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Transcriber’s note:
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(_italics_).
On page 66 (beginning "seas, and streams, on the same
principle" and ending "They also, to a certain extent,
retain their distinction into white and") there are several
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London:
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CABINET CYCLOPÆDIA.
Conducted by the
Rev. Dionysius Lardner, Ll.D., F.R.S. L. & E.
M.R.I.A. F.R.A.S. F.L.S. F.Z.S. Hon. F.C.P.S. &c. &c.
Assisted by
Eminent Literary and Scientific Men.
-------
History.
-------
DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND NORWAY.
by the Author of
The “History of Spain and Portugal.”
VOL. II.
---------------------
London:
Printed for
Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans,
Paternoster-Row;
and John Taylor,
Upper Gower Street.
1839.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY OF DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND NORWAY.
by
S. A. DUNHAM,
Author of “The History of Spain & Portugal.”
VOL. II.
London:
Printed for Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longmans, Paternoster-Row
and [**Illegible]
1839
[Illustration:
Copenhagen. E. Finden sc]
London:
Printed for Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, Paternoster-Row
and John Taylor, Upper Gower Street.
1839.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE,
ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL,
TO THE SECOND VOLUME OF
THE HISTORY OF SCANDINAVIA.
----------------------------
CHAPTER IV.—continued.
MARITIME EXPEDITIONS OF THE NORTHMEN DURING THE
PAGAN TIMES.
SECTION II.
IN THE ORKNEYS, THE HEBRIDES, ICELAND, GREENLAND, NORTH
AMERICA, RUSSIA, ETC.
795–1026.
ESTABLISHMENT OF A GOVERNMENT IN THE ORKNEYS.—SUCCESSION OF JARLS,
ROGNEVALD, SIGURD, HALLAD, EINAR, SIGURD II., ETC.—DISCOVERY AND
COLONIZATION OF ICELAND.—DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION OF
GREENLAND.—ALLEGED DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA.—STATEMENT OF FACTS
CONNECTED WITH IT.—FOUNDATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE BY THE
SCANDINAVIAN RURIC.
Page
888. Establishment of a Government in the 1
Orkneys by Harald Harfagre; Sigurd,
the first Jarl
889–892. Able Administration of Sigurd; he is 2
succeeded by Einar
893–936. Administration of Einar 4
936–943. Of Arnkel and Erlend, the Sons of Einar 5
946–980. Succession of Jarls 5
980–1014. Sigurd, the next Jarl, compelled to 6
embrace Christianity; Legend
Piratical Depredations on the 8
neighbouring Islands
861, &c. Iceland Discovered by the Norwegian 9
Naddod, who is followed by other
Navigators
874. Iceland first colonised by Ingulf; Fate 10
of Jorleif
884. Other Colonists, especially Thorolf, the 11
Priest of Thor; Manner in which he
established the new Colony
874–936. Progress of the new Colonies 13
Formation of a Northern Code 14
930. Internal Economy of this important 15
Island; the great Chief of the Law
Circumstances which led to the Discovery 16
of Greenland by Eric the Red
Christianity Introduced into Greenland 17
by Leif, the Son of Eric
1001. Alleged Discovery of North America by 17
Biarn, a Descendant of Ingulf
The newly-discovered Country visited by 18
Leif, the Son of Eric
Remarks on this Relation 19
1004–1008. Voyage of Thorwald, who dies in the 19
Country called Vinland
1009. Thorfin, a Norwegian Chief, makes the 20
first Attempt at Colonisation
1026–1121. The Country visited by other People, 21
especially by the Missionaries
The Balance of Evidence decidedly in 22
favour of the alleged Discovery of the
American Continent many Ages before
Columbus
862. A Scandinavian Dynasty founded in Russia 23
by Ruric
Circumstances connected with that 24
memorable Event; how far probable
861, 862. Novogrod the Seat of the new Dynasty 25
The Domination of the Strangers extended 26
to Kief; two Governments
882. Evils arising from the Creation of two 27
States; Kief subdued by the Regent of
Novogrod
Maritime Expeditions of the Northmen 27
into Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy,
Greece, &c.
CHAP. V.
COSMOGONY AND RELIGION OF SCANDINAVIA.
INTRODUCTION.
THE TWO EDDAS, THE ELDER AND THE YOUNGER, THE POETIC AND THE
PROSE.—CONTENTS OF THE FORMER.—DIVISION INTO CLASSES. 1. THE MYSTICAL.
2. THE MYTHIC-DIDACTIC. 3. THE PURELY MYTHOLOGICAL. 4. THE
MYTHIC-HISTORICAL.—POEMS OF EACH CLASS.—THE PROSE EDDA.—SNORRO
STURLESON.
Page
Religion of the Pagan Northmen an 30
interesting Subject of Inquiry
The Two Eddas 30
I. Sæmund, reputed Compiler of the 31
Poetic Edda; its slow Publication
Poems included in the Elder Edda 31
divisible into four Classes
1. The Mystic Class:—
The Voluspa 32
The Grougaldor 32
The Magic of Odin similar in many 33
Respects to that of Zoroaster
2. The Mytho-didactic Class:—
The Vafthrudnis-mâl 34
Grimnis-mâl 34
Other Pieces of this Class 36
The Hava-mâl 36
3. The purely Mythologic Class:—
The Hymis-guida 37
The Hamars-heimt 37
The Rafna-galdur Odins 37
The Skirnirs-for 37
The Vegtams-Quida 38
Undoubted Antiquity of the preceding 38
Poems
4. The Mytho-historical Class 38
II. The Prose or Younger Edda, usually 39
ascribed to Snorro Sturleson
Some Account of that celebrated Man 40
Sources from which he drew 42
SECTION I.
THE SCANDINAVIAN UNIVERSE, ITS WORLDS, AND THEIR INHABITANTS IN GENERAL,
WITH THE PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.
CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE.—YMER.—THE GIANTS.—THE GODS.—OTHER BEINGS.—THE
NINE WORLDS, WITH THEIR POSITION AND PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.—THE
TWELVE HOUSES OF ASGARD.—SWARTALFAHEIM.—INHABITANTS OF THE NINE
WORLDS.—THE ASER.—THE VEVER, ETC.
Page
Progress of Creation according to that 43
venerable Authority, the Elder Edda
The Waters of Nifleheim flow into the 43
Abyss and freeze
But they are thawed by the Fires of 44
Muspelheim
To the Operation of Cold and Heat on the 44
Waters of Nifleheim must be ascribed the
Origin of this visible Universe
Generation of Ymer, the Patriarch of the 44
Frost Giants
Creation of the Cow Andumbla, which 45
calls Burè into Existence
From this new Being, half Deity, half 45
Giant, arose Odin, Vilè, and Vè
Ymer destroyed, and the Universe formed 45
from his Body
Affinities between the Scandinavian and 46
other Systems of Mythology
The Cow, as a Symbol, very generally 47
diffused
Physical Interpretation of the Mythos 47
Physical Interpretation of another 48
Mythos, the Destruction of Ymer and his
Offspring
Notions concerning a Supreme, Eternal 49
Being entertained by the Scandinavians
Creation of other Beings, especially the 50
Dwarfs
Creation of Man 51
Page
THE NINE WORLDS.
Page
GIMLÈ AND MUSPELHEIM 53
MIDGARD AND UTGARD 53
ASGARD 55
Divine Residences in Asgard:—
1. Ydale 56
2. Alfheim 57
3. Valaskialf 57
4. Soequabeck 58
5. Gladsheim 58
6. Thrymheim 58
7. Breidablik 59
8. Himmelbierg 60
9. Folkvangur 60
10. Glitner 61
11. Noatun 61
12. Landvide 61
Residences of Odin 62
Diversions of the Einheriar 62
Ascent of slain Heroes from Earth to 63
Heaven
Bloodthirsty Character of the Odinists 63
SWARTALFAHEIM 64
Residences of the Alfs or Elves 64
Their Nature according to Thorlacius 64
Origin of the Word 65
Universality of the Word 66
Traditions still rife respecting them 67
Scandinavian Dwarfs 69
Two Legends respecting them 70
Their wondrous Manufactures at the 70
Instance of Loke
Physical Interpretation 72
THORSTON AND THE DWARF 73
HELHEIM AND NIFLEHEIM 74
THE YGGDRASIL 75
Explanation of this Mythos 77
Races which inhabited the Scandinavian 78
Universe
Were the Aser Gods, or Mortals only, or 79
deified Mortals?
Some Reasons for the Inference that Odin 80
and his Followers really existed
Hypothesis of two Odins, how far 81
reconcileable with Facts
Did Odin, in his own Case, inculcate the 82
Doctrine of Metempsychosis?
Conclusion that Odin and his Companions 82
actually existed on Earth; but how
account for the divine Attributes
claimed by them? still more, how account
for the extraordinary Diffusion of their
Worship?
Their Policy in the North 83
Two distinct Systems of Religion 84
evidently prevalent in the North,—the
Native and the Foreign,—that of Thor,
and that of Odin
And also two distinct Systems of Magic 85
Another Argument for this Distinction 86
Progress of Odin and his Companions 88
towards Deification
Geographical Position of the Aser and 89
Vanir led to their celestial Location
The Union of two Systems—the Native and 91
the Foreign, the Finnish and the
Gothic—every where discernible in the
Eddas
SECTION II.
CHIEF MYTHOLOGICAL PERSONAGES OF SCANDINAVIA.
ODIN, THOR, AND LOKE.—THEIR CHARACTERS PHYSICALLY INTERPRETED.—THEIR
WIVES AND OFFSPRING.—THE THREE DEMON CHILDREN OF LOKE.—INFLUENCE OF
THIS DEITY OVER THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE.—HE IS PRESENT IN EVERY GREAT
MYTHOS.—RAPE OF IDUNA.—THOR’S VISITS TO JOTUNHEIM.—THOR AND THE GIANT
HYMIR.—THOR AND THE GIANT THRYM.—NIVOD, FREYR, FREYA.—EXPEDITION OF
SKIRNIR-ÆGIR AND RAN.—OTHER DEITIES.—BALDER.—PUNISHMENT OF
LOKE.—RAGNAROK.—RECOGNITION OF A GREAT FIRST CAUSE BY THE PAGAN
SCANDINAVIANS.
ODIN, THOR, LOKE.
Page
Wives and Sons of ODIN 92
His Functions, Abodes, and Ministers 93
The three Valkyrs 93
Legend of Odin and Sterkodder 94
This Legend furnishes another Proof of 95
the Fact that Odin was a foreign Deity
THOR, his Superiority over Odin in the 96
more ancient System of the North, and
his three Treasures
Mythical Interpretation 97
Thor peculiarly worshipped in Norway 97
The Giants, the everlasting Enemies of 98
Thor
This Article of popular Belief 98
essentially Celtic
LOKE 99
His Description 100
His Offspring three:—
1. The Great Serpent 101
2. Hela, Queen of Death 101
3. The Wolf Fenris 102
Manner in which the last-named Demon was 102
bound by the Gods
Loke originally the same with 103
Utgardelok, and the Personification of
Evil in the Celtic Creed
Mythological Fables in which Loke is 104
concerned
RAPE OF IDUNA.
Page
Odin, Hoenir, and Loke visit Utgard 105
Loke compelled to promise that he will 105
deliver Iduna into the Power of Thiasse
He performs his Promise 106
Consequent Wrath of the Gods, who compel 106
him to restore her
Interpretation of this Mythos 107
THOR’S VISITS TO UTGARD.
Page
Loke, taken by the Giants, is compelled 108
to promise that he will bring Thor
without Belt or Hammer
Thor accordingly undertakes the Journey; 109
his Punishment of Geyruth, and the
Daughters of that Giant
Second Journey of Thor to Utgard, 110
accompanied by Loke
Adventure in the Cottage 110
Dreary Wastes through which the 111
Travellers passed
Adventure in the desert Heath 112
Adventures in Utgard itself 113
THOR AND THE GIANT HYMIR.
Page
Banquet of the Sea-god Ægir 114
Thor and Tyr proceed to Giant-land to 114
steal a Caldron
Adventures at the House of Hymir 115
Physical Meaning of this Mythos 116
The same Adventures paraphrased by the 117
Danish Poet Ohlenschlager
THOR AND THE GIANT THRYM.
Page
Thor loses Miölner 124
Loke discovers the Thief, who is the 125
Giant Thrym
Thrym will not restore it, unless he 125
have Freya to Wife
When Freya refuses, Thor is persuaded to 126
assume Female Apparel, and go to
Jotunheim
Adventures there 127
Metrical Version of this Legend 128
Magnussen’s Interpretation 129
_Sif_, the Wife of Thor 131
NIORD, FREYR, FREYA.
Page
_Niord_, Lord of the Vaner, and a God 132
His second Wife is Skada, from whom he 133
separates
_Freyr_, the Son of Niord, in love with 133
a Giant Maiden
Skirnir, his Attendant, goes to 134
Jotunheim and wins her
Metrical Version of Skirnir’s Expedition 135
_Freya_, the Daughter of Niord, and the 136
Goddess of Love
Her Functions and Authority in Asgard 140
ÆGIR AND RAN.
Page
_Ægir_, the God of the Deep, more 141
clement than _Ran_, his Queen
Another Feast given by the Sea-god, in 142
which Loke is abusive
OTHER DEITIES.
Page
The Nornies 143
Night and Day 143
The Giant of Winter 144
BALDER.
Page
His Fate connected with that of the 145
Universe; his Dreams, and consequent
Anxiety of the Gods
Interpretation of the Mythos 146
PUNISHMENT OF LOKE.
Page
He is bound, like Prometheus, to the 146
Flinty Rock; Poison; Fidelity of his
Wife
RAGNAROK, THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS.
Page
Account of that great Consummation 147
extracted from the Prose Edda
Corroborated by the Voluspa 150
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECTION III.
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO DENMARK AND
SWEDEN.
OBSCURE EFFORTS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON MISSIONARIES TO CHRISTIANISE FRISIA
AND DENMARK.—VICTORIES OF CHARLEMAGNE PREPARE THE WAY FOR A WIDER
DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY.—FEALTY OF HARALD KLAK.—MISSIONARIES SENT
INTO THE NORTH.—ST. ANSCAR.—CREATION OF AN ARCHBISHOPRIC.—ST.
REMBERT.—SUCCEEDING ARCHBISHOPS.—FLUCTUATIONS IN THE STATE OF THE NEW
RELIGION.—ITS ULTIMATE ESTABLISHMENT IN THE KINGDOMS OF THE NORTH.
A. D. Page
Early Efforts of the Anglo-Saxon 151
Missionaries to Christianise the
North; very little effected in the
Eighth Century
822. But in the Ninth there is more Success 152
826–830. _St. Anscar_, Monk of Corbey 153
He repairs first to Denmark, and next to 154
Sweden
His Reception by the Swedish King, and 155
his Return to Germany
830–852. He is made Archbishop of Hamburg, with 155
the Primacy over the North
Difficulties of his Position 156
852. He goes Ambassador to the North; 157
Opposition to him in Sweden
853–865. But that Opposition he overcomes through 158
the royal Aid
865–889. _St. Rembert_, his Biographer and 160
Successor
_Adalgar_, his Coadjutor 160
889–936. _Adalgar_ and _Hoger_, in succession 161
Archbishops of Bremen, have no great
Zeal for the Cause
But _Unnus_ has; his Success 161
936–988. Progress of Christianity in Denmark 162
under _Adalrag_; Erection of four
Episcopal Sees
988–1026. Pontificate of _Libentis_ 163
BOOK II.
THE MIDDLE AGE.
CHAPTER I.
DENMARK.
1014–1387.
CANUTE THE GREAT.—HARDA-CANUTE.—MAGNUS.—ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF HARALD
HARDRADE.—SWEYN II.—HARALD III.—CANUTE IV.—OLAF II.—ERIC
III.—NICHOLAS.—ERIC IV.—ERIC V.—CANUTE V. AND SWEYN III.—VALDEMAR
I.—HIS ABLE REIGN.—ARCHBISHOPS ESKIL AND ABSALOM.—CANUTE VI.—VALDEMAR
II.—DECLINE OF THE DANISH POWER AND THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO IT.—ERIC
VI.—ABEL.—CHRISTOPHER I.—ERIC VII.—ERIC VIII.—CHRISTOPHER
II.—INTERREGNUM.—VALDEMAR III.—MEMORABLE TRANSACTIONS WITH NORWAY AND
SWEDEN.—OLAF III.—UNION OF DENMARK AND NORWAY.
CANUTE THE GREAT.
1015–1035.
Page
1014. _Canute the Great_ succeeds his Father 165
Sweyn in both Denmark and England
1016–1028. He conquers Norway 167
1028–1035. Character of his Administration 167
His personal Character 167
He divides his Dominions among his Sons 168
HARDA-CANUTE.
1035–1042.
Page
1035–1040. Loses Denmark by the Usurpation of his 171
Brother Harald, but recovers it on
that Prince’s Death
1040–1042. His Administration of England 171
1035–1042. And of Denmark 171
His Compact with Magnus, King of Norway 172
MAGNUS I.
1042–1047.
Page
1042–1044. Succeeds in virtue of his Compact with 172
Harda-Canute, and is well received in
Denmark
His Impolicy in regard to Sweyn, the 173
Nephew of Canute the Great, whom he
makes Viceroy of Denmark
The Viceroy rebels, and is vanquished 173
1044, 1045. Magnus triumphs over the Pirates 173
1045. A new Enemy appears in Harald Hardrade; 174
his romantic Adventures
1045, 1046. Harald allies with Sweyn, but Magnus 177
dissolves the Alliance by his Policy
1047. Magnus leaves the Danish Crown to Sweyn 178
SWEYN II.
1047–1076.
Page
1048–1070. Transactions with Norway, England, &c. 178
1066–1070. And with the Church, which his 179
Incontinence provokes
1070. He commits Murder also, and does Penance 180
for it
1070–1076. Character of this Monarch, and 181
Description of Denmark, by Adam, Canon
of Bremen
HARALD III.
SURNAMED HEIN, OR THE GENTLE.
1076–1080.
Page
1076. Harald, a Bastard Son of Sweyn II, is 183
elected by the States
1076–1080. His Reign affords no Materials for 183
History
CANUTE IV.
SURNAMED THE SAINT.
1080–1086.
Page
1080–1085. His foreign Preparations 184
1080–1086. His vigorous Administration 184
His impolitic Indulgence to the Church 185
His Enforcement of the Tithe 186
1086. His tragical End 186
His Semi-deification 187
He is succeeded by Olaf, Duke of Sleswic 187
OLAF II.
SURNAMED FAMELICUS, OR THE HUNGRY.
1087–1095.
Page
1087–1095. During his Reign, the Realm wasted by 187
Famine
ERIC III.
SURNAMED THE GOOD.
1095–1103.
Page
1095, 1096. His vigorous Administration 188
1097–1103. Lund erected into a Metropolis 189
independent of Bremen
His Pilgrimage to the Holy Land 189
1103. His Death and Character 190
NICHOLAS.
1105–1134.
Page
1103–1105. Interregnum of two Years, when Nicholas 190
is elected
1105–1126. His Jealousy of his Nephew Canute 191
1126–1132. Civil Wars 192
1132–1134. Civil Wars continued; Murder of Nicholas 193
ERIC IV.
SURNAMED EMUND.
1134–1137.
Page
1131–1137. His Reign has no Materials for History 193
ERIC V.
SURNAMED THE LAME.
1137–1147.
Page
1137–1147. Vanquishes a Competitor for the Throne, 194
and retires to the Cloister
Double Election 195
CANUTE V.
1147–1156.
SWEYN III.
1147–1157.
Page
1147–1152. Civil Wars 195
1152–1156. Continued; Actions of Prince Valdemar 196
1156, 1157. After the Death of Canute, Sweyn 197
contends with Valdemar
VALDEMAR I.
SURNAMED THE GREAT.
1157–1182.
Page
1157–1169. Valdemar, Monarch of Denmark, destroys 198
the Pirates of Rugen
1169–1175. Other Transactions with the Pagans of 200
Vandalia
Archbishop Eskil, Primate 202
1175–1179. Archbishop Absalom, the Successor of 203
Eskil
1176–1179. Valdemar exacts the Tithe; Disturbances 205
in consequence
1180. His Transactions with the Empire 206
1182. His Character and Administration 207
CANUTE VI.
1182–1202.
Page
1182–1189. Prosperity of this Monarch 208
1183–1188. He quarrels with the Emperor 209
1191–1202. His Troubles through Bishop Valdemar 209
Flourishing State of Denmark in his 211
Reign
VALDEMAR II.
SURNAMED THE VICTORIOUS.
1202–1241.
Page
1202–1204. His early Transactions with Holstein 212
1204–1210. His Expedition against the Livonians 212
1205–1218. His Disputes with the Empire 213
1219–1223. His Transactions with Esthonia 214
1223. He is made Prisoner by one of his 215
Vassals
1223–1226. Negotiations for his Ransom, which is at 216
length effected
1226–1238. His unfortunate Projects 216
1238–1241. His internal Administration 217
1240. His Character as a Legislator 217
ERIC VI.
SURNAMED PLOGPENNING, OR PLOUGHPENNY.
1241–1250.
Page
1241. Eric, prior to his Accession, had been 218
Duke of Sleswic
1241–1248. His unfortunate Dispute with his Brother 218
Abel, and its Results
1249. His Expedition into Livonia 219
1250. His War with the Count of Holstein led 220
to his Murder by his Brother Abel
ABEL.
1250–1252.
Page
1250–1252. The royal Fratricide undertakes an 221
Expedition against the Frisians, and
is slain in a Morass
1252. In the popular Creed he becomes a 222
Vampire
CHRISTOPHER I.
1252–1259.
Page
1252–1258. Troubled Reign of this Prince 223
1256–1257. His Disputes with the Church, especially 224
with Jacob Erlandsen, Bishop of
Roskild
1257. Violent Measures of the King 225
1258, 1259. To sustain the Vengeance of the Church, 226
he allies himself with his royal
Neighbours, but dies
1259. Was his Death natural? 227
ERIC VII.
SURNAMED GLIPPING.
1259–1286.
Page
1259–1263. Troubles during the Minority of this 227
King
1261–1264. He and his Mother Prisoners, but both 229
eventually released
1272–1275. He is reconciled with the Church 230
1280–1286. But he is embroiled with other Enemies, 231
who deprive him of Life
His Reign disastrous 231
ERIC VIII.
SURNAMED MOENVED.
1286–1319.
Page
1286–1308. Troubles of the Minority; Efforts to 232
recal the Murderers of the late King
1292–1299. The King embroiled with the Church 233
1299–1319. Other Troubles; Eric a Legislator; 234
before his Death (without Issue) he
advises the States not to elect his
turbulent Brother
1310. But that Brother procures the Crown 235
CHRISTOPHER II.
1320–1334.
Page
1320–1323. Prodigality of the new King to secure 236
himself on the Throne
1324, 1325. He violates his Pledges 236
1325. Dissatisfaction of his People, who expel 237
him
1326–1328. Rapacity of the Nobles during his Exile; 238
he returns
1329–1331. His ruinous Promises 239
1331, 1332. Proceedings in regard to Scania, which 240
becomes the Prize of Sweden
1332, 1333. Last Days of Christopher 241
INTERREGNUM.
Page
1333, 1334. State of the Country 241
1334–1340. Rapacity of the Regents, especially 242
Count Gerard, who is murdered
1340. Election of a new King 243
VALDEMAR IV.
SURNAMED ATTERDAG.
1340–1375.
Page
1340. State of the Kingdom on the Accession of 244
Valdemar
His vigilant Administration 244
1344. He sells Scania, but redeems many other 245
Places
1345–1348. He sells Esthenia, and makes good Use of 245
the Money
1348–1350. He obtains Money from another Quarter 246
1351–1357. His Rigour occasions Rebellion, which, 247
however, he suppresses
1357–1360. He recovers Scania 247
1360–1363. By helping Magnus of Sweden, he offends 248
the Hanse Towns
1362, 1363. His artful Policy in regard to the Union 250
of his Daughter with Hako of Norway
1363. Important Consequences of this Union 250
1364, 1365. Valdemar abroad 251
1367–1370. Again. Why? 251
1370–1375. Closing Years of his Reign 252
OLAF III.
1376–1387.
Page
1375, 1376. Olaf, Son of Hako, elected; his Mother 253
Regent
1373. Lavish Promises of Margaret 254
Opinion respecting them 255
1376–1380. She triumphs over all Competitors 255
1380–1386. Olaf becomes King of Norway; ambitious 256
Policy of the Queen-Mother
1386. Transactions with the House of Holstein 257
1387. Sudden Death of Olaf 258
CHAP. II.
NORWAY.
1030–1387.
CANUTE THE GREAT.—SWEYN.—MAGNUS I.—HARALD HARDRADE.—OLAF III.—MAGNUS
II.—MAGNUS BAREFOOT.—EVILS OF A DIVIDED SOVEREIGNTY.—ROMANTIC
ADVENTURES OF SIGURD I.—MAGNUS IV.—CIVIL WARS.—EXTRAORDINARY
ADVENTURES OF SWERRO.—HAKO IV.—MAGNUS VI.—ERIC II.—HAKO V.—OTHER
SOVEREIGNS.—UNION OF NORWAY WITH DENMARK.
Page
1030–1035. CANUTE THE GREAT.—SWEYN 260
1035. The Norwegians look to Magnus, a bastard 261
Son of St. Olaf
1035, 1036. MAGNUS I. enters into a Treaty with the 262
King of Denmark
1038–1040. His Mother and Stepmother 262
1042–1046. He becomes King of Denmark 262
1047. Last Days of this Monarch 263
1047–1064. HARALD HARDRADE 263
1066. He falls in England 264
1066–1069. Two Kings in Norway 264
1069–1093. Olaf alone 264
1093–1095. MAGNUS BAREFOOT 265
1096–1099. His Expedition to the British Isles 265
1099–1101. His War with Sweden 266
1102–1103. His second Expedition to these Islands, 266
and his Death in Ireland
1103. Partition of the Sovereignty between his 267
three Sons
1103–1122. Fate of two of them 268
1107–1111. Romantic Adventures of the third Son, 268
Sigurd I.
1111–1123. His Severity against Idolaters 269
1124–1130. His strange Conduct 270
1130. MAGNUS IV. compelled to share the 271
Kingdom with an Adventurer
1130–1152. HARALD IV.—SIGURD II., &c. 272
1152. Arrival of a Papal Legate 273
1153–1161. Internal Troubles 274
1161–1164. Continued 275
1164–1170. Transactions with Denmark 276
1166–1169. Troubles; Rival for the Throne 276
1173–1177. A second Rival 277
1174–1178. A third, the celebrated Swerro 277
1178–1186. His romantic Adventures 278
1186–1194. Swerro’s vigorous Rule 280
1194–1200. His unscrupulous Conduct 282
1194–1202. Internal Troubles 283
1202. His Death and Character 283
1202–1204. HAKO III. 284
1204–1207. GUTHRUM 284
1207. Ordeal to prove the Descent of Hako from 284
King Swerro
1208–1241. HAKO IV.; his troubled Minority 285
1242–1260. Internal Events of his Reign 286
1263. His Transactions with the Scots 287
His famous Expedition 288
1263–1266. MAGNUS VI. 289
1263–1280. Internal Changes during this Reign 290
1280–1289. ERIC II. 291
1289–1299. Transactions with Scotland 292
1299–1319. HAKO V. 292
1319. Under this Prince, Norway declines 293
1319–1387. Succeeding Kings 294
CHAP. III.
SWEDEN.
1001–1389.
OLAF.—EMUND I.—EMUND II.—STENKILL.—INGE I.—PHILIP.—INGE II.—SWERKER
I.—CHARLES.—ST. ERIC.—INTERNAL TROUBLES.—BIRGER JARL.—VALDEMAR
I.—MAGNUS I.—BIRGER.—MAGNUS II.—ERIC IV.—ALBERT OF MECKLENBURG.—UNION
OF SWEDEN WITH DENMARK.
Page
Chronological Difficulties 295
1001–1026. OLAF Skatkonung 295
1026–1051. EMUND I. 296
1051–1148. EMUND II., and succeeding Kings 296
1148–1154. SWERKER I.; double Election 298
1155–1167. ST. ERIC and CHARLES 299
1161–1167. Charles the sole King 300
1167–1192. CANUTE 301
1192–1210. SWERKER II. 301
1210–1250. Other Rulers 302
1250. VALDEMAR I. 303
1251–1266. Regency of Birger 303
1266–1276. Troubled Reign of Valdemar 304
1276–1279. He is compelled to resign the Throne of 305
Sweden
1279, 1280. MAGNUS I. 305
1281–1290. His internal Administration 306
1290–1305. BIRGER; his guilty Impudence 307
1305–1319. He is exiled 308
1319–1320. And his Son Beheaded 309
1319–1354. MAGNUS II.; his Minority, and subsequent 310
Actions
1354–1357. His Weakness 311
1357–1363. His Unpopularity 312
1363. Election of ALBERT 313
1364–1371. Actions of this Prince 313
1371–1376. He too is unpopular 314
1377–1387. He quarrels with his Diet 314
1388, 1389. He is defeated and captured by Margaret 315
of Denmark
APPENDIX.
Page
ST. CANUTE, KING OF DENMARK 317
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE OF KINGS.
---------------------
SUCCESSION OF DANISH KINGS DOWN TO THE UNION OF THE CROWNS OF DENMARK
AND NORWAY.
I. SKIOLDUNGS, OR DYNASTY OF SKIOLD THE SON OF ODIN.
Page
Died
B.C.
Odin arrived in the North 70
II. DYNASTY OF SWEYN.
Sweyn II. Estrithson 1076
Harald (Hein) Sweynson 1080
Canute IV. (the Saint) 1086
Olaf II. (Hunger) 1095
Eric (Eiegod) III. 1103
Nikolas Swendson 1134
Eric IV. (Emun) 1137
Eric V. (Lamm) 1147
Canute V. 1156
Sweyn III. (Grathe) Emunsson 1157
Valdemar I. (surnamed the Great) 1182
Canute VI. 1202
Valdemar II. (Sejer) 1241
Eric VI. (Plogpenning) 1250
Abel 1252
Christopher I. 1259
Eric VII. (Glipping) 1286
Eric VIII. 1319
Christopher II. 1334
Valdemar IV. (Atterdag) 1375
Olaf III. 1387
N.B. Little dependence is to be placed on the accuracy of this list
prior to Harald Blaatand. (See Vol. I. p. 66.)
---------------------
KINGS OF SWEDEN.
I. SACRED DYNASTY OF THE YNGLINGS.
Died
B.C.
Odin arrived in the North 70
Niord died 20
Died
A.C.
Freyr-Yngve 10
Fiolner 14
Swegdir 34
Vanland or Valland 48
Visbur 98
Domald 130
Domar 162
Dygve 190
Dag-Spaka the Wise 220
Agne 260
Alaric and Eric 280
Yngve and Alf 300
Hugleik 302
Jorund and Eric 312
Aun hinn Gamle (the Old) 448
Egil Tunnaddgi 456
Ottar Vendilkraka 460
Adils 505
Eystein 531
Yngvar 545
Braut-Onund 565
Ingiald Illrada 623
Olaf Trætelia exiled about 630
II. DYNASTY OF THE SKIOLDUNGS, ETC.
Died
A.C.
Ivar Vidfadme 647
Harald Hildetand 735
Sigurd Ring 750
Ragnar Lodbrok 794
Biorn Ironside 804
Eric Biornson 808
Eric Raefillson 820
Emund and Biorn 859
Eric Emundson 873
Biorn Ericson 923
Eric the Victorious 993
Eric Arsaell 1001
Olaf Skotkonung 1026
Emund Colbrenner 1051
Emund Slemme 1056
Stenkill 1066
Halstan 1090
Inge I. (the Good) 1112
Philip 1118
Inge II. 1129
Swerker I. 1155
Saint Eric 1161
Charles Swerkerson 1167
Knut Ericsson 1199
Swerker II. 1210
Eric II. (Knutsson) 1216
John Swerkerson 1222
Eric III. (the Stammerer) 1250
Birger Jarl (Regent) 1266
Valdemar I. 1275
Magnus I. (Ladislaes) 1290
Birger 1319
Magnus II. (Smek) expelled 1350
Eric IV. 1359
Magnus restored 1363
Hakon II. (VI. of Norway) deposed 1363
Albert of Mecklenburg 1389
N.B. On this list, prior to the eleventh century, as little dependence
is to be placed as on that of Denmark.
---------------------
KINGS OF NORWAY.
I. DYNASTY OF THE YNGLINGS.
Died
A.C.
Olaf Trætelia 640
Halfdan Huitben 700
Eystein 730
Halfdan Milde 784
Gudrod Mikillati 824
Olaf Geirstada 840
Halfdan Swart 863
Harald Harfager 934
Eric Blodaexe 940
Hako the Good 963
Harald Graafeld 977
Hako Jarl 995
Olaf Tyggveson 1000
Olaf the Saint 1030
Sweyn Canutson 1035
Magnus the Good 1047
Harald Hardrade 1066
Magnus II. 1069
Olaf III. (Kyrre) 1093
Magnus (Barfoed) 1103
Olaf IV. 1116
Eystein I. 1122
Sigurd I. 1130
Magnus IV. 1134
Harald IV. (Gille) 1136
Sigurd II. 1155
Eystein II. 1157
Inge I. 1161
Hako III. 1162
Magnus V. 1186
Swerro 1202
Hako III. 1204
Gutborm 1205
Inge II. 1207
Hako IV. 1263
Magnus VI. (Lagabaeter) 1280
Eric II. (the Priest-hater) 1299
Hako V. 1319
Magnus VII. (Smek), II. of Sweden 1343
Hako VI. 1380
Olaf III. 1387
N.B. This kingdom henceforth united with Denmark, and therefore subject
to the same monarchs.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
HISTORY
OF
SCANDINAVIA.
---------------------
CHAP. IV.—_continued._
MARITIME EXPEDITIONS OF THE NORTHMEN DURING THE PAGAN TIMES.
SECTION II.
IN THE ORKNEYS, THE HEBRIDES, ICELAND, GREENLAND, NORTH AMERICA, RUSSIA,
ETC.
795–1026.
ESTABLISHMENT OF A GOVERNMENT IN THE ORKNEYS.—SUCCESSION OF JARLS,
ROGNEVALD, SIGURD, HALLAD, EINAR, SIGURD II., ETC.—DISCOVERY AND
COLONIZATION OF ICELAND—DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION OF
GREENLAND.—ALLEGED DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA.—STATEMENT OF FACTS
CONNECTED WITH IT.—FOUNDATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE BY THE
SCANDINAVIAN RURIC.
[Sidenote: 888.]
THE _Orkney Islands_ were probably visited by the northern pirates at a
period much earlier than is generally supposed. If, from their
barrenness and from their limited surface, they offered no inducement to
permanent occupancy, they were useful as strongholds,—as ports where the
northern ships might anchor in safety. From their position between
Scandinavia and Ireland, which we know was hostilely visited in the year
795, they must have been frequently subject to the ravages of the
strangers. The Pictish inhabitants, who were not warlike or numerous,
had the mortification to witness the frequent seizure of their cattle,
their fish, their corn, and such other stores as they had been able to
collect or to produce. Their only advantage was in their poverty, which
shortened the stay of these avaricious men. But after the battle of
Hafursfiord (885), these islands became the perpetual abode of the
sea-rovers, who were no longer tolerated in Norway[1]; here they fitted
out expeditions to ravage every coast from the south of Ireland to the
extremity of the Gulf of Finland. So frequent and so formidable were
those ravages that in 888—three years after his glorious victory—Harald
Harfagre, with a view of suppressing them, sailed with a powerful
armament into these seas. The isles of Shetland, of Orkney, of the
Hebrides, and Man, were subdued by him. But to conquer was little,
unless some measure were adopted to secure the conquest. The monarch
determined to place one of his most valiant and most respectable chiefs
over the islands, and cast his eyes on Rognevald, jarl of Moria, who, in
the present expedition, had lost one of his sons. But Rognevald,
attached to his hereditary domains in Norway, induced his royal master
to invest his brother Sigurd with the dignity. Sigurd, therefore, was
the first jarl, or earl, of the Orkneys.
[Sidenote: 889 to 892.]
This chief had qualities worthy of the post: he was valiant, liberal,
politic. But he was also ambitious: he longed to reduce a portion of the
neighbouring continent; and, as his own forces were unequal to an
attempt of such magnitude, he formed an alliance with Thorstein the Red,
son of Olaf the White, a chief famous in the annals of Norway. Having
effected a junction, the two jarls subdued Caithness and Sutherland, and
then extended their ravages into the counties of Ross and Moray. In the
latter, Sigurd, who was intent on durable conquest, is said to have
built a fortress. But he soon afterwards died,—whether in battle, or in
consequence of a wound, is not very clear; and all the advantages which
he had gained were lost. He was succeeded, indeed, by his son, Guthrum;
but the latter, alike feeble in mind and body, soon paid the debt of
nature. The depredations of the pirates were resumed; and Rognevald, who
had been the feudal superior of Sigurd, was required to nominate another
governor. His choice fell on Hallad, one of his sons. But it was less
fortunate than the preceding one. If Hallad had the wish, he certainly
had not the power, to contend with the frequent piratical bands who
infested the islands: he soon deserted his post, and returned to Norway.
The father lamented his unfortunate choice; still more did he lament the
stain which want of success had brought upon his name. His children, he
bitterly observed, were sadly degenerated from the ancient valour of
their line. He could not foresee that Einar, one of them, was about to
confer splendour on the family; still less that Rollo, another of them,
would become the head of a powerful race of sovereigns. Rollo proposed
to clear the islands from the piratical bands; but his proposal was
declined, probably from want of confidence in his powers. And when Einar
prayed the old jarl to send _him_ to the government, the chief reason of
his success was the little favour which he possessed in the eyes of his
father. He was an illegitimate son; his mother was of servile condition;
he had lost an eye; his countenance was in other respects repulsive; and
all these circumstances combined to render the paternal roof
disagreeable to him. The saga has preserved the words in which he made
the application to his father:—“Thou hast never shown _me_ much honour,
nor will my departure afflict thee: wherefore I will proceed to the
west, if thou wilt afford me the means. Do this, and I promise thee
never to revisit Norway!” The old man gave him a large vessel, manned
with good mariners; told him that he had no confidence in his valour or
prudence, and expressed a hope that he should see him no more. His
prayer was granted.
[Sidenote: 893 to 936.]
On the arrival of Einar, his conduct proved that he to had not overrated
his own powers. Over two pirate chiefs, who had, since the death of
Sigurd, held the dominion of the islands, he triumphed; he governed the
inhabitants by his wisdom, no less than protected them by his valour;
and joined with his firmness such moderation that he became exceedingly
popular with his people. His celebrity inspired with envy the sons of
king Harald, who equally hated his father: that father was burnt to
death, with many of his companions[2]; and a fate no less tragical was
reserved for Einar. In 894, Halfdan, one of his sons by the Finnish lady
(he had three of the name[3]), reached the Orkneys unexpected by Einar,
who, being wholly unprepared for defence, fled into Caithness. In his
turn, Halfdan was surprised by the jarl, and compelled to hide himself;
but he was discovered and put to death, in revenge alike for the
unprovoked aggression and for the murder of Rognevald. In this act of
retribution, as it might be considered by a pagan, there was much
temerity. The monarch armed to punish it, and, in 895, again appeared
off the coast with a powerful armament. Unable to resist, Einar again
fled into Caithness, a portion, if not the whole of which, was entirely
subject to the jarls of the Orkneys. He had certainly formidable means
of defence; so formidable, indeed, as to make Harald listen to overtures
of accommodation. Probably, too, as a pagan, he made considerable
allowance for the act of Einar, who, in avenging the death of a father,
had done what religion dictated. At length he professed his readiness
both to pardon the islanders, and to leave the jarl in the government,
if sixty golden merks were paid him. This sum, moderate as it may seem,
they were unable to raise; but Einar agreed to pay it for them, on the
condition that their lands should be considered his until they found the
means of redemption. Relieved from this formidable enemy, Einar resumed
with his usual success the duties of government. By posterity he was
called _Turf_-Einar, from his introducing, we are told, the use of that
article. It is, however, scarcely to be credited that the islanders
should, in his time, be ignorant of it. They had no wood; and sea-weed
alone could not have sufficed them through the long and dreary winter.
Probably he introduced some improvement into the manner of preparing it;
and thus earned a title to their gratitude.
[Sidenote: 936 to 946.]
On the death of Einar, the government of the Orkneys, and of the most
northern counties of Scotland, devolved on two of his sons, Arnkel and
Erlend. If they had the ambition they had not the wisdom of the father.
When Eric of the Bloody Axe was expelled from Norway by Hako the
Good[4], they received him with readiness, became his allies, and
accompanied him in his predatory expedition against the Scottish and
English coasts. For a time, indeed, fortune seemed to smile upon them.
Eric became the governor of Northumbria, as the vassal of king
Athelstane: they shared in his prosperity, and in the wealth which he
acquired in his piratical expeditions to the coasts of Scotland and
Ireland; but they also shared his tragical fate in the battle which the
royal Edred waged against the northmen, and which for ever united
Northumbria with the Anglo-Saxon crown.[5]
[Sidenote: 946 to 980.]
These princes were succeeded by another brother, Thorfin Hausak-liufurs,
whose administration, the result of his wisdom, was one of great
prosperity. Not so that of his sons. Of these he left five. The eldest,
Arnfin, married Ragnilda, the daughter of Eric Blodoxe and the infamous
Gunhilda, and quite worthy of her parentage. Through her Arnfin, the
victim of treachery, descended to an untimely grave. Havard, the next
brother, succeeded to the government; and his conduct was so wise and
prosperous, that he obtained the name of the Happy. But he had the folly
to marry the widowed Ragnilda; and he suffered the deserved penalty of
his weakness. She had transferred, we are told, her affection to Liot,
the next brother; and with the view of obtaining the gratification of
her wishes, had provoked a quarrel between Havard and a kinsman that
proved fatal to the former. But such a woman could have no affection;
and her motive to the deed was probably dislike of her husband’s
ascendency. However this be, she became the wife of the third brother,
who succeeded to the government. But Liot had little reason to
congratulate himself on his elevation. The readiness with which he had
become the instrument of a base and bloody woman roused the anger of
Skuli, the next brother, who, being no less ambitious, resolved to
dethrone him. Repairing to the court of the Scottish king, he offered to
hold the islands as a fief of the crown, if, through the royal aid, he
were raised to the dignity now held by Liot. The offer was accepted;
and, at the head of a considerable force, he returned into Caithness,
which declared for him. In the centre of that province the kinsmen met,
and victory declared for Liot,—Skuli being left dead on the field. But
the Scots now appeared in greater numbers; and though the jarl triumphed
in a second engagement, he received a wound which brought him to his end
in the year 980. The authority now passed into the hands of Laudver, the
fifth brother. Of him we know only that he was addicted to piratical
expeditions, that he married an Irish princess, and that he reigned
sixteen years.
[Sidenote: 980 to 1014.]
Sigurd, the son and successor of the last jarl, occupies more room in
fable than in history. Rejecting the former, we may observe, that he had
many great qualities; that he was valiant, generous, persevering; that
he freed his people from the obligation which they had contracted to the
jarls in the days of Turf-Einar, thus restoring the lands, which had
lately been feudal, to their original allodial state; and that in
addition to the Shetland Isles and the two Scottish counties, which had
for nearly a century been under the jurisdiction of his predecessors, he
held some fortresses, and, we are told, some extensive demesnes, in the
heart of Scotland. Yet these might be held as a vassal of the Sottish
monarch. But the most memorable event in his administration was the
introduction of Christianity into the Orkneys. To this event we have
before alluded[6], but it requires a more ample detail. Sigurd being
summoned on board the vessel which carried Olaf Trygveson from Ireland
to Norway, was told that if he did not immediately receive Christianity,
cause his people to receive it, and do homage to Olaf as the heir of
Harald Harfagre, he, and all who refused, should be put to death. At
this moment Olaf had not ascended the throne of Norway, which was
occupied by jarl Hako; and Sigurd might well hesitate to acknowledge
him. Again, though he must have frequently heard of the religion which
he was now required to embrace, he had been accustomed to despise it,
because it was professed by the peaceable—that is, the cowardly—portion
of mankind. He, therefore, began to make some excuse for his inability
to comply with the demand; but none would be admitted; and as he had to
choose between obedience and instant death, he naturally selected the
former. He and his people, with one accord, submitted to the rite; and
to secure his fidelity, he gave his son as hostage. On the death of that
son, however, he renounced his allegiance to the Norwegian crown, and
entered into a close connection with that of Scotland, by marrying a
daughter of king Malcolm. Probably this new alliance prevented him from
renouncing Christianity with as much facility as he had renounced his
dependence on Norway. It certainly increased his power, and the
consideration in which he was held by the chiefs of the age. He was one
of the leaders in the war against the Irish king Brian; and, with many
others, he was killed at the battle of Clontarf.[7] Such a man, in such
an age, could not, of course, be permitted to fall in the ordinary way.
If the scalds are to be credited, he had some presentiment of his fate
before he left the islands; and he confided the administration to his
three sons by the first wife, Einar, Sumerled, and Brusi. Connected with
his death are two legends, which deserve a momentary notice. One of his
friends, who wished to accompany him, he insisted on remaining, with the
assurance that he should be the first man to whom intelligence of the
battle should be communicated. One day the chief saw, as he thought,
jarl Sigurd approaching at the head of a troop of horse. He instantly
mounted, rode forward, met the jarl, embraced, and, in the view of
several followers, afterwards disappeared with the jarl behind an
eminence: neither, adds the legend, was again seen in this world. The
other story has called forth the splendid effusion of Grey:—Darrod, a
native of Caithness, saw twelve horsemen ride towards a hill, and
immediately enter it. Hastening to the place, and looking through a
small aperture, he perceived twelve gigantic women weaving and singing;
the woof and the song no less supernatural than the singers.[8] This
event, which is placed in the year 1014, illustrates the mental
condition of the people, who, if they had outwardly embraced
Christianity, were still pagans in superstition.
Of the Shetland Isles, during this period, we know nothing. They formed,
as we have observed, a portion of the government of the Orkney jarls;
and so did the Hebrides. But the connection between the governors and
the governed must have been lax, and subject to frequent interruption.
The Hebrides were frequently ravaged,—now by Norwegians, now by Danes,
now by fierce adventurers from all parts of the north. The condition of
Iona, the hallowed abode of St. Columba’s disciples, was mournful. In
793 the monastery was laid in ashes, and most of the inmates massacred;
again in 797 and 801. In 805 sixty-eight more of the monks suffered the
same fate. From that period to the year 875 the barbarian ravages were
frequent. To escape destruction, the monks fled; and when the pirates
were defeated, returned to the same hallowed spot, to quench the still
smoking ruins, and to rebuild the house of their saint. After 875 the
depredations of the northern rovers were much less frequent. We read,
indeed, of no massacre until 985, when the abbot and fifteen of his
monks obtained the martyr’s crown. This seems to have been the last
disaster of the kind. Christianity, in a degree far greater than the
governments of Norway and the Orkneys, was destroying the spirit of
piracy. In 1093, as we shall hereafter have occasion to relate, the
Western Isles, like Man and the Orkneys, were subdued by Magnus of
Norway, and annexed to his crown.[9]
5. _Iceland_ (861, &c.) was probably known to the Irish missionaries
before it was discovered by the Norwegians. At least some articles were
found there which missionaries only could have left; and these must have
come from Iona or Ireland. “Before Iceland was discovered by the
Norwegians,” says the Landnamabok, “men were there whom we call Papas,
who professed the Christian religion, and who were believed to have come
from the west.” The same authority also speaks of the books in the Irish
and the Anglo-Saxon languages; of the bells, staves, and other articles
left by preceding visitors. But if any colony had ever settled upon it,
it had long been uninhabited when it was accidentally discovered by
Naddod, in 861. That sea-rover left the Faroe Islands with the intention
of steering directly for the west of Norway; but a storm arising, drove
him far to the north-west, until he reached that largest of the European
isles. But he knew not it was an island: he saw that it was covered with
snow, and from that circumstance he denominated it _Snoeland_. Though he
ascended several high mountains, he could discern no trace of human
beings. On his return he acquainted his countrymen with the discovery.
The following year it was again accidentally visited by a Swede, Gardar
Swafarson, who sailed round it, and ascertaining it to be an island,
gave it the name of Gardarsholm. The season was too advanced for him to
return; and he passed the whole winter on the coast, living chiefly on
the fish which he caught in abundance. The third person that visited it
was the Norwegian Floki, surnamed _Rafna_, or the Raven, from the manner
in which, according to legend, he found the island. Sailing from the
Faroes, he proceeded towards the north-west; but as he was uncertain of
the exact direction in which Snoeland lay, he let fly three ravens,
which he had previously dedicated to the gods. One of these flew back to
the islands which he had left; another returned to the ship; the third
proceeded in a right line, and was followed by Floki, until he reached
the country which Naddod had discovered. Its name he changed from
Snoeland to Iceland. He admired its boiling fountains and its burning
lava; but the country was too barren for his subsistence: he was
troubled at the mysterious quaking of the earth; and he soon bade adieu
to a region which he had evidently designed to colonize, but which the
gods had doomed to everlasting desolation. His companions, however, did
not give so disheartening an account of the island. They praised its
fish, its climate, its soil; and above all, they praised it because “it
was a place where men might live in freedom, far away from kings and
jarls.”
[Sidenote: 874.]
The first attempt made to colonize the island was in the year 874.
Ingulf, the son of a Norwegian jarl, had slain his adversary; and to
escape the consequences of the act, he, with his brother-in-law Jorleif,
prepared to visit a region where neither the vengeance of the kindred
nor that of Harald Harfagre could pursue him. Deeply imbued with the
superstition of the ancient Norwegian worship, he offered due sacrifices
to the gods—for in these patriarchal times the privilege of sacrificing
descended with that of primogeniture; and when he sailed took with him
the ornamented doorposts of the apartment in which his household deities
were enshrined. These, as he approached the island, he cast into the
sea, and vowed that on the part of the coast to which the elements
should drive them, he would establish his colony. In the meantime a
promontory on the south-east, still called Ingulfshod, received him; but
the door-posts, watched by his slaves, proceeded to the south-west, and
entered a bay on which the modern Reykiavik stands. The place in which
he had fixed his temporary abode was comparatively fertile; the
neighbourhood of the bay for many leagues was unusually sterile; yet in
spite of all remonstrances Ingulf removed to the latter spot, which he
believed to be divinely ordained for him. His companion, Jorleif, chose
a more fertile locality to the south; but Jorleif had no reverence for
the gods, to whom he never deigned to sacrifice. In the estimation of
many, the latter was the wiser man; but in a short time he was murdered
by his own slaves, who fled with his substance to some distant islands.
They did not escape with impunity: pursued by Ingulf, they paid the
penalty of their crime. However much the regret of the chief for the
fate of his friend, he piously observed that it was the lot of all who
despised the national divinities.
[Sidenote: 884.]
Ingulf was followed by several Norwegian chiefs, and by a multitude of
simple freemen, who desired “to live far away from tyrannical kings and
jarls.” In general, each new community chose for itself some habitable
valley, fixed its boundaries, erected a rude temple to the gods, and
provided for the civil no less than the religious administration. Of the
jarls contemporary with Ingulf, Thorolf was the most celebrated.
Descended, in popular opinion, like many other chiefs, from the divine
race which had held the government of the country, Thorolf was at once
the head of his clan and the pontiff of his religion. Attached to the
great temple of Thor, on one of the islands close to the Norwegian
coast, furnished with a venerable beard, endowed with many vassals, many
flocks and herds, and a wide domain, Thorolf was one of the most
influential chiefs in the north of that kingdom. But he had the
misfortune to incur the wrath of Harald Harfagre, by giving an asylum to
Biorn, one of his kinsmen, who was persecuted by that monarch. From a
_Thing_, or public assembly of the province, Harald obtained a decree of
outlawry against Thorolf, if, within a given period, he failed to
surrender Biorn. To ascertain the will of the gods, whether he should
give himself up to the king or flee to Iceland, he sacrificed to Thor,
and the reply favoured the latter project. No less devout than Ingulf,
he took with him the statue of Thor, the earth on which the throne had
stood, and a portion of the temple. Approaching the island, he threw
into the sea the wooden columns which had supported the sanctuary; and,
as his predecessor had done ten years before him, settled on the spot to
which the elements carried them. Marking the boundaries of his new
domain by walking round it with a flaming brand and setting fire to the
grass, his next object was to build a large house, and then a large
temple, in which he was to officiate as the high-priest of Thor. There
were the same columns, the same throne, the same mystic ring, and the
same great altar. The other divinities were placed in the niches
prepared for them; and the worship was celebrated with less pomp indeed
than in the parent country, but with equal fervour. Close to the temple
was the spot where the _Thing_, or judicial assembly of the people, was
held, in the open air, in presence of “Freya, and Niord, and the
Almighty As,” by whom the witnesses in a suit always sware. The ground
of both was held to be holy; for the laws which the ancient divinities
had ordained were necessarily a part of religion. This was the ordinary
mode of proceeding when any new colony was formed. By degrees, as the
cabins of the slaves increased, and were spread over the domain, the
aspect of the country became more cheerful. The settlement of Thorolf
was soon a flourishing one; it was increased by many new arrivals from
Norway; and was at length divided into three populous districts, each of
which recognized him as chief pontiff, until human passion begun to
produce its inevitable result,—disunion and bloody feuds.
[Sidenote: 874 to 936.]
At this distance of time, we do not estimate as we ought the number of
emigrants from Norway to this newly-discovered island. Before the death
of Harald Harfagre, most of its habitable portions had their occupants.
What with the expulsion of the pirates, what with the voluntary exile of
the chiefs who disdained to acknowledge a superior, the mother country
must have lost no inconsiderable proportion of its inhabitants. It
promised indeed to be left half peopled, when that monarch, in
conjunction with the nobles who still remained, severely prohibited
these emigrations. But neither he nor they could always watch the ports;
still less could they control the motions of those who, while occupied
in traffic from coast to coast, seized the opportunity of sailing for a
land where there were no kings, no lords. Yet this was only true of the
earliest state of Icelandic civilization. Subsequently, as the chiefs
with their numerous slaves and their warlike dependants repaired to that
place, a system resembling the clanship of Norway, though less despotic,
was introduced. They, indeed, seized the land as their own, and
parcelled it out to their followers on certain conditions. Among these
conditions was always the payment of an annual rent in agricultural
produce, and of something for the support of religion; but frequently
was superadded some hereditary jurisdiction in the family of the chief.
As he was often a pontiff no less than a patriarch, and was a reputed
descendant from the divine family of the Ynglings, this union of the
sacerdotal, of the judicial, and of almost royal functions, invested him
with a consideration which he had scarcely enjoyed even in Norway. He
who filled this two-fold office of pontiff and civil magistrate, who
formed a sort of patriarchal aristocracy not uninteresting to
contemplate, was called _Godar_, or _Haf-godar_. But in half a century
after the colonization of the island, an evil arose for which the social
constitutions of the period afforded no remedy. The isolation of the
communities led to the formation of a separate rival spirit, which was
often destructive to the district. When two neighbouring communities or
their magistrates disputed, who was to act as the umpire? There was no
monarch, no hereditary chief of the province, no Al-Thing, to decide
between them. It became necessary, therefore, either to renounce the
advantages of a general confederation, and to live in scattered
independent tribes, whose hostilities must soon have led to the
depopulation of the island, or to establish a superior authority. Hence
the selection of a supreme judge, who was also empowered to collect
laws, which, however, could not be obligatory until they had been
accepted by the chiefs and the people of each community. The first
Icelander raised to this high dignity was Ulfliot (925), who, though
sixty years of age, proceeded to Norway to obtain a more intimate
acquaintance with the unwritten observances of that kingdom. Under the
direction of Thorleif the Wise, he obtained in three years the
information which he sought; and on his return to Iceland he promulgated
a code that for many generations regulated the decisions of the
deemsters, or local judges. Its provisions have unfortunately perished,
with the exception of some inconsiderable fragments. They were no doubt
nearly identical with those which governed the parent country; but of
the latter we have not one in the state in which it was originally
promulgated,—not one that has not been altered by succeeding
legislators. The spirit of the code which Thorleif himself compiled at
the instance of Hako the Good, can be inferred only from the general
character of Norwegian society, and from the legal provisions of later
times; provisions which are, in truth, but adaptations of ancient
penalties to an altered state of society. The laws designed for pagan
use would obviously require considerable modification before they could
be adopted by Christians.
[Sidenote: 930.]
To understand rightly the social condition of Iceland during the pagan
and indeed the succeeding ages, too much attention cannot be paid to the
political constitution and the civil administration of that interesting
colony. The island was divided into four great districts,—viertel; and
over each was a chief magistrate elected by the people. At certain
periods, there was an assembly of the freemen in each; all had a voice
in the deliberations; all could vote; and the magistrate whom they had
chosen was entrusted with the execution of such laws, such regulations,
as they adopted. But though comprising one fourth only of the habitable
portion of the island, each of these districts was too extensive to
render the meetings of the freemen so frequent as the interests of the
community required. Hence the sub-division of each into inferior
districts, which had their meetings for the transaction of such business
as was more peculiarly local. Affairs which concerned the whole
community could be discussed only in the _Al-Thing_, or great national
assembly, which was held once a year. The place of meeting was situated
on a level plain, on the shores of the lake of Thingvalle, and was
called _the Law Mount_. Justice, indeed, was generally administered on
an eminence among all the nations of Gothic origin; not because there
was any sanctity in a hill, but that the proceedings might be more
visible to the multitude. During eight centuries the Law Mount continued
to be the scene of the national assemblies; and it is only in our own
times that the place of meeting has been removed to a spot more
convenient indeed to the scattered population, but less hallowed by
time. The president was chosen for life,—an anomaly surely in a
community where the freemen would be thought equal; but the truth is
that among all the Germanic nations there was a wide difference between
the theory and practice of the constitution. The meanest freeman present
at the Thing might, for any thing we know, have a vote; he might even
have the right of speech; but still the real power lay in the hands of a
few noble chiefs. What made the authority of this president, this
logsogomadr, or promulgator of the law, the more formidable, is the
fact, that though he was not, as some writers have contended, a
legislator, no laws were made without his concurrence; and of these he
had the interpretation, no less than the administration. His office
therefore being more than executive, and conferred for so long a period,
made him irresponsible, except when the Thing was actually assembled. As
we have before observed, Ulfliot was the first who held this dignity.
The laws he enacted were, we are told, preserved for two centuries by
tradition only, before they were committed to writing. This is not
credible. The Runic art at least was understood many centuries before
his time; and so, we may infer, were the ordinary characters: at least
we read of communication by letter between the sovereigns and jarls of
the time. The more important of Ulfliot’s laws must have been invested
in a dress less perishable than oral tradition. For ages before his
time, every German tribe with which we are acquainted, had, besides its
common or unwritten, its statute or written, law; and we know not why
Scandinavia should in this respect be different from such barbarous
tribes as the Saxons, or Finns, or Suabians, during the same period. On
this subject, however, more in the proper place.[10]
6. _Greenland_ owed its discovery to the Icelandic colony. Towards the
close of the tenth century, Eric the Red, son of Torwald, a Norwegian
jarl, who had been compelled to forsake his country in consequence of a
feud, was, for the same reason, obliged to leave Iceland. Whither was he
to repair? To Norway he could not; for there were the deadly enemies of
his family whom old Torwald had made. To hide himself in Iceland was
hopeless; and in the Orkneys, which were far distant, he could scarcely
hope to escape the vengeance of those enemies. He therefore resolved to
seek a land of which some maritime adventurers had obtained a confused
knowledge. Sailing towards the west, he at length discovered a small
island in a strait, which he called Eric’s Sound, and on which he passed
the winter. The following spring, he examined the neighbouring
continent, which from its smiling verdure—smiling in comparison with the
bleak desolation of Iceland—he called _Greenland_. Filled with the
importance of this adventure, he soon returned to that island, and
succeeded in collecting a number of colonists, whom he established in
the newly-discovered land. Yet Greenland was not uninhabited: better for
the settlers had it been so; for the wild natives were not friendly to
men whom they regarded as intruders on their own domain. Some years
after the settlement of the colony, viz. in 999, Leif, the son of Eric,
repaired to Norway, where he was well received by the reigning monarch,
Olaf Trygveson: Olaf was soon interested in the description which Leif
gave of the country; and in his zeal for the conversion of all pagans,
he resolved to support the new colony. Whatever might be the faults of
the royal convert, he was the instrument of much good. He persuaded or
forced Leif to receive baptism, and caused a missionary to accompany him
to Greenland. Hence the introduction of that religion among the
Norwegian colonists; but it had little success amongst the natives, who,
whether from stupidity or vicious habits, have always been slow to
comprehend its truths. During more than three centuries this infant
colony flourished: the plague of 1348 lamentably thinned its numbers;
and early in the following century the rest were either exterminated by
the savage inhabitants, or compelled to leave the country. Not a vestige
remains of that colony; nor is it clearly ascertained in what part of
the coast it was located.
7. _North America_ (1001–1002). The most curious part of the present
subject is that which relates to the alleged discovery of North America
by a native of Iceland. Let us state the facts, as recorded by the
ancient sagas, and the authorities followed by Snorro Sturleson, before
we reason upon them.—Herjulf, a descendant of Ingulf, and his son Biarn,
subsisted by trading between Iceland and Norway, in the latter of which
countries they generally passed the winter. One season, their vessels
being as usual divided for the greater convenience of traffic, Biarn did
not find his father in Norway, who, he was informed, had proceeded to
Greenland, then just discovered. He had never visited that country; but
he steered westwards for many days, until a strong north wind bore him
considerably to the south. After a long interval, he arrived in sight of
a low, woody country, which, compared with the description he had
received of the other, and from the route he had taken, could not, he
was sure, be Greenland. Proceeding to the south-west, he reached the
latter country, and joined his father, who was located at Herjulfsnæ, a
promontory opposite to the western coast of Iceland.
[Sidenote: 1001.]
The information which Biarn gave of this discovery induced Leif, son of
Eric the Red, the discoverer of Greenland, to equip a vessel for the
unknown country. With thirty-five persons he sailed from Herjulfsnæs
towards the south, in the direction indicated by Biarn. Arriving at a
flat stony coast, with mountains, however, covered with snow, visible at
a great distance, they called it Hellu-land. Proceeding still
southwards, they came to a woody but still flat coast, which they called
Mark-land. A brisk north-east wind blowing for two days and two nights,
brought them to a finer coast, woody and undulating, and abounding with
natural productions. Towards the north this region was sheltered by an
island; but there was no port until they had proceeded farther to the
west. There they landed; and as there was abundance of fish in a river
which flowed into the bay, they ventured there to pass the winter. They
found the nights and days less unequal than in Iceland or Norway; on the
very shortest (Dec. 21.) the sun rising at half-past seven, and setting
at half-past four. From some wild grapes which they found a few miles
from the shore, they denominated the country Vinland, or Winland. The
following spring they returned to Greenland.
This description, as the reader will instantly recognize, can apply only
to North America. The first of the coasts which Leif and his navigators
saw must have been Newfoundland, or Labrador; the second was probably
the coast of New Brunswick; the third was Maine. The causes which led to
the voyage, the names, the incidents, are so natural and so connected as
to bear the impress of truth. And Snorro, the earliest historian of the
voyage, was not an inventor: he related events as he received them from
authorities which no longer exist, or from tradition. Neither he nor his
countrymen entertained the slightest doubt that a new and extensive
region had been discovered. The sequel will corroborate the belief that
they were right.
[Sidenote: 1004 to 1008.]
The next chief that visited Vinland was Thorwald, another son of Eric
the Red. With thirty companions he proceeded to the coast, and wintered
in the tent which had sheltered his brother Leif. The two following
summers were passed by him in examining the regions both to the west and
the east; and, from the description in the Icelandic sagas, we may infer
that he coasted the shore from Massachusetts to Labrador. Until the
second season no inhabitants appeared; but two who had ventured along
the shore in their frail canoes were taken, and most impolitically, as
well as most inhumanly, put to death. These were evidently Esquimaux,
whose short stature and features resembled those of the western
Greenlanders. To revenge the murder of their countrymen, a considerable
number of the inhabitants now appeared in their small boats; but their
arrows being unable to make any impression on the wooden defences, they
precipitately retired. In this short skirmish, however, Thorwald
received a mortal wound; and was buried on the next promontory with a
cross at his head and another at his feet, a proof that he had embraced
Christianity. Having passed another winter, his companions returned to
Greenland. The following year Thorstein, another son of Eric the Red,
embarked for the same place with his wife Gudrida and twenty-five
companions; but they were driven by the contending elements to the
remote western coast of Greenland, where they passed the winter in great
hardships. This adventure was fatal to Thorstein, whose corpse was taken
back to the colony by his widow.
[Sidenote: 1009.]
The first serious attempt at colonizing Vinland was made by a Norwegian
chief, Thorfin, who had removed to Greenland, and married the widowed
Gudrida. With sixty companions, some domestic animals, implements of
husbandry, and an abundance of dried provisions, he proceeded to the
coast where Thorwald had died. There he erected his tents, which he
surrounded by a strong palisade, to resist the assaults, whether open or
secret, whether daily or nocturnal, of the natives. They came in
considerable numbers to offer peltries and other productions for such
commodities as the strangers could spare. Above all, we are assured,
they wanted arms, which Thorfin would not permit to be sold; yet if an
anecdote be true, their knowledge of such weapons must have been limited
indeed. One of the savages took up an axe, ran with it into the woods,
and displayed it with much triumph to the rest. To try its virtues, he
struck one that stood near him; and the latter, to the horror of all
present, fell dead at his feet. A chief took it from him, regarded it
for some time with anger, and then cast it into the sea. Thorfin
remained three years in Vinland, where a son was born to him; and after
many voyages to different parts of the north, ended his days in Iceland.
His widow made the pilgrimage to Rome; and on her return to the island
retired to a convent which he had erected. Many, however, of the
colonists whom he had led to Vinland remained, and were ultimately
joined by another body under Helgi and Finnbogi, two brothers from
Greenland. But the latter had the misfortune to be accompanied by a
treacherous and evil woman, Freydisa, a daughter of Eric the Red, and
who in a short time excited a quarrel, which proved fatal to about
thirty of the colonists. Detested for her vices, she was constrained to
return to Greenland; but the odour of her evil name remained with her:
she lived despised, and died unlamented.
[Sidenote: 1026 to 1121.]
Towards the close of the reign of Olaf the Saint, an Icelander, named
Gudleif, embarked for Dublin. The vessel being driven by boisterous
winds far from its direct course, towards the south-west, approached an
unknown shore. He and the crew were soon seized by the natives, and
carried into the interior. Here, however, to their great surprise, they
were accosted by a venerable chief in their own language, who enquired
after some individuals of Iceland. He refused to tell his name; but, as
he sent a present to Thurida, the sister of Snorro Gode, and another for
her son, no doubt was entertained that he was the scald Biorn, who had
been her lover, and who had left Iceland thirty years before that time.
The natives were described of a red colour, and cruel to strangers;
indeed, it required all the influence of the friendly chief to rescue
Gudleif and his companions from destruction. From this period to 1050,
we hear no more of the northern colony established by Thorfin; but in
that year a priest went from Iceland to Vinland to preach Christianity.
His end was tragical,—a proof that if any of the original settlers had
been Christians, they had reverted to idolatry. In 1121, a bishop
embarked from Greenland for the same destination, and with the same
object; but of the result no record exists. We hear no more, indeed, of
the colony, or of Vinland, until the latter half of the fourteenth
century, when the two Venetians Zeni are said to have visited that part
of the world. From that time to the discovery of the New World by
Columbus, there was no communication—none at least that is known—between
it and the north of Europe.
This circumstance has induced many to doubt of the facts which have been
related. If, they contend, North America were really discovered and
repeatedly visited by the Icelanders, how came a country, so fertile in
comparison with that island, or with Greenland, or even Norway, to be so
suddenly abandoned? This is certainly a difficulty; but a greater one,
in our opinion, is involved in the rejection of all the evidence that
has been adduced. It is not Snorro merely who mentions Vinland: many
other sagas do the same; and even before Snorro, Adam of Bremen obtained
from the lips of Sweyn II., king of Denmark, a confirmation of the
alleged discovery. For relations so numerous and so uniform, for
circumstances so naturally and so graphically described, there must have
been some foundation. Even fiction does not invent, it only exaggerates.
There is nothing improbable in the alleged voyages. The Scandinavians
were the best navigators in the world. From authentic and indubitable
testimony we know that their vessels visited every sea from the
Mediterranean to the Baltic, from the extremity of the Finland Gulf to
the entrance at least of Davis’s Straits. Men thus familiar with distant
seas must have made a greater progress in the science of navigation than
we generally allow. The voyage from Reykiavik, in Iceland, to Cape
Farewell, is not longer than that from the south-western extremity of
Iceland—once well colonized—to the eastern coast of Labrador. But does
the latter country itself exhibit, in modern times, any vestiges of a
higher civilization than we should expect to find if no Europeans had
ever visited it? So at least the Jesuit missionaries inform us. They
found the cross, a knowledge of the stars, a superior kind of worship, a
more ingenious mind, among the inhabitants of the coast which is thought
to have been colonized from Greenland. They even assure us that many
Norwegian words are to be found in the dialect of the people. The causes
which led to the destruction of the settlement were probably similar to
those which produced the same effect in Greenland. A handful of
colonists, cut off from all communication with the mother country, and
consequently deprived of the means for repressing their savage
neighbours, could not be expected always to preserve their original
characteristics. They would either be exterminated by hostilities, or
driven to amalgamate with the natives: probably both causes led to this
unfortunate result. The only difficulty in this subject is that which we
have before mentioned, viz. the sudden and total cessation of all
intercourse with Iceland or Greenland; and even this must diminish when
we remember that in the fourteenth century the Norwegian colony in
Greenland disappeared in the same manner, after a residence in the
country of more than three hundred years. On weighing the preceding
circumstances, and the simple natural language in which they are
recorded, few men not born in Italy or Spain will deny to the
Scandinavians the claim of having been the original discoverers of the
New World. Even Robertson, imperfectly acquainted as he was with the
links in this chain of evidence, dared not wholly to reject it. Since
his day, the researches of the northern critics, and a more attentive
consideration of the subject, have caused most writers to mention it
with respect.[11]
8. _Russia_ (862). That the Scandinavian pirates founded a sovereignty
in Russia soon after the middle of the ninth century, is a fact which no
historian ventures to dispute. A body of the people under the
denomination of the Varangians,—a denomination which nobody can
explain,—subdued the Tshuder and other Slavonic tribes between the Gulf
of Finland and Novogrod. They were indeed masters of the maritime coasts
in this part of the Baltic. At this time Russia was split into many
separate states, which had never known a common head, and of which most,
though of kindred origin, were at war with one another. Of these states
the most considerable was Novogrod, a flourishing republic, which had an
extensive commerce, not merely with the nations surrounding the Baltic,
but with the Greek empire, with Persia, and perhaps with India. Its
wealth naturally raised the cupidity of the warlike tribes, who were on
the watch to intercept its merchandise, to harass its convoys, and, when
the opportunity was favourable, of assailing its outposts. Separately,
indeed, none of these tribes could have made any impression on that
powerful city; but leagues for a common object distinguished the
barbarian no less than the civilised times. By such a league were the
people of Novogrod menaced; and in accordance with a custom of the
times, solicited the aid of their neighbours, the Varangians. All the
Northmen, and the Varangians in particular, were ready to sell their
sword to the highest bidder. The offer of the republic, therefore, was
promptly accepted; and her enemies were speedily humbled.
[Sidenote: 861 to 862.]
About the fact which we have just related there is no difference of
opinion among historians; but there is much between native and foreign
writers, as to the circumstances which led to the establishment of the
Varangian dynasty in Russia. According to one of the former, four of the
great tribes, with the city of Novogrod, being struck with admiration at
the wisdom, the justice, no less than the valour of the Northmen, and
rendered miserable by their continual dissensions, sent an embassy over
the sea for princes that might govern and protect them! “The interests
of order and of domestic tranquillity,” says the historian already
quoted[12], “induced them to lay down their national pride: the Slavi,
says a tradition, influenced by the advice of an aged inhabitant of
Novogrod, demanded sovereigns from the Varangians. Our ancient annals do
not mention this sage; but if the tradition be true, his name is worthy
of immortality, and of a glorious rank in our fasti.” It seems that the
Novogrodians and the Krivitches were allies of the Finnish tribes on the
borders of the Finland Gulf, and like them tributaries of the
Varangians. Subject for some years to the same laws, they could easily
draw closer the bonds of the alliance which had formerly united them.
Thus, according to Nestor, they sent an embassy beyond the sea to the
Varangians, saying, “Our country is extensive and fertile, but we are
the prey of anarchy: come then to govern, to rule over us!” “Three
brothers, Ruric, Sineas, and Truvor, illustrious alike for birth and
valour, consented to assume the reins of government over a people who
did not know how to use the liberty which their own right hands had won.
Accompanied by a large body of Scandinavians, and prepared to defend by
force of arms their own sovereign rights, these ambitious brothers for
ever abandoned their own country. Ruric established himself at Novogrod;
Sineas at Bielo-Ozero, amongst the Vessians, or Finnish people; and
Truvor at Isborsk, a town of the Krivichians.” The internal
improbability of this relation, in connection with the total absence of
authority for it, must ensure its rejection by every critic.
The foreign historians of Russia, though relying on Russian authority,
have given the only rational history of this event. They assure us that,
after the three brothers had assisted Novogrod to humble her enemies,
they were in no hurry to leave the country. Near the confluence of the
Volkhof with the waters of the Ladoga Ruric built a town, which gave its
name to that lake; and having fortified it, determined to make it a
point of departure for his meditated conquests. His intention was but
too evident to the people of Novogrod, who began to adopt measures for
their defence. The Varangians were no less eager to profit by their
superiority in arms; and to secure their great object, they combined
their forces, and marched on the city. A mercantile people are seldom
warlike. The inhabitants loudly expressed their determination to bury
themselves amidst their houses rather than yield; but when the
formidable enemy appeared before their gates, they preferred the part of
submission, and from that moment received him as sovereign within their
walls. Thus was a republican exchanged for a monarchical government,
despotism for anarchy. Yet Ruric acted with much caution, and caused the
weight of his power to sit as lightly as possible on the people he had
subdued. He established a council of the chief inhabitants, whom he
consulted for some time in every act of importance; and though he
conferred most of the responsible offices on his own followers, his
sway, at once moderate and firm, was an advantage to the people. His
title of grand prince illustrates his wide ambition. His two brothers
were princes; so were some others whom he placed over the local
governments; but they were only his vassals, and their fiefs were
reversible to him as their sovereign. Soon after his elevation, indeed,
both the brothers died; and Ruric incorporated their states with his
own. Both he and they must have been conquerors; for in a few years his
authority extended from the northern extremity of the Ladoga lake to the
western Dwina, and eastward to the confines of Yaroslaf.
But before the death of Ruric the Norman domination extended even to
Kief. Two of his followers, Ascald and Dir, having apparently some
reason for dissatisfaction, left Novogrod with the intention of doing
what many other Scandinavians had done,—of offering their swords to the
Greek emperor. On their way they perceived a little town, built on an
eminence overlooking the Dnieper; and on inquiring to whom it belonged,
they were told that it had been founded by three brothers long before
dead, and that it was inhabited by a quiet inoffensive people, who paid
tribute to the Khozars. The chieftains had a military eye: they saw at
once the importance of such a position; that it might become the centre
of a sovereignty, great perhaps as that of Novogrod; and with the armed
force which they were leading they surprised the place. In a few years
they were joined by great numbers of their countrymen, both from that
city and from Scandinavia. This was the period, indeed, when Harald
Harfagre was consolidating his empire by the reduction of the Norwegian
chiefs, and securing tranquillity by the banishment of the more
licentious pirates. Thousands and tens of thousands must, at this
period, have left Norway in quest of new habitations. Hence Kief soon
became very populous, and so confident of its strength that it sent its
piratical sons to the very gates of Constantinople. Money induced them
to retreat. The domination of the Khozars over Kief was at an end. The
introduction of Christianity into that city did not much assuage the
ferocity of the Normans: many adopted the mass without forsaking their
warrior god.
[Sidenote: 882.]
The establishment of two empires in Russia was soon found to be
impolitic. After the death of Ruric, and during the minority of his son
Igor, Oleg, to whom he had confided the administration, resolved to
incorporate Kief with the northern principality. In his way, the regent
took Smolensko and Lubetch; but on reaching the banks of the Dnieper
beneath that city, he saw that it was too strong to be taken by force,
and he had recourse to stratagem. By a pretended embassy, he lured the
two princes into his power, and put them to death. The other conquests
of Oleg, and his successful efforts to consolidate no less than to
extend the infant empire, must be sought in the histories of that
empire. Sufficient for our purpose is the fact, that these enterprising
men established in Russia a sovereignty which still subsists. The family
of Ruric held the throne of that empire above seven centuries; down to
the accession of the present Romanoff dynasty.[13]
10. _Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece, &c._—During the Pagan age,
the Northmen were on the coasts of all these countries, which they
ravaged with success. Their visit to Italy, however, was but transient.
Hastings, their leader, did no more than surprise a town at the mouth of
the Tiber, and returned to Gaul, where a richer spoil invited him. In
Spain, the Scandinavians abode for many years. The important city of
Seville was in their power, and from it they made frequent and most
disastrous incursions into the neighbouring provinces. They were long
too powerful to be expelled by the monarch of Cordova, though that
monarch was no other than the great Abderahman. On the coast of Galicia
too, according to the ancient chroniclers of Castile, they abode for a
season, and caused much mischief to the subjects of Pelayo’s successors.
In Belgium and Spain their ravages were more frequent and more severe;
in fact, there was no cessation to them until the north became
Christianized. But though of their predatory expeditions a volume might
be composed, they would little interest the reader, both because the
description of one is the description of all, and because they left no
permanent or important results behind them. In the expeditions which we
have already contemplated, such results are to be found. In England they
led to the formation of an independent kingdom in Northumbria, compelled
even Alfred to retire into private life, and eventually placed Danish
sovereigns on the throne. In France they occasioned the dismemberment of
Normandy and Brittany from the crown. In Ireland they gave rise to many
principalities, and continued, for centuries, to influence in the
highest degree the fate of that country. In the Orkneys, they led to the
establishment of a powerful dynasty, and produced a hardy race of men
who still possess those islands. In Iceland there was the same result;
and Iceland too became, what to literature is more important,—the refuge
of the Norwegian language, religion, and learning. In Greenland, they
called into existence a colony which subsisted above three hundred
years. In Russia, they laid the foundation of the greatest empire which
the world has yet seen. Even in North America, transient or unknown as
were the results they produced, they exhibit a phenomenon as curious as
it is interesting,—a handful of warlike shepherds, or adventurous
mariners, traversing the wide Atlantic, and attempting to introduce
their own institutions among the savages of another world. But those
which were undertaken into the countries before us were not directed by
master minds, and their motive was only sordid gain. The circumstances,
therefore, which accompanied them may, for any thing we care, slumber in
oblivion.[14]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAP. V.[15]
COSMOGONY AND RELIGION OF SCANDINAVIA.
INTRODUCTION.
THE TWO EDDAS, THE ELDER AND THE YOUNGER, THE POETIC AND THE
PROSE.—CONTENTS OF THE FORMER.—DIVISION INTO CLASSES. 1. THE MYSTICAL.
2. THE MYTHIC-DIDACTIC. 3. THE PURELY MYTHOLOGICAL. 4. THE
MYTHIC-HISTORICAL.—POEMS OF EACH CLASS.—THE PROSE EDDA.—SNORRO
STURLESON.
THE religion of the ancient Northmen—which, though it has many points
of affinity with other religions, has yet a sufficient number of its
own peculiarities to constitute it a distinct system—has been always
admitted to be a most interesting and most curious subject of inquiry,
not merely in the north of Europe, but in England, in Germany, and in
France. Yet until the last few years, the popular notions concerning
it were vague and inaccurate; and for the best of all reasons—that, of
the two sources from which alone a full knowledge of it could be
acquired, the one had been carelessly, the other partially published.
The two works to which we allude are the two Eddas, the Elder and the
Younger; the former attributed to Sæmund, the other to Snorro, the son
of Sturlo, both Icelanders and both Christians,—the one born in the
eleventh, the other in the twelfth century.
Sæmund, who, from his varied knowledge, is styled _hin Frode_, or the
Learned, and by posterity at least was regarded as a wizard, had
greater advantages of education than we should have expected in an
Icelander of that remote period. He studied, we are told, both in
France and Germany, and is supposed to have visited Rome. On his
return he settled at Oddé, in the northern part of the island,
embraced holy orders, and was entrusted with the cure of souls. Much
of his time, however, was devoted to the education of youth, and to
literary pursuits. Whether, as Christianity had not long been
established in that remote island, he was still in some degree
influenced by the lingering spirit of paganism, or whether (a more
probable supposition) a taste superior to the age in which he lived
led him to preserve, instead of destroying, the remaining monuments of
paganism, we are indebted to him for one of the most curious books
that has ever occupied the attention of the human mind. This was the
Elder Edda, the first part of which was published for the first time
in 1787. The second part did not issue from the press until 1818, nor
the third until 1828. No writer, therefore, prior to these years,
could have any just notice of this venerable collection of pieces, or,
consequently, of the religion which they illustrate. To the advantage
furnished to the modern student by their publication must be added the
vast erudition of Finn Magnusen, editor of the third or last part,
whose Mythological Lexicon and Critical Dissertations (especially the
one elaborately devoted to “the Edda Doctrine and its Origin”) have
not only exhausted the subject, but pointed out many of the affinities
between the Scandinavian religion and that of the most celebrated
nations both in ancient and modern times.
The Elder, or Poetic Edda, consists of about forty poems,—all
anonymous, all, with one exception, pagan compositions, though written
at different periods, the most recent of them bearing the impress of
considerable antiquity. They have been arranged, perhaps somewhat
arbitrarily, into four different classes, according to the nature of
the subjects. These are—1. the Mystical; 2. the Mythic-didactic; 3.
the purely Mythological; and 4. the Mythic-historical.
1. Of the Mystical class, the most prominent is the _Voluspa_
(Voluspa), the oracle of Vala the prophetess. This contains a rapid,
abrupt, and very dark account of the whole system, beginning with the
creation, and ending with the destruction of the universe by fire. All
things, however, are not to be destroyed: two individuals, a man and a
woman, are to be saved, and made the progenitors of a new and fairer
world. It should be observed, that in the Scandinavian as in the Greek
and Roman superstition, superior sanctity is ascribed to the women.
They alone knew the fates; even Odin had to consult them when he
wished to look beyond the dark cloud that concealed the future from
the gods no less than from mankind.
The _Grougaldor_, or the magical song of Groa, is another of this
class. It consists of terms and precepts, the use of which is to
produce the most astounding supernatural effects. These “words of
might” were not peculiar to the Odinic worship. They pervade still
more thoroughly that which Zoroaster instituted, between whom and the
northern prophet there are more points of resemblance than the learned
have yet discerned. Both, for example, pretended to magical powers,
because both found the pretension already in existence when they
entered on their respective careers; and neither was willing to be
thought inferior to the members of the priestly caste which he
undertook to subvert. The magic of the Finns and Lets Odin stigmatized
as _black_ magic—as inculcated by the powers of darkness for the
injury of mankind; but _his_ was the white, the pure magic, the kingly
art. He found a school already established in the north; and with all
his power he could not wholly extirpate it. There seems, indeed,
reason to infer that he connived at the union of many native rites
with his own; or, at least, that if _he_ did not, his immediate
successors did. Just so it was with the renowned Magian. In
contemplating the origin of his religion, we may either smile, or be
provoked, at the prodigies which every where meet us. It is a religion
of magic; it boasts of supernatural powers; it openly owns not merely
the possibility, but the necessity, of miraculous results, when the
words of might which it prescribes are duly pronounced. And if
miracles and prodigies constitute its peculiar character even at this
day, in the comparatively civilised Hindostan, they were doubly
necessary when Zoroaster first announced it to the world. To them he
boldly appealed for the truth of his mission. The miracles which
preceded, those which accompanied, his birth, may be seen in the
elaborate account of him prefixed by Anquetil du Perron to his
translation of the Zendavesta. Throughout his life, if any faith is to
be placed in his biographers, he wrought, or pretended to work,
miracles by his magical terms. Yet he exceeded even Odin in the zeal
with which he inveighed against the magic of his rivals. Against the
magicians his most terrible anathemas were hurled; against them he
waged a war of extermination, and justified the hostility by alleging
the express command of heaven. But they were the servants of Ahriman,
the irreconcilable enemies of Ormuzd—of every thing that is good—of
every thing that issues from the benevolent deity. In their hands,
magic was sure to become an instrument of evil; but in those of
himself and his disciples, it could not fail to be an instrument of
happiness. In the former case it must be fatal, in the latter highly
useful, to human nature: hence the necessity of destroying in the one
case that which should be piously maintained in the other. Such, too,
was the conduct of Odin. There was, however, this difference between
the two legislators: while the Median regarded women as absolutely
impure, and confided the celebration of all his rites, magical or
religious, to the men; the Scythian paid peculiar honour to the sex:
women were allowed, enjoined, to perform the most solemn, the most
awful, ceremonies of the new faith. Yet the men were not excluded from
the privilege. There were colleges or fraternities of wizards from the
earliest known periods of Scandinavian history, down to the time of
Harald Harfager, or even later still. Rognevald, a son of that
monarch, was burned to death, with eighty of his associates, on the
charge of exercising a magic condemned by Odin, and emanating from the
evil powers.
The _Solar Liod_, or Song of the Sun, is almost wholly the composition
of Sæmund. But then he derived his materials from ancient pagan times.
2. Of the mytho-didactic poems, the first place may well be assigned
to the _Vafthrudnis-mâl_. It is, like many of the other Odinic pieces,
in the form of a dialogue. Odin expresses his resolution to visit
Vafthrudnir, a famous giant or genius, and of contending with him in
science. Frigga, his queen, “to whom the future is known,” attempts to
dissuade him from the journey, because “no one of the genii is to be
compared with Vafthrudnir in wisdom and valour.” If Odin should be
vanquished in the contest, he must perish, and with him all the gods
who were dependent on him. But he persists, assumes the disguise of a
weary traveller, and proceeds to the palace of the sage giant. On this
poem, however, we shall not further dilate, as a translation of it may
be found in a volume of the present collection.[16] This contest
between the chief of the gods and the giant is derived from the same
source as the war of the Titans with Jove.
_Grimnis-mâl_, or Grimner’s Song, is another of the mytho-didactic
class. Grimner is no other than Odin, who has assumed the disguise of
an aged minstrel, for a purpose explained by the Icelandic
introduction to the poem. King Rodung had two sons, the one eight, the
other ten years of age. One day they embarked in a boat to pass some
hours in fishing. A storm arising, they were driven into an unknown
sea, and cast upon a strange coast. Approaching a hut, they were
hospitably received by the master and mistress, who seemed to be a
rustic pair, but who in reality were Odin and Frigga. Agner, the
elder, was the favourite of the latter, Geirrod, the younger, of the
former. In the hut they remained the whole winter; and when spring
arrived, they were led to the sea-coast, and embarked in a new vessel
which their hosts presented to them. When bidding adieu, the male
rustic whispered something into Geirrod’s ear. The purport of this
secret may be inferred from the conduct of the prince just as he
reached land. As he leaped on shore, he pushed the boat away,
exclaiming to his brother Agner, “Go, where the evil genii may seize
thee!” Repairing to his father’s court, he found that father no more,
and he was immediately proclaimed king of the country. On the other
hand, Agner was among the giants or evil genii, and married to a woman
of that hated race. Great, therefore, was the contrast between the
fortunes of the two; and Odin one day, from the highest heaven,
pointed it out in triumph to his goddess-queen. Frigga declared that
Geirrod was undeserving of the good fortune; that he was a niggard who
starved his dependents and guests. This the god refused to credit; and
when she persisted in the charge, he assumed a mortal form to try the
experiment. But what man can equal a woman, either god or goddess, in
cunning? Frigga sent one of her confidential messengers to Geirrod,
telling him to be on his guard against a wise magician then in his
dominions, who had resolved to destroy him: that magician was to be
known by this token—that no dog would bark at him. The royal command
was therefore given that dogs should be set on all who approached the
palace, and whomsoever they refused to assail should be brought before
him. A man, covered with a blue peltz, was brought before him and
questioned; but the stranger would return no other answer than that he
was called Grimner. In great wrath, the king placed him between two
great fires—an infallible way of discovering a wizard—and commanded
that he should receive no food. There he remained eight days and eight
nights, suffering from the heat and from thirst, when Agner, the son
of Geirrod, a boy of ten years, took pity on him, and presented him
with a full horn, observing that his father did wrong thus to punish a
guiltless man. Here the piece opens: Odin exclaims that the fire is
hot; and prophesies that the royal youth shall, for this service, soon
hold the sceptre of the Goths. He then proceeds—somewhat oddly, only
immortal beings may be privileged to say or do what they please—to
describe in succession the twelve mansions of heaven. (To this
description we shall afterwards advert, when we endeavour to explain
the cosmogony of the Scandinavians.) He ended by declaring who he was;
and that the death of Geirrod was at hand. In great fear, the king
arose to release the divine speaker; but stumbling, the point of his
sword entered his body, and Agner was immediately proclaimed.
As many poems on the Edda will hereafter occupy our attention, we
shall only observe that the _Alvis-mâl_, or song concerning the dwarf
Alvis; the _Hyndlu-liod_, or song concerning Hyndla; and the
_Fiolsvinns-mâl_, or story about Fiolsvinr, are of the same class, and
equally conversant with mythological subjects. The second of these
also mentions the names of some Norwegian jarls who traced their
origin to a divine source. The _Hava-mâl_, or sublime discourse of
Odin, concludes this class of poems. It consists partly of moral
precepts, some of which are very good; while others are dictated by a
mind more cunning than wise; and partly of the wonderful powers
attached to certain runes. For the latter we have no taste; of the
former, half a dozen specimens may be given.
“Remain not long a guest in the house of another; for he who does so
becomes a burden to his host.”
“A secret can be kept by _one_ person only,—by him whom it concerns.
If two know it, there is danger; if three know it, it is no longer a
secret.”
“Be thou the friend of thy friend’s friend, and in no wise the friend
of thine enemy’s friend.”
“If thou hast a true friend, and keepest nothing from him, join thy
heart with his, exchange gifts with him, and visit him often. The path
untrodden is soon overgrown.”
“If thou hast a friend whom thou canst not trust, but yet wouldst
obtain a benefit from him, speak fairly to him, but keep thine own
secret: return him falsehood for falsehood.”
“Trust not to a woman’s word: her heart is moveable as the wheel at
which she spins, and deceit is cherished in her breast.”
“The child of one’s old age is the most precious.”
“Flocks and herds perish; so do friends and kindred; such will be our
own lot. But one thing there is that will never perish,—the good man’s
fame.”
3. The poems purely mythological are of a more interesting class. The
_Hymis-guida_, or song concerning Hymir, describes an entertainment
given by Ægir, the sea-god, to the deities of the Scandinavian
Olympus. Ægir, to his great dismay, has no cauldron large enough to
brew mead in for such thirsty guests; and Thor goes to borrow or steal
one from the great Hymir. This entertainment gave rise to another
poem, the _Loka-glespa_, or quarrelling of Loka with the assembled
guests. It is curious as showing the estimation in which the gods were
held by one of their own number. A more imaginative production is the
_Hamars-heimt_, or recovery of Thor’s mallet, which the guests had
stolen, and which Thrym, one of the number, had buried eight miles
below the surface of the ground. The _Rafna-galdur-Odins_, or raven
song of Odin, describes the lamentations of the gods at their
approaching annihilation. The _Skirnirs-for_, or journey of Skirnir to
the region of the giants, in search of a wife for Freyr, one of the
gods, is graphic, and strikingly illustrative of northern mythology.
The _Vegtams-guida_, or Song of the Traveller, contains the descent of
Odin to consult the charmed prophetess Vala concerning the fate of
Baldur. This piece we have already translated.[17]
That most of the preceding poems were composed at a period lost in the
depths of antiquity, and in a region less remote than Scandinavia from
the cradle of the human race, is exceedingly probable. Such are the
Voluspa, Vafthrudnis-mâl, Grimnis-mâl, Alvis-mâl, Rafna-galdur-Odins,
and Vegtams-guida. In regard to Hymis-guida, Hamars-heimt,
Skirnirs-for, Hyndlu-liod, &c., they do not bear the impress of so
high an antiquity: they are supposed to be the productions of the
northern muse. They have their interest; but that interest is much
stronger when we read the olden pieces. These have been compared by a
living writer[18] “to the organic remains, the wrecks, of a more
ancient world; or to the gigantic ruins of Egypt and Hindostan,
speaking a more perfect civilisation, the glories of which have long
since departed.” We see, however, no reason for assuming this “more
perfect civilisation:” the nation or people who knew such doctrines
might have been ignorant enough, while their priests were
comparatively learned. The oriental impress which they bear cannot be
mistaken; still less can we overlook the extreme antiquity which they
may claim. Kindred with the most ancient superstitions of Rome, of
Greece, of Persia, they must have been derived from the same common
source.
4. Of the mytho-historical poems, there are many. In them magic is so
joined with the ordinary knowledge of life, the supernatural with the
human, that we are inclined to reject even that which has a real
historical foundation. In this respect, however, they are like the
poems of all heroic ages, and not more censurable than those of Homer
or of Hindostan. A more interesting fact is, that from these lays have
sprung most of the great Teutonic fictions which adorn the
Nibelungenlied, and many even of those which we denominate the
romantic or the chivalric. Probably the incidents are perversions of
real facts, which happened in a period approaching that of Attila and
his Huns, whose exploits occupy the attention of the northern muse.
Some of them, we know, were sung at the court of Olaf Trygveson, the
Norwegian king. It would not, however, be difficult to trace others to
a higher source than the age of Attila,—to the source whence the
heroic classical lore of Greece was derived; and others again bear a
marked affinity with the legends of the Arabian Nights.
The prose or younger Edda, usually, but perhaps erroneously, ascribed
to Snorro Sturleson, has also many of these chivalric or
mytho-historical lays. Of this venerable monument of antiquity the
world could form no just notion prior to the year 1818, when that
admirable scholar professor Rask published his edition. The edition of
Resenius—the only one previously known to Europe—is an imperfect work,
derived from corrupted MSS. and the notes of the Scalds are often
confounded with the text. It consists of several parts. The _Formali_,
which is the introduction, has many legends and fables respecting the
descent of nations, especially of the Scandinavian. They are evidently
from both Asiatic and European sources. After the introduction, comes
the _Gylfa-ginning_, or deception of Gylfa. This personage was a king
of Swithiof (part of Sweden) and a famous magician,—the head of the
native magical college which the Aser were endeavouring to subvert. To
account for their superior power, the result of their superior wisdom,
he determined to assume a disguise, and proceed at once to the cradle
of the Aser in the east. Under the name of Gangler (the traveller), he
reaches the celestial city, and finds an oracle capable of resolving
all his doubts, of removing all his ignorance. To each of his
questions the reply is in full, explaining the mythology of the elder
Edda, illustrated by extracts from the Voluspa, the Hava-mâl, and the
predictions of the Scalds. This part of the work is, in its design,
and partly in its execution, so similar to the Vafthrudnis-mâl in the
elder Edda, that it must have been derived from it, or from a source
common to both. The _second_ part of the prose Edda, called
_Braga-raedar_, contains the recitation of his best pieces by the
divine Braga, at the banquet of the sea-god Ægir. The _Eptirmali_ is a
kind of epilogue written by Icelandic poets immediately prior to
Snorro, or possibly by Snorro himself. It is an attempt to explain
many of the fables in the Edda, by the circumstances of the Trojan
war. In addition to all these subjects, we have the _Skalda_, which is
a kind of _ars poetica_, for the use of poetical students.
While mentioning the prose Edda, we are naturally drawn to its reputed
compiler Snorro, the son of Sturle, who was also the compiler of the
Heimskringla, our only sure guide for northern history down to the
13th century. This extraordinary man was born in 1178, near the bay of
Hoams-fiord, on the domain of his family. He was, consequently, above
a century later than Sæmund, whose birth was between 1050 and 1060.
His descent was illustrious; it could be traced to the ancient
Ynglings and to the jarls of Moria. In his fourth year he was sent to
Oddé, which, as we have before related[19], had been the residence of
that remarkable priest; and, strange to say, he was educated under the
direction of Sæmund’s grandson, Jon Loptston. Here he remained until
his twentieth year, and was instructed in Greek no less than in Roman
literature. The MSS. collections made by Sæmund and Ari Frode, were
his delight; and to them he was indebted for the ruling bias of his
life. In 1197 he left Oddé, and by marrying the daughter of a rich
priest, greatly increased his patrimonial inheritance. In every thing
fortune smiled upon him; he became in a few years the richest man on
the island; and when he appeared at the Al-thing, he was generally
escorted by a body of some hundred horsemen. In 1202, he removed his
residence from Borg, one of his patrimonial seats, to the estate of
Reykholt, which he had also inherited. This place he fortified—a proof
that deadly feuds were common—and adorned it with works that evinced
alike his genius and his riches. In 1213, he was raised to the dignity
of logsogomadr[20], or chief judge of the island. No man could be
better qualified for duties, the nature and origin of which had
occupied so much of his time. In 1218 he visited Norway, where he was
well received by king and nobles. His fame, indeed, had travelled
before him. Among his poetical compositions were some odes in honour
of the great; and these, (for flattery has every where the same
effect) procured him many valuable presents, not only in Norway, but
in Sweden. His sojourn in West and East Gothland doubtless originated
in his desire to collect all the information which tradition, and
possibly MSS., could furnish him in regard to his ancestors, and the
Yngling princes. But his patriotism seems to have been inferior to his
genius. That he entered into a conspiracy for the complete subjection
of his country to the Norwegian court is certain. In 1220, both
enriched and honoured, he returned to Iceland; but we no longer
perceive in him the great qualities which had led to his election in
1213. Avaricious, haughty, revengeful, he made enemies on every side,
and in 1237 was compelled to seek a refuge from their fury. Again he
repaired to Norway, where he found one of his old patrons, Skule, the
jarl, plotting for the crown of the realm. That plot he favoured; he
even wrote a poem in support of that nobleman’s claims. Yet he also
flattered the king, from whom he received the title of jarl. But he
had designs deeper than either Skule or the king suspected; and in a
short time some of his intrigues were known to that monarch. He was
forbidden to sail for Iceland; and when he departed in defiance of
that prohibition, secret instructions were sent to his son-in-law,
Gissur Thorwaldson, to seize him and send him bound to Norway; or if
this should be impossible, to put him to death. The extremities to
which feuds in a barbarous age may be carried, are clearly illustrated
by the conduct of Gissur. Though so nearly connected with the
historian; though formerly the most intimate of his friends; he
performed the more atrocious part of the proposal. The great wealth of
Snorro, there can be no doubt, was one inducement to the deed of
blood; but this must have been inferior to the feeling of vengeance.
His measures required caution, for Snorro was powerful; and to be
prepared, had only to be warned. His design was penetrated by one of
Snorro’s friends, who in a Runic letter acquainted him with his
danger. But this letter the poet could not understand;—we are told
even that he could not read it; and that all to whom he showed it were
equally unable to decipher it. However this be, Thorwaldson, marching
at the head of a strong body of men belonging to a clan at deadly feud
with his victim, hastened to Reykholt, where he surprised and murdered
the noble owner, September 22., 1241.
Snorro, as we have observed, is the reputed collector of the prose
Edda, and of the Heimskringla. A collector merely he seems to have
been; but he exhibited great judgment in selecting, arranging, and
modernising the poetic compositions which he followed. For his
history, no less than his mythology, the pagan Scalds were his
authorities.
So much for matter purely introductory. From the two Eddas, assisted
by the commentaries of the best northern scholars, we proceed to lay
before the reader the most striking features of the cosmogony and
religion of the Scandinavians; and to accompany them by such
reflections as may seem necessary to show their origin and nature.
SECTION I.
THE SCANDINAVIAN UNIVERSE, ITS WORLDS, AND THEIR INHABITANTS IN GENERAL,
WITH THE PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.
CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE.—YMER.—THE GIANTS.—THE GODS.—OTHER BEINGS.—THE
NINE WORLDS, WITH THEIR POSITION AND PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.—THE
TWELVE HOUSES OF ASGARD.—SWARTALFAHEIM.—INHABITANTS OF THE NINE
WORLDS.—THE ASER.—THE VEVER, &c.
In the Voluspa, or Song of the Prophetess, the Vala, who is probably
Urda, the Norny of the past, being seated on a high throne, and
surrounded by the deities, acquaints them with the wonders of creation,
and of the destiny reserved for them all,—destruction. In the
Grimnis-mâl[21], Odin gives a similar account of the origin of all
things; and throughout the elder Edda, we have allusion to the same
doctrines. From them was derived the relation in the younger or prose
Edda, with the merit of being much clearer. According to both, there
existed in the beginning, on the site of the world, a vast abyss,
Ginnunga-gap, which contained nothing. But to the north of that abyss
there was another world, called Nifleheim, the cold and misty. It
contained nothing but a spring, Vergelmer, from which flowed eleven
great rivers into the abyss. They were called Elivagar (the cold
waters), and their streams were poisonous as they were cold. As they
flowed on, owing to the cold they became more sluggish in their course;
so that when they reached the centre of the abyss, they were converted
into ice. Still they flowed, and still the ice increased, until the
whole Ginnunga-gap was filled. Out of such materials what could be made?
It was necessary to create some other power before the visible universe
could be formed. This northern realm, Nifleheim, which contained nothing
except the fountain, which had no quality except that of coldness, which
was covered with darkness, could, of itself, produce nothing; it could
only send the sluggish poisonous waters into the centre of the abyss.
That these waters were eternal we may infer; but we cannot infer how
long the ice had accumulated when the real events of creation began. The
agent of that creation is placed in another region, or rather world,
Muspelheim, which lay far to the south of Ginnunga-gap, and which was
intolerably hot,—more hot than Nifleheim was cold. The origin of this
earth and its inhabitants, therefore, was the work of these two
agencies, heat and cold, operating on the poisonous waters which lay
between them. (Muspelheim, we suppose, with its numerous fiery
inhabitants, and their mighty chief Surtur, the dark, the
incomprehensible, the great evil principle, had no beginning; or if it
had, the Odinian theologians were unacquainted with it.) What was frozen
by the one influence was thawed by the other. It was probably some
centuries before the heat from Surtur’s fiery empire dissolved the
prodigious mass into a liquid element. From that element sprung the
giant Ymer, by a process of generation which the northern sages do not
deign to explain; and his vast bulk filled no inconsiderable portion of
the abyss, as will soon appear from the use made of his corpse. This
giant begat others. How? By a process no less odd than that which
brought him into being. While asleep, a male and a female sprung from
his left armpit; and he had the felicity too, by rubbing one foot
against another, to produce a son. Why there should be _three_ ancestors
to the Rimthurser, or frost-giants, when, in our humble notion, two
might have sufficed, is another mystery which we shall not attempt to
penetrate. How were all nourished, seeing that there was no alimentary
substance created? By the Supreme Being, the Great Alfadur, a cow with
four teats was created; and from these flowed four rivers of milk. The
cow herself was sustained by licking the salt-rocks, on which the hoar
frost still lay. But her destiny was not fulfilled by this service; she
was to call into existence a new race. When she had licked one day, the
hair appeared; when she had licked two, there was a head; when three,
there was a complete animal,—a man or giant, named Burè. This Burè, in
his turn, became the father (probably by marriage with a descendant of
Ymer) of Bur, or Bôrr, or Bore, who was more famous than any of his
predecessors. His son married a lady of the giant race, named Bestla,
and by her had three gods, Odin, Vilè, and Vè. Before these were long
born, they slew the old giant Ymer. His blood was sufficient to drown
all of the giant race, except Bergelmer and his wife, who sailed away to
the mountains, and became the progenitors of a new race of giants. The
corpse was now cast into the Ginnunga-gap; and from it heaven and earth
were created. Thus the Grimnis-mâl:—
From Ymer’s flesh
Was the earth formed;
The sea from his blood,
The hills from his bones,
Plants from his hair,
Heaven from his skull;
From his eye-brows
Formed the mild gods
Midgard for the sons of men.
But from his brain
Were the thick clouds
All created.
This heaven, made from the giant’s skull, was supported by four dwarfs,
East, West, North, South, and at one of the corners, a living pillar.
(What supports the earth, or the dwarfs themselves, we are not
informed). The globes of fire which ascended from Muspelheim, and spread
through all space, were now placed by the three gods in the firmament,
and made sun, moon, and stars, to enlighten heaven and earth.
That these notions are wild and extravagant will be asserted by most
readers; but do they not involve physical truths? Were they not invented
by the priests of old to cover their learning from the vulgar gaze? Let
us hear the interpretation of Finn Magnussen, the most learned, the most
acute, though, in too many instances, the most visionary, of northern
commentators. The giant Ymer, he observes, represents the chaotic
undigested state of the earth, produced by the combined effects of heat
and cold upon water. That water was the first existing matter, is
evident even from holy scripture. Many nations regarded it as the source
of all things. The opinions of the Greek philosopher on this subject are
well known; but we may mention the Orphic fragment preserved by
Athenagoras. The water produced mud; the mud produced a monster with
three heads,—the head of a god, of a lion, of an ox. This monster,
which, however, was a deity, laid an egg, the upper half of which formed
the heaven, the lower half the earth. From the union of heaven and
earth, the offspring were, first the three fates, and then the giants
and cyclops who rebelled, and were eventually cast into the Tartarean
gulf. The Greeks, like all other people, had seen the mud deposited by
water give birth to animals, after receiving for a time the solar heat.
The action, therefore, of fire on the slimy particles thus deposited,
was received as a generative principle; and assuredly there is nothing
more irrational in the system of Scandinavia than in that of Greece. The
Egyptian system was conformable with it. An original chaos; the
separation of the mud from the waters; the action of the sun, or of
heat, on the mud; the fermentation which followed; and the origin of
animal existence, are the great features: as a necessary result, the
sun, no less than the water, was deified. In the Scandinavian, as in the
other systems, some kinds of matter were eternal. Eternal were the mists
of Nifleheim, and the well Vergelmer; eternal perhaps the abode of
Surtur, Surtur himself, and his fiery spirits. From the beneficent
Alfadur nothing evil was to spring; he, therefore, we suppose, could not
create Muspelheim, or its inhabitants; nor could he give birth to the
giants of the frost, who are emphatically called wicked: hence their
origin from the poisonous waters of Nifleheim.
If, in respect to water and fire, the cosmogony of the Scandinavians was
kindred with that of other people, the resemblance furnished by the cow
was equally great. “We need not be surprised,” observes Magnussen, “that
men selected the ox, the most useful and widely-spread animal with which
they were acquainted, for a cosmic symbol in its various forms. The cow
was probably our first nurse; and the oldest nations, especially the
Hindoos and the Egyptians, regarded her with religious veneration, and
called her the mother of mankind. When men applied poetry to cosmogony,
they elevated a mythic cow to the place of earth’s mother, or nurse.
Such is our Audumbla. And if the cow was the mother, well may the bull
(as in India) be held the father: he propagated the race, drew the
plough, and in both cases might be said to rear or nurse mankind.” Among
the Persians, the cow was held in even greater veneration than among the
Scandinavians. The Abudad was the earth, which Jemsheed (the sun)
pierced with his dagger. The cow was the symbol of creation, the
instrument which Ormuzd employed for the production of the first human
being. A cow, too, received the soul of Zoroaster, and transmitted it in
the form of milk to the father of the prophet; but the notion was common
to most people. The Cimbri in Italy had their copper ox, on which they
swore, just as the Egyptians swore by Apis. It was the symbol of heaven,
just as the cow was that of earth; it was held to be the father, just as
the female was the mother, of all. The chariot of Hertha, or mother
earth, was, as Tacitus informs us, drawn by cows. The Io of the Greeks
was probably derived from the same widely-spread doctrine.
The cow, according to Finn Magnussen, is a purification of the
atmosphere in the Scandinavian mythos of the creation. This, however, is
not very clear; nor do we perceive more justice in the explanation given
of Burè’s origin,—that the licking of the salt-rocks betokens the
emersion of the solid earth from the deep waters. In another of his
analogies, he is whimsical—that which makes Bôrr, or Bors, to be the
Elbors, the Caucasus of the Persians. A correspondence of names is, in
most cases, purely accidental, and proves nothing. More rational,
perhaps, is our commentator, when he treats of Odin, Vilè, and Vè, which
he makes into air, light and fire. The three gods destroyed Ymer, that
is, the elements in question destroyed chaos. Whether, however, he is
equally successful in the derivation of the three words, may be
disputed; but there is much ingenuity, and some plausibility, in all.
The Greek ατμός, the Sanscrit _atma_, the Teutonic _athem_, all
signifying air or breath, are certainly cognate; and they are probably
the same with the Othem, or Odin, or Woden, of the Germans. But whether
Odin or Woden is derived from the Latin _vado_, to go through, to
pervade, is not so clear. If this etymology were established, we should
have no difficulty in conceiving Odin to be the air, the breath, the
soul of the world. Still the subject is worthy of consideration; and the
reader may adopt or reject it. He will be less inclined to admit the
derivation of Vilè, which seems far-fetched. Nor are we quite sure that
_Vè_, akin to _Vesta_, is to be taken for elemental _fire_, or
metaphorically for _life_. Yet on a subject so obscure, we are unwilling
to pronounce dogmatically.
The destruction of Ymer and his offspring, the wicked giants of the
frost, by the divine race, is evidently the same mythos as the defeat of
the Titans by Jove; of Ahriman and the evil genii, by Ormuzd and the
Amshaspands. Surtur is the Ahriman of Scandinavia. He is the author of
evil, viz., of the giants; and is destined one day to assist in the
destruction of the universe. We read of the great Alfadur,—another than
Odin who is sometimes called eternal. It is pleasing to read such
notions of a First Cause, in such an age. To this omnipotent, eternal,
and beneficent Being, who is far above all the worlds, inaccessible to
any thing created, there are more allusions than one in the Edda of
Sæmund. Thus the Hyndlu-mâl, after mentioning the destruction of Odin,
with all the gods:—
Yet there shall come
Another mightier,
Although him
I dare not name.
Farther onward
Few can see,
Than where Odin
Meets the Wolf.
Such notions may be regarded as traces of a purer religious
dispensation—of the patriarchal. As an eminent northern writer elegantly
observes[22]—“Thus sounds the voice of the northern prophetess, the
Vala, to us obscure and indistinct, through the darkness of ages. It
speaks of other times, other men and ideas; if fettered by the bonds of
superstition, it longs after eternal light, and, though imperfectly,
expresses that longing. We may also recognise some of those mighty minds
of which Pindar speaks, as wandering eternally over earth and sea. In
such sounds heaven and earth announce an Eternal Being, and at the same
time their own mortality,—truths which no paganism has expressed more
strongly than the Scandinavian. However darkly, still it does allude to
the Mighty One on high, who is above all the deities of nature,—to one
mightier than the mighty, whom it dares not name,—to that unknown God
whom the Athenians also worshipped.” We may, however, doubt whether this
notion of the One First Cause, dark as it is, was introduced by Odin
into the north. In most of the relics which the ancient pagans have left
us, we have traces of two religions, distinct from each other,—both from
Asia, but not at the same period, or from the same region. The worship
of Thor, for example, seems to be much more ancient than that of Odin;
and perhaps before either was known—before the light of patriarchal
truth was entirely departed from the north—the elementary form of
worship, the most ancient and least debasing of all superstitions,
prevailed.
The three gods, Odin, Vilè and Vè, were not the only created beings.
Besides Bergelmer and his wife, from whom sprung a new giant race, other
offspring than the three deities resulted from the union of Bôrr with
Bestla—
The maid so good and fair
Though born of giant race.
From these sprung all the good, benevolent beings,—gods, goddesses,
elves, Vanir, and spirits of air, of whom more in the proper place. All
these were created before man. So also were the Duergar, or dwarfs.
According to the prose Edda, they bred like maggots in Ymer’s dead body;
but the Voluspa tells us that they were created by the gods from the
blood and bones of that giant:
Then went the gods
To their exalted seats;
The high and holy
Then consulted
Of them which
Should form the dwarfs
From the sea-giant’s blood,
And his blue bones.
Thus Modsogner is
The chief become
Of all the dwarfs;
And after him Durin.
But the former account is preferable, because it accounts more
satisfactorily for the cruel, vindictive, yet often contemptible
character of the race,—a race with small deformed bodies, large heads,
flat noses, and still more despicable in mind. Probably, as Mr.
Magnussen conjectures, these beings, who could not bear the light of
day; who, if they accidentally saw it, were changed into rocks; whose
life was passed in the bowels of the earth, especially in the bowels of
the mountains, were intended to personify the subterraneous powers of
nature. Their names, when translated, favour the interpretation. Wind,
Blast, Gleam, Light, Fruit-giver, Iceberg, and others equally fantastic,
attest their elementary character. Of all beings they were the most
skilful, the most expert, the most industrious: they were unrivalled
smiths; they manufactured wondrous armour, and other enchanted things,
which were highly prized by the gods, who excelled them in power, but
were inferior in ingenuity.
The beings next created were mankind. “The sons of Bure,” says the prose
Edda, “went to the sea-shore, and found two trees, which they formed
into man and woman. Odin gave them breath and life; Vilè, understanding
and vigour; Vè, beauty of form, speech, hearing, sight.” But the Valuspa
says that it was Haenir who gave understanding, and Loder a fair
complexion. These, however, may be only different names for the same
beings. Askur was the name of the first man, and Embla of the woman; the
former signifying an ash tree, the latter, it is said, an elm. This is
evidently a vegetable mythos. It is not peculiar to the Goths. Hesiod
informs us that Zeus formed the third race of men from ash trees. The
ancient Medians had the same notion; the mythic Kaiamar died without
issue because without mate; but from his remains in forty years sprung a
tree with fifteen branches; and from it Ormuzd fashioned the first
progenitors of mankind.
Midgard, or the middle world, was made for the habitation of man; but
before we describe it, we must glance at the other worlds with which it
was connected. According to both the poetic and the prose Edda, there
were _nine_.
THE NINE WORLDS.
In the Valuspa, the prophetess says—
I tell of nine worlds
And of nine heavens.
The giant Vafthrudnis has the same boast; and Alvis, the dwarf, tells
Thor,
All the nine worlds
Have I passed through
And every being known.
These worlds, which were all vertically arranged, except Utgard, which
was on the same plane with Midgard, are thus specified by Magnussen:—
1. _Gimlè_, the residence of the Supreme Being, the eternal Alfadur.
Connected with it was Liosalfaheim, the abode of the benevolent light
elves (of whom an account in the proper place). This region is to be the
everlasting abode of the good after the destruction of the universe.
2. _Muspelheim_, the world of Surtur and his fiery genii, which lay far
below Liosalfaheim. This world was _perhaps_ uncreated and _perhaps_
will not be destroyed.
3. _Asgard_ (Aser-yard), or _Godheim_, the residence of the Aser, or
gods; the starry firmament, which lay far below Muspelheim.
4. _Vanaheim_, the residence of the Vanir or spirits of air: it was also
called _Vindheim_, the home of the winds. Its position was the
atmosphere below Asgard.
5. _Midgard_ (mid-yard), so called because it was the middle world,
between Gimlè above, and Nifleheim below. It was also called _Manheim_,
from its being the home of men.
6. _Utgard_ (outer-yard), or _Jotunheim_, the home of the giants, lay
beyond the vast sea which, according to the Scandinavian cosmography,
encompasses Midgard. Midgard and Utgard are horizontal with each other.
7. _Swartalfaheim_, the home of the black elves or dwarfs, the spirits
of darkness, is situated in the bowels of the earth.
8. _Helheim_, the palace of Hela, the goddess of death, lower far than
Swartalfaheim, and the abode of all, however good, who die a natural
death.
9. _Nifleheim_, the world of mist, the lowest of all the worlds. It
contains the poisonous fountain and rivers in which the bad are to be
punished.
Of these worlds six are to perish,—perhaps seven, for there is some
doubt as to Muspelheim. The virtuous are to enjoy an eternity of
happiness in Gimlè; the wicked an eternity of punishment in Nifleheim.
GIMLE AND MUSPELHEIM
Defy description. None of the Valas, none of the gods, none of the
giants or dwarfs who boasted of their having seen these nine worlds,
have left us any record of either. The former, indeed, must have been
inaccessible to all created intelligences; but Liosalfaheim was esteemed
less holy. Why Muspelheim was placed so near to Gimlè has not been
satisfactorily explained; but we may infer that Surtur and his subjects,
ministers of evil as they were, were only the instruments of the unknown
power. In one account, they are said to be placed there to forbid the
ascent of any hostile foot to the pure realms so far above them.
MIDGARD AND UTGARD.
The notion entertained of Midgard by the Scandinavians was, that it is
round; that it is entirely encompassed by a vast sea; and that at the
extremity of this sea begins Utgard, the abode of the giant race
descended from Bergelmer and his wife. No better description of Utgard
can be given than that which has been already given in the mysterious
voyages of Gorm and Thorkill.[23] We will, however, have frequent
occasion to revert to the same subject.
The notion in question was not different from that of the Greeks. In the
time of Homer, the earth was regarded as horizontal and circular, with
the Mediterranean in its centre; which by one or more channels
communicated with the ocean-stream that flowed round the land. On the
other side of that ocean-stream was the abode of the Cimmerians and also
of the damned,—a region dark and dismal as that to which the two Danish
navigators, Gorm and Thorkill, repaired. The heaven too was thought to
be solid, supported by four great pillars, which answer to the four
dwarfs of the Hindoos and Scandinavians. The latter had a bridge from
earth to heaven,—the _bifrost_, or rainbow, which though slender, was
strong as adamant; and in this they resembled the Magians, whose sacred
books speak of a similar bridge, most dangerous to pass, between the
earth and the mount of the good genii. The Magians, too, recognised a
dark country to the north, inhabited by evil genii, whose assaults are
continually dreaded by the deities of the stony firmament. But reverting
to the Greeks, the description which Ælian gives of the earth, is still
more kindred with that of the northern pagans. “Europe, Asia, and
Lybia,” says he, “are only islands, being surrounded by a great sea; but
encircling the world is a continent of vast magnitude. On it are to be
found huge animals: the men are double the size of us; and they live
twice as long. Some are martial, and always at war; others so
inoffensive and pious, as to be honoured sometimes by the conversation
of the gods. They have gold and silver in abundance; and they value gold
less than we do iron. A thousand myriads of them once crossed the ocean,
and came to the country of the Hyperboreans. Near the extremity of that
country there is a place called Avostos, resembling a large gulf or bay,
where it is neither perfectly light, nor perfectly dark, but where a
strong lurid sky hangs down to the earth.” The Arabians had the same
notion of the mysterious country to the north; and of the giant race
which inhabited it,—a race which is one day to destroy the world.
ASGARD.
Asgard, the residence of the gods, deserves a more detailed description.
This vast city, as it is called by the Edda, was built by Odin and his
two brothers immediately after the death of Ymer. It was well fortified,
to defend it against the Vanir below, and the fiery sons of Muspelheim
above. In it were twelve palaces, for the twelve chief gods:—
1. Ydale, the abode of Uller
2. Alfheim, the abode Freyr
of
3. Valaskialf, the Vale (or
abode of Vile)
4. Soequabeck, the Saga
abode of
5. Gladsheim, the Odin
abode of
6. Thrymheim, the Skada
abode of
7. Breidablik, the Baldur
abode of
8. Himmelbierg, the Heimdal
abode of
9. Folkvangur, the Freya
abode of
10. Glitner, the abode Forsete
of
11. Noatun, the abode Niord
of
12. Landvide, the Vidar.
abode of
With Thrudheim, the house of Thor.
At the first glance every reader must perceive that by these twelve
palaces are meant the twelve signs of the zodiac; and by Thrudheim the
region of the sun. It could scarcely be expected, indeed, that the
Scandinavians should be ignorant of a system which prevailed over the
whole earth. Like the Egyptians and Assyrians, and Persians and Hindoos,
they divided their year into twelve parts or months, and placed over
each a god.
The best description of these abodes is in the Edda, in the poem of
Grimnis-mâl. It is Odin himself, while between the two fires[24], that
describes them to Geirrod and Agner. The mere enumeration of these
palaces, and of the divine inhabitants, would be useless unaccompanied
by astronomical explanations. To the critical antiquaries of the north,
especially to Finn Magnussen, must be conceded the honour of having
first penetrated the hidden mysteries of their mythology. From him
chiefly we condense the following account.
THRUDHEIM.
Thrudheim, or Thrudvangur, the residence of Thor, the god of thunder, is
the atmosphere between Asgard and the earth. The palace in which the god
dwelt was called _Bilskirner_, which Ohlenschlager, the modern Danish
poet, thus justly describes:—
In wide Thrudvangur’s land
(So ancient Scalds indite),
A palace vast doth stand,
Unmatched in breadth and height.
Its halls with burnish’d gold
Are richly fretted o’er;
Their number rightly told,
Five hundred and two score.
Blue lakes and verdant fields
Smiling around are spread;
Studded with copper shields,
The palace glares in red.
From distant earth its walls
Some radiant meteor seem:
Far off the warrior halls
In purple splendour gleam.[25]
1. YDALE.
Uller’s month commenced the Scandinavian year with the entrance of the
sun into Sagittarius, November 22., and ended December 21. Uller
excelled as an _archer_, and he was unrivalled in the art of skating on
the ice and snow: hence he was the god of hunting. He was the son of the
goddess Sif, whose second husband was Thor; but the name of his father,
the first husband, does not appear. Ydale, his residence, signifies the
dewy valley.
2. ALFHEIM.
Freyr month commenced December 21., when the sun entered Capricorn. He
was the son of Niord, one of the Vanir, and produced at the same birth
with his sister Freya. He was the god of the sun,—doubtless because
during this month the days began to lengthen, that is, the sun to
return. In the same manner the Egyptians honoured their heroes; and from
them, perhaps, the Romans styled the winter solstice “natalitia invicti
solis.” Alfheim, the abode of the light elves, was given to him for a
residence by the gods, when he cut his first tooth. “He is to be
invoked,” says the Edda, “for peace and a good season: he is the
dispenser of blessings to mankind.”
3. VALASKIALF.
Liosberi, the light-bringer, which extended from January 21. to February
19., began when the sun entered Valaskialf, the residence of Valè, and
was sacred to that god. He was a son of Odin by Rinda (frost), a
personification of the frozen barren earth. He presided over mid-winter.
As the sun was now gaining power, his festival was celebrated by
illumination in the houses. In imitation of that pagan ceremony, the
Gothic christians had their Candlemas and the feast of torches. Valè too
was an archer, probably from the rays of the sun, which now shot
downwards with greater force. Valaskialf was said to be white, and
covered with silver,—an allusion to the snowy character of the month.
Valè (also called Bo[26]) slew Hoder the blind god, who had killed
Baldur. This mythos signifies that the day is beginning to triumph over
the night,—for Hoder is the symbol of darkness. Valentine’s day fell
within the dominion of Valè,—when half the month was run. Was it derived
from this pagan god?
4. SOEQUABECK.
The fourth month, sacred to Saga, commenced February 19. and ended March
19. Soequabeck signifies the deep brook; in allusion, no doubt, to the
abundant rains which fall, and to the snows which are thawed, at this
period, which, in some places, indeed, to this day retains the name of
Fillbrook. Mythologically, Odin and Saga are said to drink deeply this
month. Saga, the goddess of tradition and history, is here put for Urda,
the norny of the past. The name, however, of the month, or house, is
much more explicit than that of the goddess; for what has the deep brook
in common with history? The key to the difficulty may, we think, be
found in the fact, that at this period was held the great assembly of
Upsal, when all the freemen who were able to attend hastened to the
temple, and heard the pontiffs relate the past exploits of the gods;
then at the Al-thing, which was held immediately after the sacrifices,
listened to the explanation of the old laws, and to the promulgation of
new ones, by the judges. Upsal was the place of meeting for the Swedes:
the Danes and Norwegians had a different place, but at the same period
of the year. On these occasions, the people took care that the name of
the month, Soequabeck, should be appropriate; for, in imitation of Odin
and Saga, they made the cup pass merrily round.
5. GLADSHEIM.
Gladsheim, the joyful house, the month sacred to Odin, carries its own
signification with it. From the 20th of March to that of April, was
indeed a joyful season.
6. THRYMHEIM.
The next month, when the sun was in Thrymheim (April 21. to May 20.),
was called Harpa or Harpen, alluding probably to the music of the birds
at this season. This sixth house, Thrymheim, had been the residence of
the giant Thiasse, but is now of his daughter, Skada. On his death, by
the hands of Thor, she was given to Niord, and thus became a goddess.
This mythos may be easily explained. The ancient summer began with this
month. Thiasse, the genius of winter, is slain by Thor, the thunder
god,—for in the mountainous regions of the north the sound begins again
to be heard. Skada represents the clear, penetrating wind of spring.
7. BREIDABLIK.
The ninth solar house (May 21. to June 23.), Breidablik,—the
wide-shining, was named Baldur from the god who inhabited it. An
unclouded sun, warm breezes, and sudden fertility, caused the god to be
esteemed the most beautiful of all the deities; to be denominated the
fair, the bright, the gentle, the good. The mythos of his death by the
hands of Hoder[27], may be explained by the gradual yielding of the sun
to the encroachments of night; for Hoder is represented as blind, and is
employed as the symbol of darkness. The nights are beginning to
lengthen, the sun to leave the northern hemisphere: Hoder, or darkness,
is instigated by Loke, the personification of evil, to encroach on the
light. In all the ancient systems, especially in the Magian, which has
so many points of affinity with the Scandinavian, night is the
characteristic of the evil, just as light is of the good principle; and
the former is always at war with the latter. The tears of all nature for
the fate of Baldur more strongly illustrate the truth of the physical
interpretation. Even the mistletoe, the instrument of Baldur’s death,
was not chosen without a meaning; it flourishes when the tree decays; it
retains its verdure throughout the winter: hence it was the symbol of
immortality, while the physical god was created mortal. When heroes or
monarchs died, their bodies were burnt: the funeral fire was therefore a
rite necessary to the honour of the dead; and all who loved him or were
dependent on him, were present on this last solemn occasion. In the
mythos, Odin and all the gods were present: their worshippers,
corroborating the physical interpretation, honoured Baldur on mid-summer
eve by lighting fires on the high mountain tops. When the Northmen, and
we may add, Scotland and Ireland, received the Christian faith, they
still continued the custom; but now they paid the honour, not to Baldur,
but to St. John, whose festival happened at the same period.
8. HIMMELBIERG.
The eighth solar house, _Himmelbierg_, or the heavenly mountain, the
abode of Heimdal, was so called because the sun was now at its height.
Himmelbierg, being the highest of all the palaces, was well adapted for
watching; hence Heimdal was the watchman of the gods; and from his
elevated situation he looked out upon the whole universe. His golden
teeth, his golden-maned horse, his appellation “the whitest and
brightest of the Aser,” are but so many expressions for the unusual
splendour of the sun at this season (June 23. to July 23). Another of
his epithets, the _declining_, alluding to the declination of the sun in
the heavens, is equally explanatory of the mythos. Heimdall, says the
Edda, needs less sleep than a bird; an allusion to the extreme shortness
of the nights in northern countries at the summer solstice. He can see
as well, it adds, by night as by day,—meaning that, at this season,
there is no such thing as darkness, properly so called. His hearing,
too, is equally acute: not even the growth of the grass, or of wool on
the sheep’s back, escaped him. This may denote the silence of all nature
during the great heat, and especially during the night.
9. FOLKVANGUR.
The sun careered through Folkvangur, from July 23. to August 23. The
word means a meeting of people in the field, alluding most evidently to
the harvest labours during this season. Hence, Freya was considered the
goddess of fertility, and, figuratively, of love. An extension of the
same figure rendered her the goddess of the night,—of the moon,—of the
planet Venus.
10. GLITNER.
Glitner, the tenth house (August 23. to September 23.), was ruled by the
god Forsete, which means the _fore-sitter_, the president. Every year
this deity held a _Thing_ at the will of Urda, the norny of the past;
and there he decided all controversies so justly that every party was
satisfied. Forsete, therefore, was the god of justice. On earth, too, in
imitation of the mythical proceedings above, a great judicial assembly,
or Al-thing, was held at this season. During its continuance, and indeed
during the whole time of harvest, all feuds were suspended; hence the
satisfaction of all with his authority.
11. NOATUN.
Noatun was the abode of Niord, and the eleventh great solar house
(September 23. to October 23). Niord (of whom more hereafter) was a
prince of the Vanir, but was admitted among the gods. He was lord of the
winds, and consequently of the sea, which is governed by them. Noatun,
his residence, was said to lie near the sea-shore, but higher in the
clouds. He was the beneficent deity of the sea, while Ægir and Ram were
the terrible deities of the same element. The meaning is, that though in
this month the winds were high, they were not destructive to ships.
12. LANDVIDE.
Landvide, the twelfth solar house, means empty or barren land,—a term
descriptive enough of the earth at this season. As this is the last of
the months so Vidar, the presiding deity, is to outlive the rest of the
gods, and to revenge the death of his father Odin on the wolf Fenris.
Such were the divine palaces of Asgard. But that great world had other
parts, which require a moment’s notice. Three of them belonged to
Odin:—Gladsheim was the great palace or hall where he presided over the
twelve diar, or judges, who administered the affairs of Asgard.
Valaskialf, the palace of his son Valè, was also his own. The highest
part of this dwelling was called Lidskialf, where he had a throne, and
which was so elevated that he could see all the dwellers upon earth. But
more celebrated than these, or all his other abodes, was _Valhalla_.
Easily can they
Who come to Odin
Perceive and know Valhall.
The roof is decked with spears,
The walls covered with shields,
The benches with helmets.
This was the great hall in which Odin entertained the Einheriar, or
souls of the warriors slain in battle. Like the palace of Thor, it had
540 gates. Daintily were they fed on the boar Schrimner, which though
killed and eaten every day, was always alive again in the evening.
Andrimner, the best cook in the world, prepared the meal. As for the
mead, without which in profusion no northern feast would have been
esteemed, abundance of it was furnished by the goat Heidrun. Never had
guests a more liberal host. He treated them thus, that when the dreaded
twilight of the gods arrived, they might assist him in repelling the
giants and the spirits of fire. Nor would he allow them to forget their
martial exercises. Early each morning they are awakened by the crowing
of the cock with the golden comb,—that cock which is doomed also to warn
the gods when the last enemy approaches. Hastily assuming their vizors,
800 of them issued at each of the 540 gates, so that the god had nearly
half a million of boon companions. The whole of the time from sunrise to
the hour of dinner was passed in fighting; and with such hearty good
will, that multitudes were prostrated; but when the great hour arrived,
all rose, perfectly well, to contend over the cups as strenuously as
they had done in the field. They were served by the Valkyrs, viz., the
choosers of the slain,—goddesses who were the favourite messengers of
Odin, and the only females admitted into Valhalla.
The way in which a hero, who died in battle, or marked his bosom with
runes to Odin, left Midgard for Valhalla, is poetically described. Thus
shortly after his burial, king Hako, in his silent mound, first changed
his posture from the supine to the sitting. He grasped his sword in his
right hand; his shield with his left; while the celestial gold-hoofed
courser, which had been sent to convey him, pawed the ground outside
with manifest impatience. The mound opens; the monarch rises, mounts the
noble horse, gallops up Vifrost, and passes through Gladsheim into
Valhalla, where the gods came forward to meet him; while Braga, the
deity of song, sounds the celestial harp with his praises.
We have seen the pursuits of the Einheriar by day,—fighting and
drinking. Did they sleep? So we suppose. Sometimes, however, they
mounted their horses, galloped down Vifrost, and entered their
sepulchral mounds. Sometimes, too, they were present in battle; at other
times they communed with their mortal friends.
The blood-thirsty character of the Northmen, which could not enjoy peace
without cutting one another to pieces, has been justly exposed by
historians. Still, however valour might be esteemed, we would not assert
that it was the only virtue in the mind of the Scandinavians, or that
heaven was closed to every other. There is, indeed, room to infer that
this tenet was confined merely to a sect,—a caste,—the dominant one,—the
immediate followers of Odin.
As we shall have frequently to speak of these celestial residences in
the course of this chapter, we shall only add that Asgard had another
palace called Vingolf, where the Asyniar, or goddesses, met, just as the
gods met in Valhalla.
SWARTALFAHEIM
Was the abode of the Black Elves, (to distinguish them from the Light or
shining Elves, who dwelt in Loisalsfaheim,) and also of the Dwarfs.
But there were elves who dwelt in the air, in water, amongst the trees.
These could not be called underground people; and it is almost doubtful
whether they can be classed among the Black Elves. As the term, however,
has been adopted for the purpose we have indicated, viz., to distinguish
the elves of earth from those of the highest heaven,—both those who
dwell _on_, and those who dwell _below_, the earth’s surface—the well
and the ill disposed—may here be considered.
“Our heathen forefathers,” says Thorlacius[28], “believed, like the
Pythagoreans—and the farther back in antiquity the more firmly—that the
whole world was filled with spirits of various kinds, to whom they
ascribed in general the same nature and properties as the Greeks did to
their Dæmons. These were divided into the celestial and the terrestrial,
from their places of abode. The former were, according to the ideas of
those times, of a good and elevated nature, and of a friendly
disposition towards men, whence they also received the name of White or
Light Alfs, or spirits. The latter, on the contrary, who were classified
after their abodes in the air, sea, and earth, were not regarded in so
favourable a light. It was believed that they, particularly the _land
ones_, the _δαίμονες ἐπιχθόνιοι_ of the Greeks, constantly and on all
occasions sought to torment or injure mankind, and that they had their
dwelling partly on the earth in great and thick woods, whence came the
name Skovtrolde[29] (Wood-Trolds); or in other desert and lonely places,
partly in and under the ground, or in rocks and hills: these last were
called Bjerg-Trolde (Hill Trolds); to the first, on account of their
different nature, was given the name of Dverge (Dwarfs), and Alve,
whence the word Ellefolk, which is still in the Danish language. These
Dæmons, particularly the underground ones, were called Svartalfar, that
is, Black Spirits, and inasmuch as they did mischief, Trolls.”
The prose Edda draws a broad distinction between the light and the black
elves,—the former being whiter than the sun; the latter darker than
pitch.
“Of the origin of the word Alf,” says Mr. Keightley, “nothing
satisfactory is to be found. Some think it is akin to the Latin _albus_,
white; others to _alpes_, Alps mountains. There is supposed to be some
mysterious connection between it and the word Elf or Elv, signifying
water in the northern languages; an analogy which has been thought to
correspond with that between the Latin Nympha and Lympha. Both relations
are perhaps rather fanciful than just. Of the derivation of Alf, as just
observed, we know nothing certain[30]; and the original meaning of
Nympha would appear to be, a new-married woman[31], and thence a
marriageable young woman; and it was applied to the supposed inhabitants
of the mountains, seas, and streams, on the same principle that the
northern nations gave them the appellation of men and women, that is,
from their imagined resemblance to the human form.
“Whatever its origin, the word Alf has continued till the present day in
all the Teutonic languages. The Danes and Swedes have their Ellen or
Elven Dan, and Elfvor Swed (Elvus), and the words Elf-dans and
Elf-blæst, together with Olof and other proper names, are derived from
it. The Germans call the nightmare _Alp_; and in their old poems we meet
_Elben_ and _Elbinnen_, male and female elves, and _Elbisch_ frequently
occurs in them in the bad sense of the “Elvish” of Chaucer and our old
romancers, and a number of proper names, such as Alprecht, Alpine,
Alpwin, &c., were formed from it; undoubtedly before it got its present
ill sense. In the Anglo-Saxon Ælf, with its feminine and plural,
frequently occurs. The Orcades, Naiades, and Hamodryades of the Greeks
and Romans are rendered in an Anglo-Saxon Glossary by munt-ælfenne,
fæ-ælfenne, and feld-ælfenne. Ælf is a component part of the proper
names Ælfred and Ælfric; and the author of the poem of ‘Judith’ says
that his heroine was Ælf-scīene (Elf-sheen), bright as an Elf. But of
the character and acts of the Elfs no traditions have been preserved in
Anglo-Saxon literature. In the English language, Elf, Elves, and their
derivatives, are to be found in every period, from its first formation
down to this present time.”[32]
The judicious and indefatigable writer whom we have followed in the
preceding extract, and who has treated the subject with a minuteness and
an accuracy unequalled in this country, continues:—
“The Alfar still live in the memory and traditions of the peasantry of
Scandinavia. They also, to a certain extent, retain their distinction
into white and black. The former, or the good elves, dwell in the air,
dance on the grass, or sit in the leaves of trees; the latter, or evil
elves, are regarded as an underground people, who frequently inflict
sickness or injury on mankind; for which there is a particular kind of
doctors, called Kloka, to be met in all parts of the country.
“The elves are believed to have their kings, to celebrate their weddings
and banquets, just the same as the dwellers above ground. There is an
interesting intermediate class of them in popular tradition, called the
Hill-people (Högfolk), who are believed to dwell in caves and small
hills: when they show themselves they have a handsome human form. The
common people seem to connect with them a deep feeling of melancholy, as
if bewailing a half-quenched hope of redemption.
“There are only a few old persons who now can tell any thing more about
them than of the sweet singing that may occasionally on summer nights be
heard out of their hills, when one stands still and listens, or, as it
is expressed in the ballads, _lays his ear to the Elve-hill_ (lägger
sitt öra till Elfvehögg): but no one must be so cruel as, by the
slightest word, to destroy their hopes of salvation, for then the
sprightly music will be turned into weeping and lamentation.
“The Norwegians called the Elves, Huldrafolk, and their music,
Huldraslaat: it is in the minor key, and of a dull and mournful sound.
The mountaineers sometimes play it, and pretend they have learned it by
listening to the underground people among the hills and rocks. There is
also a tune called the Elf-king’s tune, which several of the good
fiddlers know right well, but never venture to play; for as soon as it
begins, both old and young, and even inanimate objects, are impelled to
dance, and the player cannot stop unless he can play the air backwards,
or that some one comes behind him and cuts the strings of his fiddle.
“The little underground Elves, who are believed to dwell under the
houses of mankind, are described as sportive and mischievous, and as
imitating all the actions of men. They are said to love cleanliness
about the house and place, and to reward such servants as are neat and
cleanly.
“The Elves are extremely fond of dancing in the meadows, where they form
those circles of a livelier green which from them are called Elfdans
(Elfdance): when the country people see in the morning stripes along the
dewy grass in the woods and meadows, they say the Elves have been
dancing there. If any one should at midnight get within their circle,
they become visible to him, and they may then illude him. It is not
every one that can see the Elves; and one person may see them dancing,
while another perceives nothing. Sunday children, as they are called,
_i.e._, those born on Sunday, are remarkable for possessing this
property of seeing Elves and similar beings. The Elves, however, have
the power to bestow this gift on whomsoever they please. They also used
to speak of Elf-books, which they gave to those whom they loved, and
which enabled them to foretell future events.
“The Elves often sit in little stones that are of a circular form, and
are called Elf-mills (Elf-quärnor); the sound of their voice is said to
be sweet and soft, like the air.
“The Danish peasantry give the following account of their Ellefolk or
Elve-people:
“The Elle-people live in the Elle-moors. The appearance of the man is
that of an old man, with a low-crowned hat on his head: the Elle-woman
is young, and of a fair and attractive countenance, but behind she is
hollow like a dough-trough. Young men should be especially on their
guard against her, for it is very difficult to resist her; and she has,
moreover, a stringed instrument, which, when she plays on it, quite
ravishes their hearts. The man may be often seen near the Elle-moors,
bathing himself in the sunbeams; but if any one comes too near him, he
opens his mouth wide and breathes upon them, and his breath produces
sickness and pestilence. But the women are most frequently to be seen by
moonshine; then they dance their rounds in the high grass so lightly and
so gracefully, that they seldom meet a denial when they offer their hand
to a rash young man. It is also necessary to watch cattle, that they may
not graze in any place where the Elle-people have been; for if any
animal come to a place where the Elle-people have spit, or done what is
worse, it is attacked by some grievous disease, which can only be cured
by giving it to eat a handful of St. John’s wort, which had been pulled
at twelve o’clock on St. John’s night. It might also happen that they
might sustain some injury by mixing with the Elle-people’s cattle, which
are very large, and of a blue colour, and which may sometimes be seen in
the fields licking up the dew on which they live. But the farmer has an
easy remedy against this evil; for he has only to go to the Elle-hill
when he is turning out his cattle, and to say, ‘Thou little Trold! may I
graze my cows on thy hill?’ And if he is not prohibited, he may set his
mind at rest.”[33]
Of the Scandinavian _Dwarfs_ much less is known by the general reader.
“These diminutive beings, dwelling in rocks and hills, and distinguished
for their skill in metallurgy, seem to be peculiar to the Gothic
mythology. Perhaps the most probable account of them is, that they are
personifications of the subterraneous powers of nature; for it may be
again observed, that all the parts of every ancient mythology are but
personified powers, attributes, and moral qualities. The Edda thus
describes their origin:—
“‘Then the gods sat on their seats, and held a council, and called to
mind how the Duergar had become animated in the clay below in the earth,
like maggots in flesh. The Duergar had been first created, and had taken
life in Ymer’s flesh, and were maggots in it, and by the will of the
gods they became partakers of human knowledge, and had the likeness of
men, and yet they abode in the ground and in stones. Modsogner was the
first of them, and then Dyrin.’
“The Duergar are described as being of low stature, with short legs and
long arms, reaching almost down to the ground when they stand erect.
They are skilful and expert workmen in gold, silver, iron, and other
metals. They form many wonderful and extraordinary things for the Æser,
and for mortal heroes, and the arms and armour that come from their
forges are not to be paralleled. Yet the gift must be spontaneously
bestowed, for misfortune attends those extorted from them by
violence.”[34]
Two narratives of undoubted antiquity will illustrate the cunning of
these subterraneous workmen. They are, however, somewhat out of place,
since they would better suit the following section.
The first is from the Edda:—
“Loke, the son of Laufeiar, had out of mischief cut off all the hair of
Sif. When Thor found this out, he seized Loke, and would have broken
every bone in his body, only that he swore to get the Suartalfar to make
for Sif hair of gold, which would grow like any other hair.
“Loke then went to the Dwarfs that are called the sons of Ivalldr. They
first made the hair, which as soon as it was put on the head grew like
natural hair; then the ship Skidbladnor[35], which always had the wind
with it, wherever it would sail; and, thirdly, the spear Gugner, which
always hit in battle.
“Then Loke laid his head against the Dwarf Brock, that his brother Eitri
could not forge three such valuable things as these were. They went to
the forge; Eitri set the swine-skin (bellows) to the fire, and bid his
brother Brock to blow, and not to quit the fire till he should have
taken out the things he had put into it.
“And when he was gone out of the forge, and that Brock was blowing,
there came a fly and settled upon his hand, and bit him; but he blew
without stopping till the smith took the work out of the fire; and it
was a boar, and its bristles were of gold.
“He then put gold into the fire, and bid him not to stop blowing till he
came back. He went away, and then the fly came and settled on his neck,
and bit him more severely than before; but he blew on till the smith
came back and took out of the fire the gold ring which is called
Drupner.
“Then he put iron into the fire, and bid him blow, and said that if he
stopped blowing all the work would be lost. The fly now settled between
his eyes, and bit so hard that the blood ran into his eyes, so that he
could not see; so when the bellows were down he caught at the fly in all
haste, and tore off its wings; but then came the smith, and said that
all that was in the fire had nearly been spoiled. He then took out of
the fire the hammer Miölner, and gave all the things to his brother
Brock, and bade him go with them to Asgard and settle the wager.
“Loke also produced his jewels, and they took Odin, Thor, and Freyr, for
judges. Then Loke gave to Odin the spear Gugner, and to Thor the hair
that Sif was to have, and to Freyr Skidbladnor, and told their virtues
as they have been already related. Brock took out his jewels, and gave
to Odin the ring, and said that every ninth night there would drop from
it eight other rings as valuable as itself. To Freyr he gave the boar,
and said that he would run through air and water, by night and by day,
better than any horse, and that never was there night so dark that the
way by which he went would not be light from his hide. He gave the
hammer to Thor, and said that it would never fail to hit a Troll, and
that at whatever he threw it, it would never miss it; and that he could
never fling it so far that it would not of itself return to his hand;
and when he chose, it would become so small that he might put it into
his pocket. But the fault of the hammer was, that its handle was too
short.
“Their judgment was, that the hammer was the best, and that the Dwarf
had won the wager. Then Loke prayed hard not to lose his head; but the
Dwarf said that could not be. ‘Catch me, then,’ said Loke; and when he
went to catch him, he was far away; for Loke had shoes with which he
could run through air and water. Then the Dwarf prayed Thor to catch
him, and Thor did so. The Dwarf now went to cut off his head; but Loke
said he was to have the head only, and not the neck. Then the Dwarf took
a knife and a thong, and went to sew up his mouth; but the knife was
bad, so the Dwarf wished that his brother’s awl were there; and as soon
as he wished it, it was there, and he sewed his lips together.”[36]
The physical interpretation of this mythos is entitled to some
attention. Sif is a personification of the earth, “the wife of Thor, the
heaven or atmosphere: her hair is the trees, bushes, and plants, that
adorn the surface of the earth. Loke is the fire-god, that delights in
mischief, _bene servit, male imperat_. When by immoderate heat he has
burned off the hair of Sif, her husband compels him so by temperate heat
to warm the moisture of the earth, that its former products may spring
up more beautiful than ever. The boar is given to Freyr, to whom and his
sister Freya, as the gods of animal and vegetable fecundity, the
northern people offered that animal, as the Italian people did to the
earth. Loke’s bringing the gifts from the underground people, seems to
indicate a belief that metals were prepared by subterranean fire; and
perhaps the forging of Thor’s hammer, the mythic emblem of thunder, by a
terrestrial demon, on a subterranean anvil, may suggest that the natural
cause of thunder is to be sought in the earth.”
The next illustration is from the Heimskringla of Snorro:—
THORSTON AND THE DWARF.
“When spring came, Thorston made ready his ship, and put twenty-four men
on board of her. When they came to Vinland, they ran her into a harbour,
and every day he went on shore to amuse himself.
“He came one day to an open part of the wood, where he saw a great rock,
and out a little piece from it a Dwarf, who was horridly ugly, and was
looking up over his head, with his mouth wide open; and it appeared to
Thorston that it ran from ear to ear, and that the lower jaw came down
to his knees. Thorston asked him why he was acting so foolishly. ‘Do not
be surprised, my good lad,’ replied the Dwarf; ‘do you not see that
great dragon that is flying up there? He has taken off my son, and I
believe that it is Odin himself that has sent the monster to do it. But
I shall burst and die if I lose my son.’ Then Thorston shot at the
dragon, and hit him under one of the wings, so that he fell dead to the
earth; but Thorston caught the Dwarf’s child in the air, and brought him
to his father.
“The Dwarf was exceeding glad, and was more rejoiced than any one could
tell; and he said, ‘A great benefit have I to reward you for, who are
the deliverer of my son; and now choose your recompense in gold and
silver.’ ‘Cure your son,’ said Thorston, ‘but I am not used to take
rewards for my services.’ ‘It were not becoming,’ said the Dwarf, ‘if I
did not reward you; and let not my shirt of sheep’s-wool, which I will
give you, appear a contemptible gift, for you will never be tired when
swimming, or get a wound, if you wear it next your skin.’
“Thorston took the shirt and put it on, and it fitted him well, though
it had appeared too short for the Dwarf. The Dwarf now took a gold ring
out of his purse, and gave it to Thorston, and bid him to take good care
of it, telling him that he never should want for money while he kept
that ring. He next took a black stone, and gave it to Thorston, and
said, ‘If you hide this stone in the palm of your hand, no one will see
you. I have not many more things to offer you, or that would be of any
value to you; I will, however, give you a fire-stone for your
amusement.’
“He then took the stone out of his purse, and with it a steel point. The
stone was triangular, white on one side, and red on the other, and a
yellow border ran round it. The Dwarf then said, ‘If you prick the stone
with the point in the white side, there will come on such a hail-storm
that no one will be able to look at it; but if you want to stop this
shower, you have only to prick on the yellow part, and there will come
so much sunshine that the whole will melt away. But if you should like
to prick the red side, then there will come out of it such fire, with
sparks and crackling, that no one will be able to look at it. You may
also get whatever you will by means of this point and stone, and they
will come of themselves back to your hand when you call them. I can now
give you no more such gifts.’
“Thorston then thanked the Dwarf for his presents, and returned to his
men, and it was better for him to have made this voyage than to have
stayed at home.”
HELHEIM AND NIFLEHEIM.
The palace of Hela has been already described, on the occasion of
Hermod’s visit to his brother Balder.[37]
Of Nifleheim no more need be added to what has been already said. None
of the mythological beings whom Scandinavia recognised were ambitious of
exploring it.
Such were the worlds of the pagan Northmen. But before we dismiss this
part of our subject, we must advert for a moment to one of more
philosophical import,—
THE YGGDRASIL.
As this is to us at least a mysterious subject (we do not pretend to the
faculty of “looking through a millstone”), we shall present it to the
reader in the words of Magnussen, and an able critic of our own country.
“The principal and most holy place of the gods is at the ash Yggdrasil.
This ash is the largest and best of all trees. Its branches spread over
the whole world, and reach up over the heaven. The tree has two roots,
which extend widely; the one to the Aser, the other to the Frost-giants,
where before was Ginnunga-gap; the third stretches over Nifleheim, and
by it is Hvergelmer (the abyss), where (the Snake-king) Nidhug gnaws the
root beneath.
“By the other root, which extends to the Frost-giants, is Mimer’s well,
wherein Wisdom and Understanding lie concealed. Mimer, the owner of the
well, is full of wisdom; for every morning he drinks from the well out
of the Giallar horn. Once came All-Father (Odin) thither, and sought a
drink from the well, but attained not his wish, till he gave his eye as
a pledge. As it is said, in the Völuspá:
“‘All know I, Odin,
Where thou hiddest thine eye;
In the clear
Well of Mimer.
Mimer mead
Each morning drinks
From All-Father’s pledge.’
“By the third root of the ash, which extends to heaven, is the
Urdar-fount. By the fount stands a fair dwelling, out of which go the
three maids, Urda, Verande, and Skuld. These maids appoint the lifetime
of all men, and are called Nornir. Of them, saith the Vala:
“‘Thence come maids
Much knowing,—
Three,—from the lake (or hall)
Beneath the tree,’ &c.
“The Nornir, who dwell by the Urdar-fount, take each day water from the
well, and with it and the mud that is about the well, sprinkle the
ash-tree, that its branches may not rot or wither. This water is so
holy, that every thing that comes into the well becomes as white as the
membrane within an egg-shell. So it is said in the Völuspá,
“‘An ash know I standing,
Yggdrasil it hight,
A lofty tree besprinkled
With white water;
Thence cometh dew
Which in the dales falleth;
Ever green it standeth
Over Urda’s well.’
“The dew which comes from it is called Honey-dew, and is the food of the
bees. Two birds are fed in the Urdar-fount: they are called swans, and
from them is descended this species of birds.
“In the branches of the ash Yggdrasil sitteth an eagle, who knows many
things; between his eyes sitteth a hawk, called Vederlöfner
(Storm-damper). A squirrel, named Ratatösk, runs up and down in the
tree, and seeks to set strife between the eagle and the Snake-king
Nidhug. Four harts run about in the branches of the tree, and bite the
buds. In Hvergelmer, by the root of the tree, are so many snakes, that
no tongue can tell it. So, in Grimnis-mâl,
“Ratatösk hight the squirrel,
Who shall run
Through the Ash Yggdrasil:
The eagle’s words
He from above shall bear,
And tell to Nidhug below.
There are also four harts,
Who the branches’ buds
Wry-necked gnaw,
Dain and Dvalin,
Dunuir and Durathror.
More snakes lie
Beneath the ash Yggdrasil
Than any one can think.
————
The Ash Yggdrasil
Endureth toil
More than men know.
The hart gnaws it above:
In the side it rotteth;
Nidhug wastes it below.”
“The mythos of Yggdrasil is contained in the preceding passages; and
northern mythologists in general, and Magnussen in particular, have been
no where more fortunate than in their explanation of it. Yggdrasil, they
say, represents the universe (rather the world); its three roots lie in
the three portions into which, according to the system of the devisers
of Yggdrasil, the universe is divided. The central root is in Niflheim,
the dark and dismal abyss beneath the earth, and is watered by
Hvergelmer (the Ancient Cauldron), and its stem runs up through the
earth to the summit of heaven. The second root is by Mimer’s well, in
the north, the abode of the Frost-giants. The third root is by the
Urdar-fount, in the bright and warm south, whose waters the three Maids,
_i.e._ Time Past, Present, and Future, cast over its foliage to keep it
in perpetual verdure. The branches are the æther, their leaves the
clouds, the clusters of keys the constellations; the four harts are the
four winds, the eagle denotes the air, the hawk the still æther, the
squirrel the snow-flakes, hail-stones, and rain-drops. Urda’s fount,
_i.e._ the fount of Destiny, is the source of life, light, and warmth;
the snow-white swans, which swim on its waters, represent the sun and
moon. The mythos of Mimer’s well shows the descent of the sun (_Odin’s
eye_) into the sea each evening, where, during the night, he learns
wisdom from the owner of the well; the golden-hued mead which Mimer
drinks each morning, is the ruddy dawn that daily flows out over the sky
before the sun.”[38]
There can be no doubt that two distinct systems of creation are embraced
by these mythi. They could not have originated in the same people. The
Ymerian, there is strong reason to believe, was the _native_, the
Yggdrasil the _foreign_, system.
From the preceding sketch of the Scandinavian universe, we perceive that
it was inhabited by many distinct races of inhabitants. With one slight
alteration, they may be classified after the nine worlds:—
1. The Shining Elves of Liosalfaheim.
2. The fiery spirits of Muspelheim.
3. The Aser, and Asyniar, gods and goddesses.
4. The Vanir, or inhabitants of the windy Vanheim.
5. Mankind.
6. The Giants and Giantesses; the descendants of Bergelmer and his
wife.
7. The Black Elves, or Dwarfs, male and female.
8. The subjects of Hela.
9. The nondescripts, that it would puzzle the best antiquaries to say
what they are.
With most of these we have little acquaintance. A few of the Light Elves
are to be found in the palaces of the Asyniar; but none of Muspel’s sons
do we encounter. Of the Vanir in general, we know little; but half a
dozen of the race are venerated or esteemed in Asgard. Utgard and its
sons were well known, from their intercourse, whether hostile, or
friendly, with the Aser; and still better known is Asgard. The land of
the Black Elves was frequently visited by men and gods. The realms of
Hela were but once visited by living feet,—by those of Hermod.[39] Of
men we can mention such only as came into contact with beings of a
higher or lower nature. Most of these classes, therefore, may be
dismissed with a few general observations. Details respecting
_individuals_, in most of these classes, will be found under the names
of the chief Aser, or gods.
Whether the Aser were gods, or mortals only, or men who had been
deified, has been long and zealously disputed. Each party gives
elaborate reasons for its own hypothesis, and they have been convincing
to itself if not to others. On a subject which requires the aid of the
imagination to understand it, and to which speculation only can be
applied, this diversity was inevitable. Within the last twenty years,
however, a more careful examination of the pagan monuments of antiquity,
and a more extended acquaintance with the religious systems of other
people, have led to the conclusion that the Aser, like the Vaner, never
existed on earth, and that they are purely mythologic. There is
certainly much reason for the conclusion. The satisfactory way in which
functions of the deities have been resolved into physical qualities may
well fortify it. Still there are difficulties—we think insuperable
ones—to be removed. The account which, in the former volume of this
work[40], we have given of Odin, Niord, Freyr, and Baldur, will scarcely
countenance the hypothesis. The circumstances which attended Odin’s
progress; those which accompanied and followed his arrival in the north;
his temporal even more than his spiritual policy; his extraordinary
success; the thrones which he established; the sons whom he left; the
universal anxiety of the northern princes—even those of Saxony—to claim
him as their ancestor, and an ancestor too only a few generations
removed from them[41]; afford, we think, evidence enough of his mortal
career. Nor should we overlook the fact that both Saxo Grammaticus and
Snorro Sturleson,—the former well acquainted with the tradition and
history of his country; the latter most deeply versed in the religion
and literature of the Scythian conquerors—contended for the mortal
character of the Aser. In their days, this was not a new interpretation
of the subject: ascend the stream of time as far as we can, and still we
find that Odin and his pontiff-chiefs were regarded as men whom
credulity had deified. Such was the opinion of Adam of Bremen in the
eleventh century; of the biographer of St. Anscar in the ninth; of St.
Kentigern in the sixth. In one of his sermons to the pagans of
south-eastern Scotland, the last-named saint upbraided them with their
folly for worshipping one (Odin or Woden) whom they themselves
acknowledged to have lived on earth,—to have been a Saxon king,—to have
paid the common debt of nature,—one whose bones had long before been
confounded with the dust. Men of learning, who lived so much nearer to
the times when the pontiff-king reigned in the north—who, for any thing
we know to the contrary, had better evidence than tradition for his
actions, young as that tradition was, have thought the same. It has been
said, that even the least of those actions were of too superhuman a
character ever to have been attributed to a mortal; and that the being
concerning whom they were invented, must have been mythologic. But the
assertion would not have been made, had the memory been consulted: _it_
would have furnished personages, indisputably historic, concerning whom
wilder legends (if legends can be wilder) have been invented than
concerning the Asiatic conqueror. What have the ancient Romans or the
modern Persians to say of their kings? What has been said of Attila?
What of Arthur? What of Macbeth and of Don Sebastian? There are indeed
few eminent characters in the history of the middle ages concerning whom
supernatural tales have not been invented and believed. Perhaps,
however, the term _invented_ may be too severe a one; for in general the
actions or qualities of personages much more ancient have been
transferred to those of recent date.
These difficulties have appeared so formidable to most of the advocates
for the mythological system, that they have been induced to admit the
hypothesis of _two_ Odins, who appeared in the north at different
intervals;—the former a pontiff, whom superstition afterwards deified;
the other a king, yet the chief of religion, who, seeing the veneration
in which his predecessor was held, boldly declared himself an
incarnation of the same being. This hypothesis, which is purely
arbitrary, so far from diminishing the difficulty, greatly increases it,
and is not, in other respects, worth another moment’s consideration. A
second is more plausible, and not so arbitrary. It represents the
pontiff-warrior—the _second_ Odin—as assuming the name, and laying claim
to the attributes, of another Odin, long received as a god. In this
case, the god must have been incarnate in the person of this Scythian
warrior; yet we have not even the shadow of a proof that metempsychosis
was a doctrine ever received by the Scandinavians, or by any nation of
the Goths. The Celts had it[42]; yet this wide distinction between the
two races has not prevented them from being confounded. As well confound
the Caffre with the Cherokee. The Eddas assure us that, when a mortal
paid the debt of nature, or fell in battle, he went at once to Helheim
or Valhalla. Still there are two or three instances in which a
transmigration into other bodies was effected; and though they are
manifestly at variance with the religious creed of the north, and must
be regarded merely as extraordinary exceptions, we are not disposed to
reject the hypothesis that Odin assumed, or rather, after death, his
people conferred upon him, the name of the god whom they had so long
worshipped. It receives no little confirmation from the facts stated by
Snorro, that in Asia the pontiff-king was known by the name of _Sigoe_.
The truth is, that transmigration being an article of the Celtic creed,
Odin might so far avail himself of it as to pass for the incarnate god.
In either case, however, unless we reject Snorro and Saxo, and the Saxon
Chronicle, and Adam of Bremen, and a host of writers in the middle ages,
we adopt the conclusion that Odin lived, and reigned, and conquered, in
the north.
Advocating then, as we deliberately do, the historical interpretation,
we have yet to account for the extraordinary powers attributed to mere
mortals; for the extraordinary difference of their religion; for the
still more extraordinary doctrines of that religion, as contained in the
Eddas. The subject is not without its difficulties; but probably they
may be removed by a few natural reflections. That Odin and his twelve
pontiff-chiefs found, on their arrival in the north, some kind of
religious worship established, nobody will deny. What were the doctrines
of that religion? Here conjecture only can guide us: we have no written,
no traditionary, monuments of that antecedent worship. We read only that
the Aser—the Scythian bands from Asia—had to contend with the native
authorities; but that having in so great a degree the superiority of
wisdom, they compelled the natives to receive their spiritual, no less
than their temporal, yoke. Their arms, no doubt, effected more than
their arguments; but to suppose that they could extirpate the dominant
faith—if indeed there were not several established modes of worship in
different provinces of the north—would be very irrational in itself, and
irreconcilable with all the known facts of history. Pagan conquerors
have always been disposed to respect the gods of other people. Every
region was believed to have its own peculiar deities; and to honour
_them_ was necessary, if that region were to be either permanently or
prosperously held. On the other hand, the natives themselves would, in a
superstitious age, be sufficiently disposed to respect the gods of their
victors; for human prosperity was always regarded as the work of heaven.
If they still retained their own, they would not refuse homage to the
more powerful stranger gods whose shrines were now transported among
them, and whom they must, by degrees, consider as their own tutelary
divinities. Hence the union of the two religions; not indeed wholly, but
certainly in a very considerable degree. Their gods would be joined; so
would such dogmas as were not absolutely irreconcilable with one
another; and in a few, a very few, generations, both would be received
by priest and people as if they had always been identical and
indissoluble. That this _has_ been the case in other countries, we know
from authentic history. It was so with the Greeks; it was so with the
Romans; it has been so since their conquests with several Asiatic
nations. And reason tells us that this must always be the natural
progress of events.
But on this subject we have more than conjecture, or even reason; we
have facts. There are in the Eddas, and still more in the Scaldic
interpretations, principles too repugnant to each other ever completely
to harmonise. We know that Thor was more esteemed in Norway than Odin;
and that in Denmark, no less than in Sweden, Odin was more highly
venerated than Thor. The reason is, that the Goths, or, we should rather
say, the last swarm of them that arrived with Odin, had more influence
in these latter kingdoms than in the former. Thor, indeed, was almost
exclusively worshipped by the Norwegians, who invoked Odin only on the
eve of a battle. They held the former to be immeasurably the superior of
the other; and, in contradiction to the Swedes and Danes, contended that
Odin was the son of Thor. The elder Edda calls him the most powerful of
the gods; and in the Sagas, by the most ancient Scalds, he is
represented as frequently hostile to the other deity. Considering these
facts, and the universal homage still paid to Thor by the Finns and
Lapps—people of the same race with the Norwegians—we are of opinion that
Thor was the native, Odin the foreign, divinity. The giants, too, appear
to have been of native, perhaps of Celtic, origin, and to have been
adopted by the Scythian Goths, after their arrival; while the _black_
dwarfs, whose habitation was in the bowels of the earth, were introduced
by the latter, and soon made a portion of the native creed. The white,
or benevolent elves, were universally received by the Goths; but the
dark, the malignant elves, seem to have been brought from an eastern
region. It is in the highest degree absurd to suppose that if there had
been no foreign admixture with that creed, and a very large admixture,
we should have nine different worlds, with their complicated, often
dissonant relation to one another. Where this complexity, and, still
more, this evident dissonance between the elements, are found to exist,
we may safely conclude that they have been introduced at different
periods; that the mighty and irregular edifice has been reared by
different hands. But if there were no other argument to establish the
dissonance for which we contend, and the forcible union of opinions
never intended to harmonise, it would be sufficiently obvious from the
distinction between the two great systems of creation to which we have
already alluded—the Ymerian or animal, and Yggdrasil or vegetable.[43]
Beyond all doubt, they were as distinct in their origin as in their
nature; and were long held by the people essentially different. We are
strongly disposed to regard the Ymerian as the native, the Yggdrasil as
the foreign, system. Giants were more kindred with the Celtic than with
the Gothic creed. By the latter, indeed, they were hated even more than
feared. Whoever will peruse with attention those passages of the two
Eddas where giants are mentioned, will probably arrive at the same
conclusion with ourselves—that they were foreign to the genius of the
Scythians. We may adore what we _fear_; but we never adore what we
_hate_, still less what we _despise_. The same may be observed in regard
to the magical rites of the two people. Of _dark_ magic we read every
where amongst the people of the former race. We meet with it in
districts where the Scythian Goth never inhabited—in the more remote
districts of Lapland and Finland. The rites, the opinions, of the people
in these districts, were also, we believe, the rites, the opinions, of
all the people that inhabited Norway and Sweden. Some of them, we know,
were disliked by the followers of Odin. It was not Odinian, that is
Gothic, or _white_ (innocent) magic, that was professed by Raude of
Norway.[44] It was not Odinian, or Gothic, magic that caused Harald
Harfager to be captivated so long and so fatally by the daughter of the
Finnish Swaso.[45] In the latter case, nothing can be more evident than
that it was the native, black magic, which produced this effect. Hence
the detestation with which that monarch, pagan as he was, regarded the
art.[46] It was not Odin’s magic which Egill practised when he left
Norway, outlawed by Eric of the Bloody Axe. Before he finally left the
coast, he fixed the head of a horse on one of the oars of the vessel,
and raising it aloft, exclaimed, “Here I erect the rod of vengeance
against king Eric and queen Gunhilda!” Turning the horse’s head in
another direction, he exclaimed “I direct this curse also against the
tutelary deities of Norway, that they shall wander, in pain, and have no
rest for the soles of their feet, until they have expelled the king and
queen!” This strange imprecation he then carved in runic characters upon
the oar, and placed it in the cleft of a rock, where it was not likely
to be found, or the spell to be dissolved. It was native magic that
distinguished Gunhilda, wife of Eric with the Bloody Axe.[47] More than
one king who worshiped Odin punished with death the observers of these
rites. And in most of the Gothic writers, pagan or christian, the palm
of superiority in magic is awarded to native professors. The magic of
the latter might be darker, more inhuman, more diabolical, but it was
also admitted to be more profound and more potent. We agree with
Magnussen in the conclusion that there was a union, more or less
complete, of two schools of magic, as well as of two religions. But
there were tenets which could _not_ be reconciled, and the natives, by
adhering to their own, caused a system to be perpetuated essentially at
variance with that of the conquerors.
These facts, these arguments, will be admitted to have considerable
weight. We shall adduce another which, joined with the preceding, should
set the subject as to the fact of a religion having been dominant in the
north anterior to the Odinic, and essentially different from it. Rude
stones and rocks—so rude as scarcely to have a form—were lately, and
probably are now, worshipped by the more remote Finns and Lapps. This
idol they term the _Storjunkar_, or great ruler; they offer sacrifices
upon it (generally the rein-deer), and prostrate before it, in certain
mountainous districts, far from the usual habitations of men.[48] This
worship is a relic of the idolatry once common to the Norwegians, no
less than to the Finns and Laps, who are of the same origin. That it was
celebrated in Norway is certain; for we find it in Iceland as late as
the close of the tenth century. Indrid was the mortal enemy of
Thorstein; and one night he left his house to murder him. The latter
entered a temple where he was accustomed to worship, prostrated himself
before a stone, and prayed to know his fate. The stone replied, in a
kind of chant, that his feet were already in the grave; that his fatal
enemy was at hand, and that he would never see the rising of the next
morning’s sun. All such stones, all such gods, were foreign to the
Scythian Goths; and this relation, connected with others which might be
easily extracted, proves that the Norwegians, who had felt little of the
Asiatic yoke, had retained many of their gods, many of their religious
rites, in defiance of opposition.
To say more on this subject in the present place would be useless; as in
the course of the present chapter we shall have opportunities enough
both of adverting to the more ancient superstition, and of comparing the
two. It will, we believe, be found that much of the Eddaic cosmogony is
of native growth; that the majority of the worlds and of their
inhabitants were native; and that the Scythian warriors added little
more than their Midgard, their Asgard, especially their Valhalla; their
twelve gods (except Thor), with Odin at their head; their female deities
(scarcely a dozen in number); and such other points of the creed as were
necessary to connect and illustrate their cardinal articles.
The question of two distinct religions being conceded, it will not be
difficult to account for the progress which Odin and his companions made
towards deification. Most of the steps, indeed, have been indicated on a
former occasion[49], and need not be repeated here. Few were the regal
pontiffs of Asia who did not boast of their descent from some god—some
warrior king, whom after ages, admiring his success, had deified. Odin
was not likely to neglect so useful an instrument for his designs. Then
as he and the Vanir chiefs were unquestionably a much more civilised
people than the natives of the north; as his talents, beyond all doubt,
were of a commanding order; as the religious rites of which he was the
superior hereditary pontiff, were celebrated with more pomp; as success
attended all his measures, whether of war or of policy; as he himself,
and his followers for him, laid claim to something of a divine
character, the natives soon regarded him as a supernatural personage.
The feeling was no doubt shared by his own people, who had always been
taught to believe that a divine spirit might inhabit the bosom of a hero
or a king. As in former ages Rovstam and Jemsheed, so in later ages
Alaric and Attila, were beheld with equal reverence. With equal
reverence at this day do the Chinese, the Thibetians, the Tartars,
regard _their_ rulers. So did the Mexicans and the Peruvians. From
Snorro, however, we learn that the progress of Odin towards deification
was much slower than is generally supposed. He expressly intimates that
the king began to be peculiarly honoured _after_ his death: “From this
time men began to have more faith in Odin, and to offer him vows.” If
his pretensions to divinity were recognised, so must those of his chief
pontiffs; since the cause and the interests of the two were inseparable.
The original seat of that colony of the Goths which Odin led into the
north, has, with much appearance of reason, been placed east of the
Tanais or Don: probably it was considerably to the east of that river.
On this subject we can have no better guide than Snorro: “The orb of the
world, in which dwell the race of mankind, is, as we are informed,
intersected with bays and gulfs: great seas from the ocean penetrate the
firm land. It is well known that from the Straits of Gibraltar
(Njövasund) a great sea extends quite to Palestine (Jórsala-land). From
this sea there lies towards the north-east, a gulf called the Black Sea,
which separates the three parts of the world from each other: the land
to the east is called Europe, by others Enea. Northerly from the Black
Sea lies the greater or cold _Svithjód_ (Svecia or Scythia magna). Some
affirm that great Svithjód is not of less extent than Serkland (North
Africa): others even compare it with the great Blá-land Æthiopia magna).
The northern part of Svithjód is uncultivated on account of the frost
and cold, in the same manner as the southern part of Bláland lies waste,
on account of the burning heat. In great Svithjód are many provinces
peopled with various tribes of different tongues. There are giants and
dwarfs; there are black men, and dragons and other wild beasts of
prodigious size. Towards the north, in the mountains beyond the
habitable country, rises a river properly called the Tanais, but which
has obtained the name of the Tanasquisl, or Vanasquil, and which running
through Svithjód, falls into the Black Sea. The country encircled by the
branches of this river was in those days called Vanaland or Vanaheimr.
This stream separates the _three_ parts of the world from each other,
the part lying east being called Asia, and that to the west Europe. The
country to the east of Tanasquisl in Asia was called Asaland or
Asaheimr, and the capital of that country, Asgard. There ruled Odin, and
there too was a great place of sacrifice. Twelve pontiffs (hofgodar)
presided in the temples, who were at the same time the judges of the
law.”[50]
Defective as was the geographical knowledge of Snorro, he has, no doubt,
correctly assigned the cradle of this people, and of the Vanir. They
were neighbours; they were consequently often at war, until the chiefs
of both agreed, not only to be for ever amicable, and to join in all
future conquests, but in some degree to amalgamate by a union of
government. Hence the junction of the Vanir to the Aser, and the
contiguity of their respective regions in the Scandinavian calendar. How
Asgard and Vanaheim came to be placed in heaven, as well as on earth,
has puzzled many writers. They may be equally puzzled, that the twelve
drothmen, or pontiff-chiefs, should be transfused into so many
divinities; and the temple of the earthly transferred to the celestial
Asgard. There are two ways of solving this problem. It is possible—it is
even exceedingly probable—that the Scythians, long prior to their
migration from Asia, called their country after the heavenly one which
they expected to inhabit after death. The government of the Aser was
essentially theocratic, and assimilated as much as possible to that
which they believed to exist above. Nor were they peculiar in this
economy: Athens and greater nations have done the same. The twelve great
priests of Egypt were named after the twelve gods who ruled the same
number of celestial signs. Such was the case in Assyria. In Persia, too,
the number of priests in the great temple corresponded with that of the
Amshaspands, or celestial genii, who governed the world as vicegerents
of Ormusd. Nothing, indeed, is more natural than the position, that men
devoted to the service of the gods would endeavour to form their
establishments after the model which the gods themselves were believed
to have adopted. “Thus, the Aser were the gods of the new religion
introduced by Odin, and at the same time his temporal companions and
followers,—the tribe of the Ases, or Aso-Goths, from the river Tanais.
Asgard, or Godheim, is their celestial abode, from which they descended
on earth (Manheim) to mingle with the children of men; and is, at the
same time, the original seat of Odin and his people on the river
Tanais.”[51] This we consider the more natural solution of the problem
in question. It may, however, be, that the disciples of the original
pontiff began after his death to invest both him and his companions with
the ensigns of divinity, and assimilated them, both in number and in
attributes, with the ancient divinities of Scythia; making, however,
some change. In either case there must have been a change. We have
before expressed our opinion that Thor was not a Scythian god: he,
therefore, (and the same may be said of one or two others,) must have
been subsequently admitted into the divine college, when the union for
which we have contended took place between the native and foreign
religion; or rather, when the foreign was engrafted on the native
system. That system, we repeat, was, in our opinion, the basis of the
one contained in the Eddas; and much more than the basis.
The union which we have endeavoured to establish, will account for the
elaborate, however heterogeneous, system of the Eddas. That system was,
assuredly, not the work of one people, or, we may add, of one age. It
was derived from people widely different in character, habits, opinions,
and manners; and it was probably the work of centuries. The successors
of the twelve original pontiffs effected, there is reason to think, much
more than _they_ did, or than their predecessors had done. The elements
were, indeed, strewed in Norway; but they could scarcely be fashioned
into a whole; still less could they have assumed that stately form which
they exhibited in the age of Sæmund and Snorro. They consisted of
detached portions, composed at different periods, and probably not
connected—not fashioned into a whole—until many centuries after Odin’s
death. Nay, there is some reason for concluding, that the two Icelanders
we have just mentioned were the first collectors of these scattered
fragments, no less than of the comments on each by the recent Scalds of
their own country, and the more ancient Scalds of Norway. Of the same
opinion the reader will probably be, before he closes the present
volume.
Having now given a general view both of the Scandinavian universe and of
its inhabitants, and shown the probable relation between its gods and
its mortals, we proceed, in the following section, to examine these gods
more in detail, and, where practicable, to explain their respective
attributes by the physical phenomena on which they were so frequently
based.
------------------
SECTION II.
CHIEF MYTHOLOGICAL PERSONAGES OF SCANDINAVIA.
ODIN, THOR, AND LOKE.—THEIR CHARACTERS PHYSICALLY INTERPRETED.—THEIR
WIVES AND OFFSPRING.—THE THREE DEMON CHILDREN OF LOKE.—INFLUENCE OF
THIS DEITY OVER THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE.—HE IS PRESENT IN EVERY GREAT
MYTHOS.—RAPE OF IDUNA.—THOR’S VISITS TO JOTUNHEIM.—THOR AND THE GIANT
HYMIR.—THOR AND THE GIANT THRYM.—NIVOD, FREYR, FREYA.—EXPEDITION OF
SKIRNIR-ÆGIR AND RAN.—OTHER DEITIES.—BALDER.—PUNISHMENT OF
LOKE.—RAGNAROK.—RECOGNITION OF A GREAT FIRST CAUSE BY THE PAGAN
SCANDINAVIANS.
ODIN, THOR, LOKE.
The first two gods we place together, as well for the purpose of
comparison as that of contrast; the last, because his agency is
necessary to explain the other two.
According to the Eddas, ODIN had several wives; the first was _Frea_, or
_Frigga_, by whom he had five sons, Thor, Balder, Braga, Hermod, and
Tyr: the second was _Skada_, by whom he had Semming; the third was
_Grydur_, by whom he had Vidar; the fourth was _Rinda_, by whom he had
Balder, or Bo.[52]
In Valhalla he has a table separate from the Einheriar, but he lives
only on wine; and the meats set before him he distributes to two wolves
which stand by his side. These are _Geri_ the devouring, and _Freki_ the
fierce.
He learns all that passes on earth, without the trouble of ascending
Lidskialf[53], by means of two ravens, which leave Asgard at daybreak,
and at dinner time return, to perch on his shoulders, and whisper into
his ear all that they have seen. These ravens are—Observation and
Memory; both presents from the enchantress Hulda. Hence he is called the
raven god.
These mythi are for the most part sufficiently obvious. Frigga is a
personification of the earth; while Odin himself, in his character of
chief god, may represent heaven. Heaven and earth give origin to—thunder
(Thor), the summer-sun (Balder), the swift messenger (Hermod), the
hospitable board (Braga), and the undaunted defender of nature (Tyr).
Skada, the daughter of the giant Thiasse, and a nymph of the mountains,
is a personification of the spring winds; but we cannot see the import
of the mythos—if, indeed, there were any intended—in regard to Semming.
Why Vidar should be the offspring of Grydur is equally dark; but there
is propriety enough in making the frost (Rinda) the mother of
barrenness. The two wolves at Odin’s side denote his ferocity as the god
of battles; and the two ravens, memory and observation, explain his
knowledge of the past and present. To that of the future this god had no
pretensions; this was reserved to the Norny Skulda, and to a few of the
Valas, or prophetesses.
Immediately dependent on Odin—the ministers of his will as the god of
war—were the three Valkyrs, or choosers of the slain. They also
administer to the slain at his banquet.
There are many legends respecting Odin, who often visited mankind. We
select one because it illustrates the observations we have made in
regard to the rivalry of him and Thor. Sterkodder, the celebrated
champion[54], when a child, was taken captive. He fell to the lot of one
named Granè, or Whiskers, who was named Horsehair Whiskers, and who
brought him up as a foster-son. This was no other than Odin in disguise,
whose attachment to one destined to become so unrivalled in arms may be
easily conceived. One night the destiny of the young man, unknown to
himself, was to be shown him. Horsehair Whiskers, of whose quality he
was ignorant, embarked with him in a small boat, and they proceeded to
an island, landed, and by midnight reached an open plain in the centre
of a forest. There he saw a large assemblage; and within the ring formed
by the assemblage were twelve seats, for so many judges. Eleven were
full, but one was empty, and Horsehair Whiskers immediately seated
himself in it. From the instantaneous salute of Odin by the judges, and
the mention of his name, the chieftain perceived that he was in the
awful presence of that deity, and of the other gods. Odin said that the
judges should now decree Sterkodder his destiny. Thor then spoke and
said, “Alfhild, the mother of Sterkodder’s father, chose for her
son’s-father (_husband_) a very wise Jötunn (_giant_) in preference to
Asathor; wherefore I appoint to Sterkodder that he shall have neither
son nor daughter, and thus be the last of his race.”
_Odin._ “I grant him to live three men’s age.”
_Thor._ “He shall do a vile act in each of them.”
_Odin._ “I give him that he shall own the best weapons and harness.”
_Thor._ “And I appoint him that he shall own neither land nor sand.”
_Odin._ “I give him that he shall be rich in money.”
_Thor._ “I lay on him that he shall never seem to have enough.”
_Odin._ “I give him victory and martial skill in every fight.”
_Thor._ “I lay on him that in every fight he shall lose a limb.”
_Odin._ “I give him the poet’s faculty, so that he shall produce poems
with as much ease as unmeasured language.”
_Thor._ “He shall never be able to remember the verses he makes.”
_Odin._ “I grant him that he shall be favoured by those of greatest rank
and name.”
_Thor_. “He shall be hated by all others.”
Then the judges ratified to Sterkodder all that had been said, and the
council broke up.
The Saga from which this incident has been derived was written by a
Norwegian, who certainly held Thor to be the equal, if not the superior,
of Odin. It is not unlike the magian scene at the creation of the world,
when to every good thing decreed by Ormusd, an evil one was joined by
Ahriman. That Odin and Thor were rival deities, and that they gave rise
to hostile sects, is evident. And there is another point from which this
hostility may be viewed. The warriors who went to Valhalla were all of
noble birth; they were jarls or herser, were rich and powerful. But what
became of meaner freemen and thralls (serfs) who fell in battle? They
went to Thrudheim to the palace of Thor, Bilskirner[55], which that the
owner might not be outdone, had the same number of gates as the palace
of Odin, viz. five hundred and forty. Does not this prove that Thor was
the native, Odin the foreign, god?—that the former belonged to the
vanquished, the latter to the victorious people? The very name of Thor
shows that he was a Celtic divinity. He is the _Taranis_ of Lucan, the
Toron of the Scottish Highlands, and the Tiermes of the Lapps.[56]
The visit of Odin to the giant Vafthrudnir, and his contest with
him[57], may also serve to illustrate his boasted knowledge, as well as
power. Frigga, his wife, was alarmed when she first heard of her
husband’s intention to visit “that learned giant.” He conquers, indeed,
in the strife, but not through any superiority of knowledge: it is
rather by an unworthy artifice.
_Frigga_, the wife of Odin, was a distinguished personage in the
northern Olympus. She is the queen and mother of the gods. Her palace,
called Fensale, was magnificent; and it was a sort of drawing-room for
all the goddesses. Her prescience was great; she could foresee the
future, and she was invoked by women in childbed.
According to the vulgar genealogy,—that which the Odinists, in
opposition to the Thorists, were anxious to establish,—THOR was the
eldest son of Odin and Frigga. Even in Sweden he was, after Odin, the
first in rank among the gods. We may even doubt whether by one sect of
the Odinists he was not esteemed the first; for his image at Upsal,
where he is represented seated on a throne, with the attributes of
divine majesty about him,—while Odin, the war god, is standing at his
right hand with a drawn sword, and Frigga, the goddess of production, on
his left, with the fruits of nature in her hands,—clearly establishes
his predominancy. His strength was unrivalled; and his structure so
large, that no horse could carry him: he always travelled in a chariot
drawn by two he-goats. He had three treasures, all unrivalled, all made
by the Dwarfs. Of these the most famous was his hammer, called _Miölner_
(the miller, the bruiser), which, when thrown by his powerful hand, was
irresistible; yet, however far it was thrown, it always returned to him.
Formidable as it was, it was so small that he could put it in his
pocket. No hands but his could touch it; nor even he without his
wonderful steel gloves, the second of his treasures. The third was a
belt,—_Melgingandur_, which doubled his strength whenever he girded it
on. Above all the gods, he was the enemy of the Rimthurser, or Frost
Giants, against whom, with his dreaded weapon, he waged unceasing war.
The very glare of his eyes was tremendous: it was lightning; and
lightning was emitted by his chariot wheels as he rolled along. Every
day did he make the circuit of Asgard, to drive away the giants.
Of this mythos an interpretation is scarcely necessary. Miölner is his
thunderbolt. His antipathy to the giants—the powers alike of darkness
and of cold, and his daily circuit round Asgard, sufficiently explain
themselves. His gloves and belt were an embellishment, which have no
necessary connection with his nature. The latter is to be found in many
oriental fictions, (the Arabian Nights, for instance,) and in many also
current throughout Europe. His wife, _Sif_, is another illustration of
the mythos. She is held to be a personification of the summer earth, and
is represented in the act of distributing fruits and flowers. She, like
her husband, was peculiarly worshipped in Norway. By a former husband
she had a son—Uller, the god of hunters, whose residence was Ydale, or
the Dewy Valley.[58] The most wonderful of her peculiarities was her
_hair_, which was unrivalled for its beauty, and to which we have before
adverted.
The fact, that Sif was worshipped in Norway alone, of all the
Scandinavian regions, is another argument in favour of her husband’s
supreme worship, long before the arrival of the Aser. A still stronger
one is to be found in the fact, that Thrudheim, or Thrudvang, was the
name of a district in that kingdom, no less than of a palace in heaven:
and the strongest of all is, the peculiar affection with which he was
regarded by the Norwegians, who held him to be their native, their
tutelary god. He seems to have had some attributes of the Roman
thunderer: the same day (Thursday), and the same planet (Jupiter), were
sacred to him.
The giants of whom Thor was thus the natural, the everlasting enemy,
were, as we have frequently observed, the offspring of Bergelmer, the
old man of the mountains, and of his wife, who escaped the destruction
of their race by the blood of Ymer, only because they chanced to be at
sea, fishing, when the giant was slain. Repairing to the dark lower
region which lies within the polar seas, they soon peopled it. Darkness,
indeed, was the element of these beings: no sun enlightened or cheered
them. When they visited earth, it was during the night, for then their
power was the greatest. In magic they surpassed all other beings: they
possessed many secrets, relating to the origin and nature of things,
unknown to the wisest of the gods. With them the three Nornies, or
destinies,—with them Vala herself, the great prophetess of heaven, was
educated. They regarded the Aser with dislike,—as usurpers of a world
which rightly belonged to them; and towards the sons of Askur, the
creation of the gods, they bore equal dislike. This feeling, indeed, did
not prevent the Aser from occasionally intermarrying with them; but the
marriages were never well assorted. The king of this vast gloomy region
was Ugarthiloc, or, more correctly, Utgardelok, viz. the Loke of Utgard,
the monarch of the outer world. The notion entertained of this
personage, and of the whole race, by the Danes, we have shown on a
former occasion.[59] Wild as the legends there related may seem, they
have their meaning. The reader will not fail to observe, that these
original inhabitants of the earth—this people destroyed by the Aser, and
exiled into the dreary wastes of the North, were the original Finnish,
or rather Celtic race, whom the Goths expelled. The mythology of that
race was full of giants; the Druids boasted of an acquaintance with
nature denied to the rest of mankind; and the boast was probably a just
one. The testimony borne by Cæsar to the extensive character of their
knowledge, will abundantly illustrate this part of the historical
question. Again, the Celts pretended to mystical science: in proof of
it, look to Cæsar, to the traditions rife wherever the Celts have been
located, and, above all, to the fragments of the ancient Welsh bards
preserved in the Archæologia of the principality. The Eddas are filled
with Celtic mythological allusions. For example, Celtic were the dwarfs
or fairies of the benevolent class; while the malignant ones, who were a
kind of evil genii, came with the Aser from a seat where the two
principles of good and evil were a dominant article of the popular
creed.
A personage no less important than Odin or Thor in the Scandinavian
mythology, is LOKE, or, as he is sometimes called, Luptur. He was
important, not from his power, or his wisdom, or his dignity, but from
his cunning, his treachery, his ill-nature, and the influence which he
exercised alike over gods and men. He was the son of the giant Farbautè,
by the enchantress Laufeya. Though of giant race, he obtained admission
among the gods: indeed, as his manners were exceedingly pleasant, his
mirth constant, and his wit unbounded, whenever they were not mixed with
spite, he could not fail to be acceptable to so vulgar a race as the
Aser. But when, as indeed was often the case, there was malice in his
jokes, his laughter made the hearer shudder. Why the gods should
tolerate him, is not very clear; but destiny was probably the reason
which a devout Odinist would have assigned for it,—a very convenient
reason in most systems of mythology. His birth might be traced to the
origin of time; for, in some way or other, he was concerned with Odin in
the work of creation, though the connection is very obscurely hinted at.
He was a relation, we are told, of the Utgard Loke, or Ugarthiloc, the
monarch of the frosty giants. These two personages were no doubt
originally the same; but as the Celts and Aser had different notions of
the same being, it was found necessary to introduce the two into the
united creed. In virtue of his connection with them, Loke often visited
the giants, by whom he was as little trusted as by the Aser. But he was
sometimes useful to both; and, from the malice of his nature, no less
than from his dislike to the gods, whom he at once feared and hated, he
was frequently the ally of the giants in their efforts to recover their
lost dominion, and to destroy the usurpers. If he thus brought the
latter into danger, he alone could extricate them from it. In perfect
accordance with the Eddas, he is thus described by Ohlenschlager:—
Amongst bright Asgard’s lords
Is one, As-Luptur hight.
Like honey are his words;
His heart is filled with spite:
His form is passing fair,
And winning is his mien;
But still his guileful leer
Shows all is false within.
Though oft his traitorous wiles
The Aser’s wrath provoke,
His smooth tongue still beguiles,
And stops the impending stroke.
Oft cited to appear
He cowers the Ash before.[60]
At Odin’s table near
His place to Asa Thor.[61]
He was, indeed, as a god, the familiar companion of Thor; who, however,
had no great wish for his society. Like most of the gods, he was
married. His wife, _Signe_, was an amiable being, who loved him in spite
of his depravity. By her he had two sons, Nari and Vali, whose fate will
be mentioned in the proper place. But he had other and more mischievous
offspring by the giantess Augerbode,—_Fenris_ the wolf, _Jormungandur_
the great serpent, and _Hela_ the queen of death. This alleged affinity
will confirm the observation, that there was originally but one Loke,
the lord of Utgard, and consequently the everlasting foe of the gods.
How the Asgard Loke should become so wicked as to produce such
offspring, might surprise us, if we were not assured that he was not so
originally, and that he became so by eating the half-roasted heart of an
enchantress.
These three children of Loke were reared in Utgard by the mother. The
fatal influence which they were to exercise over the universe, was not
concealed from Vala, the mysterious prophetess of heaven, or from
Skulda, the Norny of the future. The gods being warned, sent to secure
them. Jormungandur, one of the most dreaded, was seized, and by Odin
cast into the great sea that separates the human from the giant world.
There so large did it become, that it surrounded the whole earth,—being
condemned to hold its tail in its mouth, and thus to form a circle.
There he lies, waiting for the time when destiny will unloose him—the
Ragnarok, or the twilight of the gods; when he will assist in the
destruction of the visible universe.
Hela, the next mythologic offspring, is hideous to behold,—her body
being half livid, half of natural colour. By Odin, or rather by destiny,
of which he was merely the instrument, she was placed in the upper
confines of Nifleheim,—in the region which, from her, is called Hell
(Helheim). She was invested with dominion over six, or perhaps seven, of
the nine worlds, (as we have before observed, there is some doubt
whether Muspelheim be eternal,)—over men, and dwarfs, and giants, and
gods. All who die a natural death proceed to her “drear abode:” hence
her title, queen of the dead. “Hela’s hall,” says the prose Edda, “is
affliction; her table is famine; her knife is hunger; her threshold, a
drawbridge; her bed, lingering sickness; her tent, cursing.” She too,
like Odin, had nornies, whose province it was to summon mortals to her
vast domain. But these were much inferior in loveliness and dignity to
the celestial nornies. They appeared to the fated victim by night only.
Hela herself was sometimes believed thus to appear. She had a dark red
cock, to signify, by its crowing, the approach of fate; and a spectre
horse, to carry the doomed to her gloomy abode.
The third demon offspring of Loke, the wolf Fenris, is no less wonderful
than his brother and sister. The one had been surprised and, thrown into
the sea; the other had been partly persuaded to submit, through the high
dignity offered to her; but Fenris, who was more powerful, was also more
troublesome. He was taken, indeed, and bound; but he snapped his
fetters, strong as they were, as if they had been nothing. A massive
chain was now made, and he was bid to try its strength: it snapped as if
it had been dried clay. Another was made double the strength of the
preceding,—the strongest that the gods could make; but with a very
slight effort it too gave way. What was to be done with this formidable
criminal,—one destined, if oracles were true, to endanger the world? The
gods had no fetter in which to bind him; the giants, who were skilful,
could not be expected to join in any design against one of their own
body,—one, too, that was naturally hostile to the Aser. In this, as in
many other dilemmas, recourse was had to the Dwarfs in the bowels of the
earth. At the instance of Skirnir, the messenger of Freyr, they
constructed a chain called Gleipner; which, though so slender as to
resemble a silken thread, was nevertheless not to be broken by gods, or
giants, or dwarfs. The Edda acquaints us with the materials of which it
was constructed. These were six, all curious enough to deserve
mentioning:—the sound made by the feet of a cat; the beard of a woman;
the roots of huge rocks; the fibres of trees; the breath of fishes; the
spittle of birds. But how bind by it the formidable monster? Deceit must
be used. Repairing with him to a solitary island, the gods desired him
to try his strength on this, as he had done on preceding things. “Little
honour,” replied the cunning demon, “can result from breaking a silken
thread; but probably it may be enchanted!” and he refused to try it. He
was next taunted and jeered; and in vexation he at length consented to
be bound; but then, to be assured that the gods were honest in their
proffer, he insisted that some one of them should put a hand in his
mouth. They were in utter dismay; but the undaunted Tyr[62], the
northern Mars, the defender of the gods, at length resolved to sacrifice
a member for the preservation of the universe. He therefore placed his
hand in the open jaw, and the wolf allowed himself to be fettered. The
chain was cunningly fastened round his body, passed through a rent rock,
carried downwards to the centre of the earth, and there made fast.
Fenris now tried as before; but so far from escaping, every effort that
he made only entangled him the more, and rivetted his bonds the more
firmly. He therefore desisted; but in his anger he bit off the hand of
Tyr. From that moment the god has been only left-handed; but as he uses
that hand with much effect, he is still to be dreaded. He alone had
courage to take food to an animal, the roaring of which was felt by all
nature, until the gods thrust a sword into his jaws, and thus gagged
him. There he lies until Ragnarok, when, like Midgard’s serpent, he will
break loose.
There is no personage in the whole system of a more mythic character
than Loke. He was evidently the personification of the active evil
principle. His name signifies _flame_; and he is a representative of the
demon of fire—the _destructive_, in opposition to the alimentary, aerial
fire, of which Balder may be considered the symbol. At this day the
devil is called Loke by the Norwegians. Still there is frequently some
obscurity in the mythi respecting him, and it is occasioned by his being
so often confounded with the demon king of Utgard. Though they were
originally _one_, the Edda has made him into two, in conformity no doubt
with the genius of two distinct systems of mythology. The mysterious
allusion to the assistance which he afforded Odin in the work of
creation, is one great proof of his identification with the powers of
evil: his relationship with the giants, on both sides, sufficiently
accounts for his hostility towards the gods, with whom he associated
that he might find an opportunity of triumphing over them. He is styled
a coward, because his deeds will not bear the light—the inventor of
deceit, of lies, of every thing base. The first of his offspring, the
great serpent, is evidently a relic of the Celtic creed. The Britons
acknowledged its existence; and there are two bold promontories on the
coast to which they have given the name of the Worm’s Head.[63] Of the
wolf Fenris the character is more obscure, though no less confirmatory
of the mythos. It is doubtless a symbol of destruction. In several
countries of the East, it is believed that a wolf will finally destroy,
if not the world, the sun and moon. Thus, in the Budhist system, a wolf,
Rakoo, is always on the watch to swallow both luminaries. This mythos,
we suspect, with a living writer[64], has given rise to the superstition
so common in the middle ages,—that of men-wolves; viz., the power
possessed by some men of assuming the form of that animal. Hela, or
death, the offspring of sin, or Satan (Loke), needs no explanation. We
may, however, observe, that there is some plausibility in the arguments
of Magnussen, when he attempts to show that Helheim is more ancient than
Valhalla; that it is the place of punishment acknowledged by the
original inhabitants, while the warrior’s heaven was introduced by the
Gothic conquerors.
The mythological fables in which Loke so prominently appears, will
illustrate his character better, and certainly more agreeably, than any
formal description. In most of them he was associated with Thor; but we
select one in which Odin and Hoenir were concerned with him. Hoenir, we
must observe, is but another name for Vile, the brother of Odin, who
assisted in the work of creation.[65]
RAPE OF IDUNA.
The three Aser one day left Asgard to see other worlds, especially
Utgard. Travelling over dreary wastes, they reached a mountainous
region, more hungry than they had for some time been. Entering a valley,
they found a herd of cattle, and killed one of the animals for supper.
Loke, who was to be the cook, made a fire, and proceeded to his task,
while the two nobler gods walked about. But notwithstanding the great
heat of the fire, the ox would not roast. A voice, from the tree above
him, told him that he would have no supper unless he promised to let the
speaker join. He looked up, and seeing an eagle only, gave his consent.
The bird now descended to the fire, and seized both shoulders, which he,
considering as somewhat too large a share, would not permit. Taking a
large billet of wood, he struck the unreasonable animal; when the eagle
instantly flew upwards, one end of the billet adhering to its beak. But
alas! the other end was no less tenacious of Loke’s hand; and away he
was dragged over mountain, wood, and stream, his arm ready to fall from
his body, and his feet sorely wounded by being trailed over the sharp
rocks and bushes. He lustily called for help to Odin and Thor. “Cry
away!” replied the eagle, who was no other than the giant Thiasse in
that shape[66]; “but never shalt thou be released from this situation,
unless thou promise by oath to bring Iduna and her apples from Asgard to
me!”
Iduna was the wife of Braga, the god of eloquence, and daughter to the
dwarf Ivalldr, one of the most scientific of his race. She was a
goddess, and the wife of a god: for both honours she was no doubt
indebted to the wonderful apples of which she was the guardian, and
which had been given her by her kindred. They had this virtue, that when
the gods felt the approach of age, they had only to eat of these apples
to be restored to all the bloom of youth. The giants, like the gods,
were subject to decay; and, like the gods, they wished for the means of
immortality,—to escape the dark empire of Hela.
As Loke was no friend to the Aser, he swore to comply with the giant’s
demand, within a given time. He was therefore released, and enabled to
return with the two gods to Asgard. When the covenanted time arrived, he
told Iduna, that in a neighbouring wood he had discovered some apples,
much finer, and much more valuable, than any she possessed. Her
curiosity being raised, she took some of her own apples with her, to
compare with the others, and was accompanied by Loke to the wood; but
scarcely had they passed the boundary of Asgard, than Thiasse arriving
in the eagle’s shape, bore her away to the dark mountains of Utgard.
Great was the consternation of the Aser at the disappearance of Iduna
and her apples. The effect was soon visible: they became weaker, less
supple, decrepit, and wrinkled. Though the season was spring, the
flowers withered, and the leaves became sear as at the close of autumn.
A council of the gods was convoked to learn how and whither Iduna had
disappeared. No one could give them any other information than
this,—that she had been last seen with Loke departing from Asgard. Loke
was examined; and when he showed a disposition to evade the questions
that were asked, Thor seized him, and threw him into the air so high
that his heels struck the moon, and then descended to the sea. All this
was nothing in comparison with what he would suffer if he did not
restore the goddess. He readily promised to do so, if Freya would lend
him her disguise, that of a hawk. Being furnished with it, he flew in
that disguise to Utgard, and reached the abode of Thiasse just as that
giant had left it to row for a short time on the neighbouring sea.
Changing Iduna into a swallow, he returned with her in his claws towards
Asgard. When Thiasse returned, and learned the departure of the goddess,
he resumed his eagle’s dress, and rapidly followed in the direction
which the hawk had taken. He obtained sight of the fugitives just as
they approached Asgard; and he would certainly have overtaken them but
for a stratagem of the Aser, who were anxiously watching the pursuit.
Forming a vast pile of faggots under the walls of the city, they set
fire to it; and the flames ascended so high as to burn the eagle’s
wings. Thiasse fell to the ground, and was immediately despatched by
Thor.
This is one of the most interesting fables of the prose Edda. It has
doubtless a meaning, though we are by no means sure that Magnussen has
discovered the right one. According to him, Iduna is the spring, which
may be called the renewer of nature’s youth. Spring is always
accompanied by joy and harmony,—by the song of birds, by the cheerful
hum of men, by the gambols of animals, by the sportive winds: hence it
is personified in Iduna: she is the wife of Braga, the god of poetry, of
music, of song, of harmony. Thiasse, the giant, is the winter: Iduna
flies from him in the shape of the swallow, which is everywhere the bird
of spring. The destruction of the giant by the flames, denotes the
season of winter killed by the heat of the spring.—That this explanation
of the mythos is ingenious, as well as plausible, cannot be denied; but
we are not quite satisfied with it. Though a meaning is involved in
these fables, we doubt whether all the incidents are thus designed. Many
were invented through the love of invention, or rather to please the
multitude; and by such inventors physical principles would not always be
observed. For this obvious reason, much caution is requisite in
interpretations which have not positive authority for their base.
The next mythos in which Loke is exhibited, is in connection with Thor.
THOR’S VISITS TO UTGARD.
Geyruth, also called Geirrod, was one of the Aser’s most formidable
enemies. In the former volume we have given, from Saxo Grammaticus, a
description of his empire[67],—a description rivalling in power of
invention any to be found in Homer. To it we refer the reader, before he
proceeds any farther with this narrative, as nothing can be more curious
than to compare the account which Saxo derived from tradition (no Edda
had then been compiled), and, what is more, from Danish tradition, with
that given in the sacred books of the Scandinavians from Norwegian
sources.
Thor’s first journey was preceded by that of Loke. Loke, with all his
cunning, was frequently in trouble;—and how could the devil be
otherwise? Assuming a hawk’s disguise, (the hawk in more countries than
the North was the symbol of that personage,) he entered the dominions of
Geyruth, was caught, and, when he refused to answer the questions that
were put to him, was shut up in a chest during three months. His revenge
then gave way, and he confessed who he was. The giant then released him,
on his promise to bring Thor to Utgard, without belt or hammer. The
object of the giant’s policy may be easily guessed. Thor, the defender
of Asgard, the everlasting enemy of the giants, would be reduced to the
same level with themselves when deprived of those wonderful treasures.
Loke had no difficulty in prevailing on the stout-hearted god to visit
the dominions of the giant king. On the way to that region, within the
boundaries of Utgard, was a magic forest, of which the trees were all
iron. It was inhabited by certain enchantresses, who were the mothers of
male and female sorcerers, who could at any time assume the wolf’s
shape. These enchantresses were cruel: they often raised storms, and
enticed travellers into their power from the mere love of destruction.
Thor met one of these witches, who cautioned him against the arts of
Geyruth, and presented him with a pair of iron gloves, a girdle, and a
staff.
On reaching the river Vimur, the longest one in the world, he observed
Gialp, one of the giant’s daughters, standing astride the whole
river,—one foot on each bank; and making the water rise in a fearful
manner. He threw a rush at her, and forced her to retire. Wading across,
he proceeded to Geyruth’s palace, which he entered, and a separate
lodging was provided for him. In one corner of the cavern was a stool,
on which he sat down; but scarcely was he seated, when the stool began
to rise from the ground. With the staff which he held, he struck the
roof of the cave, and immediately heard a loud scream beneath him. On
looking, he discovered, with broken backs, three daughters of his host,
who had placed themselves on the roof with the design of crushing him to
death. Geyruth himself did not escape more easily. Inviting Thor to
drink with him, the two sat down in another part of the palace, one on
each side of a large fire. Having sat for some time, the giant seized a
red-hot iron wedge that was glowing in the fire, and threw it with all
his might at the god. The latter caught it with his gloved hand, and
returned it with such force, that though Geyruth had run behind a
pillar, it went through both pillar, himself, and the walls of the
palace. Still it remained in his breast; and in that position, attended
by his three maimed daughters, he has remained ever since.[68]
In the second journey, which is much more imaginative, Thor was
accompanied by Loke. The temple of Upsal had been visited by Utgardelok
(the demon king of Utgard)[69], who had not only extinguished the sacred
fire, but made a ruin of the edifice. Now Upsal was the palace which,
above all others in Midgard, Odin loved. In it Thor and Frigga too were
worshipped with great pomp; and the priestesses of the latter were of
royal blood,—the daughters of kings. Great was the wrath of the three
deities. Thor, in particular, was observed to knit his brows, and to
clench his fist at table: but he spoke not a word; for he was revolving
the means of vengeance. Formidable as he knew the demon king to be in
natural, and still more in supernatural power,—in a science unknown to
the gods,—he resolved to invade his dominions. Having emptied a full
horn presented to him by one of the Valkyrs, he called for his car, for
his goats, and for Loke, as the companion of his journey. Having
harnessed the animals, nailed on their golden shoes, wound the reins
round his waist, he entered with Loke; and grasping Miölner in his right
hand, proceeded at a rapid pace down the bridge Bifrost.
Adown the pointed way
As drove the impetuous god,
The red flames, lambent, play
Along the wheel-tracks broad.
Heimdal his horn blew loud,[70]
The god with sleepless eye;
Seven maids submissive bowed[71]
As the gold car flew by.
On earth some meteor dire
Men thought then to behold;
The heavens were fraught with fire;
In peals the thunder rolled.[72]
Reaching a cottage towards nightfall, they asked for hospitality, which
was readily granted. Humble was the cot; and it contained little for
gods to banquet on,—nothing but simple vegetables. But Thor was not
anxious on this account. With his hammer he slew his two goats, which
were skinned and roasted with considerable despatch. Ample was the
entertainment; not only was the flesh delicious, but the place teemed
with excellent mead; and some idea may be formed of a divine appetite,
when we add, that the two goats were entirely devoured,—all but the
bones, which Thor desired should be carefully thrown back into the skins
that were stretched before the hearth. But Thialf, a son of the rustic
host, and a mere stripling, broke a thigh-bone of one goat for the sake
of the marrow. The next morning, before daybreak, Thor arose, and swung
his hammer over the two skins, when suddenly the two goats rose up as if
nothing had happened. But one of them limped; and dreadful was the
countenance of the god. Supplication, however, disarmed him; he took the
youth and a sister into his service; and leaving the car and the goats
at the peasant’s cottage, all four proceeded on foot. The boy, who
immediately won the favour of his master, carried a wallet; and the
maiden, quite a beauty, tripped lightly along. Thor marched pensively;
his hammer flung over his shoulder; his dark locks escaping from his
silvery casque. They reached the sea, which was agitated by a dreadful
tempest; and Loke began to be afraid; but he was compelled to follow the
god, who rushed into the water, like some thundering rock. The mortals
too followed: but the storm continued to rage; and they required all the
help of the leader to reach the other side. A trackless desert was next
to be traversed; and on they went, in darkness, except that the moon now
and then gleamed,—weary, hungry, wet, and faint. Other trials were to be
encountered,—the storm, the lightning, the slippery ice, the deep mud;
the roaring wind, which the demon king excited by his magic power. Thor,
who had to support the maiden Roska, lost his temper; and he vowed
revenge on Utgardelok when he should meet him. What seemed to be a hut,
in the midst of the pitiless waste, presented itself; and three of them
entered it, Thor himself remaining at the entrance with his mallet in
his hand, to protect them while they slept. Vast, and of a strange form,
was the only apartment which the hut contained; but in a storm any port
is welcome. Towards morning, while Thor glanced in great anger over the
waste, he heard a strange noise, and felt a strange motion. Rising, he
beheld, by the faint glimmer of the moon, a vast giant—so vast as to
cover several acres—asleep and snoring. Grasping his mallet, he was
preparing to punish the intruder, when up started the giant. “Who are
you?” demanded Thor. “Skrymner, the servant of king Utgardelok, just
come from Jotunheim.” He addressed Thor by name, of whose feats he had
heard much; but common report, he thought, had been too favourable; for
after all, even _he_, who was of little esteem compared with his
fellows, could put this hero of the gods in the palm of his right hand.
“I have lost my gauntlet!” suddenly observed the giant, who groping for
it, took it up. What was it but the strange hut in which Loke and the
two mortals had passed the greater part of the night? All but Thor were
dismayed at this commencement of their acquaintance with the subjects of
Utgardelok; but Thor trusted in his hammer. “What brings you so far to
look at a desert?” was the natural question of Skrymner. Thor replied,
that he was determined to see, face to face, their boasted monarch,
whose magic and frozen mountains he only ridiculed. The giant thought he
might rue his boldness: however, if he was determined to proceed, let
him do so, and he (Skrymner) would be his guide. When evening came, and
the giant laid down to sleep under a great tree, until supper was ready,
there was more magic. Neither Thialf, nor Loke, nor Thor himself, could
open the wallet, or cut the strings. In great wrath the god seized his
hammer, and struck at the forehead of the sleeping giant. “Has a leaf
fallen on my face?” asked the giant, rubbing his face, and wondering why
they had not gone to sleep. Towards midnight, the snoring of Skrymner so
enraged Thor, that he arose, and aimed a hard and more vigorous blow at
the monster: the hammer seemed to enter his very brain. “Has an acorn
fallen?” was the cool observation of the other, as he rubbed his face. A
third blow, which seemed to send the very handle into the giant’s head,
had no better effect; so that Thor now began to have less confidence in
the weapon which had hitherto terrified all created things.
But we must not dwell on events which have been so frequently
described.[73] The adventures of the god and his companions at the
palace of Utgardelok were not such as to inspire him with more
confidence. Loke—fire itself, which consumes all things—was beat at
eating. Thialf—a mythologic personage too, though represented as a
peasant’s son, his name signifying _thought_—is exceeded in the race.
The mighty thunderer himself is vanquished in three successive trials.
Though he is the sun, the greatest drinker surely in all nature, he
cannot much lessen a large horn of liquor that is presented to him: he
cannot lift a huge tom-cat from the floor: he cannot, in wrestling,
throw a toothless old woman, who brings him on one knee. In much shame,
though in no consternation, the god returned with his companions. On
leaving the confines of the city, however, he was made acquainted with
the deceptions that had been practised on him. The three blows which he
had struck, were not at a head, but at a rocky mountain; and deep were
the dells which they had made in it. The horn was the ocean; yet he had
drunk so much of it as to leave in many places land instead of water.
The cat was Midgard’s great serpent, which he had almost lifted from the
sea. The old woman was Hela, the goddess of death, who with all her
strength could only bring him on one knee. In great anger, he was going
to exact revenge for such tricks, when the spectre and the city itself
vanished like mist.
This mythos in a great degree explains itself. The contest between Thor
and Utgard’s monarch is evidently one between the summer and the winter,
between heat and cold, between light and darkness. Many of the details,
we believe, in opposition to Magnussen, who sees in every thing a
physical meaning, to have been created without any other design than
entertainment.
_Hymis-quida_, a song about Hymir, is from the elder Edda, and is of
great antiquity.
THOR AND THE GIANT HYMIR.
The sea-god Ægir gave a banquet to the gods; but he was little prepared
for such drinkers, and his mead fell short. Thor called for more with
some anger; and that anger was not diminished when he found that no more
was forthcoming. The excuse was, that Ægir had not a cauldron large
enough to brew sufficient mead at a time. Tyr, who was present with the
rest, and who, though a god, is represented as the son of the giant
Hymir, observed that his father had one a mile deep, which might be
obtained by stratagem. On this business the two gods immediately
departed in the chariot of Thor towards Hymir’s abode, which lay on the
confines of the eastern sea. Here they found two ladies, the mother and
wife of the giant; the former a strange creature, with 900 heads; the
latter, who was the mother of Tyr, a fine woman, and kind as she was
comely. She told them both that she feared Hymir’s return; since he was
subject to dreadful passions; and she hid them behind some kettles.
Towards evening he returned, in no good humour. As he entered the house,
the icy mountains emitted a thundering noise. An old man he was to view,
and the hairs of his head, which resembled a forest, were frozen. His
wife, saluting him, told him that their son was arrived, in company with
the famous enemy of the giants and the friend of men, Veor.[74] “Look,”
she added, “where they sit, at the extremity of the house, to avoid thy
glance!” The giant looked; but they were concealed by the nine kettles.
At his glance, however, the tree or beam from which they were suspended,
burnt into two, and eight of them burst. The two gods now advanced; and
though Hymir was compelled to exercise some degree of hospitality, he
did so unwillingly. Three oxen (one for each, we suppose, unless the
lion’s share was to be Hymir’s,) were ordered to be roasted. But Thor
showed that he had more than a giant’s appetite; for, to the surprise of
his host, he ate two of the animals himself. This made the latter
observe, that the next evening the two visitors must eat what they could
take in hunting or fishing for themselves. The next day, therefore, Thor
proposed to fish, if the giant would give him bait. “Go amongst the
cattle, and seize one,” was the reply. “I suspect, however,” Hymir
added, “that thou wilt not easily catch such bait.” Without reply, Thor
went into the wood, and seizing the horns of a large black bull, pulled
off its head, and returned to the giant, who expressed some surprise at
such a feat in one so little. They now went out into the sea, and the
giant hauled two whales. But nobler was the prey of Thor: with the
bull’s head he caught the great serpent Jormungandur, the head of which
he drew out of the water, and which spewed venom upon him. The rocks
trembled; the desert places howled, and the ancient earth rolled itself
closer. He then struck the monster with his mallet, and it sank. Hymir
rowed back, sullen and silent; and the strength which had been exhibited
in bringing the two whales to his mountain home, gave him some reason
for thought. When returned, the two gods were desired to try their
strength in other things. A cup was put into the hands of Thor, and he
was defied to break it. In vain did he dash it against several pillars
in succession: he split _them_, but _it_ remained unbroken. The wife now
whispered him to throw it against the giant’s head, which was much
harder than the rock. He did so; the head was uninjured; but the cup was
broken, and the owner lamented its loss. The next trial of strength was
to carry the great cauldron out of the house. Tyr tried twice; but could
not so much as move it. But Thor placed it upon his head; and though the
edges descended to his heels, he walked away with it. He was now pursued
by a great number of giants whom he slew with his mallet.—From that time
the sea-god was able to treat the Aser men to their satisfaction.
Of this mythos the physical meaning is dark; and this darkness is
probably owing to the fondness with which the northern scalds added
extraneous circumstances for the sake of embellishment. Nothing, indeed,
is more hopeless than the attempt to restore these ancient pieces to the
original fragmentary state in which they were left by the priests of
Thor and of Odin. The scald has, by embellishing, concealed the priest;
the fabulist concealed the philosophic theologian. All that we can
safely assert is, that there is here a physical contest between heat and
cold, between evaporation and congelation; that the sun (Thor), having
drunk up all the streams of the earth, now invades the dominions of
frost and snow. The bursting of the vessels under the glance of Hymir,
is a notion universally diffused in the northern latitudes. Thus, the
two magicians the suitors of Gunhilda, could destroy every thing by
their glance.[75] The meaning doubtless is, that excessive frost makes
every thing brittle, and may therefore be said to split every thing.
If the scalds took such liberties with the ancient or poetic Edda, as
often to bury the sun, they were more licentious still in regard to the
younger or prose Edda. This work was evidently compiled to explain the
former. With _it_ a licence still more dangerous has been taken; so
that, in many instances, it bears little conformity with the preceding
work. We may add, that by modernising, paraphrasing, and embellishing
the prose Edda, Ohlenschlager has done no service to the ancient
mythology of his country: he cannot be followed by any one that would
form a correct notion of the subject. In the same manner as the
compilers of the second Edda deviated from the spirit of the first, so
has the celebrated Danish poet deviated from _them_.[76] For the sake of
illustrating this divergence, let us advert for a moment to the same
adventure in the prose Edda and in the version of Ohlenschlager: it will
be found to have lost its mythical character in proportion to the
improvement of its fable.
When Thor reflected on the gross impositions which Utgardelok had
practised on him, he was apprehensive, and not without reason, that gods
and men would take him for a fool. To vindicate his merits, he ventured
again to visit Utgard, and without Loke, whose honour he justly
suspected. This time he would, like them, change his form, and he
obtained from Odin, in the shape of ointment, power that would enable
him to do so. Leaving behind his car and his goats—
O’er Dovre’s ridge[77] he strode,
For cliff nor torrent slack’d;
The tall pines, where he trode,
Like field of stubble crack’d.
Sneehattan’s peak of snow,
And Jotunfieldt he past,
Then sought the plains below,
And the sea reach’d at last;
He mark’d in curling wreath
The dull wave roll away,
And saw where, far beneath,
The serpent, brooding, lay.
His heart with hope beat high,
His voice shook as he spake,
Turning to Heaven his eye,
“No more, accursed snake,”
Quoth he: “in giant bend
Earth prison’d shalt thou keep,
Nor struggling sea-man send
To fell Ran’s cavern deep.”
“But being now resolved to proceed with caution, he began by changing
his form. Throwing his ponderous helmet on the ground, it became a rock
covered with pines.
Next, from his cloven chin,
He tore the bushy beard;
Which, cast in the ravine,
A thorny copse appear’d.
A smooth-faced peasant boy
He stood, in wadmel[78] blue,
White Heimdall smiled for joy
The cunning wile to view.
Now straight to Hymir’s grot
He hies, a simple hind,
His flaxen ringlets float
Wild in the morning wind;
His belt, by magic cheat,
A woollen girdle seem’d,
Art with like art to meet,
No shame the Aser deem’d.
Miölner, as woodman’s axe,
Athwart his arm he bare,
His courage high ’gan wax
At thought of vengeance near.
In moss-lined cavern deep,
Lull’d by a torrent’s play,
Taking his morning sleep,
At length the giant lay.”
“The poet in describing Hymir’s residence gives a vivid picture of
Norwegian scenery, black rugged rocks crowned with pines, a waterfall, a
river white with foam dashing through thick brushwood down the ravine,
and hard by a verdant dell filled with cattle. On hearing a stranger’s
step, Hymir sprang up, and demanded of the stripling how he dared
unbidden to venture into his wood. Thor replied that he felt no
apprehension:
‘My pulse beats steadily,’
The youth replied: ‘for ne’er
Hath Nornies’ stern decree
Been changed, I trow, by fear.
One of a form so good,
Of generous soul should be;
My little drop of blood,
What would it profit thee?’”
“He finishes a long speech by saying, that his object was to obtain the
giant’s permission to accompany him when he went out to fish.
The grisly giant grinn’d
So wide, that either ear
His mouth appear’d behind,
Ne’er yet was seen such leer;
The earth shook all around,
He laugh’d so heartily,
‘One with a heart so sound
I’ll never harm,’ quoth he.”
“He then granted the request, and invited Thor to take shelter in his
cave from the keen morning wind, adding tauntingly,
‘When many a league from shore
The kraken’s snort we hear,
And whirling Maelström’s roar,
’Tis then we’ll talk of fear.’”
“Thor asked only to be put to the proof, and now begged to be allowed to
take with him what he might want for his fishing. Hymir assented,
telling him that for bait he would find a grub amongst the cows. Thor
went into the field, and a wild bull rushing towards him, he seized it
by the horns and brake off its head, and then throwing it over his
shoulders leaped the enclosure, and hastened to Hymir, who was getting
the boat ready.
When Hymir the bull’s head
On the youth’s shoulders saw,
He laugh’d, and own’d the deed
Was good for one so raw.
Then shoved the boat from shore,
Swift through the waves it flew.
Hymir plied well his oar,
And Thor row’d stoutly too.”
“The god now became elated at the near prospect of measuring himself
with the serpent, and gave full liberty to his thoughts. If he could
succeed in slaying it,
‘By Yggdrasil[79], the feat
Would glad me more, by far,
In Valhall than to beat
Ten score Einheriar.
What fruitful seeds of ill
To mar man’s mortal state,
And earth with woes to fill,
From the worm emanate!
His pestilential breath
Fevers and plagues doth cause,
And each disease to death
Which man untimely draws.
When one in manhood’s prime
Feels his approaching end,
And ere yet lapsed his time,
To Hela’s power must bend;
When his heart-broken spouse
Sees hope’s last promise fail,
Then his fell might he’ll rouse
To mock the widow’s wail.
Her babe, which will not rest
When the pale mother clasps,
And gives in vain the breast,
Struggling for life it gasps.
Poor babe, as early rose
Late fresh—she sees its eye
In death for ever close—
Nor weeps for agony:
When one, who purely burns,
Absent for many a year,
To his true love returns
And finds her on her bier.
When from a mourning realm
Some virtuous prince is ta’en,
Or chief has bow’d his helm;
Then sure the foul snake’s seen
Writhing for joy. Their birth
All serpents, which infest
Man’s central spot of earth,
Draw from his nostril’s blast.
The great snake, whose wide jowl,
(To th’ southwards, far away)
Will gulp a raging bull,
Through him first saw the day.
Its tail wound round an oak
It watcheth long its prey,
Which from the affrighted flock
Struggling it drags away.
Others, with diamond eyes,
To Askur’s mortal race,
Death-doomed! though less in size,
Alas! not fatal less.
Fair sight their forms to view
Basking in new-donn’d sheen,
To their’s the violet’s blue
Must yield, or emerald’s green:
They know, by wizard gaze,
Coil’d ’neath some leafy bower,
Their prey with fear to glaze,
And charm him to their power.
Gaunt Fenris, Loptur’s son,
Who loves to prowl the night,
Bewilder’d travellers down
Hurling from rocky height:
When bloody treason’s rife,
When for some murder foul
The bandit whets his knife,
The wolf for joy doth howl.
All who delight in blood
From him beginning have;
From him the tiger brood,
The hyæna’s traitor laugh;
The like each robber beast,
Which from the fair light shrinks,
Fitchet of plunderers least,
Marten, and fox, and lynx.
For nought hath Fenris ruth,
When midnight winds blow hoarse,
His sacrilegious tooth
Tears from its grave the corse—
Still ’twere my chiefest joy
The foul worm and his brood
Of reptiles to destroy.
Grieves me that man the food
Of crawling worms should be:
This slain, his life should pass,
From loathsome sickness free,
In years of happiness.
And, when th’ o’erpeopled earth
No more her sons could feed,
The bravest should stand forth,
And like good warriors bleed.
Not hatred should unsheath
Their swords, nor lust of power,
But a soul-warming wrath,
Gone when the fight was o’er.
From some dark cloud the fray
I’d watch, my bolts in hand
The boldest on their way
To Odin’s hall to send.”
Thus mused the Aser Thor,
And pull’d with all his might,
Each time he struck his oar
The dark-green wave turn’d white.
The more his anger burn’d
The huge boat sped the more,
Seem’d as the waves it spurn’d
Skimming like Dolphin o’er—
So swiftly on it flew,
The sides began to split,
The sea so fast came through,
The twain in water sit.
Quick Hymir sprang to bale
It out, and loud to roar,
(His giant-heart ’gan fail)
‘Avast there! back your oar.
‘An you keep on this rate
We soon to Ran shall go’—
Quoth Thor: ‘Take heart, must yet
A score good leagues or so.’
‘Score leagues!’ cried Hymir: ‘why,
Art mad! mark’st not the storm!
E’en now I can descry
Where lies fell Midgard’s worm.’
‘And what care I for worm!’
Cried Thor, the fisher good:
‘The bleak north’s bitterest storm
But fans my heated blood—
I love the tempest’s roar—
Ha! there the foul worm struck,
Now I’ll take in mine oar,
And try with line my luck.’
Then rising to full height,
The iron kedge he took,
Which, though it seem’d him light,
Must serve him for a hook.
The gory bullock’s head
He took him for a bait—
The giant, pale with dread,
In the stern, trembling, sate.
For line, he next made loose
His belt, and one end pass’d
Twice round his waist, with noose
Well bound to th’ other fast
The baited hook he tied,
And in the ocean threw:
O’er the boat’s yielding side
The girdle, hissing, flew.”
_Ohlenschlager_.
“It must be confessed,” says the prose Edda, “that Thor here
made quite as great a fool of Jormungandur as Utgard’s-Lok did
of him, when the giant king caused him to lift up the worm,
believing it was a cat. The worm gulped down the ox’s head so
ravenously, that the hook stuck deep in his jaws. As soon as he
perceived this, he plunged with such violence, that both Thor’s
fists struck against the sides of the boat, on which the god’s
anger got up and his strength at the same time, and he pulled so
furiously against the snake, that both his legs went through the
boat, and he remained standing on the bottom of the sea. He now
pulled up the serpent to the edge of the boat, and, to say the
truth, it was a terrible sight to see Thor look so grim at the
serpent, and the serpent all the while gaping and spewing out
poison against Thor. It is reported also that the giant Hymir
changed colour, and became white with fear, when he saw the
snake, and the dark blue sea breaking through the sides of the
boat.
“In the same moment Thor seized hold of his hammer and swung it
round in the air, but the giant fumbled about for his knife, and
scored Thor’s knot over, by which means the snake got loose and
sank down to the bottom of the sea. Thor threw his hammer after
it, and it has been asserted that he thus knocked its head off
against the breakers. But I think that it is pretty certain that
the Midgard’s worm still lives and lies in the sea. Thor then
lifted his arm and gave Hymir such a cuff on the side of the
head that he fell overboard, and the soles of his feet were
turned up in the air, but Thor waded to shore.”[80]
The contrast between the preceding version and the simple relation in
the venerable poetic Edda will, no doubt, appear striking to the reader,
and abundantly confirm all the observations we have made on the subject.
THOR AND THE GIANT THRYM.
The poem of _Thrym’s-guida_, or the song about Thrym, in the elder Edda,
has a physical meaning, though that meaning is dark. Awaking one
morning, Thor could not find his hammer. Like Jove he shook his head and
his beard, and groped about in every direction. Calling Loke to him, he
said, “Here is a mishap, never before known in earth or heaven,—I have
lost my hammer!” No doubt but it had been stolen during the night by one
of the giants, who were always on the alert to injure the Aser. Both
gods then went to Freya, to borrow her hawk’s-dress, as Loke had before
borrowed it to recover Iduna.[81] “And thou should’st have it,” replied
the goddess, “if it were gold, nay, if it were even silver.”[82] Loke
assumed the dress, and flew into the giant region of Utgard. There he
found Thrym, one of Utgard’s lords, making golden collars for his dogs,
dressing the manes of his horses, and singing all the time. Seeing Loke,
he inquired, “What news of the Aser? What of the elves? What brings thee
alone to Jotunheim?” “Neither Aser nor elves are very well, just
now:—hast thou hidden Thor’s hammer?” “That I have, eight miles below
the earth’s surface; and regain it shall you never, unless you bring me
the goddess Freya to wife!” The condition was a hard one. Freya was the
queen of love; she was the Venus of Asgard; and she was also the
moon,—two things much wanted in the cold dark region of Jotunheim. Away
flew Loke, his wings resounding, until he reached Asgard, where he was
anxiously met by Thor. “Hast thou been to Giant-land? And hast thou
succeeded in thine errand?” “I have been to Giant-land, and I have
succeeded in my errand. Thrym, the lord of the frost giants, has thy
mallet, and thy mallet he will not restore, unless he has Freya to
wife!” The loss of Freya would be a great loss, but that of the
thunderbolt was worse; for how without it could Asgard be defended
against the giants? Away went the two gods to Freya, and the Thunderer
most unceremoniously bade her to prepare herself for a husband, and for
a ride to Jotunheim:—
Angry was Freya,
And she trembled (with rage),
The whole palace of the gods
Was shaken.
The gods and goddesses were now assembled to deliberate on other means
of recovering the hammer.
Heimdall proposed that Thor himself should assume the bridal dress, with
the habit and ornaments of Freya, and proceed to Jotunheim:—
Let us make on him
The keys to jingle[83];
And a woman’s dress
To flow below his knees;
And on his breast
The jewell’d ornaments;
And let us put on him
The handsome head-gear.
Thor did not much relish the proposal, from a fear that the gods would
hereafter hold him to be degraded,—would regard him as really a woman.
Loke told him, however, that he had only to choose between the mode of
recovering his mallet, and of seeing Asgard in possession of the giants.
He then suffered himself to be conveyed in the manner proposed. Then
spake Loke, the son of Laufeya:—
“I as thy servant
With thee will go:
We together will ride
To the land of the giants.”
The chariot was brought out, the goats were yoked, and the two Aser
rapidly proceeded to their destination,—so rapidly, that the rocks
split, and the earth blazed under the shining wheels:—
Then spake Thrym,
Lord of the Thurser[84];
“Arise, ye giants,
And strew the benches.
Then bring unto me
Freya my bride,
The daughter of Niord
From Nocturn:
“Bring into the bower
The cows with golden horns,
And the coal-black oxen,
The giant’s delight.
Many jewels have I
And many treasures:
Of Freya alone
Have I need.”
The giants arrived, and the bridal feast was prepared. Great was the
surprise of Thrym to see his bride eat a whole ox, and eight salmon into
the bargain; and to send after all three barrels of mead:—
“Who ever saw a bride
Eat so greedily?
Never did I see one
Devour so much;
Nor any virgin
Swill so much mead!”
The reply of Loke, disguised as a handmaid, was ready:—
“Nothing has Freya tasted
These eight nights (days),[85]
So great was her desire
To be in Jotunheim.”
The giant in a gallant style wished to kiss his bride; but no sooner did
he lift the veil, and see her looks, than he started back in great
alarm:—
“Why so angry
The glance of Freya?
I see from her eyes
The very fire doth issue.”
The reply of Loke, the handmaid, was equally ready:—
“No sleep hath Freya had
These eight nights:
Such was her longing
To visit Jotunheim!”
The giant’s sister came for a bridal present, and one she was about to
get that she little expected. The mallet, by Thrym’s command, was now
brought forth, that the wedding might be solemnised over it. The god
laughed as he grasped his well-known bolt; and no sooner did he grasp it
than he killed Thrym, the sister, and all assembled.[86]
According to Magnussen, the physical meaning of the poem is this. During
the winter, Thor, the god of thunder, sleeps; and Thrym, the lord of
that season, hides the thunderbolt. Loke (_flame_, and by an extension
of the metaphor, _heat_) is sent in pursuit of it. The sun and moon were
very meet and very natural gifts for the inhabitants of the dark region
to solicit from the gods; and the world, on the present occasion, must
have been left in darkness, or rather perhaps in cold, but for the
interference of Thor. In the foundation of his theory, the critic is
doubtless correct; but in the explanation of the attendant
circumstances,—that in which the god assumes the female habit—he is
whimsical enough. The truth is, that the foundation only can be traced
in any of their myths: the circumstances are introduced purely for the
sake of the embellishment, or for ensuring greater probability to the
fable.
Before we dismiss Thor, we must advert to the goddess _Sif_, his wife.
The word means a conjunction, kindred, and probably she was one of his
family. By her he had two sons, Magne and Mode, and two daughters,
Thrude and Lora. He was not her first husband, whose name does not
appear; but she had a son named Uller by that husband.[92] She excelled
in chastity, and was much worshipped, not in Scandinavia only, but among
the Vends, and perhaps the Slavonians, as a personification of the
summer-earth. Her greatest pride is her fair hair, which, like the
hammer of Thor, and the magic ring possessed by Odin, was the work of
the dwarfs. She is thus described by Ohlenschlager:
Sif, tall and fair with native grace,
To none in beauty need give place
Save her whom Odin called to light,
To make the erst dull world more bright.
Fair tho’ she be, to Freya ne’er
Can stately Sif in form compare.
Not her’s the clear eye’s speaking glance,
Age-frozen blood might make to dance:
Or heart which passion ne’er had felt
Like snow ’neath mid-day sun to melt.
* * * * * * * * *
Sif seems some Amazon to be,
Her look replete with dignity,
Her eye beams no impassioned glance,
But rests in cold indifference.
Her round arms, form’d alike to prove
The contests or of war or love;
Her swan-like bosom’s faultless curve
Would Bragi’s golden lyre deserve.
Smaller though Freya’s hand, not snow
Than Sifs, fresh fallen on mountain brow,
More white, nor softer virgin down
Of Eyder-fowl, nor breast of swan.
Two pencill’d brows of darkest brown
Meet on her front, and seem to frown:
What gentler beauty would deface,
To hers but adds another grace;
Her pearly teeth, of dazzling white,
With ruby lips form contrast bright;
But her first charm, past all compare,
Is her long, silken, amber hair.
NIORD, FREYR, FREYA.
Niord, a lord of the Vaner, obtained, as we have before related[93], a
share in the government of the Aser. He could not, indeed, do otherwise
after the junction of the two people. Mythologically, he is the lord of
Vindheim, the region of the winds, and consequently the ally of Ægir,
the god of the sea. His palace, Noatun, is represented as on the borders
of the ocean. Thus, Ohlenschlager, who may be followed where poetical
description merely is required:—
Niord who with ocean’s god
Full oft in league is found,
Loves o’er the raging flood
In swift career to bound.
Skimming each billow’s back,
Loud neighs his coal-black steed:
On the calm wave no track
He leaves—so great his speed.[94]
Niord was twice married. By his first wife, who was also his sister, and
we are distinctly informed that the union of such near relatives was
peculiar to the Vanir (the custom, however, was common to the Egyptians,
the Persians, and the royal family of Peru), he had two children,
Freyr[95] and Freya.[96] His second wife was Skada, daughter of the
giant Thiasse. The circumstances which led to his marriage were these.
No sooner did Skada hear that her father had been killed by Thor[97],
than she armed herself, and proceeded to Asgard to avenge his death. As
the condition of peace, the gods proposed that she should take a husband
from them, but that, while choosing, she should be blindfolded. She
groped about, and at length fixed on one whose feet were small and well
formed, whom she thought to be Balder. It was Niord; and the marriage
was celebrated. The pair, however, could not agree about their place of
residence. The bride could not bear the sea-shore; the waves, she
observed, would not let her sleep, and she longed for her native
mountains. He was no less hostile to her father’s abode. A compromise
was at length effected; the couple were to live nine days in Thrymheim,
and three days in Noatun; that is, nine days in the mountains, and three
on the sea-coast. But this compromise was of no long duration. The two
were so dissimilar in character that they could not agree; there was a
separation; and Skada became the wife of Odin.[98] Of Niord we shall
only add that though little is said of him in the Edda, he must have
been a primary deity from the terms of the oath solemnly taken by the
Scandinavians:—“So help me Freyr, and Niord, and the mighty Aser!”
Freyr, the son of Niord, has been mentioned as one of the twelve ruling
gods of Asgard—as god of sunshine, of rain, and consequently of
vegetation. Alfheim, his residence, the kingdom of the light elves, was
given him in the morning of time, when he had cut his first tooth. One
day he had the presumption to ascend Lidskialf, the awful seat of
Odin[99]; and he was punished for it by falling in love with Gerda,
daughter of the giant Gymer, whom he saw issue from her father’s palace
in the North. Surpassing, indeed, was the maiden’s beauty; it was so
bright as to enlighten the whole region. He gazed and loved; and after
the beautiful vision had departed, he descended, melancholy and
miserable, to his own palace. What hope was there of winning a giant
maiden? Would the gods themselves sanction such a connection? Sleep and
appetite forsook him. In much anxiety, Niord besought his confidential
messenger, Skirnir, to draw from Freyr the cause of his affliction. With
some persuasion, Skirnir consented, and by much entreaty obtained the
secret:
From Gymer’s house
I have seen a maiden issue
For whom I long.
Her fair arms shone
So as to enlighten air and sea.
Dearer is the maid to me
Than ever was maid to any youth.
But of gods or demigods
Not one will wish
That we should be united.
Skirnir loves the lord with whom he was reared; and he proposes, if
Freyr will give him the horse “regardless of flame,” and the sword, to
go and win the lady for him. Having mounted, he thus addressed the
animal:—
“Dark is the night without;
Yet it is time for us to go
Through the misty hills,
Through the land of the Thurser.
We both must return,
Or both be seized
By the powerful giant.”
He rode to Jotunheim, and before the gate of Gymer saw fierce dogs. On a
hill close by was a herdsman, to whom he rode, and inquired by what
means he might pass the dogs so as to speak with Gymer’s daughter. The
herdsman replied, that he must either be dead already, or about to die,
to venture on such an errand; never could he speak to the lady. Skirnir
observed, that he could but die; that he feared not death; and he
dismounted. The noise attracted the attention of Gerda: she caused the
stranger to enter, and thus addressed him:—
“Who art thou?—of the elves?
Or of the Aser sons?
Or of the wiser Vaner?
Why comest thou hither, alone,
Through raging flames
To visit our hall?”
He replied that he was not an Elf, nor an Aser, nor a Vanir; and he
offered her eleven apples,—no doubt those of immortality, stolen from
the treasury of Iduna,[100]—if she would bestow her love on Freyr, the
most agreeable of all beings. She rejected the apples with scorn,
declaring that she would never live with Freyr. He then offered her the
ring—the very ring—which was laid on the funeral pyre with Balder, the
son of Odin—that ring which every ninth night produced eight other rings
of the same weight. It too she scorned; she had gold enough in her
father’s house. He then bade her look at the sword which he held in his
hand, and threatened to behead her unless she would love Freyr. Still
she refused; and said that if he and her father met, there would be
bloodshed. Other threats he employed, and commenced a charm which was
for ever to deprive her of beauty, of happiness, of worldly esteem, and
consign her to the most direful woes. In the midst of the charm, she
interrupted him; she could resist no longer; she offered him a cup of
mead; and at length named the very night on which she would meet Freyr
in the grove of Barre.—Skirnir now returned in great joy. He is met by
Freyr, who will not allow him to dismount until he has said what success
has attended him. The news, which ought to fill him with joy, makes him
impatient. One night seems long; nine seems an age. The giant-maiden
kept her promise; and for a reward, Skirnir received the sword of
Freyr.[101]
Freya, the sister of Freyr, and the goddess of love, is thus described
by Ohlenschlager:—
——Freya’s hall
With precious gems o’erlaid,
Stands in a lonely vale,
Which rose-tree forests shade;
Swans, white as virgin snow,
There on the calm lakes sail,
Lovers, who ne’er brake vow,
Tell there their ardent tale.
But in Folkvangur’s bower
Nought like its matchless queen;
Mid many a beauteous flower
No flower like her, I ween.
Her form so round and slight,
Her look which love doth beam,
Her step as Zephyr’s light,
Exceeds e’en poet’s dream.
Each small, white, taper hand,
A blushing rose doth bear,
Which through her faery land
Breathe forth their fragrant air.
Their sweets no guardian thorn
From rude touch needs defend,
’Tis they to even and morn
The roseate tints which lend.
Like her no goddess kind,
She saves from wounds and death,
Her sigh—the sweet south wind
O’er the wild flowers doth breathe.[110]
Round tears for mortal woe
Each morn her blue eyes fill,
Which on the flowers below
In purest dew distil.
Her daughters Siofna[111] hight
And Hnos, with amber hair,
Not e’en the spirits of light
Can boast of aught so fair.
Whate’er is passing bright
On earth, from Hnos we call:
Siofna gives slumbers light,
The morn on pure souls fall.[112]
Freya had an equal share with Odin in the souls of all slain in fight;
for is not love the cause of as much bloodshed as any other passion? All
maidens of birth also hastened to her palace of Vingolf. Her car was
drawn by two wild cats, or perhaps leopards; and next to Frigga, with
whom she has been often confounded; she was the most powerful of all the
goddesses. Her husband was Oddur, of whom little is known, except that
he travelled far and wide, and that her attachment to him induced her to
follow him, weeping tears of gold. Yet, if report be true, she was not
always distinguished for conjugal faith. She had two daughters by Oddur,
both exquisitely fair to behold; and she had four attendants, to each of
whom was intrusted some portion of her sovereignty. Thus Siofna was the
goddess of first love; Lofna removed all obstacles which impeded the
fruition of lovers’ wishes; Var presided over betrothals, and punished
false vows; Tir, the portress of Freya’s palace, refused admission to
all who were not qualified to enter; and she was the enemy of all
unfortunate lovers: she it was who prevented the fruition of their
hopes.
This mythos explains itself more satisfactorily than any other.
ÆGIR AND RAN
Were of giant race, and deities of the deep. They had nine daughters,
personifications of the billows, the currents, and the storm.
Ægir might be propitiated; but Ran was always cruel, when the fates
would permit her: she occasioned shipwrecks in which she delighted, on
account of the spoil which they brought her. She had a wonderful net,
with which she caught such mariners as fell into the sea.
In crystal halls his head
Rears Ægir, Ran’s stern spouse;
A silver helmet red
With coral guards his brows;
His beard, of ocean weeds,
His spear with amber deck’d,
And pearls, but show he needs,
And the proud waves are check’d.
The emblem of his sway
When lifts the watery god—
Quick sinks the raging sea,
Obedient to his rod;
His pearly muscle throne,
In Hlesey may be seen;
Has daughters nine by Ran,
Three are the billows green.[113]
There was a brilliant feast held in the palace of Ægir, beneath the
waves. Gods, goddesses, and elves were present to honour it; and the
great cauldron which Thor had stolen[114] contained mead enough for all
the guests. This feast, therefore, was subsequent to the other, when the
want of that liquor was resented by Thor. On this occasion Thor was not
present, but Loke was; yet no welcome guest was he. The deities did not
like him; first, because he had a wicked tongue, and next, because he
had but too much reason for using it at their expense. Two of the
sea-gods, attendants, obtaining from all the praise of dexterity, Loke
killed one of them, merely because he could not bear to hear any one
commended. In great anger the gods excluded him from the festive hall;
but he, at length, returned, and asked for his place, not in a
penitential mood, but in the resolution of creating strife. All seemed
inclined to reject him, until he won upon Odin by reminding him of past
times:
Rememberest thou, Odin,
How, in the morning of time,
We mixed blood together?[115]
To taste of liquor
Thou swarest never,
Unless it were brought to us both.
The sire of gods was moved by this appeal; and he cried—
Arise, Vidar,
And let the wolf’s father
Take his place at the board!
He did take his place; and as each of the guests remonstrated with him
on his ill-nature, he launched out into new abuse. He spared none; and
though his reproaches were bitter, they had foundation enough to render
them keenly felt. Neither the awful dignity of Odin, nor the thunderbolt
of Thor, who arrived about the midst of the festival, could shield them
from his attacks. We have not space for the alleged vices of the
dwellers in the Scandinavian Olympus; but his abuse made the gods
inwardly resolve to effect his destruction whenever the opportunity
occurred. His share in the death of Balder (to which we shall soon
advert) hastened the time.
OTHER DEITIES.
The three Nornies, Urda, Verdandi, and Skula, are celebrated in
Scandinavian mythology. Of them we have before spoken, and have little
to add here. Their origin was unknown. They appear to have sprung up
with the great tree Yggdrasil, and to have been dependent only on the
mysterious Al-fader. They were said to have more sympathy than destined
beings would be expected to have, and to have wept over the fall of
their favourites. Both Urda and Skula were frequently consulted by the
gods, who were ignorant of their own fate.
Besides these there were inferior Nornies among the elves and the
dwarfs.
_Night_ and _Day_ (Nott and Dagr) were also deified; so was the horse
_Rimfaxi_ (frost-mane), which carried night, and the horse _Skinfaxi_
(bright mane), which drew the car of day. Dew is merely foam which falls
from the bits of the former horse. Night was the daughter of the great
Norvè; and being married to the god Delling (the dawn) the offspring was
Day. There is some poetry in the following description from the poetic
Edda:
Delling’s son (_day_) forth
Drove his horse,
Richly beset
With shining stones.
O’er Manheim (_earth_) gleamed
The courser’s mane,
Who drew in his car
The baffler of Dualin (_day_).
Through earth’s great
Gates of the north,
Beneath the outer root
Of the ancient tree,
To rest now glided
Giantesses and giants,
Ghosts and dwarfs,
And dark-alfs.
Heroes arose,
Alf-beamer (_sun_) got up:
Northwards to Niflheim,
Night is flown.
On Argiöll (_rainbow_) stood
Ulfruna’s son (_Heimdall_),
The great horn-sounder
Of heaven’s hill.
The deity of winter was the giant _Hrsnelgar_, who dwelt in a cavern
towards the dreary pole, and from whose wings comes the bleak north
wind. Thus the Vafthrudnis-mal:—
The giant Hrsnelger
At Heaven’s extremity
Sits under an eagle’s form.
From his wings, ’tis said,
The cold winds sweep
Over all nations.
This is the giant whom Thorkil saw in the cave.[116] In two or three
places there is also allusion to a summer god, _Sfosoder_, the sweet,
the pleasant; a contrast with Hrsnelgar, the devourer of carrion.
The Valkyrs, the elves, and dwarfs, having been already described, all
that now remains is to relate the circumstances which will precede and
accompany the destruction of the world. Many of them have a connection
with the fate of
BALDER.
On this personage _historically_—if indeed there ever was one of this
name and character—we have already dwelt[117]; we have now to consider
him _mythologically_.
Balder had fearful dreams, and he believed that something dreadful was
impending over him. He consulted his mother Frigga, who, though a
prophetess, could not interpret his dreams, or foresee the kind of
danger that was at hand. The gods were assembled; and as from ancient
oracles they had learned how their fate was linked with his, they were
the more anxious for the result. But all was darkness. Odin cut Runes in
vain. Thrain and Dain, two dwarfs who excelled all beings in Runic
wisdom, could only say that the dream was heavy, and that it portended
evil. At this time Iduna was in the power of Thiasse[117], but she must
be consulted, for she was a great prophetess. Heimdall, Loke, and Braga
went to Jotunheim for that purpose. As she groaned for the joys of
Asgard, the gods out of pity had previously sent her a wolf’s skin, by
clothing herself in which she forgot the past. Why then should the three
Aser proceed on their monstrous horses to her abode? Her only reply was
by tears, which, though they proved that she dreaded, also proved that
she knew not the cause of that dread. Again were the Aser convoked; and
it was then resolved that Frigga should exact from every thing an oath
not to injure Balder. But how could destiny be averted? She overlooked
the Mistletoe.
At this crisis, when the future was impenetrable to the most prophetic
of gods and dwarfs, Odin descended to consult the awful Vala, whose tomb
lay on the confines of Helheim. His descent we have before related.[118]
He returned to Asgard with the certainty that nothing could avert the
fate of his beloved son, or that of the gods, of whose ruin it was the
forerunner.
In the work of destiny, Loke, as might be expected, was the most active
agent. He it was who drew from Frigga the secret of the Mistletoe; he it
was who directed the blind Hoder to cast it; he it was who after Hela
had consented to release Balder from her empire, if all creatures would
lament for him, either persuaded the giant-woman to refuse, or
personated one himself.
That this mythos of Balder—one of the most celebrated in the whole range
of Scandinavian lore—has a physical meaning, is evident: it denotes the
departure of the summer sun from the northern hemisphere. Some of the
circumstances, however, have not been happily explained; and for the
reason that we have more than once assigned,—that they never can be
explained, since they were invented, not on physical principles, but to
embellish the fable, and render it more interesting.
PUNISHMENT OF LOKE.
The crimes of Loke were now full; and the gods determined to suffer them
no longer. Their vengeance fell, first, on his two sons, Nari and Vali.
The latter being changed into a wolf, devoured his brother. With some
difficulty Loke himself was taken by Thor, and, like Prometheus, bound
to the flinty rocks. If he has not a vulture to feed on his entrails, he
has something quite as bad,—a serpent hung over his head, which every
moment drips its venom. More fortunate, however, than his prototype, he
has a wife, Signi, who perpetually watches by his side, and building a
large basin, catches the venom intended for him. But at intervals she is
obliged to empty the basin; and when she does so, his agony, owing to
the poison falling on his unprotected face, is the cause of earthquakes.
There, like his monstrous offspring, the serpent[119] and the wolf[120],
he must remain until Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods, when he and
they and the whole visible universe will be destroyed.
RAGNAROK, THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS.
Of this consummation, so much dreaded by gods and elves and giants and
men, the prose Edda gives the following account:—
“There will first come a winter which shall be called Fimbulveter; snow
will fall from every quarter, and hard frost and cutting winds have
sway, so that the heat of the sun will have no influence. Three such
winters, unalleviated by any summer, will follow each other. Previously
to this the whole world will be scourged, during three winters also, by
wars and bloodshed. Brothers will kill each other through avarice, and
there will be no mercy even from parents to their children.
“And now, to the great affliction of mankind, one wolf will devour the
sun, another the moon, the stars will disappear from the firmament, the
earth quake violently, trees be torn up by their roots, mountains fall
together, all chains and bonds be burst asunder, and the wolf Fenris
will break loose. Then will the ocean rise above its shores, for the
great Midgard’s serpent will recover its giant strength, and struggle to
gain the land.
“At length he will succeed, the ship Nagelfare will be set afloat, and
the giant Hymir take the helm. Nagelfare is built of the nails of dead
men, and it should be remarked that when a person dies and his nails are
not cut, materials are furnished towards the building of a vessel, whose
completion both gods and men should seek to delay as long as possible.
“Fenris now rushes onward open-mouthed; fire streams from his eyes and
nostrils; his under jaw touches the earth, the upper heaven, and he
would open them still wider if there were space. Jormungandur vomits out
poison, which renders the air and the waters deadly. He is the most
terrible of all, and fights by the side of the wolf.
“In the midst of the confusion the heavens are rent asunder, and the
sons of Muspell (the genii of fire) ride forth, led on by Surtur, who is
clothed in flame, and whose unrivalled sword surpasses in brightness the
sun itself. The bridge Bifrost gives way beneath their weight. The sons
of Muspell press onwards to the plain Vigrid, which extends five hundred
miles every way, and where they meet Fenris and Jormungandur. Asa-Loke
also has repaired thither, and at the same time appears Hymir with the
Giants of the Frost. All the sons of Hela follow Loke.
“But now, on the other side, Heimdall rouses himself, and blowing with
all his might on his Gjallar-horn, wakes up the Aser who hold council as
to what is to be done. Odin rides to Mimer’s well to ascertain what is
best; the Ash Yggdrasil is shaken, and all earth and heaven are in
dismay.
“The Aser and Einheirar march to the plain Vigrid, with Odin at their
head. Armed with his golden helm, his glittering mail and his spear,
Gungnir, he encounters Fenris who swallows him up.
‘Then is accomplished
The goddess’ second-heart’s grief.[121]
Then falls the god
Best beloved of Frigga.’—_Voluspa_.
“At the same moment his son Vidar advances to avenge his father; he
presses down with his foot the wolf’s lower jaw, and raising the other
with his hand, rends him till he dies. Thor fights with the serpent, and
acquires great fame by slaying him, but overpowered by the poison which
he spews forth, recoils back nine paces, and falls dead to earth.
“Freyr is opposed to Surtur, but now misses his good sword which he had
given to Skirnir, and is slain. The dog, Garmer, who had hitherto been
bound in a cavern, escapes and rushes upon Asa-Tyr, and both fall. In
like manner Loke and Heimdall slay each other. After all this Surtur
pours out fire upon the earth, and the whole world is consumed. The
great Ash, however, outlives this general ruin.
‘Yggdrasil’s Ash
Totters, but stands.’—_Voluspa_.
“Good and just men will now be transported to Gimlè, which is built of
red gold, and where there are various splendid and delightful
habitations. Bad men, perjurers, murderers, and the seducers of other
men’s wives, will go to Nastrond, a vast, hideous dwelling, whose gates
face northwards. It is built of adders, whose heads are turned inwards,
and are continually spewing out poisons which form a large lake or
river, where its inmates are to swim eternally, suffering horrible
tortures.[122]
“A new earth, fairer and more verdant than the other, will arise out of
the sea; from which the grain will shoot forth of itself. Vidar and Vale
will survive the general destruction, and dwell upon the plain Ida,
where Asgard lay before. Thither also will repair Magne and Mode, the
sons of Thor, taking Miölner with them. Balder and Hoder will return
from Hela, and these gods will sit together, and talk over the events of
past times.
‘The Aser will meet
On Ida’s plain,
And talk of the mighty
Earth-surrounder[123]:
There they will call to mind
Great deeds of olden-time,
And the lofty gods’
Ancient learning.’[124]—_Voluspa_.
“During the conflagration caused by Surtur, a man and a woman, Lif and
Livthraser, will lie concealed in a place called Homimer’s Holt, and
there nourish themselves with the morning-dew. From them is to spring
the second race of men.”[125]
The Voluspa also refers to the second and more blissful world:—
A hall I see
More brilliant than the sun,
Roofed with gold,
On the summit of Gimlè;
There shall dwell
A virtuous race,
And enjoy blessedness
To time eternal.
Thither cometh the mighty one
To the council of the gods,
In his strength from above;
He who thinketh for all.
He issueth judgments,
He causeth strife to cease,
And establisheth peace
To endure for ever.
This is to finish the visible universe, with its physical gods. But the
immortality of the human soul is a doctrine strongly inculcated by the
religion of the North. The souls of the gods, indeed, are, with two or
three exceptions, to perish; and for this reason,—that they are physical
gods merely,—mythologic creations to denote the powers and functions of
nature. In this circumstance there is something pleasing to contemplate.
The _physical_ Alfader (Odin) has passed into annihilation; but the
eternal Alfadur (Almighty God) remains to govern the world, and to
reward the good whom he has admitted to Gimlè. Thus even in the darkest
systems (and few are darker than the Scandinavian) sages have attempted
to vindicate the ways of Providence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECTION III.[126]
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO DENMARK AND SWEDEN.
OBSCURE EFFORTS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON MISSIONARIES TO CHRISTIANISE FRISIA
AND DENMARK.—VICTORIES OF CHARLEMAGNE PREPARE THE WAY FOR A WIDER
DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY.—FEALTY OF HARALD KLAK.—MISSIONARIES SENT
INTO THE NORTH.—ST. ANSCAR.—CREATION OF AN ARCHBISHOPRIC.—ST.
REMBERT.—SUCCEEDING ARCHBISHOPS.—FLUCTUATIONS IN THE STATE OF THE NEW
RELIGION.—ITS ULTIMATE ESTABLISHMENT IN THE KINGDOMS OF THE NORTH.
As the introduction of Christianity into Norway has been already
related, we have briefly to contemplate its origin and progress in the
two sister kingdoms.
Nothing can be more obscure than the origin of the Christian worship in
these regions. Probably it was much more ancient than is generally
supposed; but the number of Christians prior to the ninth century must
have been exceedingly small; and of these most were probably converts
only in name,—joining the adoration of Thor and Odin with that of
Christ. We know that in the seventh century Anglo-Saxon missionaries
endeavoured to obtain an entrance into Denmark, the contiguity of which
to Frisia, and especially Germany, could not fail to attract the pious
zeal of those excellent men. St. Wilfrid could do no more than
evangelise a few of the Frisians. His successor, St. Willibrod, who in
696 was consecrated archbishop of the Frisias, passed into Jutland.
Though the mission failed, the prelate brought away thirty young Danes,
whom he designed to send as missionaries into that barbarous region.
Wherever this venerable man preached, he attempted to demolish the
idols. Even in the sacred island of Heligoland, where a tempest had cast
him, he exhibited the same undaunted zeal; and on his death in 739, he
had impressed the neighbouring people with much respect for his
character. That he escaped martyrdom, which seems to have been his aim,
can be ascribed only to that Providence which suffers not a sparrow to
fall unheeded to the ground. But ages are required to extirpate an old
and to plant a new religion. If many converts were made, they bore
little proportion to the bulk of the population; nor could the salutary
effects be permanent when there was no church, no succession of
missionaries to continue the work. We need not be, therefore, surprised
at the martyrdom of St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, in 755. When
the victories of Charlemagne had disposed the Saxons to receive the yoke
of Christ, there was a better opening for the gospel, not in Saxony
only, but in other parts of the North; for many of the Scandinavians,
especially of Denmark, were in the same great confederation. St. Sturm
contemplated the conversion of Denmark; but he was prevented by the
emperor, who was more anxious for the progress of the truth in his new
conquests than in more distant regions.
[Sidenote: 822 to 826.]
During the reign of Charlemagne, no serious effort was made to establish
a permanent mission in Denmark or Sweden. Louis le Debonnair had more
zeal or better opportunities; and he readily sanctioned the departure of
Ebbo, archbishop of Rheims. Ebbo was a Saxon, and more eager for the
conversion of the kindred Danes than any of the French prelates.
Encouraged by a papal bull, he ventured on the perilous enterprise in
822. Fortunately for him, Harald, surnamed _Klak_, who ruled over a
portion, at least, of Jutland, had need of imperial aid to secure
himself on the throne. As the condition of such aid, he agreed not only
to become a vassal of the empire, but to embrace Christianity, and do
all in his power to make his subjects embrace it. The court of Harald
was near the present city of Sleswic, in the duchy of that name. Ebbo,
accompanied by the monk Halitger, proceeded thither, and was permitted
by the royal consent to preach to the people. But the fortunes of Harald
were diversified; he was expelled three or four times, and as often
enabled to return, as much through foreign assistance as through the
efforts of his own partisans. That he was unpopular may easily be
inferred from these revolutions in his fortunes. Of this unpopularity
one cause was doubtless his profession of the new faith; another was the
homage which he had paid to the emperor. Yet the efforts made by the
kings who reigned in Zealand to create a monarchy, and consequently to
destroy the Reguli, who aimed at independence, was, doubtless, more
injurious to his interests, than the disaffection of the pagans. But
during his intervals of peace, his patronage of Christianity was
serviceable to the cause. Ebbo naturally left the country when the king
was expelled; and there was danger of the good seed being choked, when
another and more zealous missionary was raised by divine Providence both
to continue the work which he had begun, and to extend it to Sweden.
[Sidenote: 826 to 830.]
_Anscar_, a monk of Corbey in Westphalia, was from his youth an
enthusiastic churchman. He had dreams and visions, which to him seemed
prophetic of his future martyrdom. For that result he accordingly
prepared; and soon loved to contemplate it as an object of desire rather
than of fear. When, therefore, he heard that missionaries were required
to continue the labour which Ebbo had abandoned, and to return again
with Harald into Denmark, he readily offered himself, and was joyfully
accepted. The perils, indeed, of the enterprise had no charms for the
luxurious ecclesiastics of that age,—men whom the favours of succeeding
monarchs had enriched; and Anscar with another monk, Aubert, were the
only inmates of the great establishment at Corbey that could be induced
to go. Indeed the community were not a little amazed to witness the
self-devotion of these missionaries. Leaving Corbey, the latter repaired
into South Jutland. From Harald, however, they received less assistance
than they had been led to expect. Knowing his unpopularity, he remained
chiefly in a fortress which the emperor had given him. Of Louis, indeed,
he was the vassal, not for Jutland merely, which might never acknowledge
him, but for the extensive region on the sea-coast, from Holland to
Hamburg. Yet he showed little gratitude to his imperial master. He was
suspected,—probably with much justice—of favouring the piratical ravages
of the Danes on the Frisian coast. However, he outwardly conformed to
Christianity, and was the avowed patron of the missionaries, though he
left them to struggle with difficulties which he might have done more to
remove. But we must make some allowance for the situation in which he
was placed. He had been for many years—he was now—at war with other
pretenders to the throne; and as these pretenders (the sons of Gudred)
were supported by the influence of the pagan chiefs, he had cares which
he deemed more urgent than those of religion. In 828 he was signally
defeated, and compelled to seek refuge within the bounds of the fief
which he held of the emperor. Probably Anscar retreated with him; and
subsequently returned to his post. But the death of his coadjutor, and
the desperate state of Harald’s affairs, convinced him that the time for
the conversion of Jutland was not yet come; and he listened to a
proposal, made by some Swedish ambassadors to the emperor, of
introducing the gospel into that country.
According to the Swedish historians, who will not admit that the Danes
were converted before themselves, Christianity had been embraced by many
of the Goths many years antecedent to the arrival of St. Anscar. They
assert that in 813 a church was erected at Linkoping, through the holy
zeal of Herbert, a Saxon ecclesiastic. That the gospel was preached in
Gothia before it reached Sweden, is probable enough; but we very much
doubt whether the result was so great as the national writers would have
us believe. However this be, St. Anscar was the first apostle of the
Swiar. Reaching Birca, the capital—a place not far distant from the
modern Stockholm—he converted some of king Biorn’s council, and was
permitted to preach freely. This visit was auspicious; success appeared
to be inevitable; but in the midst of his labours, after a residence of
six months only, he and his companion returned to Germany. Why? To
report what had been effected, says his biographer, Rembert, and to
solicit further aid for prosecuting the great work. But it these objects
were necessary (which we are unable to perceive), surely _one_ of them
might have remained to confirm the new converts. Anscar was the bearer
of a letter from Biorn to the emperor, written in runic characters, and
bearing testimony to the success of the two monks.
[Sidenote: 830 to 852.]
The pope and the emperor were much gratified by the unexpected opening
in the North. To reward Anscar, and stimulate him to greater exertions,
he was made archbishop of Hamburg, with a jurisdiction over all the
Scandinavian kingdoms, when he should have converted them to
Christianity. In addition he was invested with the legatine authority
over these regions; but it was shared with Ebbo, who knew less of the
people, of their wants, and of their disposition, and who certainly had
not either the zeal or the prudence of the other. One of Ebbo’s first
acts was to consecrate a bishop, Gansbert, whom he dispatched into
Sweden, while Anscar sent a vicar. It was evidently not the saint’s
intention to return. He thought, and justly, that Denmark was a field
sufficiently wide for his own exertions, and that he might superintend
the Swedish mission from his new metropolis. That mission slowly but
surely gained ground; while his own exertions in the more southern
portion of his immense diocese corresponded, if not with his wishes,
probably with his hopes. Both he and Gansbert, however, had the fault of
all Roman catholic missionaries; they baptized before they had
sufficiently instructed. Hence they had the mortification to see many of
their converts join the worship of Odin and Thor with that of Christ;
and many to forsake their new profession with as much levity as they had
embraced it. Other misfortunes arrived. Hamburg was assailed by pirates:
the sacred buildings were consumed by fire; the same fate attended the
books which the saint had collected; and would, no doubt, have befallen
him and his clergy, had they not fled from the danger. These pirates
were headed by a king—Eric of Jutland and Frisia. For some time the work
was nearly at a stand. Another disappointment—the loss of a monastery,
which Anscar had held with the archbishopric, and from which the chief
support of the mission was derived—paralysed his exertions. A misfortune
no less serious was the expulsion of Gansbert from Sweden. This event is
wrapt in some obscurity. It could not be entirely caused by religious
persecution; for the king was still tolerant. Perhaps Nithard, the
companion of Gansbert, and the nephew of Anscar, abused the popular
deities and their worshippers. There was a great commotion; the
mission-house was plundered and destroyed; Nithard was killed; the
bishop with his clergy forced to leave the kingdom. All this, however,
was “non-jussu regis,” which the Swedish historians convert into “Berone
nesciente.” Yet Anscar did not despair. Though poor, he contrived still
to instruct some of the Danish children, whom he designed as
missionaries for both kingdoms. Being afterwards sent ambassador to
Eric—the very prince who had burned his cathedral, and who by
Harda-Canute’s death had become king of all Denmark—he so far softened
that monarch as to obtain permission to preach without hinderance. At
Sleswic he was allowed to build a new church; the number of converts
increased; and their ardour was increased by the extension of their
commerce with the Christian empire. Such converts, indeed, could do
little credit to religion; still toleration was an advantage which in
time might, he hoped, effect all that could be desired.
[Sidenote: 852.]
Unfortunate as had been the issue of the mission to Sweden, _Ardgar_, a
hermit of much sanctity, was persuaded to renew it. He was soon joined
by some Danish converts. By Herigar, one of the chief nobles of the
country, who had sincerely embraced Christianity at the first preaching
of Anscar, they were received with joy. Through his influence the infant
worship was again permitted at Birca; but it made little progress; and
Ardgar, whose heart yearned for his old anchoretical life, at length
resigned his missionary office, and left the country. Still Anscar was
not discouraged. The see of Bremen being united with that of Hamburg,
offered him more ample means to prosecute his meritorious enterprise. In
the same view, he prevailed on the German sovereign to send him
ambassador to both kingdoms. From Eric, the Danish king, he bore a
letter to Olaf[127] of Sweden, containing an honourable recommendation
of his character and conduct. Eric asserted that he had never known so
good a man as the archbishop; he had therefore allowed him to labour in
his own way for the good of the people. But on his arrival in Sweden he
found new obstacles. The Odinic priests were seriously alarmed at the
efforts which during above twenty years had been made to establish
Christianity in the North. The imposture to which they had recourse
affords a good illustration of the popular character, no less than of
their religious notions. Just as Anscar and his clergy arrived at the
capital, a man suddenly appeared there, who asserted that he was the
bearer of a communication from the gods to king Olaf and his people. The
substance of it was, that the ancient deities had conferred great
prosperity on Sweden; that hitherto they had no reason to complain of
ingratitude in their worshippers; that now, however, there was a sad
lack of zeal, their altars being comparatively deserted for those of a
new and hostile divinity; that if the people were anxious for another
god, why go out of their own country for one? “If,” added they, “you
really wish for another, we will readily admit your late king, Eric, to
the honours of deification!” Gross as the imposture was, it was
undisputed; the hearts of the Swedes began to warm towards the Aser, and
a temple was erected to Eric, when altars smoked with continued
sacrifices.
[Sidenote: 853 to 865.]
The aspect of affairs was so unfavourable, that the companions of the
archbishop urged him to leave the country. But he would not a second
time abandon his post. He had been successful with Eric of Denmark, and
he endeavoured to be equally so with Olaf. Inviting that king to a
feast, he redoubled his attentions, which coming as they did not merely
from an archbishop, but from the ambassador of a powerful monarch, were
peculiarly grateful to Olaf. Yet Olaf was a limited sovereign; though he
readily promised to afford the missionaries all the liberty he could, he
was bound to consult the will of the people, and even that of the gods.
In the true pagan spirit, he believed that other countries might have
local deities as well as Scandinavia,—deities as powerful and as able to
protect their worshippers. He advised the archbishop to send a deputy to
the next Al-Thing, or general meeting of the freemen, promising that he
would use his influence to obtain the requisite licence for the
celebration of the new worship. “Olaf first mentioned the subject to his
chiefs; lots were cast; and the gods were declared—probably through some
intrigue of the king’s—not to be unfavourable to the preaching of
Christianity. When, according to the Germanic custom, the people were
assembled in their annual plaids, Olaf caused the subject of the French
embassy to be proclaimed by a herald. In the discussion which followed,
much murmuring was heard; one party condemning the innovation as
disrespectful to their ancient gods; another vindicating it as necessary
to the well-being of the kingdom. A venerable old man at length
spoke:—‘King and people, listen to me! The worship of this new god is
already known to us, and we also know that he often assists those who
call on him. This many of us have experienced amidst the perils of the
deep, as well as on other occasions: why then should we reject what we
know to be useful? Formerly many of our people went to Dorstadt, to
embrace this advantageous faith; now, as the passage thither is
dangerous, why should we reject a good which is brought to our own
doors?’—‘We have often found our own gods unpropitious: let us cultivate
the favour of this god, who is as willing as he is able always to aid
his servants.’ The shrewd barbarian succeeded, because he touched in the
hearts of his hearers a chord that responded to his own. Neither he nor
they had much notion of a religion which did not confer temporal
blessings; all had been disappointed at one time or other in their
invocations for them; all, therefore, were disposed to receive
favourably proposals from a god who promised them a constant succession
of such blessings. This was a poor foundation on which to build; but it
was better than none. A proclamation was now made that churches might be
built, and that whoever pleased was at liberty to embrace the faith of
Christ. While these things were passing in Sweden, a revolution in
Denmark was fatal to Eric, and, for a time, to the new religion, which
the next king prohibited. But this time was a brief one; for the
prudence of Anscar, who now returned from Sweden, fully repaired the
disaster. The ecclesiastics whom he sent to both countries he enjoined
to imitate the example of St. Paul,—to labour for their own maintenance,
so as to be chargeable to no one. It was probably this necessity of
manual labour that rebutted many, even more than the persecutions they
endured; for during the whole of his pontificate, he had great
difficulty in providing the infant churches with pastors.”[128]
[Sidenote: 865 to 889.]
The work which Anscar had so well commenced, was as well continued by
his disciple, his companion, his friend, his biographer, _St. Rembert_,
who immediately after his death succeeded him in the archiepiscopal
dignity, with the full approbation of the pope and the Germanic
sovereign. He had, indeed, indicated to the clergy the propriety of
electing his friend, to whose merits he had borne this splendid
testimony:—“Rembert is more fit to be archbishop than I am to be a
humble deacon.” To the success of this prelate’s labours, ample
testimony is borne by writers nearly contemporary. He founded several
churches, not in Sweden and Denmark only, but among the Slavi. His
virtues equalled his zeal. To redeem Christian captives from pagan
thraldom, he sold the very plate of the altar. One day, for the
redemption of a virgin, he gave the horse on which he was riding. His
time was always occupied; scarcely did he allow himself leisure for
eating or sleep. During the twenty-three years that he presided over the
united sees of Hamburg and Bremen, he was no less zealous than he had
been in company with his predecessor. Towards the close of his life he
chose as his coadjutor _Adalgar_, a monk of New Corbey, whom he wished
to succeed him.—Of this eminent ecclesiastic, as many miracles are
recorded as he himself had related of his predecessor, St. Anscar. That
he believed them is certain; that his biographers believed those
recorded of him, is equally so. We should have been glad to perceive
them wrought for nobler occasions. With all their zeal, Anscar and
Rembert left few native Christians in Sweden,—few, we mean, compared
with the population, and scarcely perhaps with the advantages they
possessed. But to them be due praise! If they did not effect all that we
could wish, probably they effected all that they could. Their sense of
responsibility was strong enough; but their diocese was too extensive,
their duties too numerous, to allow of their devoting as much time as
they would otherwise have done, to the Northern mission. Nor must we
omit the inveterate bigotry of some pagans, the indifference of others,
and (a still worse evil) the hardness of heart which a vicious system of
religion had engendered.
[Sidenote: 889 to 936.]
The successor of St. Rembert did not imitate the zeal of his
predecessors. To extend his authority was apparently a dearer object
than to extend religion. It is certain that he never visited Sweden: it
is probable that he sent no missionaries to that kingdom; nor do we read
that he showed any zeal in regard to Denmark. _Hoger_, his successor,
was not more active. Of him the canon of Bremen expressively says: “Unde
fuerit, aut qualiter vixerit, Deo cognitum est.” Yet Hoger was half a
saint; he prayed and read when he should have slept, and still more,
when he should have attended to urgent duties. Too many have been the
churchmen of this selfish character,—esteeming every moment lost that
was not devoted to their own salvation; and expressing only barren
wishes for that of others. It is, however, but justice both to Adalgar
and Hoger to observe that their pontificate was very brief; and that,
had their lives been prolonged, history might have left some record of
their zeal, if not of their success. _Unnus_, the next archbishop
(916–936), was of a different character. When the invasions of the Huns
and the pagan Northmen had been repressed by his imperial master, he
proceeded to the court of Gorm, king of Denmark, whom, however, he
vainly endeavoured to dispose in favour of the Christians. With Harald;
the son of Gorm, he was more successful. Though this prince did not
immediately embrace Christianity, he viewed it with a favourable eye;
and he protected, as far as he could, all who professed it, especially
the priests. From Denmark he proceeded into Sweden, which had not been
visited by any Hamburg archbishop, for above sixty years. No wonder then
that, as Adam of Bremen informs us, he found Christianity nearly
extinct. Still he did find Christians, whom he endeavoured to establish
in the faith. As Helmold asserts, whatever might be the persecution of
the Swedish kings towards their pagan subjects, from the first dawning
of the gospel, there was never an entire cessation of Christian worship.
This excellent prelate died in the vicinity of Birca. His best eulogium
is in the words of the canon Adam, who advises the idle, luxurious,
worldly-minded bishops of the time to follow his example: “Look, ye
bishops, who constantly remain at home, wholly given to pomp, lucre,
eating and sleep, and who have no delight in the most urgent duties of
your post—look, I say, at this ecclesiastic, poor in the world’s
estimation, but rich in the sight of God,—one whose end was so glorious,
and who has left an example to posterity that no disasters of the times,
no distance of place, can be an excuse for idleness.” But what except
idleness, except indifference could be expected at a period when the
popes themselves were so worthless?
[Sidenote: 936 to 988.]
During the pontificate of _Adalrag_, the successor of Unnus,
Christianity made greater progress in Denmark than it had ever yet made.
This ecclesiastic was a canon of Hildesheim; he was subsequently, we are
told, the chancellor of two, or even of three, Othos. But this is
incorrect. He was never at any time arch-chancellor, and was
vice-chancellor only during a short period of the first Otho’s reign.
Probably he was secretary to one or more of those emperors; he was
certainly high in their favour. Through his influence, three bishoprics
were established in Jutland,—Sleswic, Rypen, and Aarhus, and one in
Holstein, that of Altenburg,—all subject to the metropolis of Hamburg.
This result, as we have before related[129], must be attributed to the
victories of Otho I., who subdued the whole of Holstein and Jutland.
Harald would have had no peace had he not consented to reign as Otho’s
vassal for the southern part at least of Jutland; to pay an annual
tribute; to sanction the creation of these bishoprics; to embrace
Christianity with the whole of his family; and to aid in its diffusion
throughout his dominions. If, on this occasion, he was an unwilling
convert, subsequently he became a sincere believer in its doctrines,
which he openly and constantly professed. At the time he transferred his
government from Ledra, the ancient seat of the Odinic superstition, to
Roskild, he erected in the latter place a church to the most Holy
Trinity. It was attachment to Christianity, even more than ambition, in
his son, that led to his tragical death. The old pagan party were
resolved to have a king of their own creed: hence the accession of
Sweyn. Though Sweyn was an enemy of the new faith, he could not undo the
work of his father, and of the Christian missionaries: the converts were
too numerous to be exterminated. In a few years he himself became
conqueror of England, and found it convenient to embrace the Christian
faith, which from his death was the dominant faith of Denmark. Nor did
the archbishop, Adalrag, lose sight of Sweden, which his predecessor had
done so much to reclaim. At his instance, Liafdag, bishop of Rypen, and
a Dane, Odincar the elder, laboured in the kingdom, and probably in some
parts of Norway. Hako the Good was at this time the ruler of the latter
kingdom, and he naturally wished to confer on his subjects the blessings
which he had received.
[Sidenote: 988 to 1026.]
_Libentis_, the successor of Adalrag, was also an honour to his dignity.
Fit missionaries were despatched by him into both Denmark and Sweden;
and if their progress was slow, it was steady. Their efforts were much
assisted by Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastics, who inspired less jealousy than
those of Germany, and who had the happiness to baptize the Swedish king,
Eric _Arsael_. This monarch, it is said, was the victim of his zeal. Not
satisfied with encouraging the diffusion of Christianity throughout his
states, he laid violent hands on the holy temple of Upsal; and for this
last act fell in a tumult of the populace (1001). On the death of
Libentis, in 1013, his successor, archbishop _Unver_, trod in his steps.
In the time of this latter prelate, Denmark, which obeyed Canute the
Great, became decidedly Christian. The same blessing was in preparation
for Sweden. Olaf, surnamed Scot-Konung, or the Tributary, because he
sanctioned a yearly tribute to the pope, established three bishoprics,
and was enabled to ensure a preponderance to the religion which he had
embraced. From his death, in 1026, Sweden may therefore be regarded as a
Christian state. Thus all the three kingdoms forsook idolatry for the
truth about the same period, viz., the commencement of the eleventh
century. This revolution, as we have had many opportunities of
observing, was exceedingly progressive. In Norway it continued during
three quarters of a century; in Denmark, from the mission of St. Anscar
to the reign of Canute the Great; in Sweden, from the same event to the
reign of Olaf Skotkonung,—in both instances about a century and a half.
Yet we must not forget that paganism _lingered_ in all three, especially
Sweden, down to the twelfth, or even the thirteenth, century.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK II.
THE MIDDLE AGE.
------------------
CHAPTER I.
DENMARK.[130]
1014–1387.
CANUTE THE GREAT.—HARDA-CANUTE.—MAGNUS.—ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF HARALD
HARDRADE.—SWEYN II.—HARALD III.—CANUTE IV.—OLAF II.—ERIC
III.—NICHOLAS.—ERIC IV.—ERIC V.—CANUTE V. AND SWEYN III.—VALDEMAR
I.—HIS ABLE REIGN.—ARCHBISHOPS ESKIL AND ABSALOM.—CANUTE VI.—VALDEMAR
II.—DECLINE OF THE DANISH POWER, AND THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO IT.—ERIC
VI.—ABEL.—CHRISTOPHER I.—ERIC VII.—ERIC VIII.—CHRISTOPHER.
II.—INTERREGNUM.—VALDEMAR III.—MEMORABLE TRANSACTIONS WITH NORWAY AND
SWEDEN.—OLAF III.—UNION OF DENMARK AND NORWAY.
CANUTE THE GREAT.
1015–1035.
ON the death of Sweyn, his son Canute was proclaimed by the Danes. But
this was the signal for the revolt of the Anglo-Saxons against the
Danish yoke, and for the restoration of Ethelred. That rash and vicious
prince was accordingly invited from the court of his brother-in-law,
Richard duke of Normandy, on the condition of his governing better in
future. What excited his hope, and that of his people, was the abrupt
departure of Canute for Denmark. Harald, brother of the latter, who was
invested with the administration, was aiming at the sovereignty of that
kingdom; and prudence demanded that he should not suffer the loss of his
hereditary realm, when he must evidently have again to fight for
England. Released by the death of Harald from all apprehension in that
quarter, he returned, with all the forces he could raise, to the English
coast. Lord of Denmark, of a considerable portion of Norway[131], of
several English counties, and of a fine army in that kingdom, he thought
himself equal to any enterprise. What most favoured his views on England
was the detestation in which Ethelred was held. His labour would have
been easy, except for the valour of Edmund Ironside, who, but for the
treason which ruled his father’s councils, and for that father’s utter
worthlessness, would have resisted with success. Leaving to the
historians of England the task of detailing the battles and negotiations
which followed, we shall only observe that on Ethelred’s death (1016),
Edmund was acknowledged by London and some counties; and that both
parties being tired of the destructive warfare, agreed to a
compromise—the counties north of the Thames being ceded to the Dane,
those south of the Thames to the Saxon; and that on Edmund’s
assassination (probably at Canute’s instigation) the Danish monarch was
acknowledged by the whole kingdom. The two children of Edmund, indeed,
remained; and, if report be true, the conqueror endeavoured to remove
them by violence. But the Swedish prince to whom they were confided,
refused to be made the instrument of his purposes, and sent them for
greater safety to the court of the Hungarian king. In this relation
there is evidently much romance. We have no proof that the Swedish
prince of this period was the friend, or even the ally, of Canute.
Probably the children were sent by their own friends to a place of
security.
[Sidenote: 1016 to 1028.]
The English administration of Canute must be sought in the histories of
that kingdom. In Denmark he endeavoured to give to Christianity a
predominancy which it had not yet attained. On his accession, full half
of the Danes were pagans. To reclaim them, churches were built, and
Anglo-Saxon missionaries appointed. This latter measure was hateful to
them; and it was not agreeable to his Christian subjects, who wished the
dignities of the church for themselves. Both were dissatisfied with his
almost continued absence in England. Availing himself of this universal
feeling, Ulfo the jarl, as we have before related[132], placed
Harda-Canute, an infant son of the king, on the Danish throne. We have
related, too, the issue of this rash step—the resignation of the boy,
and the murder of Ulfo by the royal order. From this time there was
continued tranquillity in both Denmark and England. Canute, indeed, was
too powerful and too vindictive to be resisted with impunity. The
acquisition of a third kingdom, which he conquered in 1028[133],
surrounded his throne with a splendour that no Saxon or Danish prince
had before possessed.
[Sidenote: 1029 to 1035.]
That Canute was sullied by many crimes is evident, even, from his most
partial historians. He put to death many, without the forms of law,
either because he would punish their past, or avert their future,
hostility. After his accession to the English throne he acted with great
cruelty to many Anglo-Saxon nobles, and with perfidy to more. Yet he had
great qualities. He must have been a good ruler, or he would not have
dismissed his Danish followers, with the exception of about 3000. That
he placed Danes and English on a footing of equality; that he
administered justice with strict impartiality; that he improved the laws
no less than the administration; that his yoke was felt to be tolerable
by the English and the Norwegians, no less than by his hereditary
subjects, are historical truths. “In fact, he was one of the best
princes that ever swayed the English sceptre. If in his earlier days he
was ferocious, after his establishment on the English throne he was
humanised by Christianity. Of his zeal for religion, no less than for
the temporal welfare of his people, we have evidence enough in his acts.
There was an air of barbaric grandeur about the monarch, not to be found
in any other sovereign of the times.”[134] Lord of three great kingdoms
as he was, we must look for his true elevation to his own mind; and (a
rare phenomenon) his moral qualities improved as he advanced in years.
Few are the instances, whether in history or in common life, of men so
completely reclaimed from evil to good. Much of this reformation has
been ascribed by Roman catholic historians to his pilgrimage to Rome.
They would be more logical if they called this pilgrimage the effect of
the reformation. The state of his mind, his motives, his principles, are
well described in the remarkable letter which he wrote from the eternal
city, and which exhibits his character in a truer light than the
comments of any historian.[135]
This monarch was liberal to his followers, as well as to the church.
How, considering the splendid retinue which generally accompanied him,
the magnificent presents which he made, the churches and monasteries
which he founded and endowed, he could still be surnamed the _Rich_, is
not easy to be conceived. His prudence was doubtless great; but his
moderation is the virtue on which his biographers dwell with most
satisfaction. There may be, and there probably is, no truth in the
well-known anecdote of his rebuking his flatterers on the sea-coast. But
another, which displays him in a light equally striking, is less known.
Many years before his pilgrimage he drew up a code of laws, and was one
of the first to violate them by killing, in a fit of anger, aggravated
perhaps by intoxication, one of his servants. His good sense told him
that this violation was a bad example for his ferocious nobles; and he
resolved that his punishment should be signal. Convoking his judges, he
appeared before them in the garb of a prisoner, accused himself of
homicide, and awaited their decision. The penalty, according to the
Germanic jurisprudence, which governed the greater part of Europe, was
forty silver marks for one in the condition of the victim.[136] But the
slavish administrators of the law deemed that in publicly confessing his
crime, he had made sufficient recompence. Seeing their fear of him, he
condemned himself to pay 360 silver marks, or nine times the amount of
the legal compensation. Of this large fine half went to the kindred of
the victim, half to the crown; but the king would not touch his portion,
which was distributed to the poor.
In his last testament, and near three years before his death, this
monarch divided his states between his sons. To Harda-Canute, whom he
had invested with the government of Denmark, he left England also,
because that prince was his offspring by Emma, the widow of Ethelred II.
To Sweyn, who, since the death of St. Olaf (1030–1035), governed Norway,
he bequeathed that kingdom. Whether any provision was made for Harald
Harefoot, the eldest of his sons, is not very clear; but Harald taking
advantage of his brother’s residence in Denmark, usurped the English
crown. He could not expect, and he probably did not wish, that all three
should rest on the same brow. Partition was the mania of the age.
HARDA-CANUTE.
1035–1042.
[Sidenote: 1035 to 1040.]
By his father’s death, Harda-Canute, the heir of Denmark, was equally so
of England; and he was preparing to pass over into that kingdom when
intelligence reached him of Harald’s usurpation. But that usurpation was
not sudden, or complete; and had he hastened with a few thousand
followers to claim the crown, he would have triumphed. But he had little
energy of character; and while he remained irresolute, the period
favourable for his hopes passed away. Fortunately Harald’s reign was
short; and in 1040 he was called by the English themselves to ascend the
throne. On his arrival he committed an act of impotent vengeance against
the memory of his brother, whose bones he caused to be disinterred, and
cast into the Thames. They were, however, reburied.
[Sidenote: 1040 to 1042.]
In his government of England, Harda-Canute seems to have committed only
one reprehensible act, and for that he had provocation. A tax being
levied for the support of the Danish soldiery, was condemned by the
English, and at Worcester resisted, by the murder of the two collectors.
To vindicate his authority, he resorted to severe measures. The
ringleaders were executed, the city pillaged and partly burnt. In other
respects he was not unpopular. His kindness to the family of Ethelred
did him great honour. To Emma he confided a share in the administration;
and to prince Edward, the youngest son of Ethelred, afterwards named the
Confessor, whom he recalled from Normandy, he gave a splendid
establishment. As he died without issue (the result probably of his
intemperance), with him ended the Danish dynasty in England.
[Sidenote: 1035 to 1042.]
Of Harda-Canute’s government in Denmark we have few records. He was
negligent and intemperate; and his father’s memory, more than his own
qualities, secured him on the throne. His transactions with Norway
deserve especial consideration. On the death of Canute the Great, as we
have just related, the sceptre of that kingdom devolved on Sweyn, who
had for some years held the government. But his administration was
disliked; he and his mother were equally unpopular; and his father had
scarcely been dead a year, when both were expelled from the country by
the ascendancy of Magnus the Good, bastard son of St. Olaf.[137] Sweyn
took refuge with his nearest brother in Denmark, and died the same year
(1036). If the Danish king was feeble, he was not without ambition. He
knew that he should succeed to the English throne; and as, after that
event, he should be the sole heir of Canute’s extensive empire, he urged
his claim to the crown of Norway. Finding Magnus too powerful for him,
he met that prince, and concluded a treaty singular in its nature, and
in its results important. If either king died without issue, the other
was to inherit his dominions. This convention was guaranteed by the
chief nobles and prelates of the two countries. Harda-Canute, as we have
just related, did die without issue, and the throne of Denmark
accordingly fell to
MAGNUS.
1042–1047.
[Sidenote: 1042 to 1044.]
On the arrival of this prince in Denmark, he was received with open
arms. He was the son of a saint, with whose miracles the North
resounded; and his own virtues (much less questionable than his
father’s) justified the expectation of a happy reign. To few princes,
indeed, can history accord more virtues than to Magnus; yet he was not
deficient in the active duties of his station. The Jomsberg pirates who
had revolted, and whose ferocity was the dread of the North, he speedily
reduced, and their capital he laid in ashes. This was a service both to
the Danes and the Norwegians for which they could not be too grateful.
But the former, influenced by fickleness or by attachment to their old
line of kings, or by mortification at receiving a sovereign from a
country which they had twice conquered, soon cast their eyes on Sweyn,
son of Jarl Ulfo and of Estrida, sister of Canute the Great. After his
father’s murder[138], this prince sought refuge at the court of the
Swedish king. As he approached man’s estate, he grew weary of
inactivity, and having something to hope from the generosity of Magnus,
he repaired to that monarch in Norway. He did not ask for any portion of
Canute’s vast possessions: he wanted employment merely under so generous
a monarch; and his request was immediately granted. His talents, his
lofty mien, his deportment, and, above all, his skilful flattery, won
the confidence of the Norwegian, who made him first minister, and next
his lieutenant in Denmark. There was much imprudence in confiding to one
so ambitious and so nearly connected with the throne a trust of this
nature; but judging of other men’s hearts by his own, Magnus thought
that such a trust would for ever bind Sweyn to his interests, and be
agreeable to the Danes. On the relics of St. Olaf the young prince swore
fidelity to the monarch, and was well received by the people. To deepen
this favourable sentiment was his constant care; and by his affability,
his attention to his duties, and his liberalities, he completely
succeeded. When secure of their affection, he openly revolted. Magnus
assembled an armament, proceeded to Denmark, defeated and expelled the
usurper, who again sought refuge at the Swedish court.
[Sidenote: 1044 to 1045.]
No sooner was this enemy vanquished, than another appeared in the pagan
bands, who occupied all the eastern shores of the Baltic, that are now
comprised in the Russian monarchy. These men, scarcely less ferocious
than their allies the Jomsberg pirates, invaded Sleswic, wasting every
thing with fire and sword. Magnus flew to oppose them, and, after a
severe struggle, triumphed. During his absence, Sweyn returned from
Sweden, reduced Scania, and passing into Zealand and Funen was again
acknowledged by the people. Victory, in two or three successive actions,
still declared for the monarch. Yet the cause of Sweyn was not
destroyed. In the assistance of the Swedish king, in the adventurers on
all the maritime coasts of the Baltic, and still more, in the attachment
of the Danes, he had resources which even the power of Magnus was not
wholly able to destroy.
[Sidenote: 1045.] A third enemy now appeared in Harald, surnamed
_Hardrade_, or the Stern, the son of Sigurd, and the half-brother of St.
Olaf. If there be any truth in the ancient sagas, his adventures were
most extraordinary. He was present at the last fatal scene of Olaf’s
life; and from Norway he fled to the court of the Russian duke Jaroslaf,
whose service he entered. With Elisif (Elizabeth), daughter of Jaroslaf,
he became deeply enamoured; but his suit being unsuccessful[139], he
repaired to Constantinople, and was admitted amongst the Varangians, or
Scythian guards of the emperors. By his valour, and his birth, he
obtained at length the command of that formidable, though small body,
and by his exploits invested his name with much lustre. Heading an
expedition against the pirates of the African coast, he was the victor
in several battles, and the owner of immense booty, a portion of which
he sent to his friends in Russia. He was afterwards employed in Sicily,
in Italy, and in a journey to the Holy Land. In all this, there is no
great improbability; but what follows is too romantic to be credited. As
the reward of his services, Harald had demanded the hand of a princess
of the imperial family, and had been refused. “Those Væringjar,” says
Snorro, “who were in Miklagard, and received rewards for their services
during the war, have said since their return home to the North, that
they were told in Greece by wise and grave men of that country, that
queen Zoe herself wished for Harald as her husband, and that this in
truth was the cause of her resentment, and of his wishing to leave
Miklagard, though other reports were spread among the people. For these
reasons the king Constantinus Monomachus, who ruled the empire jointly
with queen Zoe, ordered Harald to be cast into prison. On his way
thither, St. Olaf appeared to him, and promised him protection; and on
that same street, a chapel has been since erected, which is standing at
this day. Here was Harald imprisoned with Halldór and Ulfr his _men_.
The following night there came a noble lady, with two attendants, who
let down a cord into the dungeon, and drew up the prisoners. This lady
had been before healed by St. Olaf, the king, who revealed to her that
she should relieve his brother from captivity. This being done, Harald
immediately went to the Væringjar, who all rose up at his approach, and
received him with joy. They seized their arms, and went to the chamber
where the king slept, and put out his eyes. The same night, Harald went,
with his companions, to the chamber in which Maria slept, and carried
her away by force. They afterwards proceeded to the place where the
gallies of the Væringjar are kept, and, seizing two vessels, rowed into
the Bosphorus (Sævidar-sund). When they came to the iron chains which
are drawn across the sound, Harald ordered all his men who were not
employed in rowing, to crowd to the stern with their baggage, and when
the gallies struck upon the chains, to rush forward to the prow, so as
to impel the gallies over the chains. The galley in which Harald
embarked was carried quite over on to the other side, but the other
vessel struck upon the chains, and was lost. Some of her crew perished
in the water, but others were saved. In this manner, Harald escaped from
Miklagard, and entered the Black Sea, where he set the virgin on shore,
with some attendants, to accompany her back to Miklagard, requesting her
to tell her cousin, queen Zoe, how little her power could have availed
to prevent his carrying off the virgin, if he had been so minded.” The
anxiety of Harald was occasioned by the intelligence that his nephew
Magnus had ascended the thrones of Norway and Denmark. Proceeding
through Russia, he married the daughter of Jaroslaf; and with her
returned to Norway through Sweden.[140]
[Sidenote: 1045, 1046.]
On reaching Sweden, where the fame of his riches had preceded him, he
entered into a league with Sweyn. The objects of this league are not
very clearly defined; but we may infer that one of them was to place
Harald on the Norwegian, Sweyn on the Danish throne. The wealth of
Harald hired numerous adventurers; and by the two princes the coasts of
Denmark were ravaged. Again Magnus prepared an armament to oppose them;
but his surer recourse was policy. To detach the celebrated Varangian
chief from the cause of the Dane, he offered him half of the Norwegian
kingdom (and also no doubt the eventual succession), on the condition of
Harald’s allowing in like manner a division of his treasure. The latter
eagerly accepted the proposal; he forsook Sweyn, repaired to Norway,
divided the treasure, the amount of which is described as wonderfully
large, and was admitted to a share in the administration. Contrary to
the usual experience of rulers so placed in regard to each other, they
lived in harmony to the death of Magnus in the following year. By this
defection, or rather by this conversion of an ally into an enemy, Sweyn
was compelled to retire. But he had his partisans in Denmark, and
Magnus, at his death, had the generosity to declare him his successor in
that kingdom. To Harald was left the Norwegian throne. Thus the two
adventurers became kings, in little more than a year after the arrival
of Harald in the North.
The surname of Harald _the Good_, sufficiently establishes his
character. He was indeed an admirable king and a virtuous man. Much
praise is awarded to a code of laws which he compiled; but they no
longer exist in their original form.
SWEYN II.
1047–1076.
[Sidenote: 1047.]
As with Harda-Canute had ended the ancient male line of Denmark—a line
that traced itself to Odin—Sweyn II. may be called the founder of a new
dynasty. That dynasty occupied the throne to the extinction of its male
line in Valdemar IV., when it was succeeded by the reigning house of
Oldenburg.
[Sidenote: 1048 to 1070.]
Scarcely was Sweyn invested with the dignity, when he found an enemy as
powerful as Magnus, and less generous, in Harald Hardrade, who claimed
the Danish crown. The assertion of this claim led to many years of
warfare, ruinous to both kingdoms, but especially to Denmark, the coasts
of which were often ravaged. In general the advantage rested with the
Norwegian monarch, who, in 1064, obtained a great victory over the
Danish fleet at the mouth of the Nissa. With great difficulty Sweyn
escaped into Zealand, and began to collect a new armament. Fortunately
the mind of Harald was now disposed to peace. Sixteen years of
hostilities had brought him little advantage; the fortune of war was
dubious; and the Danes, like their king, were averse from a foreign
yoke. The two monarchs met, and entered into a treaty, which left
affairs just as they had been at the death of Magnus. These were not the
only hostilities in which they were engaged. Both undertook predatory
expeditions to the English coast; but they could obtain no advantage
over the vigilant and intrepid monarch (William I.), who now swayed the
sceptre of that kingdom.[145] Sweyn too had the mortification to see his
own coasts ravaged (those of Holstein) by the Vandalic pirates, who had
renounced Christianity, and who laid both Sleswic and Hamburg in ashes.
Before he could reach them they retired. Subsequently he was persuaded
to march against the Saxons, then at war with the emperor; but his
troops having no inclination to exasperate a people with whom they had
long been on terms of amity, he desisted from the undertaking.
[Sidenote: 1066 to 1070.]
Sweyn showed much favour to the church. He built many places of worship,
which he endowed with liberality; and he founded four new bishoprics: of
these two were in Scania, viz. Lund and Dalby, which were subsequently
united; and two in Jutland, viz., Wiburg and Borglum. Yet this
liberality did not preserve him from quarrelling with it. His chief vice
was incontinence. Numerous were his mistresses, and numerous his
offspring: thirteen sons are mentioned, of whom five succeeded him[146];
but the number of his daughters was much inferior; two only appear by
history. For this vice he could not hope to escape the censure of holy
mother, and he married. He did not, however, marry with that mother’s
consent; but chose for his queen a Swedish princess within the
prohibited degrees of kindred. When Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen,
heard of the union, he angrily condemned it, and by his messengers
threatened the king with excommunication if he did not separate from the
princess. The king resisted, and even threatened to lay Bremen (the
legate’s residence) in ashes; but the power of the church was too great
even for him to resist, and in the end he dismissed his wife, who had
the misfortune to be his cousin. There is no reason to infer, with a
recent historian of Denmark[147], that he dismissed her to recal his
mistresses; for he was now arrived at an age when the empire of the
passions could not be omnipotent. But he was probably taught to believe
that a real was less sinful than an imaginary crime—fornication than
marriage within the fourth degree.[148]
[Sidenote: 1070.]
In another transaction we must admire, as much as we may here condemn,
the conduct of the church. Sweyn was a man of strong passions, and of
irritable temperament. In a festival which he gave to his chief nobles
in the city of Roskild, some of the guests, heated by wine, indulged
themselves in imprudent, though perhaps true, remarks on his conduct.
The following morning, some officious tale-bearers acquainted him with
the circumstance; and in the rage of the moment he ordered them to be
put to death, though they were then at mass in the cathedral—that very
cathedral which had been the scene of his own father’s murder.[149]
When, on the day following this tragical event, he proceeded to the
church, he was met by the bishop, who, elevating the crosier, commanded
him to retire, and not to pollute by his presence the house of God—that
house which he had already desecrated by blood. His attendants drew
their swords, but he forbade them to exercise any degree of violence
towards a man who in the discharge of his duty defied even kings.
Retiring mournfully to his palace, he assumed the garb of penance, wept
and prayed, and lamented his crime during three days. He then presented
himself, in the same mean apparel, before the gates of the cathedral.
The bishop was in the midst of the service; the _Kyrie Eleison_ had been
chaunted, and the _Gloria_ about to commence, when he was informed that
the royal penitent was outside the gates. Leaving the altar, he repaired
to the spot, raised the suppliant monarch, and greeted him with the kiss
of peace. Bringing him into the church, he heard his confession, removed
the excommunication, and allowed him to join in the service. Soon
afterwards, in the same cathedral, the king made a public confession of
his crime, asked pardon alike of God and man, was allowed to resume his
royal apparel, and solemnly absolved. But he had yet to make
satisfaction to the kindred of the deceased in conformity with the law;
and to mitigate the canonical penance, he presented one of his domains
to the church. The name of this prelate (no unworthy rival of St.
Ambrose) should be embalmed in history. He was an Anglo-Saxon
ecclesiastic, William, whom the archbishop of Bremen had nominated to
that dignity, and who had previously been the secretary of Canute the
Great. During the long period that he had governed the diocese of
Roskild, he had won the esteem of all men alike by his talents and his
virtues. For the latter he had the reputation of a saint (and he
deserved the distinction better than nine-tenths of the semi-deities
whose names disgrace the calendar), and for the former, that of a
wizard. It is no disparagement to the honour of this apostolic
churchman, that he had previously been the intimate friend of the
monarch; nor any to that of Sweyn, that after this event he honoured
this bishop more than he had done before.
[Sidenote: 1070 to 1076.]
From this time to his death, Sweyn practised with much zeal the
observances of the Roman catholic church. By his excessive liberalities
he injured his revenues; and by his austerities, perhaps, his health. A
faithful portrait is given of him and of his people by one who knew them
well, Adam of Bremen. This ecclesiastic, hearing so much in favour of
the royal Dane, proceeded to his court, and, like all other strangers,
was graciously received. “Sweyn,” says the canon, “is not only liberal
towards foreigners, but well versed in literature; and he directs with
much ability the missions which he has established in Sweden, Norway,
and the isles; from his own mouth have I received most of the facts
contained in this history.” In his reign the pagans of Bornholm were
first converted to Christianity, by bishop Egin. The image of Frigga,
which they had been so long accustomed to venerate, they demolished with
contempt. Another proof of their sincerity appeared from their offer of
their most valuable effects to the bishop. This, unlike most churchmen
of the age, he refused to accept; and advised them to expend it in two
noble ways—in the foundation of churches, and the redemption of
Christian captives. “The king,” proceeds Adam, “has no vice but
incontinence.” The canon speaks of Denmark as consisting almost wholly
of islands. “Of them Zealand is the largest and richest, and its
inhabitants are the most warlike. Ledra had been, but Roskild was then,
the capital. Next to Zealand in importance was Fionia, which was very
fertile, but its coasts were exposed to the ravages of the pirates. The
capital, Odinsey, was a large city. To cross from one island was
perilous, not only from the stormy sea that rolled between them, but
from the pirates. Jutland had a barren soil except on the banks of the
rivers, the only parts cultivated: the rest of the country consisted of
forests, marshes, and wastes, and was hardly passable. The chief towns
lay near the narrow bays on the coast. Scania, always geographically,
now politically included in Sweden, is represented as fertile, as very
populous, and full of churches. No where, indeed, had Denmark much lack
of these structures; Fionia, Adam assures us, had 100; Zealand, 150.
“Scania is almost an island, and separated from Gothland by large
forests and rugged mountains. Here is the city of Lund, where the
robbers of the deep laid their treasures. These robbers paid tribute to
the Danish king, on the condition of being allowed to exercise their
vocation against the barbarians.” Among the Danes, Adam perceives many
other things contrary to justice: he sees little indeed to praise beyond
the custom of selling into slavery such women as dishonoured themselves.
So proud were the men, that they preferred death to stripes; and they
marched to the place of execution, not only with an undaunted, but with
a triumphant air. Tears and groans they held to be unmanly; and they
mourned neither for their wives, nor for their dearest connections.
HARALD III.
SURNAMED HEIN, OR THE GENTLE.
1076–1080.
[Sidenote: 1076.]
As Sweyn left no legitimate offspring, the only claim that could be made
was from his numerous bastards. Harald was the eldest; but then as he
was of a quiet, gentle nature, he was not very agreeable to a fierce
people. On the other hand, Canute, the next brother, had distinguished
himself greatly in the wars against the pagans of Livonia. There was,
accordingly, a dispute when the states assembled, most declaring for
Harald, but all Scania for Canute; and a civil war must have been the
result; but for the bribes of two chiefs, who prevailed on the electors
of that province to confirm the choice of Harald. After this decision,
Canute refused to remain in Denmark, and passed the rest of his
brother’s life in his old occupation.
[Sidenote: 1076 to 1080.]
The short reign of Harald affords no materials for history. Silent,
reserved, timid, averse to the shedding of blood, even for judicial
delinquencies, he was little esteemed. Yet few periods were more happy
than that which witnessed his administration. He made new laws, which
have been praised and condemned. According to Saxo, whose means of
information cannot be disputed, he abolished the judicial combat, and
substituted purgation by oath—a change which led to frequent perjury.
But if the testimony of Elnoth be admissible, he enacted other laws
which were long valued by the people—so valued, that they made every new
monarch swear to observe them.
CANUTE IV.
SURNAMED THE SAINT.
1080–1086.
[Sidenote: 1080 to 1085.]
This prince, who had unsuccessfully contended for the crown with his
brother Harald, and who was now unanimously elected, was very unlike his
predecessor. Fond of martial glory, he prosecuted the war in Livonia,
until he had brought it to an advantageous issue. His next project was
one of greater magnitude—to subdue England, which the Danes had learned
to regard as a revolted province. It is, however, inconceivable how so
wild a project could enter the brain of the king, even though the
Norwegians engaged to join in its execution, and though he received aid
from his father-in-law, Robert, count of Flanders. Perhaps he only
aspired to the recovery of Northumbria. But though a large armament was
collected, it never sailed, owing to the intrigues of the English
monarch, or the revolt of the pagan Vandals, or probably to both causes
combined. To pacify the revolted pagans, he sent money and promises, and
detained the fleet on the Jutland coast until the result was known. In
the mean time, his warriors, ignorant what caused his delay, began to
mutiny: when he had punished some, others vainly conspired against his
life; while the rest quietly dispersed, and he was compelled to dismiss
the Norwegians with gifts. The armament, therefore, led to nothing but
disappointment and exasperation.
[Sidenote: 1080 to 1086.]
Internally the administration of this king was distinguished by great
vigour and great love of justice. Under the mild sway of his
predecessor, and indeed for the greater part of a century, the local
governors were so many tyrants, regardless alike of law, of religion, of
decency. Of them he made many severe examples; he punished capitally
offences which had become almost inveterate; he applied the law of
talion to all convicted of striking or mutilating others; he completely
reformed the administration, deposing corrupt judges, and replacing them
by others of greater integrity, and we may add of greater sternness.
Pecuniary fines—the basis of Germanic jurisprudence—were exerted with a
rigour never before experienced. In all these measures the king was
abundantly justified; but they gave not the less offence to men hardened
by long impunity. Open mutiny or smothered discontent, loud menaces, or
secret conspiracies, marked the greater part of his short reign. Even
the rigour with which he suppressed piracy made him enemies; if it was
agreeable to the great body of his people, it was hateful to the
licentious nobles who had so long profited by it.
[Sidenote: 1080 to 1086.]
The conduct of St. Canute in regard to the church was no less unpopular.
He exempted ecclesiastics from all dependence on the secular tribunals;
he placed bishops on the same level with dukes and princes; he brought
the clergy into his council, and endeavoured to give them a voice in the
assembly of the states. In this policy we see little to condemn. It may
be true, in the abstract, that churchmen should be restricted to their
peculiar province, the care of souls; but practically they have never
been so; and in giving them influence in public affairs,—in converting
the bishops into temporal barons, and the higher clergy into local
judges,—Canute acted merely in conformity with the spirit of the times.
And indeed he seems to have had good reason for that policy. Churchmen
were better informed, more regular in their lives, than laymen: he
therefore believed that they would make better administrators of the
law; and in that belief he increased their powers at the expense of the
feudal nobles. He could not foresee that by thus rendering them
independent of the crown and of the people, he was preparing a scourge
for his successors.
[Sidenote: 1080 to 1086.]
Though these measures raised him many enemies, his prodigality to
several churches, and still more, his attempt to make tithes an
obligatory impost, rendered three fourths of his people disaffected to
his sway. Yet here, too, he is not to be censured by impartial
posterity. He, doubtless, saw that if the church must subsist at all, it
must not depend solely on so precarious a source as voluntary
contributions. He saw that tithes were sanctioned by God’s word, and
obligatory in the rest of Christendom; and he thought the impost less
oppressive than any other that could be devised. But he did not proceed
to his object with sufficient caution; he was too precipitate: he
exasperated where he should have conciliated; and he was impatient of
the least contradiction to his will. In fact, he was a despot; in most
instances a well-meaning one; but his acts were more evident than his
motives; and while he had no credit for these, he was hated for those.
In another respect he was impolitic. Zealand he conferred, as a fief, on
his brother Eric, with the title of Jarl; Sleswic, on his brother Olaf,
with the title of Duke; and by so doing set a precedent for the
dismemberment of his kingdom.
[Sidenote: 1086.]
When so many causes of dislike existed, the end of Canute could scarcely
be one of peace. He could not carry the tithe question in the
states-general; but by his own authority he levied a capitation tax,
partly as a punishment for the resistance which had been shown to his
will, and partly for the use of the clergy. The rigour of the collectors
was no less offensive than the tax itself. The inhabitants of
Vend-syssel broke out into open revolt, and went in search of the king,
who, with his wife, his children, and two brothers, sought refuge in the
church of St. Alban in Odinsey. There he was soon invested; the sacred
building was forced; his attendants put to the sword, and Benedict, one
of his brothers, laid lifeless on the floor. Seeing that his own death
was inevitable, the king knelt before the altar, and in that posture,
according to one account, received the fatal stroke. Another says that
he was killed by a lance through the window. Both agree that he died
with resignation.
By the church, Canute was immediately placed in the glorious fellowship
of saints and martyrs. His claim to this distinction is rather dubious:
if he had been a private individual, or less liberal to the clergy, if
he had exhibited greater moral virtues, and founded fewer churches and
monasteries, assuredly he would have never been deified,—for
canonization may be well called so. His widow returned to her father’s
court, accompanied by one only of her sons, Charles. It is not a little
singular that the same destiny was reserved for this son as for the
father. Becoming count of Flanders, he was slain by his subjects in a
church, and, like his father, “inter divos relatus.”
[Sidenote: 1037.]
The people of Jutland, proud of having killed one king, would elect
another, and in conformity with the will of Sweyn II., which set aside
the children in favour of the brothers, they passed over the infant sons
of St. Canute, and chose Olaf, duke of Sleswic, the third son of Sweyn.
Olaf was at that time a kind of prisoner at the court of count Robert of
Flanders, whither he had been sent by his despotic brother, on the
suspicion of complicity in the mutiny of the fleet. But of that
complaint there is no evidence. A heavy ransom is said to have been
exacted by the count, before he was permitted to join his new
subjects.[150]
OLAF II.
SURNAMED FAMELICUS, OR THE HUNGRY.
1087–1095.
During the reign of this prince, Denmark had one blessing,—that of
peace. But it had also one curse,—that of famine, which the clergy
declared to be a divine infliction for the murder of the sainted martyr,
Canute. The people, we are told, died by thousands and tens of
thousands, for lack of the mere necessaries of life; and to this cause,
if Saxo be correct, is to be attributed the tranquillity of the country.
Horses and even dogs were the ordinary nourishment of the people. In a
country where agriculture was despised, a barren season could not fail
to produce famine; our only surprise is that the visitation was not more
frequent. Prince Olaf bore all the blame; it was his fault, not want of
foresight in his subjects, that occasioned the evil. His personal
character does not seem to have been amiable. He is represented as
avaricious, despotic, unfeeling; as regardless of the laws and their
administration; hence tyranny in the great, and licentiousness in the
people. According to one account, he was found dead in his bed, after an
entertainment which he had given or intended to have given to his nobles
and clergy: according to another, he died of a natural disease,
regretted by nobody. If the prayer which Saxo puts into his mouth were
really his, he does not merit the severity with which he has been
treated. Afflicted at the continuance of the famine, he said:—“O Lord, I
can no longer endure the weight of thine hand! If thou art wroth with my
people, spare them, and let me alone suffer!”
ERIC III.
SURNAMED THE GOOD.
1095–1103.
[Sidenote: 1095, 1096.]
Eric was the fourth son of Sweyn II., and from the jarldom of Jutland
was raised by the states to the throne of that kingdom. As the next
harvest was one of abundance, the people were again contented, and he
obtained credit for the abundance with the same injustice as his brother
had been condemned for the famine. More active than his predecessor, he
administered the laws with vigour; and he destroyed Jomsberg, the
stronghold of the pirates, who had again reared their heads during the
preceding reign. To keep them in continued subjection, he erected
fortresses in their country, and garrisoned them well.
[Sidenote: 1097 to 1103.]
The most remarkable event of this monarch’s reign is the erection of
Lund into an archbishoprick. Hitherto, Denmark had depended entirely on
the archbishop of Bremen, whose jurisdiction extended over the whole
North. The king disputed with the haughty prelate Liemar, who then
occupied the see, and by whom he was excommunicated. Instead of
submitting, Eric appealed to Rome, and even visited that city to plead
his cause in person. He gained it and returned triumphant to his own
kingdom. Subsequently (in 1103), on his way to the Holy Land, he again
visited the Eternal City, and prevailed on the pope to invest Lund with
the metropolitan privileges. The pope could refuse nothing to the
brother of a saint, who almost equalled that brother in devotion to the
church: besides, the immense authority held by the archbishops of Bremen
had rendered them dangerous when they had taken, as they had usually
done, the part of the German emperors against the Roman see. By the bull
issued on this occasion, Adgar, a descendant of the famous Palnatoko,
became primate of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the islands dependent on
those kingdoms.
[Sidenote: 1103.]
The cause of Eric’s pilgrimage, from which he was destined never to
return, is not well known; but it was probably to expiate an homicidal
act which he had perpetrated in a fit of anger or of drunkenness. The
idle fable of Saxo, that while under the influence of music he killed
four of his attendants (or soldiers of his guard), is characteristic
enough of that writer, but has obtained no credit in this country since
the authors of the Universal History adopted it. Whatever the cause, he
resolved to visit the Holy Land, and that too in opposition to the
prayers and tears of his people, by whom he was cherished. Passing
through Rome, where, as we have just related, he obtained the erection
of Lund into a metropolitan see, he repaired to Constantinople. By
Alexis Comnenus he was received with much distinction; though for some
time he was narrowly watched, lest, with all his piety, he should place
himself at the head of the Varangian guard, and become troublesome to
his host. His manners soon dispelled this diffidence, and he was
splendidly entertained. Being supplied not only with provisions and
vessels, but with a liberal store of gold, he sailed for Palestine; but,
landing in the isle of Cyprus, he fell a victim to a pestilential
disease.
[Sidenote: 1103.]
Eric III. was one of the best princes that ever swayed the Danish
sceptre. “With his people,” says an ancient writer, “he lived like a
father with his children; and no one left his presence dissatisfied.”
Hence his surname of _the Good_. He never undertook any important matter
without consulting his states. His chief fault was incontinence. If, as
we are assured, he refrained from the bed of his queen, it was only to
indulge himself the more freely with his concubines, of whom he had a
considerable number. Saxo assures us that, so far from being offended
with her royal lord for this frailty, she admitted the favoured ladies
into her own suite, and assisted to adorn them for his gratification.
Yet Eric was not far from canonization; and but for this frailty he
would probably have obtained the honour. His liberality to the church,
his pilgrimage, his settlement of the Cistercians in his dominions, and
his foundation at Lucca of a cloister for the accommodation of Danish
palmers, procured him the epithet of saint from more than one writer of
the times.
NICHOLAS.
1105–1134.
[Sidenote: 1103 to 1105.]
After Eric’s death there was an interregnum of two years. He had left
his son Harald governor of the realm during his absence; but the conduct
of that prince was so unpopular, that when the states assembled they
excluded both him and his brothers, and resolved to choose some one of
his uncles. The eldest, named Sweyn, died before he could be elected.
Ubbo, the next prince, refused the dignity; which then descended to
Nicholas, the next in age.
[Sidenote: 1105 to 1126.]
The long reign of this monarch was one of calamities, occasioned chiefly
by his jealousy of his nephew Canute, second son of the late king. Henry
king of the Obotrites, a Slavonic people who dwelt on the Baltic coast
from Mecklenburg to Pomerania, was nearly connected with the royal house
of Denmark, his mother being Sigritha, daughter of Sweyn II. As the
Obotrites had been subdued by at least two Danish kings, and forced to
embrace Christianity, they were regarded in the light of vassals. But
Henry, more powerful than any of his predecessors, since he had reduced
other Slavonic tribes to his yoke, would be no vassal to Denmark, though
he was certainly one to Germany. He first demanded his mother’s dowry,
which he asserted had never been paid; and when it was refused, invaded
the southern part of Jutland. Nicholas marched against him, and was
defeated. To arrest the career of the invader was reserved for Canute,
who had been invested by his father with the ducal fief of Sleswic. This
prince not only cleared the duchy of its invaders, but carried the war
into the country of the Obotrites. Henry now sued for peace, and was
thenceforth the friend of his nephew. Canute had saved Denmark from many
evils; and his conduct now showed that he was no less excellent a
governor than he had been a general. He exterminated the banditti,
restored the empire of the laws, and caused the arts of life to
flourish. His reputation gave much umbrage to the king; nor was that
feeling diminished when, after the death of Henry, he was presented by
the emperor Lothair with the vacant regal fief. With this augmented
power he maintained tranquillity the more easily, not in his ducal fief
only, but in the whole of Denmark. His eldest brother Harald, whose
vices had excluded him from the throne, made many hostile irruptions
into Jutland; but Eric, his next brother, was no less ready than he to
protect that kingdom.
[Sidenote: 1126 to 1132.]
The contrast between the conduct of Nicholas and of Canute made a deep
impression on the Danes. On two of them, the king and his son, it was no
less painful than it was deep. To hasten his destruction was the object
of both. The first attempt was to accuse him of some crime in the
assembly of the states; but he defended himself so powerfully, that he
was unanimously absolved. Disappointed in this view, Magnus requested an
interview with him, under the pretext of settling all differences
amicably; and, while unsuspicious of danger, assassinated him. All
Denmark was in instant commotion. The kindred of the victim hastened to
the meeting of the states, and displaying his bloody garments, called
for vengeance on the murderers. To escape the popular indignation,
Magnus fled into Sweden; but Nicholas, who relied on the support of a
party, endeavoured to brave the storm. He was, however, solemnly
deposed, and Eric, the brother of Canute, elected in his stead. But he
refused to comply with the decree. He collected troops, and took the
field against his rival, who exhibited no less activity in his own
behalf. In the civil war which followed, the bishops took part, and
fought like the temporal nobles. Canute had been the vassal of Lothair,
and had demanded the assistance of the empire; and that monarch
collecting a small army, marched into Jutland to co-operate with Eric in
avenging the death of Canute. Seeing that the junction of the emperor
and Eric must be fatal to his cause, Nicholas withdrew the former from
the alliance by the offer of a large sum of money, and by consenting to
hold Denmark as a fief of the empire. Lothair then returned, leaving the
fortune of war to decide between the two kings.
[Sidenote: 1132 to 1134.]
The retreat of the Germans was the signal for renewed and more fierce
hostilities between the rivals. With his usual perversity Harald forsook
the cause of his brother Eric, to fight for Nicholas; and Magnus, who
had powerful armies in Sweden, brought reinforcements to the war.
Success was varied: on the deep Magnus was defeated; on the land, Eric.
But some acts of more than usual barbarity perpetrated by Nicholas and
Harald at Roskild, diminished the number of their supporters. Still they
were enabled to make another stand on the coast near the gulf of Fodvig
in Scania. Victory declared for Eric: Magnus fell in the battle; and
Nicholas, with much difficulty, escaped into Jutland. Among the slain
were five bishops, and sixty priests. As Magnus was dead, Nicholas
declared Harald, the brother of Eric, his successor,—a declaration which
did no good to his own cause. To escape the pursuit of his rival, he
threw himself into Sleswic, which was better fortified than any city in
the North. But this was an imprudent act: in that city the memory of
Canute was idolized; and there he was massacred by some members of a
fraternity of which the deceased prince had been the head. Thus fell a
monarch who in the early part of his reign had afforded his subjects
reason to hope that he would prove a blessing to the realm, but whose
subsequent conduct had covered him with universal odium.
ERIC IV.
SURNAMED EMUND.
1135–1137.
[Sidenote: 1135 to 1137.]
In the reign of Eric IV., who on the death of his rival succeeded to the
government of the whole kingdom, there is little for history. One of his
first exploits was to put to death his brother Harald, and eleven sons
of that prince. There was a twelfth, Olaf, who escaped into Sweden, and
became in the sequel king of Denmark. He next pursued the Vend pirates
into their stronghold of Arcona, which he took and destroyed. On his
return, he applied himself with zeal to the administration of justice;
and was assassinated by a Jutland chief, whose father or brother he had
judicially condemned to death. This tragedy took place in the midst, not
merely of his court, but of his people, while presiding over an assembly
of the Jutland states.
There were candidates for the crown,—1. Canute the son of Magnus, and
consequently grandson of Nicholas; 2. Sweyn, a natural son of Eric IV.;
3.Valdemar, the son of Canute king of the Obotrites, who had been
murdered by Magnus, and who in 1170 was canonized, like the martyr of
that name who had ruled over Denmark. The bias of the assembly was
evidently in favour of Valdemar; but as both he and the two other
candidates were of tender years, the choice fell on a grandson of Eric
the Good by a daughter.
ERIC V.
SURNAMED THE LAMB.
1137–1147.
[Sidenote: 1137 to 1147.]
The surname of this king will sufficiently explain his character. He was
indeed one of the most pacific of men. Yet he was compelled to fight for
his crown; for Olaf, the only son of Harald that had escaped the bloody
proscriptions of Eric Emund, appeared at the head of a considerable
force, and claimed it. That if hereditary right only was to be
consulted, the claim was a valid one, is certain, for he was the only
representative of his father, the eldest son of Eric the Good. But the
Danish throne was elective; and though the claim was confined to one
family, little regard was paid to primogeniture. After many alternations
of fortune, Olaf was vanquished and slain (1143). But Eric himself was
conquered by the Slavonic pirates of the Baltic, who, though so
frequently humbled (if any credit is to be placed in the national
historians), soon re-appeared in numbers formidable enough to alarm the
kingdom. This check, and the consequent decline of his reputation in the
eyes of a warlike people, induced him soon afterwards to resign the
crown, and to profess as monk in the cloister of Odinsey.
[Sidenote: 1147.]
On the retirement of Eric the Lamb, the three princes who had before
been rejected on account of their youth were again candidates. Valdemar
being deemed still too young, the choice was restricted to the other
two. Unfortunately for the interests of order both were elected,—Sweyn
by the Lands Thing of Scania and Zealand, Canute by the people of
Jutland.
CANUTE V. SWEYN III.
1147–1156. 1147–1157.
[Sidenote: 1147 to 1157.]
That the division of the sovereignty would inevitably lead to civil war
might have been foreseen by the blindest. It was a long and a bloody
one, which, though suspended for a time through the efforts of the pope,
who wished all Christendom to arm against the infidels, burst out with
renewed fury. Adzer, archbishop of Lund, led the Danish host against the
pagans of the Baltic; but the expedition was inglorious; and the remnant
which returned from it embraced one of the two parties. The fortunes of
both varied; but when Valdemar, the favourite of the nation, joined
Sweyn, the advantage was on the side of that king, who gained at least
three battles over his rival. At one time Canute was driven from the
realm, and forced to seek shelter at the court of the emperor Conrad
III. But tranquillity was not the result of his retirement. The Wendish
pirates, not satisfied with having defeated the archbishop, and incited
by the agitated state of the public mind, ravaged the coasts both of
Jutland and of the isles. Finding their king and nobles unable to
protect them, the people entered into armed fraternities, which were
consecrated by religion. They not only defended their own coasts, but
equipped vessels to cruise in the Baltic, and to surprise such of the
pagan ships as they might find detached from the rest. In a few years
twenty-two of these vessels took above eighty of the enemy’s. Still
these were partial, isolated effects, which had little influence over
the general mass of misery. When Canute returned as the vassal of the
empire, the civil war again raged. Frederic Barbarossa, as the lord
paramount, now interfered, and meeting the two parties, decreed that
while the title of king of Denmark should be left to the victorious
Sweyn, Canute should reign over Zealand as a fief of the Danish crown.
This award satisfied neither party, and least of all the nation, which
was indignant with both of them for sacrificing its independence to the
emperor. Sweyn refused to cede Zealand to his rival; and the civil war
was about to recommence, when Valdemar, to whose valour Sweyn owed every
thing, prevailed on the one to give and the other to accept, in lieu of
that island, certain domains in Jutland and Scania. Peace therefore was
procured for the moment; but it was a hollow peace, which the accident
of an hour might break.
[Sidenote: 1152 to 1156.]
The advantage which Sweyn had gained by the aid of Valdemar he lost by
his misconduct. He adopted the German costume; imitated the German
manners; expressed much contempt for every thing Danish as in the
highest degree barbarous; seldom appeared at the national Thing;
restored the old judicial ordeal of duel; became luxurious; and levied
high contributions on his people. A disastrous expedition into Sweden
made him despised as well as hated; and on his return into Scania, he
was assailed by the yellings of the infuriated populace. Something worse
than this result would have been experienced by him, had not a chief,
named Tycho, one of the most influential in the province, rescued him
from his position. When at liberty, he allowed his licentious followers
to plunder the inhabitants. Many he put to death; and among them was the
brave man who had saved him from their fury. This atrocious ingratitude
lost him the favour of Valdemar, who passed over to the side of Canute,
and cemented the alliance by marrying the sister of that prince. It was
now the object of Sweyn to seize both princes, either openly or by
stratagem; but they were on their guard; and each was always surrounded
by armed attendants. At length he was vanquished, and forced to seek a
temporary asylum in Saxony. But he obtained succour from the duke of
that province, and from the archbishop of Bremen, who could never
forgive the Danes for forcing the abolition of his jurisdiction over the
North, and allied himself with the Slavonic pirates, who were always
ready to join any party that offered them plunder. At the head of these
forces he returned, and compelled the people to receive him as their
king. Again Valdemar and Canute marched against him; but the former,
pitying the sufferings of the people, offered his mediation, and
tranquillity was for the moment reestablished. The chief condition of
this treaty was, that the kingdom should be divided into _three_
sovereignties; that Sweyn should have Scania, Canute the isles, and
Valdemar Jutland, in addition to his duchy of Sleswic. The whole people
abandoned themselves to joy, and Sweyn pretending to join in it, gave a
magnificent entertainment to his brother kings in the castle of
Roskilda. But at that very festival, he ordered both to be assassinated.
Canute fell; but Valdemar, who defended himself courageously, escaped
into Jutland.
[Sidenote: 1156 to 1157.]
The reputation of Valdemar, and above all his words, easily induced the
people to espouse his cause. Pursued by his active enemy, he was
constrained to fight before his preparations were completed. The result,
however, was indecisive. In a subsequent and more general action, near
Viburg, Sweyn was defeated and compelled to flee. He was eagerly pursued
by the victors, who overtook him in a morass, from which the weight of
his armour prevented him from emerging; and he was immediately beheaded.
Never did the Danes suffer more than under this unworthy prince.
Enfeebled at home, degraded abroad, without government or security for
either person or substance, they were sunk even in their own estimation.
But for these disasters they could only blame themselves; they were the
inevitable results of their own folly in dividing the monarchy.
VALDEMAR I.
SURNAMED THE GREAT.
1157–1182.
[Sidenote: 1157 to 1169.]
Never was the joy of people greater than that of the Danes when
Valdemar, whose talents had been tried on so many occasions, succeeded
to the undivided throne. They had need of an enlightened, a patriotic,
an active, a firm governor to rescue them from anarchy at home, and
humiliation abroad. One of his most urgent objects was to secure his
coasts against the pagan rovers. In his first expedition, however, he
effected little; his armament was inadequate to the undertaking. In the
second, he subdued most of the isle of Rugen, and obtained great
plunder. In the third, he had for his ally Henry the Lion, duke of
Saxony; and both princes overran the maritime coasts of the Baltic,
dictating such terms as they pleased. But such expeditions had never any
permanent effect. If the pagans submitted, or fled, scarcely was their
victor beyond the confines of their territory, than they recommenced
their lawless career. It was so with Valdemar; it had been so with the
most valiant of his predecessors. Five or six armaments in succession
had only the temporary result we have mentioned. He saw that unless he
entirely destroyed their strongholds, cut in pieces their gods, and
converted them sincerely to Christianity, no peace was to be expected
from them. With these intentions, in 1169, he led another armament
against the isle of Rugen, and assailed Arcona. It was situated on the
northern extremity of the island, and so defended by nature and art as
to be thought impregnable. To the inhabitants Christianity had been
announced; but no sooner were the visitors departed, than they reverted
to their idolatry, and expelled the missionaries. To their gigantic
idol, Svantovit, they offered human sacrifices, and believed a Christian
to be the most acceptable of all. The high-priest had unbounded power
over them. He was the interpreter of the idol’s will; he was the great
augur; he prophesied; nobody but him could approach the deity. The
treasures laid at the idol’s feet from most parts of the Slavonic world
were immense. Then there was a fine white horse, which the high-priest
only could approach; and in it the spirit of the deity often resided.
The animal was believed to undertake immense journeys every night, while
sleep oppressed mortals. Three hundred chosen warriors formed a guard of
honour to the idol; they too brought all which they took in war to the
sanctuary. There was a prestige connected with the temple; it was
regarded as the palladium not of the island merely, but of Slavonic
freedom; and all approach to it was carefully guarded. Waldemar was not
dismayed. He pushed with vigour the siege of Arcona; and was about to
carry it by assault, when his two military churchmen, Absalom bishop of
Roskild, and Eskil archbishop of Lund, advised him to spare the
idolaters upon the following conditions: that they would deliver him
their idol with all the treasure; that they would release, without
ransom, all their Christian slaves; that all would embrace, and with
constancy, the gospel of Christ; that the lands now belonging to their
priests should be transferred to the support of Christian churches;
that, whenever required, they would serve in the armies of the king;
that they would pay him an annual tribute. Hostages being given for the
performance of these stipulations, the invaders entered the temple, and
proceeded to destroy Svantovit, under the eyes of a multitude of pagans,
who expected every moment to see a dreadful miracle. The idol was so
large, that they could not at once hurl it to the ground, lest it should
fall on some one, and the pagans be enabled to boast of its having
revenged itself. They broke it in pieces; and the wood was cut up into
logs for the fires of the camp. Great was the amazement of the
spectators to witness this tameness on the part of so potent a god; and
they could only account for it by inferring that Christ was still more
powerful. The temple was next burnt; and so were three others, all with
idols. The numerous garrisons of the island were made to capitulate; the
victors returned to Denmark in triumph; and missionaries were sent to
instruct the inhabitants in the doctrines and duties of Christianity. At
the instance of bishop Absalom, the island was annexed to the diocese of
Roskild. This was a glorious and it was an enduring conquest; a fierce
people were converted into harmonised subjects, and piracy lost its
great support.
[Sidenote: 1169 to 1175.]
But with this vigorous effort, piracy was not extirpated: on the
contrary, the Danish coasts were themselves ravaged the following year
by the Slavonians. This disaster was owing to the anger of Henry the
Lion, duke of Saxony, who had sent a contingent to the corps of
Valdemar. He had probably not expected the reduction of Rugen; he
certainly was jealous of his ally’s success; and, to provoke a breach,
he demanded half of the treasures, of the captives, of the hostages, and
of the tribute stipulated to be paid. There was probably some justice in
the demand; but the king refused to comply with it, and Henry, in great
anger, informed the Slavonians that they might consider themselves at
liberty to inflict whatever injuries they could on the Danes. How this
prince had acquired so great an ascendency over these people; how they
came to call themselves his vassals, is one of those problems which
history cannot solve. There must have been treaties, and marriages, and
conquests, which chroniclers have omitted. The fact of his ascendency is
indisputable. “He was the only prince on earth,” says Helmold, “that
could put a bridle into the mouth of that ferocious people, and direct
it at his pleasure.” The vast restless tribes, from Courland to
Mecklenburgh, wanted only this stimulus to rise; and they did rise, in
numbers too formidable to be resisted. Valdemar and his ministers
suffered the tide to roll on: they had the mortification to witness its
ravages on their shores; but when it had spent a portion of its fury,
they raised an armament, cleared their shores, passed into the Baltic,
and, after some advantages, carried the war into the Vandalic
territories.[151] But what salutary impression could be made on a people
who, at the approach of an enemy, plunged, with their substance, into
the impenetrable recesses of their forests, and returned the moment that
enemy retired? Jomsberg, indeed, one of the most flourishing maritime
cities in Europe, was taken, and its great treasures became the prize of
the victors; but the place had been taken before by Canute the Great in
1010, and Magnus the Good in 1044. No sooner was it demolished, than it
began to rise from its ruins. Valdemar therefore perceived that, as he
could not exterminate these numerous tribes, who often acted in a
general confederation, and were always ready to descend upon his coasts,
his only hope was in the friendly interference of the Saxon duke. He
therefore met that sovereign, conceded all his demands, and had the
satisfaction to see Henry issue his mandate, that the Danish coasts
should no longer be molested. For some years they were not; but a very
precarious surety was that which depended on the will of another
person—a person who might, at any moment, change his policy, or whose
influence might be destroyed by death.
The two prelates whose names we have mentioned, Eskil and Absalom, had
great influence over the king, and over all the affairs of the realm.
They were ministers of state as well as bishops, and able generals no
less than ministers. Eskil had been educated at Hildesheim, one of the
best schools in Germany at that period. His first preferment was a stall
in the cathedral of Lund; and he rose through the gradations of the
hierarchy to the see of Roskild, and lastly to the archbishopric of
Lund, with the primacy of the North. The Danish kings soon found that
the church had succeeded to more than the authority of the ancient
pontiffs. Under the old system there was not a distinct priesthood; any
chief of his clan—any at least who could trace his descent to the
deified heroes of the North—could sacrifice. But now all the offices of
religion were reserved to a body which, from its indissoluble unity, its
vast possessions, its exclusive privileges, its favour with the pope,
and its sanctity in the eyes of the people, was nearly irresistible.
Eskil, while bishop of Roskild, contended with Eric Emund for the rights
of his church—not with spiritual arms merely, but with the temporal
sword. Being defeated, he was condemned to pay a fine of twenty pounds
of gold. This hostility to the royal will did not prevent Eric’s
successor from procuring his elevation to the archiepiscopal throne of
Lund. In the civil wars between Eric the Lamb and Olaf the son of
Harald, he adhered to his lawful sovereign, and was consequently
expelled from his see; but on the restoration of the royal authority, he
also was restored. In those battles between Sweyn and Canute, the
predecessor of Valdemar, he for some time fought valiantly for the
former; but, like Valdemar, he turned to the latter, for whom he drew
the sword with equal valour. At one time he was a prisoner, but was
released through the interposition of his friends, and, above all,
through the sanctity of his character, which rendered him amenable only
to the pope. It was soon his lot to dispute with Valdemar, on the
question of the schism which divided the church. He declared for
Alexander, and in so doing acted in concert with the whole Christian
world, except Germany, or rather the German emperor, Frederic
Barbarossa, who espoused the cause of Victor. Valdemar, influenced by
the emperor, followed the same party, and so did Absalom, the friend of
the king. For this adhesion Absalom was excommunicated by his
metropolitan; but, aided by the king, he resisted: recourse was had to
arms, to try which pope had the better right to the tiara; and the
result being unfortunate to Eskil, he was compelled to retire into
Sweden. At length he sued for pardon, and obtained it, on the condition
of his returning into the royal hands some of the domains which the
prodigality of former kings had bestowed on the church of Lund. Some
time afterwards he resigned his dignity, and retired to the monastery of
Clairvaux, in France. To that retirement he gave the preference, from
his intimacy with St. Bernard. He had founded in Denmark five
monasteries of the same order (that of St. Benedict reformed); and,
notwithstanding his martial prowess, he was regarded by the inmates of
Clairvaux as half a saint, especially after his pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
He died in 1181.
[Sidenote: 1175 to 1179.]
The successor of Eskil in the primacy was bishop Absalom. This
churchman, a native of Zealand, and descended from one of the noblest
families in Denmark, was the most warlike prelate of the age. His
attachment to Roskild was such, that he at first refused the dignity,
notwithstanding the earnest entreaties of the electors, and the commands
of the king. He would not separate from a people with whom he had been
so long acquainted; and to hold both sees was contrary to the canons.
When entreaties and rewards were equally ineffectual, application was
made to the pope, who commanded him, under ecclesiastical penalties, to
assume the primacy, with the legatine authority, and at the same time to
hold the see of Roskild. He therefore submitted, and undertook the
multitude of affairs rendered necessary by so many posts—chief minister
of state, general, admiral, judge, bishop, archbishop, legate: how he
found time for all his duties may well surprise us. His military talents
were of a high order; and his arms were not suffered to rust after his
elevation. He had often assisted to subdue the Wend pirates; and against
them he would now defend his flock, on the more exposed coasts of his
diocese. For this purpose he caused rude huts to be erected on various
parts of the coast; and leaving his palace to his clergy, he resided in
one or the other of these, according to the exigencies of the occasion.
Day and night he was ready to repel any attack of the pirates on his
humble flock. Neither the wintry storm, nor the extreme cold, could
prevent him from cruising off the coast in search of the enemy. He was
even known to leave the altar when danger approached, and to wield the
sword with an arm which few lay nobles could equal. Thus, he was one
Palm Sunday informed that the pirates had disembarked, and were ravaging
the district. Throwing aside his mitre, his crosier, and his pontifical
vestments, he hastily assumed his armour, summoned his household
dependents, marched to the spot, and compelled them to retire with great
loss to their ships. But if he was thus martial, he was by no means
inattentive to the duties of his station. He was an active bishop, and a
generous patron of letters. By him Sweyn Aggesen and Saxo Grammaticus
were enabled to write their respective histories. He paid great
attention to the school which Eskil had founded; and, in the
distribution of church patronage (and his was immense), he always gave
the preference to the men, who, _cæteris paribus_, excelled in
literature. Hence he exercised a much greater influence than his
predecessor over the destinies of the kingdom. In the Thing his voice
was always heard with respect; he was a stout advocate for the national
independence; and his ascendency alike over the sovereign and nobles
frequently enabled him to restore peace when other means of
reconciliation were wanting. Nor must we omit to state, that to him the
city of Copenhagen owes its origin. In 1168 it was a mere fishing
village. The bishop erected a fortress on the spot as a defence against
the sea-rovers, and in it placed a strong garrison. The security
afforded by the place attracted many settlers to it; it rose into wealth
and population, and by Valdemar was annexed to the see of Roskild, to
remain dependent on an authority which had called it into existence. By
the successors of Absalom it was endowed with a municipal charter, and
its privileges confirmed by the crown.
[Sidenote: 1176 to 1179.]
There was but one circumstance to diminish the popularity of Valdemar
and his archbishop. The latter, a strenuous advocate of all
ecclesiastical privileges, persuaded the former to enforce the
collection of tithes even by the sword. The ascendency of their
characters, and the services which both had rendered to the country,
averted mischiefs, that would have followed had any other persons acted
with equal rigour in regard to that obnoxious impost. Both thought that
resistance to this impost was double guilt—rebellion and impiety,—and on
this belief they acted. But they had other reasons for severity. The
Scanians, who most distinguished themselves by their hostility to the
impost, were also unfriendly to bishops, and still more to clerical
celibacy. Nor were they satisfied with remonstrances; they flew to arms,
and the archbishop was compelled to retire. But he retired only to
collect an armed force; and being joined by the king, he returned to the
province. As both were lenient, they tried what could be effected by
negotiation. But the insurgents were impracticable: probably they
believed that both were afraid of them; and they persisted in their
rebellion, until they were routed with great loss. Their only resource
was to throw themselves on the king’s mercy, and they were readily
pardoned. Still they refused to pay the tithes; and as Valdemar dreaded
greater evils, he prevailed on the archbishop to suspend the collection
until the minds of his flock were more accessible to reason.
[Sidenote: 1166 to 1177.]
Long before the death of Valdemar, the states of the kingdom, grateful
for the services which he was every day rendering to his people, at the
perpetual risk of his own life, declared his son Canute his successor.
In 1177 the young prince was joined in the administration.
[Sidenote: 1180.]
The transactions of Valdemar with the sovereigns of Norway will be
noticed in the chapter devoted to the history of that kingdom. Those
with the empire were of a more complicated and not less interesting
character. It was the object of Conrad III. and of Frederic Barbarossa,
to make both him and his kingdom entirely dependent on the empire. To
the latter this object was of greater importance, since in his perpetual
disputes with the spiritual head of Christendom he wanted all the
support that could be obtained. As little could be effected by embassy,
he had at least two interviews with Valdemar, who was accompanied by
Absalom. On the first occasion Frederic rather forced than persuaded him
into an act of homage. There are writers who contend that this homage
was rendered only for the conquests which the king had made on the
Baltic coast, or at most for the duchy of Sleswic. The contrary,
however, is apparent from written instruments. On another occasion the
emperor had need of Valdemar’s aid against the duke of Saxony, Henry the
Lion; and the king conducted that aid in person. Arriving with his fleet
at Lubeck, his majestic presence won the admiration of the German
princes. From the emperor he received many favours, and the question of
homage for the kingdom of Denmark was this time waived. We are not told
why Valdemar so readily abandoned the Saxon duke (whose daughter was the
wife of his son Canute) for the emperor; but interest was probably the
chief motive. Flattered by the proposal of a two-fold matrimonial
alliance between his family and that of Hohenstauffen, he left the
unfortunate Henry to his fate. These alliances, however, were not
solemnised, owing to the youth of the parties, and still more to the
heavy sum demanded by Frederic as dowry.
[Sidenote: 1182.]
On his return to his own dominions, Valdemar was preparing for another
expedition against the Slavonians,—probably to reduce them under his
sceptre, and to obtain the same ascendency over them as Henry the Lion
had possessed—when death surprised him in Zealand, in the forty-eighth
year of his age. Never was monarch more lamented; he was indeed a great
and a good one. As a conqueror, and a conqueror over savage enemies,
whose humiliation was necessary to the repose of the kingdom, he was
celebrated throughout Europe. But he was also a legislator. Three
different codes emanated from his authority:—the law of Scania, which
was founded on the ancient customs of the inhabitants, was also
amplified by new provisions, rendered necessary by an improved state of
society. Such as were essentially pagan were rejected; others, pagan in
their origin, were easily made applicable to Christian times. This code
was published in two parts,—the ecclesiastical and the civil—the former
in 1162, the latter in the following year. 2. The Zealand law or code
was also founded on the unwritten observances of the inhabitants; which
observances were altered, modified, curtailed, or amplified, according
to the actual necessities of the period. They were published in 1171,
and were also divided into two portions—the civil and the
ecclesiastical. These codes, with the addition of the Jutland law, which
was added by Valdemar II. form the basis of the present law of Denmark.
From the reign of this able monarch, the rights of all classes in the
community were more clearly defined. But those of the agricultural class
were not improved by the change of circumstances. Prior to Valdemar’s
reign even the peasants attended the provincial Thing in arms. They
exercised the right of suffrage which they had derived from their pagan
ancestors, with as much freedom as the noble. But when feudality made
such progress in the kingdom; when compelled to exchange their allodial
for vassalitic lands, and to march at the bidding of their temporal or
ecclesiastical chief, they lost their noble independence. Yet from evil
comes good. Many of them had been unruly subjects; if unable to carry
any thing by clamour, they had used their arms with better effect, and
through their numerical superiority, they had too often prevailed on the
calm wisdom of the old chiefs. Now they were no longer allowed to appear
in arms, and the change was a blessing.
CANUTE VI.
1182–1202.
[Sidenote: 1182.]
This prince had been crowned in his father’s lifetime and from his
fourteenth year had been admitted to a share in the government. His
accession therefore to the undivided sovereignty was expected to pass
without opposition. But the people of Scania elected another
sovereign—Harald, a grandson of prince Magnus. The contest, however, was
short lived; they were reduced, and their ruler compelled to flee into
Sweden.
[Sidenote: 1182 to 1189.]
The reign of this monarch was one of conquest and of prosperity. Soon
after his accession, Absalom the archbishop led an armament against
Bogislas duke of Pomerania, who exhibited ill-will to Denmark and her
vassals, and obtained a complete victory over the enemy. During the two
following years the warlike operations continued, and Bogislas at length
was compelled to throw himself on the royal mercy. Besides offering a
large quantity of gold, he did homage for all his possessions to Canute.
The two dukes of Mecklenburgh were also reduced, and acknowledged fealty
to him. The submission of two such provinces, which had been dependent
on Henry the Lion, and had subsequently acknowledged the superiority of
the empire, filled the king with so much pleasure, that he assumed the
title of king of the Vandals. To this title he had, in his opinion, a
two-fold claim: first, in virtue of the investiture of his ancestor,
Canute duke of Sleswic, with the royal fief of the Obotrites[152]; and,
secondly, in virtue of his present conquests.
[Sidenote: 1183 to 1188.]
To assume the feudal supremacy over these regions was a blow struck at
the authority of the emperor Frederic Barbarossa. Between these
potentates there was a misunderstanding from the very commencement of
Canute’s reign. Frederic invited him to his court under the pretext of
drawing more closely the amicable bonds which had been formed between
him and Valdemar; but as the king suspected that this was only a lure to
enforce the payment of homage, he evaded compliance. It soon appeared
that such was indeed the intention; for he was formally summoned to
visit the diet for that purpose. A second refusal to attend so
exasperated Frederic that he threatened to confer the fief of Denmark on
some other vassal. The king replied, that before he could give it, he
must first take it. All negotiation being useless, the emperor offered
the greatest insult to the majesty of Denmark, by sending back to her
own country the sister of Canute, who had been betrothed to his second
son, the duke of Swabia. From this moment the breach was irreparable;
and the king turned with more zeal to the cause of his father-in-law
Henry the Lion.
[Sidenote: 1191 to 1202.]
The next three years were years of tranquillity for the realm; but its
peace was now disturbed by a bishop and a member of the royal family.
Valdemar, a bastard son of Canute V., held the see of Sleswic. In
addition, the king had conferred on him the government of the duchy
until Valdemar, the king’s brother, for whom the fief was destined,
reached an age fit to govern. When that age arrived, the prince was
knighted, and at the same time invested with the duchy, of which he
hastened to take possession. The bishop had tasted the sweets of power,
and he was deeply hurt at its withdrawal: from that moment he became the
enemy of the king. Determined on revenge, he entered into alliance with
all whom he knew to be hostile to Canute; and, among others, with Adolf
of Schawenburg, count of Holstein. When his preparations were matured,
he threw off the mask, declaring that his right to the Danish throne was
as good as the king’s, and demanding a share of the sovereignty. Passing
into Norway, which at that time was not on friendly terms with Denmark,
he obtained supplies, returned to the latter kingdom, and assumed the
royal title. At the same period another army, led by the count of
Holstein, marched towards the Eyder to support his views. To Canute it
was evident that their operations could not be long sustained; that the
invaders would soon be in want of provisions, and disperse of
themselves. Instead therefore of risking an action, he quietly watched
the motions of the bishop. The result justified his policy; the
treasures of Valdemar were speedily exhausted; his mercenaries
disappeared; he threw himself on the royal mercy; but was conducted a
close prisoner to a strong fortress in Zealand (1194). Adolf yet
remained; the king marched against him, and forced him to sue for peace.
But that peace was of short duration. The count being required to do
homage to Canute for some of the domains which he had obtained by the
deposition of Henry the Lion, refused to acknowledge any other superior
than the emperor; and to fortify himself against the vengeance of the
king, he entered into an alliance with the margrave of Brandenburg,
whose territory adjoined the Vandalic dominions of the Dane, and who had
an interest in preventing any further augmentation in that quarter. To
assail both, Canute sent an armament to the northern coast of the
Baltic; and as the venerable Absalom was now too old and too infirm for
active warfare, the bishop of Roskild was invested with the command. The
result was not very favourable to the king. Two years afterwards,
however, he took the field in person, and forced Adolf to accept terms
of peace: the chief were, that Dithmarsh, with the strong fortress of
Ratzburg, should be ceded to Denmark (1200). But in this, as on the
former occasion, tranquillity was of short duration. Adolf again
quarrelled with his ally; and Valdemar, the king’s brother, invaded
Holstein. The result was favourable to the Danish arms: Adolf, who had
thrown himself into Hamburg, was compelled to leave it, and to witness
the fall of Lubeck, which was feudally subject to him. Most of Holstein
was now reduced; and the duke having, in the king’s name, received the
homage of the towns and nobles, returned to Sleswic. No sooner had he
left the province, than the count re-appeared; but it was only to be
made prisoner, and conveyed in triumph to one of the Danish fortresses.
The king himself soon appeared amidst his new subjects; and at Lubeck he
received the homage of the great vassals of Holstein, Dithmarsh,
Stormar, Ratzburg, Schwerin, and other lordships, which were now subject
to him, but which he could not incorporate with the monarchy, because
they were dependencies of the empire, and for them he must himself do
homage to the chief of that empire. This was a proud day for Denmark;
but that pride was much alloyed by the sudden death of Canute, in the
very flower of his age.
The flourishing state of Denmark under this prince is well described by
Arnold of Lubeck. He alludes to its vast commerce, to its ceaseless
activity, to its constantly increasing wealth, to its improvements in
the arts of life, to its military reputation, to its zeal for learning.
Many Danish youths, he informs us, were annually sent to study at Paris,
where they distinguished themselves in philosophy, law, and theology.
Many became admirable canonists; many subtle didacticians. The visits of
young Danes to the capital of France may be explained by the union of
Ingeberg, sister of Canute, with Philip Augustus. That union indeed was
for many years an unhappy one; she was dismissed to make way for a
concubine; until the monarch was compelled by the pope to receive her
back to his palace.
[Sidenote: 1201.]
Towards the close of Canute’s reign died archbishop Absalom, who had
held the see of Roskild since 1158, and the primacy since 1178.
VALDEMAR II.
SURNAMED THE VICTORIOUS.
1202–1241.
[Sidenote: 1202.]
As Canute VI. died without heirs male, the choice of the states fell on
his brother Valdemar, duke of Sleswic, who, as we have just related, had
given some proofs of military talent.
[Sidenote: 1203, 1204.]
Like his predecessor, the new king repaired to Lubeck to receive the
homage of the conquered inhabitants; and there he assumed the titles,
“King of the Slavonians,” and “Lord of Nordalbingia.” In the midst of
his triumph he offered to release count Adolf, provided the latter would
for ever renounce all pretension to Holstein with his other domains
north of the Elbe, and engage not to make war, either personally, or
through his allies, on the king of Denmark. The conditions were
accepted; and hostages being given for their execution, the count was
enlarged. Imprisonment seemed to have sobered him; for he passed the
rest of his days in tranquillity.
[Sidenote: 1204 to 1210.]
Having fomented the troubles of Norway in revenge for the aid given to
bishop Valdemar, and exacted an annual tribute from Erling, whom he had
opposed to Guthrum[153], the Danish king departed on a more distant
expedition,—against the pagans of Livonia. It was attended, however,
with no great success: the best that can be said of it is, that it was
not disastrous. A subsequent expedition into Sweden was more
unfortunate: he was signally defeated; but peace was made on terms
sufficiently honourable. About the same time the national arms regained
their former lustre by the conquest of Eastern Pomerania, the duke of
which did homage to Valdemar.
[Sidenote: 1205 to 1218.]