The Edda, Vol. 일 2

The Edda, Vol. 일 2

Sibyl_. "Rind bears a son, Vali, in the halls of the west. He shall

not wash his hands nor comb his hair till he bears Baldr's foe to

the pyre."

 

(2) In _Lokasenna_ Frigg says: "If I had a son like Baldr here in

Oegi's halls, thou shouldst not pass out from the sons of the Aesir,

but be slain here in thy anger"; to which Loki replies, "Wilt thou

that I speak more ill words, Frigg? I am the cause that thou wilt

never more see Baldr ride into the hall."

 

(3) In _Vafthrudnismal_ the only reference is Odin's question,

"What said Odin in his son's ear when he mounted the pyre?"

 

(4) In _Völuspa_ the Sibyl prophesies, "I saw doom threatening Baldr,

the bleeding victim, the son of Odin. Grown high above the meadows

stood the mistletoe, slender and fair. From this stem, which looked

so slender, grew a fatal and dangerous shaft. Höd shot it, and Frigg

wept in Fenhall over Valhall's woe." The following lines, on the

chaining of Loki, suggest his complicity.

 

(5) _Hyndluljod_ has one reference: "There were eleven Aesir by

number when Baldr went down into the howe. Vali was his avenger and

slew his brother's slayer."

 

Besides these there is a fragment quoted by Snorri: "Thökk will weep

dry tears at Baldr's funeral pyre. I had no good of the old man's

son alive or dead; let Hel keep what she has." _Grimnismal_ assigns

a hall to Baldr among the Gods.

 

There are, in addition, two prose versions of the story by later

writers: the Icelandic version of Snorri (1178-1241) with all the

details familiar to every one; and the Latin one of the Dane Saxo

Grammaticus (about thirty years earlier), which makes Baldr and Höd

heroes instead of Gods, and completely alters the character of the

legend by making a rivalry for Nanna's favour the centre of the plot

and cause of the catastrophe. On the Eddic version and on Saxo's

depend the theories of Golther, Detter, Niedner and other German

scholars on the one hand, and Dr. Frazer on the other.

 

It has often been pointed out that there is no trace of Baldr-worship

in other Germanic nations, nor in any of the Icelandic sagas except

the late Frithjofssaga. This, however, is true of other Gods, notably

of Tyr, who is without question one of the oldest. The only deities

named with any suggestion of sacrifice or worship in the Icelandic

sagas proper are Odin, Thor, Frey, Njörd, Frigg and Freyja. The process

of choice is as arbitrary in mythology as in other sciences. Again,

it is more likely that the original version of the legend should have

survived in Iceland than in Denmark, which, being on the mainland,

was earlier subject to Christian and Romantic influences; and

that a heathen God should, in the two or three centuries following

the establishment of Christianity in the North, be turned into a

mortal hero, than that the reverse process should have acted at a

sufficiently late date to permit of both versions existing side by

side in the thirteenth century. A similar gradual elimination of the

supernatural may be found in the history of the Volsung myth. Snorri's

version is merely an amplification of that in the Elder Edda, which,

scanty as its account of Baldr is, leaves no doubt as to his divinity.

 

The outline gathered from the poems is as follows: Baldr, Odin's son,

is killed by his brother Höd through a mistletoe spray; Loki is in some

way concerned in his death, which is an overwhelming misfortune to the

Gods; but it is on Höd that his death is avenged. He is burnt on a pyre

(Snorri says on his ship, a feature which must come from the Viking

age; _Hyndluljod_ substitutes howe-burial). He will be absent from

the great fight at Ragnarök, but _Völuspa_ adds that he will return

afterwards. Nanna has nothing to do with the story. The connexion with

the hierarchy of the Aesir seems external only, since Baldr has no

apparent relation to the great catastrophe as have Odin, Thor, Frej,

Tyr and Loki; this, then, would point to the independence of his myth.

 

The genuineness of the myth seems to depend on whether the mistletoe

is an original feature of it or not, and on this point there can

be little real doubt. The German theory that Baldr could only be

killed by his own sword, which was therefore disguised by enchantment

and used against him, and that the Icelandic writers misunderstood

this to mean a mistletoe sprig, is far-fetched and romantic, and

crumbles at a touch. For if, as it is claimed, the Icelanders had no

mistletoe, why should they introduce it into a story to which it did

not belong? They might preserve it by tradition, but they would hardly

invent it. Granting this, the mistletoe becomes the central point of

the legend. The older mythologists, who only saw in it a sun-myth,

overlooked the fact that since any weapon would have done to kill

the God with, the mistletoe must have some special significance; and

if it is a genuine part of the story, as we have no reason to doubt,

it will be hard to overturn Dr. Frazer's theory that the Baldr-myth

is a relic of tree-worship and the ritual sacrifice of the God,

Baldr being a tree-spirit whose soul is contained in the mistletoe.

 

The contradictions in the story, especially as told by Snorri

(such as the confusion between the parts played by Höd and Loki,

and the unsuspicious attitude of the Gods as Loki directs Höd's aim)

are sometimes urged against its genuineness. They are rather proofs

of antiquity. Apparent contradictions whose explanation is forgotten

often survive in tradition; the inventor of a new story takes care to

make it consistent. It is probable, however, that there were originally

only two actors in the episode, the victim and the slayer, and that

Loki's part is later than Höd's, for he really belongs to the Valhall

and Ragnarök myth, and was only introduced here as a link. The incident

of the oath extracted from everything on earth to protect Baldr, which

occurs in Snorri and in a paper MS. of _Baldr's Dreams_, was probably

invented to explain the choice of weapon, which would certainly need

explanation to an Icelandic audience. If Dr. Frazer's theory be right,

Vali, who slew the slayer, must also have been an original figure in

the legend. His antiquity is supported by the fact that he plays the

part of avenger in the poems; while in Snorri, where he is mentioned

as a God, his absence from the account of Baldr's death is only a

part of that literary development by which real responsibility for

the murder was transferred from Höd to Loki.

 

Snorri gives Baldr a son, Forseti (Judge), who is also named as a

God in _Grimnismal_. He must have grown out of an epithet of Baldr's,

of whom Snorri says that "no one can resist his sentence"; the sacred

tree would naturally be the seat of judgment.

 

* * * * *

 

_The Wanes._--Three of the Norse divinities, Njörd and his son and

daughter, are not Aesir by descent. The following account is given

of their presence in Asgard:

 

(1) In _Vafthrudnismal_, Odin asks:

 

"Whence came Njörd among the sons of the Aesir? for he was not born

of the Aesir."

 

_Vafthrudni_. "In Vanaheim wise powers ordained and gave him for a

hostage to the Gods; at the doom of the world he shall come back,

home to the wise Wanes."

 

(2) There is an allusion in _Völuspa_ to the war which caused the

giving of hostages:

 

"Odin shot into the host: this was the first war in the world. Broken

was the wall of the citadel of the Aesir, so that the Wanes could

tread the fields of war."

 

(3) Loki taunts Njörd with his position, in _Lokasenna_:

 

"Thou wast sent from the east as a hostage to the Gods...."

 

_Njörd_. "This is my comfort, though I was sent from far as a hostage

to the Gods, yet I have a son whom no one hates, and he is thought

the best of the Aesir."

 

_Loki_. "Stay, Njörd, restrain thy pride; I will hide it no longer:

thy son is thine own sister's son, and that is no worse than one

would expect."

 

_Tyr_. "Frey is the best of all the bold riders of Asgard."

 

There is little doubt that Njörd was once a God of higher importance

than he is in the Edda, where he is overshadowed by his son. Grimm's

suggestion that he and the goddess Nerthus, mentioned by Tacitus,

were brother and sister, is supported by the line in _Lokasenna_; it

is an isolated reference, and the Goddess has left no other traces in

Scandinavian mythology. They were the deities, probably agricultural,

of an earlier age, whose adoption by the later Northmen was explained

by the story of the compact between Aesir and Vanir. Then their places

were usurped by Frey and Freyja, who were possibly created out of

epithets originally applied to the older pair; Njörd was retained

with lessened importance, Nerthus passed out altogether. The Edda

gives Njörd a giant-bride, Skadi, who was admitted among the Gods in

atonement for the slaying of her father Thiazi; she is little more

than a name. Frey and Freyja have other marks of agricultural deities,

besides their relationship. Nothing is said about Frey's changing

shape, but Freyja possesses a hawk-dress which Loki borrows when

he wishes to change his form; and, according to Snorri, Frey was

sacrificed to for the crops. Njörd has an epithet, "the wealthy,"

which may have survived from his earlier connexion with the soil. In

that case, it would explain why, in Snorri and elsewhere, he is God of

the sea and ships, once the province of the ocean-goddess Gefion; the

transference is a natural one to an age whose wealth came from the sea.

 

In spite of their origin, Frey and Freyja become to all intents

and purposes Aesir. Frey is to be one of the chief combatants at

Ragnarök, with the fire-giant Surt for his antagonist, and a story is

told to explain his defeat: he fell in love with Gerd, a giant-maid,

and sacrificed his sword to get her; hence he is weaponless at the

last fight. Loki alludes to this episode in _Lokasenna_: "With gold

didst thou buy Gymi's daughter, and gavest thy sword for her; but when

Muspell's sons ride over Myrkwood, thou shalt not know with what to

fight, unhappy one." The story is told in full in _Skirnisför_.

 

Freyja is called by Snorri "the chief Goddess after Frigg," and the

two are sometimes confused. Like her father and brother, she comes into

connexion with the giants; she is the beautiful Goddess, and coveted by

them. _Völuspa_ says that the Gods went into consultation to discuss

"who had given the bride of Od (_i.e._, Freyja) to the giant race";

_Thrymskvida_ relates how the giant Thrym bargained for Freyja as

the ransom for Thor's hammer, which he had hidden, and how Loki and

Thor outwitted him; and Snorri says the giants bargained for her as

the price for building Valhalla, but were outwitted. Sir G.W. Dasent

notices in the folk-tales the eagerness of trolls and giants to learn

the details of the agricultural processes, and this is probably the

clue to the desire of the Frost-Giants in the Edda for the possession

of Freyja. Idunn, the wife of Bragi, and a purely Norse creation, seems

to be a double of Freyja; she, too, according to Snorri, is carried

away by the giants and rescued by Loki. The golden apples which she

is to keep till Ragnarök remind us of those which Frey offered to

Gerd; and the gift of eternal youth, of which they are the symbols,

would be appropriate enough to Freyja as an agricultural deity.

 

The great necklace Brising, stolen by Loki and won back in fight

by Heimdal (according to the tenth-century Skalds Thjodulf and Ulf

Uggason), is Freyja's property. On this ground, she has been identified

with the heroine of _Svipdag and Menglad_, a poem undoubtedly old,

though it has only come down in paper MSS. It is in two parts, the

first telling how Svipdag aroused the Sibyl Groa, his mother, to

give him spells to guard him on his journey; the second describing

his crossing the wall of fire which surrounded his fated bride

Menglad. If Menglad is really Freyja, the "Necklace-glad," it is a

curious coincidence that one poem connects the waverlowe, or ring of

fire, with Frey also; for his bride Gerd is protected in the same way,

though his servant Skirni goes through it in his place:

 

_Skirni_. "Give me the horse that will bear me through the dark magic

waverlowe, and the sword that fights of itself against the giant-race."

 

_Frey_. "I give thee the horse that will bear thee through the dark

magic waverlowe, and the sword that will fight of itself if he is

bold who bears it." (_Skirnisför_.)

 

The connexion of both with the Midsummer fires, originally part of

an agricultural ritual, can hardly be doubted.

 

* * * * *

 

_Loki_, or Lopt, is a strange figure. He is admitted among the Aesir,

though not one of them by birth, and his whole relation to them

points to his being an older elemental God. He is in alliance with

them against the giants; he and Odin have sworn blood-brothership,

according to _Lokasenna_, and he helps Thor to recover his hammer

that Asgard may be defended against the giants. On the other hand,

while in present alliance with the Gods, he is chief agent in their

future destruction, and this they know. In Snorri, he is a mischievous

spirit of the fairy-tale kind, exercising his ingenuity alternately in

getting the Gods into difficulties, and in getting them out again. So

he betrays Idunn to the giants, and delivers her; he makes the bargain

by which Freyja is promised to the giant-builders of Valhalla,

and invents the trick by which they are cheated of their prize;

by killing the otter he endangers his own head, Odin's and Hoeni's,

and he obtains the gold which buys their atonement. Hence, in the

systematising of the Viking religion, the responsibility for Baldr's

death also was transferred to him. At the coming of the fire-giants

at Ragnarök, he is to steer the ship in which Muspell's sons sail

(_Völuspa_), further evidence of his identity as a fire-spirit. Like

his son the Wolf, he is chained by the Gods; the episode is related

in a prose-piece affixed to _Lokasenna_:

 

"After that Loki hid himself in Franangr's Foss in the form of

a salmon. There the Aesir caught him. He was bound with the guts

of his son Nari, but his son Narfi was changed into a wolf. Skadi

took a poisonous snake and fastened it up over Loki's face, and the

poison dropped down. Sigyn, Loki's wife, sat there and held a cup

under the poison. But when it was full she poured the poison away,

and meanwhile poison dropped on Loki, and he struggled so hard that

all the earth shook; those are called earthquakes now."

 

_Völuspa_ inserts lines corresponding to this passage after the

Baldr episode, and Snorri makes it a consequence of Loki's share in

that event.

 

He is more especially agent of the doom through his children:

at Ragnarök, Fenri the Wolf, bound long before by Tyr's help,

will be freed, and swallow the sun (_Vafthrudnismal_) and Odin

(_Vafthrudnismal_ and _Völuspa_); and Jörmungandr, the Giant-Snake,

will rise from the sea where he lies curled round the world, to slay

and be slain by Thor. The dragon's writhing in the waves is one

of the tokens to herald Ragnarök, and his battle with Thor is the

fiercest combat of that day. Only _Völuspa_ of our poems gives any

account of it: "Then comes the glorious son of Hlodyn, Odin's son

goes to meet the serpent; Midgard's guardian slays him in his rage,

but scarcely can Earth's son reel back nine feet from the dragon."

 

When Thor goes fishing with the giant Hymi, he terrifies his companion

by dragging the snake's head out of the sea, but he does not slay it;

it must wait there till Ragnarök:

 

"The protector of men, the only slayer of the Serpent, baited his hook

with the ox's head. The God-hated one who girds all lands from below

swallowed the bait. Doughtily pulled mighty Thor the poison-streaked

serpent up to the side; he struck down with his hammer the hideous

head of the wolf's companion. The monster roared, the wilderness

resounded, the old earth shuddered all through. The fish sank back

into the sea. Gloomy was the giant when they rowed back, so that he

spoke not a word."

 

There is nothing to suggest that Jörmungandr, to whom the word

World-Snake (Midgardsorm) always refers in the Edda, is the same as

Nidhögg, the serpent that gnaws at Yggdrasil's roots; but both are

relics of Snake-worship.

 

* * * * *

 

_The World-Ash_, generally called Yggdrasil's Ash, is one of the most

interesting survivals of tree-worship. It is described by the Sibyl

in _Völuspa_: "I know an ash called Yggdrasil, a high tree sprinkled

with white moisture (thence come the dews that fall in the dales):

it stands ever-green by Urd's spring. Thence come three maids,

all-knowing, from the hall that stands under the tree"; and as a

sign of the approaching doom she says: "Yggdrasil's ash trembles as

it stands; the old tree groans." _Grimnismal_ says that the Gods go

every day to hold judgment by the ash, and describes it further:

 

"Three roots lie three ways under Yggdrasil's ash: Hel dwells under

one, the frost-giants under the second, mortal men under the third. The

squirrel is called Ratatosk who shall run over Yggdrasil's ash;

he shall carry down the eagle's words, and tell them to Nidhögg

below. There are four harts, with necks thrown back, who gnaw

off the shoots.... More serpents lie under Yggdrasil's ash than

any one knows. Ofni and Svafni I know will ever gnaw at the tree's

twigs. Yggdrasil's ash suffers more hardships than men know: the hart

bites above, the side decays, and Nidhögg gnaws below.... Yggdrasil's

ash is the best of trees."

 

The snake and the tree are familiar in other mythologies, though in

most other cases the snake is the protector, while here he is the

destroyer. Both Nidhögg and Jörmungandr are examples of the destroying

dragon rather than the treasure-guardian. The Ash is the oracle: the

judgment-place of the Gods, the dwelling of the Fates, the source of

the spring of knowledge.

 

* * * * *

 

_Ragnarök_.--The Twilight of the Gods (or Doom of the Gods) is the

central point of the Viking religion. The Regin (of which _Ragna_

is genitive plural) are the ruling powers, often called Ginnregin

(the great Gods), Uppregin (the high Gods), Thrymregin (the warrior

Gods). The word is commonly used of the Aesir in _Völuspa_; in

_Alvissmal_ the Regin seem to be distinguished from both Aesir and

Vanir. The whole story of the Aesir is overshadowed by knowledge of

this coming doom, the time when they shall meet foes more terrible

than the giants, and fall before them; their constant effort is to

learn what will happen then, and to gather their forces together

to meet it. The coming Ragnarök is the reason for the existence of

Valhalla with its hosts of slain warriors; and of all the Gods, Odin,

Thor, Tyr and Loki are most closely connected with it. Two poems of

the verse Edda describe it:

 

(1) _Vafthrudnismal_:

 

V. "What is the plain called where Surt and the blessed Gods shall

meet in battle?"

 

O. "Vigrid is the name of the place where Surt and the blessed Gods

shall meet in battle. It is a hundred miles every way; it is their

destined battle-field."

 

* * * * *

 

O. "Whence shall the sun come on the smooth heaven when Fenri has

destroyed this one?"

 

V. "Before Fenri destroy her, the elf-beam shall bear a daughter:

that maid shall ride along her mother's paths, when the Gods perish."

 

O. "Which of the Aesir shall rule over the realms of the Gods, when

Surt's fire is quenched?"

 

V. "Vidar and Vali shall dwell in the sanctuary of the Gods when

Surt's fire is quenched. Modi and Magni shall have Mjöllni at the

end of Vingni's (_i.e._, Thor's) combat."

 

O. "What shall be Odin's end, when the Gods perish?"

 

V. "The Wolf will swallow the father of men; Vidar will avenge it. He

will cleave the Wolf's cold jaws in the battle."

 

(2) _Völuspa_:

 

"A hag sits eastward in Ironwood and rears Fenri's children; one of

them all, in troll's shape, shall be the sun's destroyer. He shall

feed on the lives of death-doomed men; with red blood he shall redden

the seat of the Gods. The sunshine shall grow black, all winds will

be unfriendly in the after-summers.... I see further in the future

the great Ragnarök of the Gods of Victory.... Heimdal blows loudly,

the horn is on high; Yggdrasil's ash trembles as it stands, the old tree groans."