“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:
“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,
“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,
“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.
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.
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:—