The Heroes of Asgard Part 3

The aesir pressed in; but, as they pa.s.sed him, Heimdall laid his hand upon Thor's shoulder, and said "I am very sorry, Thor; but it cannot be helped. You must go to the fountain alone by another way; for you are so strong and heavy, that if you were to put your foot on Bifrost, either it would tremble in pieces beneath your weight, or take fire from the friction of your iron heels. Yonder, however, are two river-clouds, called Kormt and Ermt, through which you can wade to the Sacred Urd, and you will a.s.suredly reach it in time, though the waters of the clouds are strong and deep."

At the words of Heimdall Thor fell back from the bridge's head, vexed and sorrowful. "Am I to be sent away, then, and have to do disagreeable things," said he, "just because I am so strong? After all, what are Urda and the Norns to me, and Kormt and Ermt? I will go back to Asgard again."

"Nay, Thor," said Odin, "I pray you, do not anything so foolish.

Think again, I beseech you, what it is that we are going to see and hear. Kormt and Ermt lie before you, as Bifrost before us. It is yonder, above both, that we go. Neither can it much matter, Thor, whether we reach the Fountain of Urd over Bifrost or through the cloud."

Then Thor blushed with shame at his own weakness, which had made him regret his strength; and, without any more grumbling or hanging back, he plunged into the dreadful river-clouds, whose dark vapours closed around him and covered him. He was hidden from sight, and the aesir went on their way over the glittering bridge.

Daintily and airily they trod over it; they swung themselves up the swinging arch; they reached its summit on a pale, bright cloud. Thor was there already waiting for them, drenched and weary, but cheerful and bold. Then, all together, they knocked at the door of the pale, bright cloud; it blew open, and they pa.s.sed in. Oh! then what did they see! Looking up to an infinite height through the purple air, they saw towering above them Yggdrasil's fairest branches, leafy and of a tender green, which also stretched far and wide; but, though they looked long, the aesir could distinguish no topmost bough, and it almost seemed to them that, from somewhere up above, this mighty earth-tree must draw another root, so firmly and so tall it grew. On one side stood the Palace of the Norns, which was so bright that it almost blinded them to look at it, and on the other the Urda fountain plashed its cool waters--rising, falling, glittering, as nothing ever glitters on this side the clouds. Two ancient swans swam under the fount, and around it sat Three. Ah! how shall I describe them--Urd, Verdandi, Skuld. They were mighty, they were wilful, and one was veiled. Sitting upon the Doomstead, they watched the water as it rose and fell, and pa.s.sed golden threads from one to another. Verdandi plucked them with busy fingers from Skuld's reluctant hand, and wove them in and out quickly, almost carelessly; for some she tore and blemished, and some she cruelly spoiled. Then Urd took the woof away from her, smoothed its rough places, and covered up some of the torn, gaping holes; but she hid away many of the bright parts, too, and then rolled it all round her great roller, Oblivion, which grew thicker and heavier every moment. And so they went on, Verdandi drawing from Skuld, and Urd from Verdandi; but whence Skuld drew her separate bright threads no one could see. She never seemed to reach the end of them, and neither of the sisters ever stopped or grew weary of her work.

The aesir stood apart watching, and it was a great sight. They looked in the face of Urd, and fed on wisdom; they studied the countenance of Verdandi, and drank bitter strength; they glanced through the veil of Skuld, and tasted hope. At length, with full hearts, they stole away silently, one by one, out by the pale, open door, re-crossed the bridge, and stood once more by the side of Heimdall on the heavenly hills; then they went home again. n.o.body spoke as they went; but ever afterwards it was an understood thing that the aesir should fare to the Doomstead of the Nornir once in every day.

PART VI. ODHaeRIR.

Now upon a day it happened that Odin sat silent by the Well of Urd, and in the evening he mounted Air Throne with a troubled mind.

Allfather could see into Dwarf Home from his high place, as well as over man's world; his keen eye pierced, also, the mountains and darkness of Jotunheim.

On this evening, a tear, the fate-sisters' gift, swam across his vision, and--behold, is that an answering tear which he sees down there in Dwarf Home, large, luminous, golden, in the dark heart of the earth? "Can dwarfs weep?" exclaimed Allfather, surprised as he looked a second and a third time, and went on looking. Fialar and Galar, the cunning dwarfs who had killed Kvasir, were kneeling beside the tear. "Is it theirs?" said Allfather again, "and do they repent?" No; it was not a tear; Odin knew it at last. More precious still, it was Kvasir's blood--golden mead now, because of the honey-drops from Earth's thousand bees and flowers which these thoughtless mischief-schemers, but wonder workers, had poured into it. "It is three," said Odin, "three precious draughts!--Odhaerir is its name--and now the dwarfs will drink it, and the life and the light, and the sweetness of the world will be spilt, and the heart of the world will die!" But the dwarfs did not drink it; they could only sip it a little, just a drop or two at a time. The Father of Hosts watched how they were amusing themselves.

Fialar and Galar, and a whole army of the little blackfaced, crooked-limbed creatures, were tilting the big jars over to one side, whilst first one, and then another, sucked the skim of their golden sweetness, smacking their lips after it, grinning horribly, leaping up into the air with strange gestures; falling backwards with shut eyes some of them, as if asleep; tearing at the earth and the stones of their cavern homes others, like wild beasts; rolling forth beautiful, senseless, terrible words.

It was Fialar and Galar who did that; and behold, in a little while, one after another, the dwarfs gathered round them as they spoke, and listened, open-mouthed, with clenched fists, stamping, and roaring applause until at last they seized the weapons that lay near, c.o.c.ked their earth caps, each alit with a coloured star, and marched in warlike fas.h.i.+on, led on by Fialar and Galar, straight up through their cavernous ways, to Manheim, and across it into the Frozen Land.

Giant Vafthrdnir, that "Ancient Talker," he who sits ever in his Hall weaving new and intricate questions for the G.o.ds, saw them; and looking up towards the brooding heavens, he exchanged glances with the Father of Hosts. But the dwarfs did not come near Vafthrudnir's Halls; they never looked aside at him, nor up to the Air Throne of the Asa; only rushed heedlessly on till they stumbled over the Giant Gilling, who was taking a nap upon the green bank of Ifing. Ifing looks a lazy stream; one can hardly see at first sight that it flows at all; but it flows, and flows quietly, unceasingly, and is so deep that neither G.o.d nor giant has ever yet been able to fathom it. It is, in fact, that stream which divides for ever the Jotuns from the G.o.ds, and of it Odin himself once said:--

"Open shall it run Throughout all time, On that stream no ice shall be."

So the dwarfs found Gilling asleep; they knew how deep Ifing was, they knew that if they could once roll the giant Gilling in there he would never get out again, and then they should have done something worth speaking about.

"I have killed a giant," each dwarf might say, and, who knows, even the aesir might begin to feel a little afraid of them.

"It all comes from drinking Kvasir's blood," they said, and then with their thousand little swords and spears, and sticks and stones, they worked away until they had plunged the sleeping giant into the stream. Allfather's piercing eye saw it all, and how the silly dwarfs jumped and danced about afterwards, and praised themselves, and defied the whole world, G.o.ds, giants and men.

"It is not for us," they said, "any more to run away before Skinfaxi the s.h.i.+ning horse that draws day over humankind, whose mane sheds light instead of dew; we will dance before him and crown ourselves with gold, as the G.o.ds and as men do every morning."

But, in the midst of all their gleeful folly, the ground they stood upon began to shake under them, and an enormous darkness grew between them and the sky. Then the dwarfs stopped their rejoicing as if a spell had fallen upon them, dropping their weapons, huddling close to one another, cowering, whispering. Giant Suttung, son of that Gilling whom they had just slain, was coming upon them in great fury to avenge his father's death. They were dreadfully frightened; Giant Gilling asleep had been easy to manage, but a giant awake, a giant angry--they were not the same dwarfs that they had seemed half an hour ago--and so it happened that they quite easily let Suttung carry them all off to a low rock in the sea which was dry just then, but would be washed over by the morning tide. "There you are," said Suttung as he threw them all down upon the rock, "and there you shall stay until the hungry grey wave comes." "But then we shall be drowned," they all screeched at once, and the seamews started from their nests ash.o.r.e and swooped round the lonely rock, and screeched as well. Suttung strode back to the sh.o.r.e and sat on the high rocks over the seamews' nests, and poked his fingers into the nests and played with the grey-winged birds, and paddled his feet in the breakers, and laughed and echoed the dwarfs and the seamews.

"Drowned, drowned, yes, then you will be drowned." Then the dwarfs whispered together and consulted, they all talked at once, and every one of them said a different thing, for they were in fact a little intoxicated still by the sips they had taken of Odhaerir. At last Fialar and Galar said the same same thing over so often that the others began to listen to them. "The sky is getting quite grey," they said, "and the stars are going out, and Skinfaxi is coming, and the waves are gathering and gathering and gathering; hoa.r.s.e are the voices of the Seaking's daughters; but why do we all sit chattering here instead of getting away as we might easily do if we did but bribe the giant Suttung with a gift." "Yes, yes, yes," shouted the silly little people, "shall we give him our cap jewels, or our swords, or our pick-axes, or our lanterns, or shall we promise to make him a necklace out of the fire of the sun and the flowers of the earth, or shall we build him a s.h.i.+p of s.h.i.+ps?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: GIANT SUTTUNG AND THE DWARFS.]

"Nonsense," said Fialar and Galar; "How should a giant care for such things as these? Our swords could not help him; he does not want pick-axes nor lanterns who lives amongst the mountain snows, nor s.h.i.+ps who can stride across the sea, nor necklaces--Bah! A giant loves life, he drinks blood, he is greedy besides and longs to taste the gold mead of the G.o.ds."

Then all the dwarfs shouted together, "Let us give him our gold mead, our wondrous drink, Odhaerir, our Kvasir's blood in the three stone jars."

Odin heard from Air Throne's blue deep. He brooded over the scene.

"The sweetness, and the life, and the light of the world, then," he said, "are to satiate a giant's greediness of food and blood"--and it was for mankind that he became Terror in the trembling Height.

Allfather feared nothing for the G.o.ds at that time: could he not pierce into Jotunheim, and Svartheim, and Manheim alike? Suttung heard also from the Rock.--"And what may this Odhaerir be worth that you boast of so much?" he shouted to the dwarfs. "Wisdom, and labour, and fire, and life, and love," said the dwarfs. "Tut, tut, tut!"

answered Suttung. "Does it taste well?" "Honey and wine; like the blood of a G.o.d and the milk of the Earth." Then Suttung got up slowly from the rock, pressing it down with his hands into two little dells as he rose, and strode to the island, from which he took up all the dwarfs at a grasp--they clinging to his fists and wrists like needles to a magnet; and, with one swoop, threw them ash.o.r.e just as the hungry waves began to lap and wash about the dwarf's-peril. So the dwarfs jumped, and leaped, and laughed, and sang, and chattered again, and ran on before Suttung, to fetch him the golden mead, Odhaerir. Three big stone jars, all full. The Spirit-mover, the Peace-offer, the Peace-kiss. Suttung lifted the lids, and looked into the jars. "It doesn't look much," he said; "and, after all, I don't know that I shall care to taste it; but I'll take the jars home to my daughter Gunnlod, and they will make a pretty treasure for her to keep."

Odin brooded over the scene. It was a grey winter's morning in Jotunheim--ice over all the rivers, snow upon the mountains, rime-writing across the woods, weird h.o.a.r letters straggling over the bare branches of the trees, writing such as giants and G.o.ds can read, but men see it only as pearl-drops of the cold. Suttung could read it well enough as he trudged along to his Mountain Home--better than he had ever read it before; for was he not bearing upon his shoulders the wondrous Kvasir's life-giving blood, Odhaerir. Odin read it, "This is ominous, Odin; this is dark. Shall the gold mead be made captive in frozen halls?" For behold, the life-tear becomes dark in the dark land, as Suttung's huge door opened to let him in, him and his treasure, and then closed upon them both, Suttung gave the mead to his daughter Gunnlod to keep, to guard it well, and--the heart of Manheim trembled, it was empty and cold. Then Odin looked north and south and east and west, over the whole world. "Come to me," he said, and two swift-winged ravens flew towards him. It seemed as if they came out of nothing; for in a moment they were not there and they were there. Their names were Hugin and Munin, and they came from the ends of the earth, where Odin sent them every morning. Every evening he was wont to say of them,--

"I fear me for Hugin, Lest he come not back, But much more for Munin."

Yet they never failed to come back, both of them, at the dim hour in which they recounted to the Father of Hosts the history of the day that was past, and the hope of the day that was to come. On this evening, Munin's song was so terrible that only the strength of a G.o.d could possibly have endured to its end. Hugin struck another note, profounder and sweet. Then said Odin, when cadence after cadence had filled his ears, and he had descended from Air Throne, "Night is the time for new counsels; let each one reflect until the morrow who is able to give advice helpful to the aesir."

But when the jewelled horse ran up along the sky, from whence his mane shed light over the whole world, when giants and giantesses, and ghosts and dwarfs crouched beneath Yggdrasil's outer Root, when Heimdall ran up Bifrost and blew mightily his horn in Heaven's height, there was only one found who gave counsel to Odin, and that was Odin himself. "Odhaerir," he said, "which is a G.o.d-gift, must come up to men's earthly dwellings. Go forth, Hugin, go forth, Munin,"

said the Asa, and he also went forth alone, none knowing where he went, nor how.

So Odin journeyed for a long, long while towards Suttung's Hall, across the windy, wintry ways of Jotunheim, seeing well before him the yellow mead as he went, through rocks, and woods, and rivers, and through night itself, until at last it happened that Odin came into a meadow upon a summer morning in Giant Land. Nine slaves were mowing in the meadow, whetting some old rusty scythes which they had, working heavily, for they were senseless fellows, and the summer day grew faster upon them than their labour grew to completion. "You seem heavy-hearted," said Odin to the thralls; and they began to explain to him how rusty and old their scythes were, and that they had no whetstone to sharpen them with. Upon this Odin offered to whet their scythes for them with his whetstone: and no sooner had he done so than the scythes became so sharp that they could have cut stones as easily as gra.s.s. Instead of mowing, however, the thralls began to clamour round Odin, beseeching him to give his whetstone to them.

"Give it to me! give it to me: give it to me!" cried one and another; and all the time Odin stood quietly amongst them, throwing his whetstone up in the air, and catching it as it fell. Then the thralls tried if they could catch it, leaning stupidly across one another, with their scythes in their hands. Was Allfather surprised at what happened next? He could hardly have been that; but he was sorry when, looking down as the whetstone fell, he saw all the thralls lying dead at his feet, killed by each other's sharpened weapons. "This is an Evil Land," said Odin, as he looked down on the dead thralls, "and I am a bringer of evil into it."

So he journeyed on till he came to the house of Suttung's brother, Baugi. Odin asked Baugi to give him a night's lodging, and Baugi, who knew no more than the thralls had done who this traveller was, consented, and began to talk to Odin of the trouble he was in. "This is hay harvest," he said, "as you must have seen, walking here through the meadows; and I have a mighty field to gather in, but how to do it puzzles me, because my nine slaves whom I sent out sound and well this morning, all fell dead about the middle of the day. How they managed it, I can't imagine, and it puts me out sadly, for summer days don't last long in Jotunheim." "Well," said Odin, "I'm not a bad hand at mowing, and I don't mind undertaking to do the work of nine thralls for you, Baugi, for a certain reward you may give me, if you will." "What is that?" inquired Baugi, eagerly. "A draught of that golden mead, Odhaerir, which Suttung obtained from the dwarfs, and which his daughter Gunnlod keeps for him." "Oh! that," said Baugi, "isn't so good as my homebrewed for a thirsty mower; but you shall have it. It is a bargain between us." So Odin worked for Baugi the whole summer through with the labour of nine instead of with the labour of one; and when the last field was reaped, and wintry mists were gathering, the G.o.d and the giant began to talk over their bargain again. "We will come together to Suttung's house," said Baugi, "and my brother shall give you the draught which you desire so much." But when the two came to Suttung's house, and asked him for the mead, Suttung was exceedingly angry, and would not hear a word about it from either of them. "You don't drink it yourself, brother,"

pleaded Baugi, "although you might do so every day if you liked, without asking anybody's leave, or doing one stroke of work for it, whilst this man has toiled night and day for nine months that he might taste it only once." "Odhaerir is for us giants, nevertheless,"

answered Suttung, "and well does my daughter Gunnlod guard it from dwarfs and from men, from spectres, from Asyniur, and from aesir. Have I not sworn that so it shall be guarded by all the snows of Jotunheim, and by the stormy waves, and by the yawning chasm of the abyss." Then Baugi knew that nothing more was to be said, and he advised Odin to go back with him at once, and drink beer. But Odin was not to be turned from his purpose so easily. "You promised me a draught of the gold mead, Baugi," he said, "and I can see it through the rock in its three treasure jars; sit down by me and look through the rock till you can see it too." So Odin and Baugi sat down together, and pierced the rock with their glances all that day until they had made a small hole in it; and at night, when Suttung was asleep, and when Gunnlod was asleep, and whilst the gold mead shone steadily in the heart of the cave, Odin looked up towards Asgard, and said,--

"Little get I here by silence: Of a well-a.s.sumed form I will make good use; For few things fail the wise."

And then this strong wise Asa picked up from the ground the little, mean, wriggling form of a worm and put it on and crept noiselessly into the hole which he and Baugi had made,--

"The giant's ways are under me, The giant's ways are over me,"

said Odin as he wriggled through the stone, but when he had got quite through to the inner side, to Gunnlod's room, Odin took his proper form again.

"I see her upon her golden seat," he said as he looked upon the sleeping Gunnlod where she lay, and Odin was surprised to see a giant-maid so beautiful. Surprised and sorry. "For I must leave her weeping," he mused. "How shall she not weep, defrauded of her treasure in an Evil Land." And Odin loved and pitied the beautiful maiden so much, that he would have returned to Asgard without the mead had that been possible. Alas for Gunnlod, it was less possible than ever since Allfather had seen her. For Gunnlod awoke in the light of Odin's glance and trembled, she did not know why, she did not know at first that he was an Asa, but, when he asked her for her treasure she could not keep it from him, she could not have kept anything from him. She rose from her golden couch, her blue eyes melted into the tenderness of a summer sky, she undid the bars and bolts and coverings of Odhaerir, which she had guarded so faithfully till then, and knelt before Odin and stretched her hands towards him and said, "Drink, for I think you are a G.o.d."

A draught, a draught, a long, deep draught, and the spirit of the Asa was shaken through its height and through its depth, and again a draught of love flowing forth to the outermost, to the abysses, and one draught again--peace--in rus.h.i.+ng, still.

Why are you weeping so, Gunnlod? Oh! Why do you weep? Did you not give him your whole treasure, "your fervent love, your whole soul;"

you kept nothing back, and Odhaerir is for ever the inheritance of the G.o.ds. The dwarfs sold it for their lives, the giantess lost it of her love, G.o.ds win it for the world.

"It is for the aesir, it is for men," said Odin. "It is Odin's booty, it is Odin's gift;" and immediately, in haste to share it, the Asa spread eagle's wings, and flew far up, away from the barren rock, and the black, cold halls of Suttung, towards his heavenly home. Alas for Gunnlod! she has lost her treasure and her Asa too. How cold the cavern is now in which she sits! her light is gone out; she is left alone; she is left weeping upon her golden throne. But Odin soared upwards--flew on toward Asgard, and the aesir came crowding upon the city's jewelled walls to watch his approach. And soon they perceived that two eagles were flying towards the city, the second pursuing the first. The pursuing eagle was Suttung, who, as soon as he found that his mead was gone, and that Odin eagle-wise had escaped his vengeance, spread also _his_ eagle's wings, very strong and very swift, in pursuit. Suttung appeared to gain upon Odin. Frigga feared for her beloved. The Asyniur and the aesir watched breathlessly. Frost giants and Storm giants came crowding up from the deeps to see. "Does Odin return amongst the G.o.ds?" they asked, "or will Suttung destroy him?" It was not possible, however, that the struggle should end in any way but one. The Divine bird dropped from the height upon his Hall--the High One's Hall--and then there burst from him such a flood of song that the widest limits of aesir Land were overflowed--some sounds even spilt themselves upon the common earth. "It is Poetry herself, it is Odin's booty, it is Odin's gift. It is for the aesir, it is for the aesir," said a thousand and a thousand songs. "And for men," answered Allfather, with his million ringing, changing voices; "it is for men." "Such as have sufficient wit to make a right use of it," said Loki. And this was the first discordant note that troubled Asgard after Odin's return.

In this tale, or rather in this arrangement of tales, most of the chief G.o.ds are named, and one or two of the myths concerning them are hinted at. The sweet mixture made out of Kvasir's blood, and given to the giant Suttung to keep, was called, as we have seen, Odhaerir. It was kept in three jars, and though the name of it as a whole was Odhaerir, the portion in the second jar was also called "Sohn," and that in the third jar "Bohn." Odhaerir is mentioned in two of the _Elder Edda_ Songs, and in the _Younger Edda_ an account is given of Odin bringing it up to Asgard. Neither of the _Eddas_, it must be remarked, mentions the banishment of the dwarfs and elves in connection with Kvasir's death. The golden mead, Odhaerir, is supposed to signify poetry. The first syllable of the name means mind and feeling. Odhaerir, spirit mover. "Sohn" means reconciliation, or the _offer_ of peace. "Bohn" means the _acceptance_ of peace,--these two latter names referring to the origin of Kvasir, who was created out of the peace made between the aesir and the Vanir.

Simrock thinks that "Kvasir," meaning fermentation, implies the excitement necessary to poetry; that Odin, labouring for a draught of the precious mead, suggests that poetry can only be possessed through labour, and that his receiving it from the beautiful Gunnlod, expresses it as the gift and crown of love. Odin drinking it three times signifies the _intensity_ through which poetry lives,--it is intoxication. Odin appears to have felt very wise after his three draughts; for he is made to say--

"Potent songs I learned, And a draught obtained Of the precious mead, Then I began to bear fruit And to know many things.

Word by word I sought out words, Fact by fact I sought out facts.

Runes I graved, Very large characters, Very potent characters."

One of the _Edda_ songs is called the "High One's Lay." So we may conclude it was inspired by Suttung's mead. One or two of the strophes are worth quoting, just to show what the lay is like. The following are selected from different places and have no connection with one another.

"At eve the day is to be praised, A sword after it is proved; Ice after it has pa.s.sed away, Beer after it is drunk."

"Cattle die, Kindred die, We ourselves also die; But I know one thing That never dies-- Judgment on each one dead."