Teutonic Mythology Part 15

Svipdag's offer of peace and reconciliation is in harmony, if not with his own nature, at least with that of his kinsmen, the reigning Vans. If the offer to Hadding had been accepted, we might have looked for peace in the world. Now the future is threatened with the devastations of war, and the b.l.o.o.d.y thread of revenge shall continue to be spun if Svipdag does not prevent it by overpowering Hadding. The myth may have contained much information about the efforts of the one camp to capture him and about contrivances of the other to frustrate these efforts. Saxo has preserved a partial record thereof. Among those who plot against Hadding is also Loke (_Lokerus_--Saxo, _Hist._, 40, 41),[24] the banished ally of Aurboda. His purpose is doubtless to get into the favour of the reigning Vans. Hadding is no longer safe in Vagnhofde's mountain home.

The lad is exposed to Loke's snares. From one of these he is saved by the Asa-father himself. There came, says Saxo, on this occasion a rider to Hadding. He resembled a very aged man, one of whose eyes was lost (_grandaevus quidam altero orbus oculo_). He placed Hadding in front of himself on the horse, wrapped his mantle about him, and rode away. The lad became curious and wanted to see whither they were going. Through a hole in the mantle he got an opportunity of looking down, and found to his astonishment and fright that land and sea were far below the hoofs of the steed. The rider must have noticed his fright, for he forbade him to look out any more.

The rider, the one-eyed old man, is Odin, and the horse is Sleipner, rescued from the captured Asgard. The place to which the lad is carried by Odin is the place of refuge secured by the Asas during their exile _i Manheimum_. In perfect harmony with the myths, Saxo refers Odin's exile to the time preceding Hadding's juvenile adventures, and makes Odin's return to power simultaneous with Hadding's great victory over his enemies (_Hist._, 42-44). Saxo has also found in his sources that sword-slain men, whom Odin chooses during "the first great war in the world," cannot come to Valhal. The reason for this is that Odin is not at that time the ruler there. They have dwelling-places and plains for their warlike amus.e.m.e.nts appointed in the lower world (_Hist._, 51).

The regions which, according to Saxo, are the scenes of Hadding's juvenile adventures lie on the other side of the Baltic down toward the Black Sea. He is a.s.sociated with "Curetians" and "h.e.l.lespontians,"

doubtless for the reason that the myth has referred those adventures to the far east.

The one-eyed old man is endowed with wonderful powers. When he landed with the lad at his home, he sang over him prophetic incantations to protect him (_Hist._, 40), and gave him a drink of the "most splendid sort," which produced in Hadding enormous physical strength, and particularly made him able to free himself from bonds and chains.

(Compare Havamal, str. 149, concerning Odin's freeing incantations by which "fetters spring from the feet and chains from the hands.") A comparison with other pa.s.sages, which I shall discuss later, shows that the potion of which the old man is lord contains something which is called "Leifner's flames," and that he who has been permitted to drink it, and over whom freeing incantations have simultaneously been sung, is able with his warm breath to free himself from every fetter which has been put on his enchanted limbs (see Nos. 43, 96, 103).

The old man predicts that Hadding will soon have an opportunity of testing the strength with which the drink and the magic songs have endowed him. And the prophecy is fulfilled. Hadding falls into the power of Loke. He chains him and threatens to expose him as food for a wild beast--in Saxo a lion, in the myth presumably some one of the wolf or serpent prodigies that are Loke's offspring. But when his guards are put to sleep by Odin's magic song, though Odin is far away, Hadding bursts his bonds, slays the beast, and eats, in obedience to Odin's instructions, its heart. (The saga of Sigurd Fafnersbane has copied this feature. Sigurd eats the heart of the dragon Fafner and gets wisdom thereby.)

Thus Hadding has become a powerful hero, and his task to make war on Svipdag, to revenge on him his father's death, and to recover the share in the rulers.h.i.+p of the Teutons which Halfdan had possessed, now lies before him as the goal he is to reach.

Hadding leaves Vagnhofde's home. The latter's daughter, Hardgrep, who had fallen in love with the youth, accompanies him. When we next find Hadding he is at the head of an army. That this consisted of the tribes of Eastern Teutondom is confirmed by doc.u.ments which I shall hereafter quote; but it also follows from Saxo's narrative, although he has referred the war to narrower limits than were given to it in the myth, since he, constructing a Danish history from mythic traditions, has his eyes fixed chiefly on Denmark. Over the Scandian tribes and the Danes rule, according to Saxo's own statement, Svipdag, and as his tributary king in Denmark his half-brother Gudhorm. Saxo also is aware that the Saxons, the Teutonic tribes of the German lowlands, on one occasion were the allies of Svipdag (_Hist._, 34). From these parts of Teutondom did not come Hadding's friends, but his enemies; and when we add that the first battle which Saxo mentions in this war was fought among the Curetians east of the Baltic, then it is clear that Saxo, too, like the other records to which I am coming later, has conceived the forces under Hadding's banner as having been gathered in the East. From this it is evident that the war is one between the tribes of North Teutondom, led by Svipdag and supported by the Vans on the one side, and the tribes of East Teutondom, led by Hadding and supported by the Asas on the other.

But the tribes of the western Teutonic continent have also taken part in the first great war of mankind. Gudhorm, whom Saxo makes a tributary king in Yngve-Svipdag's most southern domain, Denmark, has in the mythic traditions had a much greater empire, and has ruled over the tribes of Western and Southern Teutondom, as shall be shown hereafter.

[Footnote 23: _Filii Gram, Guthormus et Hadingus, quorum alterum Gro, alterum Signe enixa est, Svipdagero Daniam obtinente, per educatorem suum Brache nave Svetiam deportati, Vagnophto et Haphlio gigantibus non solum alendi, verum etiam defensandi traduntur_ (Saxo _Hist._, 34).]

[Footnote 24: The form _Loki_ is also duplicated by the form _Lokr_. The latter is preserved in the sense of "effeminated man," found in myths concerning Loke. Compare the phrase "_veykr Lokr_" with "_hinn veyki Loki_."]

39.

THE WORLD WAR (_continued_). THE POSITION OF THE DIVINE CLANS TO THE WARRIORS.

The circ.u.mstance that the different divine clans had their favourites in the different camps gives the war a peculiar character. The armies see before a battle supernatural forms contending with each other in the starlight, and recognize in them their divine friends and opponents (_Hist._, 48). The elements are conjured on one and the other side for the good or harm of the contending brother-tribes. When fog and pouring rain suddenly darken the sky and fall upon Hadding's forces from that side where the fylkings of the North are arrayed, then the one-eyed old man comes to their rescue and calls forth dark ma.s.ses of clouds from the other side, which force back the rain-clouds and the fog (_Hist._, 53).

In these cloud-ma.s.ses we must recognize the presence of the thundering Thor, the son of the one-eyed old man.

Giants also take part in the conflict. Vagnhofde and Hardgrep, the latter in a man's attire, contend on the side of the foster-son and the beloved Hadding (_Hist._, 45, 38). From Icelandic records we learn that Hafle and the giantesses Fenja and Menja fight under Gudhorm's banners.

In the Grotte-song (14, 15) these maids sing:

En vit sithan a Svidiothu framvisar tvoer i folk stigum; beiddum biornu, en brutum skioldu gengum igegnum graserkiat lit.

Steyptom stilli, studdum annan, veittum gothum Guthormi lid.

That the giant Hafle fought on the side of Gudhorm is probable from the fact that he is his foster-father, and it is confirmed by the fact that Thor paraphrased (Grett., 30) is called _fangvinr Hafla_, "he who wrestled with Hafle." Since Thor and Hafle formerly were friends--else the former would not have trusted Gudhorm to the care of the latter--their appearance afterwards as foes can hardly be explained otherwise than by the war between Thor's protege Hadding and Hafle's foster-son Gudhorm. And as Hadding's foster-father, the giant Vagnhofde, faithfully supports the young chief whose childhood he protected, then the myth could scarcely avoid giving a similar part to the giant Hafle, and thus make the foster-fathers, like the foster-sons, contend with each other. The heroic poems are fond of parallels of this kind.

When Svipdag learns that Hadding has suddenly made his appearance in the East, and gathered its tribes around him for a war with Gudhorm, he descends from Asgard and reveals himself in the primeval Teutonic country on the Scandian peninsula, and requests its tribes to join the Danes and raise the banner of war against Halfdan's and Alveig's son, who, at the head of the eastern Teutons, is marching against their half-brother Gudhorm. The friends of both parties among the G.o.ds, men and giants, hasten to attach themselves to the cause which they have espoused as their own, and Vagnhofde among the rest abandons his rocky home to fight by the side of his foster-son and daughter.

This mythic situation is described in a hitherto unexplained strophe in the Old English song concerning the names of the letters in the runic alphabet. In regard to the rune which answers to _I_ there is added the following lines:

Ing vas oerest mid Eastdenum geseven secgum od he siddan east ofer vaeg gevat. Vaen aefter ran; thus Heardingas thone hale nemdon.

"Yngve (Inge) was first seen among the East-Danemen.

Then he betook himself eastward over the sea.

Vagn hastened to follow: Thus the Heardings called this hero."

The Heardings are the Haddings--that is to say, Hadding himself, the kinsmen and friends who embraced his cause, and the Teutonic tribes who recognised him as their chief. The Norse _Haddingr_ is to the Anglo-Saxon _Hearding_ as the Norse _haddr_ to the Anglo-Saxon _heard_.

Vigfusson, and before him J. Grimm, have already identified these forms.

Ing is Yngve-Svipdag, who, when he left Asgard, "was first seen among the East-Danemen." He calls Swedes and Danes to arms against Hadding's tribes. The Anglo-Saxon strophe confirms the fact that they dwell in the East, separated by a sea from the Scandian tribes. Ing, with his warriors, "betakes himself eastward over the sea" to attack them. Thus the armies of the Swedes and Danes go by sea to the seat of war. What the authorities of Tacitus heard among the continental Teutons about the mighty fleets of the Swedes may be founded on the heroic songs about the first great war not less than on fact. As the army which was to cross the Baltic must be regarded as immensely large, so the myth, too, has represented the s.h.i.+ps of the Swedes as numerous, and in part as of immense size. A confused record from the songs about the expedition of Svipdag and his friends against the East Teutons, found in Icelandic tradition, occurs in Fornald, pp. 406-407, where a s.h.i.+p called Gnod, and capable of carrying 3000 men, is mentioned as belonging to a King Asmund. Odin did not want this monstrous s.h.i.+p to reach its destination, but sank it, so it is said, in the Lesso seaway, with all its men and contents. The Asmund who is known in the heroic sagas of heathen times is a son of Svipdag and a king among the Sviones (Saxo, _Hist._, 44).

According to Saxo, he has given brilliant proofs of his bravery in the war against Hadding, and fallen by the weapons of Vagnhofde and Hadding.

That Odin in the Icelandic tradition appears as his enemy thus corresponds with the myth. The same Asmund may, as Gisle Brynjulfsson has a.s.sumed, be meant in Grimnersmal (49), where we learn that Odin, concealing himself under the name Jalk, once visited Asmund.

The hero Vagn, whom "the Haddings so called," is Hadding's foster-father, Vagnhofde. As the word _hofdi_ const.i.tutes the second part of a mythic name, the compound form is a synonym of that name which forms the first part of the composition. Thus _Svarthofdi_ is identical with _Svartr_, _Surtr_. In Hyndluljod, 33, all the mythical sorcerers (_seidberendr_) are said to be sprung from _Svarthofdi_. In this connection we must first of all think of Fjalar, who is the greatest sorcerer in mythology. The story about Thor's, Thjalfe's, and Loke's visit to him is a chain of delusions of sight and hearing called forth by Fjalar, so that the Asa-G.o.d and his companions always mistake things for something else than they are. Fjalar is a son of _Surtr_ (see No.

89). Thus the greatest agent of sorcery is descended from _Surtr_, _Svartr_, and, as Hyndluljod states that all magicians of mythology have come of some _Svarthofdi_, _Svartr_ and _Svarthofdi_ must be identical.

And so it is with Vagn and _Vagnhofdi_; they are different names for the same person.

When the Anglo-Saxon rune-strophe says that Vang "made haste to follow"

after Ing had gone across the sea, then this is to be compared with Saxo's statement (_Hist._, 45), where it is said that Hadding in a battle was in greatest peril of losing his life, but was saved by the sudden and miraculous landing of Vagnhofde, who came to the battle-field and placed himself at his side. The Scandian fylkings advanced against Hadding's; and Svipdag's son Asmund, who fought at the head of his men, forced his way forward against Hadding himself, with his s.h.i.+eld thrown on his back, and with both his hands on the hilt of a sword which felled all before it. Then Hadding invoked the G.o.ds who were the friends of himself and his race (_Hadingo familiarium sibi numinum praesidia postulante subito Vagnophtus partibus ejus propugnaturus advehitur_), and then Vagnhofde is brought (_advehitur_) by some one of these G.o.ds to the battle-field and suddenly stands by Hadding's side, swinging a crooked sword[25] against Asmund, while Hadding hurls his spear against him. This statement in Saxo corresponds with and explains the old English strophe's reference to a quick journey which Vagn made to help _Heardingas_ against _Ing_, and it is also ill.u.s.trated by a pa.s.sage in Grimnismal, 49, which, in connection with Odin's appearance at Asmund's, tells that he once by the name Kjalar "drew _Kjalki_" (_mic heto Jalc at Asmundar, enn tha Kialar, er ec Kialka dro_). The word and name _Kjalki_, as also _Sledi_, is used as a paraphrase of the word and name _Vagn_.[26] Thus Odin has once "drawn Vagn" (waggon). The meaning of this is clear from what is stated above. Hadding calls on Odin, who is the friend of him and of his cause, and Odin, who on a former occasion has carried Hadding on Sleipner's back through the air, now brings, in the same or a similar manner, Vagnhofde to the battle-field, and places him near his foster-son. This episode is also interesting from the fact that we can draw from it the conclusion that the skalds who celebrated the first great war in their songs made the G.o.ds influence the fate of the battle, not directly but indirectly. Odin might himself have saved his favourite, and he might have slain Svipdag's son Asmund with his spear Gungner; but he does not do so; instead, he brings Vagnhofde to protect him. This is well calculated from an epic standpoint, while _dii ex machina_, when they appear in person on the battle-field with their superhuman strength, diminish the effect of the deeds of mortal heroes, and deprive every distress in which they have taken part of its more earnest significance. Homer never violated this rule without injury to the honour either of his G.o.ds or of his heroes.

[Footnote 25: The crooked sword, as it appears from several pa.s.sages in the sagas, has long been regarded by our heathen ancestors as a foreign form of weapon, used by the giants, but not by the G.o.ds or by the heroes of Midgard.]

[Footnote 26: Compare Fornald., ii. 118, where the hero of the saga cries to _Gusi_, who comes running after him with "2 hreina ok _vagn_"--

_Skrid thu af kjalka, Kyrr thu hreina, seggr sidforull seg hvattu heitir!_ ]

40.

THE WORLD WAR (_continued_). HADDING'S DEFEAT.

LOKE IN THE COUNCIL AND ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.

HEIMDAL THE PROTECTOR OF HIS DESCENDANT HADDING.

The first great conflict in which the warriors of North and West Teutondom fight with the East Teutons ends with the complete victory of Groa's sons. Hadding's fylkings are so thoroughly beaten and defeated that he, after the end of the conflict, is nothing but a defenceless fugitive, wandering in deep forests with no other companion than Vagnhofde's daughter, who survived the battle and accompanies her beloved in his wanderings in the wildernesses. Saxo ascribes the victory won over Hadding to Loke. It follows of itself that, in a war whose deepest root must be sought in Loke's and Aurboda's intrigues, and in which the clans of G.o.ds on both sides take part, Loke should not be excluded by the skalds from influence upon the course of events. We have already seen that he sought to ruin Hadding while the latter was still a boy. He afterwards appears in various guises as evil counsellor, as an evil intriguer, and as a skilful arranger of the fylkings on the field of battle. His purpose is to frustrate every effort to bring about reconciliation, and by means of persuasion and falsehoods to increase the chances of enmity between Halfdan's descendants, in order that they may mutually destroy each other (see below). His activity among the heroes is the counterpart of his activity among the G.o.ds. The merry, sly, cynical, blameworthy, and profoundly evil Mefisto of the Teutonic mythology is bound to bring about the ruin of the Teutonic people like that of the G.o.ds of the Teutons.

In the later Icelandic traditions he reveals himself as the evil counsellor of princes in the forms of Blind ille, Blind bolvise (in Saxo Bolvisus); _Bikki_; in the German and Old English traditions as Sib.i.+.c.h, Sifeca, Sifka. _Bikki_ is a name-form borrowed from Germany. The original Norse Loke-epithet is _Bekki_, which means "the foe," "the opponent". A closer examination shows that everywhere where this counsellor appears his enterprises have originally been connected with persons who belong to Borgar's race. He has wormed himself into the favour of both the contending parties--as Blind ille with King Hadding--whereof Hromund Greipson's saga has preserved a distorted record--as Bikke, Sibeke, with King Gudhorm (whose ident.i.ty with Jormunrek shall be established below). As Blind bolvise he lies in waiting for and seeks to capture the young "Helge Hundingsbane," that is to say, Halfdan, Hadding's father (Helge Hund., ii.). Under his own name, Loke, he lies in waiting for and seeks to capture the young Hadding, Halfdan's son. As a cunning general and cowardly warrior he appears in the German saga-traditions, and there is every reason to a.s.sume that it is his activity in the first great war as the planner of Gudhorm's battle-line that in the Norse heathen records secured Loke the epithets _sagna hroerir_ and _sagna sviptir_, the leader of the warriors forward and the leader of the warriors back--epithets which otherwise would be both unfounded and incomprehensible, but they are found both in Thjodolf's poem Haustlaung, and in Eilif Gudrunson's Thorsdrapa. It is also a noticeable fact that while Loke in the first great battle which ends with Hadding's defeat determines the array of the victorious army--for only on this basis can the victory be attributed to him by Saxo--it is in the other great battle in which Hadding is victorious that Odin himself determines how the forces of his protege are to be arranged, namely, in that wedge-form which after that time and for many centuries following was the sacred and strictly preserved rule for the battle-array of Teutonic forces. Thus the ancient Teutonic saga has mentioned and compared with one another two different kinds of battle-arrays--the one invented by Loke and the other invented by Odin.

During his wanderings in the forests of the East Hadding has had wonderful adventures and pa.s.sed through great trials. Saxo tells one of these adventures. He and Hardgrep, Vagnhofde's daughter, came late one evening to a dwelling where they got lodgings for the night. The husband was dead, but not yet buried. For the purpose of learning Hadding's destiny, Hardgrep engraved speech-runes (see No. 70) on a piece of wood, and asked Hadding to place it under the tongue of the dead one. The latter would in this wise recover the power of speech and prophecy. So it came to pa.s.s. But what the dead one sang in an awe-inspiring voice was a curse on Hardgrep, who had compelled him to return from life in the lower world to life on earth, and a prediction that an avenging Niflheim demon would inflict punishment on her for what she had done. A following night, when Hadding and Hardgrep had sought shelter in a bower of twigs and branches which they had gathered, there appeared a gigantic hand groping under the ceiling of the bower. The frightened Hadding waked Hardgrep. She then rose in all her giant strength, seized the mysterious hand, and bade Hadding cut it off with his sword. He attempted to do this, but from the wounds he inflicted on the ghost's hand there issued matter or venom more than blood, and the hand seized Hardgrep with its iron claws and tore her into pieces (Saxo, _Hist._, 36 ff.).

When Hadding in this manner had lost his companion, he considered himself abandoned by everybody; but the one-eyed old man had not forgotten his favourite. He sent him a faithful helper, by name _Liserus_ (Saxo, _Hist._, 40). Who was _Liserus_ in our mythology?

First, as to the name itself: in the very nature of the case it must be the Latinising of some one of the mythological names or epithets that Saxo found in the Norse records. But as no such root as _lis_ or _lis_ is to be found in the old Norse language, and as Saxo interchanges the vowels _i_ and _y_,[27] we must regard _Liserus_ as a Latinising of _Lsir_, "the s.h.i.+ning one," "the one giving light," "the bright one."

When Odin sent a helper thus described to Hadding, it must have been a person belonging to Odin's circle and subject to him. Such a person and described by a similar epithet is _hinn hviti a.s.s, hvitastr asa_ (Heimdal). In Saxo's account, this s.h.i.+ning messenger is particularly to oppose Loke (_Hist._, 40). And in the myth it is the keen-sighted and faithful Heimdal who always appears as the opposite of the cunning and faithless Loke. Loke has to contend with Heimdal when the former tries to get possession of Brisingamen, and in Ragnarok the two opponents kill each other. Hadding's s.h.i.+ning protector thus has the same part to act in the heroic saga as the whitest of the Asas in the mythology. If we now add that Heimdal is Hadding's progenitor, and on account of blood kins.h.i.+p owes him special protection in a war in which all the G.o.ds have taken part either for or against Halfdan's and Alveig's son, then we are forced by every consideration to regard _Liserus_ and Heimdal as identical (see further, No. 82).

[Footnote 27: Compare the double forms _Trigo_, _Thrygir_; _Ivarus_, _Yvarus_; _Sibbo_, _Sybbo_; _Siritha_, _Syritha_; _Sivardus_, _Syvardus_; _Hibernia_, _Hybernia_; _Isora_, _Ysora_.]

41.

THE WORLD WAR (_continued_). HADDING'S JOURNEY TO THE EAST. RECONCILIATION BETWEEN THE ASAS AND VANS. "THE HUN WAR." HADDING RETURNS AND CONQUERS. RECONCILIATION BETWEEN GROA'S DESCENDANTS AND ALVEIG'S. LOKE'S PUNISHMENT.

Some time later there has been a change in Hadding's affairs. He is no longer the exile wandering about in the forests, but appears once more at the head of warlike hosts. But although he accomplishes various exploits, it still appears from Saxo's narrative that it takes a long time before he becomes strong enough to meet his enemies in a decisive battle with hope of success. In the meanwhile he has succeeded in accomplis.h.i.+ng the revenge of his father and slaying Svipdag (Saxo _Hist._, 42)--this under circ.u.mstances which I shall explain below (No.

106). The proof that the hero-saga has left a long s.p.a.ce of time between the great battle lost by Hadding and that in which he wins a decided victory is that he, before this conflict is fought out, has slain a young grandson (son's son) of Svipdag, that is, a son of Asmund, who was Svipdag's son (Saxo, _Hist._, 46). Hadding was a mere boy when Svipdag first tried to capture him. He is a man of years when he, through decided successes on the battle-field, acquires and secures control of a great part of the domain over which his father, the Teutonic patriarch, reigned. Hence he must have spent considerable time in the place of refuge which Odin opened for him, and under the protection of that subject of Odin, called by Saxo _Liserus_.

In the time intervening important events have taken place in the world of the G.o.ds. The two clans of G.o.ds, the Asas and Vans, have become reconciled. Odin's exile lasted, according to Saxo, only ten years, and there is no reason for doubting the mythical correctness of this statement. The reconciliation must have been demanded by the dangers which their enmity caused to the administration of the world. The giants, whose purpose it is to destroy the world of man, became once more dangerous to the earth on account of the war among the G.o.ds. During this time they made a desperate effort to conquer Asgard occupied by the Vans. The memory of this expedition was preserved during the Christian centuries in the traditions concerning the great Hun war. Saxo (_Hist._, 231 ff.) refers this to _Frotho_ III.'s reign. What he relates about this _Frotho_, son of _Fridlevus_ (Njord), is for the greatest part a historicised version of the myth about the Vana-G.o.d Frey (see No. 102); and every doubt that his account of the war of the "Huns" against Frotho has its foundation in mythology, and belongs to the chain of events here discussed, vanishes when we learn that the attack of the Huns against Frotho-Frey's power happened at a time when an old prophet, by name _Uggerus_, "whose age was unknown, but exceeded every measure of human life," lived in exile, and belonged to the number of Frotho's enemies.