Chapter IX: The Teutonic and Scandinavian Religion (1)

§ 1. The Land and the Race.
§ 2. Idea of the Scandinavian Religion.
§ 3. The Eddas and their Contents.
§ 4. The Gods of Scandinavia.
§ 5. Resemblance of the Scandinavian Mythology to that of Zoroaster.
§ 6. Scandinavian Worship.
§ 7. Social Character, Maritime Discoveries, and Political Institutions
of the Scandinavians.
§ 8. Relation of this System to Christianity.

§ 1. The Land and the Race.

The great Teutonic or German division of the Indo-European family entered Europe subsequently to the Keltic tribes, and before the Slavic immigration. This people overspread and occupied a large part of Northern Central Europe, from which the attempts of the Romans to dispossess them proved futile. Of their early history we know very little. Bishop Percy contrasts their love of making records, as shown by the Runic inscriptions, with the Keltic law of secrecy. The Druids forbade any communication of their mysteries by writing; but the German Scalds put all their belief into popular songs, and reverenced literature as a gift of the gods. Yet we have received very little information concerning these tribes before the days of Cæsar and Tacitus. Cæsar describes them as warlike, huge in stature; having reverence for women, who were their augurs and diviners; worshipping the Sun, the Moon, and Fire; having no regular priests, and paying little regard to sacrifices. He says that they occupied their lives in hunting and war, devoting themselves from childhood to severe labors. They reverenced chastity, and considered it as conducive to health and strength. They were rather a pastoral than agricultural people; no one owning land, but each having it assigned to him temporarily. The object of this provision was said to be to prevent accumulation of wealth and the loss of warlike habits. They fought with cavalry supported by infantry. In the time of Augustus all attempts at conquering Germany were relinquished, and war was maintained only in the hope of revenging the destruction of Varus and his three legions by the famous German chief Arminius, or Herrman[320].

Tacitus freely admits that the Germans were as warlike as the Romans, and were only inferior in weapons and discipline. He pays a generous tribute to Arminius, whom he declares to have been "beyond all question the liberator of Germany," dying at thirty-seven, unconquered in war.[321] Tacitus quotes from some ancient German ballads or hymns ("the only historic monuments," says he, "that they possess") the names of Tuisto, a god born from the earth, and Mannus, his son. Tacitus was much struck with the physical characteristics of the race, as being so uniform. There was a family likeness, he says, among them all,--stern blue eyes, yellow hair, large bodies. Their wealth was in their flocks and herds. "Gold and silver are kept from them by the anger, or perhaps by the favor, of Heaven." Their rulers were elective, and their power was limited. Their judges were the priests. They saw something divine in woman, and her judgments were accepted as oracles. Such women as Veleda and Aurinia were reverenced as prophets; "but not adored or made into goddesses," says Tacitus, with a side-glance at some events at home. Their gods, Tacitus chooses to call Mercury, Hercules, and Mars; but he distinctly says that the Germans had neither idols nor temples, but worshipped in sacred groves[322]. He also says that the Germans divined future events by pieces of sticks, by the duel, and by the movements of sacred horses. Their leaders might decide the less important matters, but the principal questions were settled at public meetings. These assemblies were held at regular intervals, were opened by the priest, were presided over by the chief, and decided all public affairs. Tacitus remarks that the spirit of liberty goes to such an extreme among the Germans as to destroy regularity and order. They will not be punctual at their meetings, lest it should seem as if they attended because commanded to come.[323] Marriage was sacred, and, unlike other heathen nations, they were contented with one wife. They were affectionate and constant to the marriage vow, which meant to the pure German woman one husband, one life, one body, and one soul. The ancient Germans, like their modern descendants, drank beer and Rhenish wine, and were divided into numerous tribes, who afterward reappeared for the destruction of the Roman Empire, as the Goths, Vandals, Lombards, and Franks.

The Scandinavians were a branch of the great German family. Their language, the old Norse, was distinguished from the Alemannic, or High German tongue, and from the Saxonic, or Low German tongue. From the Norse have been derived the languages of Iceland, of the Ferroe Isles, of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. From the Germanic branch have come German, Dutch, Anglo-Saxon, Mæso-Gothic, and English. It was in Scandinavia that the Teutonic race developed its special civilization and religion. Cut off from the rest of the world by stormy seas, the people could there unfold their ideas, and become themselves. It is therefore to Scandinavia that we must go to study the German religion, and to find the influence exercised on modern civilization and the present character of Europe. This influence has been freely acknowledged by great historians.

Montesquieu says:[324]--

"The great prerogative of Scandinavia is, that it afforded the great
resource to the liberty of Europe, that is, to almost all of liberty
there is among men. The Goth Jornandes calls the North of Europe the
forge of mankind. I would rather call it the forge of those instruments
which broke the fetters manufactured in the South."

Geijer, in his Swedish History, tells us:--

"The recollections which Scandinavia has to add to those of the
Germanic race are yet the most antique in character and comparatively
the most original. They offer the completest remaining example of a
social state existing previously to the reception of influences from
Rome, and in duration stretching onward so as to come within the sphere
of historical light."

We do not know how much of those old Northern ideas may be still mingled with our ways of thought. The names of their gods we retain in those of our weekdays,--Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Their popular assemblies, or Things, were the origin of our Parliament, our Congress, and our general assemblies. If from the South came the romantic admiration of woman, from the North came a better respect for her rights and the sense of her equality. Our trial by jury was immediately derived from Scandinavia; and, according to Montesquieu, as we have seen, we owe to the North, as the greatest inheritance of all, that desire for freedom which is so chief an element in Christian civilization.

Scandinavia proper consists of those regions now occupied by the kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The geographical peculiarity of this country is its proximity everywhere to the sea, and the great extent of its coast line. The great peninsula of Sweden and Norway, with the Northern Ocean on its west, the Baltic and Gulf of Bothnia on its east, penetrated everywhere by creeks, friths, and arms of the sea, surrounded with innumerable islands, studded with lakes, and cleft with rivers, is also unrivalled, except by Switzerland, in the sublime and picturesque beauty of its mountains. The other peninsula, that of Denmark, surrounded and penetrated also everywhere by the sea, differs in being almost level; rising nowhere, at its highest point, more than a thousand feet above the ocean. Containing an area of only twenty-two thousand square miles, it is so penetrated with bays and creeks as to have four thousand miles of coast. Like the northern peninsula, it is also surrounded with a multitude of islands, which are so crowded together, especially on its eastern coast, as to make an archipelago. It is impossible to look at the map of Europe, and not be struck with the resemblance in these particulars between its northern and southern geography. The Baltic Sea is the Mediterranean of Northern Europe. The peninsula of Denmark, with its multitudinous bays and islands, corresponds to Greece, the Morea, and its archipelago. We have shown in our chapter on Greece that modern geography teaches that the extent of coast line, when compared with the superficial area of a country, is one of the essential conditions of civilization. Who can fail to see the hand of Providence in the adaptation of races to the countries they are to inhabit? The great tide of human life, flowing westward from Central Asia, was divided into currents by the Caspian and Black Seas, and by the lofty range of mountains which, under the name of the Caucasus, Carpathian Mountains, and Alps, extends almost in an unbroken line from the western coast of the Caspian to the northern limits of Germany. The Teutonic races, Germans, Saxons, Franks, and Northmen, were thus determined to the north, and spread themselves along the coast and peninsulas of the Northern Mediterranean. The other branch of the great Indo-European variety was distributed through Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Southern France, Italy, and Spain. Each of these vast European families, stimulated to mental and moral activity by its proximity to water, developed its own peculiar forms of national character, which were afterwards united in modern European society. The North developed individual freedom, the South social organization. The North gave force, the South culture. From Southern Europe came literature, philosophy, laws, arts; from the North, that respect for individual rights, that sense of personal dignity, that energy of the single soul, which is the essential equipoise of a high social culture. These two elements, of freedom and civilization, always antagonist, have been in most ages hostile. The individual freedom of the North has been equivalent to barbarism, and from time to time has rolled down a destroying deluge over the South, almost sweeping away its civilization, and overwhelming in a common ruin arts, literature, and laws. On the other hand, civilization at the South has passed into luxury, has produced effeminacy, till individual freedom has been lost under grinding despotism. But in modern civilization a third element has been added, which has brought these two powers of Northern freedom and Southern culture into equipoise and harmony. This new element is Christianity, which develops, at the same time, the sense of personal responsibility, by teaching the individual destiny and worth of every soul, and also the mutual dependence and interlacing brotherhood of all human society. This Christian element in modern civilization saves it from the double danger of a relapse into barbarism on the one hand, and a too refined luxury on the other. The nations of Europe, to-day, which are the most advanced in civilization, literature, and art, are also the most deeply pervaded with the love of freedom; and the most civilized nations on the globe, instead of being the most effeminate, are also the most powerful.

The Scandinavian people, destined to play so important a part in the history of the world, were, as we have said, a branch of the great Indo-European variety. We have seen that modern ethnology teaches that all the races which inhabit Europe, with some trifling exceptions, belong to one family, which originated in Central Asia. This has appeared and is proved by means of glossology, or the science of language. The closest resemblance exists between the seven linguistic families of Hindostan, Persia, Greece, Rome, Germany, the Kelts, and the Slavi; and it is a most striking fact of human history, that from the earliest period of recorded time down to the present day a powerful people, speaking a language belonging to one or other of these races, should have in a great measure swayed the destinies of the world.

Before the birth of Christ the peninsula of Denmark was called by the Romans the Cimbric Chersonesus, or Cimbric peninsula. This name came from the Cimbri, a people who, one hundred and eleven years before Christ, almost overthrew the Roman Republic, exciting more terror than any event since the days of Hannibal. More than three hundred thousand men, issuing from the peninsula of Denmark and the adjacent regions, poured like a torrent over Gaul and Southern Germany. They met and overthrew in succession four Roman armies; until, finally, they were conquered by the military skill and genius of Marius. After this eruption was checked, the great northern volcano slumbered for centuries. Other tribes from Asia--Goths, Vandals, Huns--combined in the overthrow of the Roman Empire. At last the inhabitants of Scandinavia appear again under the name of Northmen, invading and conquering England in the fifth century as Saxons, in the ninth century as Danes, and in the eleventh as Normans again overrunning England and France. But the peculiarity of the Scandinavian invasions was their maritime character. Daring and skilful navigators, they encountered the tempests of the Northern Ocean and the heavy roll of the Atlantic in vessels so small and slight that they floated like eggshells on the surface of the waves, and ran up the rivers of France and England, hundreds of miles, without check from shallows or rocks. In these fragile barks they made also the most extraordinary maritime discoveries. The sea-kings of Norway discovered Iceland, and settled it A.D. 860 and A.D. 874. They discovered and settled Greenland A.D. 982 and A.D. 986. On the western coast of Greenland they planted colonies, where churches were built, and diocesan bishoprics established, which lasted between four and five hundred years. Finally, in A.D. 1000, they discovered, by sailing from Greenland, the coast of Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Massachusetts Bay; and, five hundred years before the discovery of Columbus, gathered grapes and built houses on the southern side of Cape Cod. These facts, long considered mythical, have been established, to the satisfaction of European scholars, by the publication of Icelandic contemporaneous annals. This remarkable people have furnished nearly the whole population of England by means of the successive conquests of Saxon, Danes, and Normans, driving the Keltic races into the mountainous regions of Wales and North Scotland, where their descendants still remain. Colonizing themselves also everywhere in Northern Europe, and even in Italy and Greece, they have left the familiar stamp of their ideas and habits in all our modern civilization[325].

§ 2. Idea of the Scandinavian Religion.

The central idea of the Scandinavian belief was the free struggle of soul against material obstacles, the freedom of the Divine will in its conflict with the opposing forces of nature. The gods of the Scandinavians were always at war. It was a system of dualism, in which sunshine, summer, and growth were waging perpetual battle with storm, snow, winter, ocean, and terrestrial fire. As the gods, so the people. War was their business, courage their duty, fortitude their virtue. The conflict of life with death, of freedom with fate, of choice with necessity, of good with evil, made up their history and destiny.

This conflict in the natural world was especially apparent in the struggle, annually renewed, between summer and winter. Therefore the light and heat gods were their friends, those of darkness and cold their enemies. For the same reason that the burning heat of summer, Typhon, was the Satan of Egypt; so in the North the Jotuns, ice-giants, were the Scandinavian devils.

There are some virtues which are naturally associated together, such as the love of truth, the sense of justice, courage, and personal independence. There is an opposite class of virtues in like manner naturally grouped together,--sympathy, mutual helpfulness, and a tendency to social organization. The serious antagonism in the moral world is that of truth and love. Most cases of conscience which present a real difficulty resolve themselves into a conflict of truth and love. It is hard to be true without hurting the feelings of others; it is hard to sympathize with others and not yield a little of our inward truth. The same antagonism is found in the religions of the world. The religions in which truth, justice, freedom, are developed tend to isolation, coldness, and hardness. On the other hand, the religions of brotherhood and human sympathy tend to weakness, luxury, and slavery.

The religion of the German races, which was the natural growth of their organization and moral character, belonged to the first class. It was a religion in which truth, justice, self-respect, courage, freedom, were the essential elements. The gods were human, as in the Hellenic system, with moral attributes. They were finite beings and limited in their powers. They carried on a warfare with hostile and destructive agents, in which at last they were to be vanquished and destroyed, though a restoration of the world and the gods would follow that destruction.

Such was the idea in all the faith of the Teutonic race. The chief virtue of man was courage, his unpardonable sin was cowardice. "To fight a good fight," this was the way to Valhalla. Odin sent his Choosers to every battlefield to select the brave dead to become his companions in the joys of heaven.

§ 3. The Eddas and their Contents.

We have observed that Iceland was settled from Norway in the ninth century. A remarkable social life grew up there, which preserved the ideas, manners, and religion of the Teutonic people in their purity for many hundred years, and whose Eddas and Sagas are the chief source of our knowledge of the race. In this ultimate and barren region of the earth, where seas of ice make thousands of square miles desolate and impenetrable, where icy masses, elsewhere glaciers, are here mountains, where volcanoes with terrible eruptions destroy whole regions of inhabited country in a few days with lava, volcanic sand, and boiling water, was developed to its highest degree the purest form of Scandinavian life.

The religion of the Scandinavians is contained in the Eddas, which are two,--the poetic, or elder Edda, consisting of thirty-seven poems, first collected and published at the end of the eleventh century; and the younger, or prose Edda, ascribed to the celebrated Snorro Sturleson, born of a distinguished Icelandic family in the twelfth century, who, after leading a turbulent and ambitious life, and being twice chosen supreme magistrate, was killed A.D. 1241. The principal part of the prose Edda is a complete synopsis of Scandinavian mythology.

The elder Edda, which is the fountain of the mythology, consists of old songs and ballads, which had come down from an immemorial past in the mouths of the people, but were first collected and committed to writing by Sæmund, a Christian priest of Iceland in the eleventh century. He was a Bard, or Scald, as well as a priest, and one of his own poems, "The Sun-Song," is in his Edda. This word "Edda" means "great-grandmother," the ancient mother of Scandinavian knowledge. Or perhaps this name was given to the legends, repeated by grandmothers to their grandchildren by the vast firesides of the old farm-houses in Iceland.

This rhythmical Edda consists of thirty-seven poems[326]. It is in two parts,--the first containing mythical poems concerning the gods and the creation; the second, the legends of the heroes of Scandinavian history. This latter portion of the Edda has the original and ancient fragments from which the German Nibelungen-lied was afterward derived. These songs are to the German poem what the ante-Homeric ballad literature of Greece about Troy and Ulysses was to the Iliad and Odyssey as reduced to unity by Homer.

The first poem in the first part of the poetic Edda is the Voluspa, or Wisdom of Vala. The Vala was a prophetess, possessing vast supernatural knowledge. Some antiquarians consider the Vala to be the same as the Nornor, or Fates. They were dark beings, whose wisdom was fearful even to the gods, resembling in this the Greek Prometheus. The Voluspa describes the universe before the creation, in the morning of time, before the great Ymir lived, when there was neither sea nor shore nor heaven. It begins thus, Vala speaking:--

"I command the devout attention of all noble souls,
Of all the high and the low of the race of Heimdall;
I tell the doings of the All-Father,
In the most ancient Sagas which come to my mind.

"There was an age in which Ymir lived,
When was no sea, nor shore, nor salt waves;
No earth below, nor heaven above,
No yawning abyss and no grassy land.

"Till the sons of Bors lifted the dome of heaven,
And created the vast Midgard (earth) below;
Then the sun of the south rose above the mountains,
And green grasses made the ground verdant.

"The sun of the south, companion of the moon,
Held the horses of heaven with his right hand;
The sun knew not what its course should be,
The moon knew not what her power should be,
The stars knew not where their places were.

"Then the counsellors went into the hall of judgment,
And the all-holy gods held a council.
They gave names to the night and new moon;
They called to the morning and to midday,
To the afternoon and evening, arranging the times."

The Voluspa goes on to describe how the gods assembled on the field of Ida, and proceeded to create metals and vegetables; after that the race of dwarfs, who preside over the powers of nature and the mineral world. Then Vala narrates how the three gods, Odin, Honir, and Lodur, "the mighty and mild Aser," found Ask and Embla, the Adam and Eve of the Northern legends, lying without soul, sense, motion, or color. Odin gave them their souls, Honir their intellects, Lodur their blood and colored flesh. Then comes the description of the ash-tree Yggdrasil, of the three Norns, or sisters of destiny, who tell the Aser their doom, and the end and renewal of the world; and how, at last, one being mightier than all shall arrive:--

"Then comes the mighty one to the council of the gods,
He with strength from on high who guides all things,
He decides the strife, he puts an end to struggle,
He ordains eternal laws."

In the same way, in the Song of Hyndla, another of the poems of this Edda, is a prediction of one who shall come, mightier than all the gods, and put an end to the strife between Aser and the giants. The song begins:--

"Wake, maid of maidens! Awake, my friend!
Hyndla, sister, dwelling in the glens!
It is night, it is cloudy; let us ride together
To the sacred place, to Valhalla."

Hyndla sings, after describing the heroes and princes born of the gods:--

"One shall be born higher than all,
Who grows strong with the strength of the earth;
He is famed as the greatest of rulers,
United with all nations as brethren.

"But one day there shall come another mightier than he;
But I dare not name his name.
Few are able to see beyond
The great battle of Odin and the Wolf."

Among the poems of the elder Edda is a Book of Proverbs, like those of Solomon in their sagacious observations on human life and manners. It is called the Havamal. At first we should hardly expect to find these maxims of worldly wisdom among a people whose chief business was war. But war develops cunning as well as courage, and battles are won by craft no less than by daring. Consequently, among a warlike people, sagacity is naturally cultivated.

The Havamal contains (in its proverbial section) one hundred and ten stanzas, mostly quatrains. The following are specimens:--

1. "Carefully consider the end
Before you go to do anything,
For all is uncertain, when the enemy
Lies in wait in the house.

4. "The guest who enters
Needs water, a towel, and hospitality.
A kind reception secures a return
In word and in deed.

7. "The wise man, on coming in,
Is silent and observes,
Hears with his ears, looks with his eyes,
And carefully reflects on every event.

11. "No worse a companion can a man take on his journey
Than drunkenness.
Not as good as many believe
Is beer to the sons of men.
The more one drinks, the less he knows,
And less power has he over himself.

26. "A foolish man, in company, had better be silent.
Until he speaks no one observes his folly.
But he who knows little does not know this,
When he had better be silent.

29. "Do not mock at the stranger
Who comes trusting in your kindness;
For when he has warmed himself at your fire,
He may easily prove a wise man.

34. "It is better to depart betimes,
And not to go too often to the same house.
Love tires and turns to sadness
When one sits too often at another man's table.

35. "One's own house, though small, is better,
For there thou art the master.
It makes a man's heart bleed to ask
For a midday meal at the house of another.

36. "One's own house, though small, is better;
At home thou art the master.
Two goats and a thatched roof
Are better than begging.

38. "It is hard to find a man so rich
As to refuse a gift.
It is hard to find a man so generous
As to be always glad to lend.

42. "Is there a man whom you distrust,
And who yet can help you?
Be smooth in words and false in thought,
And pay back his deceit with cunning.

48. "I hung my garments on two scarecrows,
And, when dressed, they seemed
Ready for the battle.
Unclothed they were jeered at by all.

52. "Small as a grain of sand
Is the small sense of a fool;
Very unequal is human wisdom.
The world is made of two unequal halves.

53. "It is well to be wise; it is not well
To be too wise.
He has the happiest life
Who knows well what he knows.

54. "It is well to be wise; not well
To be too wise.
The wise man's heart is not glad
When he knows too much.

55. "Two burning sticks placed together
Will burn entirely away.
Man grows bright by the side of man;
Alone, he remains stupid."

Such are the proverbs of the Havamal. This sort of proverbial wisdom may have come down from the days when the ancestors of the Scandinavians left Central Asia. It is like the fables and maxims of the Hitopadesá.[327]

Another of these poems is called Odin's Song of Runes. Runes were the Scandinavian alphabet, used for lapidary inscriptions, a thousand of which have been discovered in Sweden, and three or four hundred in Denmark and Norway, mostly on tombstones. This alphabet consists of sixteen letters, with the powers of F, U, TH, O, R, K, H, N, I, A, S, T, B, L, M, Y. The letters R, I, T, and B very nearly resemble the Roman letters of the same values. A magical power was ascribed to these Runes, and they were carved on sticks and then scraped off, and used as charms. These rune-charms were of different kinds, eighteen different sorts are mentioned in this song.

A song of Brynhilda speaks of different runes which she will teach Sigurd. "_Runes of victory_ must those know, to conquer thine enemies. They must be carved on the blade of thy sword. _Drink-Runes_ must thou know to make maidens love thee. Thou must carve them on thy drinking horn. _Runes of freedom_ must thou know to deliver the captives. _Storm-Runes_ must thou know, to make thy vessel go safely over the waves. Carve them on the mast and the rudder. _Herb-Runes_ thou must know to cure disease. Carve them on the bark of the tree. _Speech-Runes_ must thou know to defeat thine enemy in council of words, in the Thing. _Mind-Runes_ must thou know to have good and wise thoughts. These are the Book-Runes, and Help-Runes, and Drink-Runes, and Power-Runes, precious for whoever can use them."

The second part of the poetic Edda contains the stories of the old heroes, especially of Sigurd, the Achilles of Northern romance. There is also the Song of Volund, the Northern Smith, the German Vulcan, able to make swords of powerful temper. These songs and ballads are all serious and grave, and sometimes tender, having in them something of the solemn tone of the old Greek tragedy.

The prose Edda, as we have said, was the work of Snorro Sturleson, born in Iceland in 1178[328]. He probably transcribed most of it from the manuscripts in his hands, or which were accessible to him, and from the oral traditions which had been preserved in the memory of the Skalds. His other chief work was the Heimskringla, or collection of Saga concerning the history of the Scandinavians. In his preface to this last book he says he "wrote it down from old stories told by intelligent people"; or from "ancient family registers containing the pedigrees of kings," or from "old songs and ballads which our fathers had for their amusement"

The prose Edda begins with "The deluding of Gylfi," an ancient king of Sweden. He was renowned for his wisdom and love of knowledge, and determined to visit Asgard, the home of the Æsir, to learn something of the wisdom of the gods. They, however, foreseeing his coming, prepared various illusions to deceive him. Among other things, he saw three thrones raised one above another.

"He afterwards beheld three thrones raised one above another, with a
man sitting on each of them. Upon his asking what the names of these
lords might be, his guide answered: 'He who sits on the lowest throne
is a king; his name is Har (the High or Lofty One); the second is
Jafnhar (i.e. equal to the High); but he who sitteth on the highest
throne is called Thridi (the Third).' Har, perceiving the stranger,
asked him what his errand was, adding that he should be welcome to eat
and drink without cost, as were all those who remained in Háva Hall.
Gangler said he desired first to ascertain whether there was any person
present renowned for his wisdom.

"'If thou art not the most knowing,' replied Har, 'I fear thou wilt
hardly return safe. But go, stand there below, and propose thy
questions; here sits one who will be able to answer them.'

"Gangler thus began his discourse: 'Who is the first, or eldest of the
gods?'

"'In our language,' replied Har, 'he is called Alfadir (All-Father, or
the Father of All); but in the old Asgard he had twelve names.'

"'Where is this God?' said Gangler; 'what is his power? and what hath
he done to display his glory?'

"'He liveth,' replied Har, 'from all ages, he governeth all realms, and
swayeth all things great and small.'

"'He hath formed,' added Jafnhar, 'heaven and earth, and the air, and
all things thereunto belonging.'

"'And what is more,' continued Thridi, 'he hath made man, and given him
a soul which shall live and never perish, though the body shall have
mouldered away, or have been burnt to ashes. And all that are righteous
shall dwell with him in the place called Gimli, or Vingólf; but the
wicked shall go to Hel, and thence to Niflhel, which is below, in the
ninth world.'"

Of the creation of the world the Eddas thus speak: In the day-spring of the ages there was neither seas nor shore nor refreshing breeze; there was neither earth below nor heaven above. The whole was only one vast abyss, without herb and without seas. The sun had no palace, the stars no place, the moon no power. After this there was a bright shining world of flame to the South, and another, a cloudy and dark one, toward the North. Torrents of venom flowed from the last into the abyss, and froze, and filled it full of ice. But the air oozed up through it in icy vapors, which were melted into living drops by a warm breath from the South; and from these came the giant Ymir. From him came a race of wicked giants. Afterward, from these same drops of fluid seeds, children of heat and cold, came the mundane cow, whose milk fed the giants. Then arose also, in a mysterious manner, Bor, the father of three sons, Odin, Vili, and Ve, who, after several adventures,--having killed the giant Ymir, and made out of his body Heaven and Earth,--proceeded to form a man and woman named Ask and Embla. Chaos having thus disappeared, Odin became the All-Father, creator of gods and men, with Earth for his wife, and the powerful Thor for his oldest son. So much for the cosmogony of the Edda.

On this cosmogony, we may remark that it belongs to the class of development, or evolution, but combined with a creation. The Hindoo, Gnostic, and Platonic theories suppose the visible world to have emanated from God, by a succession of fallings, from the most abstract spirit to the most concrete matter. The Greeks and Romans, on the contrary, suppose all things to have come by a process of evolution, or development from an original formless and chaotic matter. The resemblance between the Greek account of the origin of gods and men and that of the Scandinavians is striking. Both systems begin in materialism, and are radically opposed to the spiritualism of the other theory; and in its account of the origin of all things from nebulous vapors and heat the Edda reminds us of the modern scientific theories on the same subject.

After giving this account of the formation of the world, of the gods, and the first pair of mortals, the Edda next speaks of night and day, of the sun and moon, of the rainbow bridge from earth to heaven, and of the great Ash-tree where the gods sit in council. Night was the daughter of a giant, and, like all her race, of a dark complexion. She married one of the Æsir, or children of Odin, and their son was Day, a child light and beautiful, like its father. The Sun and Moon were two children, the Moon being the boy, and the Sun the girl; which peculiarity of gender still holds in the German language. The Edda gives them chariot and horses with which to drive daily round the heavens, and supposes their speed to be occasioned by their fear of two gigantic wolves, from Jotunheim, or the world of darkness, which pursue them. The rainbow is named Bifrost, woven of three hues, and by this, as a bridge, the gods ride up every day to heaven from the holy fountain below the earth. Near this fountain dwell three maidens, below the great Ash-tree, who decide every man's fate. These Fates, or Norns, are named Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld,--three words meaning "past," "present," and "future." From Urd comes our word "weird," and the weird sisters of Shakespeare. The red in the rainbow is burning fire, which prevents the frost-giants of Jotunheim from going up to heaven, which they otherwise might do. This region of the gods is called Asgard, and contains Valhalla, where they feast every day, with all heroes who have died in battle; drinking mead, but not out of their enemies' skulls, as has been so often said. This mistake modern scholars have attributed to a mistranslation of a word in the original, which means "curved horns," the passage being, "Soon shall we drink ale out of the curved branches of the skull," that is, of an animal. Their food is the flesh of a boar, which is renewed every day.

It is not to be supposed that Odin and the other gods lived quietly on their Olympus without adventures. Many entertaining ones are narrated in the Edda, had we room to tell them. One of these describes the death of Baldur the Good, whom all beings loved. Having been tormented with bad dreams, indicating that his life was in danger, he told them to the assembled gods, who made all creatures and things, living or dead, take an oath to do him no harm. This oath was taken by fire and water, iron and all other metals, stones, earths, diseases, poisons, beasts, birds, and creeping things. After this, they amused themselves at their meeting in setting Baldur up as a mark; some hurling darts or shooting arrows at him, and some cutting at him with swords and axes; and as nothing hurt him, it was accounted a great honor done to Baldur. But wicked Loki, or Loke, was envious at this; and, assuming the form of a woman, he inquired of the goddess who had administered the oath, whether all things had taken it. She said everything except one little shrub called mistletoe, which she thought too young and feeble to do any harm. Therefore Loki got the mistletoe, and, bringing it to one of the gods, persuaded him to throw it at Baldur, who, pierced to the heart, fell dead. The grief was immense. An especial messenger was despatched to Queen Hela, in Hell, to inquire if, on any terms, Baldur might be ransomed. For nine days and nights he rode through dark chasms till he crossed the river of Death, and entering the kingdom of Hela, made known his request. Hela replied that it should now be discovered whether Baldur was so universally loved as was represented; for that she would permit him to return to Asgard if all creatures and all things, without exception, would weep for him. The gods then despatched messengers through the world to beg all things to weep for Baldur, which they immediately did. Then you might have seen, not only crocodiles but the most ferocious beasts dissolved in tears. Fishes wept in the water, and birds in the air. Stones and trees were covered with pellucid dew-drops, and, for all we know, this general grief may have been the occasion of some of the deluges reported by geology. The messengers returned, thinking the work done, when they found an old hag sitting in a cavern, and begged her to weep Baldur out of Hell. But she declared that she could gain nothing by so doing, and that Baldur might stay where he was, like other people as good as he; planting herself apparently on the great but somewhat selfish principle of non-intervention. So Baldur remains in the halls of Hela. But this old woman did not go unpunished. She was shrewdly suspected to be Loki himself in disguise, and on inquiry so it turned out. Whereupon a hot pursuit of Loki took place, who, after changing himself into many forms, was caught, and chained under sharp-pointed rocks below the earth.

The adventures of Thor are very numerous. The pleasantest, perhaps, is the account of his journey to Jotunheim, to visit his enemies, the giants of Cold and Darkness. On his way, being obliged to pass the night in the forest, he came to a spacious hall, with an open door, reaching from one side to the other. In this he went to sleep, but being aroused by an awful earthquake, Thor and his companions crept into a chamber which opened out of the hall. When day came they found, sleeping near them, an enormous giant, so large, that, as it appeared, they had passed the night in the thumb of his glove. They travelled with him all day; and the next night Thor considered himself justified in killing this giant, who was one of their enemies. Three times he launched his mallet with fearful force at the giant's head, and three times the giant awoke to inquire whether it was a leaf or an acorn which had fallen on his face. After taking leave of their enormous and invulnerable companion, they arrived at the abodes of Jotunheim, and the city of Utgard, and entered the city of the king, Utgard Loki. This king inquired what great feat Thor and his companions could do. One professed to be a great eater; on which the king of giants called one of his servants named Logi, and placed between them a trough filled with meat. Thor's companion ate his share, but Logi ate meat and bone too, and the trough into the bargain, and was considered to have conquered. Thor's other companion was a great runner, and was set to run with a young man named Hugi, who so outstripped him that he reached the goal before the other had gone half-way. Then Thor was asked what he could do himself. He said he would engage in a drinking-match, and was presented with a large horn, and was requested to empty it at a single draught, which he expected easily to do, but on looking in the liquor seemed scarcely diminished. The second time he tried, and lowered it slightly. A third, and it was still only sunk half an inch. Whereupon he was laughed at, and called for some new feat. "We have a trifling game here," answered the king, "in which we exercise none but children. It is merely to lift my cat from the ground." Thor put forth his whole might, but could only lift up one foot, and was laughed at again. Angry at this, he called for some one to wrestle with him. "My men," said King Utgard, "would think it beneath them to wrestle with thee, but let some one call my old nurse Eld, and let Thor wrestle with her." A toothless old woman entered the hall, and after a violent struggle Thor began to lose his footing, and went home excessively mortified. But it turned out afterward that all this was illusion. The three blows of the mallet, instead of striking the giant's head, had fallen on a mountain, which he had dexterously put between, and made three deep ravines in it, which remain to this day. The triumphant eater was Fire itself, disguised as a man. The successful runner was Thought. The horn out of which Thor tried to drink was connected with the ocean, which was lowered a few inches by his tremendous draughts. The cat was the great Midgard Serpent, which goes round the world, and Thor had actually pulled the earth a little way out of its place; and the old woman was Old Age itself[329].

According to this mythology, there is coming a time in which the world will be destroyed by fire and afterward renewed. This will be, preceded by awful disasters; dreadful winters; wars, and desolations on earth; cruelty and deceit; the sun and moon will be devoured, the stars hurled from the sky, and the earth violently shaken. The Wolf (Fenrir), the awful Midgard Serpent, Loki, and Hela come to battle with the gods. The great Ash-tree will shake with fear. The Wolf (Fenrir) breaks loose, and opens his enormous mouth. The lower jaw reaches to the earth, and the upper to heaven. The Midgard Serpent, by the side of the Wolf, vomits forth floods of poison. Heaven is rent in twain, and Surtur and the sons of Muspell ride through the breach. These are the children of Light and Fire, who dwell in the South, and who seem to belong neither to the race of gods nor to that of giants, but to a third party, who only interfere at the close of the conflict. While the battle goes on between the gods and the giants they keep their effulgent bands apart on the field of battle. Meantime Heimdall--doorkeeper of the gods--sounds his mighty trumpet, which is heard through the whole universe, to summon the gods to conflict. The gods, or Æsir, and all the heroes of Valhalla, arm themselves and go to the field. Odin fights with the Wolf; Thor with the Midgard Serpent, whom he kills, but being suffocated with the floods of venom dies himself. The Wolf swallows Odin, but at that instant Vidar sets his foot on its lower jaw, and laying hold of the upper jaw tears it apart. He accomplishes this because he has on the famous shoe, the materials of which have been collecting for ages, it being made of the shreds of shoe-leather which are cut off in making shoes, and which, on this account, the religious Scandinavians were careful to throw away. Loki and Heimdall fight and kill each other. After this Surtur darts fire over the whole earth, and the whole universe is consumed. But then comes the restitution of all things. There will rise out of the sea a new heaven and a new earth. Two gods, Vidar and Vali, and two human beings, a man and woman, survive the conflagration, and with their descendants occupy the heavens and earth. The suns of Thor come with their father's hammer and put an end to war. Baldur, and Hodur, the blind god, come up from Hell, and the daughter of the Sun, more beautiful than its mother, occupies its place in the skies.

§ 4. The Gods of Scandinavia.

We can give no better account of the Norse pantheon than by extracting the passages from the prose Edda, which describe the gods. We take the translation in Mallet's Northern Antiquities:--

"OF ODIN.

"'I must now ask thee,' said Gangler, 'who are the gods that men are
bound to believe in?'

"'There are twelve gods,' replied Har, 'to whom divine honors ought to
be rendered.'

"'Nor are the goddesses,' added Jafhhar, 'less divine and mighty.'

"'The first and eldest of the Æsir,' continued Thridi, 'is Odin. He
governs all things, and although the other deities are powerful, they
all serve and obey him as children do their father. Frigga is his wife.
She foresees the destinies of men, but never reveals what is to come.
For thus it is said that Odin himself told Loki, "Senseless Loki, why
wilt thou pry into futurity? Frigga alone knoweth the destinies of all,
though she telleth them never."'

"'Odin is named Alfadir (All-father), because he is the father of all
the gods, and also Valfadir (Choosing Father), because he chooses for
his sons all those who fall in combat. For their abode he has prepared
Valhalla and Vingólf, where they are called Einherjar (Heroes or
Champions). Odin is also called Hangagud, Haptagud, and Farmagud, and,
besides these, was named in many ways when he went to King
Geirraudr.'....

"OF THOR.

"'I now ask thee,' said Gangler, 'what are the names of the other gods?
What are their functions, and what have they brought to pass?'

"'The mightiest of them,' replied Har, 'is Thor. He is called Asa-Thor
and Auku-Thor, and is the strongest of gods and men. His realm is named
Thrúdváng, and his mansion Bilskirnir, in which are five hundred and
forty halls. It is the largest house ever built. Thus it is called in
the Grímnismál:--

"Fire hundred halls
And forty more,
Methinketh, hath
Bowed Bilskirnir.
Of houses roofed
There's none I know
My son's surpassing."

"'Thor has a car drawn by two goats called Tanngnióst and Tanngrisnir.
From his driving about in this car he is called Auku-Thor
(Charioteer-Thor). He likewise possesses three very precious things.
The first is a mallet called Mjölnir, which both the Frost and Mountain
Giants know to their cost when they see it hurled against them in the
air; and no wonder, for it has split many a skull of their fathers and
kindred. The second rare thing he possesses is called the belt of
strength or prowess (Megingjardir). When he girds it about him his
divine might is doubly augmented; the third, also very precious, being
his iron gauntlets, which he is obliged to put on whenever he would lay
hold of the handle of his mallet. There is no one so wise as to be able
to relate all Thor's marvellous exploits, yet I could tell thee so many
myself that hours would be whiled away ere all that I know had been
recounted.'

"OF BALDUR.

"'I would rather,' said Gangler, 'hear something about the other Æsir.'

"'The second son of Odin,' replied Har, 'is Baldur, and it may be truly
said of him that he is the best, and that all mankind are loud in his
praise. So fair and dazzling is he in form and features, that rays of
light seem to issue from him; and thou mayst have some idea of the
beauty of his hair when I tell thee that the whitest of all plants is
called Baldur's brow. Baldur is the mildest, the wisest, and the most
eloquent of all the Æsir, yet such is his nature that the judgment he
has pronounced can never be altered. He dwells in the heavenly mansion
called Breidablik, in which nothing unclean can enter. As it is said,--

"'T is Breidablik called,
"Where Baldur the Fair
Hath built him a bower,
In that land where I know
The least loathliness lieth."'

"OF NJÖRD.

"'The third god,' continued Har, 'is Njörd, who dwells in the heavenly
region called Noátún. He rules over the winds, and checks the fury of
the sea and of fire, and is therefore invoked by seafarers and
fishermen. He is so wealthy that he can give possessions and treasures
to those who call on him for them. Yet Njörd is not of the lineage of
the Æsir, for he was born and bred in Vanaheim. But the Vanir gave him
as hostage to the Æsir, receiving from them in his stead Hoenir. By
this means was peace re-established between the Æsir and Vanir. Njörd
took to wife Skadi, the daughter of the giant Thjassi. She preferred
dwelling in the abode formerly belonging to her father, which is
situated among rocky mountains, in the region called Thrymheim, but
Njörd loved to reside near the sea. They at last agreed that they
should pass together nine nights in Thrymheim, and then three in
Noátún. One day, when Njörd came back from the mountains to Noatun, he
thus sang:--

"Of mountains I'm weary,
Not long was I there,
Not more than nine nights;
But the howl of the wolf
Methought sounded ill
To the song of the swan-bird."

'"To which Skadi sang in reply:--

"Ne'er can I sleep
In my couch on the strand,
For the screams of the sea-fowl.
The mew as he comes
Every morn from the main
Is sure to awake me."

"'Skadi then returned to the rocky mountains, and abode in Thrymheim.
There, fastening on her snow-skates and taking her bow, she passes her
time in the chase of savage beasts, and is called the Ondur goddess, or
Ondurdís.....'

"OF THE GOD FREY, AND THE GODDESS FREYJA.

"'Njörd had afterwards, at his residence at Nóatún, two children, a son
named Frey, and a daughter called Freyja, both of them beauteous and
mighty. Frey is one of the most celebrated of the gods. He presides
over rain and sunshine, and all the fruits of the earth, and should be
invoked in order to obtain good harvests, and also for peace. He,
moreover, dispenses wealth among men. Freyja is the most propitious of
the goddesses; her abode in heaven is called Fólkváng. To whatever
field of battle she rides, she asserts her right to one half of the
slain, the other half belonging to Odin.....'

"OF TYR.

"'There is Tyr, who is the most daring and intrepid of all the gods. 'T
is he who dispenses valor in war, hence warriors do well to invoke him.
It has become proverbial to say of a man who surpasses all others in
valor that he is _Tyr-strong_, or valiant as Tyr. A man noted for his
wisdom is also said to be "wise as Tyr." Let me give thee a proof of
his intrepidity. When the Æsir were trying to persuade the wolf,
Fenrir, to let himself be bound up with the chain, Gleipnir, he,
fearing that they would never afterwards unloose him, only consented on
the condition that while they were chaining him he should keep Tyr's
right hand between his jaws. Tyr did not hesitate to put his hand in
the monster's mouth, but when Fenrir perceived that the Æsir had no
intention to unchain him, he bit the hand off at that point, which has
ever since been called the wolf's joint (úlflidr). From that time Tyr
has had but one hand. He is not regarded as a peacemaker among men.'

"OF THE OTHER GODS.

"'There is another god,' continued Har, 'named Bragi, who is celebrated
for his wisdom, and more especially for his eloquence and correct forms
of speech. He is not only eminently skilled in poetry, but the art
itself is called from his name _Bragr_, which epithet is also applied
to denote a distinguished poet or poetess. His wife is named Iduna. She
keeps in a box the apples which the gods, when they feel old age
approaching, have only to taste of to become young again. It is in this
manner that they will be kept in renovated youth until Ragnarök.....