CHAPTER V.
VIDAR.
On the way to Geirrod (see p. 310) we noticed that Thor visited the hag Grid, and she lent him three things, counterparts of Thor’s own treasures, her belt of strength, iron gloves and staff. Grid belongs to the race of giants; she dwells in the wild, unsubdued nature, but is not hostile toward the gods. Her belt, gloves and staff, her name, the place where she dwells between Asgard and Jotunheim, her ability to give Thor information about Geirrod, all give evidence of her wild and powerful character.
She is the mother of Vidar, who is a son of Odin. Hence we have here, as in the case of Tyr, a connecting link between the giants and asas. Through Tyr the gods are related to the raging sea, through Vidar to the wild desert and the forests. Vidar is surnamed the Silent. He is almost as strong as Thor himself, and the gods place great reliance on him in all critical conjunctures. He is the brother of the gods. He has an iron shoe; it is a thick shoe, of which it is said that material has been gathered for it through all ages. It is made of the scraps of leather that have have been cut off from the toes and heels in cutting patterns for shoes. These pieces must therefore be thrown away by the shoemaker who desires to render assistance to the gods. He is present at Æger’s feast, where Odin says to him:
Stand up, Vidar! And let the wolf’s father[72] Be guest at the feast, That Loke may not Bring reproach on us Here in Æger’s hall.
His realm is thus described in the Elder Edda:
Grown over with shrubs And with high grass Is Vidar’s wide land. There sits Odin’s Son on the horse’s back: He will avenge his father.
He avenges his father in the final catastrophe, in Ragnarok; for when the Fenris-wolf has swallowed Odin, Vidar advances, and setting his foot on the monster’s lower jaw he seizes the other with his hand, and thus tears and rends him till he dies. It is now his shoe does him such excellent service. After the universe has been regenerated
There dwell Vidar and Vale In the gods’ holy seats, When the fire of Surt is slaked.
Vidar’s name (from _viðr_, a forest) indicates that he is the god of the primeval, impenetrable forest, where neither the sound of the ax nor the voice of man was ever heard; and hence he is also most fittingly surnamed the Silent God. Vidar is, then, imperishable and incorruptible nature represented as an immense indestructible forest, with the iron trunks of the trees rearing their dense and lofty tops toward the clouds. Who has ever entered a thick and pathless forest, wandered about in its huge shadows and lost himself in its solemn darkness, without feeling deeply sensible to the loftiness of the idea that underlies Vidar’s character. Vidar is the Greek Pan, the representative of incorruptible nature. He is not the ruler of the peaceful grove near the abode of the gods, where Idun dwells, but of the great and wild primeval forest, that man never yet entered. The idea of Vidar’s woods is imperishableness, while that of Idun’s grove is the constant renovation and rejuvenation of the life of the gods. The gods and all the work of their hands shall perish, and it is nowhere stated that Idun survives Ragnarok. Odin himself perishes, and with him all his labor and care for man; but nature does not perish. If that should be entirely destroyed, then it could not be _regenerated_. If matter should perish, where would then the spirit take its dwelling? If Vidar did not exist, where would Vale be? The glory of the world, the development that has taken place, and the spirit revealed in it, perish; but not Vidar, for he is the imperishable, wild, original nature, the eternal matter, which reveals its force to, but is not comprehended by, man; a force which man sees and reveres, without venturing an explanation; but when all the works of man are destroyed by consuming flames, this force of eternal matter will be revealed with increased splendor.
Thus we find the power and strength of the gods expressed in two myths, in Thor and in Vidar, both sons of Odin, who is, as the reader knows, the father of all the gods. Thor is the thundering, noisy, crushing, but withal beneficent, god; Vidar is silent, dwells far away from, and exercises no influence upon, the works of man, except as he inspires a profound awe and reverence. Thor is the visible, in their manifestations wonderful, constantly returning and all-preserving, workings of nature; Vidar is the quiet, secretly working, hidden and self-supporting imperishableness. Popularity, fame, position, influence, wealth,—all that makes so much stir and bustle in the world—shall perish; but the quiet working of the soul, the honest pursuit of knowledge, the careful secret development of the powers of the human mind, shall live forever. And Vidar and Vale (mind and knowledge) shall together inhabit the sacred dwellings of the gods, when the waves of time have ceased to roll: Vidar as the god of imperishable matter, Vale as the god of eternal light (spirit) that shines upon it.
Footnote 72:
Loke.