conquered the magic power which hindered the approach to the country,
they entered a harbour, near which Frode and Gunvara are to be sought.
On the strand they meet people who belong to the attendants of the
brother and sister. Among them are three brothers, all named Grep, and
of whom one is Gunvara's pressing and persistent suitor. This Grep,
who is a poet and orator of the sort to be found in that land, at once
enters into a discussion with Erik. At the end of the discussion Grep
retires defeated and angry. Then Erik and Roller proceed up to the abode
where they are to find those whom they seek. Frode and Gunvara are met
amid attendants who treat them as princely persons, and look upon them
as their court-circle. But the royal household is of a very strange
kind, and receives visitors with great hooting, barking of dogs, and
insulting manners. Frode occupies the high-seat in the hall, where a
great fire is burning as a protection against the bitter cold. It is
manifest from Saxo's description that Frode and Gunvara, possibly by
virtue of the sorcery of the giants, are in a spiritual condition in
which they have almost forgotten the past, but without being happy in
their present circumstances. Frode feels unhappy and degraded. Gunvara
loathes her suitor Grep. The days here spent by Erik and Roller, before
they get an opportunity to take flight with Gunvara, form a series of
drinking-bouts, vulgar songs, assaults, fights, and murders. The jealous
Grep tries to assassinate Erik, but in this attempt he is slain by
Roller's sword. Frode cannot be persuaded to accompany Erik, Roller, and
Gunvara on this flight. He feels that his life is stained with a spot
that cannot be removed, and he is unwilling to appear with it among other
men. In the mythology it is left to Njord himself to liberate his son.
In another passage (_Hist._, 266, 267) Saxo says that King Fridlevus
(Njord) liberated a princely youth who had been robbed by a giant. In the
mythology this youth can hardly be anyone else than the young Frey, the
son of the liberator. Erik afterwards marries Gunvara.
Among the poetical paraphrases from heathen times are found some which
refer to Frey's and Freyja's captivity among the giants. In a song of
the skald Kormak the mead of poetry is called _jastrin fontanna Sýrar
Greppa_, "the seething flood of the sea ranks (of the skerry) of Syr
(of Freyja) of the Greps." This paraphrase evidently owes its existence
to an association of ideas based on the same myth as Saxo has told in
his way. _Sýr_, as we know, is one of Freyja's surnames, and as to
its meaning, one which she must have acquired during her sojourn in
Jotunheim, for it is scarcely applicable to her outside of Jotunheim.
_Greppr_, the poet there, as we have already seen, is Freyja's suitor. He
has had brothers also called _Greppr_, whence the plural expression _Sýrs
Greppa_ ("Syr's Greps"), wherein Freyja's surname is joined with more
than one Grep, receives its mythological explanation. The giant abode
where Frode and Gunvara sojourn, is according to Saxo, situated not far
from the harbour where Erik and Roller entered (_portum a quo Frotho non
longe deversabatur_--_Hist._, 198). The expression "the Greps of Syr's
skerries" thus agrees with Saxo.
A northern land uninhabited by man is by Eyvind Skaldaspiller called
_utröst Belja dolgs_, "the most remotely situated abode of Bele's enemy
(Frey)." This paraphrase is also explained by the myth concerning Frey's
and Freyja's visit in Jotunheim. _Beli_ is a giant-name, and means "the
howler." Erik and Roller, according to Saxo, are received with a horrible
howl by the giants who attend Frey. "They produced horrible sounds like
those of howling animals" (_ululantium more horrisonas dedere voces_). To
the myth about how Frey fell into the power of the giants I shall come
later (see Nos. 109, 111, 112).
Erik is in Saxo called _disertus_, the eloquent. The Svipdag epithet
_Ódr_ originally had a meaning very near to this. The impersonal _ódr_
means partly the reflecting element in man, partly song and poetry, the
ability of expressing one's self skilfully and of joining the words
in an agreeable and persuasive manner (cp. the Gothic _weit-wodan_,
to convince). Erik demonstrates the propriety of his name. Saxo makes
him speak in proverbs and sentences, certainly for the reason that his
Northern source has put them on the lips of the young hero. The same
quality characterises Svipdag. In Grogalder his mother sings over him:
"Eloquence and social talents be abundantly bestowed upon you;" and the
description of him in Fjölsvinnsmal places before our eyes a nimble and
vivacious youth who well understands the watchman's veiled words, and
on whose lips the speech develops into proverbs which fasten themselves
on the mind. Compare _augna gamans_, &c. (str. 5), and the often quoted
_Urdar ordi kvedr engi madr_ (str. 47).
Toward Gunvara Erik observes the same chaste and chivalrous conduct as
Otharus toward Syritha (_intacta illi pudicitia manet_--p. 216). As to
birth, he occupies the same subordinate position to her as _Ódr_ to
Freyja, Otharus to Syritha, Svipdag to Menglad.
The adventures related in the mythology from Svipdag's journey, when he
went in search of Freyja-Menglad, are by Saxo so divided between Ericus
Disertus and Otharus that of the former is told the most of what happened
to Svipdag during his visit in the giant abode, of the latter the most of
what happened to him on his way thence to his home.
Concerning Erik's family relations, Saxo gives some facts which, from
a mythological point of view, are of great value. It has already been
stated that Erik's mother, like Svipdag's, is dead, and that his father,
like Svipdag's, is married a second time where his saga begins. The
father begets with his second wife a son, whom Saxo calls Rollerus.
When Erik's father also is dead, Roller's mother, according to Saxo,
marries again, and this time a powerful champion called Brac (_Hist._,
217), who in the continuation of the story (p. 217, &c.) proves himself
to be _Asa-Brage_, the god Thor (cp. No. 105), to whom she brings her
son Roller. In our mythological records we learn that Thor's wife was
Sif, the goddess of vegetation, and that Sif had been married and had
had a son, by name _Ullr_, before she became the wife of the Asa-god,
and that she brought with her to Asgard this son, who became adopted
among the gods. Thus the mythic records and Saxo correspond in these
points, and it follows that Rollerus is the same as Uller, whom Saxo
elsewhere (_Hist._, 130, 131; cp. No. 36) mentions as Ollerus. The forms
Ollerus and Rollerus are to each other as _Olfr_ to _Hrólfr_. _Hrólfr_
is a contraction of _Hród-úlfr_; Rollerus indicates a contraction of
_Hród-Ullr_, _Hríd-Ullr_. The latter form occurs in the paraphrase
_Hrídullr hrotta_, "the sword's storm-Ull," a designation of a warrior
(Grett., 20, 1). It has already been pointed out that in the great war
between Odin's clan and the Vans, Ull, although Thor's stepson, takes the
side of the Vans and identifies his cause with that of Frey and Svipdag.
Saxo also describes the half-brothers as faithfully united, and, in
regard to Roller's reliable fraternity, makes Erik utter a sentence which
very nearly corresponds to the Danish:
"End svige de Sorne
og ikke de Baarne"
(_Hist._, 207--_optima est affinium opera opis indigo_). Saxo's account
of Erik and Roller thus gives us the key to the mythological statements,
not otherwise intelligible, that though Ull has in Thor a friendly
stepfather (cp. the expression _gulli Ullar_--Younger Edda, i. 302),
and in Odin a clan-chief who distinguishes him (cp. _Ullar hylli_,
&c.--Grimnersmal, 42), nevertheless he contends in this feud on the same
side as Erik-Svipdag, with whom he once set out to rescue Frey from the
power of the giants. The mythology was not willing to sever those bonds
of fidelity which youthful adventurers shared in common had established
between Frey, Ull, and Svipdag. Both the last two therefore associate
themselves with Frey when the war breaks out between the Asas and Vans.
It follows that Sif was the second wife of Orvandel the brave before
she became Thor's and that Ull is Orvandel's son. The intimate relation
between Orvandel on the one side and Thor on the other has already been
shown above. When Orvandel was out on adventures in Jotunheim his first
wife Groa visited Thor's halls as his guest, where the dis of vegetation
might have a safe place of refuge during her husband's absence.
This feature preserved in the Younger Edda is of great mythological
importance, and, as I shall show further on, of ancient Aryan origin.
Orvandel, the great archer and star-hero, reappears in Rigveda and also
in the Greek mythology--in the latter under the name Orion, as Vigfusson
has already assumed. The correctness of the assumption is corroborated by
reasons, which I shall present later on.
103.
THE SVIPDAG SYNONYM EIRIKR (_continued_).
We now pass to that Erik whom Saxo mentions in his narrative concerning
Halfdan-Berggram, and who, like Svipdag, is the son of a Swedish king's
daughter. This king had been slain by Halfdan. Just as Svipdag undertakes
an irreconcilable war of revenge against Halfdan-Gram, so does Erik
against Halfdan-Berggram. In one of their battles Halfdan was obliged
to take flight, despite his superhuman strength and martial luck. More
than this, he has by his side the "champion Thoro," and Saxo himself
informs us that the latter is no less a personage than the Asa-god Thor,
but he too must yield to Erik. Thor's Mjolner and Halfdan's club availed
nothing against Erik. In conflict with him their weapons seemed edgeless
(_Hist._, 323, 324).
Thus not only Halfdan, but even Thor himself, Odin's mighty son, he
who alone outweighs in strength all the other descendants and clansmen
of Odin, was obliged to retreat before a mythical hero; and that his
lightning hammer, at other times irresistible, Sindre's wonderful work,
is powerless in this conflict, must in the mythology have had particular
reasons. The mythology has scarcely permitted its favourite, "Hlodyn's
celebrated son," to be subjected to such a humiliation more than once,
and this fact must have had such a motive, that the event might be
regarded as a solitary exception. It must therefore be borne in mind
that, in his narrative concerning Hotherus, Saxo states, that after the
latter had acquired the sword of victory guarded by Mimingus, he meets
the Asa-god Thor in a battle and forces him to yield, after the former
has severed the hammer from its handle with a blow of the sword (_Hist._,
118; see No. 101). It has already been shown that _Ódr_-Svipdag,
not _Hödr_, is the Hotherus who captured the sword of victory and
accomplished this deed (see No. 101). Erik accordingly has, in common
with Svipdag, not only those features that he is the daughter-son of a
Swedish king whom Halfdan had slain, and that he persists in making war
on the latter, but also that he accomplished the unique deed of putting
Thor to flight.
Thus the hammer Mjolner is found to have been a weapon which, in spite of
its extraordinary qualities, is inferior to the sword of victory forged
by Volund (see Nos. 87, 98). Accordingly the mythology has contained two
famous judgments on products of the ancient artists. The first judgment
is passed by the Asa-gods in solemn consultation, and in reference to
this very hammer, Mjolner, explains that Sindre's products are superior
to those of Ivalde's sons. The other judgment is passed on the field of
battle, and confirms the former judgment of the gods. Mjolner proves
itself useless in conflict with the sword of victory. If now the Volund
of the heroic traditions were one of the Ivalde sons who fails to get the
prize in the mythology, then an epic connection could be found between
the former and the latter judgment: the insulted Ivalde son has then
avenged himself on the gods and re-established his reputation injured by
them. I shall recur to the question whether Volund was a son of Ivalde or
not.
The wars between Erik and Halfdan were, according to Saxo, carried on
with changing fortunes. In one of these conflicts, which must have taken
place before Erik secured the irresistible sword, Halfdan is victorious
and takes Erik prisoner; but the heart of the victor is turned into
reconciliation toward the inexorable foe, and he offers Erik his life
and friendship if the latter will serve his cause. But when Erik refuses
the offered conciliation, Halfdan binds him fast to a tree in order to
make him the prey of the wild beasts of the forest and abandons him to
his fate. Halfdan's desire to become reconciled with Erik, and also the
circumstance that he binds him, is predicted, in Grogalder (strs. 9, 10),
by Svipdag's mother among the fortunes that await her son:
thann gel ek thér inn fjórda
ef thik fjándr standa
görvir á galgvegi:
hugr theim hverfi
til handa ther mætti,
ok snuisk theim til sátta sefi.
thann gel ek pér inn fimta
ef thér fjöturr verdr
borinn at boglimum:
Leifnis elda læt ek thér
fyr legg of kvedinn,
ok stökkr thá láss af limum,
en af fótum fjöturr.
The Svipdag synonyms so far met with are: Ódr (Hotherus), Óttarr
(Otharus), and Eirekr (Ericus).
[Illustration: IDUN BROUGHT BACK TO ASGARD.
(_From an etching by Lorenz Frölich._)
In pursuance of a promise made by Loke to secure his release, he beguiled
Idun out of Asgard and into the power of giant Thjasse. Idun was keeper
of the apples upon which the gods fed to renew their youth and her
disappearance from Asgard was, therefore, followed by rapid ageing, into
decrepitude, of the gods. They discovered that Loke was the scoundrel who
had caused Idun's betrayal and threatened him with death if he failed to
bring her back. Accordingly Loke borrowed Freyja's falcon plumage and
flew to Jotunheim--home of the giants. Thjasse was at sea fishing, so
Loke quickly found Idun, whom he transformed into a nut and hastened with
her to Asgard. Thjasse soon learned what had happened and on eagle wings
he pursued the fleeing Loke but his coming was seen by Heimdal, warder of
Asgard's gate, and by his orders a fire was quickly made on the walls,
which scorched Thjasse's wings as he flew over and he fell into the power
of the gods who promptly slew him.
See pages 899, 959, 909, 960.]
It is remarkable, but, as we shall find later, easy to explain that this
saga-hero, whom the mythology made Freyja's husband, and whose career
was adorned with such strange adventures, was not before the ninth
century, and that in Sweden, accorded the same rank as the Asa-gods, and
this in spite of the fact that he was adopted in Asgard, and despite
the fact that his half-brother Ull was clothed with the same dignity as
that of the Asa-gods. There is no trace to show that he who is Freyja's
husband and Frey's brother-in-law was generally honoured with a divine
title, with a temple, and with sacrifices. He remained to the devotees
of the mythology what he was--a brilliant hero, but nothing more; and
while the saga on the remote antiquity of the Teutons made him a ruler
of North Teutonic tribes, whose leader he is in the war against Halfdan
and Hadding (see Nos. 33, 38), he was honoured as one of the oldest
kings of the Scandinavian peoples, but was not worshipped as a god. As
an ancient king he has received his place in the middle-age chronicles
and genealogies of rulers now under the name Svipdag, now under the name
Erik. But, at the same time, his position in the epic was such that,
if the Teutonic Olympus was ever to be increased with a divinity of
Asa-rank, no one would have a greater right than he to be clothed with
this dignity. From this point of view light is shed on a passage in ch.
26 of _Vita Ansgarii_. It is there related, that before Ansgarius arrived
in Birka, where his impending arrival was not unknown, there came thither
a man (doubtless a heathen priest or skald) who insisted that he had a
mission from the gods to the king and the people. According to the man's
statement, the gods had held a meeting, at which he himself had been
present, and in which they unanimously had resolved to adopt in their
council that King Erik who in antiquity had ruled over the Swedes, so
that he henceforth should be one of the gods (_Ericum, quondam regem
vestrum, nos unanimes in collegium nostrum ascisimus, ut sit unus de
numero deorum_); this was done because they had perceived that the Swedes
were about to increase the number of their present gods by adopting a
stranger (Christ) whose doctrine could not be reconciled with theirs,
and who accordingly did not deserve to be worshipped. If the Swedes
wished to add another god to the old ones, under whose protection the
country had so long enjoyed happiness, peace, and plenty, they ought to
accord to Erik, and not to the strange god, that honour which belongs
to the divinities of the land. What the man who came to Birka with this
mission reported was made public, and created much stir and agitation.
When Ansgarius landed, a temple had already been built to Erik, in which
supplications and sacrifices were offered to him. This event took place
at a time foreboding a crisis for the ancient Odinic religion. Its last
bulwarks on the Teutonic continent had recently been levelled with the
ground by Charlemagne's victory over the Saxons. The report of the
cruelties practised by the advocates of the doctrine, which invaded the
country from the south and the west for the purpose of breaking the faith
of the Saxon Odin worshippers towards their religion, had certainly found
its way to Scandinavia, and doubtless had its influence in encouraging
that mighty effort made by the northern peoples in the ninth century to
visit and conquer on their own territory their Teutonic kinsmen who had
been converted to Christianity. It is of no slight mythological interest
to learn that zealous men among the Swedes hoped to be able to inspire
the old doctrine with new life by adopting among the gods Freyja's
husband, the most brilliant of the ancient mythic heroes and the one most
celebrated by the skalds. I do not deem it impossible that this very
attempt made Erik's name hated among some of the Christians, and was the
reason why "Old Erik" became a name of the devil. _Vita Ansgarii_ says
that it was the devil's own work that Erik was adopted among the gods.
The Svipdag synonym Erik reappears in the Christian saga about Erik
Vidforle (the far-travelled), who succeeded in finding and entering
_Odainsakr_ (see No. 44). This is a reminiscence of Svipdag's visit in
Mimer's realm. The surname _Vidförli_ has become connected with two names
of Svipdag: we have _Eirikr hinn vidförli_ and _Ódr_ (_Oddr_) _hinn
vidförli_ in the later Icelandic sagas.
104.
THE LATER FORTUNES OF THE VOLUND SWORD.
I have now given a review of the manner in which I have found the
fragments of the myth concerning Svipdag up to the point where he obtains
Freyja as his wife. The fragments dove-tail into each other and form a
consecutive whole. Now, a few words in regard to the part afterwards
played by the Volund sword, secured by Svipdag in the lower world, in the
mythology, and in the saga. The sword, as we have seen, is the prize for
which Asgard opens its gate and receives Svipdag as Freyja's husband. We
subsequently find it in Frey's possession. Once more the sword becomes
the price of a bride, and passes into the hands of the giant Gymer and
his wife. It has already been demonstrated that Gymer's wife is the same
Angerboda who, in historical times and until Ragnarok, dwells in the
Ironwood (see No. 35). Her shepherd, who in the woods watches her monster
flocks, also keeps the sword until the fire-giant Fjalar shall appear in
his abode in the guise of the red cock and bring it to his own father
Surt, in whose hand it shall cause Frey's death, and contribute to the
destruction of the world of gods.
A historian, Priscus, who was Attila's contemporary, relates that the
Hun king got possession of a divine sword that a shepherd had dug out of
the ground and presented to him as a gift. The king of the Huns, it is
added, rejoiced in the find; for, as the possessor of the sword that had
belonged to the god "Mars," he considered himself as armed with authority
to undertake and carry on successfully any war he pleased (see Jordanes,
who quotes Priscus).
On the Teutonic peoples the report of this pretended event must have
made a mighty impression. It may be that the story was invented for
this purpose; for their myths told of a sword of victory which was
owned by that god who, since the death of Balder, and since Tyr became
one-handed, was, together with Thor, looked upon as the bravest of the
warlike gods, which sword had been carried away from Asgard to the
unknown wildernesses of the East, where it had been buried, not to be
produced again before the approach of Ragnarok, when it was to be exhumed
and delivered by a shepherd to a foe of mankind. Already, before this
time, the Teutons had connected the appearance of the Huns with this
myth. According to Jordanes, they believed that evil troll-women, whom
the Gothic king Filimer had banished from his people, had taken refuge
in the wildernesses of the East, and there given birth to children with
forest giants ("satyres"), which children became the progenitors of
the Huns. This is to say, in other words, that they believed the Huns
were descended from Angerboda's progeny in the Ironwood, which, in the
fulness of time, were to break into Midgard with the monster Hate as
their leader. The sword which the god Frey had possessed, and which was
concealed in the Ironwood, becomes in Jordanes a sword which the god
"Mars" had owned, and which, thereafter, had been concealed in the earth.
Out of Angerboda's shepherd, who again brings the sword into daylight and
gives it to the world-hostile Fjalar, becomes a shepherd who exhumes the
sword and gives it to Attila, the foe of the Teutonic race.
The memory of the sword survived the victory of Christianity, and was
handed down through the centuries in many variations. That Surt at the
end of the world was to possess the sword of course fell away, and
instead now one and then another was selected as the hero who was to
find and take it; that it was watched by a woman and by a man (in the
mythology Angerboda and Eggther); and that the woman was an even more
disgusting being than the man, were features that the saga retained both
on the Continent and in England.
The Beowulf poem makes a monster, by name Grendel ("the destroyer"),
dwell with his mother under a marsh in a forest, which, though referred
to Denmark and to the vicinity of the splendid castle of a Danish
king, is described in a manner which makes it highly probable that the
prototype used by the Christian poet was a heathen skald's description of
the Ironwood. There is, says he, the mysterious land in which the wolf
conceals himself, full of narrow valleys, precipices, and abysses, full
of dark and deep forests, marshes shrouded in gloom, lakes shaded with
trees, nesses lashed by the sea, mountain torrents and bogs, which in the
night shine as of fire, and shelter demoniac beings and dragons in their
turbid waves. The hunted game prefers being torn into pieces by dogs to
seeking its refuge on this unholy ground, from which raging storms chase
black clouds until the heavens are darkened and the rain pours down in
torrents. The English poet may honestly have located the mythological
Ironwood in Denmark. The same old border-land, which to this very day is
called "Dänische wold," was still in the thirteenth century called by the
Danes Jarnwith, the Ironwood. From his abode in this wilderness Grendel
makes nightly excursions to the Danish royal castle, breaks in there,
kills sleeping champions with his iron hands, sucks out their blood, and
carries their corpses to the enchanted marsh in order to eat them there.
The hero, Beowulf, who has heard of this, proceeds to Denmark, penetrates
into the awful forest, dives, armed with Denmark's best sword, down into
the magic marsh to Grendel's and his mother's hall, and kills them after
a conflict in which the above-mentioned sword was found useless. But down
there he finds another which Grendel and his mother kept concealed, gets
possession of it, and conquers with its aid.