of that vast sea; sphinxes and dragons, hydras and griffins, kraken
and leviathans, all creatures of a low order, but in their proportions
adapted to this colossal world, this world of the infinitely great, and
no doubt related in some manner to the antediluvian families of mammoths
and pterodactyls, of ichthyosauri and plesiosauri.
A god of the first race, a creator without being created, Ymer naturally
did not possess that skill and that cleverness which can only be
acquired by long experience. However strange, therefore, it may appear,
however inexplicable, the fact is, that this world, fresh with new
life and freed from the original mists, was nevertheless covered with
darkness. The only light which existed was an occasional phosphorescence
of the sea or a few flashes of electric light, such as an aurora
borealis sends forth; and this faint glimmer alone illumined the pathway
of those vast creatures, those monstrous {126}reptiles, who, dazzled for
an instant, plunged back into the lowest depths of the waters, casting
up huge waves and tall columns of spray.
It must have been a peculiarly curious sight, certainly, to see those
Giants of the Frost, as they were called, wandering, through the
darkness across the boundless plains and along endless shores, under a
sky without light, looking for each other from one end of the world to
the other. To be sure, they could accomplish the journey in a few long
strides, and if they were peculiarly anxious to see each other, face
to face, they had only to wait for the chance of a momentary flash or a
faint twilight glimmer.
The sight was no doubt curious, but there was no one to behold it.
This state of things could not last long. With a new god a new world
also came into existence. This new god was very different from the
first, it was Light itself, condensed at the southern extremity of the
heavens, far from this earth inhabited by giants.
One fine day--an unlucky day for them, however--these giants noticed
that the sky above their heads was suddenly assuming a faint pinkish
hue, then violet, and finally purple. At this they rejoiced. But
suddenly a ball of fire appeared, and they were terrified. It was Odin,
Odin followed {127}by his celestial family, which consisted at least of
a dozen principal deities!
[Illustration: 147]
But no! no! I take it back! I rebel! No one can come in contact
with these ancient myths, without knocking against some principle of
astronomy. Astronomers find only seven principal deities in Scandinavian
mythology, when they are called upon to transform them into planets, and
twelve, when the question is about the signs of the Zodiac. That seems
to me to make mythology a. little too easy. Does it not look as if the
first men had been born with a telescope and a compass in their pocket,
and as if they had erected an observatory long before they thought of
building huts for themselves?
Fortunately I am not bound to follow their footsteps.
Certain historians of high authority have found out that Odin lived
upon earth before he came to dwell in heaven. He was an illustrious
conqueror, {128}very expert at killing men, one of those scourges of
God, who fall upon nations in order to break them to pieces. As a matter
of course, these nations deified him after his death.
[Illustration: 148]
I see nothing astronomical in all this.
Hence, I return to my own method, and propose to describe him, as he
appeared to his Druids, his Scalds, and his worshippers.
[Illustration: 149]
He arrived from the southern countries, no doubt from the Orient,
bringing with him the sun, as an indispensable auxiliary in the
great task{129} which {131}he had undertaken, to reform this dark and
ice-covered world: “For there was a time,” says the Edda, the bible of
the Scandinavians, “when the sun, the moon, and the stars did not know
the place they were to occupy. It was then the gods assembled and agreed
as to the post which was to be assigned to each one of them.”
When the installation of the heavenly bodies had thus been agreed upon,
Odin followed the example of all the Hercules of Egypt and of Greece,
and began his benevolent career by freeing the earth of all the monsters
by which it was infested. Ymer was the first to succumb to his blows,
and after him, the other giants of the frost, “a race of evildoers,”
adds the Edda. Evildoers? Whom did they aggrieve, I wonder? The
complainants must have been the kraken, the griffins, and the serpents.
The world had hardly come into existence and already the right of the
stronger had established the doctrine: _Væ victis!_
Of all the giants of the frost a single one escaped. He must have been a
married man, for his descendants became after a while so numerous as
to trouble the Ases, that is to say, Odin and his companions, the other
gods.
After the giants, came the turn of land and sea monsters, who were
almost as formidable as they themselves. In the general destruction two
monsters {132}only survived: the wolf Fenris, with his fearful jaws,
which enabled him to crush mountains and even to injure the sun, and the
serpent Iormungandur, the great sea serpent of world-wide renown. Both
these monsters were one day to aid the giants of the frost in avenging
themselves on their conqueror.
[Illustration: 152]
Odin thought he had now nothing more to fear, and returned to the realms
of light, there to enjoy his glory in peace and to revel in the delights
of Walhalla.
{133}One morning he came down to see how the world was coming on since
he had reorganized it, and he found to his great joy, that the new
creation was assuming a more pleasing appearance. Grass was growing in
the plains, on the slopes of hills, and even at the bottom of the rivers
and the sea; here and there trees of varied forms and shapes arose
and gave variety to the monotonous horizon; some, crowding together in
groups on the mountain side, seemed to whisper confidentially to each
other, as the breeze was lightly agitating their foliage, while others
stood together in countless hosts, stretching away over hill and dale
as far as eye could reach, but silent and immovable, like an army which
remains motionless, while the chiefs are deliberating.
[Illustration: 153]
Behind the green curtain of forests, deer, eland, and aurochs were
bounding in herds, now and then showing their beautiful horns or
their dark bushy brows at the opening of some clearing; goats were
{134}climbing about on the rocks and venturing close to the brink of
precipices; birds were singing in the groves, now swinging playfully on
the supple branches of willows, and now darting suddenly on swift wings
through the air; fish were gliding silently under the surface of the
waters, which reflected their silvery sheen or broke in soft ripples,
while butterflies and insects were sporting and buzzing around beautiful
flowers.
Odin smiled; the artist was pleased with his work.
But were animals, impelled by natural instincts only and exclusively
occupied with the desire to satisfy their coarse wants, were such
animals worthy to be the sole owners of such a charming abode?
It occurred to him to invent a being which, without participating in the
divine essence, might still rise high above all other creatures. This
time the divine artist wanted a spectator, to witness his work, to
appreciate it intelligently, and afterwards to profit by it for some
good purpose.
He was meditating on it during a walk on the sea-shore, when a piece of
wood, a fragment of a huge branch of a tree which the wind had broken
off, attracted his attention. It had evidently fallen into a river,
which had carried it out into the high sea, and there it had been beaten
and bruised by {135}ebb and tide. He drew this poor shapeless stick of
wood towards him, split it in two and made out of it a man and a woman.
“Do you hear? Do you understand?” Asks the Edda, at this point.
Now, what is this intended to convey to us? That man, exposed to the
caprices of the elements, is nothing but a poor plaything in the hands
of Fate? Very well, let us admit this explanation. But can the sacred
book of the Scandinavians really presume to teach us that the origin of
mankind must be looked for in two sticks of wood? We cannot but think
that that would be a sorry jest, alike unworthy of the general solemnity
of the Edda and of the mysterious majesty of ancient cosmogonies.
Besides, we ought not to forget that all the Northern nations attributed
a divine character to trees; if in Germany the oak was held sacred, the
hyperboreans held the ash tree in great respect, and the question is
only whether our first father was made of the wood of an ash tree, an
oak, or a willow.
This leads us naturally to the consideration of the ash _Ygdrasil_ and
its curious population of gods, birds, and quadrupeds.
The branches of this marvelous tree spread over the whole surface of the
earth; its top supported {136}the Walhalla and rose is to the uppermost
heavens, while its roots penetrated to the very bottom of hell. Under
its shadow dwell Odin and his Ases, when the government of the world
requires his presence, or some important question has to be decided.
[Illustration: 156]
Two swift winged ravens are incessantly flying to and fro in the
Universe, to see what is going on; then they come and perch, one on his
left and one on his right shoulder, and whisper into his ear the news
of the day. A squirrel, as swift in its movements as the two ravens,
is perpetually running up and down the tree. If you doubt my word, hear
what the poet says:--
.... The fearful Odin Was seated beneath the ancient ash,
The sacred tree whose immortal brow
Rises and touches the vault of heaven.
{137}On the top an eagle with eager eyes,
With piercing eyes, with ever open eyes,
Takes in the whole Universe in a single glance.
Odin receives his swift messages.
Incessantly a tiny squirrel
Comes and goes; the god’s voice cheers it onward.
All at once it dashes from the trunk to the top
And in an instant it returns again
From the top to the trunk. Odin, when it comes,
Turns an attentive ear to the squirrel.....
But the poet does not tell the whole story.
[Illustration: 157]
To act as a check upon the reports of the eagle, the ravens, and the
squirrel, a vulture is perching {138}upon the loftiest top of the sacred
tree, who looks over all the horizons of the earth and the universe,
watching for the slightest stir and giving notice of any important event
by his cries or the flapping of his wings.
Still other animals, however, inhabit the great ash tree Ygdrasil. Some
of these play a sinister part in the great menagerie; they are hideous
reptiles, half concealed in the slimy marshes into which one of the
roots of the tree finds its way, and ever striving to pour their
venom into the mire; beneath another root a dragon is crouching, who
constantly gnaws at it, and four starving deer, rushing through its
branches, forever devour its foliage.
“Do you hear? Do you understand?” asks the Edda once more.
For the present we do not presume to interpret these descriptions,
and before we attempt to penetrate into these dark mysteries, we will
mention the principal chiefs among the Ases.
The mystic marriage of Odin and Frigg resulted in the god Thor, who
is held in equal veneration with his father. As his duty is to carry
thunder and lightning, it is he who shakes the earth whenever he drives
through the clouds in his car drawn by two goats and producing a noise
represented by the words: “_Pumerle pump! Ptimerle pump! Pliz! Pluz!
Schmi! Schmur! Tarantara! Tarantara!_”. {139}This onomatopoetic
translation of the flashing of lightning and the rolling of thunder,
is not my own; it comes directly from Dr. Martin Luther, the great
Reformer.
Thor is also engaged in pursuing and destroying the giants of the
mountains, degenerate children of the giants of the frost, in size at
least. At a later period we shall meet with giants of still smaller
dimensions. Alas! that here below everything that is great and strong
has a tendency to decrease steadily!
[Illustration: 159]
For this war against the giants Odin has bestowed upon his son three
precious objects, which in the inventory of the Ases appear under the
name of _Thor’s Three Jewels._ The first is his weighty hammer.
_Mjoïner_ (some people call it his club), which goes forth by itself to
meet giants and crushes their heads. One of the commentators upon the
Edda professes to see in the giants of the mountains nothing but the
mountains themselves, and in the hammer Mjoïner, nothing but lightning,
which generally strikes their summit. We must evidently {140}put as
little faith in commentators as in astronomers.
The second of Thor’s jewels was a pair of iron gloves. As soon as he
puts them on, his spear no sooner reaches the point at which it is
aimed, than it returns to his hand, precisely as the falcon comes back
to the keeper’s gauntlet, after having destroyed its victim.
The third jewel of Thor is his war belt; when he puts it on, his
strength is twice as great as before; in fact, he becomes irresistible
and would overthrow the great Odin himself. But Odin has nothing to fear
on his part, for in spite of his brutal and passionate temper, Thor is
always an obedient and submissive son.
Asa-Thor, that is to say, the Lord Thor, was most highly respected
among men as the redhaired master of thunder and lightning, and as
the destroyer of giants; and he was also greatly feared as an active,
blustering god, of a troublesome, turbulent temper and of somewhat
eccentric manners.
Another weapon, at least as marvelous as Asa-Thor’s famous hammer, was
the sword of the god Freyr. This sword was endowed with an intelligence
very rarely to be met with among swords, and punctually obeyed the
orders of its master. Even in his absence, it went promptly and
faithfully {141}to carry out his orders, striking here and there at a
given point, or making terrible havoc in the midst of a battle, without
a hand at the hilt to direct its mortal blows.
[Illustration: 161]
The good Freyr, as pacific a god as ever lived, was quite indifferent
to battles and fights; hence he gave his orders quietly to his faithful
sword, while he remained comfortably seated at Odin’s table, enjoying
his strong beer and the rarest wines.
I cannot help wishing that they might have known the art of
manufacturing guns after this system, at the time when I was a
lieutenant in the Belleville National Guard. It would have been so
pleasant to see a rifle move gravely to and fro, quite alone, in front
of the City Hall and the Guard House; or to meet a patrol of four
{142}guns, accompanied by a corporal, but a flesh and blood corporal to
cry out: Who is there?
[Illustration: 162]
In the meantime the happy owners of these improved weapons might have
been sitting, not at Odin’s table, but at the nearest coffee house or
restaurant, {143}drinking beer or wine just like the Scandinavian gods.
Unfortunately our manufacturers of arms have not yet reached that degree
of skill, which our forefathers seem to have possessed, and thus I have
never yet been able to enjoy such a sight.
The happy owner of this magic weapon, Freyr, presided over the general
administration of the clouds; it was he who made fine weather or rain,
a very troublesome office, which must have exposed him to countless
petitions and most contradictory prayers.
His sister Freya, afterwards called Frigg, was Odin’s wife and the
most honored goddess on earth as well as in heaven. She inspired and
protected lovers, and very different from her sister in Greece, this
Northern Venus enjoyed an unsullied reputation.
They say that once, when her husband had gone away on a long journey,
she was so deeply grieved at his absence, that her tears ran day and
night incessantly; these tears, however, differed from those of mortal
beings; “they were all drops of gold which fell into her bosom,”--and
hence the Northern people call the precious metal to this day _Freyas
tears_.
One only among all the dwellers in Walhalla had been able to give her
some comfort by singing {144}his sweetest songs; this was the god Bragi,
the god of poetry and beautiful words.
A tradition which deserves to be mentioned here, accounts for the manner
in which he obtained this precious gift of eloquence and the art of
poetry.
In the early days of the world, when the creating god had concentrated,
so to say, all the active powers of humanity in a few individuals,
and when a long life permitted these favored beings to carry on their
studies till they reached a happy end, there lived on earth a wise man
who possessed an art unknown, not among men only, but among the gods
themselves. This was the art of perpetuating thoughts by word-painting,
of reproducing them in outward forms, not to the eye by colors, but
to the ear by sounds. This sage was called Kvasir. He had invented the
_Runes_, the art of poetry, and the no less precious art of reproducing
words and fixing them in writing. He cut his runes on beech tablets; if
he had gone a step farther, he would have invented printing long before
Guttenberg.
Kvasir was then the sole owner of the art of Poetry.
Two wicked dwarfs prowling about in search of treasures, took it into
their heads, that the treasure of Poetry was better than any other, and
forthwith determined to obtain possession of it. They killed Kvasir,
into whose dwelling they had crept by {145}stealth, and as they were
masters in magic, like all the dwarfs of those days, they carefully
collected his blood, and mixing it, in different proportions, with
honey, put it into three vessels, which they closed hermetically. These
three vessels contained respectively Logic, Eloquence, and Poetry. To
keep them safe till the day on which they should be used, they buried
them in the depths of a cave which was inaccessible to men and unknown
to the gods themselves. But one of those travelling agents, who under
the form of ravens, were continually wandering over the world in Odin’s
employ, had been a silent witness of the transactions, the murder, the
mixing, and the hiding of the three vessels. He returned instantly to
the ash Ygdrasil and reported it all to his master. The god gave his
orders, which the squirrel, no doubt, at once carried to the eagle, and
the latter, who was continually on the watch on the top of the sacred
tree, left his post for a few moments in charge of the vulture, and flew
with rapid wings to the cave, from whence he returned laden with the
three precious vessels. It is to be supposed that he carried one in his
beak, and the two others, one in each of his claws.
He placed the mysterious vessels at Odin’s feet and at once returned to
relieve the vulture and to resume his watch.
Odin opened first the vessel which contained {146}Poetry and tasted the
contents. From that moment he never spoke otherwise than in verse.
He also tasted Logic, and henceforth he spoke and reasoned with such
extreme accuracy, that he found no one to agree with him any longer; he
tasted Eloquence, and as soon as he opened his lips, he might have been
mistaken for one of our own most eminent lawyers. Gold chains seemed to
come out from his lips, as was the case with Ogmius, with which he bound
the ears and hearts of all his hearers.
Whilst he was thus enjoying himself, Bragi his son, and Saga his
daughter, who were sitting by him, felt their mouths water and looked
imploringly at him.
Setting aside the terror with which the Druids have surrounded Odin, he
seems to have been occasionally good-natured, and certainly always acted
like a kind father. He offered the vessel with Poetry first to Saga,
courteously giving her the preference on account of her sex. She barely
touched it with her lips. When Bragi’s turn came, he eagerly swallowed
as much as he could, and without taking time to gather breath, he began
a grand triumphal chant in honor of the feasts, the loves, the wars, and
the greatness of the gods, the stars of the firmament, paradise, hell,
and the ash Ygdrasil. {147}
[Illustration: 167]
{149}In well chosen cadences he imitated the clanking of cups, the
cooing of doves and of lovers, the tumult of battles, the harmonies of
the celestial spheres, and all this with such energy, such fire and
such grace by turns, that Odin was enchanted, and having become a master
himself about five minutes ago, on the spot changed his name of the
Long-bearded God, which he had borne so far, to that of the God of
Poetry. Moreover, he entrusted to his keeping the threefold treasure
which had been taken from Kvasir’s murderers.
This was that god Bragi who alone succeeded in comforting the beautiful
and inconsolable Freya in her great grief.
Through him the Druids were instructed in the art of verse; to him is
due that terrible Scandinavian poetry, which contains, according to
Ozanam, quite as much blood as honey.
As to Saga, she became the goddess of Tradition. “The heart of history
is in tradition,” says a master, a sage, and a poet.
Good goddess Saga, your lips, I know, never touched the vessel
containing Eloquence, nor that which held Logic, far from it! And still
I count upon you to support me in carrying out my work, which I have
perhaps imprudently begun; for I begin to be overwhelmed with materials,
the subject is a very grave one, and, in spite of the good advice of my
learned doctor and the assistance of my two charming lady-companions,
time and strength threaten not to suffice. Therefore I beseech you as
well as my readers, to grant me a short repose, before I proceed any
farther on my journey through Odin’s fantastic world.
[Illustration: 170]
[Illustration: 173]
VI.
{153}Short Biographies.--_A Clairvoyant among the Gods.--A Bright
God.--Tyr and the Wolf Fenris.--The Hospital at the Walhalla.--Why was
Odin one-eyed?--The Three Norns.--Mimer the Sage.--A Goddess the Mother
of Four Oxen.--The Love Affairs of Heimdall, the God with the Golden
Teeth._
We have no intention of giving here a complete list of the numerous
deities of the North. We will only mention Hermode, Odin’s messenger and
man of business; Forseti, the peacemaker; Widar, the god of silence,
a dumb person who only walks on air, as if he were afraid to hear
the noise of his own footsteps; Vali, the skilfull archer; Uller, the
excellent skater, who taught the giant Tialff his art, in spite of what
the poet Klopstock says to the contrary; Hoder, a mysterious deity,
whose name must never be uttered by any one in heaven or on earth. Why
not? Odin alone knows the reason.
Let us also mention Heimdall, with the golden teeth. A son of Odin, he
had nine mothers--eight more than had ever been known before him. He
is the guardian of Walhalla, and his duty is to watch lest the giants
should one fine day attempt to storm the heavenly abode by means of the
Bifrost bridge, that is, the rainbow. But the gods can sleep in peace;
neither the eagle nor the ravens on the ash Ygdrasil can surpass
Heimdall in vigilance. The senses of sight and hearing are in him
developed to a perfectly marvelous degree; he can hear the grass grow in
the meadows and the wool grow on the back of the sheep. From one end of
the world he sees a fly pass through the air at the other end, and, more
than that, he sees distinctly the different joints in its feet and the
black or brown spots with which its wings are {155}dotted. In the midst
of the darkest night and at the bottom of the sea where it is deepest,
he sees an atom moving and watches the marriage of monads. There is
nothing in the whole universe hid from him.
But why should this god Heimdall have golden teeth, after a fashion of
some of the natives of Sunda? Odin alone knows the reason.
Among all these gods Balder is the most richly endowed, the best, the
handsomest and the most virtuous--Balder, the Bright God, by eminence.
Although the son of Odin and Frigg, he might be taken for a son of
Freya, on account of his strong resemblance to Love itself, not to the
turbulent, passionate, and capricious Love of the Greeks, but to Love
in the widest and noblest sense of the word,--Love, in fine, in its
Christian meaning. Balder represents that universal goodness, loyalty,
affection, and harmony, which binds all beings to each other; Bragi, the
poet is his brother; Forseti, the peacemaker, is his son. But we shall
but too soon have to return to him on a most melancholy occasion.