Specimen of the metre in the original.
The eight first Cantos, in the original, are written in the same metre. In my translation, as will be seen, I have indulged in greater variety.
[13] In the heathen time there was a magnificent temple at Upsala. The poet here probably alludes to some earthquake, or convulsion of nature, which damaged or destroyed it, and which was therefore supposed to be occasioned by Utgard-Lok, the chief of the giants.
[14] This Ash is the ash-tree Yggdrassil. See the Catalogue of proper names.
[15] The Valkyrior.
[16] By the seven virgins are no doubt personified the seven colours of the rainbow.
[17] By the mythe of the death and resuscitation of Thor’s goats, is meant probably the death of nature in winter, and her resuscitation in spring. By the marrow eaten by Tialfe, and the lameness of the goat occasioned thereby, it is meant, that if the seed or germ of reproduction in animals or plants be damaged or destroyed, the reproduction becomes imperfect, or impossible.
[18] The pact between Niord and Ægir means, that when the sea is frozen by the north wind, the weather is perfectly calm, and the sea itself passable as dry land.
[19] What this hut turns out to be, is explained in the second Canto.
Specimen of the metre in the original.
[20] Goblin-land: in the original Troldkæmpeland, from trold (goblin) kæmpe (warrior) and land (land). The giants are often called Troldkæmper. Who Skrymur turns out to be, is explained in the sixth Canto.
[21] Respecting this glove, the following is Finn Magnussen’s idea of the mythe. Skrymur is the frost-giant, personification of winter. Thor reposing in the glove denotes the beginning of winter, when the thunder or thunderer may be said to rest therein, allegorically (there being no thunder in winter). This hieroglyph is very ancient, inasmuch as Icelandic word vöttr (glove) proceeds probably from vetr (winter); the glove being the part of dress particularly appropriate to and only used in winter in those times, as the muff is still, in northern Europe.
[22] Respecting Skrymur’s wallet, which Thor is unable to untie or open, Finn Magnussen says: “I think this mythe is enigmatical, and alludes to winter (the frost-giant), which may be said to prevent man from getting his food from the earth, by envelopping it in ice.” In the prosaic Edda, Utgard-Lok says, in explaining to Thor his magic spells, “The wallet I gave to you, was made fast with an iron girdle;” now there is a close analogy between the words denoting ice and iron in many of the Gothic languages. Ex: in Icelandic, is (ice) isarn (iron); in German, eis (ice) eisen (iron); in Dutch, ijs (ice) ijzer (iron); in Anglo-Saxon, is (ice) isen (iron).
[23] The ancient northmen, who oriented themselves with the help of the mountains, figured to themselves the north as lying towards our east or north-east. This will serve to explain the phrase, “mountains vast which towards the north appear.” The mountains lie really towards the east. Towards the north, on the contrary, the land becomes less and less elevated, as you draw near the pole.
Specimen of the metre in the original.
[24] The name of this giantess is Angurbod: see the Catalogue of proper Names.
[25] Midgard’s snake is the serpent Jormundgard, type of the ocean, which surrounds the earth (Midgard). According to Ling, a Swedish poet, the mythe of Lok and his three offspring, Fenris, Hela and Jormundgard, may be thus explained. Fenris denotes what is destructive or prejudicial in Fire: Hela denotes the deleterious qualities of the Earth, in decomposing substances and causing rottenness: Jormundgard denotes the destructive qualities of Water: all these are caused by the action of Air (Lok or Loptur) mixing with Angurbod (impurity). The amour of Asa-Lok and Angurbod has some resemblance to the amour of the giant Typhon with Echidna, which produced the Chimera, Cerberus and Hydra of the Greek mythology.
[26] The Hell of the Christians is always represented by theologians as a place of eternal fire; yet in the country where the religion of Odin prevailed, the inhabitants, from ancient custom, could not refrain from considering it sometimes as a place of eternal cold. At least, the idea sometimes breaks out in the ballads composed long after the introduction of Christianity. In a Scottish ballad, for instance, inserted by Walter Scott in his “Minstrelsey of the Scottish Border,” there is the following stanza:
Specimen of the original.
For this Canto, I have adopted a metre something similar to that used in Bürger’s Leonora.
[27] This vast and empty space is Ginnungagap.
[28] The giantess Betsla. The Author, in his cosmogony, has adhered closely to the Edda.
Specimen of the original.
[29] Who this Goblin turns out to be, is explained in the next Canto.
[30] Little Thumb; so I translate Tommeliden, the name of Utgard-Lok’s racer; who he, the drinking-horn presented to Thor, the cat, and the old woman turn out be, all this is explained in the next Canto.
[31] I do not find in the Edda any mention of this feat; it is probably the poet’s own invention, and meant as a pendant to the episode of Mars and Venus.
[32] Let no one be astonished, that the car of the goddess of love should be drawn by cats. Cats are the most ardent and persevering of lovers. The celebrated Spanish poet Lope de Vega has said of them,
and in another place,
[33] This combat between Thor and the giantesses on the rocky isle is alluded to in the elder or poetic Edda, in the chapter called “Harbard’s song.” Harbard makes Thor the following reproach, when the latter tells him that he had beaten and put to flight the giantesses on the isle of Hlesey:
Thor answers:
The meaning of this, according to Finn Magnussen, is, that the noxious vapours and tempest on Hlesey were dispersed by a thunderstorm; and the iron clubs denote hailstones.
[34] The apple of Iduna. See the Catalogue.
Specimen of the original.
[35] The circumstance of the dwarf’s face being veiled, means, that the thought of Utgard-Lok could not be divined by Thor.
[36] It was a saying in the pagan time, when the ebb began, “Thor drinks.”
The Author has adhered closely to the prosaic Edda in his narration of Thor’s adventure in Utgard.
With respect to the two Loks, and the difference between them, it is not a little curious to find that in the gospel of Nicodemus (one of those rejected by the council of Nice, chap. xx, verses 2 and following), Satan and the prince of hell are described as two distinct persons; and when Satan informs the latter, that he has achieved for him a great conquest, by bringing captive to his realm no less a personage than Jesus Christ, the prince of hell, instead of thanking Satan for that service, loads him with reproaches for his unpardonable thoughtlessness, in bringing into his dominions a person by whom he (the prince of hell) had sustained a serious detriment, in the loss of sundry souls, whom Jesus Christ, in escaping from hell, had carried off with him, and who, but for that visit, would still have remained there.
It is singular that this comparison should have escaped the notice, not only of Finn Magnussen, but that of all the other commentators of the Edda, when discussing the subject of the two Loks. I stumbled by mere chance three years ago on a copy of the apocryphal New Testament in German, and on reading the chapter above quoted, the idea of this analogy immediately and forcibly struck me.
Specimen of the original.
[37] In amplifying this stanza, I could not avoid borrowing something from Mason, in that beautiful chorus of Elfrida, beginning,
and the words
occurring to my memory, I made no scruple of adopting them, and I am sure my readers will view with an indulgent eye this plagiarism.
[38] The classical reader will be reminded in this passage of the speech of Jupiter to Venus, when she is wounded by Diomed:
Specimen of the original.
By way of variety, I have adopted a trochaic metre for my translation of this Canto.
[39] The serpent Jormundgard, type of humidity and its dangerous effects; it is a happy idea of the poet to imagine all the serpent kind engendered by him.
In every mythology the serpent seems to be the emblem of humidity and its noxious qualities. The fable of Jormundgard has evidently given rise to the supposed existence of the kraken, or monstrous sea-serpent.
[40] According to the Scandinavian belief, the half of those who fell in battle fell to the share of Odin, and the other half to Freya. Finn Magnussen thinks this to be a mistake, and that by Freya is meant Frigga, the wife of Odin. The allegory then becomes more clear: Odin typifies the heavens, Frigga the earth; the spirits of the slain ascend to Odin, their bodies remain with Frigga.
Another very ingenious allegory lies in the nature of the nourishment used by Odin at the banquet of Valhalla. In the younger or prosaic Edda it is written, “The food that comes to his (Odin’s) share, he gives to his two wolves, Gere and Freke. He himself requires no solid food, for wine is to him both meat and drink.” In the elder or poetic Edda it is thus written in the chapter called Grimnismal:
By this is meant, that in battle the spirits of the slain mount to heaven (Odin), while their bodies remain a prey to wolves, and other beasts of prey. Spirits are typified by wine, the most spirituous of all fermented liquors.
The above quotations from the two Eddas afford, perhaps, the best illustration of the difference of their respective styles.
Specimen of the original.
and so on in tercets. I have preferred the heroic couplet for my translation.
[41] By Loptur’s daughter is no doubt meant the queen of death, Hela.
This adventure of Thor with the serpent and giant Hymir is recounted in the prosaic Edda.
The story of Thor losing his hammer Miölner in the scales of the body of the serpent Jormundgard has a resemblance to the story of Jupiter losing his thunderbolts, and their falling into the hands of the giant Typhon, often represented as a dragon. Typhon, in Greek, means either the giant of that name, or a whirlpool: now Jormundgard typifies the ocean, and Miölner, the thunderbolt. The Grecian mythe is to be found in the first and second Cantos of the Dionysiacs, or triumphs of Bacchus, in the celebrated Greek poem of Nonnus. These two mythes have a still closer resemblance in their denouement, as will be seen by a reference to the Notes of the 29th Canto of this work.
Specimen of the original.
and so on in tercets and couplets. I have adopted a free but rhymed metre for my translation.
Specimen of the original.