Teutonic Mythology: The Gods and Goddesses of the Northland (Vol. 1-3). Viktor Rydberg

of the same kind as Rigveda's Ribhus, that had before worked in harmony with the gods, become, through the influence of Loke, foes of Asgard, their work becoming as harmful as it before was beneficent, and seek to destroy what Odin had created (see Nos. 111 and 112). Idun, with her life-renewing apples, is carried by Thjasse away from Asgard to the northernmost wilderness of the world, and is there concealed. Freyja, the goddess of fertility, is robbed and falls into the power of giants. Frey, the god of harvests, falls sick. The giant king Snow and his kinsmen Thorri (Black Frost), Jökull (the Glacier), &c., extend their sceptres over Scandia.

      Already during Heimdal's reign, after his protégé Borgar had grown up, something happens which forebodes these terrible times, but still has a happy issue.

28A.

      HEIMDAL AND THE SUN-DIS (Dis-goddess).

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      In Saxo's time there was still extant a myth telling how Heimdal, as the ruler of the earliest generation, got himself a wife. The myth is found related as history in Historia Danica, pp. 335–337. Changed into a song of chivalry in middle age style, we find it on German soil in the poem concerning king Ruther.

      Saxo relates that a certain king Alf undertook a perilous journey of courtship, and was accompanied by Borgar. Alf is the more noble of the two; Borgar attends him. This already points to the fact that the mythic figure which Saxo has changed into a historical king must be Heimdal, Borgar's co-father, his ruler and fosterer, otherwise Borgar himself would be the chief person in his country, and could not be regarded as subject to anyone else. Alf's identity with Heimdal is corroborated by "King Ruther," and to a degree also by the description Saxo makes of his appearance, a description based on a definite mythic prototype. Alf, says Saxo, had a fine exterior, and over his hair, though he was young, a so remarkably white splendour was diffused that rays of light seemed to issue from his silvery locks (cujus etiam insignem candore cæsariem tantus comæ decor asperierat, ut argenteo crine nitere putaretur). The Heimdal of the myth is a god of light, and is described by the colour applied to pure silver in the old Norse literature to distinguish it from that which is alloyed; he is hvíti áss (Gylfag., 27) and hvítastr ása (Thrymskvida, 5); his teeth glitter like gold, and so does his horse. We should expect that the maid whom Alf, if he is Heimdal, desires to possess belongs like himself to the divinities of light. Saxo also says that her beauty could make one blind if she was seen without her veil, and her name Alfhild belongs, like Alfsol, Hild, Alfhild Solglands, Svanhild Guldfjæder, to that class of names by which the sundises, mother and daughter, were transferred from mythology to history. She is watched by two dragons. Suitors who approach her in vain get their heads chopped off and set up on poles (thus also in "King Ruther"). Alf conquers the guarding dragons; but at the advice of her mother Alfhild takes flight, puts on a man's clothes and armour, and becomes a female warrior, fighting at the head of other Amazons. Alf and Borgar search for and find the troop of Amazons amid ice and snow. It is conquered and flies to "Finnia," Alf and Borgar pursue them thither. There is a new conflict. Borgar strikes the helmet from Alfhild's head. She has to confess herself conquered, and becomes Alf's wife.

      In interpreting the mythic contents of this story we must remember that the lad who came with the sheaf of grain to Scandia needed the help of the sun for the seed which he brought with him to sprout, before it could give harvests to the inhabitants. But the saga also indicates that the sun-dis had veiled herself, and made herself as far as possible unapproachable, and that when Heimdal had forced himself into her presence she fled to northern ice-enveloped regions, where the god and his foster-son, sword in hand, had to fetch her, whereupon a happy marriage between him and the sun-dis secures good weather and rich harvests to the land over which he rules. At the first glance it might seem as if this myth had left no trace in our Icelandic records. This is, however, not the case. Its fundamental idea, that the sun at one time in the earliest ages went astray from southern regions to the farthest north and desired to remain there, but that it was brought back by the might of the gods who created the world, and through them received, in the same manner as Day and Night, its course defined and regularly established, we find in the Völuspa strophe, examined with so great acumen by Julius Hoffory, which speaks of a bewilderment of this kind on the part of the sun, occurring before it yet "knew its proper sphere," and in the following strophe, which tells how the all-holy gods thereupon held solemn council and so ordained the activity of these beings, that time can be divided and years be recorded by their course. Nor is the marriage into which the sun-dis entered forgotten. Skaldskaparmal quotes a strophe from Skule Thorsteinson where Sol[12] is called Glenr's wife. That he whom the skald characterises by this epithet is a god is a matter of course. Glenr signifies "the shining one," and this epithet was badly chosen

      if it did not refer to "the most shining of the Asas," hvítastr ása—that is, Heimdal.

      The fundamental traits of "King Ruther" resemble Saxo's story. There, too, it is a king who undertakes a perilous journey of courtship and must fight several battles to win the wondrous fair maiden whose previous suitors had had to pay for their eagerness by having their heads chopped off and fastened on poles. The king is accompanied by Berter, identical with Berchtung-Borgar, but here, as always in the German story, described as the patriarch and adviser. A giant, Vidolt—Saxo's Vitolphus, Hyndluljod's Vidolfr—accompanies Ruther and Berter on the journey; and when Vitolphus in Saxo is mentioned under circumstances which show that he accompanied Borgar on a warlike expedition, and thereupon saved his son Halfdan's life, there is no room for doubt that Saxo's saga and "King Ruther" originally flowed from the same mythic source. It can also be demonstrated that the very name Ruther is one of those epithets which belong to Heimdal. The Norse Hrútr is, according to the Younger Edda (i. 588, 589), a synonym of Heimdali, and Heimdali is another form of Heimdall (Isl., i. 231). As Hrútr means a ram, and as Heimdali is an epithet of a ram (see Younger Edda, i. 589), light is thrown upon the bold metaphors, according to which "head," "Heimdal's head," and "Heimdal's sword" are synonyms (Younger Edda, i. 100, 264; ii. 499). The ram's head carries and is the ram's sword. Of the age of this animal symbol we give an account in No. 82. There is reason for believing that Heimdal's helmet has been conceived as decorated with ram's horns.[13] A strophe quoted in the Younger Edda (i. 608) mentions Heimdal's helmet, and calls the sword the fyllr of Heimdal's helmet, an ambiguous expression, which may be interpreted as that which fills Heimdal's helmet; that is to say, Heimdal's head, but also as that which has its place on the helmet. Compare the expression fyllr hilmis stóls as a metaphor for the power of the ruler.

      28B.

      LOKE CAUSES ENMITY BETWEEN THE GODS AND THE ORIGINAL ARTISTS (THE CREATORS OF ALL THINGS GROWING). THE CONSEQUENCE IS THE FIMBUL-WINTER AND EMIGRATIONS.

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      The danger averted by Heimdal when he secured the sun-dis with bonds of love begins in the time of Borgar. The corruption of nature and of man go hand in hand. Borgar has to contend with robbers (pugiles and piratæ), and among them the prototype of pirates—that terrible character, remembered also in Icelandic poetry, called Rodi (Saxo, Hist., 23, 345). The moderate laws given by Heimdal had to be made more severe by Borgar (Hist., 24, 25).

      While the moral condition in Midgard grows worse, Loke carries out in Asgard a cunningly-conceived plan, which seems to be to the advantage of the gods, but is

      intended to bring about the ruin of both the gods and man. His purpose is to cause enmity between the original artists themselves and between them and the gods.

      Among these artists the sons of Ivalde constitute a separate group. Originally they enjoyed the best relations to the gods, and gave them the best products of their wonderful art, for ornament and for use.