sacredness attending a voluntary death as a sacrifice--a sacredness
which in all ages has been more or less alluring to religious minds. But
all the descriptions we have from Latin records in regard to Teutonic
customs, all our own ancient records from heathen times, all Northern
and German heroic songs, are unanimously and stubbornly silent about
the existence of the supposed custom of "risting with the spear-point,"
although, if it ever existed, it would have been just such a thing as
would on the one hand be noticed by strangers, and on the other hand
be remembered, at least for a time, by the generations converted to
Christianity. But the well-informed persons interviewed by Tacitus,
they who presented so many characteristic traits of the Teutons, knew
nothing of such a practice; otherwise they certainly would have mentioned
it as something very remarkable and peculiar to the Teutons. None of
the later classical Latin or middle age Latin records which have made
contributions to our knowledge of the Teutons have a single word to say
about it; nor the heroic poems. The Scandinavian records, and the more or
less historical sagas, tell of many heathen kings, chiefs, and warriors
who have died on a bed of straw, but not of a single one who "risted
himself with the spear-point." The fable about this "risting with the
spear-point" has its origin in Ynglingasaga, ch. 10, where Odin, changed
to a king in Svithiod, is said, when death was approaching, to have let
_marka sik geirs-oddi_. Out of this statement has been constructed a
custom among kings and heroes of anticipating a straw-death by "risting
with the spear-point," and this for the purpose of getting admittance
to Valhal. Vigfusson (Dictionary) has already pointed out the fact that
the author of Ynglingasaga had no other authority for his statement than
the passage in Havamál, where Odin relates that he wounded with a spear,
hungering and thirsting, voluntarily inflicted on himself pain, which
moved Bestla's brother to give him runes and a drink from the fountain
of wisdom. The fable about the spear-point risting, and its purpose,
is therefore quite unlike the source from which, through ignorance and
random writing, it sprang.
67.
THE PSYCHO-MESSENGERS OF THOSE NOT FALLEN BY THE SWORD. LOKE'S
DAUGHTER (PSEUDO-HEL IN GYLFAGINNING) IDENTICAL WITH LEIKIN.
The psychopomps of those fallen by the sword are, as we have seen,
stately dises, sitting high in the saddle, with helmet, shield, and
spear. To those not destined to fall by the sword Urd sends other
maid-servants, who, like the former, may come on horseback, and who, as
it appears, are of very different appearance, varying in accordance with
the manner of death of those persons whose departure they attend. She who
comes to those who sink beneath the weight of years has been conceived
as a very benevolent dis, to judge from the solitary passage where she
is characterised, that is in Ynglingatal and in Ynglingasaga, ch. 49,
where it is said of the aged and just king Halfdan Whiteleg, that he was
taken hence by the woman, who is helpful to those bowed and stooping
(_hallvarps hlífinauma_). The burden which Elli (age), Utgard-Loke's
foster-mother (Gylfag., 47), puts on men, and which gradually gets too
heavy for them to bear, is removed by this kind-hearted dis.
Other psychopomps are of a terrible kind. The most of them belong to
the spirits of disease dwelling in Nifelhel (see No. 60). King Vanlande
is tortured to death by a being whose epithet, _vitta vættr_ and
_trollkund_, shows that she belongs to the same group as _Heidr_, the
prototype of witches, and who is contrasted with the valkyrie Hild by the
appellation _ljóna lids bága Grimhildr_ (Yngl., ch. 16). The same _vitta
vættr_ came to King Adils when his horse fell and he himself struck his
head against a stone (Yngl., ch. 33). Two kings, who die on a bed of
straw, are mentioned in Ynglingasaga's Thjodolf-strophes (ch. 20 and 52)
as visited by a being called in the one instance Loke's kinswoman (_Loka
mær_), and in the other Hvedrung's kinswoman (_Hvedrungs mær_). That this
Loke's kinswoman has no authority to determine life and death, but only
carries out the dispensations of the norns, is definitely stated in the
Thjodolf-strophe (ch. 52), and also that her activity, as one who brings
the invitation to the realm of death, does not imply that the person
invited is to be counted among the damned, although she herself, the
kinswoman of Loke, the daughter of Loke, surely does not belong to the
regions of bliss.
Ok til things
thridja jöfri
hvedrungs mær
or heimi baud,
thá er Hálfdan,
sa er á Holti bjó
norna dóms
um notit hafdi.
As _all_ the dead, whether they are destined for Valhal or for Hel (in
the sense of the subterranean realms of bliss), or for Nifelhel, must
first report themselves in Hel, their psychopomps, whether they dwell in
Valhal, Hel, or Nifelhel, must do the same. This arrangement is necessary
also from the point of view that the unhappy who "die from Hel into
Nifelhel" (Grimnersmal) must have attendants who conduct them from the
realms of bliss to the Na-gates, and thence to the realms of torture.
Those dead from disease, who have the subterranean kinswoman of Loke as
a guide, may be destined for the realms of bliss--then she delivers them
there; or be destined for Nifelhel--then they die under her care and are
brought by her through the Na-gates to the worlds of torture in Nifelhel.
Far down in Christian times the participle _leikinn_ was used in a
manner which points to something mythical as the original reason for
its application. In Biskupas, (i. 464) it is said of a man that he was
_leikinn_ by some magic being (_flagd_). Of another person who sought
solitude and talked with himself, it is said in Eyrbyggja (270) that
he was believed to be _leikinn_. Ynglingatal gives us the mythical
explanation of this word.
In its strophe about King Dyggve, who died from disease, this poem says
(Yngling., ch. 20) that, as the lower world dis had chosen him, Loke's
kinswoman came and made him _leikinn (Allvald Yngva thjodar Loka mær um
leikinn hefir)_. The person who became _leikinn_ is accordingly visited
by Loke's kinswoman, or, if others have had the same task to perform,
by some being who resembled her, and who brought psychical or physical
disease.
In our mythical records there is mention made of a giantess whose very
name, _Leikin_, _Leikn_, is immediately connected with that activity
which Loke's kinswoman--and she too is a giantess--exercises when she
makes a person _leikinn_. Of this personal _Leikin_ we get the following
information in our old records:
1. She is, as stated, of giant race (Younger Edda, i. 552).
2. She has once fared badly at Thor's hands. He broke her leg (_Leggi
brauzt thu Leiknar_--Skaldsk., ch. 4, after a song by Vetrlidi).
3. She is _kveldrida_. The original and mythological meaning of
_kveldrida_ is a horsewoman of torture or death (from _kvelja_, to
torture, to kill). The meaning, a horsewoman of the night, is a
misunderstanding. Compare Vigfusson's Dict., _sub voce_ "Kveld."
4. The horse which this woman of torture and death rides is black,
untamed, difficult to manage (_styggr_), and ugly-grown (_ljótvaxinn_).
It drinks human blood, and is accompanied by other horses belonging to
Leikin, black and bloodthirsty like it. (All this is stated by Hallfred
Vandradaskald.)[13] Perhaps these loose horses are intended for those
persons whom the horsewomen of torture causes to die from disease, and
whom she is to conduct to the lower world.
Popular traditions have preserved for our times the remembrance of the
"ugly-grown" horse, that is, of a three-legged horse, which on its
appearance brings sickness, epidemics, and plagues. The Danish popular
belief (Thiele i. 137, 138) knows this monster and the word Hel-horse has
been preserved in the vocabulary of the Danish language. The diseases
brought by the Hel-horse are extremely dangerous, but not always fatal.
When they are not fatal the convalescent is regarded as having ransomed
his life with that tribute of loss of strength and of torture which the
disease caused him, and in a symbolic sense he has then "given death a
bushel of oats" (that is, to its horse). According to popular belief in
Slesvik (Arnkiel, i. 55; cp. J. Grimm, _Deutsche Myth_, 804), Hel rides
in the time of a plague on a three-legged horse and kills people. Thus
the ugly-grown horse is not forgotten in traditions from the heathen time.
Völuspa inform us that in the primal age of man, the sorceress Heid went
from house to house and was a welcome guest with evil women, since she
_seid Leikin_ (_sida_ means to practise sorcery). Now, as Leikin is the
"horsewoman of torture and death," and rides the Hel-horse, then the
expression _sida Leikin_ can mean nothing else than by sorcery to send
Leikin, the messenger of disease and death, to those persons who are the
victims of the evil wishes of "evil women;" or, more abstractly, to bring
by sorcery dangerous diseases to men.[14]
From all this follows that Leikin is either a side-figure to the daughter
of Loke, and like her in all respects, or she and the Loke-daughter are
one and the same person. To determine the question whether they are
identical, we must observe (1) the definitely representative manner in
which Völuspa, by the use of the name Leikin, makes the possessor of this
name a mythic person, who visits men with diseases and death; (2) the
manner in which Ynglingatal characterises the activity of Loke's daughter
with a person doomed to die from disease; she makes him _leikinn_, an
expression which, without doubt, is in its sense connected with the
feminine name Leikn, and which was preserved in the vernacular far down
in Christian times, and there designated a supernatural visitation
bringing the symptoms of mental or physical illness; (3) the Christian
popular tradition in which the deformed and disease-bringing horse,
which Leikin rides in the myth, is represented as the steed of "death"
or "Hel;" (4) that change of meaning by which the name Hel, which in the
mythical poems of the Elder Edda designates the whole heathen realm of
death, and especially its regions of bliss, or their queen, got to mean
the abode of torture and misery and its ruler--a transmutation by which
the name Hel, as in Gylfaginning and in the Slesvik traditions, was
transferred from Urd to Loke's daughter.
Finally, it should be observed that it is told of Leikin, as of Loke's
daughter, that she once fared badly at the hands of the gods, who
did not, however, take her life. Loke's daughter is not slain, but
is cast into Nifelhel (Gylfaginning, ch. 34). From that time she is
_gnúpleit_--that is to say, she has a stooping form, as if her bones had
been broken and were unable to keep her in an upright position. Leikin is
not slain, but gets her legs broken.
All that we learn of Leikin thus points to the Loke-maid, the Hel, not of
the myth, but of Christian tradition.
[13]
_Tidhöggvit lét tiggi
Tryggvar sonr fyrir styggvan
Leiknar hest á leiti
ljotvaxinn hræ Saxa.
Vinhrödigr gaf vida
visi margra Frísa
blókku brûnt at derkka
blöd kvellridu stódi._
[14] Völuspa 23, Cod. Reg., says of Heid:
_seid hon kuni,
seid hon Leikin_.
The letter _u_ is in this manuscript used for both _u_ and _y_ (compare
Bugge, Sæmund Edd., Preface x., xi.), and hence _kuni_ may be read
both _kuni_ and _kyni_. The latter reading makes logical sense. _Kyni_
is dative of _kyn_, a neuter noun, meaning something sorcerous,
supernatural, a monster. _Kynjamein_ and _kynjasött_ mean diseases
brought on by sorcery. _Seid_ in both the above lines is past tense of
the verb _sida_, and not in either one of them the noun _seidr_.
There was a sacred sorcery and an unholy one, according to the purpose
for which it was practised, and according to the attending ceremonies.
The object of the holy sorcery was to bring about something good either
for the sorcerer or for others, or to find out the will of the gods and
future things. The sorcery practised by _Heidr_ is the unholy one, hated
by the gods, and again and again forbidden in the laws, and this kind
of sorcery is designated in Völuspa by the term _sida kyni_. Of a thing
practised with improper means it is said that it is not _kynja-lauss_,
kyn-free.
The reading in Cod. Hauk., _seid hon hvars hon kunni, seid hon
hugleikin_, evidently has some "emendator" to thank for its existence who
did not understand the passage and wished to substitute something easily
understood for the obscure lines he thought he had found.
68.
THE WAY TO HADES COMMON TO THE DEAD.
It has already been demonstrated that all the dead must go to Hel--not
only they whose destination is the realm of bliss, but also those who
are to dwell in Asgard or in the regions of torture in Nifelheim. Thus
the dead tread at the outset the same road. One and the same route is
prescribed to them all, and the same Helgate daily opens for hosts of
souls destined for different lots. Women and children, men and the aged,
they who have practised the arts of peace and they who have stained
the weapons with blood, those who have lived in accordance with the
sacred commandments of the norns and gods and they who have broken
them--all have to journey the same way as Balder went before them, down
to the fields of the fountains of the world. They come on foot and on
horseback--nay, even in chariots, if we may believe _Helreid Brynhildar_,
a very unreliable source--guided by various psychopomps: the beautifully
equipped valkyries, the blue-white daughter of Loke, the sombre spirits
of disease, and the gentle maid-servant of old age. Possibly the souls of
children had their special psychopomps. Traditions of mythic origin seem
to suggest this; but the fragments of the myths themselves preserved to
our time give us no information on this subject.
The Hel-gate here in question was situated below the eastern horizon of
the earth. When Thor threatens to kill Loke he says (Lokas., 59) that he
will send him _á austrvega_. When the author of the Sol-song sees the
sunset for the last time, he hears in the opposite direction--that is,
in the east--the Hel-gate grating dismally on its hinges (str. 39). The
gate has a watchman and a key. The key is called _gillingr_, _gyllingr_
(Younger Edda, ii. 494); and hence a skald who celebrates his ancestors
in his songs, and thus recalls to those living the shades of those in
Hades, may say that he brings to the light of day the tribute paid to
Gilling (_yppa gillings gjöldum_. See Eyvind's strophe, Younger Edda,
i. 248. The paraphrase has hitherto been misunderstood, on account of
the pseudo-myth _Bragarædur_ about the mead.) From the gate the highway
of the dead went below the earth in a westerly direction through deep
and dark dales (Gylfag., ch. 52), and it required several days--for
Hermod nine days and nights--before they came to light regions and to
the golden bridge across the river Gjoll, flowing from north to south
(see No. 59). On the other side of the river the roads forked. One road
went directly north. This led to Balder's abode (Gylfag., ch. 52); in
other words, to Mimer's realm, to Mimer's grove, and to the sacred
citadel of the _ásmegir_, where death and decay cannot enter (see No.
53). This northern road was not, therefore, the road common to all the
dead. Another road went to the south. As Urd's realm is situated south
of Mimer's (see Nos. 59, 63), this second road must have led to Urd's
fountain and to the thingstead of the gods there. From the Sun-song we
learn that the departed had to continue their journey by that road.
The deceased skald of the Sun-song came to the norns, that is to say,
to Urd and her sisters, after he had left this road behind him, and he
sat for nine days and nights _á norna stoli_ before he was permitted to
continue his journey (str. 51). Here, then, is the end of the road common
to all, and right here, at Urd's fountain and at the thingstead of the
gods something must happen, on which account the dead are divided into
different groups, some destined for Asgard, others for the subterranean
regions of bliss, and a third lot for Nifelhel's regions of torture.
We shall now see whether the mythic fragments preserved to our time
contain any suggestions as to what occurs in this connection. It must be
admitted that this dividing must take place somewhere in the lower world,
that it was done on the basis of the laws which in mythological ethics
distinguish between right and wrong, innocence and guilt, that which is
pardonable and that which is unpardonable, and that the happiness and
unhappiness of the dead is determined by this division.
69.
THE TWO THINGSTEADS OF THE ASAS. THE EXTENT OF THE AUTHORITY OF
THE ASAS AND OF THE DIS OF FATE. THE DOOM OF THE DEAD.
The Asas have two thingsteads: the one in Asgard, the other in the lower
world.
In the former a council is held and resolutions passed in such matters as
pertain more particularly to the clan of the Asas and to their relation
to other divine clans and other powers. When Balder is visited by ugly
dreams, Valfather assembles the gods to hold counsel, and all the Asas
assemble _á thingi_, and all the asynjes _á máli_ (Vegtamskv., 1;
Balder's Dr., 4). In assemblies here the gods resolved to exact an oath
from all things for Balder's safety, and to send a messenger to the lower
world to get knowledge partly about Balder, partly about future events.
On this thingstead efforts are made of reconciliation between the Asas
and the Vans, after Gulveig had been slain in Odin's hall (Völuspa, 23,
24). Hither (á thing goda) comes Thor with the kettle captured from
Hymer, and intended for the feasts of the gods (Hymerskv., 39); and
here the Asas hold their last deliberations, when Ragnarok is at hand
(Völuspa, 49: _Æsir 'ro a thingi_). No matters are mentioned as discussed
in this thingstead in which any person is interested who does not dwell
in Asgard, or which are not of such a nature that they have reference to
how the gods themselves are to act under particular circumstances. That
the thingstead where such questions are discussed must be situated in
Asgard itself is a matter of convenience, and is suggested by the very
nature of the case.
It follows that the gods assemble in the Asgard thingstead more for the
purpose of discussing their own interests than for that of judging in
the affairs of others. They also gather there to amuse themselves and to
exercise themselves in arms (Gylfaginning, 50).
Of the other thingstead of the Asas, of the one in the lower world, it
is on the other hand expressly stated that they go thither to sit in
judgment, to act as judges; and there is no reason for taking this word
_dæma_, when as here it means activity at a thingstead, in any other than
its judicial and common sense.
What matters are settled there? We might take this to be the proper
place for exercising Odin's privilege of choosing heroes to be slain by
the sword, since this right is co-ordinate with that of the norns to
determine life and dispense fate, whence it might seem that the domain
of the authority of the gods and that of the norns here approached
each other sufficiently to require deliberations and decisions in
common. Still it is not on the thingstead at Urd's fountain that Odin
elects persons for death by the sword. It is expressly stated that it
is in his own home in Valhal that Odin exercises his right of electing
(Grimnersmal, 8), and this right he holds so independently and so
absolutely that he does not need to ask for the opinion of the norns.
On the other hand, the gods have no authority to determine the life and
death of the other mortals. This belongs exclusively to the norns. The
norns elect for every other death but that by weapons, and their decision
in this domain is never called a decision by the gods, but _norna domr,
norna kvidr, freigdar ord, Dauda ord_.
If Asas and norns did have a common voice in deciding certain questions
which _could_ be settled in Asgard, then it would not be in accordance
with the high rank given to the Asas in mythology to have them go to the
norns for the decision of such questions. On the contrary, the norns
would have to come to them. Urd and her sisters are beings of high rank,
but nevertheless they are of giant descent, like Mimer. The power they
have is immense; and on a closer investigation we find how the mythology
in more than one way has sought to maintain in the fancy of its believers
the independence (at least apparent and well defined, within certain
limits) of the gods--an independence united with the high rank which they
have. It may have been for this very reason that the youngest of the
dises of fate, Skuld, was selected as a valkyrie, and as a maid-servant
both of Odin and of her sister Urd.
The questions in which the Asas are judges near Urd's fountain must
be such as _cannot_ be settled in Asgard, as the lower world is their
proper forum, where both the parties concerned and the witnesses are to
be found. The questions are of great importance. This is evident already
from the fact that the journey to the thingstead is a troublesome one for
the gods, at least for Thor, who, to get thither, must wade across four
rivers. Moreover, the questions are of such a character that they occur
every day (Grimnersmal, 29, 31).
At this point of the investigation the results hitherto gained from the
various premises unite themselves in the following manner:
The Asas _daily_ go to the thingstead near Urd's fountain. At the
thingstead near Urd's fountain there _daily_ arrive hosts of the dead.
The task of the Asas near Urd's fountain is to judge in questions of
which the lower world is the proper forum. When the dead arrive at Urd's
fountain their final doom is not yet sealed. They have not yet been
separated into the groups which are to be divided between Asgard, Hel,
and Nifelhel.
The question now is, Can we conceive that the daily journey of the
Asas to Urd's fountain and the daily arrival there of the dead have no
connection with each other?--That the judgments daily pronounced by the
Asas at this thingstead, and that the daily event in accordance with
which the dead at this thingstead are divided between the realms of
bliss and those of torture have nothing in common?
That these mythological facts should have no connection with each other
is hard to conceive for anyone who, in doubtful questions, clings to that
which is probable rather than to the opposite. The probability becomes a
certainty by the following circumstances:
Of the kings Vanlande and Halfdan, Ynglingatal says that after death they
met Odin. According to the common view presented in our mythological
text-books, this should not have happened to either of them, since both
of them died from disease. One of them was visited and fetched by that
choking spirit of disease called _vitta vættr_, and in this way he was
permitted "to meet Odin" (_kom a vit Vilja brodur_). The other was
visited by _Hvedrungs mær_, the daughter of Loke, who "called him from
this world to Odin's Thing."
Ok til things
thridja jöfri
Hvedrungs mær
or heimi baud.
_Thing-bod_ means a legal summons to appear at a Thing, at the seat of
judgment. _Bjoda til things_ is to perform this legal summons. Here it is
Hvedrung's kinswoman who comes with sickness and death and _thing-bod_
to King Halfdan, and summons him to appear before the judgment-seat of
Odin. As, according to mythology, all the dead, and as, according to the
mythological text-books, at least all those who have died from disease
must go to Hel, then certainly King Halfdan, who died from disease, must
descend to the lower world; and as there is a Thing at which Odin and
the Asas daily sit in judgment, it must have been this to which Halfdan
was summoned. Otherwise we would be obliged to assume that Hvedrung's
kinswoman, Loke's daughter, is a messenger, not from the lower world and
Urd, but from Asgard, although the strophe further on expressly states
that she comes to Halfdan on account of "the doom of the norns;" and
furthermore we would be obliged to assume that the king, who had died
from sickness, after arriving in the lower world, did not present himself
at Odin's court there, but continued his journey to Asgard, to appear at
some of the accidental deliberations which are held at the thingstead
there. The passage proves that at least those who have died from sickness
have to appear at the court which is held by Odin in the lower world.
70.
THE DOOM OF THE DEAD (_continued_). SPEECH-RUNES ORDS TÍRR
NÁMÆLI.
In Sigrdrifumal (str. 12) we read:
Málrunar skaltu kunna,
vilt-ar magni ther
heiptom gjaldi harm;
thær um vindr,
thær um vefr,
thær um setr allar saman
a thvi thingi,
er thjothir scolo
i fulla doma fara.
"Speech-runes you must know, if you do not wish that the strong one with
consuming woe shall requite you for the injury you have caused. All those
runes you must wind, weave, and place together in that Thing where the
host of people go into the full judgments."
In order to make the significance of this passage clear, it is necessary
to explain the meaning of speech-runes or mal-runes.