concerning the maker of the sword which opens Asgard for Svipdag. The
former, produced in Christian times, is only a new version of the latter.
Volund is a foe of the gods, an elf-prince who was deeply insulted by
beings more powerful than himself (No. 87). "The airy one" must likewise
be a foe of the gods, since the weapon he has made is dangerous to the
golden cock of the world-tree, and is bought by "the eleven wards"
with the opening of Asgard's gate and the giving of Menglad as wife
to Svipdag. Its danger to Asgard must also be suggested by Fjölsvin's
statement, that the splendid hall, called _Hýrr_, "the gladdener," "the
soul-stirring," that hall which is situated within the castle wall,
which is encircled by vaferflames, and which from time out of mind has
been celebrated among men--that this hall has already long trembled _á
brodds oddi_, "on the point of the sword" (str. 32). No other weapon can
here be meant than one which was fraught with the greatest danger to the
safety of the gods, and which filled them with anxiety; and unless we
wish to deny that there is sense and connection in the poem, this sword
can be no other than that which Svipdag now has with him, and which,
having been brought to Asgard, relieves the gods of their anxiety. And to
repeat the points of similarity, Volund, like "Loptr," makes his weapon
in the northern border-land of Mimer's domain; and when the sword is
finished he is surprised by subterranean powers. In Loptr's saga, as in
Volund's, a magnificent arm-ring is mentioned, and in both a dis of night
received this ring to wear. In Loptr's saga, as in Volund's, a night-dis
is mentioned who injures sinews. And Volund himself calls himself _Byrr_,
"the wind," which is a synonym of _Loptr_.
Thus Svipdag has made a journey to the lower world to get possession of
the sword of Volund, and he has been successful.
99.
SVIPDAG'S FATHER ORVANDEL, THE STAR-HERO. EXPLANATION OF HIS
EPITHET SÓLBJARTR.
The conversation between Fjölsvin and Svipdag ends when the latter gives
his name, and requests the former to ask Menglad if she wishes to possess
his love. Menglad then hastens to meet him, but before she shows what she
feels for him, he must confirm with his own name and that of his father's
that he really is the one he pretends to be--the one she has long been
longing for. The young hero then says: _Svipdagr ek heitir, Sólbjartr hét
minn fadir_ (str. 47).
When Fjölsvin asked Svipdag what the name of his father was, he
answered: Springcold, _Várkaldr_ (str. 6); and I have already stated
the reason why he was so called. Now he gives another name of his
father--_Sólbjartr_--which also is a mere epithet, but still, as Svipdag
must here speak plainly, it has to be such a name as can refer to his
father in a distinct and definite manner.
Svipdag's mother, Groa, was married to _Örvandill hinn frækni_ (Younger
Edda, 276-278). The epithet _Sólbjartr_, "he who has a brightness like
that of the sun," if it really refers to Orvandel, must be justified
and explained by something that the mythology had to report of him. Of
Orvandel, we know from the Younger Edda that he and Groa had at least
for a time been good friends of Thor; that on one of his expeditions in
Jotunheim, north of the Elivagar rivers, the latter had met Orvandel and
had carried him in his provision-basket across the water to his home;
that Orvandel there froze his toe; that Thor broke this off, and, in
honour of Orvandel, threw it up into the heavens, where it became that
star which is called _Orvandel's toe_. Of ancient Teutonic star-names
but very few have been handed down to our time, and it is natural that
those now extant must be those of constellations or separate stars, which
attracted attention on account of their appearance, or particularly on
account of the strength of their light. One of them was "Orvandel's toe."
By the name Orvandel (_Earendel_) a star was also known among the Teutons
in Great Britain. After being converted to Christianity they regarded the
_Earendel_ star as a symbol of Christ. The Church had already sanctified
such a view by applying to Christ the second epistle of Peter i. 19: "We
have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take
heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn,
and the day-star arise in your hearts." The morning star became, as we
read in a Latin hymn, "typus Christi."
But it would be a too hasty conclusion to assume that Orvandel's star and
the morning star were identical in heathen times. All that we can assert
with certainty is that the former must have been one of the brightest,
for the very name _Earendel_ gradually became in the Old English an
abstract word meaning "splendour."
Codex Exoniensis has preserved a hymn to Christ, the introductory stanzas
of which appear to be borrowed from the memory of the heathen hymn to
Orvandel, and to have been adapted to Christ with a slight change:
Eala Earendel O Orvandel,
engla beorhtast, brightest shining of angels,
ofer Middangeard thou who over Midgard
monnum sended art sent to men,
and sodiästa thou true
sunnan leoma, beam of the sun
tohrt ofer tunglas shining above
thu tida gehvane the lights of heaven,
of sylfum the thou who always
symle inlihtes. of thyself
givest light.
From this Old English song it appears as if the Orvandel epithet
_Sólbjartr_ was in vogue among the Saxon tribes in England. We there
find an apparent interpretation of the epithet in the phrases adapted to
Earendel, "brightest (_beorhtast_) of angels" and "true beam of the sun."
That Svipdag's name was well known in England, and that a Saxon royal
dynasty counted him among their mythical forefathers, can be demonstrated
by the genealogy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. That Svipdag with
sufficient distinctness might characterise his father as _Sólbjartr_ is
accordingly explained by the fact that Orvandel is a star-hero, and that
the star bearing his name was one of the "brightest" in the heavens, and
in brilliancy was like "a beam from the sun."
100.
SVIPDAG RESCUED FREYJA FROM THE HANDS OF THE GIANTS. SAXO ON
OTHARUS AND SYRITHA. SVIPDAG IDENTICAL WITH OTHARUS.
When Menglad requests Svipdag to name his race and his name, she does
so because she wants _jartegn_ (legal evidence; compare the expression
_med vitnum ok jartegnum_) that he is the one as whose wife she had been
designated by the norns (_ef ek var ther kván of kvedin_--str. 46), and
that her eyes had not deceived her. She also wishes to know something
about his past life that may confirm that he is Svipdag. When Svipdag had
given as a _jartegn_ his own name and an epithet of his father, he makes
only a brief statement in regard to his past life, but to Menglad it is
an entirely sufficient proof of his identity with her intended husband.
He says that the winds drove him on cold paths from his father's house
to frosty regions of the world (str. 47). That word used by him, "drove"
(_reka_), implies that he did not spontaneously leave his home, a fact
which we also learn in Grogalder. On the command of his stepmother, and
contrary to his own will, he departs to find Menglads, "the women fond of
ornaments." His answer further shows that after he had left his father's
house he had made journeys in frost-cold regions of the world. Such
regions are Jotunheim and Nifelheim, which was in fact regarded as a
subterranean part of Jotunheim (see Nos. 59, 63).
Menglad has eagerly longed for the day when Svipdag should come. Her
mood, when Svipdag sees her within the castle wall sitting on "the
joyous mount" surrounded by asynjes and dises, is described in the poem
by the verb _thruma_, "to be sunk into a lethargic, dreamy condition."
When Fjölsvin approaches her and bids her "look at a stranger who may be
Svipdag" (str. 43), she awakes in great agony, and for a moment she can
scarcely control herself. When she is persuaded that she has not been
deceived either by Fjölsvin's words or by her own eyes, she at once seals
the arrival of the youth with a kiss. The words which the poem makes her
lips utter testify, like her conduct, that it is not the first time she
and Svipdag have met, but that it is a "meeting again," and that she long
ere this knew that she possessed Svipdag's love. She speaks not only of
her own longing for him, but also of his longing and love for her (str.
48-50), and is happy that "he has come again to her halls" (_at thu est
aptr komin, mögr, til minna sala_--str. 49). This "again" (back), which
indicates a previous meeting between Menglad and Svipdag, is found in all
the manuscripts of Fjölsvinnsmal, and that it has not been added by any
"betterer" trying to mend the metres of the text is demonstrated by the
fact that the metre would be improved by the absence of the word _aptr_.
Meanwhile it appears with certainty from Fjölsvinnsmal that Svipdag
never before had seen the castle within whose walls Menglad has _ríki,
eign ok audsölum_ (str. 7, 8). He stands before its gate as a wondering
stranger, and puts question after question to Fjölsvin in regard to the
remarkable sights before his eyes. It follows that Menglad did not have
her halls within this citadel, but dwelt somewhere else, at the time when
she on a previous occasion met Svipdag and became assured that he loved
her.
In this other place she must have resided when Svipdag's stepmother
commanded him to find _Menglödum_, that is to say, Menglad, but also
some one else to whom the epithet "ornament-glad" might apply. This is
confirmed by the fact that this other person to whom Grogalder's words
refer is not at all mentioned in Fjölsvinnsmal. It is manifest that many
things had happened, and that Svipdag had encountered many adventures,
between the episode described in Grogalder, when he had just been
commanded by his stepmother to find "those loving ornaments," and the
episode in Fjölsvinnsmal, when he seeks Menglad again in Asgard itself.
Where can he have met her before? Was there any time when Freyja did
not dwell in Asgard? Völuspa answers this question, as we know, in the
affirmative. The event threatening to the gods and to the existence of
the world once happened that the goddess of fertility and love came into
the power of the giants. Then all the high-holy powers assembled to
consider "who had mixed the air with corruption and given Od's maid to
the race of giants." But none of our Icelandic mythic records mentions
how and by whom Freyja was liberated from the hands of the powers of
frost. Under the name Svipdag our hero is mentioned only in Grogalder
and Fjölsvinnsmal; all we learn of him under the name _Ódr_ and _Óttarr_
is that he was Freyja's lover and husband (Völuspa, Hyndluljod); that
he went far, far away; that Freyja then wept for him, that her tears
became gold, that she sought him among unknown peoples, and that she in
her search assumed many names: _Mardöll_, _Hörn_, _Gefn_, _Syr_ (Younger
Edda, 114). To get further contributions to the Svipdag myth we must turn
to Saxo, where the name Svipdag should be found as Svipdagerus, _Óttar_
as Otharus or Hotharus, and _Ódr_ as Otherus or Hotherus.[4]
There cannot be the least doubt that Saxo's Otharus is a figure borrowed
from the mythology and from the heroic sagas therewith connected, since
in the first eight books of his _History_ not a single person can be
shown who is not originally found in the mythology. But the mythic
records that have come down to our time know only one _Ottarr_, and he
is the one who wins Freyja's heart. This alone makes it the duty of the
mythologist to follow this hint here given and see whether that which
Saxo relates about his Otharus confirms his identity with Svipdag-Ottar.
The Danish king Syvaldus had, says Saxo, an uncommonly beautiful
daughter, Syritha, who fell into the hands of a giant. The way this
happened was as follows: A woman who had a secret understanding with the
giant succeeded in nestling herself in Syritha's confidence, in being
adopted as her maidservant, and in enticing her to a place where the
giant lay in ambush. The latter hastened away with Syritha and concealed
her in a wild mountain district. When Otharus learned this he started out
in search of the young maiden. He visited every recess in the mountains,
found the maiden and slew the giant. Syritha was in a strange condition
when Otharus liberated her. The giant had twisted and pressed her locks
together so that they formed on her head one hard mass which hardly could
be combed out except with the aid of an iron tool. Her eyes stared in an
apathetic manner, and she never raised them to look at her liberator. It
was Otharus' determination to bring a pure virgin back to her kinsmen.
But the coldness and indifference she seemed to manifest toward him was
more than he could endure, and so he abandoned her on the way. While
she now wandered alone through the wilderness she came to the abode of
a giantess. The latter made the maiden tend her goats. Still, Otharus
must have regretted that he abandoned Syritha, for he went in search of
her and liberated her a second time. The mythic poem from which Saxo
borrowed his story must have contained a song, reproduced by him in Latin
paraphrases, and in which Otharus explained to Syritha his love, and
requested her, "whom he had suffered so much in seeking and finding," to
give him a look from her eyes as a token that under his protection she
was willing to be brought back to her father and mother. But her eyes
continually stared on the ground, and apparently she remained as cold
and indifferent as before. Otharus then abandoned her for the second
time. From the thread of the story it appears that they were then not
far from that border which separates Jotunheim from the other realms
of the world. Otharus crossed that water, which in the old records is
probably called the Elivagar rivers, on the opposite side of which was
his father's home. Of Syritha Saxo, on the other hand, says cautiously
and obscurely that "she in a manner that sometimes happened in antiquity
hastened far away down the rocks"--_more pristino decursis late scopulis_
(_Hist._, 333)--an expression which leads us to suppose that in the
mythic account she had flown away in the guise of a bird. Meanwhile fate
brought her to the home of Otharus' parents. Here she represented herself
to be a poor traveller, born of parents who had nothing. But her refined
manners contradicted her statement, and the mother of Otharus received
her as a noble guest. Otharus himself had already come home. She thought
she could remain unknown to him by never raising the veil with which
she covered her face. But Otharus well knew who she was. To find out
whether she really had so little feeling for him as her manners seemed
to indicate, a pretended wedding between Otharus and a young maiden was
arranged, whose name and position Saxo does not mention. When Otharus
went to the bridal bed, Syritha was probably near him as bridesmaid, and
carried the candle. The light or the flame burnt down, so that the fire
came in contact with her hand, but she felt no pain, for there was in
her heart a still more burning pain. When Otharus then requested her
to take care of her hand, she finally raised her gaze from the ground,
and their eyes met. Therewith the spell resting on Syritha was broken:
it was plain that they loved each other and the pretended wedding was
changed into a real one between Syritha and Otharus. When her father
learned this he became exceedingly wroth; but after his daughter had made
a full explanation to him, his anger was transformed into kindness and
graciousness, and he himself thereupon married a sister of Otharus.
In regard to the person who enticed Syritha into the snare laid by the
giant, Saxo is not quite certain that it was a woman. Others think, he
says, that it was a man in the guise of a woman.
It has long since attracted the attention of mythologists that in this
narrative there are found two names, Otharus and Syritha, which seem to
refer to the myth concerning Freyja. Otharus is no doubt a Latinised
form of Ottar, and, as is well known, the only one who had this name in
the mythology is, as stated, Freyja's lover and husband. Syritha, on the
other hand, may be a Latinised form of Freyja's epithet Syr, in which
Saxo presumably supposed he had found an abbreviated form of Syri (Siri,
Sigrid). In Saxo's narrative Syritha is abducted by a giant (_gigas_),
with the aid of an ally whom he had procured among Freyja's attendants.
In the mythology Freyja is abducted by a giant, and, as it appears from
Völuspa's words, likewise by the aid of some ally who was in Freyja's
service, for it is there said that the gods hold council as to who it
could have been who "gave," delivered Freyja to the race of the giants
(_hverr hefdi ætt jötuns Óds mey gefna_). In Saxo Otharus is of lower
descent than Syritha. Saxo has not made him a son of a king, but a youth
of humble birth as compared with his bride; and his courage to look up to
Syritha, Saxo remarks, can only be explained by the great deeds he had
performed or by his reliance on his agreeable manners and his eloquence
(_sive gestarum rerum magnitudine sive comitatis et facundiæ fiducia
accensus_). In the mythology _Ódr_ was of lower birth than Freyja: he did
not by birth belong to the number of higher gods; and Svipdag had, as we
know, never seen Asgard before he arrived there under the circumstances
described in Fjölsvinnsmal. That the most beautiful of all the goddesses,
and the one second in rank to Frigg alone, she who is particularly
desired by all powers, the sister of the harvest god Frey, the daughter
of Njord, the god of wealth, she who with Odin shares the privilege of
choosing heroes on the battlefield--that she does not become the wife of
an Asa-god, but "is married to the man called _Odr_," would long since
have been selected by the mythologist as a question both interesting and
worthy of investigation had they cared to devote any attention to epic
coherence and to premises and _dénouement_ in the mythology in connection
with the speculations on the signification of the myths as symbols of
nature or on their ethical meaning. The view would then certainly have
been reached that this _Odr_ in the epic of the mythology must have
been the author of exploits which balanced his humbler descent, and the
mythologists would thus have been driven to direct the investigation
first of all to the question whether Freyja, who we know was for some
time in the power of the giants, but was rescued therefrom, did not find
as her liberator this very _Odr_, who afterwards became her husband,
and whether _Odr_ did not by this very act gain her love and become
entitled to obtain her hand. The adventure which Saxo relates actually
dovetails itself into and fills a gap in that chain of events which are
the result of the analysis of Grogalder and Fjölsvinnsmal. We understand
that the young Svipdag is alarmed, and considers the task imposed on him
by the stepmother to find Menglad far too great for his strength, if
it is necessary to seek Menglad in Jotunheim and rescue her thence. We
understand why on his arrival at Asgard he is so kindly received, after
he has gone through the formality of giving his name, when we know that
he comes not only as the feared possessor of the Volund sword, but also
as the one who has restored to Asgard the most lovely and most beautiful
asynje. We can then understand why the gate, which holds fast every
uninvited guest, opens as of itself for him, and why the savage wolf-dogs
lick him. That his words: _thadan_ (from his paternal home) _rákumk vinda
kalda vegu_, are to Menglad a sufficient answer to her question in regard
to his previous journeys can be understood if Svipdag has, as Ottar,
searched through the frost-cold Jotunheim's eastern mountain districts to
find Menglad; and we can then see that Menglad in Fjölsvinnsmal can speak
of her meeting with Svipdag at the gate of Asgard as a "meeting again,"
although Svipdag never before had been in Asgard. And that Menglad
receives him as a husband to whom she is already married, with whom she
is now to be "united for ever" (Fjölsvinnsmal, 58), is likewise explained
by the improvised wedding which Otharus celebrated with Syritha before
she returns to her father.
The identity of Otharus with the _Ottarr-Odr-Svipdagr_ of the mythology
further appears from the fact that Saxo gives him as father an Ebbo,
which a comparative investigation proves to be identical with Svipdag's
father Orvandel. Of the name Ebbo and the person to whom it belongs I
shall have something to say in Nos. 108 and 109. Here it must be remarked
that if Otharus is identical with Svipdag, then his father Ebbo, like
Svipdag's father, should appear in the history of the mythic patriarch
Halfdan and be the enemy of the latter (see Nos. 24, 33). Such is also
the case. Saxo produces Ebbo on the scene as an enemy of Halfdan Berggram
(_Hist._, 329, 330). A woman, Groa, is the cause of the enmity between
Halfdan and Orvandel. A woman, Sygrutha, is the cause of the enmity
between Halfdan and Ebbo. In the one passage Halfdan robs Orvandel of
his betrothed Groa; in the other passage Halfdan robs Ebbo of his bride
Sygrutha. In a third passage in his _History_ (p. 138) Saxo has recorded
the tradition that Horvendillus (Orvandel) is slain by a rival, who takes
his wife, there called Gerutha. Halfdan kills Ebbo. Thus it is plain that
the same story is told about Svipdag's father Orvandel and about Ebbo
the father of Otharus and that Groa, Sygrutha, and Gerutha are different
versions of the same dis of vegetation.
According to Saxo, Syritha's father was afterwards married to a sister of
Otharus. In the mythology Freyja's father Njord marries Skade, who is the
foster-sister and _systrunga_ (sister's child) of Ottar-Svipdag (see Nos.
108, 113, 114, 115).
Freyja's surname _Hörn_ (also _Horn_) may possibly be explained by what
Saxo relates about the giant's manner of treating her hair, which he
pressed into one snarled, stiff, and hard mass. With the myth concerning
Freyja's locks, we must compare that about Sif's hair. The hair of both
these goddesses is subject to the violence of the hands of giants, and it
may be presumed that both myths symbolised some feature of nature. Loke's
act of violence on Sif's hair is made good by the skill and goodwill of
the ancient artists Sindre and Brok (Younger Edda, i. 340). In regard to
Freyja's locks, the skill of a "dwarf" may have been resorted to, since
Saxo relates that an iron instrument was necessary to separate and comb
out the horn-hard braids. In Völuspa's list of ancient artists there is a
smith by name _Hornbori_, which possibly has some reference to this.
Reasons have already been given in No. 35 for the theory that it was
Gulveig-Heid who betrayed Freyja and delivered her into the hands of the
giants. When Saxo says that this treachery was committed by a woman, but
also suggests the possibility that it was a man in the guise of a woman,
then this too is explained by the mythology, in which Gulveig-Heid,
like her fellow culprit, has an androgynous nature. Loke becomes "the
possessor of the evil woman" (_kvidugr af konu illri_). In Fjölsvinnsmal
we meet again with Gulveig-Heid, born again and called Aurboda, as one of
Freyja's attendants, into whose graces she is nestled for a second time.
[4] In Saxo, as in other sources of about the same time, aspirated
names do not usually occur with aspiration. I have already referred to
the examples Handuuanus, Andvani, Helias, Elias, Hersbernus, Esbjörn,
Hevindus, Eyvindr, Horvendillus, Orvandill, Hestia, Estland, Holandia,
Oland.
101.
SVIPDAG IN SAXO'S ACCOUNT OF HOTHERUS.
From the parallel name Otharus, we must turn to the other parallel name
Hotherus. It has already been shown that if the Svipdag synonym _Odr_
occurs in Saxo, it must have been Latinised into Otherus or Hotherus.
The latter form is actually found, but under circumstances making an
elaborate investigation necessary, for in what Saxo narrates concerning
this Hotherus, he has to the best of his ability united sketches and
episodes of two different mythic persons, and it is therefore necessary
to separate these different elements borrowed from different sources.
One of these mythic persons is _Hödr_ the Asa-god, and the other is
_Odr_-Svipdag. The investigation will therefore at the same time contain
a contribution to the researches concerning the original records of the
myth of Balder.
Saxo's account of Hotherus (_Hist._, 110, &c.), is as follows: