Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

In the northern mythology a particular kind of elves are mentioned--black or swarthy elves, _dökkálfar_. They dwell under the farthest root of the world-tree, near the northern gate of the lower world (_iormungrundar i iodyr nyrdra_), and have as their neighbours the Thurses and the unhappy dead (_náir_--Forspjallsljod, 25). Gylfaginning also (ch. 17) knows of the swarthy elves, at least, that they "dwell down in the earth" (_búa nidri í jördu_). As to mythic rank, colour, and abode, they therefore correspond with the Roman _aquili_, and Saxo has forcibly and very correctly employed this Latin word in order to characterise them in an intelligible manner.

The two swarthy elves keeping watch outside of the hall of Nastrands ought naturally to have been astonished at seeing a living human being entering their grotto. Saxo makes them receive the unexpected guest in a friendly manner. They greet him, and, when they have learned the purpose of his visit, one of them reproaches him for the rash boldness of his undertaking, but gives him information in regard to the way to Loke, and gives him fire and fuel after he had tested Thorkil's understanding, and found him to be a wise man. The journey, says the swarthy elf, can be performed in four days' fast sailing. As appears from the context, the journey is to the east. The traveller then comes to a place where not a blade of grass grows, and over which an even denser darkness broods. The place includes several terrible rocky halls, and in one of them Loke dwells.

On the fourth day Thorkil, favoured by a good wind, comes to the goal of his journey. Through the darkness a mass of rock rising from the sea (_scopulum inusitatæ molis_) is with difficulty discerned, and Thorkil lays to by this rocky island. He and his men put on clothes of skin of a kind that protects against venom, and then walk along the beach at the foot of the rock until they find an entrance. Then they kindle a fire with flint stones, this being an excellent protection against demons; they light torches and crawl in through the narrow opening. Unfortunately, Saxo gives but a scanty account of what they saw there. First they came to a cave of torture, which resembled the hall on the Nastrands, at least, in this particular, that there were many serpents and many iron seats or iron benches of the kind described above. A brook of sluggish water is crossed by wading. Another grotto which is not described was passed through, whereupon they entered Loke's awful prison. He lay there bound hands and feet with immense chains. His hair and beard resembled spears of horn, and had a terrible odour. Thorkil jerked out a hair of his beard to take with him as evidence of what he had seen. As he did this, there was diffused in the cave a pestilential stench; and after Thorkil's arrival home, it appeared that the beard-hair he had taken home was dangerous to life on account of its odour (_Hist. Dan._, 433). When Thorkil and his men had passed out of the interior jurisdiction of the rock, they were discovered by flying serpents which had their home on the island (cp. Völuspa--_thar saug Nidhöggr_, &c., No. 77). The skin clothes protected them against the venom vomited forth. But one of the men who bared his eyes became blind. Another, whose hand came outside of the protecting garments, got it cut off; and a third, who ventured to uncover his head, got the latter separated from his neck by the poison as by a sharp steel instrument.

The poem or saga which was Saxo's authority for this story must have described the rocky island where Loke was put in chains as inhabited by many condemned beings. There are at least three caves of torture, and in one of them there are many iron benches. This is confirmed, as we shall see, by Völuspa.

Saxo also says that there was a harbour. From Völuspa we learn that when Ygdrasil trembles at the approach of Ragnarok, the ship of the dead, Nagelfar, lies so that the liberated Loke can go aboard it. That it has long lain moored in its harbour is evident from the fact that, according to Völuspa, it then "becomes loose." Unknown hands are its builders. The material out of which it is constructed is the nail-parings of dead men (Gylfag., 51--probably according to some popular tradition). The less regard for religion, the less respect for the dead. But from each person who is left unburied, or is put into his grave without being, when possible, washed, combed, cleaned as to hands and feet, and so cared for that his appearance may be a favorable evidence to the judges at the Thing of the dead in regard to his survivors--from each such person comes building material for the death-ship, which is to carry the hosts of world-destroyers to the great conflict. Much building material is accumulated in the last days--in the "dagger-and-axe age," when "men no longer respect each other" (Völuspa).

Nagelfar is the largest of all ships, larger than Skidbladner (_Skidbladnir er beztr skipanna ... en Naglfari er mest skip_--Gylfag., 43). This very fact shows that it is to have a large number of persons on board when it departs from Loke's rocky island. Völuspa says:

Str. 47, 8. Naglfar losnar, Nagelfar becomes loose,
Str. 48. Kioll ferr austan, a ship comes from the east,
koma muno Muspellz the hosts of Muspel
um laug lydir, come o'er the main,
en Loki styrir; Loke is pilot;
fara Fifls megir all Fifel's descendants
med Freka allir, come with Freke,
theim er brodir Byleipt's brother
Byleipts i fór. is with them on the journey.

Here it is expressly stated that "the hosts of Muspel" are on board the ship, Nagelfar, guided by Loke, after it has been "freed from its moorings" and had set sail from the island where Loke and other damned ones were imprisoned.

How can this be harmonised with the doctrine based on the authority of Gylfaginning, that the sons of Muspel are inhabitants of the southernmost region of light and warmth, Gylfaginning's so-called Muspelheim? or with the doctrine that Surt is the protector of the borders of this realm? or that Muspel's sons proceed under his command to the Ragnarok conflict, and that they consequently must come from the South, which Völuspa also seems to corroborate with the words _Surtr ferr sunnan med sviga læfi_?

The answer is that the one statement cannot be harmonised with the other, and the question then arises as to which of the two authorities is the authentic one, the heathen poem Völuspa or Gylfaginning, produced in the thirteenth century by a man who had a vague conception of the mythology of our ancestors. Even the most uncritical partisan of Gylfaginning would certainly unhesitatingly decide in favour of Völuspa, provided we had this poem handed down in its pure form from the heathen days. But this is clearly not the case. We therefore need a third witness to decide between the two. Such an one is also actually to be found.

In the Norse heathen records the word _muspell_ occurs only twice, viz., in the above-mentioned Völuspa strophe and in Lokasenna, 42, where Frey, who has surrendered his sword of victory, is threatened by Loke with the prospect of defeat and death--_er Muspellz synir rida Myrcvith yfir_, "when Muspel's sons ride over Darkwood." The Myrkwood is mentioned in Volundarkvida (1) as a forest, through which the swan-maids coming from the South flew into the wintry Ulfdales, where one chases bears on skees (snow-shoes) to get food. This is evidently not a forest situated near the primeval fountains of heat and fire. The very arbitrary manner in which the names of the mythical geography is used in the heroic poems, where Myrkwood comes to the surface, does not indicate that this forest was conceived as situated south of Midgard, and there is, as shall be shown below, reason for assuming that Darkwood is another name for the Ironwood famous in mythology; the wood which, according to Völuspa, is situated in the East, and in which Angerboda fosters the children of Loke and Fenrer.

One of these, and one of the worst, is the monster Hate, the enemy of the moon mentioned in Völuspa as _tungls tiugari_, that makes excursions from the Ironwood and "stains the citadels of rulers with blood." In the Ragnarok conflict Hate takes part and contends with Tyr (Gylfag.), and, doubtless, not only he, but also the whole offspring of the Fenris-wolf fostered in the Ironwood, are on the battlefield in that division which is commanded by Loke their clan-chief. This is also, doubtless, the meaning of the following words in the Völuspa strophe quoted above: "Fifel's descendants all come with Freke (the wolf), and in company with them is Byleipt's (or Byleist's) brother." As Loke, Byleipt, and Helblinde are mentioned as brothers (Gylfag., 33), no one else can be meant with "Byleipt's brother" than Loke himself or Helblinde, and more probably the latter, since it has already been stated, that Loke is there as the commander of the forces. Thus it is Muspel's sons and Loke's kinsmen in the Ironwood who are gathered around him when the great conflict is at hand. Muspel's sons accompany the liberated Loke from his rocky isle, and are with him on board Nagelfar. Loke's first destination is the Ironwood, whither he goes to fetch Angerboda's children, and thence the journey proceeds "over Myrkwood" to the plain of Vigrid. The statements of Völuspa and Lokasenna illustrate and corroborate each other, and it follows that Völuspa's statement, claiming that Muspel's sons come from the East, is original and correct.

Gylfaginning treats Muspel as a place, a realm, the original home of fire and heat (Gylfag., 5). Still, there is a lack of positiveness, for the land in question is in the same work called _Múspellsheimr_ (ch. 5) and _Múspells heimr_ (ch. 8), whence we may presume that the author regarded _Múspell_ as meaning both the land of the fire and the fire itself. The true etymology of _Múspell_ was probably as little known in the thirteenth century, when Gylfaginning was written, as it is now. I shall not speak of the several attempts made at conjecturing the definition of the word. They may all be regarded as abortive, mainly, doubtless, for the reason that Gylfaginning's statements have credulously been assumed as the basis of the investigation. As a word inherited from heathen times, it occurs under the forms _mutspelli_ and _muspilli_ in the Old Saxon poem Heliand and in an Old High German poem on the final judgment, and there it has the meaning of the Lord's day, the doom of condemnation, or the condemnation. Concerning the meaning which the word had among the heathens of the North, before the time of the authors of Völuspa and Lokasenna, all that can be said with certainty is, that the word in the expression "Muspel's sons" has had a special reference to mythical beings who are to appear in Ragnarok fighting there as Loke's allies, that is, on the side of the evil against the good; that these beings were Loke's fellow-prisoners on the rocky isle where he was chained; and that they accompanied him from there on board Nagelfar to war against the gods. As Gylfaginning makes them accompany Surt coming from the South, this must be the result of a confounding of "Muspel's sons" with "Surt's (Suttung's) sons."

A closer examination ought to have shown that Gylfaginning's conception of "Muspel's sons" is immensely at variance with the mythical. Under the influence of Christian ideas they are transformed into a sort of angels of light, who appear in Ragnarok to contend under the command of Surt "to conquer all the idols" (_sigra öll godin_--Gylfag. 4) and carry out the punishment of the world. While Völuspa makes them come with Loke in the ship Nagelfar, that is, from the terrible rocky isle in the sea over which eternal darkness broods, and while Lokasenna makes them come across the Darkwood, whose name does not suggest any region in the realm of light, Gylfaginning tells us that they are celestial beings. Idols and giants contend with each other on Vigrid's plains; then _the heavens_ are suddenly rent in twain, and out of it ride in shining squadrons "Muspel's sons" and Surt, with his flaming sword, at the head of the fylkings. Gylfaginning is careful to keep these noble riders far away from every contact with that mob which Loke leads to the field of battle. It therefore expressly states that they form a fylking by themselves (_I thessum gny Klofnar himininn, ok ridu thadan Muspells synir; Surtr ridr fyrstr, &c. ... enn Muspells synir hafa einir sér fylking, er sá björt mjök_--ch. 56). Thus they do not come to assist Loke, but to put an end to both the idols and the mob of giants. The old giant, Surt, who, according to a heathen skald, Eyvind Skaldaspiller, dwells in _sökkdalir_, in mountain grottoes deep under the earth (see about him, No. 89), is in Gylfaginning first made the keeper of the borders of "Muspelheim," and then the chief of celestial hosts. But this is not the end of his promotion. In the text found in the Upsala Codex, Gylfaginning makes him lord in Gimle, and likewise the king of eternal bliss. After Ragnarok it is said, "there are many good abodes and many bad;" _best it is to be in Gimle with Surt (margar ero vistar gothar og margar illar, bezt er at vera a Gimle medr surtr)_. The name Surt means black. We find that his dark looks did not prevent his promotion, and this has been carried to such a point that a mythologist who honestly believed in Gylfaginning saw in him the Almighty who is to come after the regeneration to equalise and harmonise all discord, and to found holy laws to prevail for ever.

Under such circumstances, it may be suggested as a rule of critical caution not to accept unconditionally Gylfaginning's statement that the world of light and heat which existed before the creation of the world was called Muspel or Muspelheim. In all probability, this is a result of the author's own reflections. At all events, it is certain that no other record has any knowledge of that name. But that the mythology presumed the existence of such a world follows already from the fact that Urd's fountain, which gives the warmth of life to the world-tree, must have had its deepest fountain there, just as Hvergelmer has its in the world of primeval cold, and Mimer has his fountain in that wisdom which unites the opposites and makes them work together in a cosmic world.

Accordingly, we must distinguish between _Múspells megir_, _Múspells synir_, from Surt's clan-men, who are called _Surts ætt_, _synir Suttunga_, _Suttungs synir_ (Skirnismal, 34; Alvissm., 35). We should also remember that _Múspell_ in connection with the words _synir_ and _megir_ hardly can mean a land, a realm, a region. The figure by which the inhabitants of a country are called its sons or descendants never occurs, so far as I know, in the oldest Norse literature.

In regard to the names of the points of the compass in the poetic Edda, _nordan_ and _austan_, it must not be forgotten that the same northern regions in the mythical geography to which various events are referred must have been regarded by the Icelanders as lying to the east from their own northern isle. The _Bjarmia ulterior_, in whose night-shrouded waters mythical adventurers sought the gates to the lower world, lay in the uttermost North, and might still, from an Icelandic and also from a Norwegian standpoint, be designated as a land in the East. According to the sagas preserved by Saxo, these adventurers sailed into the Arctic Ocean, past the Norwegian coast, and eastward to a mythical Bjarmia, more distant than the real Bjarmaland. They could thus come to the coast where a gate to the lower world was to be found, and to the Nastrands, and if they continued this same course to the East, they could finally get to the rocky isle where Loke lay chained.

We have seen that Loke is not alone with Sigyn on that isle where in chains he abides Ragnarok. There were unhappy beings in large numbers with him. As already stated, Saxo speaks of three connected caves of torture there, and the innermost one is Loke's. Of the one nearest to it, Saxo tells nothing else than that one has to wade across a brook or river in order to get there. Of the bound Fenrer, Loke's son, it is said that from his mouth runs froth which forms the river Von (Gylfag., 34). In Lokasenna (34) Frey says to the abusive Loke: "A wolf (that is, Fenrer) I see lying at the mouth of the river until the forces of the world come in conflict; if you do not hold your tongue, you, villain, will be chained _next to him_" (_thvi næst_--an expression which here should be taken in a local sense, as a definite place is mentioned in the preceding sentence). And as we learn from Völuspa, that Freke (the wolf) is with Loke on board Nagelfar, then these evidences go to show that Loke and his son are chained in the same place. The isle where Fenrer was chained is called in Gylfaginning _Lyngvi_, and the body of water in which the isle is situated is called _Amsvartnir_, a suitable name of the sea, over which eternal darkness broods. On the isle, the probably Icelandic author of Völuspa (or its translator or compiler) has imagined a "grove," whose trees consist of jets of water springing from hot fountains (_hvera lundr_). The isle is guarded by _Garmr_, a giant-dog, who is to bark with all its might when the chains of Loke and Fenrer threaten to burst asunder:

Geyr Garmr mjök
fyr Gnipahelli
Festr man slitna,
en Freki renna.

According to Grimnersmal, Garm is the foremost of all dogs. The dogs which guard the beautiful Menglad's citadel are also called Garms (Fjölsvinnsmal). In Gylfaginning, the word is also used in regard to a wolf, Hate Manegarm. _Gnipahellir_ means the cave of the precipitous rock. The adventurers which Thorkil and his men encountered with the flying serpents, in connection with the watching Hel-dog, show that Lyngve is the scene of demons of the same kind as those which are found around the Na-gates of Nifelheim.

Bound hands and feet with the entrails of a "frost-cold son" (Lokasenna, 49), which, after being placed on his limbs, are transformed into iron chains (Gylfag., 54), Loke lies on a weapon (_a hiorvi_--Lokasenna, 49), and under him are three flat stones placed on edge, one under his shoulders, one under his loins, and one under his hams (Gylfag., 54). Over him Skade, who is to take revenge for the murder of her father, suspends a serpent in such a manner that the venom drops in the face of the nithing. Sigyn, faithful to her wicked husband, sits sorrowing by his side (Völuspa) and protects him as well as she is able against the venom of the serpent (Postscript to Lokasenna, Gylfag., 54). Fenrer is fettered by the soft, silk-like chain Gleipner, made by the subterranean artist, and brought from the lower world by Hermod. It is the only chain that can hold him, and that cannot be broken before Ragnarok. His jaws are kept wide open with a sword (Gylfag., 35).

79.

THE GREAT WORLD-MILL. ITS MISTAKEN IDENTITY WITH THE FRODE-MILL.

We have yet to mention a place in the lower world which is of importance to the naïve but, at the same time, perspicuous and imaginative cosmology of Teutonic heathendom. The myth in regard to the place in question is lost, but it has left scattered traces and marks, with the aid of which it is possible to restore its chief outlines.

Poems, from the heathen time, speak of two wonderful mills, a larger and a smaller "Grotte"-mill.

The larger one is simply immense. The storms and showers which lash the sides of the mountains and cause their disintegration; the breakers of the sea which attack the rocks on the strands, make them hollow, and cast the substance thus scooped out along the coast in the form of sand-banks; the whirlpools and currents of the ocean, and the still more powerful forces that were fancied by antiquity, and which smouldered the more brittle layers of the earth's solid crust, and scattered them as sand and mould over "the stones of the hall," in order that the ground might "be overgrown with green herbs"--all this was symbolized by the larger Grotte-mill. And as all symbols, in the same manner as the lightning which becomes Thor's hammer, in the mythology become epic-pragmatic realities, so this symbol becomes to the imagination a real mill, which operates deep down in the sea and causes the phenomena which it symbolizes.

This greater mill was also called _Grædir_, since its grist is the mould in which vegetation grows. This name was gradually transferred by the poets of the Christian age from the mill, which was grinding beneath the sea, to the sea itself.

The lesser Grotte-mill is like the greater one of heathen origin--Egil Skallagrimson mentions it--but it plays a more accidental part, and really belongs to the heroic poems connected with the mythology. Meanwhile, it is akin to the greater. Its stones come from the lower world, and were cast up thence for amusement by young giant-maids to the surface of the earth. A being called _Hengikjöptr_ (the feminine _Hengikepta_ is the name of a giantess--Sn. Edda, i. 551; ii. 471) makes mill-stones out of these subterranean rocks, and presents the mill to King Frode Fridleifson. Fate brings about that the same young giantesses, having gone to Svithiod to help the king warring there, Guthorm (see Nos. 38, 39), are taken prisoners and sold as slaves to King Frode, who makes them turn his Grotte-mill, the stones of which they recognize from their childhood. The giantesses, whose names are Fenja and Menja, grind on the mill gold and safety for King Frode, and good-will among men for his kingdom. But when Frode, hardened by greed for gold, refuses them the necessary rest from their toils, they grind fire and death upon him, and give the mill so great speed that the mill-stone breaks into pieces, and the foundation is crushed under its weight.

After the introduction of Christianity, the details of the myth concerning the greater, the cosmological mill, were forgotten, and there remained only the memory of the existence of such a mill on the bottom of the sea. The recollection of the lesser Grotte-mill was, on the other hand, at least in part preserved as to its details in a song which continued to flourish, and which was recorded in Skaldskaparmal.

Both mills were now regarded as identical, and there sprang up a tradition which explained how they could be so.

Contrary to the statements of the song, the tradition narrates that the mill did not break into pieces, but stood whole and perfect, when the curse of the giant-maids on Frode was fulfilled. The night following the day when they had begun to grind misfortune on Frode, there came a sea-king, Mysing, and slew Frode, and took, among other booty, also the Grotte-mill and both the female slaves, and carried them on board his ship. Mysing commanded them to grind salt, and this they continued to do until the following midnight. Then they asked if he had not got enough, but he commanded them to continue grinding, and so they did until the ship shortly afterwards sank. In this manner the tradition explained how the mill came to stand on the bottom of the sea, and there the mill that had belonged to Frode acquired the qualities which originally had belonged to the vast Grotte-mill of the mythology. Skaldskaparmal, which relates this tradition as well as the song, without taking any notice of the discrepancies between them, adds that after Frode's mill had sunk, "there was produced a whirlpool in the sea, caused by the waters running through the hole in the mill-stone, and from that time the sea is salt."

80.

THE WORLD-MILL (_continued_).

With distinct consciousness of its symbolic signification, the greater mill is mentioned in a strophe by the skald Snæbjorn (Skaldskap., ch. 25). The strophe appears to have belonged to a poem describing a voyage. "It is said," we read in this strophe, "that _Eyludr's_ nine women violently turn the Grotte of the skerry dangerous to man out near the edge of the earth, and that these women long ground Amlode's _lid_-grist."

Hvat kveda hræra Grotta
hergrimmastan skerja
ut fyrir jardar skauti
Eyludrs níu brúdir:
thær er .. fyrir laungu
lid-meld .....
.........
... Amloda mólu.

To the epithet _Eyludr_, and to the meaning of _lid_-in _lid_-grist, I shall return below. The strophe says that the mill is in motion out on the edge of the earth, that nine giant-maids turn it (for the lesser Grotte-mill two were more than sufficient), that they had long ground with it, that it belongs to a _skerry_ very dangerous to sea-faring men, and that it produces a peculiar grist.

The same mill is suggested by an episode in Saxo, where he relates the saga about the Danish prince, Amlethus, who on account of circumstances in his home was compelled to pretend to be insane. Young courtiers, who accompanied him on a walk along the sea-strand, showed him a sand-bank and said that it was meal. The prince said he knew this to be so: he said it was "meal from the mill of the storms" (_Hist. Dan._, 141).

The myth concerning the cosmic Grotte-mill was intimately connected partly with the myth concerning the fate of Ymer and the other primeval giants, and partly with that concerning Hvergelmer's fountain. Vafthrudnersmal (21) and Grimnersmal (40) tell us that the earth was made out of Ymer's flesh, the rocks out of his bones, and the sea from his blood. With earth is here meant, as distinguished from rocks, the mould, the sand, which cover the solid ground. Vafthrudnersmal calls Ymer _Aurgelmir_, Claygelmer or Moldgelmer; and Fjölsvinnsmal gives him the epithet _Leirbrimir_, Claybrimer, which suggests that his "flesh" was changed into the loose earth, while his bones became rocks. Ymer's descendants, the primeval giants, Thrudgelmer and Bergelmer perished with him, and the "flesh" of their bodies cast into the primeval sea also became mould. Of this we are assured, so far as Bergelmer is concerned, by strophe 35 in Vafthrudnersmal, which also informs us that Bergelmer was _laid under the mill-stone_. The mill which ground his "flesh" into mould can be none other than the one grinding under the sea, that is, the cosmic Grotte-mill.

When Odin asks the wise giant Vafthrudner how far back he can remember, and which is the oldest event of which he has any knowledge from personal experience, the giant answers: "Countless ages ere the earth was shapen Bergelmer was born. The first thing I remember is when he _á var lúdr um lagidr_."

This expression was misunderstood by the author of Gylfaginning himself, and the misunderstanding has continued to develop into the theory that Bergelmer was changed into a sort of Noah, who with his household saved himself in an ark when Bur's sons drowned the primeval giants in the blood of their progenitor. Of such a counterpart to the Biblical account of Noah and his ark our Teutonic mythical fragments have no knowledge whatever.

The word _lúdr_ (with radical _r_) has two meanings: (1) a wind-instrument, a loor, a war-trumpet; (2) the tier of beams, the underlying timbers of a mill, and, in a wider sense, the mill itself.

The first meaning, that of war-trumpet, is not found in the songs of the Elder Edda, and upon the whole does not occur in the Old Norse poetry. Heimdal's war-trumpet is not called _lúdr_, but _horn_ or _hljód_. _Lúdr_ in this sense makes its first appearance in the sagas of Christian times, but is never used by the skalds. In spite of this fact the signification may date back to heathen times. But however this may be, _lúdr_ in Vafthrudnersmal does not mean a war-trumpet. The poem can never have meant that Bergelmer was laid on a musical instrument.

The other meaning remains to be discussed. _Lúdr_, partly in its more limited sense of the timbers or beams under the mill, partly in the sense of the subterranean mill in its entirety, and the place where it is found, occurs several times in the poems: in the Grotte-song, in Helge Hund. (ii. 2), and in the above-quoted strophe by Snæbjorn, and also in Grogalder and in Fjölsvinnsmal. If this signification is applied to the passage in Vafthrudnersmal: _á var lúdr um lagidr_, we get the meaning that Bergelmer was "laid on a mill," and in fact no other meaning of the passage is possible, unless an entirely new signification is to be arbitrarily invented.

But however conspicuous this signification is, and however clear it is that it is the only one applicable in this poem, still it has been overlooked or thrust aside by the mythologists, and for this Gylfaginning is to blame. So far as I know, Vigfusson is the only one who (in his Dictionary, p. 399) makes the passage _á lúdr lagidr_ mean what it actually means, and he remarks that the words must "refer to some ancient lost myth."

The confusion begins, as stated, in Gylfaginning. Its author has had no other authority for his statement than the Vafthrudnersmal strophe in question, which he also cites to corroborate his own words; and we have here one of the many examples found in Gylfaginning showing that its author has neglected to pay much attention to what the passages quoted contain. When Gylfaginning has stated that the frost-giants were drowned in Ymer's blood, then comes its interpretation of the Vafthrudnersmal strophe, which is as follows: "One escaped with his household: him the giants call Bergelmer. He with his wife betook himself upon his _lúdr_ and remained there, and from them the races of giants are descended" (_nema einn komst undan med sinu hyski: thann kalla jötnar Bergelmi; hann fór upp á lúdr sinn ok kona hans, ok helzt thar, ok eru af theim komnar_), &c.

What Gylfaginning's author has conceived by the _lúdr_ which he mentions it is difficult to say. That he did not have a boat in mind is in the meantime evident from the expression: _hann fór upp á lúdr sinn_. It is more reasonable to suppose that his idea was, that Bergelmer himself owned an immense mill, upon whose high timbers he and his household climbed to save themselves from the flood. That the original text says that Bergelmer was _laid_ on the timbers of the mill Gylfaginning pays no attention to. To go upon something and to be laid on something are, however, very different notions.

An argument in favour of the wrong interpretation was furnished by the Resenian edition of the Younger Edda (Copenhagen, 1665). There we find the expression _fór upp á lúdr sinn_ "amended" to _fór á bát sinn_. Thus Bergelmer had secured a boat to sail in; and although more reliable editions of the Younger Edda have been published since from which the boat disappeared, still the mythologists have not had the heart to take the boat away from Bergelmer. On the contrary, they have allowed the boat to grow into a ship, an ark.

As already pointed out, Vafthrudnersmal tells us expressly that Bergelmer, Aurgelmer's grandson, was "laid on a mill" or "on the supporting timbers of a mill." We may be sure that the myth would not have laid Bergelmer on "a mill" if the intention was not that he was to be ground. The kind of meal thus produced has already been explained. It is the mould and sand which the sea since time's earliest dawn has cast upon the shores of Midgard, and with which the bays and strands have been filled, to become sooner or later green fields. From Ymer's flesh the gods created the oldest layer of soil, that which covered the earth the first time the sun shone thereon, and in which the first herbs grew. Ever since the same activity which then took place still continues. After the great mill of the gods transformed the oldest frost-giant into the dust of earth, it has continued to grind the bodies of his descendants between the same stones into the same kind of mould. This is the meaning of Vafthrudner's words when he says that his memory reaches back to the time when Bergelmer was laid on the mill to be ground. Ymer he does not remember, nor Thrudgelmer, nor the days when these were changed to earth. Of them he knows only by hearsay. But he remembers when the turn came for Bergelmer's limbs to be subjected to the same fate.

"The glorious Midgard" could not be created before its foundations raised by the gods out of the sea were changed to _bjód_ (Völuspa). This is the word (originally _bjódr_) with which the author of Völuspa chose to express the quality of the fields and the fields themselves, which were raised out of the sea by Bor's sons, when the great mill had changed the "flesh" of Ymer into mould. Bjód does not mean a bare field or ground, but one that can supply food. Thus it is used in Haustlaung (_af breidu bjódi_, the place for a spread feast--Skaldskaparmal, ch. 22), and its other meanings (perhaps the more original ones) are that of a board and of a table for food to lie on. When the fields were raised out of Ymer's blood they were covered with mould, so that, when they got light and warmth from the sun, then the _grund_ became _gróin grænum lauki_. The very word _mould_ comes from the Teutonic word _mala_, to grind (cp. Eng. _meal_, Latin _molere_). The development of language and the development of mythology have here, as in so many other instances, gone hand in hand.

That the "flesh" of the primeval giants could be ground into fertile mould refers us to the primeval cow Audhumbla by whose milk Ymer was nourished and his flesh formed (Gylfaginning). Thus the cow in the Teutonic mythology is the same as she is in the Iranian, the primeval source of fertility. The mould, out of which the harvests grow, has by transformations developed out of her nourishing liquids.

Here, then, we have the explanation of the _lidmeldr_ which the great mill grinds, according to Snæbjorn. _Lidmeldr_ means limb-grist. It is the limbs and joints of the primeval giants, which on Amlode's mill are transformed into meal.

In its character as an institution for the promotion of fertility, and for rendering the fields fit for habitation, the mill is under the care and protection of the Vans. After Njord's son, Frey, had been fostered in Asgard and had acquired the dignity of lord of the harvests, he was the one who became the master of the great Grotte. It is attended on his behalf by one of his servants, who in the mythology is called _Byggvir_, a name related both to _byggja_, settle, cultivate, and to _bygg_, barley, a kind of grain, and by his kinswoman and helpmate Beyla. So important is the calling of Bygver and Beyla that they are permitted to attend the feasts of the gods with their master (Frey). Consequently they are present at the banquet to which Ægir, according to Lokasenna, invited the gods. When Loke uninvited made his appearance there to mix harm in the mead of the gods, and to embitter their pleasure, and when he there taunts Frey, Bygver becomes wroth on his master's behalf and says:

Str. 43.

Veiztu, ef ec öthli ettac Had I the ancestry
sem Ingunar-Freyr of Ingunar Frey
oc sva sælict setr, and so honoured a seat,
mergi smæra maul tha ec know I would grind you
thá meincráco finer than marrow, you evil crow,
oc lemtha alla i litho. and crush you limb by limb.

Loke answers:

Str. 44.

Hvat er that ith litla What little boy is that
er ec that lauggra sec whom I see wag his tail
oc snapvist snapir; and eat like a parasite?
att eyrom Freys Near Frey's ears
mundu æ vera always you are
oc und kvernom klaka. and clatter 'neath the mill-stone.

Bygver.

Str. 45.

Beyggvir ec heiti, Bygver is my name,
enn mic brathan kveda All gods and men
god aull oc gumar: call me the nimble,
thvi em ec her hrodugr, and here it is my pride,
at drecca Hroptz megir that Odin's sons each
allir aul saman. and all drink ale.

Loke.

Str. 46.

thegi thu, Beyggvir! Be silent, Bygver!
thu kunnir aldregi Ne'er were you able
deila meth mönnom mat. food to divide among men.

Beyla, too, gets her share of Loke's abuse. The least disgraceful thing he says of her is that she is a _deigia_ (a slave, who has to work at the mill and in the kitchen), and that she is covered with traces of her occupation in dust and dirt.

As we see, Loke characterises Bygver as a servant taking charge of the mill under Frey, and Bygver characterises himself as one who grinds, and is able to crush an "evil crow" limb by limb with his mill-stones. As the one who with his mill makes vegetation, and so also bread and malt, possible, he boasts of it as his honour that the gods are able to drink ale at a banquet. Loke blames him because he is not able to divide the food among men. The reproach implies that the distribution of food is in his hands. The mould which comes from the great mill gives different degrees of fertility to different fields, and rewards abundantly or niggardly the toil of the farmer. Loke doubtless alludes to this unequal distribution, else it would be impossible to find any sense in his words.

In the poetic Edda we still have another reminiscence of the great mill which is located under the sea, and at the same time in the lower world (see below), and which "grinds mould into food." It is in a poem, whose skald says that he has seen it on his journey in the lower world. In his description of the "home of torture" in Hades, Solarljod's Christian author has taken all his materials from the heathen mythological conceptions of the worlds of punishment, though the author treats these materials in accordance with the Christian purpose of his song. When the skald dies, he enters the Hades gates, crosses bloody streams, sits for nine days _á norna stóli_, is thereupon seated on a horse, and is permitted to make a journey through Mimer's domain, first to the regions of the happy and then to those of the damned. In Mimer's realm he sees the "stag of the sun" and Nide's (Mimer's) sons, who "quaff the pure mead from Baugregin's well." When he approached the borders of the world of the damned, he heard a terrible din, which silenced the winds and stopped the flow of the waters. The mighty din came from a mill. Its stones were wet with blood, but the grist produced was mould, which was to be food. Fickle-wise (_svipvisar_, heathen) women of dark complexion turned the mill. Their bloody and tortured hearts hung outside of their breasts. The mould which they ground was to feed their husbands.

This mill, situated at the entrance of hell, is here represented as one of the agents of torture in the lower world. To a certain extent this is correct even from a heathen standpoint. It was the lot of slave-women to turn the hand-mill. In the heroic poem the giant-maids Fenja and Menja, taken prisoners and made slaves, have to turn Frode's Grotte. In the mythology "Eylud's nine women," thurse-maids, were compelled to keep this vast mechanism in motion, and that this was regarded as a heavy and compulsory task may be assumed without the risk of being mistaken.

According to Solarljod, the mill-stones are stained with blood. In the mythology they crush the bodies of the first giants and revolve in Ymer's blood. It is also in perfect harmony with the mythology that the meal becomes mould, and that the mould serves as food. But the cosmic signification is obliterated in Solarljod, and it seems to be the author's idea that men who have died in their heathen belief are to eat the mould which women who have died in heathendom industriously grind as food for them.

The myth about the greater Grotte, as already indicated, has also been connected with the Hvergelmer myth. Solarljod has correctly stated the location of the mill on the border of the realm of torture. The mythology has located Hvergelmer's fountain there (see No. 59); and as this vast fountain is the mother of the ocean and of all waters, and the ever open connection between the waters of heaven, of the earth, and of the lower world, then this furnishes the explanation of the apparently conflicting statements, that the mill is situated both in the lower world and at the same time on the bottom of the sea. Of the mill it is said that it is dangerous to men, dangerous to fleets and to crews, and that it causes the maelstrom (_svelgr_) when the water of the ocean rushes down through the eye of the mill-stone. The same was said of Hvergelmer, that causes ebb and flood and maelstrom, when the water of the world alternately flows into and out of this great source. To judge from all this, the mill has been conceived as so made that its foundation timbers stood on solid ground in the lower world, and thence rose up into the sea, in which the stones resting on this substructure were located. The revolving "eye" of the mill-stone was directly above Hvergelmer, and served as the channel through which the water flowed to and from the great fountain of the world's waters.

81.

THE WORLD-MILL (_continued_). THE WORLD-MILL MAKES THE
CONSTELLATIONS REVOLVE. MUNDILFÖRI.

But the colossal mill in the ocean has also served other purposes than that of grinding the nourishing mould from the limbs of the primeval giants.

The Teutons, like all people of antiquity, and like most men of the present time, regarded the earth as stationary. And so, too, the lower world (_jormurgrundr_--Forspjallsljod) on which the foundations of the earth rested. Stationary was also that heaven in which the Asas had their citadels, surrounded by a common wall, for the Asgard-bridge, Bifrost, had a solid bridge-head on the southern and another on the northern edge of the lower world, and could not change position in its relation to them. All this part of creation was held together by the immovable roots of the world-tree, or rested on its invisible branches. Sol and Mane had their fixed paths, the points of departure and arrival of which were the "horse-doors" (_jódyrr_), which were hung on the eastern and western mountain-walls of the lower world. The god Mane and the goddess Sol were thought to traverse these paths in shining chariots, and their daily journeys across the heavens did not to our ancestors imply that any part of the world-structure itself was in motion. Mane's course lay below Asgard. When Thor in his thunder-chariot descends to Jotunheim the path of Mane thunders under him (_en dundi Mána vegr und Meila bródur_--Haustl., 1). No definite statement in our mythical records informs us whether the way of the sun was over or under Asgard.

But high above Asgard is the starry vault of heaven, and to the Teutons as well as to other people that sky was not only an optical but a real vault, which daily revolved around a stationary point. Sol and Mane might be conceived as traversing their appointed courses independently, and not as coming in contact with vaults, which by their motions from east to west produced the progress of sun and moon. The very circumstance that they continually changed position in their relation to each other and to the stars seemed to prove that they proceeded independently in their own courses. With the countless stars the case was different. They always keep at the same distance and always present the same figures on the canopy of the nocturnal heavens. They looked like glistening heads of nails driven into a movable ceiling. Hence the starlit sky was thought to be in motion. The sailors and shepherds of the Teutons very well knew that this revolving was round a fixed point, the polar star, and it is probable that _veraldar nagli_, the world-nail, the world-spike, an expression preserved in Eddubrott, ii., designates the north star.

Thus the starry sky was the movable part of the universe. And this motion is not of the same kind as that of the winds, whose coming and direction no man can predict or calculate. The motion of the starry firmament is defined, always the same, always in the same direction, and keeps equal step with the march of time itself. It does not, therefore, depend on the accidental pleasure of gods or other powers. On the other hand, it seems to be caused by a mechanism operating evenly and regularly.

The mill was for a long time the only kind of mechanism on a large scale known to the Teutons. Its motion was a rotating one. The movable mill-stone was turned by a handle or sweep which was called _möndull_. The mill-stones and the _möndull_ might be conceived as large as you please. Fancy knew no other limits than those of the universe.

There was another natural phenomenon, which also was regular, and which was well known to the seamen of the North and to those Teutons who lived on the shores of the North Sea, namely, the rising and falling of the tide. Did one and the same force produce both these great phenomena? Did the same cause produce the motion of the starry vault and the ebb and flood of the sea? In regard to the latter phenomenon, we already know the naïve explanation given in the myth concerning Hvergelmer and the Grotte-mill. And the same explanation sufficed for the former. There was no need of another mechanism to make the heavens revolve, as there was already one at hand, the influence of which could be traced throughout that ocean in which Midgard was simply an isle, and which around this island extends its surface even to the brink of heaven (Gylfaginning).

The mythology knew a person by name _Mundilföri_ (Vafthr., 23; Gylfag.). The word _mundill_ is related to _möndull_, and is presumably only another form of the same word. The name or epithet Mundilfore refers to a being that has had something to do with a great mythical _möndull_ and with the movements of the mechanism which this _möndull_ kept in motion. Now the word _möndull_ is never used in the old Norse literature about any other object than the sweep or handle with which the movable mill-stone is turned. (In this sense the word occurs in the Grotte-song and in Helge Hund. ii., 3, 4). Thus Mundilfore has had some part to play in regard to the great giant-mill of the ocean and of the lower world.

Of Mundilfore we learn, on the other hand, that he is the father of the personal Sol and the personal Mane (Valfthr. 23). This, again, shows that the mythology conceived him as intimately associated with the heavens and with the heavenly bodies. Vigfusson (Dict., 437) has, therefore, with good reason remarked that _mundill_ in Mundilfore refers to _the veering round or the revolution of the heavens_. As the father of Sol and Mane, Mundilfore was a being of divine rank, and as such belonged to the powers of the lower world, where Sol and Mane have their abodes and resting-places. The latter part of the name, _föri_, refers to the verb _fœra_, to conduct, to move. Thus he is that power who has to take charge of the revolutions of the starry vault of heaven, and these must be produced by the great _möndull_, the mill-handle or mill-sweep, since he is called _Mundilföri_.

The regular motion of the starry firmament and of the sea is, accordingly, produced by the same vast mechanism, the Grotte-mill, the _meginverk_ of the heathen fancy (Grotte-song, 11; cp. Egil Skallagrimson's way of using the word, Arnibj.-Drapa, 26). The handle extends to the edge of the world, and the nine giantesses, who are compelled to turn the mill, pushing the sweep before them, march along the outer edge of the universe. Thus we get an intelligible idea of what Snæbjorn means when he says that Eylud's nine women turn the Grotte "along the edge of the earth" (_hræra Grotta at fyrir jardar skauti_).

Mundilfore and Bygver thus each has his task to perform in connection with the same vast machinery. The one attends to the regular motion of the _möndull_, the other looks after the mill-stones and the grist.

In the name Eylud the first part is _ey_, and the second part is _ludr_. The name means the "island-mill." Eylud's nine women are the "nine women of the island-mill." The mill is in the same strophe called _skerja Grotti_, the Grotte of the skerry. These expressions refer to each other and designate with different words the same idea--the mill that grinds islands and skerries.

The fate which, according to the Grotte-song, happened to King Frode's mill has its origin in the myth concerning the greater mill. The stooping position of the starry heavens and the sloping path of the stars in relation to the horizontal line was a problem which in its way the mythology wanted to solve. The phenomenon was put in connection with the mythic traditions in regard to the terrible winter which visited the earth after the gods and the sons of Alvalde (Ivalde) had become enemies. Fenja and Menja were kinswomen of Alvalde's sons. For they were brothers (half-brothers) of those mountain giants who were Fenja's and Menja's fathers (the Grotte-song). Before the feud broke out between their kin and the gods, both the giant-maids had worked in the service of the latter and for the good of the world, grinding the blessings of the golden age on the world-mill. Their activity in connection with the great mechanism, mondul, which they pushed, amid the singing of bliss-bringing songs of sorcery, was a counterpart of the activity of the sons of Alvalde, who made for the gods the treasures of vegetation. When the conflict broke out the giant-maids joined the cause of their kinsmen. They gave the world-mill so rapid a motion that the foundations of the earth trembled, pieces of the mill-stones were broken loose and thrown up into space, and the sub-structure of the mill was damaged. This could not happen without harm to the starry canopy of heaven which rested thereon. The memory of this mythic event comes to the surface in Rimbegla, which states that toward the close of King Frode's reign there arose a terrible disorder in nature--a storm with mighty thundering passed over the country, the earth quaked and cast up large stones. In the Grotte-song the same event is mentioned as a "game" played by Fenja and Menja, in which they cast up from the deep upon the earth those stones which afterwards became the mill-stones in the Grotte-mill. After that "game" the giant-maids betook themselves to the earth and took part in the first world-war on the side hostile to Odin (see No. 39). It is worthy of notice that the mythology has connected the fimbul-winter and the great emigrations from the North with an earthquake and a damage to the world-mill which makes the starry heavens revolve.

82.

THE WORLD-MILL (_continued_). THE ORIGIN OF THE SACRED FIRE
THROUGH MUNDILFORE. HEIMDAL THE PERSONIFICATION OF THE SACRED
FIRE. HIS IDENTITY WITH RIGVEDA'S AGNI. HIS ANTITHESIS, LOKE,
ALSO A FIRE-BEING.

Among the tasks to be performed by the world-mill there is yet another of the greatest importance. According to a belief which originated in ancient Aryan times, a fire is to be judged as to purity and holiness by its origin. There are different kinds of fire more or less pure and holy, and a fire which is holy as to its origin may become corrupted by contact with improper elements. The purest fire, that which was originally kindled by the gods and was afterwards given to man as an invaluable blessing, as a bond of union between the higher world and mankind, was a fire which was produced by rubbing two objects together (friction). In hundreds of passages this is corroborated in Rigveda, and the belief still exists among the common people of various Teutonic peoples. The great mill which revolves the starry heavens was also the mighty rubbing machine (friction machine) from which the sacred fire naturally ought to proceed, and really was regarded as having proceeded, as shall be shown below.