, nay, quite incredible, if, when other artists made useful presents to Frey, the elf-prince Volund and his brothers did not do likewise, inasmuch as he is the chief smith of them all, and inasmuch as he, with his brother Orvandel-Egil, has taken upon himself the duties of a foster-father toward the young harvest-god, among which duties one was certainly to care for his good and enable him to perform the important task devolving on him in the administration of the world.

871 From this standpoint already it is more than probable that the same artist who in the heroic saga of the Teutonic tribes, under the name Volund, Wieland, Weland, by the side of Mimer, plays the part of the foremost smith that antiquity knew is the same one as in the mythology was the most excellent smith; that is, the most skilful one among Ivalde’s sons. This view is perfectly confirmed as to its correctness by the proofs which I shall now present. Of Ivalde, Forspjallsljod says that he had two groups of children, and that Idun, the goddess of vegetation, belonged to one of these groups: Álfa ættar Ithunni heto Ivallds ellri ýngsta barna. Idun is, therefore, a sister of the celebrated artists, the sons of Ivalde. In Volundarkvida, Volund and Slagfin are brothers or half-brothers of the dises of vegetation, who are together with them in the Wolfdales (see str. 2). According to Forspjallsljod, Idun was for a time absent from Asgard, and stayed in a winter-cold land near Narfi-Mimer’s daughter Nat, and in company with persons whose names and epithets indicate that they were smiths, primeval artists (Rögnir and Regin; see Nos. 113, 115, and the epithet viggiar, a synonym of smidar — Younger Edda, i. 587). Thus we read precisely the same of Idun as of the swan-maids and vegetation-dises who dwelt for a time in the Wolfdales with Volund and his brothers.

872 Further on it shall be demonstrated that the name of Volund’s father in the introduction of Volundarkvida and the name given to the father of Volund’s and Slagfin’s swan-maids are synonyms, and refer to one and the same person. But if we for the present leave this proof out, and confine ourselves to the evidences already presented, then the question concerning the identity of the Ivalde sons with the group of brothers Volund, Egil, and Slagfin assumes the following form: 1. (a) There is in the mythology a group of brothers, the Ivalde sons, from whose hands the most wonderful works proceeded, works which were presented to the gods, and by the latter were compared with those of the primeval artist Sindre.     (b) In the heroic saga there is a group of brothers, to whom Volund belongs, the most celebrated of the smiths handed down from the mythology. 2. (a) Ivalde is an elf and his sons elves.     (b) Volund, Egil, and Slagfin are elves (Volundarkvida, 32). 3. (a) Ivalde’s sons are brothers or half-brothers of the goddess of vegetatinn, Idun.     (b) Volund, Egil, and Slagfin are brothers or half-brothers of swan-maids and dises of vegetation. 4. (a) Of Idun, the sister of Ivalde’s sons, it is stated that she was for a time absent from the gods, and dwelt with the primeval artists in a winter-cold land, near Nat, the daughter of Narfi-Mimer.     (b) Volund and his brothers’ swan-maids dwell for a time in a winter-cold land, which, as my researches have

873 already shown, is situated fyr nágrindr nedan, consequently in the lower world, near the realm of Nat. 5. (a) Ivalde’s sons were intimately associated with Frey and gave him precious treasures.     (b) Volund and Egil were intimately associated with Frey, and were his fosterers and wards. 6. (a) Ivalde’s sons were most deeply insulted by the gods.     (b) Volund has been most deeply insulted by the Asas. He and Egil become their foes, and ally themselves with the powers of frost. 7. (a) The insult given to Ivalde’s sons consisted in the fact that their works were judged inferior as compared with the hammer Mjolner made by Sindre.     (b) The best smith-work produced by Volund is a sword of such a quality that it is to prove itself superior to Mjolner in battle. These circumstances alone force us to assume the identity of Ivalde’s sons with Volund and his brothers. We must either admit the identity, or we are obliged to assume that the epic of the mythology contained two such groups of brothers, and made them identical in descent, functions, and fortunes. Besides, it must then have made the one group avenge not an insult offered to itself, but an insult to the other. I have abstained from the latter assumption, because it is in conflict with the best rules for a logical investigation — causœ non sunt prœter necessitatem multiplicandœ. And the identity gains confirmation from all sides as the investigation progresses.

874 111. THE RESULTS OF THE JUDGEMENT PASSED ON THE WORKS OF ART PRODUCED BY THE IVALDE SONS. PARALLEL MYTHS IN RIGVEDA. In the Younger Edda, which speaks of the judgment passed by the gods on the art works of the Ivalde sons (p. 340, &c.), there is nothing said about the consequences of the judgment; and the mythologists seem therefore to have assumed that no results followed, although it was prepared by the “father of misfortunes,” the far-calculating and evil-scheming Loke. The judgment would in that case be an isolated event, without any influence on the future, and without any connection with the other mythic events. On the other band, no possible explanation was found of Volund’s words (Volundarkvida, 28), which he utters after he has taken his terrible vengeance on Nidhad and is prepared to fly away in eagle guise from his prison: Nu hefi ec hefnt harma minna allra nema einna ivithgjarnra — “Now I have avenged all the wrongs done to me, excepting one, which demands a more terrible vengeance.” The wrong here referred to by him is not done to him by Nidhad, and did not happen to him while he lived as an exile in the wilderness of the Wolfdales, but belongs to an earlier time, when he and his brothers and their kinsmen dwelt in the realm rich in gold, where, according to Volundarkvida (14), they lived a happy life. This wrong was not avenged when he and his brothers left their home abounding in gold, in order that far from his enemies he might perfect his plan of revenge

875 by making the sword of victory. Volund’s words refer to the judgment passed on the art work of the Ivalde sons, and thus the mythic events unite themselves into a continuous chain. This judgment was in its consequences too important not to be referred to in Völuspa, which makes all the danger-boding events of the mythology pass one by one before our eyes in the order in which they happened, in order to show how this world from an innocent and happy beginning sank deeper and deeper into the misery which attains its maturity in Ragnarok. That is the plan and purpose of the poem. As I shall show fully and in detail in another part of this work, its purpose is not to speak of Valfather’s “art work,” but of the treacherous deeds of Loke, “the father of evil” (Vafodrs vel — Cod. Hauk.); not to speak of “the traditions of the past,” but of “the past events full of danger” (forn spjöll fira). The happy time during which the Asas tefldu i túni and teitir váru passes away for ever, and is followed by an epoch in which three dangerous thurs-maidens came from Jotunheim. These thurs-maidens are not the norns, as has usually been assumed. Of the relation of the norns to the gods I have given a full account already. The three thurs-maids are the one who in her unity is triple and is thrice born of different parents. Her name is Heid-Gulveig-Angerboda, and, in connection with Loke, she constitutes the evil principle of Teutonic mythology, like Angra Mainyu, and Jahi in the Iranian mythology (Bundehesh, 3). The misfortune-boding event which happens after the first hypostasis of “the three times born” came from

876 Jotunheim is mentioned in connection with its consequences in Völuspa (str. 8). The Asas had not hitherto suffered from want of works of gold, but now came a time when such as might be of use or pleasure to the gods were no longer to be had. Of the gold-metal itself the gods have never been in want. Their halls glitter with this metal, and it grows in the bright wood Glasir, outside of Valhal (Younger Edda, i. 340). The poem, as the very words show, means golden works of art, things made of gold, such as Gungnir, Draupnir, Sif’s hair, Brisingamen, and Slidrugtanni, things the possession of which increased the power of the gods and the wealth of Midgard. Such ceased to flow into the hands of the gods. The epoch in which Sindre’s and the Ivalde son’s gifts increased Asgard’s collection of world-protecting weapons and fertility-producing ornaments was at an end, when Loke, through Heid’s arrival, found his other ego and when the evil principle, hitherto barren, could as man and woman give birth to evil deeds. The consequence of the first deceitful act was, as we see, that hands skilful in art — hands which hitherto had made and given such treasures — refused to serve the gods any longer. The arrangement whereby Loke gained this end Völuspa does not mention, but it can be no other than the judgment brought about by him, which insulted the sons of Ivalde, and, at the same time, cheated the victorious Sindre out of the prize agreed on, Loke’s head. Both the groups of artists must have left the divine court angry at the gods. When we remember that the primeval artists are the creative forces of vegetation personified, then we can also

877 understand the significance of the conflict between them and the gods, whom they hitherto had served. The first part of Völuspa is interpolated partly with strophes from an old song of creation of great mythological importance, partly with lists of names for the use of young poets. If we remove these interpolations, there remains a chain of primeval mythological mishaps, the first link of which is the event which marks the end of the first epoch during which the primeval artists, amicably united with the gods, made splendid weapons, means of locomotion, and ornaments for the latter. On this conflict followed the blending of the air with harmful elements — in other words, it was the beginning of the great winter. Freyja was betrayed into the hands of the giants; the black art, sown by Heid, was disseminated among mankind; the murder was committed against the one thrice born contrary to promise and oath; there is war between the Asas and Vans; the first great war in the world breaks out, when Asgard is stormed and Midgard is covered with battlefields, on which brothers slay each other; Balder is killed by the mistletoe; the host of monsters are born who, in the Ironwood, await Ragnarok; on account of the sins of men, it became necessary to make places of torture in the lower world. All these terrible events, which happened in time’s morning, are the cunning work of the father of misfortunes and of his feminine counterpart. The seeress in Völuspa relates all these events and deeds to show the necessity of the coming destruction and regeneration of the world. Above (see No. 54), it has already been shown that the

878 fragments of old Aryan mythology, which Avesta, Zend, and Bundehesh have preserved, speak of a terrible winter, which visited the world. To rescue that which is noblest and best among plants, animals, and men from the coming destruction, Jima arranged in the lower world a separate enclosed domain, within which selected organisms live an uncontaminated life undisturbed by the events of this world, so that they may people a more beautiful and a happier earth in the regenerated world. I have shown that the same myth in all important details reappears in the Teutonic doctrine anent Mimer’s grove and the ásmegir living there. In the Iranian records, we read that the great winter was the work of the evil spirit, but they do not tell the details or the epic causes of the destruction by the cold. Of these causes we get information in Rigveda, the Indian sister of the Iranian mythology. Clothed with divine rank, there lives among Rigveda’s gods an extraordinary artist, Tvashtar (Tvashtri), often mentioned and addressed in Rigveda’s hymns. The word means “the masterworkman,” “the handi-workman” (Bergaigne, Relig. Ved., iii. 45; Darmesteter, Ormazd, 63, 100). He is the one who forms the organisms in the maternal wombs, the one who prepares and first possesses as his secret the strength- and inspiration-giving soma-drink (Rigv., ii. 53, &c.); it is he that supports the races of men (Rigv., iii. 55, 19). Among the wonderful things made by his hands are mentioned a goblet, which the gods drink from, and which fills itself with blessings (Rigv., iii. 55, 20; x. 53, 9), and Indra’s, the Hinduic Thor’s, thunderbolt, corresponding to Thor’s Mjolner.

879 But among mortals brothers have been reared, themselves mortals, and not of divine rank, but who have educated themselves into artists, whose skill fills the world within astonishment. They are three in number, usually called the Ribhus, but also Anus and Ayus, names which possibly may have some original connection with the Volund names Anund and Ajo. Most clever and enterprising in successful artistic efforts is the youngest of the three (Rigv., iv. 34). They are also soma-brewers, skalds, and heroes (Rigv., iv. 36, 5, 7), and one of them, like Volund’s brother Orvandel-Egil, is an unsurpassed archer (Rigv., iv. 36, 6). On account of their handiwork, these mortal artists come in contact with the gods (Rigv., iv. 35), and as Volund and Orvandel-Egil become Thor’s friends, allies, war-comrades, and servants, so the Ribhns become Indra’s (Rigv., i. 51, 2; vii. 37, 7); “with Indra, the helpful, allied themselves the helpers; with Indra, the nimble, the Ribhus.” They make weapons, coats-of-mail, and means of locomotion, and make wonderful treasures for the gods. On earth they produce vegetation in the deserts, and hew out ways for the fertlising streams (Rigv., v. 42, 12; iv. 33, 7). With Ivalde’s sons, they, therefore, share the qualities of being at the same time creators of vegetation, and smiths at the hearth, and bestowers of precious treasures to the gods. But some evil tongue persuaded the gods that the Ribhus had said something derogatory of the goblet made by Tvashtar. This made Tvashtar angry, and he demanded their death. The gods then sent the fire-god Agni to the Ribhus. The Ribhus asked: “Why has the most excellent,

880 the most youthful one come to us? On what errand does he come?” Agni told them that it was reported that they had found fault with Tvashtar’s goblet; they declared that they had not said anything derogatory, but only talked about the material of which it was made. Agni meanwhile stated the resolution of the gods, to the effect that they were to make from Tvashtar’s goblet four others of the same kind. If they were unable to do this, then the gods would doubtless satisfy Tvashtar’s request and take their lives; but if they were able to make the goblets, then they should share with the gods the right to receive offerings. Moreover, they were to give the following proof of mastership. They were to smithy a living horse, a living chariot, a living cow, and they were to create a means of rejuvenation and demonstrate its efficacy on two aged and enfeebled beings. The Ribhus informed the gods that they would do what was demanded of them. So they made the wonderful chariot or the chariot-ship, which they gave to the Asvinians — the beautiful twin-gods — on which they ride through the air and on the sea (cp. Skidbladner, Frey’s ship, and Hringhorne, Balder’s, and probably also Hoder’s means of locomotion through the air and on the sea). Of one horse they made two, and presented them to Indra. Out of an empty cow’s hide they smithied a cow (cp. Sindre’s work of art when he made the boar Slidringtanne out of an empty pig’s skin). They made the remedy of rejuvenation, and tested it successfully on their aged parents. Finally, they do the great master-work of producing four goblets of equal excellence from Tvashtar’s. Thereupon they appear before

881 the gods who, “with insight,” test their works. Tvashtar himself could not help being astounded when he saw the goblets. But the result of the test by the gods, and the judgment passed on the art-works of the Ribhus, were fraught with danger for the future. Both Tvashtar and the Ribhus became dissatisfied. Tvashtar abandoned the gods and betook himself to the mountains with the dises of vegetation, in whose company he is often mentioned. The Ribhus refused to accept from the gods the proffered share in morning and noon sacrifices, and went away cursing their adversaries. They proceeded on long journeys, and the gods knew not where to find them (Rigv., i. 161, 1-13; iv. 33, 1-11, &c.). The result of this trouble between the primeval artists themselves, and between them and the gods, becomes clear from the significance which Tvashtar, he who nourishes the world, and the Ribhus, they who deck the deserts with vegetation, and irrigate the valleys, have as symbols of nature. The beneficent powers of nature, who hitherto had operated in the service of the gods, abandon their work, and over the world are spread that winter of which the Iranian mythology speaks, that darkness, and that reign of giant-monsters which, according to Rigveda, once prevailed, and during which time Indra, at the head of the gods, fought valiantly to restore order and to bring back the sun. Here we find remarkable points of contact, or rather contact surfaces, between the Asiatic-Aryan groups of myths and the Teutonic. The question is not as to similarity in special details. That kind of similarities may be

882 pointed out in nearly all mythic groups in the world, and, as a rule, altogether too bold hypotheses are built on the feeble foundations they offer. The question here is in regard to identity in great, central, connected collections of myths. Such are: The myths concerning an original harmony between a divine clan on the one hand, and artists subordinate to, and in the service of, the divine clan on the other band. Artists who produce fertility, ornaments, and weapons for the gods, know how to brew the strength- and inspiration-giving mead, and are closely connected with dises of vegetation, who, as we shall show, appear as swan-maids, not only in the Teutonic mythology but also in the Hinduic; the myths telling how this harmony was frustrated by a judgment in a competition, the contending parties being on the one hand he who in the Hinduic mythology made Indra’s thunderbolt, and in the Teutonic Thor’s thundering Mjolner; and on the other hand three brothers, of whom one is an excellent archer; the myths concerning the consequences of the judgment, the destruction of nature by frost-powers and giant-monsters; the myths (in the Iranian and Teutonic records of antiquity) concerning the subterranean paradise, in which a selection of the best beings of creation are protected against annihilation, and continue to live uncorrupted through centuries; the myths (in the Iranian and Teutonic records of antiquity) of the destiny of these beings, connected with the myths likewise common to the Iranian and Teutonic mythologies concerning the destruction and regeneration of the world. Common to the Hinduic and Teutonic mythology is also the idea that a cunning, spying

883 being, in Rigveda Dadhyak (Dadhyank), in the Icelandic sources Loke, has lost his head to an artist who smithied the bolt for Indra and the hammer for Thor, but saves his wager through cunning. An important observation should here be pointed out. A comparison between different passages in Rigveda shows, that of all the remarkable works of art which were exhibited to the gods for their examination, there was originally not one of metal. Tvashtar’s goblet was not made of gold, but of fire and water and a third element. Indra’s thunderbolt was made of the bones of the head of Dadhyak’s horse, and it is in a later tradition that it becomes bronze. Common to the Aryan-Asiatic and the Teutonic mythology is the ability of the primeval artists to make animals from empty skins of beasts, and of making from one work of art several similar ones (the goblet of the Ribhus, Sindre’s Draupner). In the Teutonic mythology, Thor’s hammer was not originally of metal, but of stone, and the other works produced by Sindre and Ivalde’s sons may in the course of centuries have undergone similar changes. It should also be noted that not a trace is to be found in the Asiatic groups of myths of a single one to be compared with that concerning Svipdag and the sword of victory. In the Teutonic heroic saga, Geirvandel, the spear-hero, is the father of Orvandel, the archer, and of him is born Svipdag, the sword-hero (cp. No. 123). The myth concerning the sword of victory seems to be purely Teutonic, and to have sprung into existence during one of the bronze or iron ages, while the myths concerning the judgment passed on the primeval

884 artists, and concerning the fimbul-winter following, must hail from a time when metals were not yet used by the Aryans. In the other event it would be most incredible to suppose that the judgment should concern works of art, of which not a single one originally suggested a product of metal. 112. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE JUDGEMENT PASSED ON THE IVALDE SONS (continued). NJORD’S EFFORTS TO BRING ABOUT A RECONCILIATION. It has already been stated that Fridlevus-Njord rescues a princely youth from the power of the giants. According to Saxo, the event was an episode in the feud between Fridlevus-Njord and Anundus (Volund), and Avo, the archer (Orvandel-Egil). This corroborates the theory that the rescued youth was Frey, Volund’s and Egil’s foster-son. The first one of the gods to be seized by fears on account of the judgment passed on Ivalde’s sons ought, naturally, to be Njord, whose son Frey was at that time in the care and power of Volund and Egil (see No. 109). We also learn from Saxo that Fridlevus took measures to propitiate the two brothers. He first sends messengers, who on his behalf woo the daughter of Anund-Volund, but the messengers do not return. Anund had slain them. Thereupon Fridlevus goes himself, accompanied by others, and among the latter was a “mediator.” The name of the mediator was Bjorno, and he was one of those champions who constituted the defence

885 of that citadel, which Fridlevus afterwards captured, and which we have recognised as Asgard (see No. 36). Thus Bjorno is one of the Asas, and there are reasons, which I shall discuss later, for assuming him to be Balder’s brother Hödr. The context shows that Fridlevus’ journey to Ivalde’s sons and meeting with them takes place while there was yet hope of reconciliation, and before the latter arrived in the inaccessible Wolfdales, which are situated below the Na-gates in the subterranean Jotunheim. On the way thither they must have been overtaken by Fridlevus, and doubtless the event occurred there which Saxo relates, and of which an account in historical form is preserved in the Longobardian migration saga. The meeting did not lead to reconcilation, but to war. Avo, the archer (Orvandel-Egil; see Nos. 108, 109) appeared on the one side and challenged Fridlevus-Njord to a duel. Bjorno became angry that a person of so humble descent as this Avo dared to challenge the noble-born Fridlevus, and in his wrath he drew his bow to fell “the plebeian” with an arrow. Thus Bjorno also was an archer. But Avo anticipated him, and an arrow from him severed Bjorno’s bow-string from the bow. While Bjorno was tying the string again, there came from Avo a second arrow, which passed between his fingers without hurting him, and then there came a third arrow, which shot away Bjorno’s arrow just as he was placing it on the string. Then the Ivalde sons continued their departure. Bjorno let loose a molossus he had with him to pursue them, probably the same giant-dog or giant wolf-dog which Saxo describes in a preceding chapter (Hist., 260)

886 as being in Bjorno’s possession, and which before had guarded the giant Offote’s herds. But this molossus was not able to prevent those fleeing from reaching their destination in safety. In all probability Frey had already been delivered by his wards to the giants when this happened. This must have occurred on the way between the abode abounding in gold, where Ivalde’s sons had formerly lived in happiness, and the Wolfdales, and so within Jotunheim, where the gods were surrounded by foes. The story of this adventure on the journey of the emigrating Ivalde sons reappears in a form easily recognised in Paulus Diaconus, where he tells of the emigration of the Longobardians under Ibor (Orvandel-Egil; see No. 108) and Ajo (Volund). In Saxo Avo-Egil, who belongs to the race of elves, becomes a lowborn champion, while the Vana-god Njord becomes King Fridlevus. In Paulus the saga is not content with making the great archer of the emigrants a plebeian, but he is made a thrall who challenges a chosen free-born warrior among the foes of the Longobardians. In the mythology and in Saxo the duel was fought with bows and arrows, and the plebeian was found to be far superior to his opponent. Paulus does not name the kind of weapons used, but when it had ended with the victory of “the thrall,” an oath was taken on an arrow that the thralls were to be freed from their chains by the Longobardians. Consequently the arrow must have been the thrall’s weapon of victory. In the mythology, the journey of the Ivalde sons to the Wolfdales was down to the lower world Jotunheim and northward

887 through Nifelhel, inhabited by thurses and monsters. Both in Saxo and Paulus this sort of beings take part in the adventures described. In Saxo, Fridlevus’ war-comrade Bjorno sends a monster in the guise of a dog against the sons of Ivalde. In Paulus, according to the belief of their enemies, the emigrants had as their allies “men with dog-heads.” Bjorno is an Asa-god; and he is described as an archer who had confidence in his weapon, though he proved to be inferior to Avo in the use of it. Among the gods of Asgard only two archers are mentioned — Hödr and Ullr. At the time when this event occurred Ull had not yet been adopted in Asgard. As has been shown above (see No. 102), he is the son of Orvandel-Egil and Sif. His abode is still with his parents when Svipdag, his half-brother, receives instructions from Sif to seek Frey and Freyja in Jotunheim (see No. 102), and he faithfully accompanies Svipdag through his adventures on this journey. Thus Ull is out of the question — the more so as he would in that case be opposing his own father. Hoder (Hödr) is mentioned as an archer both in the Beowulf poem, where he, under the name Hædcyn, shoots Balder-Herebeald accidentally with his “horn-bow,” and in Saxo (arcus peritia pollebat — Hist., 111), and in Christian tales based on myths, where he appears by the name Hedinn. That Bjorno, mentioned by Saxo as a beautiful youth, is Hoder is confirmed by another circumstance. He is said to be sequestris ordinis vir (Hist., 270), an expression so difficult to interpret that scholars have proposed to change it into sequioris or equestris ordinis vir.

888 The word shows that Bjorno in Saxo’s mythological authorities belonged to a group of persons whose functions were such that they together might be designated as a sequestris ordo. Sequester means a mediator in general, and in the law language of Rome it meant an impartial arbitrator to whom a dispute might be referred. The Norse word which Saxo, accordingly, translated with sequestris ordo, “the mediators,” “the arbitrators,” can have been none other than the plural ljónar, a mythological word, and also an old legal term, of which it is said in the Younger Edda: Ljónar heita their menn, er ganga um sœttir manna, “ljónar are called those men whose business it is to settle disputes.” That this word ljónar originally designated a certain group of Asa-gods whose special duty it was to act as arbitrators is manifest from the phrase ljóna kindir, “the children of the peacemakers,” an expression inherited from heathendom and applied to mankind far down in Christian times; it is an expression to be compared with the phrase megir Heimdallar, “Heimdal’s sons,” which also was used to designate mankind. In Christian times the phrase “children of men” was translated with the heathen expression ljóna kindir, and when the recollection of the original meaning of ljónar was obliterated, the word, on account of this usage, came to mean men in general (viri, homines), a signification which it never had in the days of heathendom. Three Asa-gods are mentioned in our mythological records as peacemakers — Balder, Hoder, and Balder’s son, Forsete. Balder is mentioned as judge in the Younger Edda (90). As such he is liksamastr — that is, “the most

889 influential peacemaker.” Of Forsete, who inherits his father’s qualities as judge, it is said in Grimnersmal (15) that he svefer allar sacir, “settles all disputes.” Hoder, who both in name and character appears to be a most violent and thoughtless person, seems to be the one least qualified for this calling. Nevertheless he performed the duties of an arbitrator by the side of Balder and probably under his influence. Saxo (Hist., 122) speaks of him as a judge to whom men referred their disputes — consueverat consulenti populo plebiscita depromere — and describes him as gifted with great talents of persuasion. He had eloquentiœ suavitatem, and was able to subdue stubborn minds with benignissimo sermone (Hist., 116, 117). In Völuspa (60) the human race which peoples the renewed earth is called burir brodra tvegia, “the sons of the two brothers,” and the two brothers mentioned in the preceding strophe are Balder and Hoder. Herewith is to be compared ljóna kindir in Völuspa (14). In Harbardsljod (42) the insolent mocker of the gods, Harbard, refers to the miserable issue of an effort made by jafnendr, “the arbitrators,” to reconcile gods with certain ones of their foes. I think it both possible and probable that the passage refers to the mythic event above described, and that it contains an allusion to the fact that the effort to make peace concerned the recovery of Frey and Freyja, who were delivered as “brides” to naughty giants, and for which “brides” the peacemakers received arrows and blows as compensation. Compare the expression bœta mundi baugi and Thor’s astonishment, expressed in the next strophe, at the insulting words, the worst of the kind

890 he ever heard. Saxo describes the giant in whose power Frey is, when he is rescued by his father, as a cowardly and enervated monster whose enormous body is a moles destituta rubore (Hist., 268). In this manner ended the effort of the gods to make peace. The three sons of Ivalde continue their journey to the Wolfdales, inaccessible to the gods, in order that they thence might send ruin upon the world. 113. PROOFS THAT IVALDE’S SONS ARE IDENTICAL WITH OLVALDE’S. Observations made in the course of my investigations anent Ivalde and his sons have time and again led me to the unexpected result that Ivalde’s sons, Slagfin, Egil, and Volund, are identical with Olvalde-Alvalde’s sons, who, in Grotte-song are called Ide, Urnir or Aurnir (Ornir), and thjazi, and in the Younger Edda (p. 214), thjazi, Ide, and Gangr. This result was unexpected and, as it seemed to me in the beginning, improbable, for the reason that where Thjasse is mentioned in the Elder Edda, he is usually styled a giant, while Volund is called a prince or chief of elves in Volundarkvida. In Grimnersmal (11) Thjasse is designated as inn amátki iotunn; in Harbardsljod (19) as enn thrudmothgi iotunn; in Hyndluljod (30) as a kinsman of Gymer and Aurboda. The Grotte-song (9) says that Thjasse, Ide, and Aurnir were brothers of those mountain giants who were the fathers of Menja and Fenja. In the Younger Edda he is also

891 called a jötunn. In the beginning of my researches, and before Volund’s position in the mythology was clear to me, it appeared to me highly improbable that a prince among the elves and one of the chief artists in the mythology could be characterised as a giant. Indeed I was already then aware that the clan-names occurring in the mythology — áss, vanr, álfr, dvergr, and jötunn — did not exclusively designate the descent of the beings, but could also be applied to them on account of qualities developed or positions acquired, regardless of the clan to which they actually belonged by their birth. In Thrymskvida (15), so to speak in the same breath, Heimdal is called both áss and vanr — “thá quath that Heimdallr, hvitastr ása, vissi han vel fram sem vanir áthrir.” And Loke is designated both as áss and jötunn, although the Asas and giants represent the two extremes. Neither Heimdal nor Loke are of the Asa-clan by birth; but they are adopted in Asgard, that is, they are adopted Asas, and this explains the appellation. Elves and dwarfs are doubtless by descent different classes of beings, but the word dwarf, which in the earliest Christian times became the synonym of a being of diminutive stature, also meant an artist, a smith, whence both Vans and elves, nay, even Fjalar, could be incorporated in the Völuspa dwarf-list. When, during the progress of my investigations, it appeared that Volund and his brothers in the epic of the mythology were the most dangerous foes of the gods and led the powers of frost in their efforts to destroy the world, it could no longer surprise me that Volund, though an elf prince, was characterised as inn ámátki iotunn, enn thrudmothgi

892 iotunn. But there was another difficulty in the way: according to Hyndluljod and the Grotte-song, Thjasse and his brothers were kinsmen of giants, and must therefore undoubtedly have had giant-blood in their veins. But there are kinsmen of the giants among the Asas too; and when in the progress of the investigation it appears that Thjasse’s mother is a giantess, but his father a hapt, a god of lower rank, then his maternal descent, and his position as an ally and chief of the giants, and as the most powerful foe of Asgard and Midgard, are sufficient to explain the apparent contradiction that he is at the same time a giant and a kinsman of the giants, and still identical with the elf-prince, Volund. It should also be observed that, as shall be shown below, the tradition has preserved the memory of the fact that Volund too was called a giant and had kinsmen among the giants. The reasons which, taken collectively, prove conclusively, at least to me, that Ivalde’s sons and Olvalde’s are identical are the following: (1) In regard to the names themselves, we note in the first place that, as has already been pointed out, the name of the father of Ide, of Aurnir-Gang, and of Thjasse appears with the variations Allvaldi, Olvalde, and Audvaldi. To persons speaking a language in which the prefixes I-, Id-, and Al- are equivalents and are substituted for one another, and accustomed to poetics, in which it was the most common thing to substitute equivalent nouns and names (for example, Grjótbjörn for Arinbjörn, Fjallgyldir for Ásólfr, &c.), it was impossible to see in Ivaldi and Allvaldi anything but names designating the same person.

893 (2) Anent the variation Olvalde we have already seen that its equivalents Olmodr and Sumbl (Finnakonungr, phinnorum rex) allude to Slagfin’s, Orvandel-Egil’s, and Volund’s father, while Olvalde himself is said to be the father of Ide, Aurnir, and Thjasse. (3) Ajo’s and Ibor’s mother is called Gambara in Origo Longobardorum and in Paulus Diaconus. Aggo’s and Ebbo’s mother is called Gambaruc in Saxo. In Ibor-Ebbo and Ajo-Aggo we have re-discovered Egil and Volund. The Teutonic stem of which the Latinised Gambara was formed is in all probability gambr, gammr, a synonym of gripr (Younger Edda, ii. 572), the German Greif. According to the Younger Edda (i. 314), Thjasse’s mother is the giantess Greip, daughter of Geirrödr. The forms grip, neuter, and greip, feminine, are synonyms in the Old Norse language, and they surely grew out of the same root. While Gambara thus is Volund’s mother, Thjasse’s mother bears a name to which Gambara alludes. (4) The variation Audvaldi means “the one presiding over riches,” and the epithet finds its explanation in the Younger Edda’s account of the gold treasure left by Thjasse’s father, and of its division among his sons (p. 214). It is there stated that Thjasse’s father was mjök gullaudigur. Ivalde’s sons, who gave the gods golden treasures, were likewise rich in gold, and in Volundarkvida Volund speaks of his and his kinsmen’s golden wealth in their common home. (5) Of the manner in which Thjasse and his brothers divided the golden treasure the Younger Edda contains,

894 in the above passage, the following statement: “When Olvalde died and his sons were to divide the inheritance, they agreed in the division to measure the gold by taking their mouths full of gold an equal number of times. Hence gold is called in poetry the words or speech of these giants.” It is both possible and assumable that in the mythology the brothers divided the gold in silence and in harmony. But that it should have been done in the manner here related may be doubted. There is reason to suspect that the story of the division of the gold in the manner above described was invented in Christian times in order to furnish an explanation of the phrase thingskil thjaza in Bjarkamál, of Idja glysmál in the same source, and of idja ord, quoted in Malskrudsfrœdi. More than one pseudo-mythic story, created in the same manner and stamped by the same taste, is to be found in the Younger Edda. It should not be forgotten that all these phrases have one thing in common, and that is, a public deliberation, a judicial act. Mál and ord do not necessary imply such an allusion, for in addition to the legal meaning, they have the more common one of speech and verbal statements in general; but to get at their actual significance in the paraphrases quoted we must compare them with thingskil, since in these paraphrases all the expressions, thingskil, glysmál, and ord, must be founded on one and the same mythic event. With thingskil is meant that which can be produced before a court by the defendant in a dispute to clear up his case; and as gold ornaments are called Thjasse’s thingskil in Bjarkamal, it should follow

895 that some judicial act was mentioned in the mythology, in which gold treasures made or possessed by Thjasse were produced to clear up a dispute which, in some way or other, touched him. From the same point of view Ide’s glysmál and Ide’s ord are to be interpreted. Ide’s glysmál are Ide’s “glittering pleadings”; his ord are the evidence or explanation presented in court by the ornaments made by or belonging to him. Now, we know from the mythology a court act in which precious works of the smiths, “glittering pleadings,” were produced in reference to the decision of a case. The case or dispute was the one caused by Loke, and the question was whether he had forfeited his head to Sindre or not. As we know, the decision of the dispute depended on a comparison between Brok’s and Sindre’s works on the one hand, and those of the Ivalde sons on the other. Brokk had appeared before the high tribunal, and was able to plead his and his brother’s cause. Ivalde’s sons, on the other hand, were not present, but the works done by them had to speak in their behalf, or rather for themselves. From this we have, as it seems to me, a simple and striking explanation of the paraphrases thjaza thingskil, Idja glysmál, Idja ord. Their works of art were the glittering but mute pleadings which were presented, on their part, for the decision of the case. That gold carried in the mouth and never laid before the tribunal should be called thingskil I regard as highly improbable. From heathen poems we cannot produce a single positive proof that a paraphrase of so distorted and inadequate a character was ever used. (6) Saxo relates that the same Fridlevus-Njord who

896 fought with Anund-Volund and Avo-Egil wooed Anund’s daughter and was refused, but was married to her after Anund’s death. Thus it would seem that Njord married a daughter of Volund. In the mythology he marries Thjasse’s daughter Skade. Thus Volund and Thjasse act the same part as father-in-law of Njord. (7) Saxo further relates that Freyja-Syritha’s father was married to the soror of Svipdag-Otharus. Soror means sister, but also foster-sister and playmate. If the word is to be taken in its strictest sense, Njord marries a daughter of Volund’s brother; if in its modified sense, Volund’s daughter. (8) In a third passage (Hist., 50, 53), Skade’s father appears under the name Haquinus. The same name belongs to a champion (Hist., 323) who assists Svipdag-Ericus in his combat with the Asa-god Thor and his favourite Halfdan, and is the cause that Thor’s and Halfdan’s weapons prove themselves worthless against the Volund sword wielded by Svipdag-Ericus. There is, therefore, every reason for regarding Haquinus as one of Saxo’s epithets for Volund. The name Hákon, of which Haquinus has been supposed to be the Latinised form, never occurs in the Norse mythic records, but Haquinus is in this case to be explained as a Latinisation with the aspirate usual in Saxo of the Old German Aki, the Middle German Ecke, which occurs in the compositions Eckenbrecht, Eckehard, and Eckesachs. In “Rosengarten,” Eckenbrecht is a celebrated weapon-smith. In Vilkinasaga, Eckehard is, like Volund, a smith who works for Mimer; and Eckesachs is a sword made by the three

897 dwarfs, of which in part the same story is told as of Volund’s sword of victory. Thus while Haquinus and what is narrated of Haquinus refers to the smith Volund, a person who in Saxo is called Haquinus assumes the place which belongs to Thjasse in his capacity of Skade’s father. (9) In Lokasenna (17), Loke reproaches Idun that she has embraced the slayer of her own brother: thic queth ec allra quenna vergjarnasta vera, sitztu arma thina lagdir itrthvegna um thinn brothurbana. Idun is a daughter of Ivalde (Forspjallsljod), and hence a sister or half-sister of the famous smiths, Ivalde’s sons. From the passage it thus appears that one of Ivalde’s sons was slain, and Loke insists that Idun had given herself to the man who was the cause of his death. There is not the slightest reason to doubt that in this instance, as in so many other cases, Loke boasts of the evil deeds he has committed, and of the successes he has had among the asynjes, according to his own assurances. With the reproches cast on Idun we should compare what he affirms in regard to Freyja, in regard to Tyr’s wife, in regard to Skade and Sif, in reference to all of whom he claims that they have secretly been his mistresses. Against Idun he could more easily and more truthfully bring this charge, for the reason that she was at one time wholly in his power, namely, when he stole into Thjasse’s halls and carried her away thence to Asgard (Younger Edda, i. 210-214).

898 Under such circumstances, that slayer of Idun’s brother, whom she is charged with embracing, can be none other than Loke himself. As a further allusion to this, the author of the poem makes Loke speak of a circumstance connected with the adventure — namely, that Idun, to sweeten the pleasure of the critical hour, washed her arms shining white — a circumstance of which none other than herself and her secret lover could know. Thus Loke is the cause of the slaying of one of the famous artists, Ivalde’s sons. The murders of which Loke boasts in the poem are two only, that of Balder and that of Thjasse. He says that he advised the killing of Balder, and that he was the first and foremost in the killing of Thjasse (fyrstr oc ofstr). Balder was not Idun’s brother. So far as we can make out from the mythic records extant, the Ivalde son slain must have been identical with Thjasse, the son of Alvalde. There is no other choice. (10) It has already been shown above that Volund and the swan-maid who came to him in the Wolfdales were either brother and sister or half-brother and half-sister. From what has been stated above, it follows that Thjasse and Idun were related to each other in the same manner. (11) Thjasse’s house is called Brunn-akr (Younger Edda, i. 312). In Volundarkvida (9) Volund is called Brunne. (12) Idun has the epithet Snót (Younger Edda, 306), “the wise one,” “the intelligent one.” Volund’s swan-maid has the epithet Alvitr, “the much-knowing one,” “the very intelligent one” (Volundarkvida, 1).

899 Volund has the epithet Asólfr (Hyndluljod; cp. No. 109). Thjasse has the epithet Fjallgylder (Younger Edda, 308), which is a paraphrase of Ásólfr (áss = fjöll, olfr = gyldir). (13) One of Volund’s brothers, namely Orvandel-Egil, had the epithet “Wild boar” (Ibor, Ebur). One of Thjasse’s brothers is called Urnir, Aurnir. This name means “wild boar.” Compare the Swedish and Norwegian peasant word orne, and the Icelandic word runi (a boar), in which the letters are transposed. (14) At least one of Alvalde’s sons was a star-hero, viz., Thjasse, whose eyes Odin and Thor fastened on the heavens (Harbardsljod, 18; younger Edda, i. 318, 214). At least one of Ivalde’s sons was a star-hero, viz., Orvandel-Egil (Younger Edda, i. 276, &c.). No star-hero is mentioned who is not called a son of Alvalde or is a son of Ivalde, and not a single name of a star or of a group of stars can with certainty be pointed out which does not refer to Alvalde’s or Ivalde’s sons. From the Norse sources we have the names Orvandelstá thjaza augu Lokabrenna, and reid Rögnis. Lokabrenna, the Icelandic name of Sirius, can only refer to the brenna (fire) caused by Loke when Thjasse fell into the vaferflames kindled around Asgard. In reid Rögnis, Rogner’s car, Rogner is, as shall be shown below, the epithet of a mythic person, in whom we rediscover both Volund and Thjasse. In Old English writings the Milky Way is called Vætlingastræt, Watlingestræt. The Watlings or Vætlings can only be explained as a patronymic meaning Vate’s sons. Vate is one of the names of the father of Volund and his

900 brothers (see No. 110). Another old English name of a star-group is Eburthrung, Eburthring. Here Egil’s surname Ebur, “wild boar,” reappears. The name Ide, borne by a brother of Thjasse, also seems to have designated a star-hero in England. At least two of these figures and names are very old and of ancient Aryan origin. I do not know the reasons why Vigfusson assumes that Orvandel is identical with Orion, but the assumption is corroborated by mythological facts. Orion is the most celebrated archer and hunter of Greek mythology, just as Orvandel is that of the Teutonic. Like Orvandel-Egil, he has two brothers of whom the one Lykos (wolf) has a Telchin name, and doubtless was originally identical with the Telchin Lykos, who, like Volund, is a great artist and is also endowed with powers to influence the weather. Orion could, so it is said, walk on the sea as well as on the land. Orvandel-Egil has skis, with which he travels on the sea as well as on the snow-fields, whence small ships are called Egil’s andrar, Egil’s skis (Kormak, 5). Orion woos a daughter of Oinopion. The first part of the word is oinos (wine); and as Oinopion is the son of Bacchus, there is no room for doubt that he originally had a place in the Aryan myth in regard to the mead. Orvandel-Egil woos a daughter of Sumbl (Olvalde), the king of the Finns, who in the Teutonic mythology is Oinopion’s counterpart. Orion is described as a giant, a tall and exceedingly handsome man, and is said to be a brother of the Titans. His first wife, the beautiful Sida, he soon lost by death; just as Orvandel lost Groa. Sida, Sida with its Dorian variation

901 Rhoa, Roa means fruit. The name Groa refers, like Sida, Rhoa, to vegetation, growth. After Sida’s decease, Orion woos Oinopion’s daughter, just as Orvandel-Egil woos the daughter of the Finnish king Sumbl after Groa’s death. He has a third erotic alliance with Eos. According to one record he is said to have been killed because, in his love of the chase, he had said that he would exterminate all game on earth. This statement may have its origin in the myth preserved by the Teutons about Volund’s and Orvandel-Egil’s effort to destroy all life on the earth by the aid of the powers of frost. Hesiod says that the Pleiades (which set when Orion rises above the horizon) save themselves from Orion in the stream of the ocean. The above-mentioned Old English name of a constellation Eburthrung may refer to the Pleiades, since the part thrung, drying, refers to a dense cluster of stars. The first part of the word, Ebur, as already stated, is a surname of Orvandel-Egil. It should be added that the points of similarity between the Orion and Orvandel myths are of such a nature that they exclude all idea of being borrowed one from the other. Like the most of the Greek myths in the form in which they have been handed down to us, the Orion myth is without any organic connection with any epic whole. The Orvandel myth, on the other hand, dovetails itself as a part into a mythological epic which, in grand and original outlines, represents the struggle between gods, patriarchs, ancient artists, and frost-giants for the control of the world. The name Thjasse, thjazi, in an older and uncorrupted form thizi, I regard to be most ancient like the person

902 that bears it. According to my opinion, Thjasse is identical with the star-hero mentioned in Rigveda, Tishya, the Tistrya of the Iranians, who in Rigveda (x. 64, 8) is worshipped together with an archer, who presumably was his brother. The German middle-age poetry has preserved the name Thjasse in the form Desen (which is related to thjazi as Delven is to thialfi). In “Dieterichs Flucht” Desen is a king, whose daughter marries Dieterich-Hadding’s father. In the Norse sources a sister of Thjasse (Alveig-Signe, daughter of Sumbl, the king of the Finns) marries Hadding’s father, Halfdan. Comnion to the German and Norse traditions is, therefore, that Hadding’s father marries a near kinswoman of Thjasse. (15) In the poem Haustlaung Thjasse’s adventure is mentioned, when he captured Loke with the magic rail. Here we get remarkable, hitherto misunderstood, facts in regard to Thjasse’s personality. That they have been misunderstood is not owing to lack of attention or acumen on the part of the interpreters. On the contrary, acumen has been lavished thereon.* In some cases the scholars have resorted to text-changes in order to make the contents intelligible, and this was necessary on account of the form in which our mythology hitherto has been presented, and that for good reasons, since important studies of another kind, especially of accurate editions of the Teutonic mythological texts, have claimed the time of scholars and compelled them to neglect the study of the epic connection of the myths and of their exceedingly rich and abundant synonymics. As a * See for example Th. Wisen’s investigations and Finnr Jonsson’s Krit. Stud. (Copenhagen, 1884).

903 matter of course, an examination of the synonymics and of the epic connection could not fail to shed another light than that which could be gained without this study upon a number of passages in the old mythological poems, and upon the paraphrases based on the myths and occurring in the historical songs. In Haustlaung Thjasse is called fadir mörna, “the father of the swords.” Without the least reason it has been doubted that a mythic person, that is so frequently called a giant, and whose connection with the giant world and whose giant nature are so distinctly held forth in our mythic sources, could be an artist and a maker of swords. Consequently the text has been changed to fadir mornar or fadir morna, the father of consumption or of the strength-consuming diseases, or of the feminine thurses representing these diseases. But so far as our mythic records give us any information, Thjasse had no other daughter than Skade, described as a proud, bold, powerful maid, devoted to achievements, who was elevated to the rank of an asynje, became the wife of the god of wealth, the tender stepmother of the lord of harvests (Skirnersmal), Frigg’s elja, and in this capacity the progenitress of northern rulers, who boasted their descent from her. That Thjasse had more daughters is indeed possible, but they are not mentioned, and it must remain a conjecture on which nothing can be built; and even if such were the case, it must be admitted that as Skade was the foremost and most celebrated among them, she is the first one to be thought of when there is mention of a daughter or of daughters of Thjasse. But that Skade should be spoken

904 of as a morn, a consumption-witch, and that Hakon Jarl should be regarded as descended from a demon of consumption, and be celebrated in song as the scion of such a person, I do not deem possible. The text, as we have it, tells us that Thjasse was the father of swords (mörnir = sword; see Younger Edda, i. 567; ii. 560, 620). We must confine ourselves to this reading and remember that this is not the only passage which we have hitherto met with where his name is put in connection with works of a smith. Such a passage we have already met with in thjaza thingskil. (16) In the same poem, Haustlaung, Thjasse is called hapta snytrir, “the one who decorated the gods,” furnished them with treasures. This epithet, too, appeared unintelligible, so long as none of the artists of antiquity was recognised in Thjasse; hence text-changes were also resorted to in this case in order to make sense out of the passage. The situation described is as follows: Odin and Hœnir, accompanied by Loke are out on a journey. They have traversed mountains and wildernesses (Bragarædur, 2), and are now in a region which, to judge from the context, is situated within Thjasse’s domain, Thrymheim. The latter, who is margspakr and lómhugadr (Haustl., 3, 12), has planned an ambush for Loke in the very place which they have now reached: a valley (Bragarædur, 2) overgrown with oak-trees (Haustl., 6), and the more inviting as a place of refreshment and rest, inasmuch as the Asas are hungry after their long journey (Bragarædur, 21), and see a herd of “yoke-bears” pasturing in the grass

905 near by. Thjasse has calculated on this and makes one of the bears act the part of a decoy (tálhreinn = a decoy reindeer — Haustlaung, 3; see Vigfusson’s Dict., 626), which permits itself to be caught by the travellers. That the animal belongs to Thjasse’s herds follows from the fact that it (str. 6) is said to belong to the “dis of the bow-string,” Skade, his daughter. The animal is slaughtered and a fire is kindled, over which it is to be roasted. Near the place selected for the eating of the meal there lies, as it were accidentally, a rail or stake. It resembles a common rail, but is in fact one of Thjasse’s smith-works, having magic qualities. When the animal is to be carved, it appears that the “decoy reindeer was quite hard between the bones for the gods to cut” (tálhreinn var medal beina tormidladr tífum — str. 3). At the same time the Asas had seen a great eagle flying toward them (str. 2), and alighting near the place where they prepared their feast (str. 3). From the context it follows that they took it for granted that the eagle guise concealed Thjasse, the ruler of the region. The animal being found to be so hard to carve, the Asas at once guess that Thjasse, skilled in magic arts, is the cause, and they immediately turn to him with a question, which at the same time tells him that they know who he is: Hvat, quotho, hapta snytrir hjálmfaldinn, thvi valda? “They (the gods) said (quotho): Why cause this (hvat thví valda) thou ornament-giver of the gods (hjálmfaldinn hapta snytrir), concealed in a guise (eagle

906 guise)?” He at once answers that he desires his share of the sacred meal of the gods, and to this Odin gives his consent. Nothing indicates that Odin sees a foe in Thjasse. There is then no difficulty in regard to the roast; and when it is ready and divided into four parts Thjasse flies down, but, to plague Loke, he takes so much that the latter, angry, and doubtless also depending on Odin’s protection if needed, seizes the rail lying near at hand and strikes the eagle a blow across the back. But Loke could not let go his hold of the rail; his hand stuck fast to one end while the other end clung to the eagle, and Thjasse flew with him and did not let go of him before he had forced him to swear an oath that he would bring Idun into Thjasse’s hands. So long as it was impossible to assume that Thjasse had been the friend of the gods before this event happened, and in the capacity of ancient artist had given them valuable products of his skill, and thus become a hapta snytrir, it was also impossible to see in him, though he was concealed in the guise of an eagle, the hjálmfaldinn here in question, since hjálmfaldinn manifestly is in apposition to hapta snytrir, “the decorator of the gods.” (The common meaning of hjálmr, as is well known, is a covering, a garb, of which hjálmr in the sense of a helmet is a specification.) It therefore became necessary to assume that Odin was meant by hjálmfaldinn and hapta snytrir. This led to the changing of quotho to quad and to the insertion in the manuscripts of a mun not found there, and to the exclusion of a thvi found there. The result was, moreover, that no notice was taken of the use made of the

907 expressions hjálmfaldinn and snytrir in a poem closely related to Haustlaung, and evidently referring to its description of Thjasse. This poem is Einar Skalaglam’s “Vellekla,” which celebrates Hakon Jarl, the Great. Hakon Jarl regarded himself as descended from Thjasse through the latter’s daughter, Skade (Háleygjatal), and on this account Vellekla contains a number of allusions to the mythic progenitor. The task (from a poetic and rhetorical point of view) which Einar has undertaken is in fact that of taking, so far as possible, the kernel of those paraphrases with which he celebrates Hakon Jarl (see below) from the myth concerning Thjasse, and the task is performed with force and acumen. In the execution of his poem Einar has had before him that part of Thjodolf’s Haustlaung which concerned Thjasse. In str. 6 he calls Thjasse’s descendant thjódar snytrir, taking his cue from Haustlaung, which calls Thjasse hapta snytrir. In str. 8 he gives Hakon the epithet hjálmi faldinn, having reference to Haustlaung, which makes Thjasse appear hjálmfaldinn. In str. 10 Hakon is a gard-Rögnir, just as Thjasse is a ving-Rögnir in Haustlaung. In str. 11 Hakon is a midjungr, just as Thjasse is a midjungr in Haustlaung. In str. 16 an allusion is made in the phrase vildi Yggsnidr fridar bildja to Haustlaung’s málunautr hváts mátti fridar bidja. In str. 21 Hakon is called hlym-Narfi, just as Thjasse in Haustlaung is called grjót-Nidhadr (Narfi and Nidhadr are epithets of Mimer; see Nos. 85, 87). In str. 22 Hakon is called fangsœll, and Thjasse has the same epithet in Haustlaung. Some of the paraphrases in Vellekla, to which the myth about Thjasse

908 furnishes the kernel, I shall discuss below. There can, therefore, be no doubt whatever that Einar in Haustlaung’s hjálmfaldinn and hapta snytrir saw epithets of Thjasse, and we arrive at the same result if we interpret the text in its original reading and make no emendations. Thus we have already found three paraphrases which inform us that Thjasse was an ancient artist, one of the great smiths of mythology: (1) thiaza thingskil, golden treasures produced as evidence in court owned or made by Thjasse; (2) hapta snytrir, he who gave ornaments to the gods; (3) fadir mörna, the father of the swords. Thjasse’s claim to become a table-companion of the gods and to eat with them, af helgu skutli, points in all probability to an ancient mythological fact of which we find a counterpart in the Iranian records. This fact is that, as a compensation for the services he had rendered the gods, Thjasse was anxious to be elevated to their rank and to receive sacrifices from their worshippers. This demand from the Teutonic star-hero Thjasse is also made by the Iranian star-hero Tistrya, Rigveda’s Tishya. Tistrya complains in Avesta that he has not sufficient strength to oppose the foe of growth, Apaosha, since men do not worship him, Tistrya, do not offer sacrifices to him. If they did so, it is said, then he would be strong enough to conquer. Tishya-Tistrya does not appear to have obtained complete rank as a god; but still he is worshipped in Rigveda, though very seldom, and in cases of severe dry weather the Iranians were commanded to offer sacrifices to him. (17) In Haustlaung Thjasse is called ving-Rögnir

909 vagna, “the Rogner of the winged cars,” and fjadrar-blads leik-Regin, “the Regin of the motion of the feather-leaf (the wing).” In the mythology Thjasse, like Volund, wears an eagle guise. In an eagle guise Volund flies away from his prison at Mimer-Nidadr’s. When Thjasse, through Loke’s deceit, is robbed of Idun, he hastens in wild despair, with the aid of his eagle guise, after the robber, gets his wings burned in the vaferflames kindled around Asgard, falls pierced by the javelins of the gods, and is slain by Thor. The original meaning of Regin is maker, creator, arranger, worker. The meaning has been preserved through the ages, so that the word regin, though applied to all the creative powers (Völuspa), still retained even in Christian times the signification of artist, smith, and reappears in the heroic traditions in the name of the smith Regin. When, therefore, Thjasse is called “the Regin of the motion of the feather-leaf,” there is no reason to doubt that the phrase alludes not only to the fact that he possessed a feather guise, but also to the idea that he was its “smith”; the less so as we have already seen him characterised as an ancient artist in the phrases thiaza thingskil, hapta snytrir, and fadir mörna. Thus we here have a fourth proof of the same kind. The phrase “the Rogner of the winged cars” connects him not only with a single vehicle, but with several. “Wing-car” is a paraphrase for a guise furnished with wings, and enabling its owner to fly through the air. The expression “wing-car” may be applied to several of the strange means used by the powers for locomotion through the air and over the sea, as, for instance, the cars

910 of Thor and Frey, Balder’s ship Hringhorne, Frey’s ship Skidbladner, and the feather garbs of the swan-maids. The mythology which knew from whose hands Skidbladner proceeded certainly also had something to say of the masters who produced Hringhorne and the above-mentioned cars and feather garbs. That they were made by ancient artists and not by the highest gods is an idea of ancient Aryan birth. In Rigveda it was the Ribhus, the counterparts of the Ivalde sons, who smithied the wonderful car-ship of the Asvinians and Indra’s horses. The appellations Rögnir and Regin also occur outside of Haustlaung in connection with each other, and this even as late as in the Skida-Rima, composed between 1400 and 1450, where Regin is represented as a smith (Rögnir kallar Regin til sín: rammliga skaltu smida — str. 102). In Forspjallsljod (10) we read Galdr gólo, gaundom ritho Rögnir ok Regin at ranni heimis — “Rogner and Regin sang magic songs at the edge of the earth and constructed magic implements.” They who do this are artists, smiths. In strophe 8 they are called viggiar, and viggi is a synonym of smidr (Younger Edda, i. 587). While they do this Idun is absent from Asgard (Forspjallsljod, str. 6), and a terrible cold threatens to destroy the earth. The words in Völuspa, with which the terrible fimbul-winter of antiquity is characterised, loptr lœvi blandinn, are adopted by Forspjallsljod (str. 6 — lopti med lœvi), thus showing that the same mythic event is there described. The existence of the order of the world is threatened, the earth and the source of light are attacked by evil influences, the life of nature is dying, from the

911 north (east), from the Elivagar rivers come piercing, rime-cold arrows of frost, which kill men and destroy the vegetation of the earth. The southern source of the lower world, whose function it is to furnish warming saps to the world-tree, was not able to prevent the devastations of the frost. “It was so ordained,” it is said in Forspjallsljod, str. 2, “that Urd’s Odrœrir (Urd’s fountain) did not have sufficient power to supply protection against the terrible cold.”* The destruction is caused by Rogner and Regin. Their magic songs are heard even in Asgard. Odin listens in Hlidskjalf and perceives that the song comes from the uttermost end of the world. The gods are seized by the thought that the end of the world is approaching, and send their messengers to the lower world in order to obtain there from the wise norn a solution of the problem of the world and to get the impending fate of the world proclaimed. In the dictionaries and in the mythological text-books Rögnir is said to be one of Odin’s epithets. In his excellent commentary on Vellekla, Freudenthal has expressed a doubt as to the correctness of this view. I have myself made a list of all the passages in the Old Norse literature where the name occurs, and I have thereby reached the conclusion that the statement in the dictionaries and in the text-books has no other foundation than the name-list in Eddubrott and the above-cited Skidarima, composed in the fifteenth century. The conceptions of the latter in regard to heathen mythology are of such a nature that it should * The editions have changed Urdar to Urdr, and thereby converted the above-cited passage into nonsense, for which in turn the author of Forspjallsljod was blamed, and it was presented as an argument to prove that the poem is spurious.

912 never in earnest be regarded as an authority anent this question. In the Old Norse records there cannot be found a single passage where Rögnir is used as an epithet of Odin. It is everywhere used in reference to a mythic being who was a smith and a singer of magic songs, and regularly, and without exception, refers to Thjasse. While Thjodolf designates Thjasse as the Rogner of the wing-cars, his descendant Hakon Jarl gets the same epithet in Einar Skalaglam’s paraphrases. He is hjörs brak-Rögnir, “the Rogner of the sword-din,” and Geirrásargard-Rögnir, “the Rogner of the wall of the sword-flight (the shield).” The Thjasse descendant, Sigurd Hladajarl, is, in harmony herewith, called fens furs Rögnir. Thrym-Rögnir (Eg., 58) alludes to Thjasse as ruler in Thrymheim. A parallel phrase to thrym-Rögnir is thrym-Regin (Younger Edda, i. 436). Thus, while Thjasse is characterised as Rögnir, Saxo has preserved the fact that Volund’s brother, Orvandel-Egil, bore the epithet Regin. Saxo latinises Regin into Regnerus, and gives this name to Ericus-Svipdag’s father (Hist., 192). The epithet Rögnir confines itself exclusively to a certain group — to Thjasse and his supposed descendants. Among them it is, as it were, an inheritance. The paraphrases in Vellekla are of great mythological importance. While other mythic records relate that Thjasse carried away Idun, the goddess of vegetation, the goddess who controls the regenerating forces in nature, and that he thus assisted in bringing about the great winter of antiquity, we learn from Vellekla that it was he who directly, and by separate magic acts, produced this winter,

913 and that he, accordingly, acted the same part in this respect as Rogner and Regin do in Forspjallsljod. Thus, for example, the poem on Hakon Jarl, when the latter fought against the sons of Gunhild, says: Hjörs brak-Rögnir skók bogna hagl úr Hlakkar seglum, “the Rogner of the sword-din shook the hail of the bows from the sails of the valkyrie.” The mythic kernel of the paraphrase is: Rögnir skók hagl ur seglum, “Rogner shook hails from the sails.” The idea is still to be found in the sagas that men endowed with magic powers could produce a hailstorm by shaking napkins or bags, filling the air with ashes, or by untying knots. And in Christian records it is particularly stated of Hakon Jarl that he held in honour two mythic beings — Thorgerd and Irpa — who, when requested, could produce storms, rain, and hail. No doubt this tradition is connected with Hakon’s supposed descent from Thjasse, the cause of hailstorms and of the fimbulwinter. By making Rogner the “Rogner of the sword-din,” and the hail sent by him “the hail of the bows,” and the sails or napkins shook by him “the sails of the valkyrie” — that is to say, the shields — the skald makes the mythological kernel pointed out develop into figures applicable to the warrior and to the battle. In other paraphrases Vellekla says that the descendant of Thjasse, Hakon, made “the death-cold sword-storm grow against the life of udal men in Odin’s storm,” and that he was “an elf of the earth of the wood-land” coming from the north, who, with “murder-frost,” received the warriors of the south (Emperor Otto’s army) at Dannevirke. Upon the whole Vellekla chooses the figures used

914 in describing the achievements of Hakon from the domain of cold and storm, and there can be no doubt that it does so in imitation of the Thjasse-myth. In another poem to Hakon Jarl, of which poem there is only a fragment extant, the skald Einar speaks of Hakon’s generosity, and says: Verk Rögnis mer hogna, “Rogner’s works please me.” We know that Hakon Jarl once gave Einar two gilt silver goblets, to which belonged two scales in the form of statuettes, the one of gold, the other of silver, which scales were thought to possess magic qualities, and that Hakon on another occasion gave him an exceedingly precious engraved shield, inlaid between the engraved parts with gold and studded with precious stones. It was customary for the skalds to make songs on such gifts. It follows, therefore, that the “works of Rogner,” with which Einar says he was pleased, are the presents which Hakon, the supposed descendant of Rogner-Thjasse, gave him; and I find this interpretation the more necessary for the reason that we have already found several unanimous evidences of Thjasse’s position in the mythology as an artist of the olden time. Forspjallsljod’s Rogner “sings magic songs” and “concocts witchcraft” in order to encourage and strengthen by these means of magic the attack of the powers of frost on the world protected by the gods. Haustlaung calls Thjasse ramman reimud Jötunheima, “the powerful reimud of Jotunheim.” The word reimud occurs nowhere else. It is thought to be connected with reimt and reimleikar, words which in the writings of Christian times refer to ghosts, supernatural phenomena, and reimudr

THOR, HYMIR, AND THE MIDGARD SERPENT (From a painting by Lorenz Frölich) Hymir, a giant and ruler of the winter sea, was the owner of a great kettle that brewed any quantity desired of the finest ale. The gods, eager to possess the kettle, sent Thor to obtain it. Proceeding to the borders of heaven, where Hymir lived, Thor assumed the form of a young man and appearing before the giant, asked permission to accompany him on a fishing excursion. The giant objected that so small a youth could not endure the hardships of such a journey, but finally consented. Thor secured necessary bait by tearing the head from a bull, and the two then set off to row far out to sea. Thor insisted upon going further until they came near the borders of the world, and the two began to fish. Hymir soon hooked and drew up two whales, which he boastfully showed as proof of his strength, but soon after Thor hooked the Midgard Serpent, which rose spouting floods of venom that greatly terrified Hymir. Thor pulled with so much strength on the line that he broke through the bottom of the boat, but his feet stood upon the bottom of the sea and he raised his hammer to strike the serpent; Hymir was so alarmed, however, that he cut the line and let the serpent escape. Thor then rowed back with Hymir to his castle, where he slew Hymir and several other giants and secured the kettle.

915 Jötunheima has therefore been interpreted as “the one who made Jotunheim the scene of his magic ants and ghost-like appearances.” From what has been stated above, it is manifest that this interpretation is correct. A passage in Thorsdrapa (str. 3), to which I shall recur below, informs us that at the time when Thor made his famous journey to the fire-giant Geirrod, Rogner had not yet come to an agreement with Loke in regard to the plan of bringing ruin on the gods. Rogner was, therefore, during a certain period of his life, the foe of the gods, but during a preceding period he was not an enemy. The same is true of Thjasse. He was for a time hapta snytrir, “the one giving the gods treasures.” At another time he carried away Idun, and appeared as one changed into dólgr ballastr vallar, “the most powerful foe of the earth” (Haustl., 6), an expression which characterises him as the cause of the fimbul-winter. There still remain one or two important passages in regard to the correct interpretation of the epithet Rogner. In Atlakvida (33) it is said of Gudrun when she goes to meet her husband Atle, who has returned home, carrying in her hand a golden goblet, that she goes to reifa gjöld Rögnis, “to present that requital or that revenge which Rogner gave.” To avenge her brothers, Gudrun slew in Atle’s absence the two young sons she had with him and made goblets of their skulls. Into one of these she poured the drink of welcome for Atle. A similar revenge is told about Volund. The latter secretly kills Nidadr’s two young sons and makes goblets out of their skulls for their father. In the passage it is stated

916 that the revenge of Gudrun against Atle was of the same kind as Rogner’s revenge against some one whom he owed a grudge. So far as our records contain any information, Volund is the only one to whom the epithet Rogner is applicable in this case. Of no one else is it reported that he took a revenge of such a kind that Gudrun’s could be compared therewith. In all other passages the epithet Rogner refers to “the father of the swords,” to the ancient artist Thjasse, the son of Alvalde. Here it refers to the father of the most excellent sword, to the ancient artist Volund, the son of Ivalde. The strophe in Vellekla, which compares the Thjasse descendant Hakon Jarl with the hail-producing Rogner, also alludes to another point in the myth concerning him by a paraphrase the kernel of which is: Varat svanglýjadi at frýja ofbyrjar né drifu, “it was impossible to defy the swan-pleaser in the matter of storm and bad weather.” The paraphrase is made applicable to Hakon by making the “swan-pleaser” into the “pleaser of the swan of the sword’s high-billowing fjord” — that is to say, the one who pleases the bird of the battlefield, that is, the raven. The storm is changed into “the storm of arrows,” and the bad weather into the “bad weather of the goddess of the battle.” The mythological kernel of this paraphrase, and that which sheds light on our theme, is the fact that Rogner in the mythology was “one who pleased the swans.” In the heroic poem three swan-maids are devoted in their love to Volund and his brothers. Volundarkvida says that the third one lays her arms around Volund-Anund’s white neck.

917 We will now combine the results of this investigation concerning Rogner, and in so doing we will first consider what is said of him when the name occurs independently, and not connected with paraphrases, and then what is said of him in paraphrases in which his name constitutes the kernel. Forspjallsljod describes Rogner as dwelling on the northernmost edge of the earth at the time when Idun was absent from Asgard. There he sings magic songs and concocts witchcraft, by which means he sends a destructive winter out upon the world. He is a “smith,” and in his company is found one or more than one mythic person called Regin. (Regin may be singular or plural.) Einar Skalaglam, who received costly treasures from Hakon Jarl, speaks in his song of praise to the latter of the “works of Rogner,” which please him, and which must be the treasures he received from the Jarl. In Thorsdrapa, Eilif Gudrunson relates that Rogner had not yet “associated himself” with Loke when Thor made his expedition to Geirrod. Atlakvida states that he revenged himself on some one, with which revenge the song compares Gudrun’s when she hands to Atle the goblets made of the skulls of the two young sons of the latter. All the facts presented in these passages are rediscovered in the myth concerning Ivalde’s sons — Volund, Egil, and Slagfin. There was a time when they were the friends of the gods and smithied for them costly treasures, and there was another time when they had the same plans as Loke tried to carry out in a secret manner —

918 that is, to dethrone the gods and destroy what they had created. They deliver their foster-son Frey, the young god of harvests, to the giants (see Nos. 109, 112) — an event which, like Idun’s disappearance from Asgard, refers to the coming of the fimbul-winter — and they depart to the most northern edge of the lower world where they dwell with swan-maids, dises of growth, who, like Idun in Forspjallsljod (str. 8), must have changed character and joined the world-hostile plots of their lovers. (Of Idun it is said, in the strophe mentioned, that she clothed herself in a wolf-skin given her by the smiths, and lyndi breytti, lek at lœvisi, litom skipti.) The revenge which Volund, during his imprisonment by Nidhad, takes against the latter explains why Atlakvida characterises Gudrun’s terrible deed as “Rogner’s revenge.” In regard to the witchcraft (gand) concocted by Rogner and Regin, it is to be said that the sword of victory made by Volund is a gandr in the original sense of this word — an implement endowed with magic powers, and it was made during his sojourn in the Wolfdales. One passage in Volundarkvida (str. 5), which hitherto has defied every effort at interpretation, shows that his skill was occupied with other magic things while he dwelt there. The passsage reads: Lucthi hann alla lindbauga vel. The “lind”-rings in question, smithied of “red gold” (see the preceding lines in strophe 5), are, according to the prefix, lind, linnr, serpent-formed rings, which again are gand- (witchcraft) rings on account of the mysterious qualities ascribed to the serpent. Lindbaugi is another form for linnbaugi, just as lindból is another form for

919 linnból. The part played by the serpent in the magic arts made it, when under the influence or in the possession of the magician, a gand, whence linnr, a serpent, could be used as a paraphrase of gandr, and gandr could in turn, in the compound Jörmungandr, be used as an epithet for the Midgard-serpent. The rings which Volund “closed well together” are gand-rings. The very rope (bast, böstr — Volundarkvida, 7, 12) on which he hangs the seven hundred gand-rings he has finished seems to be a gand, an object of witchcraft, with which Volund can bind and from which he can release the wind. When Nidhad’s men surprised Volund in his sleep and bound him with this rope, he asks ambiguously who “had bound the wind” with it (str. 12). In two passages in Volundarkvida (str. 4, 8) he is called vedreygr, “the storm-observer,” or “the storm-terrible.” The word may have either meaning. That Volund for his purposes, like Rogner, made use of magic songs is manifest from Saxo (Hist., 323, 324). According to Saxo it was by means of Volund-Haquinus’ magic song that the Volund-sword, wielded by Svipdag-Ericus, was able to conquer Thor’s hammer and Halfdan’s club. Passing now to the passages where the name Rogner occurs in paraphrases, I would particularly emphasise what I have already demonstrated: that Haustlaung with this name refers to Thjasse; that poems of a more recent date than Haustlaung, and connected with the same celebrated song, apply it to the supposed descendants of Thjasse, Hakon Jarl and his kinsmen; that all of these paraphrases represent Rogner as a producer of storm,

920 snow, and hail; and that Rogner made “wind-cars,” was a “Regin of the motion of the feather-leaf” (the wing), and “one who pleased the swans.” Therefore (a) Rogner is an epithet of Thjasse, and at the same time it designates Volund; (b) all that is said of Rogner, when the name in the paraphrases is a Thjasse-epithet, applies to Volund; (c) all that is said of Rogner, independently of paraphrases, applies to Volund. (18) A usage in the Old Norse poetry is to designate a person by the name of his opponent, when, by means of an additional characterisation, it can be made evident that the former and not the latter is meant. Thus, a giant can be called berg-thórr or grjót-Módi, because he once had Thor or Thor’s son Mode as an opponent, and these epithets particularly apply to giants who actually fought with Thor or Mode in the mythology. In contrast with their successors in Christian times, the heathen skalds took great pains to give their paraphrases special justification and support in some mythological event. For the same reason that a giant who had fought with Mode could be called grjót-Módi, Volund, as Nidad’s foe, could be called grjót-Nidudr. This epithet also occurs a single time in the Old Norse poetry, namely, in Haustlaung, and there it is applied to Thjasse. The paraphrase shows that the skald had in his mind a corresponding (antithetic) circumstance between Thjasse and Nidadr (Nidudr). What we are able to gather from our sources is, that Volund and Nidadr had had an encounter, and that one of so decisive a character, that the epithet grjót-Nidudr naturally would make the hearers think of Volund.

921 (19) When Loke had struck Thjasse, who was in eagle guise, with the magic pole, Thjasse flew up; and as Loke’s hand was glued fast to one end of the pole and the eagle held fast to the other end, Loke had to accompany the eagle on its flight. Haustlaung says that Thjasse, pleased with his prey, bore him a long distance (of veg lángan) through the air. He directed his course in such a manner that Loke’s body fared badly, probably being dragged over trees and rocks (svá at slitna sundr úlfs födor mundi.) Then follows in the poem the lines given below, which I quote from Codex Regius, with the exception of a single word (midjungs, instead of mildings), which I cite from Codex Wormianus. Here, as elsewhere, I base nothing on text emendations, because even such, for which the best of reasons may be given, do not furnish sufficient foundation for mythological investigation, when the changes are not supported by some manuscript, or are in and of themselves absolutely necessary. thá vard thórs ofrunni, thúngr var Loptr, of sprúnginn; málunautr hvats mátti midjungs fridar bidja. The contents of these lines, in the light of what has now been stated, are as follows: Thjasse’s pleasure in dragging Loke with him, and making his limbs come in disagreeable contact with objects on their way, was so great that he did not abstain therefrom, before he felt that he had over-exerted himself. Strong as he was, this could not but happen, for he had been flying with his burden very far from the place where

922 he captured Loke in the ambush he had laid; and, besides, Loke was heavy. The badly-hurt Loke had during the whole time desired to beg for mercy, but during the flight he was unable to do so. When Thjasse finally sank to the ground, Loke obtained a breathing space, so that he could sue for mercy. In the four lines there are four paraphrases. Thjasse is called thórs ofrunni or thórs ofrúni, “he who made Thor run,” or “he who was Thor’s friend,” and midjungr, a word the meaning of which it is of no importance to investigate in connection with the question under consideration. Loke is called Loptr, a surname which is applied to him many times, and málunautr hvats midjungs, “he who had journeyed with the female companion of the powerful Midjung (Thjasse).” The female companion (mála) of Thjasse is Idun, and the paraphrase refers to the myth telling how Loke carried Idun away from Thjasse’s halls, and flew with her to Asgard. With these preparatory remarks I am ready to present a literal translation of the passage: (Thjasse flew a long way with Loke, so that the latter came near being torn into pieces), “. . . thereupon (thá = deinde) became he who caused Thor to run (vard Thórs ofrunni) — or who became Thors friend (Thórs ofrúni) — tired out (ofsprúnginn), (for) Lopt was heavy (thúngr var Loptr). He (Loke) who had made a journey with the powerful Midjung’s (Thjasse’s) female companion (málunautr hvats midjungs) could (now finally) sue for peace (mátti fridar bidja).” In the lines —

923 thá vard thórs ofrunni thúngr var Loptr, ofsprúnginn — thúngr var Loptr clearly stands as an intermediate sentence, which, in connection with what has been stated above, namely, that Thjasse had been flying a long way with his burden, will justify and explain why Thjasse, though exceedingly strong, stronger than Hrungnir (the Grotte-song), still was at the point of succumbing from over-exertion. The skald has thus given the reason why Thjasse, “rejoicing in what he had caught,” sank to the earth with his victim, before Loke became more used up than was the case. To understand the connection, the word mátti in the third line is of importance. Hitherto the words málunautr hvats mátti midjungs fridar bidja have been interpreted as if they meant that Loke “was compelled” to ask Thjasse for peace. Mátti has been understood to mean coactus est. Finnr Jonsson (Krit. Stud., p. 48) has pointed out that not a single passage can with certainty or probability be found where the verb mega, mátti, means “to be compelled.” Everywhere it can be translated “to be able.” Thus the words mátti fridar bidja mean that Loke could, was able to, ask Thjasse for peace. The reason why he was able is stated above, where it is said that Thjasse got tired of flying with his heavy burden. Before that, and during the flight and the disagreeable collisions between Loke’s body and objects with which he came in contact, he was not able to treat with his capturer; but when the latter had settled on the ground, Loke got a breathing space, and could beg to

924 be spared. The half strophe thus interpreted gives the most logical connection, and gives three causes and three results: (1) Loke was able to use his eloquent tongue on speaking to Thjasse, since the latter ceased to fly before Loke was torn into pieces; (2) Thor’s ofrunni or ofrúni ended his air-journey, because he, though a very powerful person, felt that he had over-exerted himself; (3) he felt wearied because Loke, with whom he had been flying, was heavy. But from this it follows with absolute certainty that the skald, with Thor’s ofrunni or ofrúni, meant Thjasse and not Loke, as has hitherto been supposed. The epithet Thor’s ofrunni, “he who made Thor run,” must accordingly be explained by some mythic event, which shows that Thor at one time had to take flight on account of Thjasse. A single circumstance has come to our knowledge, where Thor retreats before an opponent, and it is hardly credible that the mythology should allow its favourite to retreat conquered more than once. On that occasion it is Volund’s sword, wielded by Svipdag, which cleaves Thor’s hammer and compels him to retire. Thus Volund was at one time Thor’s ofrunni. In Haustlaung it is Thjasse. Here, too, we therefore meet the fact which has so frequently come to the surface in these investigations, namely, that the same thing is told of Volund and of Thjasse. But by the side of ofrunni we have another reading which must be considered. Codex Wormianus has ofrúni instead of ofrunni, and, as Wisén has pointed out, this runni must, for the sake of the metre, be read rúni. According to this reading Thjasse must at some time

925 have been Thor’s ofrúni, that is, Thor’s confidential friend. This reading also finds its support in the mythology, as shall be demonstrated further on. I may here be allowed to repeat what I have remarked before, that of two readings only the one can be the original, while both may be justified by the mythology. (20) In the mythology are found characters that form a group by themselves, and whose characteristic peculiarity is that they practise ski-running in connection with the use of the bow and arrow. This group consists of the brothers Volund, Egil, Slagfin, Egil’s son Ull, and Thjasse’s daughter Skade. In the introduction to Volundarkvida it is said of the three brothers that they ran on skis in the Wolfdales and hunted. We have already referred to Egil’s wonderful skis, that could be used on the water as well as on the snow. Of Ull we read in Gylfaginning (Younger Edda, i. 102): “He is so excellent an archer and ski-runner that no one is his equal”; and Saxo tells about his Ollerus that he could enchant a bone (the ice-shoe formed of a bone, the pendant of the ski), so that it became changed into a ship. Ull’s skis accordingly have the same qualities as those of his father Egil, namely, that they can also be used on the sea. Ull’s skis seem furthermore to have had another very remarkable character, namely, that when their possessor did not need them for locomotion on land or on sea, they could be transformed into a shield and be used in war. In this way we explain that the skalds could employ skip Ullar, Ullar far, knörr Örva áss, as paraphrases for shields, and that, according to one statement in the Edda Lovasina,

926 Ullr átti skip that, er Skjöldr hét. So far as his accomplishments are concerned, Ull is in fact the counterpart of his father Egil, and the same may be said of Skade. While Ull is called “the god of the skis,” Skade is called “the goddess of the skis,” “the dis of the skis,” and “the dis of the sea-bone,” sœvar beins dis, a paraphrase which manifestly has the same origin as Saxo’s account of the bone enchanted by Ull. Thus Thjasse’s daughter has an attribute belonging to the circle of Volund’s kinsmen. The names also connect those whom we find to be kinsmen of Volund with Thjasse’s. Alvalde is Thjasse’s father; Ivalde is Volund’s. Ívaldi is another form for Idvaldi. The long prefixed Í in Ívaldi is explained by the disappearance of d from Idvaldi. Id reappears in the name of Ivalde’s daughter Idun and Thjasse’s brother Idi, and these are the only mythological names in which Id appears. Furthermore, it has already been pointed out, that of Alvalde’s (Olvalde’s) three sons there is one who has the epithet Wildboar (Aurnir, Urnir); and that among Ivalde’s three sons there is one — namely, Orvandel-Egil — who has the same epithet (Ibor, Ebur, Ebbo); and that among Alvalde’s sons one — namely, Thjasse — has the epithet Fjallgyldir, “mountain-wolf” (Haustlaung); while among Ivalde-Olmod’s sons there is one — namely, Volund — who has the epithet Ásólfr, which also means “mountain-wolf.” In this connection it must not be forgotten that tradition has attached the qualities of giants, not only to Thjasse, but also to Volund. That this does not appear

927 in the Elder Edda depends simply on the fact that Volund is not mentioned by this name in the genuine mythic songs, but only in the heroic fragment which we have in Volundarkvida. The memory that Volund, though an elf-prince in the mythology, and certainly not a full-blooded giant on his father’s side, was regarded and celebrated in song as a iötunn, — the memory of this not only survives in Vilkinasaga, but appears there in an exaggeration fostered by later traditions, to the effect that his father Vadi (see No. 110) is there called a giant, while his father’s mother is said to have been a mermaid. In another respect, too, there survives in Vilkinasaga the memory of a relationship between Volund and the most famous giant-being. He and the giants Etgeir (Eggther) and Vidolf are cousins, according to chapter 175. If we examine the Norse sources, we find Vidolf mentioned in Hyndluljod (53) as progenitor of all the mythological valas, and Aurboda, the most notorious of the valas of mythology, mentioned in strophe 30 as a kinswoman of Thjasse. Thus while Hyndluljod makes Thjasse, the Vilkinasaga makes Volund, a kinsman of the giant Vidolf. Though in a form greatly changed, the Vilkinasaga has also preserved the memory of the manner in which Volund’s father closed his career. With some smiths (“dwarfs”) who lived in a remote mountain, Vadi had made an agreement, according to which, in return for a certain compensation, his son Volund should learn their wonderful art as smiths. When, toward the close of the time agreed upon, Vadi appeared outside of the mountain, he was, before entering, killed by an avalanche in

928 accordance with a treacherous arrangement of these smiths. In the mythology Thjasse’s father is the great drink-champion who, among his many names and epithets, as we have seen, also has some that refer to his position in the mythology in regard to fermented beverage: Svigdir (the great drinker), Ölvaldi, Ölmódr, Sumbl Finnakonungr. In regard to Svigdir’s death, it has already been shown (see No. 89) that, on his complete disappearance from the mythology, he is outside of a mountain in which Suttung and Suttung’s sons, descendants of Surt-Durinn, with Mimer the most ancient smith (see No. 89), have their halls; that on his arrival a treacherous dwarf, the doorkeeper of Suttung’s sons, goes to meet him, and that he is “betrayed” by the dwarf, never enters the rocky halls, and consequently must have died outside. Vilkinasaga’s very late statements (probably taken from German traditions), in regard to the death of Volund’s father, thus correspond in the main features with what is related in the Norse records as to how Thjasse’s father disappeared from the scene of mythology. In regard to the birth and rank of Thjasse’s father among the mythic powers, the following statements in poems from the heathen time are to be observed. When Haustlaung tells how Thjasse falls into the vaferflames kindled around Asgard, it makes use of the words Greipar bidils son svidnar, “the son of Greip’s wooer is scorched.” Thus Thjasse’s mother is the giantess Greip, who, according to a stanza cited in the Younger Edda, i. 288, is a daughter of the giant Geirrödr and a sister of Gjalp. One

929 of these sisters, and, so far as we can see, Greip, is, in Thorsdrapa, called meinsvarans hapts arma farmr, “the embrace of the arms of the perjurous hapt.” Höpt, sing. hapt, is, like bönd, meaning the same, an appellation of lower and higher powers, numina of various ranks. If by the perjurous mistress of the hapt Greip, and not the sister Gjalp, is meant, then Thjasse’s father is a being who belonged to the number of the numina of the mythology, and who, with a giantess whose bidill he had been, begat the son Thjasse, and probably also the latter’s brothers Idi and Gángr (Aurnir). What rank this perjurous hapt held among the powers is indicated in Vellekla, strophe 9, which, like the foregoing strophe 8, and the succeeding strophes 10, 11, treats of Hakon Jarl’s conflicts at Dannnevirke, whither he was summoned, in the capacity of a vassal under the Danish king, Harald Blue-tooth, to defend the heathen North against Emperor Otto II.’s effort to convert Denmark to Christianity by arms. The strophe, which here, too, in its paraphrases presents parallels between Hakon Jarl and his mythic progenitor Thjasse, says that the Danish king (fémildr konungr) desired that the Myrkwood’s Hlodyn’s (Myrk-wood’s earth’s, that is to say, the woody Norway’s) elf, he who came from the North (myrkmarkar Hlodynjar alfs, thess er kom nordan), was to be tested in “murder-frost,” that is to say, in war (vid mord-frost freista), when he (Denmark’s king) angrily bade the cold-hard storm-watcher (stirdan vedrhirdi, Hakon Jarl) of the Hordaland dwellers (of the Norsemen) defend Dannevirke (Virki varda) against the southland Njords of the shield-din (fyr

930 serkja-hlym-val-Njordum, “the princes of the southland warriors”). Here, too, the myth about Thjasse and of the fimbul-winter forms the kernel out of which the paraphrases adapted to Hakon Jarl have grown. Hakon is clothed with the mask of the cold-hard storm-watcher who comes from the North and can let loose the winter-winds. Emperor Otto and the chiefs who led the southern troops under him are compared with Njord and his kinsmen, who, in the mythology, fought with Volund and the powers of frost, and the battle between the warriors of the South and the North is compared with a “murder-frost,” in which Hakon coming from the North meets the Christian continental Teutons at Dannevirke. Thus the mythical kernel of the strophe is as follows: The elf of the Myrkwood of Hlodyn, the cold-hard storm-watcher, tested his power with frost-weather when he fought with Njord and his kinsmen. The Hlodyn of the Myrkwood — that is to say, the goddess of the Jotunheim woods — is in this connection Thjasse’s daughter Skade, who, in Háleygjatal, is called Járnvidja of Járnvidr, the Ironwood, which is identical with the Myrkwood (Darkwood). Thjasse himself, whose father is called “a perjurous hapt“ in Thorsdrapa, is here called an elf. Alone, this passage would not be sufficient to decide the question as to which class of mythical beings Thjasse and his father belonged, the less so as álfr, applied in a paraphrase, might allude to any sort of being according to the characterisation added. But “perjurous hapt“ cannot possibly be a paraphrase for a

931 giant. Every divinity that has violated its oath is “a perjurous hapt,” and the mythology speaks of such perjuries. If a god has committed perjury, this is no reason why he should be called a giant. If a giant has committed perjury, this is no reason why he should be called a hapt, for it is nothing specially characteristic of the giant nature that it commits perjury or violates its oath. In fact, it seems to me that there should be the gravest doubts about Thjasse’s being a giant in the strictest and completest sense of the word, from the circumstances that he is a star-hero; that distinguished persons considered it an honour to be descended from him; that Hakon Jarl’s skalds never tired of clothing him with the appearance of his supposed progenitor, and of comparing the historical achievements of the one with the mythical exploits of the other; and that he, Thjasse, not only robbed Idun, which indeed a genuine giant might do, but that he also lived with her many long years, and, so far as we can see, begat with her the daughter Skade. It should be remembered, from the foregoing pages, what pains the mythology takes to get the other asynje, Freyja, who had fallen into the hands of giants, back pure and undefiled to Asgard, and it is therefore difficult to believe that Idun should be humiliated and made to live for many years in intimacy with a real giant. It follows from this that when Thjasse, in the above-cited mythological kernel of the strophe of Vellekla, is called an álfr, and when his father in Thorsdrapa is called a hapt, a being of higher or lower divine rank, then álfr is a further definition of the idea hapt, and informs us to which class of numina

932 Thjasse belonged — namely, the lower class of gods called elves. Thus, on his father’s side, Thjasse is an elf. So is Volund. In Volundarkvida he is called a prince of elves. Furthermore, it should be observed that, in the strophe-kernel presented above, Thjasse is represented as one who has fought with Njord and his allies. In Saxo it is Anund-Volund and his brother the archer who fight with Njord-Fridlevus and his companions; and as Njord in Saxo marries Anund-Volund’s daughter, while in the mythology he marries Thjasse’s daughter, then this is another recurrence of the fact which continually comes to the surface in this investigation, namely, that whatever is told of Volund is also told of Thjasse. 114. PROOFS THAT IVALDE’S SONS ARE OLVALDE’S (continued). A REVIEW OF THORSDRAPA. (21) We now come to a mythic record in which Thjasse’s brothers Idi and Gángr, and he too, in a paraphrase, are mentioned under circumstances well suited to throw light on the subject before us, which is very important in regard to the epic connection of the mythology. Of Thor’s expedition to Geirrod, we have two very different accounts. One is recorded by the author of Skaldskaparmal; the other is found in Eilif Gudrunson’s Thorsdrapa. In Skaldskaparmal (Younger Edda, i. 284) we read: Only for pleasure Loke made an expedition in Freyja’s feather guise, and was led by his curiosity to seat himself

933 in an opening in the wall of Geirrod’s house and peep in. There he was captured by one of Geirrod’s servants, and the giant, who noticed from his eyes that it was not a real falcon, did not release him before he had agreed so to arrange matters that Thor should come to Geirrod’s hall without bringing with him his hammer and belt of strength. This Loke was able to bring about. Thor went to Geirrod without taking any of these implements — not even his steel gloves — with him. Loke accompanied him. On the way thither Loke visited the giantess whose name was Grídr, and who was Vidar the Silent’s mother. From her Thor learned the facts about Geirrod — namely, that the latter was a cunning giant and difficult to get on with. She lent Thor her own belt of strength, her own iron gloves, and her staff, Grídarvölr. Then Thor proceeded to the river which is called Vimur, and which is the greatest of all rivers. There he buckled on his belt of strength, and supported himself in the stream on the Grídarvölr. Loke held himself fast to the belt of strength. When Thor reached the middle of the stream, the water rose to his shoulders. Thor then perceived that up in a mountain chasm below which the river flowed stood Gjalp, Geirrod’s daughter, with one foot on each side of the river, and it was she who caused the rising of the tide. Then Thor picked up a stone and threw it at the giantess, saying: “At its mouth the river is to be stopped.” He did not miss his mark. Having reached the other bank of the river, he took hold of a rowan, and thus gained the land. Hence the proverb: “Thor’s salvation, the rowan.” And when Thor came to Geirrod a goat-house

934 was first given to him and Loke (according to Codex Regius; according to the Uppsala Codex a guest-house) as their lodgings. Then are related the adventures Thor had with Geirrod’s daughters Gjalp and Greip, and how he, invited to perform games in Geirrod’s hall, was met by a glowing iron which Geirrod threw against him with a pair of tongs, but which he caught with the iron gloves and threw back with so great force that the iron passed through a post, behind which Geirrod had concealed himself, and through Geirrod himself and his house wall, and then penetrated into the earth. This narrative, composed freely from mythical and pseudo-mythical elements, is related to Thorsdrapa, composed in heathen times, about in the same manner as Skaldskaparmal’s account of Odin and Suttung is related to that of Havamál. Just as in Skaldskaparmal punctum saliens lies in the coarse jest about how poor poetry originated, so here a crude anecdote built on the proverb, “A stream is to be stemmed at its mouth,” seems to be the basis of the story. In Christian times the mythology had to furnish the theme not only for ancient history, heroic poems, and popular traditions, but also for comic songs. Now, a few words in regard to Thorsdrapa. This song, excellent from the standpoint of poetry and important from a mythological point of view, has, in my opinion, hitherto been entirely misunderstood, not so much on account of the difficulties found in the text — for these disappear, when they are considered without any preconceived opinion in regard to the contents — as on account of the undeserved faith in Skaldskaparmal’s account of

935 Thor’s visit to Geirrod, and on account of the efforts made under the influence of this misleading authority to rediscover the statements of the latter in the heathen poem. In these efforts the poetics of the Christian period in Iceland have been applied to the poem, and in this way all mythological names, whose real meaning was forgotten in later times, have received a general faded signification, which on a more careful examination is proved to be incorrect. With a collection of names as an armoury, in which the names of real or supposed “dwarfs,” “giants,” “sea-kings,” &c., are brought together and arranged as synonyms, this system of poetics teaches that from such lists we may take whatever dwarf name, giant name, &c., we please to designate which ever “dwarf,” “giant,” &c., we please. If, therefore, Thorsdrapa mentions “Idi’s chalet” and “Gángr’s war-vans,” then, according to this system of poetics, Ide and Gángr — though they in heathen times designated particular mythic persons who had their own history, their own personal careers — have no other meaning than the general one of “a giant,” for the reason that Idi and Gángr are incorporated in the above-named lists of giant names. Such a system of poetics could not arise before the most of the mythological names had become mere empty sounds, the personalities to whom they belonged being forgotten. The fact that they have been adapted, and still continue to be adapted, to the poems of the heathen skalds, is one of the reasons why the important contributions which names and paraphrases in the heathen poetry are able to furnish in mythological investigations have remained an unused treasure.

936 While Skaldskaparmal makes Loke and no one else accompany Thor to Geirrod, and represents the whole matter as a visit to the giant by Thor, we learn from Thorsdrapa that this journey to Jotunheim is an expedition of war, which Thor makes at the head of his warriors against the much-dreaded chief of giants, and that on the way thither he had to fight a real battle with Geirrod’s giants before he is able to penetrate to the destination of his expedition, Geirrod’s hall, where the giants put to flight in the battle just mentioned gather, and where another battle is fought. Thorsdrapa does not mention with a single word that Loke accompanied Thor on this warlike expedition. Instead of this, we learn that he had a secret understanding with one of Geirrod’s daughters, that he encouraged Thor to go, and gave him untruthful accounts of the character of the road, so that, if not Thor himself, then at least the allies who went with him, might perish by the ambush laid in wait for them. That Loke, under such circumstances, should accompany Thor is highly incredible, since his misrepresentations in regard to the character of the way would be discovered on the journey, and reveal him as a traitor. But since Skaldskaparmal states that Loke was Thor’s companion, the interpreters of Thorsdrapa have allowed him so to remain, and have attributed to him — the traitor and secret ally of the giants — and to Thjalfe (who is not mentioned in the Skaldskaparmal account) the exploits which Thor’s companions perform against the giants. That the poem, for instance, in the expression Thjáfi med ýta sinni, “Thjalfe with his companions,” in the most distinct manner emphasises

937 the fact that a whole host of warriors had Thor as their leader on this expedition, was passed over as one of the obscure passages in which the poem was supposed to abound, and the obscurity of which simply consists in their contradicting the story in Skaldskaparmal. Thorsdrapa does not mention with a single word that Thor, on his journey to Geirrod, stopped at the home of a giantess Grídr, and borrowed from her a staff, a belt of strength, and iron gloves; and I regard it as probable that this whole episode in Skaldskaparmal has no other foundation than that the staff which Thor uses as his support on wading across the rapid stream is in Thorsdrapa now called gridarvölr, “the safety staff,” and again, brautar lids tollr, “the way-helping tree.” The name gridarvölur, and such proverbs as at ósi skall á stemma and reynir er björg thórs, appear to be the staple wares by the aid of which the story in Skaldskaparmal was framed. The explanation given in Skaldskaparmal of the proverb reynir er björg thórs, that, by seizing hold of a rowan growing on the river bank, Thor succeeded in getting out of the river, is, no doubt, an invention by the author of the story. The statement cannot possibly have had any support in the mythology. In it Thor is endowed with ability to grow equal to any stream he may have to cross. The rowan mentioned in the proverb is probably none other than the “way-helping tree,” the “safety staff,” on which he supports himself while wading, and which, according to Thorsdrapa (19), is a brotningr skógar, a tree broken or pulled up in the woods. I now pass to the consideration of the contents of Thorsdrapa:

938 Strophe 1. The deceitful Loke encourages Thor to go from home and visit Geirrod, “the master of the temple of the steep altars.” The great liar assures him that green paths would take him to Geirrod’s halls, that is to say, they were accessible to travellers on foot, and not obstructed by rivers. NOTE. — For Thor himself the condition of the roads might be of less importance. He who wades across the Elivagar rivers and subterranean streams did not need to be very anxious about finding water-courses crossing his paths. But from the continuation of the poem we learn that this expedition to Jotunheim was not a visit as a guest, or a meeting to fight a duel, as when Thor went to find Hrungner, but this time he is to press into Jotunheim with a whole army, and thus the character of the road he was to travel was of some importance. The ambush laid in his way does not concern Thor himself, but the giant-foes who constitute his army. If the latter perish in the ambush, then Geirrod and his giants will have Thor alone to fight against, and may then have some hope of victory. Strophe 2. Thor did not require much urging to undertake the expedition. He leaves Asgard to visit Jotunheim. Of what happened on the way between Asgard and the Elivagar rivers, before Thor penetrated into Jotunheim, the strophe says: thá er gjardvenjodr When the belt-wearer (Thor, the possessor of the belt of strength)

939 endr (= iterum, rursus) now, as on former occasions, ríkri Idja Gandvikr-setrs skotum strengthened by the men of Ide’s chalet situated near Gandvik, gördist frá thridia til Ymsa kindar, was on his way from Odin to Ymsi’s (Ymer’s) race, fystust their (Cod. Worm.) fýrstuz (Cod. Reg.) it was to them (to Thor and to the men of Ide’s chalet) a joy (or they rushed thither) at thrysta thorns nidjum to conquer Thorn’s (Bolthorn-Ymer’s) kinsmen. NOTE. — The common understanding of this passage is (1) that endr has nothing to do with the contents, but is a complementary word which may be translated with “once upon a time,” a part which endr has to play only too often in the interpretation of the old poems; (2) that Ide is merely a general giant name, applicable, like every other giant name, in a paraphrase Idja setr, which is supposed to mean Jotunheim; (3) that rikri Idja setrs skotum or rikri Gandvikr skotum was to give the hearers or readers of Thorsdrapa the (utterly unnecessary) information that Thor was stronger than the giants; and (4) that they who longed to subdue Ymer’s kinsmen were Thor and Loke — the same Loke who, in secret understanding with the giant-chief and with one of his daughters (see below), has the purpose of enticing Thor and his companions in arms into a trap! Rikri . . . skotum is to be regarded as an elliptical sentence in which the instrumental preposition, as is often the case, is to be understood. When Thor came from

940 Asgard to the chalet of Ide, situated near Gandvik, he there gets companions in arms, and through them he becomes rikri, through them he gets an addition to his own powers in the impending conflicts. The fact that when Thor invades Jotunheim he is at the head of an army is perfectly evident from certain expressions in the poem, and from the poem as a whole. Whence could all these warriors come all of a sudden? They are not dwellers in Asgard, and he has not brought them with him in his lightning chariot. They live near Gandvik, which means “the magic bay,” the Elivagar. Gandvik was a purely mythological-geographical name before it became the name of the White Sea in a late Christian time, when the sea between Greenland and America got the mythic name Ginungagap. Their being the inhabitants on the coast of a bay gives the author of Thorsdrapa an occasion further on to designate them as vikings, bayings. We have already seen that it is a day’s journey between Asgard and the Elivagar (see No. 108), and that on the southern coast Thor has an inn, where he stops, and where his precious team and chariot are taken care of while he makes expeditions into Jotunheim. The continuation of the poem shows that this time, too, he stopped at this inn, and that he got his warriors there. Now, as always before, he proceeds on foot, after having reached Jotunheim. Strophe 3 first makes a mythic chronological statement, namely, that the daughter of Geirrod, “skilled in magic,” had come to an understanding with Loke, before Rogner became the ally of the latter. This mythic chronological

941 statement shows (1) that there was a time when Rogner did not share Loke’s plans, which were inimical to the gods; (2) that the events recounted in Thorsdrapa took place before Rogner became a foe of the gods. Why Thorsdrapa thinks it necessary to give this information becomes apparent already in the fourth strophe. Then the departure from Ide’s chalet is mentioned. The host hostile to the giants proceeds to Jotunheim, but before it gets thither it must traverse an intermediate region which is called Endil’s meadow. We might expect that instead of speaking of a meadow as the boundary territory which had to be traversed before getting into Jotunheim, the poem would have spoken of the body of water behind which Jotunheim lies, and mentioned it by one of its names — Elivagar, Gandvik, or Hraun. But on a more careful examination it appears that Endil’s meadow is only a paraphrase for a body of water. The proof of this is found in the fact that “Endil’s skis,” Endils andrar, Endils itrskid, is a common paraphrase for ship. So is Endils eykr, “Endil’s horse.” The meadow which Endil crosses on such skis and on such a horse must therefore be a body of water. And no other water can be meant than that which lies between Endil’s chalet and Jotunheim, that is, Elivagar, Gandvik. The name Endill may be the same as Vendill, Vandill (Younger Edda, i. 548), and abbreviation of Orvandell. The initial V was originally a semi-vowel, and as such it alliterated with other semi-vowels and with vowels (compare the rhymes on an Oland runic stone, Vandils jörmungrundar urgrandari). This easily disappearing semi-vowel

942 may have been thrown out in later times where it seemed to obscure the alliteration, and thus the form Endil may have arisen from Vendil, Vandil. “Orvandel’s meadow” is accordingly in poetic language synonymous with Elivagar, and the paraphrase is a fitting one, since Orvandel-Egil had skis which bore him over land and sea, and since Elivagar was the scene of his adventures. Strophe 4 tells that after crossing “Endil’s meadow” the host of warriors invaded Jotunheim on foot, and that information about their invasion into the land of the giants came to the witches there. Two important facts are here given in regard to these warriors: they are called Gángs gunn-vanir and Vargs fridar, “Gang’s warrior-vans,” and “Varg’s defenders of the land.” Thus, in the first strophes of Thorsdrapa, we meet with the names of Olvalde’s three sons: Rögnir (Thjasse), Idi, and Gángr. The poem mentions Rögnir’s name in stating that the expedition occurred before Rögnir became the foe of the gods; it names Ide’s name when it tells that it was at his (Ide’s) chalet near Gandvik that Thor gathered these warriors around him; and it names Gángr’s name, and in connection therewith Vargr’s name, when it is to state who the leaders were of those champions who accompanied Thor against Geirrod. Under such circumstances it is manifest that Thorsdrapa relates an episode in which Ide, Gang, and Thjasse appear as friends of Thor and foes of the giants, and that the poem locates their original country in the regions on the south coast of Elivagar, and makes Idja setr to be situated near the same strand, and play in Thor’s expeditions

943 the same part as Orvandel-Egil’s abode near the Elivagar, which is also called chalet, Geirvandil’s setr, and Ýsetr. The Vargr who is mentioned is, therefore, so far as can be seen, Rogner-Thjasse himself, who in Haustlaung, as we know, is called fjallgyldir, that is to say, wolf. All the warriors accompanying Thor were eager to fight Ymer’s descendants, as we have seen in the second strophe. But the last lines of strophe 4 represent one in particular as longing to contend with one of the warlike and terrible giantesses of giant-land. This champion is not mentioned by name, but he is characterised as bragdmildr, “quick to conceive and quick to move”; as brœdivœndr, “he who is wont to offer food to eat”; and as bölkveitir or bölkvetir Loka, “he who compensated Loke’s evil deed.” The characterisations fit Orvandel-Egil, the nimble archer and ski-runner, who, at his chalet, receives Thor as his guest, when the latter is on his way to Jotunheim, and who gave Thor Thjalfe and Roskva as a compensation, when Loke had deceitfully induced Thjalfe to break a bone belonging to one of Thor’s slaughtered goats for the purpose of getting at the marrow. If Thorsdrapa had added that the champion thus designated also was the best archer of mythology, there could be no doubt that Egil was meant. This addition is made further on in the poem, and of itself confirms the fact that Egil took part in the expedition. Strophe 5, compared with strophes 6 and 7, informs us that Thor, with his troop of champions, in the course of his march came into one of the wild mountain-regions of Jotunheim. The weather is bad and hail-showers fall.

944 And here Thor finds out that Loke has deceived him in the most insolent manner. By his directions Thor has led his forces to the place where they now are, and here rushes forth from between the mountains a river into which great streams, swelling with hail-showers, roll down from the mountains with seething ice-water. To find in such a river a ford by which his companions can cross was for Thor a difficult matter. Strophe 6. Meanwhile the men from Ide’s chalet had confidently descended into the river. A comparison with strophes 7 and 8 shows that they cautiously kept near Thor, and waded a little farther up the river than he. They used their spears as staffs, which they put down into the stony bottom of the river. The din of the spears, when their metallic points came in contact with the stones of the bottom, blended with the noise of the eddies roaring around the rocks of the river (Knátti hreggi höggvin hlymthel vid möl glymja, enn fjalla fellihryn thaut med Fedju stedja). Strophe 7. In the meantime the river constantly rises and increases in violence, and its ocean-like billows are already breaking against Thor’s powerful shoulders. If this is to continue, Thor will have to resort to the power inherent in him of rising equally with the increase of the waves. NOTE. — But the warriors from Ide’s sæter, who do not possess this power, what are they to do? The plan laid between Loke and the witches of Jotunheim is manifestly to drown them. And the succeeding strophes show that they are in the most imminent danger.

945 Strophes 8 and 9. These bold warriors waded with firm steps; but the billowing masses of water increased in swiftness every moment. While Thor’s powerful hands hold fast to the staff of safety, the current is altogether too strong for the spears, which the Gandvik champions have to support themselves on. On the mountains stood giantesses increasing the strength of the current. Then it happened that “the god of the bow, driven by the violence of the billows, rushed upon Thor’s shoulder (kykva naudar áss, blasinn hrönjardar skafls hretvidri, thurdi haudrs runn of herdi), while Thjalfe with his comrades came, as if they had been automatically lifted up, and seized hold of the belt of the celestial prince” (Thor) (unnz tjálfi med ýta sinni kom sjálflopta á himinsjóla skaunar-seil). NOTE. — Thus the plan laid by Loke and the giantesses to drown the men hostile to the giants, the men dwelling on the south coast of the Elivagar, came near succeeding. They were saved by their prudence in wading higher up the stream than Thor, so that, if they lost their foothold, they could be hurled by the eddies against him. One of the Gandvik champions, and, as the continuation of the poems shows, the foremost one among them, here characterised as “the god of the bow,” is tossed by a storm-billow against Thor’s shoulders, and there saves himself. Thjalfe and the whole remaining host of the warriors of Ide’s sæter have at the same time been carried by the waves down against Hlodyn’s powerful son, and save themselves by seizing hold of his belt of strength. With

946 “the god of the bow” on his shoulders, and with a whole host of warriors clinging to his waist, Thor continues his wading across the stream. In strophe 8, the Gandvik champions are designated by two paraphrases. We have already seen them described as “Gang’s warrior-vans” and as “Varg’s land-defenders.” Here they are called “the clever warriors of the viking-sæter” (víkinga setrs snotrir gunnar runnar) and “Odin’s land-defenders, bound by oaths” (Gauta eidsvara fridar). That Ide’s sæter is called “the vikings’ sæter” is explained by the fact that it is situated near Gandvik, and that these bayings had the Elivagar as the scene of their conflicts with the powers of frost. That they are Odin’s land-defenders, bound by oaths, means that they are mythical beings, who in rank are lower than the Asas, and are pledged by oaths to serve Odin and defend his territory against the giants. Their sæter (chalet) near Gandvik is therefore an outpost against the powers of frost. It follows that Ide, Gang, and Thjasse originally are numina, though of a lower, serving rank; that their relation to the higher world of gods was of such a character that they could not by their very nature be regarded as foes of the giants, but are bound to the cause of the gods by oaths; but on the other hand they could not be full-blooded giants of the race produced from Ymer’s feet (see No. 86). Their original home is not Jotunheim itself, but a land bordering on the home of the giants, and this mytho-geographical locality must correspond with their mytho-genealogical position. The last strophe in Thorsdrapa calls the giants slain by the Gandvik champions “Alfheim’s

947 calves,” Alfheim’s cattle to be slaughtered, and this seems to indicate that these champions belong to the third and lowest of those clans into which the divinities of the Teutonic mythology are divided, that is, the elves. The Gandvik champion who rescues himself on Thor’s shoulders, while the rest of them hold fast to his girdle, is a celebrated archer, and so well known to the hearers of Thorsdrapa, that it was not necessary to mention him by name in order to make it clear who he was. In fact, the epithet applied to him, “the god of the bow” (áss kykva naudar, and in strophe 18, tvívidar Týr), is quite sufficient to designate him as the foremost archer of mythology, that is, Orvandel-Egil, who is here carried on Thor’s shoulders through the raging waves, just as on another occasion he was carried by Thor in his basket across the Elivagar. Already in strophe 4 he is referred to as the hero nimble in thought and body, who is known for his hospitality, and who made compensation for Loke’s evil deed. The foremost one next after him among the Gandvik champions is Thjalfe, Egil’s foster-son. The others are designated as Thjalfe’s ýta sinni, his body of men. Thus we find that the two foremost among “Gang’s warrior-vans,” who with Thor marched forth from “Ide’s sæter,” before Rogner (Thjasse) became Loke’s ally, are Volund’s and Slagfin’s brother Egil and Egil’s foster-son Thjalfe. We find that Egil and Thjalfe belong to the inhabitants of Ide’s sæter, where Thor on this occasion had stopped, and where he had left his chariot and goats, for now, as on other occasions, he goes on foot to Jotunheim.

948 And as in other sources Egil is mentioned as the one who on such occasions gives lodgings to Thor and his goats, and as Thorsdrapa also indicates that he is the hospitable host who had received Thor in his house, and had paid him a ransom for the damage caused by Loke to one of his goats, then this must be a most satisfactory proof that Ide’s sæter is the same place as the Geirvadils setr inhabited by Egil and his brothers, and that Orvandel-Egil is identical either with Ide or with Gang, from which it follows, again, that Alvalde’s (Olvalde’s) sons, Ide, Gang, and Thjasse, are identical with Ivalde’s sons, Slagfin, Egil, and Volund. That Egil is identical with Gang and not with Ide is apparent from a comparison with the Grotte-song. There Olvalde’s sons are called Idi, Aurnir, and Thjazi, while in the Younger Edda they are called Idi, Gangr, and Thjazi. Thus Aurnir is identical with Gángr, and as Aurnir means “wild boar,” and as “wild boar” (Ebur, Ibor, Ebbo) is an epithet of Egil, Orvandel-Egil must be identical with Gang. In regard to the rest of Thorsdrapa I may be brief, since it is of less interest to the subject under discussion. Strophe 10. In spite of the perilous adventure described above, the hearts of Thjalfe and the Gandvik champions were no more terrified than Thor’s. Here they are designated as eids fiardar, “the men pledged by oath,” with which is to be compared eidsvara fridar in strophe 8. Strophes 11, 12, show that Thor landed safely with his burden. Scarcely had he and his companions got a

949 firm foothold on the other strand before Geirrod’s giant-clan, “the world-tree-destroying folk of the sea-belt,” came to the spot, and a conflict arose, in which the attacks of the giants were firmly repulsed, and the latter were finally forced to retreat. Strophe 13. After the victory Thor’s terrible hosts pressed farther into Jotunheim to open Geirrod’s hall, and they arrived there amid the din and noise of cave-dwellers. The following strophes mention that Thor broke the backs of Geirrod’s daughters, and pressed with his warriors into Geirrod’s hall, where he was received with a piece of red-hot iron hurled by the latter, which, hurled back by Thor, caused the death of the giant-chief. Thor had given the glowing javelin such a force that some one who stood near him, probably Egil, “drank so that he reeled in the air-current of the piece of iron the air-drink of Hrimner’s daughter” (svalg hrapmunum á siu lopti Hrimnis drósar lyptisylg). Hrimner’s daughter is Gulveig-Heid (Hyndluljod, 32), and her “air-drink” is the fire, over which the gods held her lifted on their spears (Völuspa, 21). As we see from the context, Geirrod’s halls were filled with the men who had fled from the battle near the river, and within the mountain there arose another conflict, which is described in the last three strophes of the poem. Geirrod’s hall shook with the din of battle. Thor swung his bloody hammer. “The staff of safety,” “the help-tree of the way,” the staff on which Thor supported himself in crossing the river, fell into Egil’s hands (kom ad tvívidar Tývi brautar lids tollr), who did not here have

950 room to use his bow, but who, with this “convenient tree jerked (or broken) from the forest,” gave death-blows to “the calves of Alfheim.” The arrows from his quiver could not be used in this crowded place against the men of the mountain-chief. The fact that the giants in Thorsdrapa use the sling is of interest to the question concerning the position of the various weapons of mythology. Geirrod is called vegtaugar thrjótr, “the industrious applier of the sling” (str. 17), and álmtaugar Ægir, “the Ægir of the sling made of elm-bast.” In the last strophe Egil is said to be helblótinn and hneitir, undirfjálfs bliku, expressions to which I shall recur further on. Like the relation between Volund and his swan-maids in Volundarkvida, the relation between Rogner-Thjasse and Idun in Forspjallsljod is not that of the robber to his unwilling victim, but one of mutual harmony. This is confirmed by a poem which I shall analyse when the investigation reaches a point that demands it, and according to which Idun was from her childhood tied by bonds of love and by oath to the highly-gifted but unhappy son of Ivalde, to the great artist who, by his irreconcilable thirst for revenge, became the Lucifer of Teutonic mythology, while Loke is its Mefisto. I presume that the means of rejuvenation, the divine remedy against age (ellilyf ása — Haustlaung), which Idun alone in Asgard knows and possesses, was a product of Thjasse-Volund’s art. The middle age also remembered Volund (Wieland) as a physician, and this trait seems to be from the oldest time,

951 for in Rigveda, too, the counterparts of the Ivalde sons, that is, the Ribhus, at the request of the gods, invent means of rejuvenation. It may be presumed that the mythology described his exterior personality in a clear manner. From his mother he must have inherited his giant strength, which, according to the Grotte-song, surpassed Hrungner’s and that of the father of the latter (Hard var Hrungnir ok hans fadir, thó var Thjazi theim auflgari — str. 9). With his strength beauty was doubtless united. Otherwise, Volundarkvida’s author would scarcely have said that his swan-maid laid her arms around Anund’s (Volund’s) “white” neck. That his eyes were conceived as glittering may be concluded from the fact that they distinguish him on the starry canopy as a star-hero, and that in Volundarkvida Nidhad’s queen speaks of the threatening glow in the gaze of the fettered artist (amon ero augu ormi theim enom frána — str. 17). Ivalde’s sons — Thjasse-Volund, Aurnir-Egil, and Ide-Slagfin — are, as we have seen, bastards of an elf and a giantess (Greip, Gambara). Ivalde’s daughters, on the other hand (see No. 113), have as mother a sun-dis, daughter of the ruler of the atmosphere, Nokver. In other sources the statement in Forspjallsljod (6) is confirmed, that Ivalde had two groups of children, and that she who “among the races of elves was called Idun” belonged to one of them. Thus, while Idun and her sisters are half-sisters to Ivalde’s sons, these are in turn half-brothers to pure giants, sons of Greip, and these giants are, according to the Grotte-song (9), the fathers of Fenja and Menja. The relationship of the Ivalde sons

952 to the gods on the one hand and to the giants on the other may be illustrated by the following scheme: 115. REVIEW OF THE PROOFS OF VOLUND’S IDENTITY WITH THJASSE. The circumstances which first drew my attention to the necessity of investigating whether Thjasse and Volund were not different names of the same mythic personality, which the mythology particularly called Thjasse, and which the heroic saga springing from the mythology in Christian times particularly called Volund, were the following: (1) In the study of Saxo I found in no less than three passages that Njord, under different historical masks, marries a daughter of Volund, while in the mythology he marries a daughter of Thjasse. (2) In investigating the statements anent Volund’s father in Volundarkvida’s text and prose appendix I found that these led to the result that Volund was a son of Sumbl, the Finn king — that is to say, of Olvalde, Thjasse’s father. (3) My researches in regard to the myth about the mead produced the result that Svigder-Olvalde perished by the treachery of a dwarf outside of a mountain, where one of the smith-races of the mythology, Suttung’s sons, had their abode. In Vilkinasaga’s account of the death of

953 Volund’s father I discovered the main outlines of the same mythic episode. The correspondence of so different sources in so unexpected a matter was altogether too remarkable to permit it to be overlooked in my mythological researches. The fact that the name-variation itself, Alvalde (for Olvalde), as Thjasse’s father is called in Harbardsljod, was in meaning and form a complete synonym of Ivalde I had already observed, but without attaching any importance thereto. The next step was to examine whether a similar proof of the identity of Thjasse’s and Volund’s mother was to be found. In one Norse mythological source Thjasse’s mother is called Greip. Volund’s and Egil’s (Ajo’s and Ibor’s, Aggo’s and Ebbo’s) mother is in Paulus Diaconus and in Origo Longobardorum called Gambara, in Saxo Gambaruc. The Norse stem in the Latinised name Gambara is Gammr, which is a synonym of Greip, the name of Thjasse’s mother. Thus I found a reference to the identity of Thjasse’s mother and Volund’s mother. From the parents I went to the brothers. One of Volund’s brothers bore the epithet Aurnir, “wild boar.” Aurnir’s wife is remembered in the Christian traditions as one who forebodes the future. Ebur’s wife is a mythological seeress. One of Thjasse’s brothers, Ide, is the only one in the mythology whose name points to an original connection with Ivalde (Idvalde), Volund’s father, and with Idun, Volund’s half-sister. Volund himself bears the epithet Brunne, and Thjasse’s home is Brunns-acre. One of Thjasse’s sons is slain at the instigation of Loke, and Loke, who in Lokasenna takes pleasure in stating

954 this, boasts in the same poem that he has caused the slaying of Thjasse. In regard to bonds of relationship in general, I found that on the one side Volund, like Thjasse, was regarded as a giant, and had relations among the giants, among whom Vidolf is mentioned both as Volund’s and Thjasse’s relative, and that on the other hand Volund is called an elf-prince, and that Thjasse’s father belonged to the clan of elves, and that Thjasse’s daughter is characterised, like Volund and his nearest relatives, as a ski-runner and hunter, and in this respect has the same epithet as Volund’s nephew Ull. I found, furthermore, that so far as tradition has preserved the memory of star-heroes, every mythic person who belonged to their number was called a son of Ivalde or a son of Olvalde. Orvandel-Egil is a star-hero and a son of Ivalde. The Watlings, after whom the Milky Way is named, are descendants of Vate-Vadi, Volund’s father. Thjasse is a star-hero and the son of Olvalde. Ide, too, Thjasse’s brother, “the torch-bearer,” may have been a star-hero, and, as we shall show later, the memory of Volund’s brother Slagfin was partly connected with the Milky Way and partly with the spots on the moon; while, according to another tradition, it is Volund’s father whose image is seen in these spots (see Nos. 121, 123). I found that Rogner is a Thjasse-epithet, and that all that is stated of Rogner is also told of Volund. Rogner was, like the latter, first the friend of the gods and then their foe. He was a “swan-gladdener,” and Volund the lover of a swan-maid. Like Volund he fought against

955 Njord. Like Volund he proceeded to the northernmost edge of the world, and there he worked with magic implements through the powers of frost for the destruction of the gods and of the world. And from some one he has taken the same ransom as Volund did, when the latter killed Nidhad’s young sons and made goblets of their skulls. I found that while Olvalde’s sons, Ide, Aurnir (Gang), and Thjasse, still were friends of the gods, they had their abode on the south coast of the Elivagar, where Ivalde had his home, called after him Geirvadils setr, and where his son Orvandel-Egil afterwards dwelt; that Thor on his way to Jotunheim visits Ide’s setr, and that he is a guest in Egil’s dwelling; that the mythological warriors who dwell around Ide’s setr are called “warrior-vans,” and that these “Gang’s warrior-vans” have these very persons, Egil and his foster-son Thjalfe, as their leaders when they accompany Thor to fight the giants, wherefore the setr of the Olvalde sons Ide and Gang must be identical with that of the Ivalde sons, and Ide, Gang, and Thjasse identical with Slagfin, Egil, and Volund. On these foundations the identity of Olvalde’s sons with Ivalde’s sons is sufficiently supported, even though our mythic records had preserved no evidence that Thjasse, like Volund, was the most celebrated artist of mythology. But such evidence is not wanting. As the real meaning of Regin is “shaper,” “workman,” and as this has been retained as a smith-name in Christian times, there is every reason to assume that Thjasse, who is called fjadrar-blads leik-Regin and vingvagna Rögnir, did himself make, like

956 Volund, the eagle guise which he, like Volund, wears. The son of Ivalde, Volund, made the most precious treasures for the gods while he still was their friend, and the Olvalde son Thjasse is called hapta snytrir, “the decorator of the gods,” doubtless for the reason that he had smithied treasures for the gods during a time when he was their friend and Thor’s ofrúni (Thor’s confidential friend). Volund is the most famous and, so far as we can see, also the first sword-smith, which seems to appear from the fact that his father Ivalde, though a valiant champion, does not use the sword but the spear as a weapon, and is therefore called Geirvandill. Thjasse was the first sword-smith, otherwise he would not have been called fadir mörna, “the father of the swords.” Splendid implements are called verk Rögnis and Thjaza thingskil, Idja glýsmál, Idja ord — expressions which do not find their adequate explanation in the Younger Edda’s account of the division of Olvalde’s estate, but in the myth about the judgment which the gods once proclaimed in the contest concerning the skill of Sindre and the sons of Ivalde, when the treasures of the latter presented in court had to plead their own cause. 116. A LOOK AT THE MYTH CONCERNING THJASSE-VOLUND. HIS EPITHET HLEBARDR. HIS WORST DEED OF REVENGE. What our mythic records tell us about the sons of Olvalde and the sons of Ivalde is under such circumstances

957 to be regarded as fragments which come to us from one and the same original myth. When combined, the fragments are found to dovetail together and form one whole. Volundarkvida (28) indicates that something terrible, something that in the highest degree aroused his indignation and awakened his deep and satanic thirst for revenge, had happened to Volund ere he, accompanied by his brothers, betook himself to the wintry wilderness, where he smithied the sword of revenge and the gand rings; and the poem makes Volund add that this injustice remained to be avenged when he left the Wolf-dales. It lies in the nature of the case that the saga about Volund did not end where the fragment of the Volundarkvida which we possess is interrupted. The balance of the saga must have related what Volund did to accomplish the revenge which he still had to take, and how the effort to take vengeance resulted. The continuation probably also had something to say about that swan-maid, that dis of vegetation, who by the name Hervor Alvitr spends nine years with Volund in the Wolfdales, and then, seized by longing, departs with the other swan-maids, but of whose faithful love Volund is perfectly convinced (Volundarkvida, 10). While Volund is Nidhad’s prisoner, the hope he has built on the sword of revenge and victory smithied by him seems to be frustrated. The sword is in the power of Mimer-Nidhad, the friend of the gods. But the hope of the plan of revenge must have awakened again when Svipdag, Volund’s nephew, succeeded in coming up from the lower world with the weapon in his possession. The conflict between the powers of frost and the kinsmen of

958 Ivalde, who had deserted the gods, on the one side, and the gods and their favourite Halfdan, the Teutonic patriarch, on the other side, was kindled anew (see No. 33). Halfdan is repulsed, and finally falls in the war in which Volund got satisfaction by the fact that his sword conquered Thor’s Mjolner and made Thor retreat. But once more the hope based on the sword of revenge is frustrated, this time by the possessor of the sword itself, Volund’s young kinsman, who — victor in the war, but conquered by the love he cherished for Freyja, rescued by him — becomes the husband of the fair asynje and gives the sword of Volund to Frey, the god of the harvests. That, in spite of this crossing of his plan of revenge, Volund still did not give it up may be taken for granted. He is described not only as the most revengeful, but also as the most persistent and patient person (see “Doer the Scald’s Complaint”), when patience could promote his plans. To make war on the gods with the aid of the giants, when the sword of victory had fallen into the hands of the latter, could not give him the least hope of success. After the mythology has given Volund satisfaction for the despicable judgment passed on the products of his skill, it unites the chain of events in such a manner that the same weapon which refuted the judgment and was to cause the ruin of the gods became their palladium against its own maker. What was Volund able to do afterwards, and what did he do? The answer to this question is given in the myth about Thjasse. With Idun — the Hervor Alvitr of the heroic poem — he confined himself in a mountain, whose halls he presumably decorated

959 with all the wonders which the sagas of the middle ages, describing splendid mountain-halls and parks within the mountains, inherited from the mythology. The mountain must have been situated in a region difficult of access to the gods — according to Bragarædur in Jotunheim. At all events, Thjasse is there secure against every effort to disturb him, forcibly, in his retreat. The means against the depredations of time and years which Idun possesses have their virtue only when in her care. Without this means, even the gods of Asgard are subject to the influence of time, and are to grow old and die. And in the sense of a myth symbolising nature, the same means must have had its share in the rejuvenation of creation through the saps rising every year in trees and herbs. The destruction of the world — the approach of which Volund wished to precipitate with his sword of revenge — must come slowly, but surely, if Idun remains away from Asgard. This plan is frustrated by the gods through Loke, as an instrument compelled by necessity — compelled by necessity (Haustlaung, str. 11), although he delighted in the mischief of deceiving even his allies. Near Thjasse’s mountain-halls is a body of water, on which he occasionally rows out to fish (Bragarædur). Once, when he rows out for this purpose, perhaps accompanied by Skade, Idun is at home alone. Loke, who seems to have studied his customs, flies in a borrowed feather guise into the mountain and steals Idun, who, changed into a nut, is carried in his claws through space to Asgard. But the robbing of Idun was not enough for Loke. He enticed Thjasse to pursue. In his inconsiderate zeal, the latter

960 dons his eagle guise and hastens after the robber into Asgard’s vaferflames, where he falls by the javelins of the gods and by Thor’s hammer. Sindre’s work, the one surpassed by Volund, causes his death, and is avenged. I have already pointed out that this event explains Loke’s words to Idun in Lokasenna, where he speaks of the murder of one of the Ivalde sons, and insists that she, Idun, embraced the one who caused his death. The fate of the great artist and his tragical death help to throw light on the character of Loke and on the part he played in the mythology. Ivalde’s sons are, in the beginning, the zealous friends of the gods, and the decorators and protectors of their creation. They smithy ornaments, which are the symbols of vegetation; and at their outpost by the Elivagar they defend the domain of vegetation against Jotunheim’s powers of frost. As I have already stated, they are, like the Ribhus, at the same time heroes, promoters of growth, and artists of antiquity. The mythology had also mannfestly endowed the sons of Ivalde with pleasing qualities — profound knowledge of the mysteries of nature, intelligence, strength, beauty, and with faithfulness toward their beloved. We find that, in time of adversity, the brothers were firmly united, and that their swan-maids love them in joy and in distress. For the powers of evil it was, therefore, of the greatest moment to bring about strife between the gods and these their “sworn men.” Loke, who is a gedreynir (Thorsdrapa), “a searcher of the qualities of the soul,” a “tempter of the character,” has discovered in the great artist of antiquity the false but hitherto unawakened qualities

961 of his character — his ambition and irreconcilable thirst for revenge. These qualities, particularly the latter, burst forth fully developed suddenly after the injustice which, at Loke’s instigation, the gods have done to the sons of Ivalde. The thirst for revenge breaks out in Thjasse-Volund in a despicable misdeed. There is reason for assuming that the terrible vengeance which, according to the heroic saga, he took against Nidhad, and which had its counterpart in the mythology itself, was not the worst crime which the epic of the Teutonic mythology had to blame him for. Harbardsljod (20) alludes to another and worse one. Speaking of Thjasse (str. 19), Hárbardr-Loke* there boasts that — hardan jotun ec hugda Hlebard vera, gaf han mer gambantein, en ec velta hann or viti. Harbard-Loke here speaks of a giant who, in his mind, was a valiant one, but whose “senses he stole,” that is, whom he “cunningly deprived of thought and reflection.” There are two circumstances to which these words might apply. The one concerns the giant-builder who built the Asgard-wall, and, angry on account of the trick by which Loke cheated him out of the compensation agreed on, rushed against the gods and was slain by Thor. The * Holtzmann and Bergmann have long since pointed out that Harbard is identical with Loke. The idea that Harbard, who in every trait is Loke in Lokasenna, and, like him, appears as a mocker of the gods and boasts of his evil deeds and of his success with the fair sex, should be Odin, is one of the proofs showing how an unmethodical symbolic interpretation could go astray. In the second part of this work I shall fully discuss Harbardsljod. Proofs are to be found from the last days of heathendom in Iceland that it was then well known that the Harbard who is mentioned in this poem was a foe of the gods.

962 other concerns Thjasse, who, seeing his beloved carried away by Loke and his plan about to be frustrated, recklessly rushed into his certain ruin. The real name of the giant alluded to is not given, but it is indicated by the epithet Hlébardr, which, according to the Younger Edda (ii. 484), is a synonym of Vargr and Gyldir. It has already been shown above that Vargr in Thorsdrapa and Fjallgyldir in Haustlaung are epithets of Thjasse. Loke says that this same giant, whose sense he cunningly robbed, had previously given him a gambanteinn. This word means a weapon made by Volund. His sword of revenge and victory is called gambanteinn in Skirnersmal. But gambanteinn is, at the same time, a synonym of mistelteinn, hence, in an Icelandic saga from the Christian time, Volund’s sword of victory also reappears by the name mistelteinn (see No. 60). Thus the giant Hlebard gave Loke a weapon, which, according to its designation, is either Volund’s sword of victory or the mistletoe. It cannot be the sword of victory. We know the hands to which this sword has gone and is to go: Volund’s, Mimer-Nidhad’s, the night-dis Sinmara’s, Svipdag’s, Frey’s, Aurboda’s and Egther’s, and finally Fjalar’s and Surt’s. The weapon which Thjasse’s namesake Hhebard gives Loke must, accordingly, have been the mistletoe. In this connection we must bear in mind what is said of the mistletoe. Unfortunately, the few words of Völuspa are the only entirely reliable record we have on this subject; but certain features of Gylfaginning’s account (Younger Edda, i. 172-174) may be mythologically correct. “Slender and fair” — not dangerous

963 and fair to behold — grew, according to Völuspa, the mistletoe, “higher than the fields” (as a parasite on the trees); but from the shrub which seemed innocent became “a dangerous arrow of pain,” which Hödr hurled. According to a poetic fragment united with Vegtamskvida (“Balder’s draumar”), and according to Gylfaginning, the gods had previously exacted an oath from all things not to harm Balder; but, according to Gylfaginning, they had omitted to exact an oath from one thing, namely, the mistletoe. By cunning Loke found this out. He went and pulled up the mistletoe, which he was afterwards able to put into Hoder’s hand, while, according to Gylfaginning, the gods were amusing themselves by seeing how every weapon aimed at Balder hit him without harming him. But that Loke should hand Hoder this shrub in the form in which it had grown on the tree, and that Hoder should use it in this form to shoot Balder, is as improbable as that Hoder was blind.* We must take Völuspa’s words to mean that the shrub became an arrow, and we must conceive that this arrow looked like every other arrow, and for this very reason did not awaken suspicion. Otherwise the suspicion would at once have been awakened, for they who had exacted the oath of things, and Frigg who had sent the messengers to exact the oaths, knew that the mistletoe was the only thing in the whole world that had not been sworn. The heathen songs nowhere * When I come to consider the Balder-myth in the second part of this work, I shall point out the source from which the author of Gylfaginning, misunderstandingly, has drawn the conclusion that the man of exploits, the warrior, the archer, and the hunter Hoder was blind. The misunderstanding gave welcome support to the symbolic interpretation, which, in the blind Hoder, found among other things a symbol of night (but night has “many eyes”).

964 betray such inconsistencies and such thoughtlessness as abound in the accounts of the Younger Edda. The former are always well conceived, at times incisive, and they always reveal a keen sense of everything that may give even to the miraculous the appearance of reality and logic. The mistletoe was made into an arrow by some one who knew how to turn it into a “dangerous arrow of pain” in an infallible manner. The unhappy shot depended on the magic qualities that were given to the mistletoe by the hands that changed it into an arrow. The event becomes comprehensible, and the statements found in the various sources dovetail together and bear the test of sound criticism, if Loke, availing himself of the only thing which had not been bound by oath not to harm Balder, goes with this shrub, which of itself was innocent and hardly fit for an arrow, to the artist who hated the gods, to the artist who had smithied the sword of revenge, and if the latter, with his magic skill as a smith, makes out of the mistelteinn a new gambanteinn dangerous to the gods, and gives the weapon to Loke in order that he might accomplish his evil purpose therewith. As Hlebard is a Thjasse-synonym, as this Thjasse-synonym is connected with the weapon-name gambanteinn, which indicates a Thjasse-work, and as Loke has treated Thjasse as he says he has treated Hlebard — by a cunning act he robbed him of his senses — then all accessible facts go to establish the theory that by Hlebard is meant the celebrated ancient artist deceived by Loke. And as Hlebard has given him a weapon which is designated by the name of the sword of revenge, but which is not the sword of revenge,

965 while the latter, on the other hand and for corresponding reasons, also gets the name mistelteinn, then all the facts go to show that the weapon which Hlebard gave to Loke was the mistletoe fraught with woe and changed to an arrow. If Gylfaginning’s unreliable account, based on fragmentary and partly misunderstood mythic records presented in a disjointed manner, had not been found, and if we had been referred exclusively to the few but reliable statements which are to be found in regard to the matter in the poetic songs, then a correct picture of this episode, though not so complete as to details, would have been the result of a compilation of the statements extant. The result would then have been: (1) Balder was slain by an arrow shot by Hoder (Völuspa, Vegtamskvida); (2) Hoder was not the real slayer, but Loke (Lokasenna, 28); (3) the material of which the arrow was made was a tender or slender (mjór) mistletoe (Völuspa); (4) previously all things had sworn not to harm Balder (“Balder’s draumar”), but the mistletoe must, for some reason or other, have been overlooked by the messengers sent out to exact the oaths, since Balder was mortally wounded by it; (5) since it was Loke who arranged (réd) matters so that this happened, it must have been he who had charge of the mistletoe for the carrying out of his evil purpose; (6) the mistletoe fell into the hands of a giant-smith hostile to the gods, and mentioned under circumstances that refer to Thjasse (Harbardsljod); (7) by his skill as a smith he gave such qualities to the mistletoe as to change it into “a dangerous arrow of pain,” and then gave the arrow

966 to Loke (Harbardsljod); (8) from Loke’s hands it passed into Hoder’s, and was shot by the latter (Lokasenna, Völuspa). It is dangerous to employ nature-symbolism as a means of mythological investigation. It is unserviceable for that purpose, so long as it cannot be subjected to the rules of severe methodics. On the other hand, it is admissible and justifiable to consider from a natural symbolic standpoint the results gained in a mythological investigation by the methodological system. If, as already indicated, Hlebard is identical with Thjasse-Volund, then he who was the cause of the fimbul-winter and sent the powers of frost out upon the earth, also had his hand in the death of the sun-god Balder and in his descent to the lower world. There is logic in this. And there is logic in the very fact that the weapon with which the sun-god is slain is made from the mistletoe, which blossoms and produces fruit in the winter, and is a plant which rather shuns than seeks the light of the sun. When we remember how the popular traditions have explained the appearance and qualities of various animals and plants by connecting them with the figures of mythology or of legendary lore, then I suppose it is possible that the popular fancy saw in the mistletoe’s dread of light the effect of grief and shame at having been an instrument in evil hands for evil purposes. Various things indicate that the mistletoe originally was a sacred plant, not only among the Celts, but also among the Teutons. The Hinduic Aryans also knew sacred parasitical plants. The word gamban which forms a part of gambanteinn

967 means “compensation,” “ransom,” when used as a noun, and otherwise “retaliating.” In the Anglo-Saxon poetry occurs (see Grein’s Dictionary) the phrase gamban gyldan, “to compensate,” “to pay dues.” In the Norse sources gamban occurs only in the compounds gambanteinn (Skirnersmal, 32; Harbardsljod, 20), gambanreidi (Skirnersmal, 33), and gambansumbl (Lokasenna, 8). In the song of Skirner, the latter threatens Gerd, who refused Frey’s offer of marriage, that she shall be struck by gambanreidi goda, the avenging wrath of the gods. In Lokasenna, Loke comes unbidden into the banquet of the gods in Ægir’s hall to mix bitterness with their gladness, and he demands either a place at the banquet table or to be turned out of doors. Brage answers that the gods never will grant him a seat at a banquet, “since they well know for whom among beings they are to prepare gambansumbl,” a banquet of revenge or a drink of revenge. This he manifestly mentions as a threat, referring to the fate which soon afterwards happens to Loke, when he is captured and bound, and when a venom-spitting serpent is fastened above his mouth. For the common assumption that gamban means something “grand,” “magnificent,” “divine,” there is not a single shadow of reason. Gambanteinn is accordingly “the twig of revenge,” and thus we have the mythological reason why Thjasse-Volund’s sword of revenge and the mistletoe arrow were so called. With them he desires to avenge the insult to which he refers in Volundarkvida, 28: Nu hefi ec hefnt harma minna allra nema einna ivithgjarnra.