Tales of the Wild and the Wonderful [1825]

Time reconciled the princess to her father’s death, and to her hopeless imprisonment in Moskoe.  The generous Brandomann, now that she had lost in the world all that was dear to her, and was most entirely in his power, never spoke to her of the love which it was but too plain he bore her.  She saw and rewarded his virtue.  “Brandomann!” she said to him one day as they wandered through the gardens of the desolate isle; “Brandomann, friend of my heart, in the world, where my father walks no longer, I have no interest, and can never wish to return; yet I feel that I could love and render some deserving being more happy than a lonely destiny could make him; thou alone art worthy of this heart, and of the duty which I will pay thee; I cannot love thee as I once loved Haldane—as I fear I should love him still—that feeling it is not in thy power to inspire; but I honour thy virtue, and am grateful for its exercise.  Wilt thou accept this hand—this heart?  If so, take me, Brandomann, for I am thine!”

PART I.

Olave the Second—one of the early kings of Denmark, of the race of Dan.  These princes believed themselves descended from Odin.  Olave was a worthless, profligate prince, who left two sons, who succeeded him; the elder, Frotho the Fifth, murdered his brother Harold, and afterwards the assassin who, by his own order, had stabbed him.  He endeavoured to secure the persons of the princes his nephews; but a nobleman, friend to their father, conveyed them out of his reach, and concealed them in a cave till they were of an age to revenge these injuries.

Asgard—the country of the gods; the Olympus of the north.

Valasciolf—its chief city, in which the principal divinities and more illustrious dead resided in magnificent palaces.

Niftheim—Hell.  A territory of devouring flames, typifying eternal remorse; the abode of the evil principle and his attendant spirits.

Feggo—the brother of Harwendil, king of Jutland, and uncle to Hamlet.  The latter prince feigned madness after the murder of his father, but killed Feggo at a festival.  He succeeded to the crown, which he wore with honour, till killed in battle by Viglet, king of Denmark.

Lok—the evil principle.  He gave birth to Midgard (sin), the snake whose folds encircle the earth—Hela (death)—and the wolf Fenris, the guardian of the gate of hell; these were the evil progeny of Lok, begotten for the destruction of the human race.

Surter—the evil divinity of fire—the next in rank to Lok.  The Scythians represented him as a beautiful youth; the Saxons as an old man, to whose honour they dedicated the seventh day of the week.

Balder—son of Odin, god of eloquence and poetry, and ruler of the sun—the Scandinavian Apollo.  He was represented as a youth with a burning wheel upon his breast; his face resembled the sun.

Nastronde—According to the Scandinavian mythology, at the end of the world, during a night which was to last a year, a tremendous battle was to be fought between the good and evil spirits, in which the former were to conquer and reign in Gimle, a more glorious heaven than Asgard; while the wicked were to be banished to Nastronde, a new hell, made purposely for them.

Maelstrom, Malestrom, or Moskoestrom—a tremendous whirlpool on the Norwegian coast, very dangerous, and often fatal to navigators venturing too near it.  Moskoe is an island situated in the gulf: there are also several others.

Sleipner—the warrior horse of Odin.  He had four black legs and four white ones: he generally travelled through the air.

Rinda—daughter of Balder, and mother of Vile, by Odin.  The favourite goddess of the Scandinavian women.

Hydrasil—the tree of heaven, standing in the garden of Odin.  It was the abode of the disposer of man’s destiny.

PART III.

Heidruna—the immortal goat, whose milk was the hydromel served up nightly at the festivals of Valhalla.

Serimnor—the wild boar, whose flesh served them for food.

Hugo and Mumin—the raven messengers of Odin.

Thor—the warrior god—the eldest son of Odin, who, in his journey over the world, defeated Midgard, and loosened his folds from the earth; he is typical of divine justice and vengeance.  In the beautiful fables of the Scalds, he is represented as a stern warrior, armed with an enormous mallet, and wearing a crown of twelve stars.  He lived in a palace of Valasciolf, of five hundred and forty halls, and was the ruler and wielder of the thunderbolt.

Blind horror—Hoder—whose name was never pronounced by the Scythians without fear and immediate expiation—son of Odin, and born blind—the deity of strength.  He was abhorred in heaven, because, from envy, he attacked Balder, threw him from his throne, and put out the sun.  Odin interfered, and punished Hoder by the arrows of Vile (lightning), and afterwards restored the sun.  It was thus, in their beautiful and fanciful mythology, like the Greeks, and I think no less elegantly, that the Scalds described natural, but not understood events.  This story describes an eclipse of the sun, the strong and blind Hoder signifying darkness.

Lofna—goddess of reconciliation.  I believe this deity is also peculiar to the Scythians; they have deified her with great propriety.  Her post could not have been a sinecure in a paradise where happiness consisted in drinking and fighting.

Hiarn—his story is strictly historical.  It was Eric the Third who was so maddened by music as to commit murder for no other cause.

Geysers—boiling spouting springs in Iceland: they are near to Skalholt and Hecla; they spout water to a tremendous and incredible height.

Dofrefeld—a mighty range of Norwegian mountains, intersected by rivers and cataracts.

Dolsteen—a wonderful cavern beneath the Dofrefeld mountains.

Niord—the Scandinavian Neptune.

Uffon—this story is also historical.  Shakspeare, who read Danish history, borrowed the circumstance of Vermund’s death for that of Gloster in King Lear.

Lidscialf—the throne of Odin.

Heimdaller—guardian of the bridge Bifrost, or the rainbow, by which the happy dead ascended into Asgard.  He received the souls who were selected by the Valkyries, and conducted them to Odin.

Vile—god of archery; son of Odin and Rinda.

PART V.

Brage—god of music and song.

Hovamaal—bible of Odin.

Odin—a wise and virtuous warrior, whose beneficence procured him, among the early Scythians, deification.  As a divinity, the father of gods and men, he is the husband of Frea (the earth), and from the union of divine love and the earth, spring light, heat, the elements, the seasons, strength, and genius, typified by Balder, Thor, Frey, Hoder, and Balder again, as orator and poet.  Odin, mounted upon his horse Sleipner, represents active benevolence.

THE END.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY J. MOYES, BOUVERIE STREET.

FOOTNOTES.