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Transcriber’s Note:

On page [66] (beginning "seas, and streams, on the same principle" and ending "They also, to a certain extent, retain their distinction into white and") there are several words and phrases in Anglo-Saxon that were impossible to transcribe exactly as in the original. The characters are not available in the Unicode standard. However, those words were found in “The Student’s Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon” by Henry Sweet available on-line here: [ https://archive.org/details/studentsdictiona00swee] and transcribed as well as possible.

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

London:

Printed by A. Spottiswoode,

New-Street-Square.

THE

CABINET CYCLOPÆDIA.

CONDUCTED BY THE

REV. DIONYSIUS LARDNER, LL.D. F.R.S. L.&E.

M.R.I.A. F.R.A.S. F.L.S. F.Z.S. Hon. F.C.P.S. &c. &c.

ASSISTED BY

EMINENT LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

History.

DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND NORWAY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

THE “HISTORY OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.”

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS,

PATERNOSTER-ROW;

AND JOHN TAYLOR,

UPPER GOWER STREET.

1839.

HISTORY
OF
DENMARK, SWEDEN AND NORWAY,

BY

S. A. DUNHAM,

Author of “The History of Spain & Portugal”

VOL. II.

Copenhagen. E. Finden sc

London:

PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-ROW

AND JOHN TAYLOR, UPPER GOWER STREET.

1839.

TABLE,

ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL,

TO THE SECOND VOLUME OF

THE HISTORY OF SCANDINAVIA.

CHAPTER IV.—continued.

MARITIME EXPEDITIONS OF THE NORTHMEN DURING THE

PAGAN TIMES.

SECTION II.

IN THE ORKNEYS, THE HEBRIDES, ICELAND, GREENLAND, NORTH

AMERICA, RUSSIA, ETC.

795–1026.

ESTABLISHMENT OF A GOVERNMENT IN THE ORKNEYS.—SUCCESSION OF JARLS, ROGNEVALD, SIGURD, HALLAD, EINAR, SIGURD II., ETC.—DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION OF ICELAND.—DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION OF GREENLAND.—ALLEGED DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA.—STATEMENT OF FACTS CONNECTED WITH IT.—FOUNDATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE BY THE SCANDINAVIAN RURIC.

CHAP. V.

COSMOGONY AND RELIGION OF SCANDINAVIA.

INTRODUCTION.

THE TWO EDDAS, THE ELDER AND THE YOUNGER, THE POETIC AND THE PROSE.—CONTENTS OF THE FORMER.—DIVISION INTO CLASSES. 1. THE MYSTICAL. 2. THE MYTHIC-DIDACTIC. 3. THE PURELY MYTHOLOGICAL. 4. THE MYTHIC-HISTORICAL.—POEMS OF EACH CLASS.—THE PROSE EDDA.—SNORRO STURLESON.

SECTION I.

THE SCANDINAVIAN UNIVERSE, ITS WORLDS, AND THEIR INHABITANTS IN GENERAL, WITH THE PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.

CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE.—YMER.—THE GIANTS.—THE GODS.—OTHER BEINGS.—THE NINE WORLDS, WITH THEIR POSITION AND PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.—THE TWELVE HOUSES OF ASGARD.—SWARTALFAHEIM.—INHABITANTS OF THE NINE WORLDS.—THE ASER.—THE VEVER, ETC.

SECTION II.

CHIEF MYTHOLOGICAL PERSONAGES OF SCANDINAVIA.

ODIN, THOR, AND LOKE.—THEIR CHARACTERS PHYSICALLY INTERPRETED.—THEIR WIVES AND OFFSPRING.—THE THREE DEMON CHILDREN OF LOKE.—INFLUENCE OF THIS DEITY OVER THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE.—HE IS PRESENT IN EVERY GREAT MYTHOS.—RAPE OF IDUNA.—THOR’S VISITS TO JOTUNHEIM.—THOR AND THE GIANT HYMIR.—THOR AND THE GIANT THRYM.—NIVOD, FREYR, FREYA.—EXPEDITION OF SKIRNIR-ÆGIR AND RAN.—OTHER DEITIES.—BALDER.—PUNISHMENT OF LOKE.—RAGNAROK.—RECOGNITION OF A GREAT FIRST CAUSE BY THE PAGAN SCANDINAVIANS.

Odin, Thor, Loke.

Rape of Iduna.

Thor’s Visits to Utgard.

Thor and the Giant Hymir.

Thor and the Giant Thrym.

Niord, Freyr, Freya.

Ægir and Ran.

Other Deities.

Balder.

Punishment of Loke.

Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods.

SECTION III.

INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO DENMARK AND

SWEDEN.

OBSCURE EFFORTS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON MISSIONARIES TO CHRISTIANISE FRISIA AND DENMARK.—VICTORIES OF CHARLEMAGNE PREPARE THE WAY FOR A WIDER DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY.—FEALTY OF HARALD KLAK.—MISSIONARIES SENT INTO THE NORTH.—ST. ANSCAR.—CREATION OF AN ARCHBISHOPRIC.—ST. REMBERT.—SUCCEEDING ARCHBISHOPS.—FLUCTUATIONS IN THE STATE OF THE NEW RELIGION.—ITS ULTIMATE ESTABLISHMENT IN THE KINGDOMS OF THE NORTH.

BOOK II.

THE MIDDLE AGE.

CHAPTER I.

DENMARK.

1014–1387.

CANUTE THE GREAT.—HARDA-CANUTE.—MAGNUS.—ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF HARALD HARDRADE.—SWEYN II.—HARALD III.—CANUTE IV.—OLAF II.—ERIC III.—NICHOLAS.—ERIC IV.—ERIC V.—CANUTE V. AND SWEYN III.—VALDEMAR I.—HIS ABLE REIGN.—ARCHBISHOPS ESKIL AND ABSALOM.—CANUTE VI.—VALDEMAR II.—DECLINE OF THE DANISH POWER AND THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO IT.—ERIC VI.—ABEL.—CHRISTOPHER I.—ERIC VII.—ERIC VIII.—CHRISTOPHER II.—INTERREGNUM.—VALDEMAR III.—MEMORABLE TRANSACTIONS WITH NORWAY AND SWEDEN.—OLAF III.—UNION OF DENMARK AND NORWAY.

Canute the Great.

1015–1035.

Harda-Canute.

1035–1042.

Magnus I.

1042–1047.

Sweyn II.

1047–1076.

Harald III.

SURNAMED HEIN, OR THE GENTLE.

1076–1080.

Canute IV.

SURNAMED THE SAINT.

1080–1086.

Olaf II.

SURNAMED FAMELICUS, OR THE HUNGRY.

1087–1095.

Eric III.

SURNAMED THE GOOD.

1095–1103.

Nicholas.

1105–1134.

Eric IV.

SURNAMED EMUND.

1134–1137.

Eric V.

SURNAMED THE LAME.

1137–1147.

Canute V.

1147–1156.

Sweyn III.

1147–1157.

Valdemar I.

SURNAMED THE GREAT.

1157–1182.

Canute VI.

1182–1202.

Valdemar II.

SURNAMED THE VICTORIOUS.

1202–1241.

Eric VI.

SURNAMED PLOGPENNING, OR PLOUGHPENNY.

1241–1250.

Abel.

1250–1252.

Christopher I.

1252–1259.

Eric VII.

SURNAMED GLIPPING.

1259–1286.

Eric VIII.

SURNAMED MOENVED.

1286–1319.

Christopher II.

1320–1334.

Interregnum.

Valdemar IV.

SURNAMED ATTERDAG.

1340–1375.

Olaf III.

1376–1387.

CHAP. II.

NORWAY.

1030–1387.

CANUTE THE GREAT.—SWEYN.—MAGNUS I.—HARALD HARDRADE.—OLAF III.—MAGNUS II.—MAGNUS BAREFOOT.—EVILS OF A DIVIDED SOVEREIGNTY.—ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF SIGURD I.—MAGNUS IV.—CIVIL WARS.—EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF SWERRO.—HAKO IV.—MAGNUS VI.—ERIC II.—HAKO V.—OTHER SOVEREIGNS.—UNION OF NORWAY WITH DENMARK.

CHAP. III.

SWEDEN.

1001–1389.

OLAF.—EMUND I.—EMUND II.—STENKILL.—INGE I.—PHILIP.—INGE II.—SWERKER I.—CHARLES.—ST. ERIC.—INTERNAL TROUBLES.—BIRGER JARL.—VALDEMAR I.—MAGNUS I.—BIRGER.—MAGNUS II.—ERIC IV.—ALBERT OF MECKLENBURG.—UNION OF SWEDEN WITH DENMARK.

APPENDIX.

TABLE OF KINGS.

SUCCESSION OF DANISH KINGS DOWN TO THE UNION OF THE CROWNS OF DENMARK AND NORWAY.

I. Skioldungs, or Dynasty of Skiold the Son of Odin.

II. Dynasty of Sweyn.

N.B. Little dependence is to be placed on the accuracy of this list prior to Harald Blaatand. (See Vol. I. p. 66.)

KINGS OF SWEDEN.

I. Sacred Dynasty of the Ynglings.

II. Dynasty of the Skioldungs, etc.

N.B. On this list, prior to the eleventh century, as little dependence is to be placed as on that of Denmark.

KINGS OF NORWAY.

I. Dynasty of the Ynglings.

N.B. This kingdom henceforth united with Denmark, and therefore subject to the same monarchs.

THE

HISTORY

OF

SCANDINAVIA.

CHAP. IV.—continued.
MARITIME EXPEDITIONS OF THE NORTHMEN DURING THE PAGAN TIMES.

SECTION II.
IN THE ORKNEYS, THE HEBRIDES, ICELAND, GREENLAND, NORTH AMERICA, RUSSIA, ETC.

795–1026.

ESTABLISHMENT OF A GOVERNMENT IN THE ORKNEYS.—SUCCESSION OF JARLS, ROGNEVALD, SIGURD, HALLAD, EINAR, SIGURD II., ETC.—DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION OF ICELAND—DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION OF GREENLAND.—ALLEGED DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA.—STATEMENT OF FACTS CONNECTED WITH IT.—FOUNDATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE BY THE SCANDINAVIAN RURIC.

|888.|

The Orkney Islands were probably visited by the northern pirates at a period much earlier than is generally supposed. If, from their barrenness and from their limited surface, they offered no inducement to permanent occupancy, they were useful as strongholds,—as ports where the northern ships might anchor in safety. From their position between Scandinavia and Ireland, which we know was hostilely visited in the year 795, they must have been frequently subject to the ravages of the strangers. The Pictish inhabitants, who were not warlike or numerous, had the mortification to witness the frequent seizure of their cattle, their fish, their corn, and such other stores as they had been able to collect or to produce. Their only advantage was in their poverty, which shortened the stay of these avaricious men. But after the battle of Hafursfiord (885), these islands became the perpetual abode of the sea-rovers, who were no longer tolerated in Norway[^[1]]; here they fitted out expeditions to ravage every coast from the south of Ireland to the extremity of the Gulf of Finland. So frequent and so formidable were those ravages that in 888—three years after his glorious victory—Harald Harfagre, with a view of suppressing them, sailed with a powerful armament into these seas. The isles of Shetland, of Orkney, of the Hebrides, and Man, were subdued by him. But to conquer was little, unless some measure were adopted to secure the conquest. The monarch determined to place one of his most valiant and most respectable chiefs over the islands, and cast his eyes on Rognevald, jarl of Moria, who, in the present expedition, had lost one of his sons. But Rognevald, attached to his hereditary domains in Norway, induced his royal master to invest his brother Sigurd with the dignity. Sigurd, therefore, was the first jarl, or earl, of the Orkneys.

|889 to 892.|

This chief had qualities worthy of the post: he was valiant, liberal, politic. But he was also ambitious: he longed to reduce a portion of the neighbouring continent; and, as his own forces were unequal to an attempt of such magnitude, he formed an alliance with Thorstein the Red, son of Olaf the White, a chief famous in the annals of Norway. Having effected a junction, the two jarls subdued Caithness and Sutherland, and then extended their ravages into the counties of Ross and Moray. In the latter, Sigurd, who was intent on durable conquest, is said to have built a fortress. But he soon afterwards died,—whether in battle, or in consequence of a wound, is not very clear; and all the advantages which he had gained were lost. He was succeeded, indeed, by his son, Guthrum; but the latter, alike feeble in mind and body, soon paid the debt of nature. The depredations of the pirates were resumed; and Rognevald, who had been the feudal superior of Sigurd, was required to nominate another governor. His choice fell on Hallad, one of his sons. But it was less fortunate than the preceding one. If Hallad had the wish, he certainly had not the power, to contend with the frequent piratical bands who infested the islands: he soon deserted his post, and returned to Norway. The father lamented his unfortunate choice; still more did he lament the stain which want of success had brought upon his name. His children, he bitterly observed, were sadly degenerated from the ancient valour of their line. He could not foresee that Einar, one of them, was about to confer splendour on the family; still less that Rollo, another of them, would become the head of a powerful race of sovereigns. Rollo proposed to clear the islands from the piratical bands; but his proposal was declined, probably from want of confidence in his powers. And when Einar prayed the old jarl to send him to the government, the chief reason of his success was the little favour which he possessed in the eyes of his father. He was an illegitimate son; his mother was of servile condition; he had lost an eye; his countenance was in other respects repulsive; and all these circumstances combined to render the paternal roof disagreeable to him. The saga has preserved the words in which he made the application to his father:—“Thou hast never shown me much honour, nor will my departure afflict thee: wherefore I will proceed to the west, if thou wilt afford me the means. Do this, and I promise thee never to revisit Norway!” The old man gave him a large vessel, manned with good mariners; told him that he had no confidence in his valour or prudence, and expressed a hope that he should see him no more. His prayer was granted.

|893 to 936.|

On the arrival of Einar, his conduct proved that he to had not overrated his own powers. Over two pirate chiefs, who had, since the death of Sigurd, held the dominion of the islands, he triumphed; he governed the inhabitants by his wisdom, no less than protected them by his valour; and joined with his firmness such moderation that he became exceedingly popular with his people. His celebrity inspired with envy the sons of king Harald, who equally hated his father: that father was burnt to death, with many of his companions[^[2]]; and a fate no less tragical was reserved for Einar. In 894, Halfdan, one of his sons by the Finnish lady (he had three of the name[^[3]]), reached the Orkneys unexpected by Einar, who, being wholly unprepared for defence, fled into Caithness. In his turn, Halfdan was surprised by the jarl, and compelled to hide himself; but he was discovered and put to death, in revenge alike for the unprovoked aggression and for the murder of Rognevald. In this act of retribution, as it might be considered by a pagan, there was much temerity. The monarch armed to punish it, and, in 895, again appeared off the coast with a powerful armament. Unable to resist, Einar again fled into Caithness, a portion, if not the whole of which, was entirely subject to the jarls of the Orkneys. He had certainly formidable means of defence; so formidable, indeed, as to make Harald listen to overtures of accommodation. Probably, too, as a pagan, he made considerable allowance for the act of Einar, who, in avenging the death of a father, had done what religion dictated. At length he professed his readiness both to pardon the islanders, and to leave the jarl in the government, if sixty golden merks were paid him. This sum, moderate as it may seem, they were unable to raise; but Einar agreed to pay it for them, on the condition that their lands should be considered his until they found the means of redemption. Relieved from this formidable enemy, Einar resumed with his usual success the duties of government. By posterity he was called Turf-Einar, from his introducing, we are told, the use of that article. It is, however, scarcely to be credited that the islanders should, in his time, be ignorant of it. They had no wood; and sea-weed alone could not have sufficed them through the long and dreary winter. Probably he introduced some improvement into the manner of preparing it; and thus earned a title to their gratitude.

|936 to 946.|

On the death of Einar, the government of the Orkneys, and of the most northern counties of Scotland, devolved on two of his sons, Arnkel and Erlend. If they had the ambition they had not the wisdom of the father. When Eric of the Bloody Axe was expelled from Norway by Hako the Good[^[4]], they received him with readiness, became his allies, and accompanied him in his predatory expedition against the Scottish and English coasts. For a time, indeed, fortune seemed to smile upon them. Eric became the governor of Northumbria, as the vassal of king Athelstane: they shared in his prosperity, and in the wealth which he acquired in his piratical expeditions to the coasts of Scotland and Ireland; but they also shared his tragical fate in the battle which the royal Edred waged against the northmen, and which for ever united Northumbria with the Anglo-Saxon crown.[^[5]]

|946 to 980.|

These princes were succeeded by another brother, Thorfin Hausak-liufurs, whose administration, the result of his wisdom, was one of great prosperity. Not so that of his sons. Of these he left five. The eldest, Arnfin, married Ragnilda, the daughter of Eric Blodoxe and the infamous Gunhilda, and quite worthy of her parentage. Through her Arnfin, the victim of treachery, descended to an untimely grave. Havard, the next brother, succeeded to the government; and his conduct was so wise and prosperous, that he obtained the name of the Happy. But he had the folly to marry the widowed Ragnilda; and he suffered the deserved penalty of his weakness. She had transferred, we are told, her affection to Liot, the next brother; and with the view of obtaining the gratification of her wishes, had provoked a quarrel between Havard and a kinsman that proved fatal to the former. But such a woman could have no affection; and her motive to the deed was probably dislike of her husband’s ascendency. However this be, she became the wife of the third brother, who succeeded to the government. But Liot had little reason to congratulate himself on his elevation. The readiness with which he had become the instrument of a base and bloody woman roused the anger of Skuli, the next brother, who, being no less ambitious, resolved to dethrone him. Repairing to the court of the Scottish king, he offered to hold the islands as a fief of the crown, if, through the royal aid, he were raised to the dignity now held by Liot. The offer was accepted; and, at the head of a considerable force, he returned into Caithness, which declared for him. In the centre of that province the kinsmen met, and victory declared for Liot,—Skuli being left dead on the field. But the Scots now appeared in greater numbers; and though the jarl triumphed in a second engagement, he received a wound which brought him to his end in the year 980. The authority now passed into the hands of Laudver, the fifth brother. Of him we know only that he was addicted to piratical expeditions, that he married an Irish princess, and that he reigned sixteen years.

|980 to 1014.|

Sigurd, the son and successor of the last jarl, occupies more room in fable than in history. Rejecting the former, we may observe, that he had many great qualities; that he was valiant, generous, persevering; that he freed his people from the obligation which they had contracted to the jarls in the days of Turf-Einar, thus restoring the lands, which had lately been feudal, to their original allodial state; and that in addition to the Shetland Isles and the two Scottish counties, which had for nearly a century been under the jurisdiction of his predecessors, he held some fortresses, and, we are told, some extensive demesnes, in the heart of Scotland. Yet these might be held as a vassal of the Sottish monarch. But the most memorable event in his administration was the introduction of Christianity into the Orkneys. To this event we have before alluded[^[6]], but it requires a more ample detail. Sigurd being summoned on board the vessel which carried Olaf Trygveson from Ireland to Norway, was told that if he did not immediately receive Christianity, cause his people to receive it, and do homage to Olaf as the heir of Harald Harfagre, he, and all who refused, should be put to death. At this moment Olaf had not ascended the throne of Norway, which was occupied by jarl Hako; and Sigurd might well hesitate to acknowledge him. Again, though he must have frequently heard of the religion which he was now required to embrace, he had been accustomed to despise it, because it was professed by the peaceable—that is, the cowardly—portion of mankind. He, therefore, began to make some excuse for his inability to comply with the demand; but none would be admitted; and as he had to choose between obedience and instant death, he naturally selected the former. He and his people, with one accord, submitted to the rite; and to secure his fidelity, he gave his son as hostage. On the death of that son, however, he renounced his allegiance to the Norwegian crown, and entered into a close connection with that of Scotland, by marrying a daughter of king Malcolm. Probably this new alliance prevented him from renouncing Christianity with as much facility as he had renounced his dependence on Norway. It certainly increased his power, and the consideration in which he was held by the chiefs of the age. He was one of the leaders in the war against the Irish king Brian; and, with many others, he was killed at the battle of Clontarf.[^[7]] Such a man, in such an age, could not, of course, be permitted to fall in the ordinary way. If the scalds are to be credited, he had some presentiment of his fate before he left the islands; and he confided the administration to his three sons by the first wife, Einar, Sumerled, and Brusi. Connected with his death are two legends, which deserve a momentary notice. One of his friends, who wished to accompany him, he insisted on remaining, with the assurance that he should be the first man to whom intelligence of the battle should be communicated. One day the chief saw, as he thought, jarl Sigurd approaching at the head of a troop of horse. He instantly mounted, rode forward, met the jarl, embraced, and, in the view of several followers, afterwards disappeared with the jarl behind an eminence: neither, adds the legend, was again seen in this world. The other story has called forth the splendid effusion of Grey:—Darrod, a native of Caithness, saw twelve horsemen ride towards a hill, and immediately enter it. Hastening to the place, and looking through a small aperture, he perceived twelve gigantic women weaving and singing; the woof and the song no less supernatural than the singers.[^[8]] This event, which is placed in the year 1014, illustrates the mental condition of the people, who, if they had outwardly embraced Christianity, were still pagans in superstition.

Of the Shetland Isles, during this period, we know nothing. They formed, as we have observed, a portion of the government of the Orkney jarls; and so did the Hebrides. But the connection between the governors and the governed must have been lax, and subject to frequent interruption. The Hebrides were frequently ravaged,—now by Norwegians, now by Danes, now by fierce adventurers from all parts of the north. The condition of Iona, the hallowed abode of St. Columba’s disciples, was mournful. In 793 the monastery was laid in ashes, and most of the inmates massacred; again in 797 and 801. In 805 sixty-eight more of the monks suffered the same fate. From that period to the year 875 the barbarian ravages were frequent. To escape destruction, the monks fled; and when the pirates were defeated, returned to the same hallowed spot, to quench the still smoking ruins, and to rebuild the house of their saint. After 875 the depredations of the northern rovers were much less frequent. We read, indeed, of no massacre until 985, when the abbot and fifteen of his monks obtained the martyr’s crown. This seems to have been the last disaster of the kind. Christianity, in a degree far greater than the governments of Norway and the Orkneys, was destroying the spirit of piracy. In 1093, as we shall hereafter have occasion to relate, the Western Isles, like Man and the Orkneys, were subdued by Magnus of Norway, and annexed to his crown.[^[9]]

5. Iceland (861, &c.) was probably known to the Irish missionaries before it was discovered by the Norwegians. At least some articles were found there which missionaries only could have left; and these must have come from Iona or Ireland. “Before Iceland was discovered by the Norwegians,” says the Landnamabok, “men were there whom we call Papas, who professed the Christian religion, and who were believed to have come from the west.” The same authority also speaks of the books in the Irish and the Anglo-Saxon languages; of the bells, staves, and other articles left by preceding visitors. But if any colony had ever settled upon it, it had long been uninhabited when it was accidentally discovered by Naddod, in 861. That sea-rover left the Faroe Islands with the intention of steering directly for the west of Norway; but a storm arising, drove him far to the north-west, until he reached that largest of the European isles. But he knew not it was an island: he saw that it was covered with snow, and from that circumstance he denominated it Snoeland. Though he ascended several high mountains, he could discern no trace of human beings. On his return he acquainted his countrymen with the discovery. The following year it was again accidentally visited by a Swede, Gardar Swafarson, who sailed round it, and ascertaining it to be an island, gave it the name of Gardarsholm. The season was too advanced for him to return; and he passed the whole winter on the coast, living chiefly on the fish which he caught in abundance. The third person that visited it was the Norwegian Floki, surnamed Rafna, or the Raven, from the manner in which, according to legend, he found the island. Sailing from the Faroes, he proceeded towards the north-west; but as he was uncertain of the exact direction in which Snoeland lay, he let fly three ravens, which he had previously dedicated to the gods. One of these flew back to the islands which he had left; another returned to the ship; the third proceeded in a right line, and was followed by Floki, until he reached the country which Naddod had discovered. Its name he changed from Snoeland to Iceland. He admired its boiling fountains and its burning lava; but the country was too barren for his subsistence: he was troubled at the mysterious quaking of the earth; and he soon bade adieu to a region which he had evidently designed to colonize, but which the gods had doomed to everlasting desolation. His companions, however, did not give so disheartening an account of the island. They praised its fish, its climate, its soil; and above all, they praised it because “it was a place where men might live in freedom, far away from kings and jarls.”

|874.|

The first attempt made to colonize the island was in the year 874. Ingulf, the son of a Norwegian jarl, had slain his adversary; and to escape the consequences of the act, he, with his brother-in-law Jorleif, prepared to visit a region where neither the vengeance of the kindred nor that of Harald Harfagre could pursue him. Deeply imbued with the superstition of the ancient Norwegian worship, he offered due sacrifices to the gods—for in these patriarchal times the privilege of sacrificing descended with that of primogeniture; and when he sailed took with him the ornamented doorposts of the apartment in which his household deities were enshrined. These, as he approached the island, he cast into the sea, and vowed that on the part of the coast to which the elements should drive them, he would establish his colony. In the meantime a promontory on the south-east, still called Ingulfshod, received him; but the door-posts, watched by his slaves, proceeded to the south-west, and entered a bay on which the modern Reykiavik stands. The place in which he had fixed his temporary abode was comparatively fertile; the neighbourhood of the bay for many leagues was unusually sterile; yet in spite of all remonstrances Ingulf removed to the latter spot, which he believed to be divinely ordained for him. His companion, Jorleif, chose a more fertile locality to the south; but Jorleif had no reverence for the gods, to whom he never deigned to sacrifice. In the estimation of many, the latter was the wiser man; but in a short time he was murdered by his own slaves, who fled with his substance to some distant islands. They did not escape with impunity: pursued by Ingulf, they paid the penalty of their crime. However much the regret of the chief for the fate of his friend, he piously observed that it was the lot of all who despised the national divinities.

|884.|

Ingulf was followed by several Norwegian chiefs, and by a multitude of simple freemen, who desired “to live far away from tyrannical kings and jarls.” In general, each new community chose for itself some habitable valley, fixed its boundaries, erected a rude temple to the gods, and provided for the civil no less than the religious administration. Of the jarls contemporary with Ingulf, Thorolf was the most celebrated. Descended, in popular opinion, like many other chiefs, from the divine race which had held the government of the country, Thorolf was at once the head of his clan and the pontiff of his religion. Attached to the great temple of Thor, on one of the islands close to the Norwegian coast, furnished with a venerable beard, endowed with many vassals, many flocks and herds, and a wide domain, Thorolf was one of the most influential chiefs in the north of that kingdom. But he had the misfortune to incur the wrath of Harald Harfagre, by giving an asylum to Biorn, one of his kinsmen, who was persecuted by that monarch. From a Thing, or public assembly of the province, Harald obtained a decree of outlawry against Thorolf, if, within a given period, he failed to surrender Biorn. To ascertain the will of the gods, whether he should give himself up to the king or flee to Iceland, he sacrificed to Thor, and the reply favoured the latter project. No less devout than Ingulf, he took with him the statue of Thor, the earth on which the throne had stood, and a portion of the temple. Approaching the island, he threw into the sea the wooden columns which had supported the sanctuary; and, as his predecessor had done ten years before him, settled on the spot to which the elements carried them. Marking the boundaries of his new domain by walking round it with a flaming brand and setting fire to the grass, his next object was to build a large house, and then a large temple, in which he was to officiate as the high-priest of Thor. There were the same columns, the same throne, the same mystic ring, and the same great altar. The other divinities were placed in the niches prepared for them; and the worship was celebrated with less pomp indeed than in the parent country, but with equal fervour. Close to the temple was the spot where the Thing, or judicial assembly of the people, was held, in the open air, in presence of “Freya, and Niord, and the Almighty As,” by whom the witnesses in a suit always sware. The ground of both was held to be holy; for the laws which the ancient divinities had ordained were necessarily a part of religion. This was the ordinary mode of proceeding when any new colony was formed. By degrees, as the cabins of the slaves increased, and were spread over the domain, the aspect of the country became more cheerful. The settlement of Thorolf was soon a flourishing one; it was increased by many new arrivals from Norway; and was at length divided into three populous districts, each of which recognized him as chief pontiff, until human passion begun to produce its inevitable result,—disunion and bloody feuds.

|874 to 936.|

At this distance of time, we do not estimate as we ought the number of emigrants from Norway to this newly-discovered island. Before the death of Harald Harfagre, most of its habitable portions had their occupants. What with the expulsion of the pirates, what with the voluntary exile of the chiefs who disdained to acknowledge a superior, the mother country must have lost no inconsiderable proportion of its inhabitants. It promised indeed to be left half peopled, when that monarch, in conjunction with the nobles who still remained, severely prohibited these emigrations. But neither he nor they could always watch the ports; still less could they control the motions of those who, while occupied in traffic from coast to coast, seized the opportunity of sailing for a land where there were no kings, no lords. Yet this was only true of the earliest state of Icelandic civilization. Subsequently, as the chiefs with their numerous slaves and their warlike dependants repaired to that place, a system resembling the clanship of Norway, though less despotic, was introduced. They, indeed, seized the land as their own, and parcelled it out to their followers on certain conditions. Among these conditions was always the payment of an annual rent in agricultural produce, and of something for the support of religion; but frequently was superadded some hereditary jurisdiction in the family of the chief. As he was often a pontiff no less than a patriarch, and was a reputed descendant from the divine family of the Ynglings, this union of the sacerdotal, of the judicial, and of almost royal functions, invested him with a consideration which he had scarcely enjoyed even in Norway. He who filled this two-fold office of pontiff and civil magistrate, who formed a sort of patriarchal aristocracy not uninteresting to contemplate, was called Godar, or Haf-godar. But in half a century after the colonization of the island, an evil arose for which the social constitutions of the period afforded no remedy. The isolation of the communities led to the formation of a separate rival spirit, which was often destructive to the district. When two neighbouring communities or their magistrates disputed, who was to act as the umpire? There was no monarch, no hereditary chief of the province, no Al-Thing, to decide between them. It became necessary, therefore, either to renounce the advantages of a general confederation, and to live in scattered independent tribes, whose hostilities must soon have led to the depopulation of the island, or to establish a superior authority. Hence the selection of a supreme judge, who was also empowered to collect laws, which, however, could not be obligatory until they had been accepted by the chiefs and the people of each community. The first Icelander raised to this high dignity was Ulfliot (925), who, though sixty years of age, proceeded to Norway to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with the unwritten observances of that kingdom. Under the direction of Thorleif the Wise, he obtained in three years the information which he sought; and on his return to Iceland he promulgated a code that for many generations regulated the decisions of the deemsters, or local judges. Its provisions have unfortunately perished, with the exception of some inconsiderable fragments. They were no doubt nearly identical with those which governed the parent country; but of the latter we have not one in the state in which it was originally promulgated,—not one that has not been altered by succeeding legislators. The spirit of the code which Thorleif himself compiled at the instance of Hako the Good, can be inferred only from the general character of Norwegian society, and from the legal provisions of later times; provisions which are, in truth, but adaptations of ancient penalties to an altered state of society. The laws designed for pagan use would obviously require considerable modification before they could be adopted by Christians.

|930.|

To understand rightly the social condition of Iceland during the pagan and indeed the succeeding ages, too much attention cannot be paid to the political constitution and the civil administration of that interesting colony. The island was divided into four great districts,—viertel; and over each was a chief magistrate elected by the people. At certain periods, there was an assembly of the freemen in each; all had a voice in the deliberations; all could vote; and the magistrate whom they had chosen was entrusted with the execution of such laws, such regulations, as they adopted. But though comprising one fourth only of the habitable portion of the island, each of these districts was too extensive to render the meetings of the freemen so frequent as the interests of the community required. Hence the sub-division of each into inferior districts, which had their meetings for the transaction of such business as was more peculiarly local. Affairs which concerned the whole community could be discussed only in the Al-Thing, or great national assembly, which was held once a year. The place of meeting was situated on a level plain, on the shores of the lake of Thingvalle, and was called the Law Mount. Justice, indeed, was generally administered on an eminence among all the nations of Gothic origin; not because there was any sanctity in a hill, but that the proceedings might be more visible to the multitude. During eight centuries the Law Mount continued to be the scene of the national assemblies; and it is only in our own times that the place of meeting has been removed to a spot more convenient indeed to the scattered population, but less hallowed by time. The president was chosen for life,—an anomaly surely in a community where the freemen would be thought equal; but the truth is that among all the Germanic nations there was a wide difference between the theory and practice of the constitution. The meanest freeman present at the Thing might, for any thing we know, have a vote; he might even have the right of speech; but still the real power lay in the hands of a few noble chiefs. What made the authority of this president, this logsogomadr, or promulgator of the law, the more formidable, is the fact, that though he was not, as some writers have contended, a legislator, no laws were made without his concurrence; and of these he had the interpretation, no less than the administration. His office therefore being more than executive, and conferred for so long a period, made him irresponsible, except when the Thing was actually assembled. As we have before observed, Ulfliot was the first who held this dignity. The laws he enacted were, we are told, preserved for two centuries by tradition only, before they were committed to writing. This is not credible. The Runic art at least was understood many centuries before his time; and so, we may infer, were the ordinary characters: at least we read of communication by letter between the sovereigns and jarls of the time. The more important of Ulfliot’s laws must have been invested in a dress less perishable than oral tradition. For ages before his time, every German tribe with which we are acquainted, had, besides its common or unwritten, its statute or written, law; and we know not why Scandinavia should in this respect be different from such barbarous tribes as the Saxons, or Finns, or Suabians, during the same period. On this subject, however, more in the proper place.[^[10]]

6. Greenland owed its discovery to the Icelandic colony. Towards the close of the tenth century, Eric the Red, son of Torwald, a Norwegian jarl, who had been compelled to forsake his country in consequence of a feud, was, for the same reason, obliged to leave Iceland. Whither was he to repair? To Norway he could not; for there were the deadly enemies of his family whom old Torwald had made. To hide himself in Iceland was hopeless; and in the Orkneys, which were far distant, he could scarcely hope to escape the vengeance of those enemies. He therefore resolved to seek a land of which some maritime adventurers had obtained a confused knowledge. Sailing towards the west, he at length discovered a small island in a strait, which he called Eric’s Sound, and on which he passed the winter. The following spring, he examined the neighbouring continent, which from its smiling verdure—smiling in comparison with the bleak desolation of Iceland—he called Greenland. Filled with the importance of this adventure, he soon returned to that island, and succeeded in collecting a number of colonists, whom he established in the newly-discovered land. Yet Greenland was not uninhabited: better for the settlers had it been so; for the wild natives were not friendly to men whom they regarded as intruders on their own domain. Some years after the settlement of the colony, viz. in 999, Leif, the son of Eric, repaired to Norway, where he was well received by the reigning monarch, Olaf Trygveson: Olaf was soon interested in the description which Leif gave of the country; and in his zeal for the conversion of all pagans, he resolved to support the new colony. Whatever might be the faults of the royal convert, he was the instrument of much good. He persuaded or forced Leif to receive baptism, and caused a missionary to accompany him to Greenland. Hence the introduction of that religion among the Norwegian colonists; but it had little success amongst the natives, who, whether from stupidity or vicious habits, have always been slow to comprehend its truths. During more than three centuries this infant colony flourished: the plague of 1348 lamentably thinned its numbers; and early in the following century the rest were either exterminated by the savage inhabitants, or compelled to leave the country. Not a vestige remains of that colony; nor is it clearly ascertained in what part of the coast it was located.

7. North America (1001–1002). The most curious part of the present subject is that which relates to the alleged discovery of North America by a native of Iceland. Let us state the facts, as recorded by the ancient sagas, and the authorities followed by Snorro Sturleson, before we reason upon them.—Herjulf, a descendant of Ingulf, and his son Biarn, subsisted by trading between Iceland and Norway, in the latter of which countries they generally passed the winter. One season, their vessels being as usual divided for the greater convenience of traffic, Biarn did not find his father in Norway, who, he was informed, had proceeded to Greenland, then just discovered. He had never visited that country; but he steered westwards for many days, until a strong north wind bore him considerably to the south. After a long interval, he arrived in sight of a low, woody country, which, compared with the description he had received of the other, and from the route he had taken, could not, he was sure, be Greenland. Proceeding to the south-west, he reached the latter country, and joined his father, who was located at Herjulfsnæ, a promontory opposite to the western coast of Iceland.

|1001.|

The information which Biarn gave of this discovery induced Leif, son of Eric the Red, the discoverer of Greenland, to equip a vessel for the unknown country. With thirty-five persons he sailed from Herjulfsnæs towards the south, in the direction indicated by Biarn. Arriving at a flat stony coast, with mountains, however, covered with snow, visible at a great distance, they called it Hellu-land. Proceeding still southwards, they came to a woody but still flat coast, which they called Mark-land. A brisk north-east wind blowing for two days and two nights, brought them to a finer coast, woody and undulating, and abounding with natural productions. Towards the north this region was sheltered by an island; but there was no port until they had proceeded farther to the west. There they landed; and as there was abundance of fish in a river which flowed into the bay, they ventured there to pass the winter. They found the nights and days less unequal than in Iceland or Norway; on the very shortest (Dec. 21.) the sun rising at half-past seven, and setting at half-past four. From some wild grapes which they found a few miles from the shore, they denominated the country Vinland, or Winland. The following spring they returned to Greenland.

This description, as the reader will instantly recognize, can apply only to North America. The first of the coasts which Leif and his navigators saw must have been Newfoundland, or Labrador; the second was probably the coast of New Brunswick; the third was Maine. The causes which led to the voyage, the names, the incidents, are so natural and so connected as to bear the impress of truth. And Snorro, the earliest historian of the voyage, was not an inventor: he related events as he received them from authorities which no longer exist, or from tradition. Neither he nor his countrymen entertained the slightest doubt that a new and extensive region had been discovered. The sequel will corroborate the belief that they were right.

|1004 to 1008.|

The next chief that visited Vinland was Thorwald, another son of Eric the Red. With thirty companions he proceeded to the coast, and wintered in the tent which had sheltered his brother Leif. The two following summers were passed by him in examining the regions both to the west and the east; and, from the description in the Icelandic sagas, we may infer that he coasted the shore from Massachusetts to Labrador. Until the second season no inhabitants appeared; but two who had ventured along the shore in their frail canoes were taken, and most impolitically, as well as most inhumanly, put to death. These were evidently Esquimaux, whose short stature and features resembled those of the western Greenlanders. To revenge the murder of their countrymen, a considerable number of the inhabitants now appeared in their small boats; but their arrows being unable to make any impression on the wooden defences, they precipitately retired. In this short skirmish, however, Thorwald received a mortal wound; and was buried on the next promontory with a cross at his head and another at his feet, a proof that he had embraced Christianity. Having passed another winter, his companions returned to Greenland. The following year Thorstein, another son of Eric the Red, embarked for the same place with his wife Gudrida and twenty-five companions; but they were driven by the contending elements to the remote western coast of Greenland, where they passed the winter in great hardships. This adventure was fatal to Thorstein, whose corpse was taken back to the colony by his widow.

|1009.|

The first serious attempt at colonizing Vinland was made by a Norwegian chief, Thorfin, who had removed to Greenland, and married the widowed Gudrida. With sixty companions, some domestic animals, implements of husbandry, and an abundance of dried provisions, he proceeded to the coast where Thorwald had died. There he erected his tents, which he surrounded by a strong palisade, to resist the assaults, whether open or secret, whether daily or nocturnal, of the natives. They came in considerable numbers to offer peltries and other productions for such commodities as the strangers could spare. Above all, we are assured, they wanted arms, which Thorfin would not permit to be sold; yet if an anecdote be true, their knowledge of such weapons must have been limited indeed. One of the savages took up an axe, ran with it into the woods, and displayed it with much triumph to the rest. To try its virtues, he struck one that stood near him; and the latter, to the horror of all present, fell dead at his feet. A chief took it from him, regarded it for some time with anger, and then cast it into the sea. Thorfin remained three years in Vinland, where a son was born to him; and after many voyages to different parts of the north, ended his days in Iceland. His widow made the pilgrimage to Rome; and on her return to the island retired to a convent which he had erected. Many, however, of the colonists whom he had led to Vinland remained, and were ultimately joined by another body under Helgi and Finnbogi, two brothers from Greenland. But the latter had the misfortune to be accompanied by a treacherous and evil woman, Freydisa, a daughter of Eric the Red, and who in a short time excited a quarrel, which proved fatal to about thirty of the colonists. Detested for her vices, she was constrained to return to Greenland; but the odour of her evil name remained with her: she lived despised, and died unlamented.

|1026 to 1121.|

Towards the close of the reign of Olaf the Saint, an Icelander, named Gudleif, embarked for Dublin. The vessel being driven by boisterous winds far from its direct course, towards the south-west, approached an unknown shore. He and the crew were soon seized by the natives, and carried into the interior. Here, however, to their great surprise, they were accosted by a venerable chief in their own language, who enquired after some individuals of Iceland. He refused to tell his name; but, as he sent a present to Thurida, the sister of Snorro Gode, and another for her son, no doubt was entertained that he was the scald Biorn, who had been her lover, and who had left Iceland thirty years before that time. The natives were described of a red colour, and cruel to strangers; indeed, it required all the influence of the friendly chief to rescue Gudleif and his companions from destruction. From this period to 1050, we hear no more of the northern colony established by Thorfin; but in that year a priest went from Iceland to Vinland to preach Christianity. His end was tragical,—a proof that if any of the original settlers had been Christians, they had reverted to idolatry. In 1121, a bishop embarked from Greenland for the same destination, and with the same object; but of the result no record exists. We hear no more, indeed, of the colony, or of Vinland, until the latter half of the fourteenth century, when the two Venetians Zeni are said to have visited that part of the world. From that time to the discovery of the New World by Columbus, there was no communication—none at least that is known—between it and the north of Europe.

This circumstance has induced many to doubt of the facts which have been related. If, they contend, North America were really discovered and repeatedly visited by the Icelanders, how came a country, so fertile in comparison with that island, or with Greenland, or even Norway, to be so suddenly abandoned? This is certainly a difficulty; but a greater one, in our opinion, is involved in the rejection of all the evidence that has been adduced. It is not Snorro merely who mentions Vinland: many other sagas do the same; and even before Snorro, Adam of Bremen obtained from the lips of Sweyn II., king of Denmark, a confirmation of the alleged discovery. For relations so numerous and so uniform, for circumstances so naturally and so graphically described, there must have been some foundation. Even fiction does not invent, it only exaggerates. There is nothing improbable in the alleged voyages. The Scandinavians were the best navigators in the world. From authentic and indubitable testimony we know that their vessels visited every sea from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, from the extremity of the Finland Gulf to the entrance at least of Davis’s Straits. Men thus familiar with distant seas must have made a greater progress in the science of navigation than we generally allow. The voyage from Reykiavik, in Iceland, to Cape Farewell, is not longer than that from the south-western extremity of Iceland—once well colonized—to the eastern coast of Labrador. But does the latter country itself exhibit, in modern times, any vestiges of a higher civilization than we should expect to find if no Europeans had ever visited it? So at least the Jesuit missionaries inform us. They found the cross, a knowledge of the stars, a superior kind of worship, a more ingenious mind, among the inhabitants of the coast which is thought to have been colonized from Greenland. They even assure us that many Norwegian words are to be found in the dialect of the people. The causes which led to the destruction of the settlement were probably similar to those which produced the same effect in Greenland. A handful of colonists, cut off from all communication with the mother country, and consequently deprived of the means for repressing their savage neighbours, could not be expected always to preserve their original characteristics. They would either be exterminated by hostilities, or driven to amalgamate with the natives: probably both causes led to this unfortunate result. The only difficulty in this subject is that which we have before mentioned, viz. the sudden and total cessation of all intercourse with Iceland or Greenland; and even this must diminish when we remember that in the fourteenth century the Norwegian colony in Greenland disappeared in the same manner, after a residence in the country of more than three hundred years. On weighing the preceding circumstances, and the simple natural language in which they are recorded, few men not born in Italy or Spain will deny to the Scandinavians the claim of having been the original discoverers of the New World. Even Robertson, imperfectly acquainted as he was with the links in this chain of evidence, dared not wholly to reject it. Since his day, the researches of the northern critics, and a more attentive consideration of the subject, have caused most writers to mention it with respect.[^[11]]

8. Russia (862). That the Scandinavian pirates founded a sovereignty in Russia soon after the middle of the ninth century, is a fact which no historian ventures to dispute. A body of the people under the denomination of the Varangians,—a denomination which nobody can explain,—subdued the Tshuder and other Slavonic tribes between the Gulf of Finland and Novogrod. They were indeed masters of the maritime coasts in this part of the Baltic. At this time Russia was split into many separate states, which had never known a common head, and of which most, though of kindred origin, were at war with one another. Of these states the most considerable was Novogrod, a flourishing republic, which had an extensive commerce, not merely with the nations surrounding the Baltic, but with the Greek empire, with Persia, and perhaps with India. Its wealth naturally raised the cupidity of the warlike tribes, who were on the watch to intercept its merchandise, to harass its convoys, and, when the opportunity was favourable, of assailing its outposts. Separately, indeed, none of these tribes could have made any impression on that powerful city; but leagues for a common object distinguished the barbarian no less than the civilised times. By such a league were the people of Novogrod menaced; and in accordance with a custom of the times, solicited the aid of their neighbours, the Varangians. All the Northmen, and the Varangians in particular, were ready to sell their sword to the highest bidder. The offer of the republic, therefore, was promptly accepted; and her enemies were speedily humbled.

|861 to 862.|

About the fact which we have just related there is no difference of opinion among historians; but there is much between native and foreign writers, as to the circumstances which led to the establishment of the Varangian dynasty in Russia. According to one of the former, four of the great tribes, with the city of Novogrod, being struck with admiration at the wisdom, the justice, no less than the valour of the Northmen, and rendered miserable by their continual dissensions, sent an embassy over the sea for princes that might govern and protect them! “The interests of order and of domestic tranquillity,” says the historian already quoted[^[12]], “induced them to lay down their national pride: the Slavi, says a tradition, influenced by the advice of an aged inhabitant of Novogrod, demanded sovereigns from the Varangians. Our ancient annals do not mention this sage; but if the tradition be true, his name is worthy of immortality, and of a glorious rank in our fasti.” It seems that the Novogrodians and the Krivitches were allies of the Finnish tribes on the borders of the Finland Gulf, and like them tributaries of the Varangians. Subject for some years to the same laws, they could easily draw closer the bonds of the alliance which had formerly united them. Thus, according to Nestor, they sent an embassy beyond the sea to the Varangians, saying, “Our country is extensive and fertile, but we are the prey of anarchy: come then to govern, to rule over us!” “Three brothers, Ruric, Sineas, and Truvor, illustrious alike for birth and valour, consented to assume the reins of government over a people who did not know how to use the liberty which their own right hands had won. Accompanied by a large body of Scandinavians, and prepared to defend by force of arms their own sovereign rights, these ambitious brothers for ever abandoned their own country. Ruric established himself at Novogrod; Sineas at Bielo-Ozero, amongst the Vessians, or Finnish people; and Truvor at Isborsk, a town of the Krivichians.” The internal improbability of this relation, in connection with the total absence of authority for it, must ensure its rejection by every critic.

The foreign historians of Russia, though relying on Russian authority, have given the only rational history of this event. They assure us that, after the three brothers had assisted Novogrod to humble her enemies, they were in no hurry to leave the country. Near the confluence of the Volkhof with the waters of the Ladoga Ruric built a town, which gave its name to that lake; and having fortified it, determined to make it a point of departure for his meditated conquests. His intention was but too evident to the people of Novogrod, who began to adopt measures for their defence. The Varangians were no less eager to profit by their superiority in arms; and to secure their great object, they combined their forces, and marched on the city. A mercantile people are seldom warlike. The inhabitants loudly expressed their determination to bury themselves amidst their houses rather than yield; but when the formidable enemy appeared before their gates, they preferred the part of submission, and from that moment received him as sovereign within their walls. Thus was a republican exchanged for a monarchical government, despotism for anarchy. Yet Ruric acted with much caution, and caused the weight of his power to sit as lightly as possible on the people he had subdued. He established a council of the chief inhabitants, whom he consulted for some time in every act of importance; and though he conferred most of the responsible offices on his own followers, his sway, at once moderate and firm, was an advantage to the people. His title of grand prince illustrates his wide ambition. His two brothers were princes; so were some others whom he placed over the local governments; but they were only his vassals, and their fiefs were reversible to him as their sovereign. Soon after his elevation, indeed, both the brothers died; and Ruric incorporated their states with his own. Both he and they must have been conquerors; for in a few years his authority extended from the northern extremity of the Ladoga lake to the western Dwina, and eastward to the confines of Yaroslaf.

But before the death of Ruric the Norman domination extended even to Kief. Two of his followers, Ascald and Dir, having apparently some reason for dissatisfaction, left Novogrod with the intention of doing what many other Scandinavians had done,—of offering their swords to the Greek emperor. On their way they perceived a little town, built on an eminence overlooking the Dnieper; and on inquiring to whom it belonged, they were told that it had been founded by three brothers long before dead, and that it was inhabited by a quiet inoffensive people, who paid tribute to the Khozars. The chieftains had a military eye: they saw at once the importance of such a position; that it might become the centre of a sovereignty, great perhaps as that of Novogrod; and with the armed force which they were leading they surprised the place. In a few years they were joined by great numbers of their countrymen, both from that city and from Scandinavia. This was the period, indeed, when Harald Harfagre was consolidating his empire by the reduction of the Norwegian chiefs, and securing tranquillity by the banishment of the more licentious pirates. Thousands and tens of thousands must, at this period, have left Norway in quest of new habitations. Hence Kief soon became very populous, and so confident of its strength that it sent its piratical sons to the very gates of Constantinople. Money induced them to retreat. The domination of the Khozars over Kief was at an end. The introduction of Christianity into that city did not much assuage the ferocity of the Normans: many adopted the mass without forsaking their warrior god.

|882.|

The establishment of two empires in Russia was soon found to be impolitic. After the death of Ruric, and during the minority of his son Igor, Oleg, to whom he had confided the administration, resolved to incorporate Kief with the northern principality. In his way, the regent took Smolensko and Lubetch; but on reaching the banks of the Dnieper beneath that city, he saw that it was too strong to be taken by force, and he had recourse to stratagem. By a pretended embassy, he lured the two princes into his power, and put them to death. The other conquests of Oleg, and his successful efforts to consolidate no less than to extend the infant empire, must be sought in the histories of that empire. Sufficient for our purpose is the fact, that these enterprising men established in Russia a sovereignty which still subsists. The family of Ruric held the throne of that empire above seven centuries; down to the accession of the present Romanoff dynasty.[^[13]]

10. Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece, &c.—During the Pagan age, the Northmen were on the coasts of all these countries, which they ravaged with success. Their visit to Italy, however, was but transient. Hastings, their leader, did no more than surprise a town at the mouth of the Tiber, and returned to Gaul, where a richer spoil invited him. In Spain, the Scandinavians abode for many years. The important city of Seville was in their power, and from it they made frequent and most disastrous incursions into the neighbouring provinces. They were long too powerful to be expelled by the monarch of Cordova, though that monarch was no other than the great Abderahman. On the coast of Galicia too, according to the ancient chroniclers of Castile, they abode for a season, and caused much mischief to the subjects of Pelayo’s successors. In Belgium and Spain their ravages were more frequent and more severe; in fact, there was no cessation to them until the north became Christianized. But though of their predatory expeditions a volume might be composed, they would little interest the reader, both because the description of one is the description of all, and because they left no permanent or important results behind them. In the expeditions which we have already contemplated, such results are to be found. In England they led to the formation of an independent kingdom in Northumbria, compelled even Alfred to retire into private life, and eventually placed Danish sovereigns on the throne. In France they occasioned the dismemberment of Normandy and Brittany from the crown. In Ireland they gave rise to many principalities, and continued, for centuries, to influence in the highest degree the fate of that country. In the Orkneys, they led to the establishment of a powerful dynasty, and produced a hardy race of men who still possess those islands. In Iceland there was the same result; and Iceland too became, what to literature is more important,—the refuge of the Norwegian language, religion, and learning. In Greenland, they called into existence a colony which subsisted above three hundred years. In Russia, they laid the foundation of the greatest empire which the world has yet seen. Even in North America, transient or unknown as were the results they produced, they exhibit a phenomenon as curious as it is interesting,—a handful of warlike shepherds, or adventurous mariners, traversing the wide Atlantic, and attempting to introduce their own institutions among the savages of another world. But those which were undertaken into the countries before us were not directed by master minds, and their motive was only sordid gain. The circumstances, therefore, which accompanied them may, for any thing we care, slumber in oblivion.[^[14]]

CHAP. V.[^[15]]
COSMOGONY AND RELIGION OF SCANDINAVIA.

INTRODUCTION.

THE TWO EDDAS, THE ELDER AND THE YOUNGER, THE POETIC AND THE PROSE.—CONTENTS OF THE FORMER.—DIVISION INTO CLASSES. 1. THE MYSTICAL. 2. THE MYTHIC-DIDACTIC. 3. THE PURELY MYTHOLOGICAL. 4. THE MYTHIC-HISTORICAL.—POEMS OF EACH CLASS.—THE PROSE EDDA.—SNORRO STURLESON.

The religion of the ancient Northmen—which, though it has many points of affinity with other religions, has yet a sufficient number of its own peculiarities to constitute it a distinct system—has been always admitted to be a most interesting and most curious subject of inquiry, not merely in the north of Europe, but in England, in Germany, and in France. Yet until the last few years, the popular notions concerning it were vague and inaccurate; and for the best of all reasons—that, of the two sources from which alone a full knowledge of it could be acquired, the one had been carelessly, the other partially published.

The two works to which we allude are the two Eddas, the Elder and the Younger; the former attributed to Sæmund, the other to Snorro, the son of Sturlo, both Icelanders and both Christians,—the one born in the eleventh, the other in the twelfth century.

Sæmund, who, from his varied knowledge, is styled hin Frode, or the Learned, and by posterity at least was regarded as a wizard, had greater advantages of education than we should have expected in an Icelander of that remote period. He studied, we are told, both in France and Germany, and is supposed to have visited Rome. On his return he settled at Oddé, in the northern part of the island, embraced holy orders, and was entrusted with the cure of souls. Much of his time, however, was devoted to the education of youth, and to literary pursuits. Whether, as Christianity had not long been established in that remote island, he was still in some degree influenced by the lingering spirit of paganism, or whether (a more probable supposition) a taste superior to the age in which he lived led him to preserve, instead of destroying, the remaining monuments of paganism, we are indebted to him for one of the most curious books that has ever occupied the attention of the human mind. This was the Elder Edda, the first part of which was published for the first time in 1787. The second part did not issue from the press until 1818, nor the third until 1828. No writer, therefore, prior to these years, could have any just notice of this venerable collection of pieces, or, consequently, of the religion which they illustrate. To the advantage furnished to the modern student by their publication must be added the vast erudition of Finn Magnusen, editor of the third or last part, whose Mythological Lexicon and Critical Dissertations (especially the one elaborately devoted to “the Edda Doctrine and its Origin”) have not only exhausted the subject, but pointed out many of the affinities between the Scandinavian religion and that of the most celebrated nations both in ancient and modern times.

The Elder, or Poetic Edda, consists of about forty poems,—all anonymous, all, with one exception, pagan compositions, though written at different periods, the most recent of them bearing the impress of considerable antiquity. They have been arranged, perhaps somewhat arbitrarily, into four different classes, according to the nature of the subjects. These are—1. the Mystical; 2. the Mythic-didactic; 3. the purely Mythological; and 4. the Mythic-historical.

1. Of the Mystical class, the most prominent is the Voluspa (Voluspa), the oracle of Vala the prophetess. This contains a rapid, abrupt, and very dark account of the whole system, beginning with the creation, and ending with the destruction of the universe by fire. All things, however, are not to be destroyed: two individuals, a man and a woman, are to be saved, and made the progenitors of a new and fairer world. It should be observed, that in the Scandinavian as in the Greek and Roman superstition, superior sanctity is ascribed to the women. They alone knew the fates; even Odin had to consult them when he wished to look beyond the dark cloud that concealed the future from the gods no less than from mankind.

The Grougaldor, or the magical song of Groa, is another of this class. It consists of terms and precepts, the use of which is to produce the most astounding supernatural effects. These “words of might” were not peculiar to the Odinic worship. They pervade still more thoroughly that which Zoroaster instituted, between whom and the northern prophet there are more points of resemblance than the learned have yet discerned. Both, for example, pretended to magical powers, because both found the pretension already in existence when they entered on their respective careers; and neither was willing to be thought inferior to the members of the priestly caste which he undertook to subvert. The magic of the Finns and Lets Odin stigmatized as black magic—as inculcated by the powers of darkness for the injury of mankind; but his was the white, the pure magic, the kingly art. He found a school already established in the north; and with all his power he could not wholly extirpate it. There seems, indeed, reason to infer that he connived at the union of many native rites with his own; or, at least, that if he did not, his immediate successors did. Just so it was with the renowned Magian. In contemplating the origin of his religion, we may either smile, or be provoked, at the prodigies which every where meet us. It is a religion of magic; it boasts of supernatural powers; it openly owns not merely the possibility, but the necessity, of miraculous results, when the words of might which it prescribes are duly pronounced. And if miracles and prodigies constitute its peculiar character even at this day, in the comparatively civilised Hindostan, they were doubly necessary when Zoroaster first announced it to the world. To them he boldly appealed for the truth of his mission. The miracles which preceded, those which accompanied, his birth, may be seen in the elaborate account of him prefixed by Anquetil du Perron to his translation of the Zendavesta. Throughout his life, if any faith is to be placed in his biographers, he wrought, or pretended to work, miracles by his magical terms. Yet he exceeded even Odin in the zeal with which he inveighed against the magic of his rivals. Against the magicians his most terrible anathemas were hurled; against them he waged a war of extermination, and justified the hostility by alleging the express command of heaven. But they were the servants of Ahriman, the irreconcilable enemies of Ormuzd—of every thing that is good—of every thing that issues from the benevolent deity. In their hands, magic was sure to become an instrument of evil; but in those of himself and his disciples, it could not fail to be an instrument of happiness. In the former case it must be fatal, in the latter highly useful, to human nature: hence the necessity of destroying in the one case that which should be piously maintained in the other. Such, too, was the conduct of Odin. There was, however, this difference between the two legislators: while the Median regarded women as absolutely impure, and confided the celebration of all his rites, magical or religious, to the men; the Scythian paid peculiar honour to the sex: women were allowed, enjoined, to perform the most solemn, the most awful, ceremonies of the new faith. Yet the men were not excluded from the privilege. There were colleges or fraternities of wizards from the earliest known periods of Scandinavian history, down to the time of Harald Harfager, or even later still. Rognevald, a son of that monarch, was burned to death, with eighty of his associates, on the charge of exercising a magic condemned by Odin, and emanating from the evil powers.

The Solar Liod, or Song of the Sun, is almost wholly the composition of Sæmund. But then he derived his materials from ancient pagan times.

2. Of the mytho-didactic poems, the first place may well be assigned to the Vafthrudnis-mâl. It is, like many of the other Odinic pieces, in the form of a dialogue. Odin expresses his resolution to visit Vafthrudnir, a famous giant or genius, and of contending with him in science. Frigga, his queen, “to whom the future is known,” attempts to dissuade him from the journey, because “no one of the genii is to be compared with Vafthrudnir in wisdom and valour.” If Odin should be vanquished in the contest, he must perish, and with him all the gods who were dependent on him. But he persists, assumes the disguise of a weary traveller, and proceeds to the palace of the sage giant. On this poem, however, we shall not further dilate, as a translation of it may be found in a volume of the present collection.[^[16]] This contest between the chief of the gods and the giant is derived from the same source as the war of the Titans with Jove.

Grimnis-mâl, or Grimner’s Song, is another of the mytho-didactic class. Grimner is no other than Odin, who has assumed the disguise of an aged minstrel, for a purpose explained by the Icelandic introduction to the poem. King Rodung had two sons, the one eight, the other ten years of age. One day they embarked in a boat to pass some hours in fishing. A storm arising, they were driven into an unknown sea, and cast upon a strange coast. Approaching a hut, they were hospitably received by the master and mistress, who seemed to be a rustic pair, but who in reality were Odin and Frigga. Agner, the elder, was the favourite of the latter, Geirrod, the younger, of the former. In the hut they remained the whole winter; and when spring arrived, they were led to the sea-coast, and embarked in a new vessel which their hosts presented to them. When bidding adieu, the male rustic whispered something into Geirrod’s ear. The purport of this secret may be inferred from the conduct of the prince just as he reached land. As he leaped on shore, he pushed the boat away, exclaiming to his brother Agner, “Go, where the evil genii may seize thee!” Repairing to his father’s court, he found that father no more, and he was immediately proclaimed king of the country. On the other hand, Agner was among the giants or evil genii, and married to a woman of that hated race. Great, therefore, was the contrast between the fortunes of the two; and Odin one day, from the highest heaven, pointed it out in triumph to his goddess-queen. Frigga declared that Geirrod was undeserving of the good fortune; that he was a niggard who starved his dependents and guests. This the god refused to credit; and when she persisted in the charge, he assumed a mortal form to try the experiment. But what man can equal a woman, either god or goddess, in cunning? Frigga sent one of her confidential messengers to Geirrod, telling him to be on his guard against a wise magician then in his dominions, who had resolved to destroy him: that magician was to be known by this token—that no dog would bark at him. The royal command was therefore given that dogs should be set on all who approached the palace, and whomsoever they refused to assail should be brought before him. A man, covered with a blue peltz, was brought before him and questioned; but the stranger would return no other answer than that he was called Grimner. In great wrath, the king placed him between two great fires—an infallible way of discovering a wizard—and commanded that he should receive no food. There he remained eight days and eight nights, suffering from the heat and from thirst, when Agner, the son of Geirrod, a boy of ten years, took pity on him, and presented him with a full horn, observing that his father did wrong thus to punish a guiltless man. Here the piece opens: Odin exclaims that the fire is hot; and prophesies that the royal youth shall, for this service, soon hold the sceptre of the Goths. He then proceeds—somewhat oddly, only immortal beings may be privileged to say or do what they please—to describe in succession the twelve mansions of heaven. (To this description we shall afterwards advert, when we endeavour to explain the cosmogony of the Scandinavians.) He ended by declaring who he was; and that the death of Geirrod was at hand. In great fear, the king arose to release the divine speaker; but stumbling, the point of his sword entered his body, and Agner was immediately proclaimed.

As many poems on the Edda will hereafter occupy our attention, we shall only observe that the Alvis-mâl, or song concerning the dwarf Alvis; the Hyndlu-liod, or song concerning Hyndla; and the Fiolsvinns-mâl, or story about Fiolsvinr, are of the same class, and equally conversant with mythological subjects. The second of these also mentions the names of some Norwegian jarls who traced their origin to a divine source. The Hava-mâl, or sublime discourse of Odin, concludes this class of poems. It consists partly of moral precepts, some of which are very good; while others are dictated by a mind more cunning than wise; and partly of the wonderful powers attached to certain runes. For the latter we have no taste; of the former, half a dozen specimens may be given.

“Remain not long a guest in the house of another; for he who does so becomes a burden to his host.”

“A secret can be kept by one person only,—by him whom it concerns. If two know it, there is danger; if three know it, it is no longer a secret.”

“Be thou the friend of thy friend’s friend, and in no wise the friend of thine enemy’s friend.”

“If thou hast a true friend, and keepest nothing from him, join thy heart with his, exchange gifts with him, and visit him often. The path untrodden is soon overgrown.”

“If thou hast a friend whom thou canst not trust, but yet wouldst obtain a benefit from him, speak fairly to him, but keep thine own secret: return him falsehood for falsehood.”

“Trust not to a woman’s word: her heart is moveable as the wheel at which she spins, and deceit is cherished in her breast.”

“The child of one’s old age is the most precious.”

“Flocks and herds perish; so do friends and kindred; such will be our own lot. But one thing there is that will never perish,—the good man’s fame.”

3. The poems purely mythological are of a more interesting class. The Hymis-guida, or song concerning Hymir, describes an entertainment given by Ægir, the sea-god, to the deities of the Scandinavian Olympus. Ægir, to his great dismay, has no cauldron large enough to brew mead in for such thirsty guests; and Thor goes to borrow or steal one from the great Hymir. This entertainment gave rise to another poem, the Loka-glespa, or quarrelling of Loka with the assembled guests. It is curious as showing the estimation in which the gods were held by one of their own number. A more imaginative production is the Hamars-heimt, or recovery of Thor’s mallet, which the guests had stolen, and which Thrym, one of the number, had buried eight miles below the surface of the ground. The Rafna-galdur-Odins, or raven song of Odin, describes the lamentations of the gods at their approaching annihilation. The Skirnirs-for, or journey of Skirnir to the region of the giants, in search of a wife for Freyr, one of the gods, is graphic, and strikingly illustrative of northern mythology. The Vegtams-guida, or Song of the Traveller, contains the descent of Odin to consult the charmed prophetess Vala concerning the fate of Baldur. This piece we have already translated.[^[17]]

That most of the preceding poems were composed at a period lost in the depths of antiquity, and in a region less remote than Scandinavia from the cradle of the human race, is exceedingly probable. Such are the Voluspa, Vafthrudnis-mâl, Grimnis-mâl, Alvis-mâl, Rafna-galdur-Odins, and Vegtams-guida. In regard to Hymis-guida, Hamars-heimt, Skirnirs-for, Hyndlu-liod, &c., they do not bear the impress of so high an antiquity: they are supposed to be the productions of the northern muse. They have their interest; but that interest is much stronger when we read the olden pieces. These have been compared by a living writer[^[18]] “to the organic remains, the wrecks, of a more ancient world; or to the gigantic ruins of Egypt and Hindostan, speaking a more perfect civilisation, the glories of which have long since departed.” We see, however, no reason for assuming this “more perfect civilisation:” the nation or people who knew such doctrines might have been ignorant enough, while their priests were comparatively learned. The oriental impress which they bear cannot be mistaken; still less can we overlook the extreme antiquity which they may claim. Kindred with the most ancient superstitions of Rome, of Greece, of Persia, they must have been derived from the same common source.

4. Of the mytho-historical poems, there are many. In them magic is so joined with the ordinary knowledge of life, the supernatural with the human, that we are inclined to reject even that which has a real historical foundation. In this respect, however, they are like the poems of all heroic ages, and not more censurable than those of Homer or of Hindostan. A more interesting fact is, that from these lays have sprung most of the great Teutonic fictions which adorn the Nibelungenlied, and many even of those which we denominate the romantic or the chivalric. Probably the incidents are perversions of real facts, which happened in a period approaching that of Attila and his Huns, whose exploits occupy the attention of the northern muse. Some of them, we know, were sung at the court of Olaf Trygveson, the Norwegian king. It would not, however, be difficult to trace others to a higher source than the age of Attila,—to the source whence the heroic classical lore of Greece was derived; and others again bear a marked affinity with the legends of the Arabian Nights.

The prose or younger Edda, usually, but perhaps erroneously, ascribed to Snorro Sturleson, has also many of these chivalric or mytho-historical lays. Of this venerable monument of antiquity the world could form no just notion prior to the year 1818, when that admirable scholar professor Rask published his edition. The edition of Resenius—the only one previously known to Europe—is an imperfect work, derived from corrupted MSS. and the notes of the Scalds are often confounded with the text. It consists of several parts. The Formali, which is the introduction, has many legends and fables respecting the descent of nations, especially of the Scandinavian. They are evidently from both Asiatic and European sources. After the introduction, comes the Gylfa-ginning, or deception of Gylfa. This personage was a king of Swithiof (part of Sweden) and a famous magician,—the head of the native magical college which the Aser were endeavouring to subvert. To account for their superior power, the result of their superior wisdom, he determined to assume a disguise, and proceed at once to the cradle of the Aser in the east. Under the name of Gangler (the traveller), he reaches the celestial city, and finds an oracle capable of resolving all his doubts, of removing all his ignorance. To each of his questions the reply is in full, explaining the mythology of the elder Edda, illustrated by extracts from the Voluspa, the Hava-mâl, and the predictions of the Scalds. This part of the work is, in its design, and partly in its execution, so similar to the Vafthrudnis-mâl in the elder Edda, that it must have been derived from it, or from a source common to both. The second part of the prose Edda, called Braga-raedar, contains the recitation of his best pieces by the divine Braga, at the banquet of the sea-god Ægir. The Eptirmali is a kind of epilogue written by Icelandic poets immediately prior to Snorro, or possibly by Snorro himself. It is an attempt to explain many of the fables in the Edda, by the circumstances of the Trojan war. In addition to all these subjects, we have the Skalda, which is a kind of ars poetica, for the use of poetical students.

While mentioning the prose Edda, we are naturally drawn to its reputed compiler Snorro, the son of Sturle, who was also the compiler of the Heimskringla, our only sure guide for northern history down to the 13th century. This extraordinary man was born in 1178, near the bay of Hoams-fiord, on the domain of his family. He was, consequently, above a century later than Sæmund, whose birth was between 1050 and 1060. His descent was illustrious; it could be traced to the ancient Ynglings and to the jarls of Moria. In his fourth year he was sent to Oddé, which, as we have before related[^[19]], had been the residence of that remarkable priest; and, strange to say, he was educated under the direction of Sæmund’s grandson, Jon Loptston. Here he remained until his twentieth year, and was instructed in Greek no less than in Roman literature. The MSS. collections made by Sæmund and Ari Frode, were his delight; and to them he was indebted for the ruling bias of his life. In 1197 he left Oddé, and by marrying the daughter of a rich priest, greatly increased his patrimonial inheritance. In every thing fortune smiled upon him; he became in a few years the richest man on the island; and when he appeared at the Al-thing, he was generally escorted by a body of some hundred horsemen. In 1202, he removed his residence from Borg, one of his patrimonial seats, to the estate of Reykholt, which he had also inherited. This place he fortified—a proof that deadly feuds were common—and adorned it with works that evinced alike his genius and his riches. In 1213, he was raised to the dignity of logsogomadr[^[20]], or chief judge of the island. No man could be better qualified for duties, the nature and origin of which had occupied so much of his time. In 1218 he visited Norway, where he was well received by king and nobles. His fame, indeed, had travelled before him. Among his poetical compositions were some odes in honour of the great; and these, (for flattery has every where the same effect) procured him many valuable presents, not only in Norway, but in Sweden. His sojourn in West and East Gothland doubtless originated in his desire to collect all the information which tradition, and possibly MSS., could furnish him in regard to his ancestors, and the Yngling princes. But his patriotism seems to have been inferior to his genius. That he entered into a conspiracy for the complete subjection of his country to the Norwegian court is certain. In 1220, both enriched and honoured, he returned to Iceland; but we no longer perceive in him the great qualities which had led to his election in 1213. Avaricious, haughty, revengeful, he made enemies on every side, and in 1237 was compelled to seek a refuge from their fury. Again he repaired to Norway, where he found one of his old patrons, Skule, the jarl, plotting for the crown of the realm. That plot he favoured; he even wrote a poem in support of that nobleman’s claims. Yet he also flattered the king, from whom he received the title of jarl. But he had designs deeper than either Skule or the king suspected; and in a short time some of his intrigues were known to that monarch. He was forbidden to sail for Iceland; and when he departed in defiance of that prohibition, secret instructions were sent to his son-in-law, Gissur Thorwaldson, to seize him and send him bound to Norway; or if this should be impossible, to put him to death. The extremities to which feuds in a barbarous age may be carried, are clearly illustrated by the conduct of Gissur. Though so nearly connected with the historian; though formerly the most intimate of his friends; he performed the more atrocious part of the proposal. The great wealth of Snorro, there can be no doubt, was one inducement to the deed of blood; but this must have been inferior to the feeling of vengeance. His measures required caution, for Snorro was powerful; and to be prepared, had only to be warned. His design was penetrated by one of Snorro’s friends, who in a Runic letter acquainted him with his danger. But this letter the poet could not understand;—we are told even that he could not read it; and that all to whom he showed it were equally unable to decipher it. However this be, Thorwaldson, marching at the head of a strong body of men belonging to a clan at deadly feud with his victim, hastened to Reykholt, where he surprised and murdered the noble owner, September 22., 1241.

Snorro, as we have observed, is the reputed collector of the prose Edda, and of the Heimskringla. A collector merely he seems to have been; but he exhibited great judgment in selecting, arranging, and modernising the poetic compositions which he followed. For his history, no less than his mythology, the pagan Scalds were his authorities.

So much for matter purely introductory. From the two Eddas, assisted by the commentaries of the best northern scholars, we proceed to lay before the reader the most striking features of the cosmogony and religion of the Scandinavians; and to accompany them by such reflections as may seem necessary to show their origin and nature.

SECTION I.

THE SCANDINAVIAN UNIVERSE, ITS WORLDS, AND THEIR INHABITANTS IN GENERAL, WITH THE PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.

CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE.—YMER.—THE GIANTS.—THE GODS.—OTHER BEINGS.—THE NINE WORLDS, WITH THEIR POSITION AND PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.—THE TWELVE HOUSES OF ASGARD.—SWARTALFAHEIM.—INHABITANTS OF THE NINE WORLDS.—THE ASER.—THE VEVER, &c.

In the Voluspa, or Song of the Prophetess, the Vala, who is probably Urda, the Norny of the past, being seated on a high throne, and surrounded by the deities, acquaints them with the wonders of creation, and of the destiny reserved for them all,—destruction. In the Grimnis-mâl[^[21]], Odin gives a similar account of the origin of all things; and throughout the elder Edda, we have allusion to the same doctrines. From them was derived the relation in the younger or prose Edda, with the merit of being much clearer. According to both, there existed in the beginning, on the site of the world, a vast abyss, Ginnunga-gap, which contained nothing. But to the north of that abyss there was another world, called Nifleheim, the cold and misty. It contained nothing but a spring, Vergelmer, from which flowed eleven great rivers into the abyss. They were called Elivagar (the cold waters), and their streams were poisonous as they were cold. As they flowed on, owing to the cold they became more sluggish in their course; so that when they reached the centre of the abyss, they were converted into ice. Still they flowed, and still the ice increased, until the whole Ginnunga-gap was filled. Out of such materials what could be made? It was necessary to create some other power before the visible universe could be formed. This northern realm, Nifleheim, which contained nothing except the fountain, which had no quality except that of coldness, which was covered with darkness, could, of itself, produce nothing; it could only send the sluggish poisonous waters into the centre of the abyss. That these waters were eternal we may infer; but we cannot infer how long the ice had accumulated when the real events of creation began. The agent of that creation is placed in another region, or rather world, Muspelheim, which lay far to the south of Ginnunga-gap, and which was intolerably hot,—more hot than Nifleheim was cold. The origin of this earth and its inhabitants, therefore, was the work of these two agencies, heat and cold, operating on the poisonous waters which lay between them. (Muspelheim, we suppose, with its numerous fiery inhabitants, and their mighty chief Surtur, the dark, the incomprehensible, the great evil principle, had no beginning; or if it had, the Odinian theologians were unacquainted with it.) What was frozen by the one influence was thawed by the other. It was probably some centuries before the heat from Surtur’s fiery empire dissolved the prodigious mass into a liquid element. From that element sprung the giant Ymer, by a process of generation which the northern sages do not deign to explain; and his vast bulk filled no inconsiderable portion of the abyss, as will soon appear from the use made of his corpse. This giant begat others. How? By a process no less odd than that which brought him into being. While asleep, a male and a female sprung from his left armpit; and he had the felicity too, by rubbing one foot against another, to produce a son. Why there should be three ancestors to the Rimthurser, or frost-giants, when, in our humble notion, two might have sufficed, is another mystery which we shall not attempt to penetrate. How were all nourished, seeing that there was no alimentary substance created? By the Supreme Being, the Great Alfadur, a cow with four teats was created; and from these flowed four rivers of milk. The cow herself was sustained by licking the salt-rocks, on which the hoar frost still lay. But her destiny was not fulfilled by this service; she was to call into existence a new race. When she had licked one day, the hair appeared; when she had licked two, there was a head; when three, there was a complete animal,—a man or giant, named Burè. This Burè, in his turn, became the father (probably by marriage with a descendant of Ymer) of Bur, or Bôrr, or Bore, who was more famous than any of his predecessors. His son married a lady of the giant race, named Bestla, and by her had three gods, Odin, Vilè, and Vè. Before these were long born, they slew the old giant Ymer. His blood was sufficient to drown all of the giant race, except Bergelmer and his wife, who sailed away to the mountains, and became the progenitors of a new race of giants. The corpse was now cast into the Ginnunga-gap; and from it heaven and earth were created. Thus the Grimnis-mâl:—

From Ymer’s flesh

Was the earth formed;

The sea from his blood,

The hills from his bones,

Plants from his hair,

Heaven from his skull;

From his eye-brows

Formed the mild gods

Midgard for the sons of men.

But from his brain

Were the thick clouds

All created.

This heaven, made from the giant’s skull, was supported by four dwarfs, East, West, North, South, and at one of the corners, a living pillar. (What supports the earth, or the dwarfs themselves, we are not informed). The globes of fire which ascended from Muspelheim, and spread through all space, were now placed by the three gods in the firmament, and made sun, moon, and stars, to enlighten heaven and earth.

That these notions are wild and extravagant will be asserted by most readers; but do they not involve physical truths? Were they not invented by the priests of old to cover their learning from the vulgar gaze? Let us hear the interpretation of Finn Magnussen, the most learned, the most acute, though, in too many instances, the most visionary, of northern commentators. The giant Ymer, he observes, represents the chaotic undigested state of the earth, produced by the combined effects of heat and cold upon water. That water was the first existing matter, is evident even from holy scripture. Many nations regarded it as the source of all things. The opinions of the Greek philosopher on this subject are well known; but we may mention the Orphic fragment preserved by Athenagoras. The water produced mud; the mud produced a monster with three heads,—the head of a god, of a lion, of an ox. This monster, which, however, was a deity, laid an egg, the upper half of which formed the heaven, the lower half the earth. From the union of heaven and earth, the offspring were, first the three fates, and then the giants and cyclops who rebelled, and were eventually cast into the Tartarean gulf. The Greeks, like all other people, had seen the mud deposited by water give birth to animals, after receiving for a time the solar heat. The action, therefore, of fire on the slimy particles thus deposited, was received as a generative principle; and assuredly there is nothing more irrational in the system of Scandinavia than in that of Greece. The Egyptian system was conformable with it. An original chaos; the separation of the mud from the waters; the action of the sun, or of heat, on the mud; the fermentation which followed; and the origin of animal existence, are the great features: as a necessary result, the sun, no less than the water, was deified. In the Scandinavian, as in the other systems, some kinds of matter were eternal. Eternal were the mists of Nifleheim, and the well Vergelmer; eternal perhaps the abode of Surtur, Surtur himself, and his fiery spirits. From the beneficent Alfadur nothing evil was to spring; he, therefore, we suppose, could not create Muspelheim, or its inhabitants; nor could he give birth to the giants of the frost, who are emphatically called wicked: hence their origin from the poisonous waters of Nifleheim.

If, in respect to water and fire, the cosmogony of the Scandinavians was kindred with that of other people, the resemblance furnished by the cow was equally great. “We need not be surprised,” observes Magnussen, “that men selected the ox, the most useful and widely-spread animal with which they were acquainted, for a cosmic symbol in its various forms. The cow was probably our first nurse; and the oldest nations, especially the Hindoos and the Egyptians, regarded her with religious veneration, and called her the mother of mankind. When men applied poetry to cosmogony, they elevated a mythic cow to the place of earth’s mother, or nurse. Such is our Audumbla. And if the cow was the mother, well may the bull (as in India) be held the father: he propagated the race, drew the plough, and in both cases might be said to rear or nurse mankind.” Among the Persians, the cow was held in even greater veneration than among the Scandinavians. The Abudad was the earth, which Jemsheed (the sun) pierced with his dagger. The cow was the symbol of creation, the instrument which Ormuzd employed for the production of the first human being. A cow, too, received the soul of Zoroaster, and transmitted it in the form of milk to the father of the prophet; but the notion was common to most people. The Cimbri in Italy had their copper ox, on which they swore, just as the Egyptians swore by Apis. It was the symbol of heaven, just as the cow was that of earth; it was held to be the father, just as the female was the mother, of all. The chariot of Hertha, or mother earth, was, as Tacitus informs us, drawn by cows. The Io of the Greeks was probably derived from the same widely-spread doctrine.

The cow, according to Finn Magnussen, is a purification of the atmosphere in the Scandinavian mythos of the creation. This, however, is not very clear; nor do we perceive more justice in the explanation given of Burè’s origin,—that the licking of the salt-rocks betokens the emersion of the solid earth from the deep waters. In another of his analogies, he is whimsical—that which makes Bôrr, or Bors, to be the Elbors, the Caucasus of the Persians. A correspondence of names is, in most cases, purely accidental, and proves nothing. More rational, perhaps, is our commentator, when he treats of Odin, Vilè, and Vè, which he makes into air, light and fire. The three gods destroyed Ymer, that is, the elements in question destroyed chaos. Whether, however, he is equally successful in the derivation of the three words, may be disputed; but there is much ingenuity, and some plausibility, in all. The Greek ατμός, the Sanscrit atma, the Teutonic athem, all signifying air or breath, are certainly cognate; and they are probably the same with the Othem, or Odin, or Woden, of the Germans. But whether Odin or Woden is derived from the Latin vado, to go through, to pervade, is not so clear. If this etymology were established, we should have no difficulty in conceiving Odin to be the air, the breath, the soul of the world. Still the subject is worthy of consideration; and the reader may adopt or reject it. He will be less inclined to admit the derivation of Vilè, which seems far-fetched. Nor are we quite sure that Vè, akin to Vesta, is to be taken for elemental fire, or metaphorically for life. Yet on a subject so obscure, we are unwilling to pronounce dogmatically.

The destruction of Ymer and his offspring, the wicked giants of the frost, by the divine race, is evidently the same mythos as the defeat of the Titans by Jove; of Ahriman and the evil genii, by Ormuzd and the Amshaspands. Surtur is the Ahriman of Scandinavia. He is the author of evil, viz., of the giants; and is destined one day to assist in the destruction of the universe. We read of the great Alfadur,—another than Odin who is sometimes called eternal. It is pleasing to read such notions of a First Cause, in such an age. To this omnipotent, eternal, and beneficent Being, who is far above all the worlds, inaccessible to any thing created, there are more allusions than one in the Edda of Sæmund. Thus the Hyndlu-mâl, after mentioning the destruction of Odin, with all the gods:—

Yet there shall come

Another mightier,

Although him

I dare not name.

Farther onward

Few can see,

Than where Odin

Meets the Wolf.

Such notions may be regarded as traces of a purer religious dispensation—of the patriarchal. As an eminent northern writer elegantly observes[^[22]]—“Thus sounds the voice of the northern prophetess, the Vala, to us obscure and indistinct, through the darkness of ages. It speaks of other times, other men and ideas; if fettered by the bonds of superstition, it longs after eternal light, and, though imperfectly, expresses that longing. We may also recognise some of those mighty minds of which Pindar speaks, as wandering eternally over earth and sea. In such sounds heaven and earth announce an Eternal Being, and at the same time their own mortality,—truths which no paganism has expressed more strongly than the Scandinavian. However darkly, still it does allude to the Mighty One on high, who is above all the deities of nature,—to one mightier than the mighty, whom it dares not name,—to that unknown God whom the Athenians also worshipped.” We may, however, doubt whether this notion of the One First Cause, dark as it is, was introduced by Odin into the north. In most of the relics which the ancient pagans have left us, we have traces of two religions, distinct from each other,—both from Asia, but not at the same period, or from the same region. The worship of Thor, for example, seems to be much more ancient than that of Odin; and perhaps before either was known—before the light of patriarchal truth was entirely departed from the north—the elementary form of worship, the most ancient and least debasing of all superstitions, prevailed.

The three gods, Odin, Vilè and Vè, were not the only created beings. Besides Bergelmer and his wife, from whom sprung a new giant race, other offspring than the three deities resulted from the union of Bôrr with Bestla—

The maid so good and fair

Though born of giant race.

From these sprung all the good, benevolent beings,—gods, goddesses, elves, Vanir, and spirits of air, of whom more in the proper place. All these were created before man. So also were the Duergar, or dwarfs.

According to the prose Edda, they bred like maggots in Ymer’s dead body; but the Voluspa tells us that they were created by the gods from the blood and bones of that giant:

Then went the gods

To their exalted seats;

The high and holy

Then consulted

Of them which

Should form the dwarfs

From the sea-giant’s blood,

And his blue bones.

Thus Modsogner is

The chief become

Of all the dwarfs;

And after him Durin.

But the former account is preferable, because it accounts more satisfactorily for the cruel, vindictive, yet often contemptible character of the race,—a race with small deformed bodies, large heads, flat noses, and still more despicable in mind. Probably, as Mr. Magnussen conjectures, these beings, who could not bear the light of day; who, if they accidentally saw it, were changed into rocks; whose life was passed in the bowels of the earth, especially in the bowels of the mountains, were intended to personify the subterraneous powers of nature. Their names, when translated, favour the interpretation. Wind, Blast, Gleam, Light, Fruit-giver, Iceberg, and others equally fantastic, attest their elementary character. Of all beings they were the most skilful, the most expert, the most industrious: they were unrivalled smiths; they manufactured wondrous armour, and other enchanted things, which were highly prized by the gods, who excelled them in power, but were inferior in ingenuity.

The beings next created were mankind. “The sons of Bure,” says the prose Edda, “went to the sea-shore, and found two trees, which they formed into man and woman. Odin gave them breath and life; Vilè, understanding and vigour; Vè, beauty of form, speech, hearing, sight.” But the Valuspa says that it was Haenir who gave understanding, and Loder a fair complexion. These, however, may be only different names for the same beings. Askur was the name of the first man, and Embla of the woman; the former signifying an ash tree, the latter, it is said, an elm. This is evidently a vegetable mythos. It is not peculiar to the Goths. Hesiod informs us that Zeus formed the third race of men from ash trees. The ancient Medians had the same notion; the mythic Kaiamar died without issue because without mate; but from his remains in forty years sprung a tree with fifteen branches; and from it Ormuzd fashioned the first progenitors of mankind.

Midgard, or the middle world, was made for the habitation of man; but before we describe it, we must glance at the other worlds with which it was connected. According to both the poetic and the prose Edda, there were nine.

THE NINE WORLDS.

In the Valuspa, the prophetess says—

I tell of nine worlds

And of nine heavens.

The giant Vafthrudnis has the same boast; and Alvis, the dwarf, tells Thor,

All the nine worlds

Have I passed through

And every being known.

These worlds, which were all vertically arranged, except Utgard, which was on the same plane with Midgard, are thus specified by Magnussen:—

1. Gimlè, the residence of the Supreme Being, the eternal Alfadur. Connected with it was Liosalfaheim, the abode of the benevolent light elves (of whom an account in the proper place). This region is to be the everlasting abode of the good after the destruction of the universe.

2. Muspelheim, the world of Surtur and his fiery genii, which lay far below Liosalfaheim. This world was perhaps uncreated and perhaps will not be destroyed.

3. Asgard (Aser-yard), or Godheim, the residence of the Aser, or gods; the starry firmament, which lay far below Muspelheim.

4. Vanaheim, the residence of the Vanir or spirits of air: it was also called Vindheim, the home of the winds. Its position was the atmosphere below Asgard.

5. Midgard (mid-yard), so called because it was the middle world, between Gimlè above, and Nifleheim below. It was also called Manheim, from its being the home of men.

6. Utgard (outer-yard), or Jotunheim, the home of the giants, lay beyond the vast sea which, according to the Scandinavian cosmography, encompasses Midgard. Midgard and Utgard are horizontal with each other.

7. Swartalfaheim, the home of the black elves or dwarfs, the spirits of darkness, is situated in the bowels of the earth.

8. Helheim, the palace of Hela, the goddess of death, lower far than Swartalfaheim, and the abode of all, however good, who die a natural death.

9. Nifleheim, the world of mist, the lowest of all the worlds. It contains the poisonous fountain and rivers in which the bad are to be punished.

Of these worlds six are to perish,—perhaps seven, for there is some doubt as to Muspelheim. The virtuous are to enjoy an eternity of happiness in Gimlè; the wicked an eternity of punishment in Nifleheim.

GIMLE AND MUSPELHEIM

Defy description. None of the Valas, none of the gods, none of the giants or dwarfs who boasted of their having seen these nine worlds, have left us any record of either. The former, indeed, must have been inaccessible to all created intelligences; but Liosalfaheim was esteemed less holy. Why Muspelheim was placed so near to Gimlè has not been satisfactorily explained; but we may infer that Surtur and his subjects, ministers of evil as they were, were only the instruments of the unknown power. In one account, they are said to be placed there to forbid the ascent of any hostile foot to the pure realms so far above them.

MIDGARD AND UTGARD.

The notion entertained of Midgard by the Scandinavians was, that it is round; that it is entirely encompassed by a vast sea; and that at the extremity of this sea begins Utgard, the abode of the giant race descended from Bergelmer and his wife. No better description of Utgard can be given than that which has been already given in the mysterious voyages of Gorm and Thorkill.[^[23]] We will, however, have frequent occasion to revert to the same subject.

The notion in question was not different from that of the Greeks. In the time of Homer, the earth was regarded as horizontal and circular, with the Mediterranean in its centre; which by one or more channels communicated with the ocean-stream that flowed round the land. On the other side of that ocean-stream was the abode of the Cimmerians and also of the damned,—a region dark and dismal as that to which the two Danish navigators, Gorm and Thorkill, repaired. The heaven too was thought to be solid, supported by four great pillars, which answer to the four dwarfs of the Hindoos and Scandinavians. The latter had a bridge from earth to heaven,—the bifrost, or rainbow, which though slender, was strong as adamant; and in this they resembled the Magians, whose sacred books speak of a similar bridge, most dangerous to pass, between the earth and the mount of the good genii. The Magians, too, recognised a dark country to the north, inhabited by evil genii, whose assaults are continually dreaded by the deities of the stony firmament. But reverting to the Greeks, the description which Ælian gives of the earth, is still more kindred with that of the northern pagans. “Europe, Asia, and Lybia,” says he, “are only islands, being surrounded by a great sea; but encircling the world is a continent of vast magnitude. On it are to be found huge animals: the men are double the size of us; and they live twice as long. Some are martial, and always at war; others so inoffensive and pious, as to be honoured sometimes by the conversation of the gods. They have gold and silver in abundance; and they value gold less than we do iron. A thousand myriads of them once crossed the ocean, and came to the country of the Hyperboreans. Near the extremity of that country there is a place called Avostos, resembling a large gulf or bay, where it is neither perfectly light, nor perfectly dark, but where a strong lurid sky hangs down to the earth.” The Arabians had the same notion of the mysterious country to the north; and of the giant race which inhabited it,—a race which is one day to destroy the world.

ASGARD.

Asgard, the residence of the gods, deserves a more detailed description. This vast city, as it is called by the Edda, was built by Odin and his two brothers immediately after the death of Ymer. It was well fortified, to defend it against the Vanir below, and the fiery sons of Muspelheim above. In it were twelve palaces, for the twelve chief gods:—

With Thrudheim, the house of Thor.

At the first glance every reader must perceive that by these twelve palaces are meant the twelve signs of the zodiac; and by Thrudheim the region of the sun. It could scarcely be expected, indeed, that the Scandinavians should be ignorant of a system which prevailed over the whole earth. Like the Egyptians and Assyrians, and Persians and Hindoos, they divided their year into twelve parts or months, and placed over each a god.

The best description of these abodes is in the Edda, in the poem of Grimnis-mâl. It is Odin himself, while between the two fires[^[24]], that describes them to Geirrod and Agner. The mere enumeration of these palaces, and of the divine inhabitants, would be useless unaccompanied by astronomical explanations. To the critical antiquaries of the north, especially to Finn Magnussen, must be conceded the honour of having first penetrated the hidden mysteries of their mythology. From him chiefly we condense the following account.

Thrudheim.

Thrudheim, or Thrudvangur, the residence of Thor, the god of thunder, is the atmosphere between Asgard and the earth. The palace in which the god dwelt was called Bilskirner, which Ohlenschlager, the modern Danish poet, thus justly describes:—

In wide Thrudvangur’s land

(So ancient Scalds indite),

A palace vast doth stand,

Unmatched in breadth and height.

Its halls with burnish’d gold

Are richly fretted o’er;

Their number rightly told,

Five hundred and two score.

Blue lakes and verdant fields

Smiling around are spread;

Studded with copper shields,

The palace glares in red.

From distant earth its walls

Some radiant meteor seem:

Far off the warrior halls

In purple splendour gleam.[^[25]]

1. Ydale.

Uller’s month commenced the Scandinavian year with the entrance of the sun into Sagittarius, November 22., and ended December 21. Uller excelled as an archer, and he was unrivalled in the art of skating on the ice and snow: hence he was the god of hunting. He was the son of the goddess Sif, whose second husband was Thor; but the name of his father, the first husband, does not appear. Ydale, his residence, signifies the dewy valley.

2. Alfheim.

Freyr month commenced December 21., when the sun entered Capricorn. He was the son of Niord, one of the Vanir, and produced at the same birth with his sister Freya. He was the god of the sun,—doubtless because during this month the days began to lengthen, that is, the sun to return. In the same manner the Egyptians honoured their heroes; and from them, perhaps, the Romans styled the winter solstice “natalitia invicti solis.” Alfheim, the abode of the light elves, was given to him for a residence by the gods, when he cut his first tooth. “He is to be invoked,” says the Edda, “for peace and a good season: he is the dispenser of blessings to mankind.”

3. Valaskialf.

Liosberi, the light-bringer, which extended from January 21. to February 19., began when the sun entered Valaskialf, the residence of Valè, and was sacred to that god. He was a son of Odin by Rinda (frost), a personification of the frozen barren earth. He presided over mid-winter. As the sun was now gaining power, his festival was celebrated by illumination in the houses. In imitation of that pagan ceremony, the Gothic christians had their Candlemas and the feast of torches. Valè too was an archer, probably from the rays of the sun, which now shot downwards with greater force. Valaskialf was said to be white, and covered with silver,—an allusion to the snowy character of the month. Valè (also called Bo[^[26]]) slew Hoder the blind god, who had killed Baldur. This mythos signifies that the day is beginning to triumph over the night,—for Hoder is the symbol of darkness. Valentine’s day fell within the dominion of Valè,—when half the month was run. Was it derived from this pagan god?

4. Soequabeck.

The fourth month, sacred to Saga, commenced February 19. and ended March 19. Soequabeck signifies the deep brook; in allusion, no doubt, to the abundant rains which fall, and to the snows which are thawed, at this period, which, in some places, indeed, to this day retains the name of Fillbrook. Mythologically, Odin and Saga are said to drink deeply this month. Saga, the goddess of tradition and history, is here put for Urda, the norny of the past. The name, however, of the month, or house, is much more explicit than that of the goddess; for what has the deep brook in common with history? The key to the difficulty may, we think, be found in the fact, that at this period was held the great assembly of Upsal, when all the freemen who were able to attend hastened to the temple, and heard the pontiffs relate the past exploits of the gods; then at the Al-thing, which was held immediately after the sacrifices, listened to the explanation of the old laws, and to the promulgation of new ones, by the judges. Upsal was the place of meeting for the Swedes: the Danes and Norwegians had a different place, but at the same period of the year. On these occasions, the people took care that the name of the month, Soequabeck, should be appropriate; for, in imitation of Odin and Saga, they made the cup pass merrily round.

5. Gladsheim.

Gladsheim, the joyful house, the month sacred to Odin, carries its own signification with it. From the 20th of March to that of April, was indeed a joyful season.

6. Thrymheim.

The next month, when the sun was in Thrymheim (April 21. to May 20.), was called Harpa or Harpen, alluding probably to the music of the birds at this season. This sixth house, Thrymheim, had been the residence of the giant Thiasse, but is now of his daughter, Skada. On his death, by the hands of Thor, she was given to Niord, and thus became a goddess. This mythos may be easily explained. The ancient summer began with this month. Thiasse, the genius of winter, is slain by Thor, the thunder god,—for in the mountainous regions of the north the sound begins again to be heard. Skada represents the clear, penetrating wind of spring.

7. Breidablik.

The ninth solar house (May 21. to June 23.), Breidablik,—the wide-shining, was named Baldur from the god who inhabited it. An unclouded sun, warm breezes, and sudden fertility, caused the god to be esteemed the most beautiful of all the deities; to be denominated the fair, the bright, the gentle, the good. The mythos of his death by the hands of Hoder[^[27]], may be explained by the gradual yielding of the sun to the encroachments of night; for Hoder is represented as blind, and is employed as the symbol of darkness. The nights are beginning to lengthen, the sun to leave the northern hemisphere: Hoder, or darkness, is instigated by Loke, the personification of evil, to encroach on the light. In all the ancient systems, especially in the Magian, which has so many points of affinity with the Scandinavian, night is the characteristic of the evil, just as light is of the good principle; and the former is always at war with the latter. The tears of all nature for the fate of Baldur more strongly illustrate the truth of the physical interpretation. Even the mistletoe, the instrument of Baldur’s death, was not chosen without a meaning; it flourishes when the tree decays; it retains its verdure throughout the winter: hence it was the symbol of immortality, while the physical god was created mortal. When heroes or monarchs died, their bodies were burnt: the funeral fire was therefore a rite necessary to the honour of the dead; and all who loved him or were dependent on him, were present on this last solemn occasion. In the mythos, Odin and all the gods were present: their worshippers, corroborating the physical interpretation, honoured Baldur on mid-summer eve by lighting fires on the high mountain tops. When the Northmen, and we may add, Scotland and Ireland, received the Christian faith, they still continued the custom; but now they paid the honour, not to Baldur, but to St. John, whose festival happened at the same period.

8. Himmelbierg.

The eighth solar house, Himmelbierg, or the heavenly mountain, the abode of Heimdal, was so called because the sun was now at its height. Himmelbierg, being the highest of all the palaces, was well adapted for watching; hence Heimdal was the watchman of the gods; and from his elevated situation he looked out upon the whole universe. His golden teeth, his golden-maned horse, his appellation “the whitest and brightest of the Aser,” are but so many expressions for the unusual splendour of the sun at this season (June 23. to July 23). Another of his epithets, the declining, alluding to the declination of the sun in the heavens, is equally explanatory of the mythos. Heimdall, says the Edda, needs less sleep than a bird; an allusion to the extreme shortness of the nights in northern countries at the summer solstice. He can see as well, it adds, by night as by day,—meaning that, at this season, there is no such thing as darkness, properly so called. His hearing, too, is equally acute: not even the growth of the grass, or of wool on the sheep’s back, escaped him. This may denote the silence of all nature during the great heat, and especially during the night.

9. Folkvangur.

The sun careered through Folkvangur, from July 23. to August 23. The word means a meeting of people in the field, alluding most evidently to the harvest labours during this season. Hence, Freya was considered the goddess of fertility, and, figuratively, of love. An extension of the same figure rendered her the goddess of the night,—of the moon,—of the planet Venus.

10. Glitner.

Glitner, the tenth house (August 23. to September 23.), was ruled by the god Forsete, which means the fore-sitter, the president. Every year this deity held a Thing at the will of Urda, the norny of the past; and there he decided all controversies so justly that every party was satisfied. Forsete, therefore, was the god of justice. On earth, too, in imitation of the mythical proceedings above, a great judicial assembly, or Al-thing, was held at this season. During its continuance, and indeed during the whole time of harvest, all feuds were suspended; hence the satisfaction of all with his authority.

11. Noatun.

Noatun was the abode of Niord, and the eleventh great solar house (September 23. to October 23). Niord (of whom more hereafter) was a prince of the Vanir, but was admitted among the gods. He was lord of the winds, and consequently of the sea, which is governed by them. Noatun, his residence, was said to lie near the sea-shore, but higher in the clouds. He was the beneficent deity of the sea, while Ægir and Ram were the terrible deities of the same element. The meaning is, that though in this month the winds were high, they were not destructive to ships.

12. Landvide.

Landvide, the twelfth solar house, means empty or barren land,—a term descriptive enough of the earth at this season. As this is the last of the months so Vidar, the presiding deity, is to outlive the rest of the gods, and to revenge the death of his father Odin on the wolf Fenris.

Such were the divine palaces of Asgard. But that great world had other parts, which require a moment’s notice. Three of them belonged to Odin:—Gladsheim was the great palace or hall where he presided over the twelve diar, or judges, who administered the affairs of Asgard. Valaskialf, the palace of his son Valè, was also his own. The highest part of this dwelling was called Lidskialf, where he had a throne, and which was so elevated that he could see all the dwellers upon earth. But more celebrated than these, or all his other abodes, was Valhalla.

Easily can they

Who come to Odin

Perceive and know Valhall.

The roof is decked with spears,

The walls covered with shields,

The benches with helmets.

This was the great hall in which Odin entertained the Einheriar, or souls of the warriors slain in battle. Like the palace of Thor, it had 540 gates. Daintily were they fed on the boar Schrimner, which though killed and eaten every day, was always alive again in the evening. Andrimner, the best cook in the world, prepared the meal. As for the mead, without which in profusion no northern feast would have been esteemed, abundance of it was furnished by the goat Heidrun. Never had guests a more liberal host. He treated them thus, that when the dreaded twilight of the gods arrived, they might assist him in repelling the giants and the spirits of fire. Nor would he allow them to forget their martial exercises. Early each morning they are awakened by the crowing of the cock with the golden comb,—that cock which is doomed also to warn the gods when the last enemy approaches. Hastily assuming their vizors, 800 of them issued at each of the 540 gates, so that the god had nearly half a million of boon companions. The whole of the time from sunrise to the hour of dinner was passed in fighting; and with such hearty good will, that multitudes were prostrated; but when the great hour arrived, all rose, perfectly well, to contend over the cups as strenuously as they had done in the field. They were served by the Valkyrs, viz., the choosers of the slain,—goddesses who were the favourite messengers of Odin, and the only females admitted into Valhalla.

The way in which a hero, who died in battle, or marked his bosom with runes to Odin, left Midgard for Valhalla, is poetically described. Thus shortly after his burial, king Hako, in his silent mound, first changed his posture from the supine to the sitting. He grasped his sword in his right hand; his shield with his left; while the celestial gold-hoofed courser, which had been sent to convey him, pawed the ground outside with manifest impatience. The mound opens; the monarch rises, mounts the noble horse, gallops up Vifrost, and passes through Gladsheim into Valhalla, where the gods came forward to meet him; while Braga, the deity of song, sounds the celestial harp with his praises.

We have seen the pursuits of the Einheriar by day,—fighting and drinking. Did they sleep? So we suppose. Sometimes, however, they mounted their horses, galloped down Vifrost, and entered their sepulchral mounds. Sometimes, too, they were present in battle; at other times they communed with their mortal friends.

The blood-thirsty character of the Northmen, which could not enjoy peace without cutting one another to pieces, has been justly exposed by historians. Still, however valour might be esteemed, we would not assert that it was the only virtue in the mind of the Scandinavians, or that heaven was closed to every other. There is, indeed, room to infer that this tenet was confined merely to a sect,—a caste,—the dominant one,—the immediate followers of Odin.

As we shall have frequently to speak of these celestial residences in the course of this chapter, we shall only add that Asgard had another palace called Vingolf, where the Asyniar, or goddesses, met, just as the gods met in Valhalla.

SWARTALFAHEIM

Was the abode of the Black Elves, (to distinguish them from the Light or shining Elves, who dwelt in Loisalsfaheim,) and also of the Dwarfs.

But there were elves who dwelt in the air, in water, amongst the trees. These could not be called underground people; and it is almost doubtful whether they can be classed among the Black Elves. As the term, however, has been adopted for the purpose we have indicated, viz., to distinguish the elves of earth from those of the highest heaven,—both those who dwell on, and those who dwell below, the earth’s surface—the well and the ill disposed—may here be considered.

“Our heathen forefathers,” says Thorlacius[^[28]], “believed, like the Pythagoreans—and the farther back in antiquity the more firmly—that the whole world was filled with spirits of various kinds, to whom they ascribed in general the same nature and properties as the Greeks did to their Dæmons. These were divided into the celestial and the terrestrial, from their places of abode. The former were, according to the ideas of those times, of a good and elevated nature, and of a friendly disposition towards men, whence they also received the name of White or Light Alfs, or spirits. The latter, on the contrary, who were classified after their abodes in the air, sea, and earth, were not regarded in so favourable a light. It was believed that they, particularly the land ones, the δαίμονες ἐπιχθόνιοι of the Greeks, constantly and on all occasions sought to torment or injure mankind, and that they had their dwelling partly on the earth in great and thick woods, whence came the name Skovtrolde[^[29]] (Wood-Trolds); or in other desert and lonely places, partly in and under the ground, or in rocks and hills: these last were called Bjerg-Trolde (Hill Trolds); to the first, on account of their different nature, was given the name of Dverge (Dwarfs), and Alve, whence the word Ellefolk, which is still in the Danish language. These Dæmons, particularly the underground ones, were called Svartalfar, that is, Black Spirits, and inasmuch as they did mischief, Trolls.”

The prose Edda draws a broad distinction between the light and the black elves,—the former being whiter than the sun; the latter darker than pitch.

“Of the origin of the word Alf,” says Mr. Keightley, “nothing satisfactory is to be found. Some think it is akin to the Latin albus, white; others to alpes, Alps mountains. There is supposed to be some mysterious connection between it and the word Elf or Elv, signifying water in the northern languages; an analogy which has been thought to correspond with that between the Latin Nympha and Lympha. Both relations are perhaps rather fanciful than just. Of the derivation of Alf, as just observed, we know nothing certain[^[30]]; and the original meaning of Nympha would appear to be, a new-married woman[^[31]], and thence a marriageable young woman; and it was applied to the supposed inhabitants of the mountains, seas, and streams, on the same principle that the northern nations gave them the appellation of men and women, that is, from their imagined resemblance to the human form.

“Whatever its origin, the word Alf has continued till the present day in all the Teutonic languages. The Danes and Swedes have their Ellen or Elven Dan, and Elfvor Swed (Elvus), and the words Elf-dans and Elf-blæst, together with Olof and other proper names, are derived from it. The Germans call the nightmare Alp; and in their old poems we meet Elben and Elbinnen, male and female elves, and Elbisch frequently occurs in them in the bad sense of the “Elvish” of Chaucer and our old romancers, and a number of proper names, such as Alprecht, Alpine, Alpwin, &c., were formed from it; undoubtedly before it got its present ill sense. In the Anglo-Saxon Ælf, with its feminine and plural, frequently occurs. The Orcades, Naiades, and Hamodryades of the Greeks and Romans are rendered in an Anglo-Saxon Glossary by munt-ælfenne, fæ-ælfenne, and feld-ælfenne. Ælf is a component part of the proper names Ælfred and Ælfric; and the author of the poem of ‘Judith’ says that his heroine was Ælf-scīene (Elf-sheen), bright as an Elf. But of the character and acts of the Elfs no traditions have been preserved in Anglo-Saxon literature. In the English language, Elf, Elves, and their derivatives, are to be found in every period, from its first formation down to this present time.”[^[32]]

The judicious and indefatigable writer whom we have followed in the preceding extract, and who has treated the subject with a minuteness and an accuracy unequalled in this country, continues:—

“The Alfar still live in the memory and traditions of the peasantry of Scandinavia. They also, to a certain extent, retain their distinction into white and black. The former, or the good elves, dwell in the air, dance on the grass, or sit in the leaves of trees; the latter, or evil elves, are regarded as an underground people, who frequently inflict sickness or injury on mankind; for which there is a particular kind of doctors, called Kloka, to be met in all parts of the country.

“The elves are believed to have their kings, to celebrate their weddings and banquets, just the same as the dwellers above ground. There is an interesting intermediate class of them in popular tradition, called the Hill-people (Högfolk), who are believed to dwell in caves and small hills: when they show themselves they have a handsome human form. The common people seem to connect with them a deep feeling of melancholy, as if bewailing a half-quenched hope of redemption.

“There are only a few old persons who now can tell any thing more about them than of the sweet singing that may occasionally on summer nights be heard out of their hills, when one stands still and listens, or, as it is expressed in the ballads, lays his ear to the Elve-hill (lägger sitt öra till Elfvehögg): but no one must be so cruel as, by the slightest word, to destroy their hopes of salvation, for then the sprightly music will be turned into weeping and lamentation.

“The Norwegians called the Elves, Huldrafolk, and their music, Huldraslaat: it is in the minor key, and of a dull and mournful sound. The mountaineers sometimes play it, and pretend they have learned it by listening to the underground people among the hills and rocks. There is also a tune called the Elf-king’s tune, which several of the good fiddlers know right well, but never venture to play; for as soon as it begins, both old and young, and even inanimate objects, are impelled to dance, and the player cannot stop unless he can play the air backwards, or that some one comes behind him and cuts the strings of his fiddle.

“The little underground Elves, who are believed to dwell under the houses of mankind, are described as sportive and mischievous, and as imitating all the actions of men. They are said to love cleanliness about the house and place, and to reward such servants as are neat and cleanly.

“The Elves are extremely fond of dancing in the meadows, where they form those circles of a livelier green which from them are called Elfdans (Elfdance): when the country people see in the morning stripes along the dewy grass in the woods and meadows, they say the Elves have been dancing there. If any one should at midnight get within their circle, they become visible to him, and they may then illude him. It is not every one that can see the Elves; and one person may see them dancing, while another perceives nothing. Sunday children, as they are called, i.e., those born on Sunday, are remarkable for possessing this property of seeing Elves and similar beings. The Elves, however, have the power to bestow this gift on whomsoever they please. They also used to speak of Elf-books, which they gave to those whom they loved, and which enabled them to foretell future events.

“The Elves often sit in little stones that are of a circular form, and are called Elf-mills (Elf-quärnor); the sound of their voice is said to be sweet and soft, like the air.

“The Danish peasantry give the following account of their Ellefolk or Elve-people:

“The Elle-people live in the Elle-moors. The appearance of the man is that of an old man, with a low-crowned hat on his head: the Elle-woman is young, and of a fair and attractive countenance, but behind she is hollow like a dough-trough. Young men should be especially on their guard against her, for it is very difficult to resist her; and she has, moreover, a stringed instrument, which, when she plays on it, quite ravishes their hearts. The man may be often seen near the Elle-moors, bathing himself in the sunbeams; but if any one comes too near him, he opens his mouth wide and breathes upon them, and his breath produces sickness and pestilence. But the women are most frequently to be seen by moonshine; then they dance their rounds in the high grass so lightly and so gracefully, that they seldom meet a denial when they offer their hand to a rash young man. It is also necessary to watch cattle, that they may not graze in any place where the Elle-people have been; for if any animal come to a place where the Elle-people have spit, or done what is worse, it is attacked by some grievous disease, which can only be cured by giving it to eat a handful of St. John’s wort, which had been pulled at twelve o’clock on St. John’s night. It might also happen that they might sustain some injury by mixing with the Elle-people’s cattle, which are very large, and of a blue colour, and which may sometimes be seen in the fields licking up the dew on which they live. But the farmer has an easy remedy against this evil; for he has only to go to the Elle-hill when he is turning out his cattle, and to say, ‘Thou little Trold! may I graze my cows on thy hill?’ And if he is not prohibited, he may set his mind at rest.”[^[33]]

Of the Scandinavian Dwarfs much less is known by the general reader.

“These diminutive beings, dwelling in rocks and hills, and distinguished for their skill in metallurgy, seem to be peculiar to the Gothic mythology. Perhaps the most probable account of them is, that they are personifications of the subterraneous powers of nature; for it may be again observed, that all the parts of every ancient mythology are but personified powers, attributes, and moral qualities. The Edda thus describes their origin:—

“‘Then the gods sat on their seats, and held a council, and called to mind how the Duergar had become animated in the clay below in the earth, like maggots in flesh. The Duergar had been first created, and had taken life in Ymer’s flesh, and were maggots in it, and by the will of the gods they became partakers of human knowledge, and had the likeness of men, and yet they abode in the ground and in stones. Modsogner was the first of them, and then Dyrin.’

“The Duergar are described as being of low stature, with short legs and long arms, reaching almost down to the ground when they stand erect. They are skilful and expert workmen in gold, silver, iron, and other metals. They form many wonderful and extraordinary things for the Æser, and for mortal heroes, and the arms and armour that come from their forges are not to be paralleled. Yet the gift must be spontaneously bestowed, for misfortune attends those extorted from them by violence.”[^[34]]

Two narratives of undoubted antiquity will illustrate the cunning of these subterraneous workmen. They are, however, somewhat out of place, since they would better suit the following section.

The first is from the Edda:—

“Loke, the son of Laufeiar, had out of mischief cut off all the hair of Sif. When Thor found this out, he seized Loke, and would have broken every bone in his body, only that he swore to get the Suartalfar to make for Sif hair of gold, which would grow like any other hair.

“Loke then went to the Dwarfs that are called the sons of Ivalldr. They first made the hair, which as soon as it was put on the head grew like natural hair; then the ship Skidbladnor[^[35]], which always had the wind with it, wherever it would sail; and, thirdly, the spear Gugner, which always hit in battle.

“Then Loke laid his head against the Dwarf Brock, that his brother Eitri could not forge three such valuable things as these were. They went to the forge; Eitri set the swine-skin (bellows) to the fire, and bid his brother Brock to blow, and not to quit the fire till he should have taken out the things he had put into it.

“And when he was gone out of the forge, and that Brock was blowing, there came a fly and settled upon his hand, and bit him; but he blew without stopping till the smith took the work out of the fire; and it was a boar, and its bristles were of gold.

“He then put gold into the fire, and bid him not to stop blowing till he came back. He went away, and then the fly came and settled on his neck, and bit him more severely than before; but he blew on till the smith came back and took out of the fire the gold ring which is called Drupner.

“Then he put iron into the fire, and bid him blow, and said that if he stopped blowing all the work would be lost. The fly now settled between his eyes, and bit so hard that the blood ran into his eyes, so that he could not see; so when the bellows were down he caught at the fly in all haste, and tore off its wings; but then came the smith, and said that all that was in the fire had nearly been spoiled. He then took out of the fire the hammer Miölner, and gave all the things to his brother Brock, and bade him go with them to Asgard and settle the wager.

“Loke also produced his jewels, and they took Odin, Thor, and Freyr, for judges. Then Loke gave to Odin the spear Gugner, and to Thor the hair that Sif was to have, and to Freyr Skidbladnor, and told their virtues as they have been already related. Brock took out his jewels, and gave to Odin the ring, and said that every ninth night there would drop from it eight other rings as valuable as itself. To Freyr he gave the boar, and said that he would run through air and water, by night and by day, better than any horse, and that never was there night so dark that the way by which he went would not be light from his hide. He gave the hammer to Thor, and said that it would never fail to hit a Troll, and that at whatever he threw it, it would never miss it; and that he could never fling it so far that it would not of itself return to his hand; and when he chose, it would become so small that he might put it into his pocket. But the fault of the hammer was, that its handle was too short.

“Their judgment was, that the hammer was the best, and that the Dwarf had won the wager. Then Loke prayed hard not to lose his head; but the Dwarf said that could not be. ‘Catch me, then,’ said Loke; and when he went to catch him, he was far away; for Loke had shoes with which he could run through air and water. Then the Dwarf prayed Thor to catch him, and Thor did so. The Dwarf now went to cut off his head; but Loke said he was to have the head only, and not the neck. Then the Dwarf took a knife and a thong, and went to sew up his mouth; but the knife was bad, so the Dwarf wished that his brother’s awl were there; and as soon as he wished it, it was there, and he sewed his lips together.”[^[36]]

The physical interpretation of this mythos is entitled to some attention. Sif is a personification of the earth, “the wife of Thor, the heaven or atmosphere: her hair is the trees, bushes, and plants, that adorn the surface of the earth. Loke is the fire-god, that delights in mischief, bene servit, male imperat. When by immoderate heat he has burned off the hair of Sif, her husband compels him so by temperate heat to warm the moisture of the earth, that its former products may spring up more beautiful than ever. The boar is given to Freyr, to whom and his sister Freya, as the gods of animal and vegetable fecundity, the northern people offered that animal, as the Italian people did to the earth. Loke’s bringing the gifts from the underground people, seems to indicate a belief that metals were prepared by subterranean fire; and perhaps the forging of Thor’s hammer, the mythic emblem of thunder, by a terrestrial demon, on a subterranean anvil, may suggest that the natural cause of thunder is to be sought in the earth.”

The next illustration is from the Heimskringla of Snorro:—

THORSTON AND THE DWARF.

“When spring came, Thorston made ready his ship, and put twenty-four men on board of her. When they came to Vinland, they ran her into a harbour, and every day he went on shore to amuse himself.

“He came one day to an open part of the wood, where he saw a great rock, and out a little piece from it a Dwarf, who was horridly ugly, and was looking up over his head, with his mouth wide open; and it appeared to Thorston that it ran from ear to ear, and that the lower jaw came down to his knees. Thorston asked him why he was acting so foolishly. ‘Do not be surprised, my good lad,’ replied the Dwarf; ‘do you not see that great dragon that is flying up there? He has taken off my son, and I believe that it is Odin himself that has sent the monster to do it. But I shall burst and die if I lose my son.’ Then Thorston shot at the dragon, and hit him under one of the wings, so that he fell dead to the earth; but Thorston caught the Dwarf’s child in the air, and brought him to his father.

“The Dwarf was exceeding glad, and was more rejoiced than any one could tell; and he said, ‘A great benefit have I to reward you for, who are the deliverer of my son; and now choose your recompense in gold and silver.’ ‘Cure your son,’ said Thorston, ‘but I am not used to take rewards for my services.’ ‘It were not becoming,’ said the Dwarf, ‘if I did not reward you; and let not my shirt of sheep’s-wool, which I will give you, appear a contemptible gift, for you will never be tired when swimming, or get a wound, if you wear it next your skin.’

“Thorston took the shirt and put it on, and it fitted him well, though it had appeared too short for the Dwarf. The Dwarf now took a gold ring out of his purse, and gave it to Thorston, and bid him to take good care of it, telling him that he never should want for money while he kept that ring. He next took a black stone, and gave it to Thorston, and said, ‘If you hide this stone in the palm of your hand, no one will see you. I have not many more things to offer you, or that would be of any value to you; I will, however, give you a fire-stone for your amusement.’

“He then took the stone out of his purse, and with it a steel point. The stone was triangular, white on one side, and red on the other, and a yellow border ran round it. The Dwarf then said, ‘If you prick the stone with the point in the white side, there will come on such a hail-storm that no one will be able to look at it; but if you want to stop this shower, you have only to prick on the yellow part, and there will come so much sunshine that the whole will melt away. But if you should like to prick the red side, then there will come out of it such fire, with sparks and crackling, that no one will be able to look at it. You may also get whatever you will by means of this point and stone, and they will come of themselves back to your hand when you call them. I can now give you no more such gifts.’

“Thorston then thanked the Dwarf for his presents, and returned to his men, and it was better for him to have made this voyage than to have stayed at home.”

HELHEIM AND NIFLEHEIM.

The palace of Hela has been already described, on the occasion of Hermod’s visit to his brother Balder.[^[37]]

Of Nifleheim no more need be added to what has been already said. None of the mythological beings whom Scandinavia recognised were ambitious of exploring it.

Such were the worlds of the pagan Northmen. But before we dismiss this part of our subject, we must advert for a moment to one of more philosophical import,—

THE YGGDRASIL.

As this is to us at least a mysterious subject (we do not pretend to the faculty of “looking through a millstone”), we shall present it to the reader in the words of Magnussen, and an able critic of our own country.

“The principal and most holy place of the gods is at the ash Yggdrasil. This ash is the largest and best of all trees. Its branches spread over the whole world, and reach up over the heaven. The tree has two roots, which extend widely; the one to the Aser, the other to the Frost-giants, where before was Ginnunga-gap; the third stretches over Nifleheim, and by it is Hvergelmer (the abyss), where (the Snake-king) Nidhug gnaws the root beneath.

“By the other root, which extends to the Frost-giants, is Mimer’s well, wherein Wisdom and Understanding lie concealed. Mimer, the owner of the well, is full of wisdom; for every morning he drinks from the well out of the Giallar horn. Once came All-Father (Odin) thither, and sought a drink from the well, but attained not his wish, till he gave his eye as a pledge. As it is said, in the Völuspá:

“‘All know I, Odin,

Where thou hiddest thine eye;

In the clear

Well of Mimer.

Mimer mead

Each morning drinks

From All-Father’s pledge.’

“By the third root of the ash, which extends to heaven, is the Urdar-fount. By the fount stands a fair dwelling, out of which go the three maids, Urda, Verande, and Skuld. These maids appoint the lifetime of all men, and are called Nornir. Of them, saith the Vala:

“‘Thence come maids

Much knowing,—

Three,—from the lake (or hall)

Beneath the tree,’ &c.

“The Nornir, who dwell by the Urdar-fount, take each day water from the well, and with it and the mud that is about the well, sprinkle the ash-tree, that its branches may not rot or wither. This water is so holy, that every thing that comes into the well becomes as white as the membrane within an egg-shell. So it is said in the Völuspá,

“‘An ash know I standing,

Yggdrasil it hight,

A lofty tree besprinkled

With white water;

Thence cometh dew

Which in the dales falleth;

Ever green it standeth

Over Urda’s well.’

“The dew which comes from it is called Honey-dew, and is the food of the bees. Two birds are fed in the Urdar-fount: they are called swans, and from them is descended this species of birds.

“In the branches of the ash Yggdrasil sitteth an eagle, who knows many things; between his eyes sitteth a hawk, called Vederlöfner (Storm-damper). A squirrel, named Ratatösk, runs up and down in the tree, and seeks to set strife between the eagle and the Snake-king Nidhug. Four harts run about in the branches of the tree, and bite the buds. In Hvergelmer, by the root of the tree, are so many snakes, that no tongue can tell it. So, in Grimnis-mâl,

“Ratatösk hight the squirrel,

Who shall run

Through the Ash Yggdrasil:

The eagle’s words

He from above shall bear,

And tell to Nidhug below.

There are also four harts,

Who the branches’ buds

Wry-necked gnaw,

Dain and Dvalin,

Dunuir and Durathror.

More snakes lie

Beneath the ash Yggdrasil

Than any one can think.

————

The Ash Yggdrasil

Endureth toil

More than men know.

The hart gnaws it above:

In the side it rotteth;

Nidhug wastes it below.”

“The mythos of Yggdrasil is contained in the preceding passages; and northern mythologists in general, and Magnussen in particular, have been no where more fortunate than in their explanation of it. Yggdrasil, they say, represents the universe (rather the world); its three roots lie in the three portions into which, according to the system of the devisers of Yggdrasil, the universe is divided. The central root is in Niflheim, the dark and dismal abyss beneath the earth, and is watered by Hvergelmer (the Ancient Cauldron), and its stem runs up through the earth to the summit of heaven. The second root is by Mimer’s well, in the north, the abode of the Frost-giants. The third root is by the Urdar-fount, in the bright and warm south, whose waters the three Maids, i.e. Time Past, Present, and Future, cast over its foliage to keep it in perpetual verdure. The branches are the æther, their leaves the clouds, the clusters of keys the constellations; the four harts are the four winds, the eagle denotes the air, the hawk the still æther, the squirrel the snow-flakes, hail-stones, and rain-drops. Urda’s fount, i.e. the fount of Destiny, is the source of life, light, and warmth; the snow-white swans, which swim on its waters, represent the sun and moon. The mythos of Mimer’s well shows the descent of the sun (Odin’s eye) into the sea each evening, where, during the night, he learns wisdom from the owner of the well; the golden-hued mead which Mimer drinks each morning, is the ruddy dawn that daily flows out over the sky before the sun.”[^[38]]

There can be no doubt that two distinct systems of creation are embraced by these mythi. They could not have originated in the same people. The Ymerian, there is strong reason to believe, was the native, the Yggdrasil the foreign, system.

From the preceding sketch of the Scandinavian universe, we perceive that it was inhabited by many distinct races of inhabitants. With one slight alteration, they may be classified after the nine worlds:—

1. The Shining Elves of Liosalfaheim.

2. The fiery spirits of Muspelheim.

3. The Aser, and Asyniar, gods and goddesses.

4. The Vanir, or inhabitants of the windy Vanheim.

5. Mankind.

6. The Giants and Giantesses; the descendants of Bergelmer and his wife.

7. The Black Elves, or Dwarfs, male and female.

8. The subjects of Hela.

9. The nondescripts, that it would puzzle the best antiquaries to say what they are.

With most of these we have little acquaintance. A few of the Light Elves are to be found in the palaces of the Asyniar; but none of Muspel’s sons do we encounter. Of the Vanir in general, we know little; but half a dozen of the race are venerated or esteemed in Asgard. Utgard and its sons were well known, from their intercourse, whether hostile, or friendly, with the Aser; and still better known is Asgard. The land of the Black Elves was frequently visited by men and gods. The realms of Hela were but once visited by living feet,—by those of Hermod.[^[39]] Of men we can mention such only as came into contact with beings of a higher or lower nature. Most of these classes, therefore, may be dismissed with a few general observations. Details respecting individuals, in most of these classes, will be found under the names of the chief Aser, or gods.

Whether the Aser were gods, or mortals only, or men who had been deified, has been long and zealously disputed. Each party gives elaborate reasons for its own hypothesis, and they have been convincing to itself if not to others. On a subject which requires the aid of the imagination to understand it, and to which speculation only can be applied, this diversity was inevitable. Within the last twenty years, however, a more careful examination of the pagan monuments of antiquity, and a more extended acquaintance with the religious systems of other people, have led to the conclusion that the Aser, like the Vaner, never existed on earth, and that they are purely mythologic. There is certainly much reason for the conclusion. The satisfactory way in which functions of the deities have been resolved into physical qualities may well fortify it. Still there are difficulties—we think insuperable ones—to be removed. The account which, in the former volume of this work[^[40]], we have given of Odin, Niord, Freyr, and Baldur, will scarcely countenance the hypothesis. The circumstances which attended Odin’s progress; those which accompanied and followed his arrival in the north; his temporal even more than his spiritual policy; his extraordinary success; the thrones which he established; the sons whom he left; the universal anxiety of the northern princes—even those of Saxony—to claim him as their ancestor, and an ancestor too only a few generations removed from them[^[41]]; afford, we think, evidence enough of his mortal career. Nor should we overlook the fact that both Saxo Grammaticus and Snorro Sturleson,—the former well acquainted with the tradition and history of his country; the latter most deeply versed in the religion and literature of the Scythian conquerors—contended for the mortal character of the Aser. In their days, this was not a new interpretation of the subject: ascend the stream of time as far as we can, and still we find that Odin and his pontiff-chiefs were regarded as men whom credulity had deified. Such was the opinion of Adam of Bremen in the eleventh century; of the biographer of St. Anscar in the ninth; of St. Kentigern in the sixth. In one of his sermons to the pagans of south-eastern Scotland, the last-named saint upbraided them with their folly for worshipping one (Odin or Woden) whom they themselves acknowledged to have lived on earth,—to have been a Saxon king,—to have paid the common debt of nature,—one whose bones had long before been confounded with the dust. Men of learning, who lived so much nearer to the times when the pontiff-king reigned in the north—who, for any thing we know to the contrary, had better evidence than tradition for his actions, young as that tradition was, have thought the same. It has been said, that even the least of those actions were of too superhuman a character ever to have been attributed to a mortal; and that the being concerning whom they were invented, must have been mythologic. But the assertion would not have been made, had the memory been consulted: it would have furnished personages, indisputably historic, concerning whom wilder legends (if legends can be wilder) have been invented than concerning the Asiatic conqueror. What have the ancient Romans or the modern Persians to say of their kings? What has been said of Attila? What of Arthur? What of Macbeth and of Don Sebastian? There are indeed few eminent characters in the history of the middle ages concerning whom supernatural tales have not been invented and believed. Perhaps, however, the term invented may be too severe a one; for in general the actions or qualities of personages much more ancient have been transferred to those of recent date.

These difficulties have appeared so formidable to most of the advocates for the mythological system, that they have been induced to admit the hypothesis of two Odins, who appeared in the north at different intervals;—the former a pontiff, whom superstition afterwards deified; the other a king, yet the chief of religion, who, seeing the veneration in which his predecessor was held, boldly declared himself an incarnation of the same being. This hypothesis, which is purely arbitrary, so far from diminishing the difficulty, greatly increases it, and is not, in other respects, worth another moment’s consideration. A second is more plausible, and not so arbitrary. It represents the pontiff-warrior—the second Odin—as assuming the name, and laying claim to the attributes, of another Odin, long received as a god. In this case, the god must have been incarnate in the person of this Scythian warrior; yet we have not even the shadow of a proof that metempsychosis was a doctrine ever received by the Scandinavians, or by any nation of the Goths. The Celts had it[^[42]]; yet this wide distinction between the two races has not prevented them from being confounded. As well confound the Caffre with the Cherokee. The Eddas assure us that, when a mortal paid the debt of nature, or fell in battle, he went at once to Helheim or Valhalla. Still there are two or three instances in which a transmigration into other bodies was effected; and though they are manifestly at variance with the religious creed of the north, and must be regarded merely as extraordinary exceptions, we are not disposed to reject the hypothesis that Odin assumed, or rather, after death, his people conferred upon him, the name of the god whom they had so long worshipped. It receives no little confirmation from the facts stated by Snorro, that in Asia the pontiff-king was known by the name of Sigoe. The truth is, that transmigration being an article of the Celtic creed, Odin might so far avail himself of it as to pass for the incarnate god. In either case, however, unless we reject Snorro and Saxo, and the Saxon Chronicle, and Adam of Bremen, and a host of writers in the middle ages, we adopt the conclusion that Odin lived, and reigned, and conquered, in the north.

Advocating then, as we deliberately do, the historical interpretation, we have yet to account for the extraordinary powers attributed to mere mortals; for the extraordinary difference of their religion; for the still more extraordinary doctrines of that religion, as contained in the Eddas. The subject is not without its difficulties; but probably they may be removed by a few natural reflections. That Odin and his twelve pontiff-chiefs found, on their arrival in the north, some kind of religious worship established, nobody will deny. What were the doctrines of that religion? Here conjecture only can guide us: we have no written, no traditionary, monuments of that antecedent worship. We read only that the Aser—the Scythian bands from Asia—had to contend with the native authorities; but that having in so great a degree the superiority of wisdom, they compelled the natives to receive their spiritual, no less than their temporal, yoke. Their arms, no doubt, effected more than their arguments; but to suppose that they could extirpate the dominant faith—if indeed there were not several established modes of worship in different provinces of the north—would be very irrational in itself, and irreconcilable with all the known facts of history. Pagan conquerors have always been disposed to respect the gods of other people. Every region was believed to have its own peculiar deities; and to honour them was necessary, if that region were to be either permanently or prosperously held. On the other hand, the natives themselves would, in a superstitious age, be sufficiently disposed to respect the gods of their victors; for human prosperity was always regarded as the work of heaven. If they still retained their own, they would not refuse homage to the more powerful stranger gods whose shrines were now transported among them, and whom they must, by degrees, consider as their own tutelary divinities. Hence the union of the two religions; not indeed wholly, but certainly in a very considerable degree. Their gods would be joined; so would such dogmas as were not absolutely irreconcilable with one another; and in a few, a very few, generations, both would be received by priest and people as if they had always been identical and indissoluble. That this has been the case in other countries, we know from authentic history. It was so with the Greeks; it was so with the Romans; it has been so since their conquests with several Asiatic nations. And reason tells us that this must always be the natural progress of events.

But on this subject we have more than conjecture, or even reason; we have facts. There are in the Eddas, and still more in the Scaldic interpretations, principles too repugnant to each other ever completely to harmonise. We know that Thor was more esteemed in Norway than Odin; and that in Denmark, no less than in Sweden, Odin was more highly venerated than Thor. The reason is, that the Goths, or, we should rather say, the last swarm of them that arrived with Odin, had more influence in these latter kingdoms than in the former. Thor, indeed, was almost exclusively worshipped by the Norwegians, who invoked Odin only on the eve of a battle. They held the former to be immeasurably the superior of the other; and, in contradiction to the Swedes and Danes, contended that Odin was the son of Thor. The elder Edda calls him the most powerful of the gods; and in the Sagas, by the most ancient Scalds, he is represented as frequently hostile to the other deity. Considering these facts, and the universal homage still paid to Thor by the Finns and Lapps—people of the same race with the Norwegians—we are of opinion that Thor was the native, Odin the foreign, divinity. The giants, too, appear to have been of native, perhaps of Celtic, origin, and to have been adopted by the Scythian Goths, after their arrival; while the black dwarfs, whose habitation was in the bowels of the earth, were introduced by the latter, and soon made a portion of the native creed. The white, or benevolent elves, were universally received by the Goths; but the dark, the malignant elves, seem to have been brought from an eastern region. It is in the highest degree absurd to suppose that if there had been no foreign admixture with that creed, and a very large admixture, we should have nine different worlds, with their complicated, often dissonant relation to one another. Where this complexity, and, still more, this evident dissonance between the elements, are found to exist, we may safely conclude that they have been introduced at different periods; that the mighty and irregular edifice has been reared by different hands. But if there were no other argument to establish the dissonance for which we contend, and the forcible union of opinions never intended to harmonise, it would be sufficiently obvious from the distinction between the two great systems of creation to which we have already alluded—the Ymerian or animal, and Yggdrasil or vegetable.[^[43]] Beyond all doubt, they were as distinct in their origin as in their nature; and were long held by the people essentially different. We are strongly disposed to regard the Ymerian as the native, the Yggdrasil as the foreign, system. Giants were more kindred with the Celtic than with the Gothic creed. By the latter, indeed, they were hated even more than feared. Whoever will peruse with attention those passages of the two Eddas where giants are mentioned, will probably arrive at the same conclusion with ourselves—that they were foreign to the genius of the Scythians. We may adore what we fear; but we never adore what we hate, still less what we despise. The same may be observed in regard to the magical rites of the two people. Of dark magic we read every where amongst the people of the former race. We meet with it in districts where the Scythian Goth never inhabited—in the more remote districts of Lapland and Finland. The rites, the opinions, of the people in these districts, were also, we believe, the rites, the opinions, of all the people that inhabited Norway and Sweden. Some of them, we know, were disliked by the followers of Odin. It was not Odinian, that is Gothic, or white (innocent) magic, that was professed by Raude of Norway.[^[44]] It was not Odinian, or Gothic, magic that caused Harald Harfager to be captivated so long and so fatally by the daughter of the Finnish Swaso.[^[45]] In the latter case, nothing can be more evident than that it was the native, black magic, which produced this effect. Hence the detestation with which that monarch, pagan as he was, regarded the art.[^[46]] It was not Odin’s magic which Egill practised when he left Norway, outlawed by Eric of the Bloody Axe. Before he finally left the coast, he fixed the head of a horse on one of the oars of the vessel, and raising it aloft, exclaimed, “Here I erect the rod of vengeance against king Eric and queen Gunhilda!” Turning the horse’s head in another direction, he exclaimed “I direct this curse also against the tutelary deities of Norway, that they shall wander, in pain, and have no rest for the soles of their feet, until they have expelled the king and queen!” This strange imprecation he then carved in runic characters upon the oar, and placed it in the cleft of a rock, where it was not likely to be found, or the spell to be dissolved. It was native magic that distinguished Gunhilda, wife of Eric with the Bloody Axe.[^[47]] More than one king who worshiped Odin punished with death the observers of these rites. And in most of the Gothic writers, pagan or christian, the palm of superiority in magic is awarded to native professors. The magic of the latter might be darker, more inhuman, more diabolical, but it was also admitted to be more profound and more potent. We agree with Magnussen in the conclusion that there was a union, more or less complete, of two schools of magic, as well as of two religions. But there were tenets which could not be reconciled, and the natives, by adhering to their own, caused a system to be perpetuated essentially at variance with that of the conquerors.

These facts, these arguments, will be admitted to have considerable weight. We shall adduce another which, joined with the preceding, should set the subject as to the fact of a religion having been dominant in the north anterior to the Odinic, and essentially different from it. Rude stones and rocks—so rude as scarcely to have a form—were lately, and probably are now, worshipped by the more remote Finns and Lapps. This idol they term the Storjunkar, or great ruler; they offer sacrifices upon it (generally the rein-deer), and prostrate before it, in certain mountainous districts, far from the usual habitations of men.[^[48]] This worship is a relic of the idolatry once common to the Norwegians, no less than to the Finns and Laps, who are of the same origin. That it was celebrated in Norway is certain; for we find it in Iceland as late as the close of the tenth century. Indrid was the mortal enemy of Thorstein; and one night he left his house to murder him. The latter entered a temple where he was accustomed to worship, prostrated himself before a stone, and prayed to know his fate. The stone replied, in a kind of chant, that his feet were already in the grave; that his fatal enemy was at hand, and that he would never see the rising of the next morning’s sun. All such stones, all such gods, were foreign to the Scythian Goths; and this relation, connected with others which might be easily extracted, proves that the Norwegians, who had felt little of the Asiatic yoke, had retained many of their gods, many of their religious rites, in defiance of opposition.

To say more on this subject in the present place would be useless; as in the course of the present chapter we shall have opportunities enough both of adverting to the more ancient superstition, and of comparing the two. It will, we believe, be found that much of the Eddaic cosmogony is of native growth; that the majority of the worlds and of their inhabitants were native; and that the Scythian warriors added little more than their Midgard, their Asgard, especially their Valhalla; their twelve gods (except Thor), with Odin at their head; their female deities (scarcely a dozen in number); and such other points of the creed as were necessary to connect and illustrate their cardinal articles.

The question of two distinct religions being conceded, it will not be difficult to account for the progress which Odin and his companions made towards deification. Most of the steps, indeed, have been indicated on a former occasion[^[49]], and need not be repeated here. Few were the regal pontiffs of Asia who did not boast of their descent from some god—some warrior king, whom after ages, admiring his success, had deified. Odin was not likely to neglect so useful an instrument for his designs. Then as he and the Vanir chiefs were unquestionably a much more civilised people than the natives of the north; as his talents, beyond all doubt, were of a commanding order; as the religious rites of which he was the superior hereditary pontiff, were celebrated with more pomp; as success attended all his measures, whether of war or of policy; as he himself, and his followers for him, laid claim to something of a divine character, the natives soon regarded him as a supernatural personage. The feeling was no doubt shared by his own people, who had always been taught to believe that a divine spirit might inhabit the bosom of a hero or a king. As in former ages Rovstam and Jemsheed, so in later ages Alaric and Attila, were beheld with equal reverence. With equal reverence at this day do the Chinese, the Thibetians, the Tartars, regard their rulers. So did the Mexicans and the Peruvians. From Snorro, however, we learn that the progress of Odin towards deification was much slower than is generally supposed. He expressly intimates that the king began to be peculiarly honoured after his death: “From this time men began to have more faith in Odin, and to offer him vows.” If his pretensions to divinity were recognised, so must those of his chief pontiffs; since the cause and the interests of the two were inseparable.

The original seat of that colony of the Goths which Odin led into the north, has, with much appearance of reason, been placed east of the Tanais or Don: probably it was considerably to the east of that river. On this subject we can have no better guide than Snorro: “The orb of the world, in which dwell the race of mankind, is, as we are informed, intersected with bays and gulfs: great seas from the ocean penetrate the firm land. It is well known that from the Straits of Gibraltar (Njövasund) a great sea extends quite to Palestine (Jórsala-land). From this sea there lies towards the north-east, a gulf called the Black Sea, which separates the three parts of the world from each other: the land to the east is called Europe, by others Enea. Northerly from the Black Sea lies the greater or cold Svithjód (Svecia or Scythia magna). Some affirm that great Svithjód is not of less extent than Serkland (North Africa): others even compare it with the great Blá-land Æthiopia magna). The northern part of Svithjód is uncultivated on account of the frost and cold, in the same manner as the southern part of Bláland lies waste, on account of the burning heat. In great Svithjód are many provinces peopled with various tribes of different tongues. There are giants and dwarfs; there are black men, and dragons and other wild beasts of prodigious size. Towards the north, in the mountains beyond the habitable country, rises a river properly called the Tanais, but which has obtained the name of the Tanasquisl, or Vanasquil, and which running through Svithjód, falls into the Black Sea. The country encircled by the branches of this river was in those days called Vanaland or Vanaheimr. This stream separates the three parts of the world from each other, the part lying east being called Asia, and that to the west Europe. The country to the east of Tanasquisl in Asia was called Asaland or Asaheimr, and the capital of that country, Asgard. There ruled Odin, and there too was a great place of sacrifice. Twelve pontiffs (hofgodar) presided in the temples, who were at the same time the judges of the law.”[^[50]]

Defective as was the geographical knowledge of Snorro, he has, no doubt, correctly assigned the cradle of this people, and of the Vanir. They were neighbours; they were consequently often at war, until the chiefs of both agreed, not only to be for ever amicable, and to join in all future conquests, but in some degree to amalgamate by a union of government. Hence the junction of the Vanir to the Aser, and the contiguity of their respective regions in the Scandinavian calendar. How Asgard and Vanaheim came to be placed in heaven, as well as on earth, has puzzled many writers. They may be equally puzzled, that the twelve drothmen, or pontiff-chiefs, should be transfused into so many divinities; and the temple of the earthly transferred to the celestial Asgard. There are two ways of solving this problem. It is possible—it is even exceedingly probable—that the Scythians, long prior to their migration from Asia, called their country after the heavenly one which they expected to inhabit after death. The government of the Aser was essentially theocratic, and assimilated as much as possible to that which they believed to exist above. Nor were they peculiar in this economy: Athens and greater nations have done the same. The twelve great priests of Egypt were named after the twelve gods who ruled the same number of celestial signs. Such was the case in Assyria. In Persia, too, the number of priests in the great temple corresponded with that of the Amshaspands, or celestial genii, who governed the world as vicegerents of Ormusd. Nothing, indeed, is more natural than the position, that men devoted to the service of the gods would endeavour to form their establishments after the model which the gods themselves were believed to have adopted. “Thus, the Aser were the gods of the new religion introduced by Odin, and at the same time his temporal companions and followers,—the tribe of the Ases, or Aso-Goths, from the river Tanais. Asgard, or Godheim, is their celestial abode, from which they descended on earth (Manheim) to mingle with the children of men; and is, at the same time, the original seat of Odin and his people on the river Tanais.”[^[51]] This we consider the more natural solution of the problem in question. It may, however, be, that the disciples of the original pontiff began after his death to invest both him and his companions with the ensigns of divinity, and assimilated them, both in number and in attributes, with the ancient divinities of Scythia; making, however, some change. In either case there must have been a change. We have before expressed our opinion that Thor was not a Scythian god: he, therefore, (and the same may be said of one or two others,) must have been subsequently admitted into the divine college, when the union for which we have contended took place between the native and foreign religion; or rather, when the foreign was engrafted on the native system. That system, we repeat, was, in our opinion, the basis of the one contained in the Eddas; and much more than the basis.

The union which we have endeavoured to establish, will account for the elaborate, however heterogeneous, system of the Eddas. That system was, assuredly, not the work of one people, or, we may add, of one age. It was derived from people widely different in character, habits, opinions, and manners; and it was probably the work of centuries. The successors of the twelve original pontiffs effected, there is reason to think, much more than they did, or than their predecessors had done. The elements were, indeed, strewed in Norway; but they could scarcely be fashioned into a whole; still less could they have assumed that stately form which they exhibited in the age of Sæmund and Snorro. They consisted of detached portions, composed at different periods, and probably not connected—not fashioned into a whole—until many centuries after Odin’s death. Nay, there is some reason for concluding, that the two Icelanders we have just mentioned were the first collectors of these scattered fragments, no less than of the comments on each by the recent Scalds of their own country, and the more ancient Scalds of Norway. Of the same opinion the reader will probably be, before he closes the present volume.

Having now given a general view both of the Scandinavian universe and of its inhabitants, and shown the probable relation between its gods and its mortals, we proceed, in the following section, to examine these gods more in detail, and, where practicable, to explain their respective attributes by the physical phenomena on which they were so frequently based.

SECTION II.
CHIEF MYTHOLOGICAL PERSONAGES OF SCANDINAVIA.

ODIN, THOR, AND LOKE.—THEIR CHARACTERS PHYSICALLY INTERPRETED.—THEIR WIVES AND OFFSPRING.—THE THREE DEMON CHILDREN OF LOKE.—INFLUENCE OF THIS DEITY OVER THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE.—HE IS PRESENT IN EVERY GREAT MYTHOS.—RAPE OF IDUNA.—THOR’S VISITS TO JOTUNHEIM.—THOR AND THE GIANT HYMIR.—THOR AND THE GIANT THRYM.—NIVOD, FREYR, FREYA.—EXPEDITION OF SKIRNIR-ÆGIR AND RAN.—OTHER DEITIES.—BALDER.—PUNISHMENT OF LOKE.—RAGNAROK.—RECOGNITION OF A GREAT FIRST CAUSE BY THE PAGAN SCANDINAVIANS.

ODIN, THOR, LOKE.

The first two gods we place together, as well for the purpose of comparison as that of contrast; the last, because his agency is necessary to explain the other two.

According to the Eddas, Odin had several wives; the first was Frea, or Frigga, by whom he had five sons, Thor, Balder, Braga, Hermod, and Tyr: the second was Skada, by whom he had Semming; the third was Grydur, by whom he had Vidar; the fourth was Rinda, by whom he had Balder, or Bo.[^[52]]

In Valhalla he has a table separate from the Einheriar, but he lives only on wine; and the meats set before him he distributes to two wolves which stand by his side. These are Geri the devouring, and Freki the fierce.

He learns all that passes on earth, without the trouble of ascending Lidskialf[^[53]], by means of two ravens, which leave Asgard at daybreak, and at dinner time return, to perch on his shoulders, and whisper into his ear all that they have seen. These ravens are—Observation and Memory; both presents from the enchantress Hulda. Hence he is called the raven god.

These mythi are for the most part sufficiently obvious. Frigga is a personification of the earth; while Odin himself, in his character of chief god, may represent heaven. Heaven and earth give origin to—thunder (Thor), the summer-sun (Balder), the swift messenger (Hermod), the hospitable board (Braga), and the undaunted defender of nature (Tyr). Skada, the daughter of the giant Thiasse, and a nymph of the mountains, is a personification of the spring winds; but we cannot see the import of the mythos—if, indeed, there were any intended—in regard to Semming. Why Vidar should be the offspring of Grydur is equally dark; but there is propriety enough in making the frost (Rinda) the mother of barrenness. The two wolves at Odin’s side denote his ferocity as the god of battles; and the two ravens, memory and observation, explain his knowledge of the past and present. To that of the future this god had no pretensions; this was reserved to the Norny Skulda, and to a few of the Valas, or prophetesses.

Immediately dependent on Odin—the ministers of his will as the god of war—were the three Valkyrs, or choosers of the slain. They also administer to the slain at his banquet.

There are many legends respecting Odin, who often visited mankind. We select one because it illustrates the observations we have made in regard to the rivalry of him and Thor. Sterkodder, the celebrated champion[^[54]], when a child, was taken captive. He fell to the lot of one named Granè, or Whiskers, who was named Horsehair Whiskers, and who brought him up as a foster-son. This was no other than Odin in disguise, whose attachment to one destined to become so unrivalled in arms may be easily conceived. One night the destiny of the young man, unknown to himself, was to be shown him. Horsehair Whiskers, of whose quality he was ignorant, embarked with him in a small boat, and they proceeded to an island, landed, and by midnight reached an open plain in the centre of a forest. There he saw a large assemblage; and within the ring formed by the assemblage were twelve seats, for so many judges. Eleven were full, but one was empty, and Horsehair Whiskers immediately seated himself in it. From the instantaneous salute of Odin by the judges, and the mention of his name, the chieftain perceived that he was in the awful presence of that deity, and of the other gods. Odin said that the judges should now decree Sterkodder his destiny. Thor then spoke and said, “Alfhild, the mother of Sterkodder’s father, chose for her son’s-father (husband) a very wise Jötunn (giant) in preference to Asathor; wherefore I appoint to Sterkodder that he shall have neither son nor daughter, and thus be the last of his race.”

Odin. “I grant him to live three men’s age.”

Thor. “He shall do a vile act in each of them.”

Odin. “I give him that he shall own the best weapons and harness.”

Thor. “And I appoint him that he shall own neither land nor sand.”

Odin. “I give him that he shall be rich in money.”

Thor. “I lay on him that he shall never seem to have enough.”

Odin. “I give him victory and martial skill in every fight.”

Thor. “I lay on him that in every fight he shall lose a limb.”

Odin. “I give him the poet’s faculty, so that he shall produce poems with as much ease as unmeasured language.”

Thor. “He shall never be able to remember the verses he makes.”

Odin. “I grant him that he shall be favoured by those of greatest rank and name.”

Thor. “He shall be hated by all others.”

Then the judges ratified to Sterkodder all that had been said, and the council broke up.

The Saga from which this incident has been derived was written by a Norwegian, who certainly held Thor to be the equal, if not the superior, of Odin. It is not unlike the magian scene at the creation of the world, when to every good thing decreed by Ormusd, an evil one was joined by Ahriman. That Odin and Thor were rival deities, and that they gave rise to hostile sects, is evident. And there is another point from which this hostility may be viewed. The warriors who went to Valhalla were all of noble birth; they were jarls or herser, were rich and powerful. But what became of meaner freemen and thralls (serfs) who fell in battle? They went to Thrudheim to the palace of Thor, Bilskirner[^[55]], which that the owner might not be outdone, had the same number of gates as the palace of Odin, viz. five hundred and forty. Does not this prove that Thor was the native, Odin the foreign, god?—that the former belonged to the vanquished, the latter to the victorious people? The very name of Thor shows that he was a Celtic divinity. He is the Taranis of Lucan, the Toron of the Scottish Highlands, and the Tiermes of the Lapps.[^[56]]

The visit of Odin to the giant Vafthrudnir, and his contest with him[^[57]], may also serve to illustrate his boasted knowledge, as well as power. Frigga, his wife, was alarmed when she first heard of her husband’s intention to visit “that learned giant.” He conquers, indeed, in the strife, but not through any superiority of knowledge: it is rather by an unworthy artifice.

Frigga, the wife of Odin, was a distinguished personage in the northern Olympus. She is the queen and mother of the gods. Her palace, called Fensale, was magnificent; and it was a sort of drawing-room for all the goddesses. Her prescience was great; she could foresee the future, and she was invoked by women in childbed.

According to the vulgar genealogy,—that which the Odinists, in opposition to the Thorists, were anxious to establish,—Thor was the eldest son of Odin and Frigga. Even in Sweden he was, after Odin, the first in rank among the gods. We may even doubt whether by one sect of the Odinists he was not esteemed the first; for his image at Upsal, where he is represented seated on a throne, with the attributes of divine majesty about him,—while Odin, the war god, is standing at his right hand with a drawn sword, and Frigga, the goddess of production, on his left, with the fruits of nature in her hands,—clearly establishes his predominancy. His strength was unrivalled; and his structure so large, that no horse could carry him: he always travelled in a chariot drawn by two he-goats. He had three treasures, all unrivalled, all made by the Dwarfs. Of these the most famous was his hammer, called Miölner (the miller, the bruiser), which, when thrown by his powerful hand, was irresistible; yet, however far it was thrown, it always returned to him. Formidable as it was, it was so small that he could put it in his pocket. No hands but his could touch it; nor even he without his wonderful steel gloves, the second of his treasures. The third was a belt,—Melgingandur, which doubled his strength whenever he girded it on. Above all the gods, he was the enemy of the Rimthurser, or Frost Giants, against whom, with his dreaded weapon, he waged unceasing war. The very glare of his eyes was tremendous: it was lightning; and lightning was emitted by his chariot wheels as he rolled along. Every day did he make the circuit of Asgard, to drive away the giants.

Of this mythos an interpretation is scarcely necessary. Miölner is his thunderbolt. His antipathy to the giants—the powers alike of darkness and of cold, and his daily circuit round Asgard, sufficiently explain themselves. His gloves and belt were an embellishment, which have no necessary connection with his nature. The latter is to be found in many oriental fictions, (the Arabian Nights, for instance,) and in many also current throughout Europe. His wife, Sif, is another illustration of the mythos. She is held to be a personification of the summer earth, and is represented in the act of distributing fruits and flowers. She, like her husband, was peculiarly worshipped in Norway. By a former husband she had a son—Uller, the god of hunters, whose residence was Ydale, or the Dewy Valley.[^[58]] The most wonderful of her peculiarities was her hair, which was unrivalled for its beauty, and to which we have before adverted.

The fact, that Sif was worshipped in Norway alone, of all the Scandinavian regions, is another argument in favour of her husband’s supreme worship, long before the arrival of the Aser. A still stronger one is to be found in the fact, that Thrudheim, or Thrudvang, was the name of a district in that kingdom, no less than of a palace in heaven: and the strongest of all is, the peculiar affection with which he was regarded by the Norwegians, who held him to be their native, their tutelary god. He seems to have had some attributes of the Roman thunderer: the same day (Thursday), and the same planet (Jupiter), were sacred to him.

The giants of whom Thor was thus the natural, the everlasting enemy, were, as we have frequently observed, the offspring of Bergelmer, the old man of the mountains, and of his wife, who escaped the destruction of their race by the blood of Ymer, only because they chanced to be at sea, fishing, when the giant was slain. Repairing to the dark lower region which lies within the polar seas, they soon peopled it. Darkness, indeed, was the element of these beings: no sun enlightened or cheered them. When they visited earth, it was during the night, for then their power was the greatest. In magic they surpassed all other beings: they possessed many secrets, relating to the origin and nature of things, unknown to the wisest of the gods. With them the three Nornies, or destinies,—with them Vala herself, the great prophetess of heaven, was educated. They regarded the Aser with dislike,—as usurpers of a world which rightly belonged to them; and towards the sons of Askur, the creation of the gods, they bore equal dislike. This feeling, indeed, did not prevent the Aser from occasionally intermarrying with them; but the marriages were never well assorted. The king of this vast gloomy region was Ugarthiloc, or, more correctly, Utgardelok, viz. the Loke of Utgard, the monarch of the outer world. The notion entertained of this personage, and of the whole race, by the Danes, we have shown on a former occasion.[^[59]] Wild as the legends there related may seem, they have their meaning. The reader will not fail to observe, that these original inhabitants of the earth—this people destroyed by the Aser, and exiled into the dreary wastes of the North, were the original Finnish, or rather Celtic race, whom the Goths expelled. The mythology of that race was full of giants; the Druids boasted of an acquaintance with nature denied to the rest of mankind; and the boast was probably a just one. The testimony borne by Cæsar to the extensive character of their knowledge, will abundantly illustrate this part of the historical question. Again, the Celts pretended to mystical science: in proof of it, look to Cæsar, to the traditions rife wherever the Celts have been located, and, above all, to the fragments of the ancient Welsh bards preserved in the Archæologia of the principality. The Eddas are filled with Celtic mythological allusions. For example, Celtic were the dwarfs or fairies of the benevolent class; while the malignant ones, who were a kind of evil genii, came with the Aser from a seat where the two principles of good and evil were a dominant article of the popular creed.

A personage no less important than Odin or Thor in the Scandinavian mythology, is Loke, or, as he is sometimes called, Luptur. He was important, not from his power, or his wisdom, or his dignity, but from his cunning, his treachery, his ill-nature, and the influence which he exercised alike over gods and men. He was the son of the giant Farbautè, by the enchantress Laufeya. Though of giant race, he obtained admission among the gods: indeed, as his manners were exceedingly pleasant, his mirth constant, and his wit unbounded, whenever they were not mixed with spite, he could not fail to be acceptable to so vulgar a race as the Aser. But when, as indeed was often the case, there was malice in his jokes, his laughter made the hearer shudder. Why the gods should tolerate him, is not very clear; but destiny was probably the reason which a devout Odinist would have assigned for it,—a very convenient reason in most systems of mythology. His birth might be traced to the origin of time; for, in some way or other, he was concerned with Odin in the work of creation, though the connection is very obscurely hinted at. He was a relation, we are told, of the Utgard Loke, or Ugarthiloc, the monarch of the frosty giants. These two personages were no doubt originally the same; but as the Celts and Aser had different notions of the same being, it was found necessary to introduce the two into the united creed. In virtue of his connection with them, Loke often visited the giants, by whom he was as little trusted as by the Aser. But he was sometimes useful to both; and, from the malice of his nature, no less than from his dislike to the gods, whom he at once feared and hated, he was frequently the ally of the giants in their efforts to recover their lost dominion, and to destroy the usurpers. If he thus brought the latter into danger, he alone could extricate them from it. In perfect accordance with the Eddas, he is thus described by Ohlenschlager:—

Amongst bright Asgard’s lords

Is one, As-Luptur hight.

Like honey are his words;

His heart is filled with spite:

His form is passing fair,

And winning is his mien;

But still his guileful leer

Shows all is false within.

Though oft his traitorous wiles

The Aser’s wrath provoke,

His smooth tongue still beguiles,

And stops the impending stroke.

Oft cited to appear

He cowers the Ash before.[^[60]]

At Odin’s table near

His place to Asa Thor.[^[61]]

He was, indeed, as a god, the familiar companion of Thor; who, however, had no great wish for his society. Like most of the gods, he was married. His wife, Signe, was an amiable being, who loved him in spite of his depravity. By her he had two sons, Nari and Vali, whose fate will be mentioned in the proper place. But he had other and more mischievous offspring by the giantess Augerbode,—Fenris the wolf, Jormungandur the great serpent, and Hela the queen of death. This alleged affinity will confirm the observation, that there was originally but one Loke, the lord of Utgard, and consequently the everlasting foe of the gods. How the Asgard Loke should become so wicked as to produce such offspring, might surprise us, if we were not assured that he was not so originally, and that he became so by eating the half-roasted heart of an enchantress.

These three children of Loke were reared in Utgard by the mother. The fatal influence which they were to exercise over the universe, was not concealed from Vala, the mysterious prophetess of heaven, or from Skulda, the Norny of the future. The gods being warned, sent to secure them. Jormungandur, one of the most dreaded, was seized, and by Odin cast into the great sea that separates the human from the giant world. There so large did it become, that it surrounded the whole earth,—being condemned to hold its tail in its mouth, and thus to form a circle. There he lies, waiting for the time when destiny will unloose him—the Ragnarok, or the twilight of the gods; when he will assist in the destruction of the visible universe.

Hela, the next mythologic offspring, is hideous to behold,—her body being half livid, half of natural colour. By Odin, or rather by destiny, of which he was merely the instrument, she was placed in the upper confines of Nifleheim,—in the region which, from her, is called Hell (Helheim). She was invested with dominion over six, or perhaps seven, of the nine worlds, (as we have before observed, there is some doubt whether Muspelheim be eternal,)—over men, and dwarfs, and giants, and gods. All who die a natural death proceed to her “drear abode:” hence her title, queen of the dead. “Hela’s hall,” says the prose Edda, “is affliction; her table is famine; her knife is hunger; her threshold, a drawbridge; her bed, lingering sickness; her tent, cursing.” She too, like Odin, had nornies, whose province it was to summon mortals to her vast domain. But these were much inferior in loveliness and dignity to the celestial nornies. They appeared to the fated victim by night only. Hela herself was sometimes believed thus to appear. She had a dark red cock, to signify, by its crowing, the approach of fate; and a spectre horse, to carry the doomed to her gloomy abode.

The third demon offspring of Loke, the wolf Fenris, is no less wonderful than his brother and sister. The one had been surprised and, thrown into the sea; the other had been partly persuaded to submit, through the high dignity offered to her; but Fenris, who was more powerful, was also more troublesome. He was taken, indeed, and bound; but he snapped his fetters, strong as they were, as if they had been nothing. A massive chain was now made, and he was bid to try its strength: it snapped as if it had been dried clay. Another was made double the strength of the preceding,—the strongest that the gods could make; but with a very slight effort it too gave way. What was to be done with this formidable criminal,—one destined, if oracles were true, to endanger the world? The gods had no fetter in which to bind him; the giants, who were skilful, could not be expected to join in any design against one of their own body,—one, too, that was naturally hostile to the Aser. In this, as in many other dilemmas, recourse was had to the Dwarfs in the bowels of the earth. At the instance of Skirnir, the messenger of Freyr, they constructed a chain called Gleipner; which, though so slender as to resemble a silken thread, was nevertheless not to be broken by gods, or giants, or dwarfs. The Edda acquaints us with the materials of which it was constructed. These were six, all curious enough to deserve mentioning:—the sound made by the feet of a cat; the beard of a woman; the roots of huge rocks; the fibres of trees; the breath of fishes; the spittle of birds. But how bind by it the formidable monster? Deceit must be used. Repairing with him to a solitary island, the gods desired him to try his strength on this, as he had done on preceding things. “Little honour,” replied the cunning demon, “can result from breaking a silken thread; but probably it may be enchanted!” and he refused to try it. He was next taunted and jeered; and in vexation he at length consented to be bound; but then, to be assured that the gods were honest in their proffer, he insisted that some one of them should put a hand in his mouth. They were in utter dismay; but the undaunted Tyr[^[62]], the northern Mars, the defender of the gods, at length resolved to sacrifice a member for the preservation of the universe. He therefore placed his hand in the open jaw, and the wolf allowed himself to be fettered. The chain was cunningly fastened round his body, passed through a rent rock, carried downwards to the centre of the earth, and there made fast. Fenris now tried as before; but so far from escaping, every effort that he made only entangled him the more, and rivetted his bonds the more firmly. He therefore desisted; but in his anger he bit off the hand of Tyr. From that moment the god has been only left-handed; but as he uses that hand with much effect, he is still to be dreaded. He alone had courage to take food to an animal, the roaring of which was felt by all nature, until the gods thrust a sword into his jaws, and thus gagged him. There he lies until Ragnarok, when, like Midgard’s serpent, he will break loose.

There is no personage in the whole system of a more mythic character than Loke. He was evidently the personification of the active evil principle. His name signifies flame; and he is a representative of the demon of fire—the destructive, in opposition to the alimentary, aerial fire, of which Balder may be considered the symbol. At this day the devil is called Loke by the Norwegians. Still there is frequently some obscurity in the mythi respecting him, and it is occasioned by his being so often confounded with the demon king of Utgard. Though they were originally one, the Edda has made him into two, in conformity no doubt with the genius of two distinct systems of mythology. The mysterious allusion to the assistance which he afforded Odin in the work of creation, is one great proof of his identification with the powers of evil: his relationship with the giants, on both sides, sufficiently accounts for his hostility towards the gods, with whom he associated that he might find an opportunity of triumphing over them. He is styled a coward, because his deeds will not bear the light—the inventor of deceit, of lies, of every thing base. The first of his offspring, the great serpent, is evidently a relic of the Celtic creed. The Britons acknowledged its existence; and there are two bold promontories on the coast to which they have given the name of the Worm’s Head.[^[63]] Of the wolf Fenris the character is more obscure, though no less confirmatory of the mythos. It is doubtless a symbol of destruction. In several countries of the East, it is believed that a wolf will finally destroy, if not the world, the sun and moon. Thus, in the Budhist system, a wolf, Rakoo, is always on the watch to swallow both luminaries. This mythos, we suspect, with a living writer[^[64]], has given rise to the superstition so common in the middle ages,—that of men-wolves; viz., the power possessed by some men of assuming the form of that animal. Hela, or death, the offspring of sin, or Satan (Loke), needs no explanation. We may, however, observe, that there is some plausibility in the arguments of Magnussen, when he attempts to show that Helheim is more ancient than Valhalla; that it is the place of punishment acknowledged by the original inhabitants, while the warrior’s heaven was introduced by the Gothic conquerors.

The mythological fables in which Loke so prominently appears, will illustrate his character better, and certainly more agreeably, than any formal description. In most of them he was associated with Thor; but we select one in which Odin and Hoenir were concerned with him. Hoenir, we must observe, is but another name for Vile, the brother of Odin, who assisted in the work of creation.[^[65]]

RAPE OF IDUNA.

The three Aser one day left Asgard to see other worlds, especially Utgard. Travelling over dreary wastes, they reached a mountainous region, more hungry than they had for some time been. Entering a valley, they found a herd of cattle, and killed one of the animals for supper. Loke, who was to be the cook, made a fire, and proceeded to his task, while the two nobler gods walked about. But notwithstanding the great heat of the fire, the ox would not roast. A voice, from the tree above him, told him that he would have no supper unless he promised to let the speaker join. He looked up, and seeing an eagle only, gave his consent. The bird now descended to the fire, and seized both shoulders, which he, considering as somewhat too large a share, would not permit. Taking a large billet of wood, he struck the unreasonable animal; when the eagle instantly flew upwards, one end of the billet adhering to its beak. But alas! the other end was no less tenacious of Loke’s hand; and away he was dragged over mountain, wood, and stream, his arm ready to fall from his body, and his feet sorely wounded by being trailed over the sharp rocks and bushes. He lustily called for help to Odin and Thor. “Cry away!” replied the eagle, who was no other than the giant Thiasse in that shape[^[66]]; “but never shalt thou be released from this situation, unless thou promise by oath to bring Iduna and her apples from Asgard to me!”

Iduna was the wife of Braga, the god of eloquence, and daughter to the dwarf Ivalldr, one of the most scientific of his race. She was a goddess, and the wife of a god: for both honours she was no doubt indebted to the wonderful apples of which she was the guardian, and which had been given her by her kindred. They had this virtue, that when the gods felt the approach of age, they had only to eat of these apples to be restored to all the bloom of youth. The giants, like the gods, were subject to decay; and, like the gods, they wished for the means of immortality,—to escape the dark empire of Hela.

As Loke was no friend to the Aser, he swore to comply with the giant’s demand, within a given time. He was therefore released, and enabled to return with the two gods to Asgard. When the covenanted time arrived, he told Iduna, that in a neighbouring wood he had discovered some apples, much finer, and much more valuable, than any she possessed. Her curiosity being raised, she took some of her own apples with her, to compare with the others, and was accompanied by Loke to the wood; but scarcely had they passed the boundary of Asgard, than Thiasse arriving in the eagle’s shape, bore her away to the dark mountains of Utgard.

Great was the consternation of the Aser at the disappearance of Iduna and her apples. The effect was soon visible: they became weaker, less supple, decrepit, and wrinkled. Though the season was spring, the flowers withered, and the leaves became sear as at the close of autumn. A council of the gods was convoked to learn how and whither Iduna had disappeared. No one could give them any other information than this,—that she had been last seen with Loke departing from Asgard. Loke was examined; and when he showed a disposition to evade the questions that were asked, Thor seized him, and threw him into the air so high that his heels struck the moon, and then descended to the sea. All this was nothing in comparison with what he would suffer if he did not restore the goddess. He readily promised to do so, if Freya would lend him her disguise, that of a hawk. Being furnished with it, he flew in that disguise to Utgard, and reached the abode of Thiasse just as that giant had left it to row for a short time on the neighbouring sea. Changing Iduna into a swallow, he returned with her in his claws towards Asgard. When Thiasse returned, and learned the departure of the goddess, he resumed his eagle’s dress, and rapidly followed in the direction which the hawk had taken. He obtained sight of the fugitives just as they approached Asgard; and he would certainly have overtaken them but for a stratagem of the Aser, who were anxiously watching the pursuit. Forming a vast pile of faggots under the walls of the city, they set fire to it; and the flames ascended so high as to burn the eagle’s wings. Thiasse fell to the ground, and was immediately despatched by Thor.

This is one of the most interesting fables of the prose Edda. It has doubtless a meaning, though we are by no means sure that Magnussen has discovered the right one. According to him, Iduna is the spring, which may be called the renewer of nature’s youth. Spring is always accompanied by joy and harmony,—by the song of birds, by the cheerful hum of men, by the gambols of animals, by the sportive winds: hence it is personified in Iduna: she is the wife of Braga, the god of poetry, of music, of song, of harmony. Thiasse, the giant, is the winter: Iduna flies from him in the shape of the swallow, which is everywhere the bird of spring. The destruction of the giant by the flames, denotes the season of winter killed by the heat of the spring.—That this explanation of the mythos is ingenious, as well as plausible, cannot be denied; but we are not quite satisfied with it. Though a meaning is involved in these fables, we doubt whether all the incidents are thus designed. Many were invented through the love of invention, or rather to please the multitude; and by such inventors physical principles would not always be observed. For this obvious reason, much caution is requisite in interpretations which have not positive authority for their base.

The next mythos in which Loke is exhibited, is in connection with Thor.

THOR’S VISITS TO UTGARD.

Geyruth, also called Geirrod, was one of the Aser’s most formidable enemies. In the former volume we have given, from Saxo Grammaticus, a description of his empire[^[67]],—a description rivalling in power of invention any to be found in Homer. To it we refer the reader, before he proceeds any farther with this narrative, as nothing can be more curious than to compare the account which Saxo derived from tradition (no Edda had then been compiled), and, what is more, from Danish tradition, with that given in the sacred books of the Scandinavians from Norwegian sources.

Thor’s first journey was preceded by that of Loke. Loke, with all his cunning, was frequently in trouble;—and how could the devil be otherwise? Assuming a hawk’s disguise, (the hawk in more countries than the North was the symbol of that personage,) he entered the dominions of Geyruth, was caught, and, when he refused to answer the questions that were put to him, was shut up in a chest during three months. His revenge then gave way, and he confessed who he was. The giant then released him, on his promise to bring Thor to Utgard, without belt or hammer. The object of the giant’s policy may be easily guessed. Thor, the defender of Asgard, the everlasting enemy of the giants, would be reduced to the same level with themselves when deprived of those wonderful treasures. Loke had no difficulty in prevailing on the stout-hearted god to visit the dominions of the giant king. On the way to that region, within the boundaries of Utgard, was a magic forest, of which the trees were all iron. It was inhabited by certain enchantresses, who were the mothers of male and female sorcerers, who could at any time assume the wolf’s shape. These enchantresses were cruel: they often raised storms, and enticed travellers into their power from the mere love of destruction. Thor met one of these witches, who cautioned him against the arts of Geyruth, and presented him with a pair of iron gloves, a girdle, and a staff.

On reaching the river Vimur, the longest one in the world, he observed Gialp, one of the giant’s daughters, standing astride the whole river,—one foot on each bank; and making the water rise in a fearful manner. He threw a rush at her, and forced her to retire. Wading across, he proceeded to Geyruth’s palace, which he entered, and a separate lodging was provided for him. In one corner of the cavern was a stool, on which he sat down; but scarcely was he seated, when the stool began to rise from the ground. With the staff which he held, he struck the roof of the cave, and immediately heard a loud scream beneath him. On looking, he discovered, with broken backs, three daughters of his host, who had placed themselves on the roof with the design of crushing him to death. Geyruth himself did not escape more easily. Inviting Thor to drink with him, the two sat down in another part of the palace, one on each side of a large fire. Having sat for some time, the giant seized a red-hot iron wedge that was glowing in the fire, and threw it with all his might at the god. The latter caught it with his gloved hand, and returned it with such force, that though Geyruth had run behind a pillar, it went through both pillar, himself, and the walls of the palace. Still it remained in his breast; and in that position, attended by his three maimed daughters, he has remained ever since.[^[68]]

In the second journey, which is much more imaginative, Thor was accompanied by Loke. The temple of Upsal had been visited by Utgardelok (the demon king of Utgard)[^[69]], who had not only extinguished the sacred fire, but made a ruin of the edifice. Now Upsal was the palace which, above all others in Midgard, Odin loved. In it Thor and Frigga too were worshipped with great pomp; and the priestesses of the latter were of royal blood,—the daughters of kings. Great was the wrath of the three deities. Thor, in particular, was observed to knit his brows, and to clench his fist at table: but he spoke not a word; for he was revolving the means of vengeance. Formidable as he knew the demon king to be in natural, and still more in supernatural power,—in a science unknown to the gods,—he resolved to invade his dominions. Having emptied a full horn presented to him by one of the Valkyrs, he called for his car, for his goats, and for Loke, as the companion of his journey. Having harnessed the animals, nailed on their golden shoes, wound the reins round his waist, he entered with Loke; and grasping Miölner in his right hand, proceeded at a rapid pace down the bridge Bifrost.

Adown the pointed way

As drove the impetuous god,

The red flames, lambent, play

Along the wheel-tracks broad.

Heimdal his horn blew loud,[^[70]]

The god with sleepless eye;

Seven maids submissive bowed[^[71]]

As the gold car flew by.

On earth some meteor dire

Men thought then to behold;

The heavens were fraught with fire;

In peals the thunder rolled.[^[72]]

Reaching a cottage towards nightfall, they asked for hospitality, which was readily granted. Humble was the cot; and it contained little for gods to banquet on,—nothing but simple vegetables. But Thor was not anxious on this account. With his hammer he slew his two goats, which were skinned and roasted with considerable despatch. Ample was the entertainment; not only was the flesh delicious, but the place teemed with excellent mead; and some idea may be formed of a divine appetite, when we add, that the two goats were entirely devoured,—all but the bones, which Thor desired should be carefully thrown back into the skins that were stretched before the hearth. But Thialf, a son of the rustic host, and a mere stripling, broke a thigh-bone of one goat for the sake of the marrow. The next morning, before daybreak, Thor arose, and swung his hammer over the two skins, when suddenly the two goats rose up as if nothing had happened. But one of them limped; and dreadful was the countenance of the god. Supplication, however, disarmed him; he took the youth and a sister into his service; and leaving the car and the goats at the peasant’s cottage, all four proceeded on foot. The boy, who immediately won the favour of his master, carried a wallet; and the maiden, quite a beauty, tripped lightly along. Thor marched pensively; his hammer flung over his shoulder; his dark locks escaping from his silvery casque. They reached the sea, which was agitated by a dreadful tempest; and Loke began to be afraid; but he was compelled to follow the god, who rushed into the water, like some thundering rock. The mortals too followed: but the storm continued to rage; and they required all the help of the leader to reach the other side. A trackless desert was next to be traversed; and on they went, in darkness, except that the moon now and then gleamed,—weary, hungry, wet, and faint. Other trials were to be encountered,—the storm, the lightning, the slippery ice, the deep mud; the roaring wind, which the demon king excited by his magic power. Thor, who had to support the maiden Roska, lost his temper; and he vowed revenge on Utgardelok when he should meet him. What seemed to be a hut, in the midst of the pitiless waste, presented itself; and three of them entered it, Thor himself remaining at the entrance with his mallet in his hand, to protect them while they slept. Vast, and of a strange form, was the only apartment which the hut contained; but in a storm any port is welcome. Towards morning, while Thor glanced in great anger over the waste, he heard a strange noise, and felt a strange motion. Rising, he beheld, by the faint glimmer of the moon, a vast giant—so vast as to cover several acres—asleep and snoring. Grasping his mallet, he was preparing to punish the intruder, when up started the giant. “Who are you?” demanded Thor. “Skrymner, the servant of king Utgardelok, just come from Jotunheim.” He addressed Thor by name, of whose feats he had heard much; but common report, he thought, had been too favourable; for after all, even he, who was of little esteem compared with his fellows, could put this hero of the gods in the palm of his right hand. “I have lost my gauntlet!” suddenly observed the giant, who groping for it, took it up. What was it but the strange hut in which Loke and the two mortals had passed the greater part of the night? All but Thor were dismayed at this commencement of their acquaintance with the subjects of Utgardelok; but Thor trusted in his hammer. “What brings you so far to look at a desert?” was the natural question of Skrymner. Thor replied, that he was determined to see, face to face, their boasted monarch, whose magic and frozen mountains he only ridiculed. The giant thought he might rue his boldness: however, if he was determined to proceed, let him do so, and he (Skrymner) would be his guide. When evening came, and the giant laid down to sleep under a great tree, until supper was ready, there was more magic. Neither Thialf, nor Loke, nor Thor himself, could open the wallet, or cut the strings. In great wrath the god seized his hammer, and struck at the forehead of the sleeping giant. “Has a leaf fallen on my face?” asked the giant, rubbing his face, and wondering why they had not gone to sleep. Towards midnight, the snoring of Skrymner so enraged Thor, that he arose, and aimed a hard and more vigorous blow at the monster: the hammer seemed to enter his very brain. “Has an acorn fallen?” was the cool observation of the other, as he rubbed his face. A third blow, which seemed to send the very handle into the giant’s head, had no better effect; so that Thor now began to have less confidence in the weapon which had hitherto terrified all created things.

But we must not dwell on events which have been so frequently described.[^[73]] The adventures of the god and his companions at the palace of Utgardelok were not such as to inspire him with more confidence. Loke—fire itself, which consumes all things—was beat at eating. Thialf—a mythologic personage too, though represented as a peasant’s son, his name signifying thought—is exceeded in the race. The mighty thunderer himself is vanquished in three successive trials. Though he is the sun, the greatest drinker surely in all nature, he cannot much lessen a large horn of liquor that is presented to him: he cannot lift a huge tom-cat from the floor: he cannot, in wrestling, throw a toothless old woman, who brings him on one knee. In much shame, though in no consternation, the god returned with his companions. On leaving the confines of the city, however, he was made acquainted with the deceptions that had been practised on him. The three blows which he had struck, were not at a head, but at a rocky mountain; and deep were the dells which they had made in it. The horn was the ocean; yet he had drunk so much of it as to leave in many places land instead of water. The cat was Midgard’s great serpent, which he had almost lifted from the sea. The old woman was Hela, the goddess of death, who with all her strength could only bring him on one knee. In great anger, he was going to exact revenge for such tricks, when the spectre and the city itself vanished like mist.

This mythos in a great degree explains itself. The contest between Thor and Utgard’s monarch is evidently one between the summer and the winter, between heat and cold, between light and darkness. Many of the details, we believe, in opposition to Magnussen, who sees in every thing a physical meaning, to have been created without any other design than entertainment.

Hymis-quida, a song about Hymir, is from the elder Edda, and is of great antiquity.

THOR AND THE GIANT HYMIR.

The sea-god Ægir gave a banquet to the gods; but he was little prepared for such drinkers, and his mead fell short. Thor called for more with some anger; and that anger was not diminished when he found that no more was forthcoming. The excuse was, that Ægir had not a cauldron large enough to brew sufficient mead at a time. Tyr, who was present with the rest, and who, though a god, is represented as the son of the giant Hymir, observed that his father had one a mile deep, which might be obtained by stratagem. On this business the two gods immediately departed in the chariot of Thor towards Hymir’s abode, which lay on the confines of the eastern sea. Here they found two ladies, the mother and wife of the giant; the former a strange creature, with 900 heads; the latter, who was the mother of Tyr, a fine woman, and kind as she was comely. She told them both that she feared Hymir’s return; since he was subject to dreadful passions; and she hid them behind some kettles. Towards evening he returned, in no good humour. As he entered the house, the icy mountains emitted a thundering noise. An old man he was to view, and the hairs of his head, which resembled a forest, were frozen. His wife, saluting him, told him that their son was arrived, in company with the famous enemy of the giants and the friend of men, Veor.[^[74]] “Look,” she added, “where they sit, at the extremity of the house, to avoid thy glance!” The giant looked; but they were concealed by the nine kettles. At his glance, however, the tree or beam from which they were suspended, burnt into two, and eight of them burst. The two gods now advanced; and though Hymir was compelled to exercise some degree of hospitality, he did so unwillingly. Three oxen (one for each, we suppose, unless the lion’s share was to be Hymir’s,) were ordered to be roasted. But Thor showed that he had more than a giant’s appetite; for, to the surprise of his host, he ate two of the animals himself. This made the latter observe, that the next evening the two visitors must eat what they could take in hunting or fishing for themselves. The next day, therefore, Thor proposed to fish, if the giant would give him bait. “Go amongst the cattle, and seize one,” was the reply. “I suspect, however,” Hymir added, “that thou wilt not easily catch such bait.” Without reply, Thor went into the wood, and seizing the horns of a large black bull, pulled off its head, and returned to the giant, who expressed some surprise at such a feat in one so little. They now went out into the sea, and the giant hauled two whales. But nobler was the prey of Thor: with the bull’s head he caught the great serpent Jormungandur, the head of which he drew out of the water, and which spewed venom upon him. The rocks trembled; the desert places howled, and the ancient earth rolled itself closer. He then struck the monster with his mallet, and it sank. Hymir rowed back, sullen and silent; and the strength which had been exhibited in bringing the two whales to his mountain home, gave him some reason for thought. When returned, the two gods were desired to try their strength in other things. A cup was put into the hands of Thor, and he was defied to break it. In vain did he dash it against several pillars in succession: he split them, but it remained unbroken. The wife now whispered him to throw it against the giant’s head, which was much harder than the rock. He did so; the head was uninjured; but the cup was broken, and the owner lamented its loss. The next trial of strength was to carry the great cauldron out of the house. Tyr tried twice; but could not so much as move it. But Thor placed it upon his head; and though the edges descended to his heels, he walked away with it. He was now pursued by a great number of giants whom he slew with his mallet.—From that time the sea-god was able to treat the Aser men to their satisfaction.

Of this mythos the physical meaning is dark; and this darkness is probably owing to the fondness with which the northern scalds added extraneous circumstances for the sake of embellishment. Nothing, indeed, is more hopeless than the attempt to restore these ancient pieces to the original fragmentary state in which they were left by the priests of Thor and of Odin. The scald has, by embellishing, concealed the priest; the fabulist concealed the philosophic theologian. All that we can safely assert is, that there is here a physical contest between heat and cold, between evaporation and congelation; that the sun (Thor), having drunk up all the streams of the earth, now invades the dominions of frost and snow. The bursting of the vessels under the glance of Hymir, is a notion universally diffused in the northern latitudes. Thus, the two magicians the suitors of Gunhilda, could destroy every thing by their glance.[^[75]] The meaning doubtless is, that excessive frost makes every thing brittle, and may therefore be said to split every thing.

If the scalds took such liberties with the ancient or poetic Edda, as often to bury the sun, they were more licentious still in regard to the younger or prose Edda. This work was evidently compiled to explain the former. With it a licence still more dangerous has been taken; so that, in many instances, it bears little conformity with the preceding work. We may add, that by modernising, paraphrasing, and embellishing the prose Edda, Ohlenschlager has done no service to the ancient mythology of his country: he cannot be followed by any one that would form a correct notion of the subject. In the same manner as the compilers of the second Edda deviated from the spirit of the first, so has the celebrated Danish poet deviated from them.[^[76]] For the sake of illustrating this divergence, let us advert for a moment to the same adventure in the prose Edda and in the version of Ohlenschlager: it will be found to have lost its mythical character in proportion to the improvement of its fable.

When Thor reflected on the gross impositions which Utgardelok had practised on him, he was apprehensive, and not without reason, that gods and men would take him for a fool. To vindicate his merits, he ventured again to visit Utgard, and without Loke, whose honour he justly suspected. This time he would, like them, change his form, and he obtained from Odin, in the shape of ointment, power that would enable him to do so. Leaving behind his car and his goats—

O’er Dovre’s ridge[^[77]] he strode,

For cliff nor torrent slack’d;

The tall pines, where he trode,

Like field of stubble crack’d.

Sneehattan’s peak of snow,

And Jotunfieldt he past,

Then sought the plains below,

And the sea reach’d at last;

He mark’d in curling wreath

The dull wave roll away,

And saw where, far beneath,

The serpent, brooding, lay.

His heart with hope beat high,

His voice shook as he spake,

Turning to Heaven his eye,

“No more, accursed snake,”

Quoth he: “in giant bend

Earth prison’d shalt thou keep,

Nor struggling sea-man send

To fell Ran’s cavern deep.”

“But being now resolved to proceed with caution, he began by changing his form. Throwing his ponderous helmet on the ground, it became a rock covered with pines.

Next, from his cloven chin,

He tore the bushy beard;

Which, cast in the ravine,

A thorny copse appear’d.

A smooth-faced peasant boy

He stood, in wadmel[^[78]] blue,

White Heimdall smiled for joy

The cunning wile to view.

Now straight to Hymir’s grot

He hies, a simple hind,

His flaxen ringlets float

Wild in the morning wind;

His belt, by magic cheat,

A woollen girdle seem’d,

Art with like art to meet,

No shame the Aser deem’d.

Miölner, as woodman’s axe,

Athwart his arm he bare,

His courage high ’gan wax

At thought of vengeance near.

In moss-lined cavern deep,

Lull’d by a torrent’s play,

Taking his morning sleep,

At length the giant lay.”

“The poet in describing Hymir’s residence gives a vivid picture of Norwegian scenery, black rugged rocks crowned with pines, a waterfall, a river white with foam dashing through thick brushwood down the ravine, and hard by a verdant dell filled with cattle. On hearing a stranger’s step, Hymir sprang up, and demanded of the stripling how he dared unbidden to venture into his wood. Thor replied that he felt no apprehension:

‘My pulse beats steadily,’

The youth replied: ‘for ne’er

Hath Nornies’ stern decree

Been changed, I trow, by fear.

One of a form so good,

Of generous soul should be;

My little drop of blood,

What would it profit thee?’”

“He finishes a long speech by saying, that his object was to obtain the giant’s permission to accompany him when he went out to fish.

The grisly giant grinn’d

So wide, that either ear

His mouth appear’d behind,

Ne’er yet was seen such leer;

The earth shook all around,

He laugh’d so heartily,

‘One with a heart so sound

I’ll never harm,’ quoth he.”

“He then granted the request, and invited Thor to take shelter in his cave from the keen morning wind, adding tauntingly,

‘When many a league from shore

The kraken’s snort we hear,

And whirling Maelström’s roar,

’Tis then we’ll talk of fear.’”

“Thor asked only to be put to the proof, and now begged to be allowed to take with him what he might want for his fishing. Hymir assented, telling him that for bait he would find a grub amongst the cows. Thor went into the field, and a wild bull rushing towards him, he seized it by the horns and brake off its head, and then throwing it over his shoulders leaped the enclosure, and hastened to Hymir, who was getting the boat ready.

When Hymir the bull’s head

On the youth’s shoulders saw,

He laugh’d, and own’d the deed

Was good for one so raw.

Then shoved the boat from shore,

Swift through the waves it flew.

Hymir plied well his oar,

And Thor row’d stoutly too.”

“The god now became elated at the near prospect of measuring himself with the serpent, and gave full liberty to his thoughts. If he could succeed in slaying it,

‘By Yggdrasil[^[79]], the feat

Would glad me more, by far,

In Valhall than to beat

Ten score Einheriar.

What fruitful seeds of ill

To mar man’s mortal state,

And earth with woes to fill,

From the worm emanate!

His pestilential breath

Fevers and plagues doth cause,

And each disease to death

Which man untimely draws.

When one in manhood’s prime

Feels his approaching end,

And ere yet lapsed his time,

To Hela’s power must bend;

When his heart-broken spouse

Sees hope’s last promise fail,

Then his fell might he’ll rouse

To mock the widow’s wail.

Her babe, which will not rest

When the pale mother clasps,

And gives in vain the breast,

Struggling for life it gasps.

Poor babe, as early rose

Late fresh—she sees its eye

In death for ever close—

Nor weeps for agony:

When one, who purely burns,

Absent for many a year,

To his true love returns

And finds her on her bier.

When from a mourning realm

Some virtuous prince is ta’en,

Or chief has bow’d his helm;

Then sure the foul snake’s seen

Writhing for joy. Their birth

All serpents, which infest

Man’s central spot of earth,

Draw from his nostril’s blast.

The great snake, whose wide jowl,

(To th’ southwards, far away)

Will gulp a raging bull,

Through him first saw the day.

Its tail wound round an oak

It watcheth long its prey,

Which from the affrighted flock

Struggling it drags away.

Others, with diamond eyes,

To Askur’s mortal race,

Death-doomed! though less in size,

Alas! not fatal less.

Fair sight their forms to view

Basking in new-donn’d sheen,

To their’s the violet’s blue

Must yield, or emerald’s green:

They know, by wizard gaze,

Coil’d ’neath some leafy bower,

Their prey with fear to glaze,

And charm him to their power.

Gaunt Fenris, Loptur’s son,

Who loves to prowl the night,

Bewilder’d travellers down

Hurling from rocky height:

When bloody treason’s rife,

When for some murder foul

The bandit whets his knife,

The wolf for joy doth howl.

All who delight in blood

From him beginning have;

From him the tiger brood,

The hyæna’s traitor laugh;

The like each robber beast,

Which from the fair light shrinks,

Fitchet of plunderers least,

Marten, and fox, and lynx.

For nought hath Fenris ruth,

When midnight winds blow hoarse,

His sacrilegious tooth

Tears from its grave the corse—

Still ’twere my chiefest joy

The foul worm and his brood

Of reptiles to destroy.

Grieves me that man the food

Of crawling worms should be:

This slain, his life should pass,

From loathsome sickness free,

In years of happiness.

And, when th’ o’erpeopled earth

No more her sons could feed,

The bravest should stand forth,

And like good warriors bleed.

Not hatred should unsheath

Their swords, nor lust of power,

But a soul-warming wrath,

Gone when the fight was o’er.

From some dark cloud the fray

I’d watch, my bolts in hand

The boldest on their way

To Odin’s hall to send.”

Thus mused the Aser Thor,

And pull’d with all his might,

Each time he struck his oar

The dark-green wave turn’d white.

The more his anger burn’d

The huge boat sped the more,

Seem’d as the waves it spurn’d

Skimming like Dolphin o’er—

So swiftly on it flew,

The sides began to split,

The sea so fast came through,

The twain in water sit.

Quick Hymir sprang to bale

It out, and loud to roar,

(His giant-heart ’gan fail)

‘Avast there! back your oar.

‘An you keep on this rate

We soon to Ran shall go’—

Quoth Thor: ‘Take heart, must yet

A score good leagues or so.’

‘Score leagues!’ cried Hymir: ‘why,

Art mad! mark’st not the storm!

E’en now I can descry

Where lies fell Midgard’s worm.’

‘And what care I for worm!’

Cried Thor, the fisher good:

‘The bleak north’s bitterest storm

But fans my heated blood—

I love the tempest’s roar—

Ha! there the foul worm struck,

Now I’ll take in mine oar,

And try with line my luck.’

Then rising to full height,

The iron kedge he took,

Which, though it seem’d him light,

Must serve him for a hook.

The gory bullock’s head

He took him for a bait—

The giant, pale with dread,

In the stern, trembling, sate.

For line, he next made loose

His belt, and one end pass’d

Twice round his waist, with noose

Well bound to th’ other fast

The baited hook he tied,

And in the ocean threw:

O’er the boat’s yielding side

The girdle, hissing, flew.”

Ohlenschlager.

“It must be confessed,” says the prose Edda, “that Thor here made quite as great a fool of Jormungandur as Utgard’s-Lok did of him, when the giant king caused him to lift up the worm, believing it was a cat. The worm gulped down the ox’s head so ravenously, that the hook stuck deep in his jaws. As soon as he perceived this, he plunged with such violence, that both Thor’s fists struck against the sides of the boat, on which the god’s anger got up and his strength at the same time, and he pulled so furiously against the snake, that both his legs went through the boat, and he remained standing on the bottom of the sea. He now pulled up the serpent to the edge of the boat, and, to say the truth, it was a terrible sight to see Thor look so grim at the serpent, and the serpent all the while gaping and spewing out poison against Thor. It is reported also that the giant Hymir changed colour, and became white with fear, when he saw the snake, and the dark blue sea breaking through the sides of the boat.

“In the same moment Thor seized hold of his hammer and swung it round in the air, but the giant fumbled about for his knife, and scored Thor’s knot over, by which means the snake got loose and sank down to the bottom of the sea. Thor threw his hammer after it, and it has been asserted that he thus knocked its head off against the breakers. But I think that it is pretty certain that the Midgard’s worm still lives and lies in the sea. Thor then lifted his arm and gave Hymir such a cuff on the side of the head that he fell overboard, and the soles of his feet were turned up in the air, but Thor waded to shore.”[^[80]]

The contrast between the preceding version and the simple relation in the venerable poetic Edda will, no doubt, appear striking to the reader, and abundantly confirm all the observations we have made on the subject.

THOR AND THE GIANT THRYM.

The poem of Thrym’s-guida, or the song about Thrym, in the elder Edda, has a physical meaning, though that meaning is dark. Awaking one morning, Thor could not find his hammer. Like Jove he shook his head and his beard, and groped about in every direction. Calling Loke to him, he said, “Here is a mishap, never before known in earth or heaven,—I have lost my hammer!” No doubt but it had been stolen during the night by one of the giants, who were always on the alert to injure the Aser. Both gods then went to Freya, to borrow her hawk’s-dress, as Loke had before borrowed it to recover Iduna.[^[81]] “And thou should’st have it,” replied the goddess, “if it were gold, nay, if it were even silver.”[^[82]] Loke assumed the dress, and flew into the giant region of Utgard. There he found Thrym, one of Utgard’s lords, making golden collars for his dogs, dressing the manes of his horses, and singing all the time. Seeing Loke, he inquired, “What news of the Aser? What of the elves? What brings thee alone to Jotunheim?” “Neither Aser nor elves are very well, just now:—hast thou hidden Thor’s hammer?” “That I have, eight miles below the earth’s surface; and regain it shall you never, unless you bring me the goddess Freya to wife!” The condition was a hard one. Freya was the queen of love; she was the Venus of Asgard; and she was also the moon,—two things much wanted in the cold dark region of Jotunheim. Away flew Loke, his wings resounding, until he reached Asgard, where he was anxiously met by Thor. “Hast thou been to Giant-land? And hast thou succeeded in thine errand?” “I have been to Giant-land, and I have succeeded in my errand. Thrym, the lord of the frost giants, has thy mallet, and thy mallet he will not restore, unless he has Freya to wife!” The loss of Freya would be a great loss, but that of the thunderbolt was worse; for how without it could Asgard be defended against the giants? Away went the two gods to Freya, and the Thunderer most unceremoniously bade her to prepare herself for a husband, and for a ride to Jotunheim:—

Angry was Freya,

And she trembled (with rage),

The whole palace of the gods

Was shaken.

The gods and goddesses were now assembled to deliberate on other means of recovering the hammer.

Heimdall proposed that Thor himself should assume the bridal dress, with the habit and ornaments of Freya, and proceed to Jotunheim:—

Let us make on him

The keys to jingle[^[83]];

And a woman’s dress

To flow below his knees;

And on his breast

The jewell’d ornaments;

And let us put on him

The handsome head-gear.

Thor did not much relish the proposal, from a fear that the gods would hereafter hold him to be degraded,—would regard him as really a woman. Loke told him, however, that he had only to choose between the mode of recovering his mallet, and of seeing Asgard in possession of the giants. He then suffered himself to be conveyed in the manner proposed. Then spake Loke, the son of Laufeya:—

“I as thy servant

With thee will go:

We together will ride

To the land of the giants.”

The chariot was brought out, the goats were yoked, and the two Aser rapidly proceeded to their destination,—so rapidly, that the rocks split, and the earth blazed under the shining wheels:—

Then spake Thrym,

Lord of the Thurser[^[84]];

“Arise, ye giants,

And strew the benches.

Then bring unto me

Freya my bride,

The daughter of Niord

From Nocturn:

“Bring into the bower

The cows with golden horns,

And the coal-black oxen,

The giant’s delight.

Many jewels have I

And many treasures:

Of Freya alone

Have I need.”

The giants arrived, and the bridal feast was prepared. Great was the surprise of Thrym to see his bride eat a whole ox, and eight salmon into the bargain; and to send after all three barrels of mead:—

“Who ever saw a bride

Eat so greedily?

Never did I see one

Devour so much;

Nor any virgin

Swill so much mead!”

The reply of Loke, disguised as a handmaid, was ready:—

“Nothing has Freya tasted

These eight nights (days),[^[85]]

So great was her desire

To be in Jotunheim.”

The giant in a gallant style wished to kiss his bride; but no sooner did he lift the veil, and see her looks, than he started back in great alarm:—

“Why so angry

The glance of Freya?

I see from her eyes

The very fire doth issue.”

The reply of Loke, the handmaid, was equally ready:—

“No sleep hath Freya had

These eight nights:

Such was her longing

To visit Jotunheim!”

The giant’s sister came for a bridal present, and one she was about to get that she little expected. The mallet, by Thrym’s command, was now brought forth, that the wedding might be solemnised over it. The god laughed as he grasped his well-known bolt; and no sooner did he grasp it than he killed Thrym, the sister, and all assembled.[^[86]]

According to Magnussen, the physical meaning of the poem is this. During the winter, Thor, the god of thunder, sleeps; and Thrym, the lord of that season, hides the thunderbolt. Loke (flame, and by an extension of the metaphor, heat) is sent in pursuit of it. The sun and moon were very meet and very natural gifts for the inhabitants of the dark region to solicit from the gods; and the world, on the present occasion, must have been left in darkness, or rather perhaps in cold, but for the interference of Thor. In the foundation of his theory, the critic is doubtless correct; but in the explanation of the attendant circumstances,—that in which the god assumes the female habit—he is whimsical enough. The truth is, that the foundation only can be traced in any of their myths: the circumstances are introduced purely for the sake of the embellishment, or for ensuring greater probability to the fable.

Before we dismiss Thor, we must advert to the goddess Sif, his wife. The word means a conjunction, kindred, and probably she was one of his family. By her he had two sons, Magne and Mode, and two daughters, Thrude and Lora. He was not her first husband, whose name does not appear; but she had a son named Uller by that husband.[^[92]] She excelled in chastity, and was much worshipped, not in Scandinavia only, but among the Vends, and perhaps the Slavonians, as a personification of the summer-earth. Her greatest pride is her fair hair, which, like the hammer of Thor, and the magic ring possessed by Odin, was the work of the dwarfs. She is thus described by Ohlenschlager:

Sif, tall and fair with native grace,

To none in beauty need give place

Save her whom Odin called to light,

To make the erst dull world more bright.

Fair tho’ she be, to Freya ne’er

Can stately Sif in form compare.

Not her’s the clear eye’s speaking glance,

Age-frozen blood might make to dance:

Or heart which passion ne’er had felt

Like snow ’neath mid-day sun to melt.

* * * * * * * * *

Sif seems some Amazon to be,

Her look replete with dignity,

Her eye beams no impassioned glance,

But rests in cold indifference.

Her round arms, form’d alike to prove

The contests or of war or love;

Her swan-like bosom’s faultless curve

Would Bragi’s golden lyre deserve.

Smaller though Freya’s hand, not snow

Than Sifs, fresh fallen on mountain brow,

More white, nor softer virgin down

Of Eyder-fowl, nor breast of swan.

Two pencill’d brows of darkest brown

Meet on her front, and seem to frown:

What gentler beauty would deface,

To hers but adds another grace;

Her pearly teeth, of dazzling white,

With ruby lips form contrast bright;

But her first charm, past all compare,

Is her long, silken, amber hair.

NIORD, FREYR, FREYA.

Niord, a lord of the Vaner, obtained, as we have before related[^[93]], a share in the government of the Aser. He could not, indeed, do otherwise after the junction of the two people. Mythologically, he is the lord of Vindheim, the region of the winds, and consequently the ally of Ægir, the god of the sea. His palace, Noatun, is represented as on the borders of the ocean. Thus, Ohlenschlager, who may be followed where poetical description merely is required:—

Niord who with ocean’s god

Full oft in league is found,

Loves o’er the raging flood

In swift career to bound.

Skimming each billow’s back,

Loud neighs his coal-black steed:

On the calm wave no track

He leaves—so great his speed.[^[94]]

Niord was twice married. By his first wife, who was also his sister, and we are distinctly informed that the union of such near relatives was peculiar to the Vanir (the custom, however, was common to the Egyptians, the Persians, and the royal family of Peru), he had two children, Freyr[^[95]] and Freya.[^[96]] His second wife was Skada, daughter of the giant Thiasse. The circumstances which led to his marriage were these. No sooner did Skada hear that her father had been killed by Thor[^[97]], than she armed herself, and proceeded to Asgard to avenge his death. As the condition of peace, the gods proposed that she should take a husband from them, but that, while choosing, she should be blindfolded. She groped about, and at length fixed on one whose feet were small and well formed, whom she thought to be Balder. It was Niord; and the marriage was celebrated. The pair, however, could not agree about their place of residence. The bride could not bear the sea-shore; the waves, she observed, would not let her sleep, and she longed for her native mountains. He was no less hostile to her father’s abode. A compromise was at length effected; the couple were to live nine days in Thrymheim, and three days in Noatun; that is, nine days in the mountains, and three on the sea-coast. But this compromise was of no long duration. The two were so dissimilar in character that they could not agree; there was a separation; and Skada became the wife of Odin.[^[98]] Of Niord we shall only add that though little is said of him in the Edda, he must have been a primary deity from the terms of the oath solemnly taken by the Scandinavians:—“So help me Freyr, and Niord, and the mighty Aser!”

Freyr, the son of Niord, has been mentioned as one of the twelve ruling gods of Asgard—as god of sunshine, of rain, and consequently of vegetation. Alfheim, his residence, the kingdom of the light elves, was given him in the morning of time, when he had cut his first tooth. One day he had the presumption to ascend Lidskialf, the awful seat of Odin[^[99]]; and he was punished for it by falling in love with Gerda, daughter of the giant Gymer, whom he saw issue from her father’s palace in the North. Surpassing, indeed, was the maiden’s beauty; it was so bright as to enlighten the whole region. He gazed and loved; and after the beautiful vision had departed, he descended, melancholy and miserable, to his own palace. What hope was there of winning a giant maiden? Would the gods themselves sanction such a connection? Sleep and appetite forsook him. In much anxiety, Niord besought his confidential messenger, Skirnir, to draw from Freyr the cause of his affliction. With some persuasion, Skirnir consented, and by much entreaty obtained the secret:

From Gymer’s house

I have seen a maiden issue

For whom I long.

Her fair arms shone

So as to enlighten air and sea.

Dearer is the maid to me

Than ever was maid to any youth.

But of gods or demigods

Not one will wish

That we should be united.

Skirnir loves the lord with whom he was reared; and he proposes, if Freyr will give him the horse “regardless of flame,” and the sword, to go and win the lady for him. Having mounted, he thus addressed the animal:—

“Dark is the night without;

Yet it is time for us to go

Through the misty hills,

Through the land of the Thurser.

We both must return,

Or both be seized

By the powerful giant.”

He rode to Jotunheim, and before the gate of Gymer saw fierce dogs. On a hill close by was a herdsman, to whom he rode, and inquired by what means he might pass the dogs so as to speak with Gymer’s daughter. The herdsman replied, that he must either be dead already, or about to die, to venture on such an errand; never could he speak to the lady. Skirnir observed, that he could but die; that he feared not death; and he dismounted. The noise attracted the attention of Gerda: she caused the stranger to enter, and thus addressed him:—

“Who art thou?—of the elves?

Or of the Aser sons?