killed in the water, probably in the vicinity of the _Vágasker_ and the
_Singasteinn_, where the Brisingamen ornament of his faithful Mardol is
discovered by Loke and Heimdal.
Freyja's love and sorrow may in the mythology have caused the gods
to look upon Svipdag's last sad fate and death as a propitiation of
his faults. The tears which the Vana-dis wept over her lover were
transformed, according to the mythology, into gold, and this gold, the
gold of a woman's faithfulness, may have been regarded as a sufficient
compensation for the sins of her dear one, and doubtless opened to
Svipdag the same Asgard-gate which he had seen opened to him during his
life. This explains that Hermod is in Asgard in the historical time, and
that, according to a revelation to the Swedes in the ninth century, the
ancient King Erik was unanimously elevated by the gods as a member of
their council.
Finally, it should be pointed out that the Svipdag synonym _Odr_ has
the same meaning as _môd_ in Heremôd, and as _ferhd_ in Svidferhd, the
epithet with which Hermod is designated in the Beowulf strophe 1820.
_Odr_ means "the one endowed with spirit," _Heremôd_ "the one endowed
with martial spirit," _Svidferhd_, "the one endowed with mighty spirit."
Heimdal's and Loke's conflict in regard to Brisingamen has undoubtedly
been an episode in the mythic account of Svipdag's last fortunes and
Freyja's abode with him in the sea. There are many reasons for this
assumption. We should bear in mind that Svipdag's closing career
constituted a part of the great epic of the first world war, and that
both Heimdal and Loke take part in this war, the former on Hadding's,
the latter on Gudhorm-Jormunrek's and Svipdag's side (see Nos. 38, 39,
40). It should further be remembered that, according to Saxo, at the
time when he slays the monster, Hadding is wandering about as an exile
in the wildernesses, and that it is about this time that Odin gives him
a companion and protector in Liserus-Heimdal (see No. 40). The unnamed
woman, who after the murder had taken place puts herself in Hadding's
way, informs him whom he has slain, and calls the wrath of the gods and
the elements down upon him, must be Freyja herself, since she witnessed
the deed and knew who was concealed in the guise of the dragon. So long
as the latter lived Brisingamen surely had a faithful watcher, for it is
the nature of a dragon to brood over the treasures he finds. After being
slain and dragged on shore by Hadding, his "bed," the gold, lies exposed
to view on Vagasker, and the glimmer of Brisingamen reaches Loke's
eyes. While the woman, in despair on account of Svipdag's death, stands
before Hadding and speaks to him, the ornament has no guardian, and Loke
finds the occasion convenient for stealing it. But Heimdal, Hadding's
protector, who in the mythology always keeps his eye on the acts of
Loke and on his kinsmen hostile to the gods, is also present, and he
too has seen Brisingamen. Loke has assumed the guise of a seal, while
the ornament lies on a rock in the sea, _Vágasker_, and it can cause
no suspicion that a seal tries to find a resting-place there. Heimdal
assumes the same guise, the seals fight on the rock, and Loke must retire
with his errand unperformed. The rock is also called Singastein (Younger
Edda, i. 264, 268), a name in which I see the Anglo-Saxon _Sincastân_,
"the ornament rock." An echo of the combat about Brisingamen reappears in
the Beowulf poem, where Heimdal (not Hamdir) appears under the name Hâma,
and where it is said that "Hâma has brought to the weapon-glittering
citadel (Asgard) _Brosingamene_," which was "the best ornament under
heaven;" whereupon it is said that Hâma fell "into Eormenric's snares,"
with which we should compare Saxo's account of the snares laid by Loke,
Jormenrek's adviser, for Liserus-Heimdal and Hadding.[8]
107.
REMINISCENCES OF THE SVIPDAG-MYTH.
The mythic story about Svipdag and Freyja has been handed down in popular
tales and songs, even to our time, of course in an ever varying and
corrupted form. Among the popular tales there is one about _Mærthöll_,
put in writing by Konrad Maurer, and published in _Modern Icelandic
Popular Tales_.
The wondrous fair heroine in this tale bears Freyja's well-known surname,
Mardol, but little changed. And as she, like Freyja, weeps tears that
change into gold, it is plain that she is originally identical with the
Vana-dis, a fact which Maurer also points out.
Like Freyja, she is destined by the norn to be the wife of a princely
youth. But when he courted her, difficulties arose which remind us of
what Saxo relates about Otharus and Syritha.
As Saxo represents her, Syritha is bound as it were by an enchantment,
not daring to look up at her lover or to answer his declarations of love.
She flies over the mountains _more pristino_, "in the manner usual in
antiquity," consequently in all probability in the guise of a bird. In
the Icelandic popular tale Marthol shudders at the approaching wedding
night, since she is then destined to be changed into a sparrow. She is
about to renounce the embrace of her lover, so that he may not know
anything about the enchantment in which she is fettered.
In Saxo the spell resting on Syritha is broken when the candle of the
wedding night burns her hand. In the popular tale Marthol is to wear the
sparrow guise for ever if it is not burnt on the wedding night or on one
of the two following nights.
Both in Saxo and in the popular tale another maiden takes Mardol's place
in the bridal bed on the wedding night. But the spell is broken by fire,
after which both the lovers actually get each other.
The original identity of the mythological Freyja-Mardol, Saxo's Syritha,
and the _Mærthöll_ of the Icelandic popular tale is therefore evident.
In Danish and Swedish versions of a ballad (in Syv, Nyerup, Arwidsson,
Geijer and Afzelius, Grundtvig, Dybeck, Hofberg; compare Bugge's Edda,
p. 352, &c.) a young Sveidal (Svedal, Svendal, Svedendal, Silfverdal)
is celebrated, who is none other than Svipdag of the mythology. Svend
Grundtvig and Bugge have called attention to the conspicuous similarity
between this ballad on the one hand, and Grogalder and Fjölsvinnsmal on
the other. From the various versions of the ballad it is necessary to
mention here only those features which best preserve the most striking
resemblance to the mythic prototype. Sveidal is commanded by his
stepmother to find a maiden "whose sad heart had long been longing." He
then goes first to the grave of his deceased mother to get advice from
her. The mother speaks to him from the grave and promises him a horse,
which can bear him over sea and land, and a sword hardened in the blood
of a dragon and resembling fire. The narrow limits of the ballad forbade
telling how Sveidal came into possession of the treasures promised by
the mother or giving an account of the exploits he performed with the
sword. This plays no part in the ballad; it is only indicated that events
not recorded took place before Sveidal finds the longing maid. Riding
through forests and over seas, he comes to the country where she has her
castle. Outside of this he meets a shepherd, with whom he enters into
conversation. The shepherd informs him that within is found a young
maiden who has long been longing for a young man by name Sveidal, and
that none other than he can enter there, for the timbers of the castle
are of iron, its gilt gate of steel, and within the gate a lion and a
white bear keep watch. Sveidal approaches the gate; the locks fall away
spontaneously; and when he enters the open court the wild beasts crouch
at his feet, a linden-tree with golden leaves bends to the ground before
him, and the young maiden whom he seeks welcomes him as her husband.
One of the versions makes him spur his horse over the castle wall;
another speaks of seven young men guarding the wall, who show him the way
to the castle, and who in reality are "god's angels under the heaven, the
blue."
The horse who bears his rider over the salt sea is a reminiscence of
Sleipner, which Svipdag rode on more than one occasion; and when it is
stated that Sveidal on this horse galloped over the castle wall, this
reminds us of Skirner-Svipdag when he leaps over the fence around Gymer's
abode, and of Hermod-Svipdag when he spurs Sleipner over the wall to
Balder's lower-world castle. The shepherds, who are "god's angels,"
refers to the watchmen mentioned in Fjölsvinnsmal, who are gods; the wild
beasts in the open court to the two wolf-dogs who guard Asgard's gate;
the shepherd whom Sveidal meets outside of the wall to Fjölsvin; the
linden-tree with the golden leaves to _Mimameidr_ and to the golden grove
growing in Asgard. One of the versions makes two years pass while Sveidal
seeks the one he is destined to marry.
In Germany, too, we have fragments preserved of the myth about Svipdag
and Freyja. These remnants are, we admit, parts of a structure built, so
to speak, in the style of the monks, but they nevertheless show in the
most positive manner that they are borrowed from the fallen and crumbled
arcades of the heathen mythology. We rediscover in them the old medieval
poem about "Christ's unsewed grey coat."
The hero of the poem is Svipdag, here called by his father's name
Orendel, Orentel--that is, Orvandel. The father himself, who is said
to be a king in Trier, has received another name, which already in the
most ancient heathen times was a synonym of Orvandel, and which I shall
consider below. This in connection with the circumstance that the younger
Orentel's (Svipdag's) patron saint is called "the holy Wieland," and thus
he has the name of a person who, in the mythology, as shall be shown
below, was Svipdag's uncle (father's brother) and helper, and whose sword
is Svipdag's protection and pledge of victory, proves that at least in
solitary instances not only the events of the myth but also its names and
family relations have been preserved in a most remarkable and faithful
manner through centuries in the minds of the German people.
In the very nature of things it cannot in the monkish poem be the task
of the young Svipdag-Orentel to go in search of the heathen goddess
Freyja and rescue her from the power of the giants. In her stead appears
a "Frau Breyde," who is the fairest of all women, and the only one
worthy to be the young Orentel's wife. In the heathen poem the goddess
of fate Urd, in the German medieval poem God Himself, resolves that
Orentel is to have the fairest woman as his bride. In the heathen poem
Freyja is in the power of giants, and concealed somewhere in Jotunheim
at the time when Svipdag is commanded to find her, and it is of the
greatest moment for the preservation of the world that the goddess of
love and fertility should be freed from the hands of the powers of frost.
In the German poem, written under the influence of the efforts of the
Christian world to reconquer the Holy Land, Frau Breyde is a princess who
is for the time being in Jerusalem, surrounded and watched by giants,
heathens, and knights templar, the last of whom, at the time when the
poem received its present form, were looked upon as worshippers of the
devil, and as persons to be shunned by the faithful. To Svipdag's task
of liberating the goddess of love corresponds, in the monkish poem,
Orentel's task of liberating Frau Breyde from her surrounding of giants,
heathens, and knights templar, and restoring to Christendom the holy
grave in Jerusalem. Orentel proceeds thither with a fleet. But although
the journey accordingly is southward, the mythic saga, which makes
Svipdag journey across the frost-cold Elivagar, asserts itself; and as
his fleet could not well be hindered by pieces of ice on the coast of
the Holy Land, it is made to stick fast in "dense water," and remain
there for three years, until, on the supplication of the Virgin Mary,
it is liberated therefrom by a storm. The Virgin Mary's prayers have
assumed the same place in the Christian poems as Groa's incantations
in the heathen. The fleet, made free from the "dense water," sails to
a land which is governed by one Belian, who is conquered by Orentel
in a naval engagement. This Belian is the mythological _Beli_, one of
those "howlers" who surrounded Frey and Freyja during their sojourn in
Jotunheim and threatened Svipdag's life. In the Christian poem Bele
was made a king in Great Babylonia, doubtless for the reason that his
name suggested the biblical "Bel in Babel." Saxo also speaks of a naval
battle in which Svipdag-Ericus conquers the mythic person, doubtless a
storm-giant, who by means of witchcraft prepares the ruin of sailors
approaching the land where Frotho and Gunvara are concealed. After
various other adventures Orentel arrives in the Holy Land, and the angel
Gabriel shows him the way to Frau Breyde, just as "the seven angels of
God" in one of the Scandinavian ballads guide Sveidal to the castle where
his chosen bride abides. Lady Breyde is found to be surrounded by none
but foes of Christianity--knights templar, heathens, and giants--who,
like Gunvara's giant surroundings in Saxo, spend their time in fighting,
but still wait upon their fair lady as their princess. The giants and
knights templar strive to take Orentel's life, and, like Svipdag, he must
constantly be prepared to defend it. One of the giants slain by Orentel
is a "banner-bearer." One of the giants, who in the mythology tries
to take Svipdag's life, is Grep, who, according to Saxo, meets him in
derision with a banner on the top of whose staff is fixed the head of an
ox.
Meanwhile Lady Breyde is attentive to Orentel. As Menglad receives
Svipdag, so Lady Breyde receives Orentel with a kiss and a greeting,
knowing that he is destined to be her husband.
When Orentel has conquered the giants he celebrates a sort of wedding
with Lady Breyde, but between them lies a two-edged sword, and they sleep
as brother and sister by each other's side. A wedding of a similar kind
was mentioned in the mythology in regard to Svipdag and Menglad before
they met in Asgard and were finally united. The chaste chivalry with
which Freyja is met in the mythology by her rescuer is emphasised by Saxo
both in his account of Ericus-Svipdag and Gunvara and in his story about
Otharus and Syritha. He makes Ericus say of Gunvara to Frotha: _Intacta
illi pudicitia manet_ (_Hist._, 126). And of Otharus he declares: _Neque
puellam stupro violare sustinuit, nec splendido loco natam obscuro
concubitus genere macularet_ (_Hist._, 331). The first wedding of Orentel
and Breyde is therefore as if it had not been, and the German narrative
makes Orentel, after completing other warlike adventures, sue for the
hand of Breyde for the second time. In the mythology the second and real
wedding between Svipdag and Freyja must certainly have taken place,
inasmuch as he became reunited with her in Asgard.
The sword which plays so conspicuous a part in Svipdag's fortunes has
not been forgotten in the German medieval tale. It is mentioned as being
concealed deep down in the earth, and as a sword that is always attended
by victory.
On one occasion Lady Breyde appears, weapon in hand, and fights by the
side of Orentel, under circumstances which remind us of the above-cited
story from Saxo (see No. 102), when Ericus-Svipdag, Gunvara-Freyja,
and Rollerus-Ull are in the abode of a treacherous giant, who tries
to persuade Svipdag to deliver Gunvara to him, and when Bracus-Thor
breaks into the giant abode, and either slays the inmates or puts them
to flight. Gunvara then fights by the side of Ericus-Svipdag, _muliebri
corpore virilem animum æquans_ (_Hist._, 222).
In the German Orentel saga appears a "fisherman," who is called master
Yse. Orentel has at one time been wrecked, and comes floating on a plank
to his island, where Yse picks him up. Yse is not a common fisherman. He
has a castle with seven towers, and eight hundred fishermen serve under
him. There is good reason for assuming that this mighty chieftain of
fishermen originally was the Asa-god Thor, who in the northern ocean once
had the Midgard-serpent on his hook, and that the episode of the picking
up of the wrecked Orentel by Yse has its root in a tradition concerning
the mythical adventure, when the real Orvandel, Svipdag's father, feeble
and cold, was met by Thor and carried by him across the Elivagar. In the
mythology, as shall be shown hereafter, Orvendel the brave was Thor's
"sworn" man, and fought with him against giants before the hostility
sprang up between Ivalde's sons and the Asa-gods. In the Orentel saga Yse
also regards Orentel as his "thrall." The latter emancipates himself from
his thraldom with gold. Perhaps this ransom is a reference to the gold
which Freyja's tears gave as a ransom for Svipdag.
Orentel's father is called Eigel, king in Trier. In Vilkinasaga we
find the archer Egil, Volund's brother, mentioned by the name-variation
Eigill. The German Orentel's patron saint is Wieland, that is, Volund.
Thus in the Orentel saga as in the Volundarkvida and in Vilkinasaga we
find both these names Egil and Volund combined, and we have all the
more reason for regarding King Eigel in Trier as identical with the
mythological Egil, since the latter, like Orvandel, is a famous archer.
Below, I shall demonstrate that the archer Orvandel and the archer Egil
actually were identical in the mythology.
But first it may be in order to point out the following circumstances.
Tacitus tells us in his _Germania_ (3): "Some people think, however, that
Ulysses, too, on his long adventurous journeys was carried into this
ocean (the Germanic), and visited the countries of Germany, and that he
founded and gave name to Asciburgium, which is situated on the Rhine, and
is still an inhabited city; nay, an altar consecrated to Ulysses, with
the name of his father Laertes added, is said to have been found there."
To determine the precise location of this Asciburgium is not possible.
Ptolemy (ii. 11, 28), and after him Marcianus Heracleota (_Peripl._, 2,
36), inform us that an Askiburgon was situated on the Rhine, south of and
above the delta of the river. _Tabula Peutingeriana_ locates Asceburgia
between Gelduba (Gelb) and Vetera (Xanten). But from the history of
Tacitus it appears (iv. 33) that Asciburgium was situated between
Neuss and Mainz (Mayence). Read the passage: _Aliis a Novæsio, aliis a
Mogontiaco universas copias advenisse credentibus_.
The passage refers to the Roman troops sent to Asciburgium and there
attacked--those troops which expected to be relieved from the nearest
Roman quarters in the north or south. Its location should accordingly be
looked for either on or near that part of the Rhine, which on the east
bordered the old archbishopric Trier.
Thus the German Orentel saga locates King Eigel's realm and Orentel's
native country in the same regions, where, according to Tacitus'
reporter, Ulysses was said to have settled for some time and to have
founded a citadel. As is well known, the Romans believed they found
traces of the wandering Ulysses in well-nigh all lands, and it was
only necessary to hear a strange people mention a far-travelled mythic
hero, and he was at once identified either as Ulysses or Hercules. The
Teutonic mythology had a hero _à la_ Ulysses in the younger Orentel,
Odr-Svipdag-Heremod, whom the Beowulf poem calls "incomparably the
most celebrated traveller among mankind" (_wreccena wide mærost ofer
wer-theóde_). Mannhardt has already pointed out an episode (Orentel's
shipwreck and arrival in Yse's land) which calls to mind the shipwreck of
Odysseus and his arrival in the land of the Pheaces. Within the limits
which the Svipdag-myth, according to my own investigations, proves itself
to have had, other and more conspicuous features common to both, but
certainly not borrowed from either, can be pointed out, for instance
Svipdag's and Odysseus' descent to the lower world, and the combat in
the guise of seals between Heimdal and Loke, which reminds us of the
conflict of Menelaos clad in seal-skin with the seal-watcher Proteus
(_Odyss._, iv., 404, &c.). Just as there are words in the Aryan languages
that in their very form point to a common origin, but not to a borrowing,
so there are also myths in the Aryan religions which in their very form
reveal their growth from an ancient common Aryan root, but produce no
suspicion of their being borrowed. Among these are to be classed those
features of the Odysseus and Svipdag myths which resemble each other.
It has already been demonstrated above, that _Germania's_ Mannus is
identical with Halfdan of the Norse sources, and that Yngve-Svipdag
has his counterpart in Ingævo (see No. 24). That informer of Tacitus
who was able to interpret Teutonic songs about Mannus and his sons,
the three original race heroes of the Teutons, must also in those very
songs have heard accounts of Orvandel's and Svipdag's exploits and
adventures, since Orvandel and Svipdag play a most decisive part in the
fortunes of Mannus-Halfdan. If the myth about Svipdag was composed in
a later time, then Mannus-Halfdan's saga must have undergone a change
equal to a complete transformation after the day of Tacitus, and for
such an assumption there is not the slightest reason. Orvandel is not a
mythic character of later make. As already pointed out, and as shall be
demonstrated below, he has ancient Aryan ancestry. The centuries between
Tacitus and Paulus Diaconus are unfortunately almost wholly lacking in
evidence concerning the condition of the Teutonic myths and sagas; but
where, as in Jordanes, proofs still gleam forth from the prevailing
darkness, we find mention of _Arpantala_, _Amala_, _Fridigernus_,
_Vidigoia_ (Jord., v.). Jordanes says that in the most ancient times
they were celebrated in song and described as heroes who scarcely had
their equals (_quales vix heroas fuisse miranda jactat antiquitas_).
Previous investigators have already recognized in Arpantala Orvandel,
in Amala Hamal, in Vidigoia Wittiche, Wieland's son (Vidga Volundson),
who in the mythology are cousins of Svipdag (see No. 108). Fridigernus,
_Fridgjarn_, means "he who strives to get the beautiful one," an epithet
to which Svipdag has the first claim among ancient Teutonic heroes, as
Freyja herself has the first claim to the name _Frid_ (beautiful). In
Fjölsvinnsmal it belongs to a dis, who sits at Freyja's feet, and belongs
to her royal household. This is in analogy with the fact that the name
_Hlin_ belongs at the same time to Frigg herself (Völuspa), and to a
goddess belonging to her royal household (Younger Edda, i. 196).