Part 19

The mythology has stated that Loke was bound with chains which were originally entrails, and that he who contributed the materials of these chains was his own son, who was torn into pieces by his brother in wolf guise. It is possible that there is something symbolic in this myth--that it originated in the thought that the forces created by evil contend with each other and destroy their own parent. There is at least no reason for doubting that this account is a genuine myth, that is to say, that it comes from a heathen source and from some heathen poem.

But, in regard to the names of Loke's two sons here in question, we have a perfect right to doubt.

We discover at once the contradictions betrayed by the records in regard to them. The discrepancy of the statements can best be shown by the following comparisons. Besides Fenrer, the Midgard-serpent, and Hel, Loke has, according to

Gylfaginning, 33: the son _Nari_, also called No other son _Narfi_ is named;

The Prose added to } Lokasenna: } the son _Nari_, and the son _Narfi_;

Codex Hypnon. } the son _Nari_, also called (Gylfag., 33): } _Narvi_, and the son _Vali_;

Gylfaginning, ch. 50: the son _Nari_, also called and the son _Vali_; _Narfi_,

Skaldskaparmal, } ch. 16: } the son _Nari_, and the son _Ali_;

The Prose added to } Lokasenna: } _Nari_, is torn into pieces by _Narfi_;

Gylfaginning: _Nari-Narfi_ is torn into pieces by _Vali_.

The discrepancy shows that the author of these statements did not have any mythic song or mythic tradition as the source of all these names of Loke's sons.

The matter becomes even more suspicious when we find--

That the variations Nare and Narve, both of which belong to one of the foremost and noblest of mythic beings, namely, to Mimer, are here applied in such a manner that they either are given to two sons of Loke or are attributed to one and the same Loke-son, while in the latter case it happens--

That the names Vale and Ale, which both belong to the same Asa-god and son of Odin who avenged the death of his brother Balder, are _both_ attributed to the other son of Loke. Compare Gylfaginning, ch. 30: _Vali eda Ali heitir einn (Assin) sonr Odins ok Rindar._

How shall we explain this? Such an application of these names must necessarily produce the suspicion of some serious mistake; but we cannot assume that it was made wilfully. The cause must be found somewhere.

It has already been demonstrated that, in the mythology, Urd, the dis of fate, was also the dis of death and the ruler of the lower world, and that the functions belonging to her in this capacity were, in Christian times, transferred to Loke's daughter, who, together with her functions, usurped her name Hel. Loke's daughter and Hel became to the Christian mythographers identical.

An inevitable result was that such expressions as _nipt Nara_, _jódis Narfa_, _nipt Njörva_, had to change meaning. The _nipt Njörva_, whom the aged Egil saw standing near the grave-mound on Digraness, and whose arrival he awaited "with gladness and good-will," was no longer the death-dis Urd, but became to the Christian interpreters the abominable daughter of Loke who came to fetch the old heathen. The _nipt Nara_, whose horse trampled on the battle-field where Erik Blood-axe defeated the Scots, was no longer Urd's sister, the valkyrie Skuld, but became Loke's daughter, although, even according to the Christian mythographers, the latter had nothing to do on a battle-field. The _jódis Narfa_, who chose King Dygve, was confounded with _Loka mær_, who had him _leikinn_ (see No. 67), but who, according to the heathen conception, was a maid-servant of fate, without the right of choosing. To the heathens _nipt Nara_, _nipt Njörva_, _jódis Narfa_, meant "Nare-Mimer's kinswoman Urd." To the mythographers of the thirteenth century it must, for the reason stated, have meant the Loke-daughter as sister of a certain Nare or Narve. It follows that this Nare or Narve ought to be a son of Loke, since his sister was Loke's daughter. It was known that Loke besides Fenrer and the Midgard-serpent, had two other sons, of which the one in the guise of a wolf tore the other into pieces. In Nare, Narve, the name of one or the names of both these Loke-sons were thought to have been found.

The latter assumption was made by the author of the prose in Lokasenna. He conceived Nare to be the one brother and Narve the other. The author of Gylfaginning, on the other hand, rightly regarded Nare and Narve as simply variations of the same name, and accordingly let them designate the same son of Loke. When he wrote chapter 33, he did not know what name to give to the other, and consequently omitted him entirely. But when he got to the 50th chapter, a light had risen for him in regard to the name of the other. And the light doubtless came from the following strophe in Völuspa:

tha kna vala vigbond snua, helldi voru hardgior hoft or thormum.

This half strophe says that those were strong chains (for Loke) that were made of entrails, and these fetters were "twisted" from "Vale's _vigbönd_." _Vig_ as a legal term means a murder, slaughter. _Vala vig_ was interpreted as a murder committed by Vale; and _Vala vigbönd_ as the bonds or fetters obtained by the slaughter committed by Vale. It was known that Loke was chained with the entrails of his son, and here it was thought to appear that this son was slain by a certain Vale. And as he was slain by a brother according to the myth, then Vale must be the brother of the slain son of Loke. Accordingly chapter 50 of Gylfaginning could tell us what chapter 33 did not yet know, namely, that the two sons of Loke were named Vale and Nare or Narve, and that Vale changed to a wolf, tore the brother "Nare or Narve" into pieces.

The next step was taken by Skaldskaparmal, or more probably by one of the transcribers of Skaldskaparmal. As Vale and Ale in the mythology designated the same person (viz., Balder's avenger, the son of Odin), the son of Loke, changed into a wolf, "Vale" received as a gift the name "Ale." It is by no means impossible that the transcriber regarded Balder's avenger, Vale, and the son of Loke as identical. The oldest manuscript we have of Skaldskaparmal is the Upsala Codex, which is no older than the beginning of the fourteenth century. The mythic traditions were then in the continuation of that rapid decay which had begun in the eleventh century, and not long thereafter the Icelandic saga writings saw Valhal peopled by giants and all sorts of monsters, which were called einherjes, and Thor himself transferred to the places of torture where he drank venom from "the auroch's horn," presented to him by the daughter of Loke.

In the interpretation of the above-cited half strophe of Völuspa, we must therefore leave out the supposed son of Loke, Vale. The Teutonic mythology, like the other Aryan mythologies, applied many names and epithets to the same person, but it seldom gave two or more persons one and the same name, unless the latter was a patronymic or, in other respects, of a general character. There was not more than one Odin, one Thor, one Njord, one Heimdal, one Loke, and there is no reason for assuming that there was more than one Vale, namely, the divine son of this name. Of Balder's brother Vale we know that he was born to avenge the slaying of Balder. His impatience to do that which he was called to perform is expressed in the mythology by the statement, that he liberated himself from the womb of his mother before the usual time (_Baldrs brodir var af borinn snemma_--Völuspa), and only one night old he went to slay _Hödr_. The bonds which confine the impatient one in his mother's womb were his _vigbönd_, the bonds which hindered him from combat, and these bonds were in the most literal sense of the word _ór thörmum_. As Loke's bonds are made of the same material and destined to hinder him from combat with the gods until Ragnarok, and as his prison is in the womb of the earth, as Vale's was in that of the earth-goddess Rind's, then _Vala vigbönd_ as a designation of Loke's chains is both logically and poetically a satisfactory paraphrase, and the more in order as it occurs in connection with the description of the impending Ragnarok, when Loke by an earthquake is to sever his fetters and hasten to the conflict.

86.

THE TWO GIANT CLANS DESCENDED FROM YMER.

In Havamál (140, ff.), Odin says that he in his youth obtained nine fimbul-songs and a drink of the precious mead dipped out of Odrerer from _Beyzla's_ father, _Bölthorn's_ famous son:

Fimbulliód nio nam ec af enom iregia syni Baulthorns Beyzlu faudur oc ce dryc of gat ens dyra miadar ausinn Odreri.

The mythologists have assumed, for reasons that cannot be doubted, that Bolthorn's famous son, Beistla's brother, is identical with Mimer. No one else than he presided at that time over the drink dipped out of Odrerer, the fountain which conceals "wisdom and man's sense," and Sigrdrifumal (13, 14) corroborates that it was from Mimer, and through a drink from "Hodrofner's horn," that Odin obtained wonderful runes and "true sayings."

Accordingly Mimer had a sister by name _Beyzla_ (variations: _Bestla_, _Besla_, _Bezla_). A strophe by Einar Skalaglam (Skaldskaparmal, ch. 2; cp. Gylfag., ch. 6) informs us that Beistla is Odin's mother. Mimer's disciple, the clan-chieftain of the gods, is accordingly his sister's son. Herein we have one more reason for the faithful friendship which Mimer always showed to Odin.

The Mimer epithet _Narfi_, Narve, means, as shown above, "the one who binds." His daughter Nat is called _draumnjörun_, the dream-binder (Alvism., 31). His kinswomen, the norns, spin and bind the threads and bonds, which, extended throughout the world, weave together the web of events. Such threads and bonds are called _örlogthættir_ (Helge Hund., i. 3), and _Urdar lokur_ (Grogaldr., 7). As the nearest kinswomen of Beistla all have epithets or tasks which refer to the idea of _binding_, and when we add to this that Beistla's sons and descendants as gods have the epithet _höpt_ and _bönd_, her own name might most properly be referred to the old word _beizl_, _beisl_ (cp. _betsel_, bridle), which has a similar meaning.

As Mimer and Beistla are of giant descent, and in the theogony belong to the same stage of development as Bur (_Burr_), Odin's father, then, as the mythologists also have assumed, _Bolthorn_ can be none else than Ymer.

Mimer, Beistla, the norns, and Nat thus form a group of kindred beings, which belong to the oldest giant race, but still they are most definitely separated from the other descendants of Ymer, as a higher race of giants from a lower, a noble giant race friendly to the gods and fostering the gods, from that race of deformed beings which bear children in the strangest manner, which are hostile to the gods and to the world, and which are represented by the rimthurses Thrudgelmer and Bergelmer and their offspring.

It now lies near at hand to inquire whether the mythology which attributed the same father to Mimer and Thrudgelmer was unable to conceive in this connection the idea of a nobler origin for the former than the latter. The remedy nearest at hand would have been to have given them mothers of different characters. But the mythology did not resort to this expedient. It is expressly stated that Ymer bore children without the pleasure of woman (_gygiar gaman_--Vafthrudnersmal, 32; cp. No. 60). Neither Mimer nor Thrudgelmer had a mother. Under such circumstances there is another expedient to which the sister of the Teutonic mythology, the Rigveda mythology, has resorted, and which is explained in the 90th hymn of book x. of Rigveda. The hymn informs us in regard to a primeval giant Parusha, and this myth is so similar to the Teutonic in regard to Ymer that it must here be considered.

The primeval being Parusha was a giant monster as large as the whole world, and even larger (lines 1-5). The gods resolved to sacrifice him, that is to say, to slay him for sacred purposes (l. 6), and from his limbs was created the present world. From his navel was made the atmosphere, from his head the canopy of heaven, from his two feet the earth, from his heart the moon, from his eye the sun, from his breath the wind, &c. _His mouth became the brahma_ (the priest), _his arms became the rajanya_ (the warrior), _his thighs became the vaisya_ (the third free caste), _and from his feet arose the sudra_ (the thrall, line 12).

The two fundamental ideas of the myth concerning Parusha are:

(1) There was a primeval being who was not divine. The gods slew him and created the material world out of his limbs.

(2) This primeval being gave rise to other beings of different ranks, and their rank corresponded with the position of the giant's limbs from which they were created.

Both these fundamental ideas reappear in the Teutonic myth concerning Ymer. In regard to the former idea we need only to quote what Vafthrudnersmal says in strophe 21:

Or Ymis holdi Of Ymer's flesh var iord um scaupud, the world was shapen, en or beinom bjorg, from his bones the rocks, himinn or hausi the heavens from the head ins hrimkalda iotuns, of the ice-cold giant, enn or sveita sior. from his blood the sea.

In regard to the second fundamental idea, it is evident from the Rigveda account that it is not there found in its oldest form, but that, after the rise of four castes among the Rigveda Aryans, it was changed, in order to furnish an explanation of the origin of these castes and make them at least as old as the present material world. Far more original, and perfectly free from the influence of social ideas, it appears in the Teutonic mythology, where the 33rd strophe of Vafthrudnersmal testifies concerning its character:

Undir hendi vaxa A son and a daughter quatho hrimthursi are said to have been born together mey oc maug saman; under the rimthurse's arm; fótr vid fóti gat foot begat with foot ins froda iotuns the strange-headed son serhaufdathan son. of the wise giant.

In perfect harmony with this Gylfaginning narrates: "Under Ymer's left arm grew forth a man and a woman, and his one foot begat with the other a son. Thence come (different) races."

The different races have this in common, that they are giant races, since they spring from Ymer; but these giant races must at the same time have been widely different intellectually and physically, since the mythology gives them different origins from different limbs of the progenitor. And here, as in Rigveda, it is clear that the lowest race was conceived as proceeding from the feet of the primeval giant. This is stated with sufficient distinctness in Vafthrudnersmal, where we read that a "strangely-headed" monster (Thrudgelmer--see No. 60) was born by them, while "man and maid" were born under the arm of the giant. "The man" and "the maid" must therefore represent a noble race sprung from Ymer, and they can only be Mimer and his sister, Odin's mother. Mimer and his clan constitute a group of ancient powers, who watch over the fountains of the life of the world and care for the perpetuation of the world-tree. From them proceeded the oldest, fairest, and most enduring parts of the creation. For the lower world was put in order and had its sacred fountains and guardians before Bur's sons created Midgard and Asgard. Among them the world-tree grew up from its roots, whose source no one knows (Havamál, 138). Among them those forces are active which make the starry firmament revolve on its axis, and from them come the seasons and the divisions of time, for Nat and _nidjar_, Mane and Sol, belong to Mimer's clan, and were in the morning of creation named by the oldest "high holy gods," and endowed with the vocation _árom at telja_ (Völuspa). From Mimer comes the first culture, for in his fountain inspiration, spiritual power, man's wit and wisdom, have their source, and around him as chief stand gathered the artists of antiquity by whose hands all things can be smithied into living and wonderful things. Such a giant clan demands another origin than that of the frost-giants and their offspring. As we learn from Vafthrudnersmal that two giant races proceeded from Ymer, the one from a part of his body which in a symbolic sense is more noble than that from which the other race sprang, and that the race born of his feet was the ignoble one hostile to the gods, then the conclusion follows of necessity that "the man and maid" who were born as twins under Ymer's arm became the founders of that noble group of giants who are friendly to the gods, and which confront us in the mythology of our fathers. It has already been shown above (see No. 54) that _Jima_ (Yama) in the Asiatic-Aryan mythology corresponds to Mimer in the Teutonic. Jima is an epithet which means twin. The one with whom Jima was born together was a maid, Yami. The words in the quoted Vafthrudnersmal strophe, _undir hendi hrimthursi vaxa mey ok maug saman_, are evidence that the Germans also considered Mimer and his sister as twins.

87.

THE IDENTITY OF MIMER AND NIDHAD OF THE VOLUND SAGA.

The condition in which the traditions of the great Volund (Wayland) have come down to our time is one of the many examples illustrating how, under the influences of a change of faith, a myth disrobes itself of its purely mythical character and becomes a heroic saga. The nature of the mythic traditions and songs is not at once obliterated in the time of transition; there remain marks of their original nature in some or other of the details as proof of what they have been. Thus that fragment of a Volund saga, turned into an epic, which the Old Norse literature has preserved for us in Volundarkvida, shows us that the artist who is the hero of the song was originally conceived not as a son of man, but as a member of the mythic race of elves which in Völuspa is mentioned in connection with the Asas (_hvat er med asom, hvat er med alfom?_--str. 49). Volund is an elf-prince (_alfa visi_, _alfa ljothi_--Volund., str. 10, 13), and, as shall be shown below, when we come to consider the Volund myth exhaustively, he and his brothers and their mistresses have played parts of the very greatest importance in the epic of Teutonic mythology. Under such circumstances it follows that the other persons appearing in Volundarkvida also were originally mythical characters.

One of these is called _Nidadr_ (_Nidudr_), king of Njares, and I am now to investigate who this _Nidadr_ was in the mythology.

When Volund for the first time appears by this name in the Elder Edda, he is sojourning in a distant country, to which it is impossible to come without traversing the Myrkwood forest famous in the mythology (see No. 78). It is a snow-clad country, the home of bears and wolves. Volund gets his subsistence by hunting on skees. The Old English poem, "Deor the Scald's Complaint," confirms that this region was regarded as very cold (cp. _vintercealde vræce_). In Volundarkvida it is called Wolfdales.

Volund stays here many years in company with his two brothers and with three swan-maids, their mistresses or wives, but finally alone. Volund passes the time in smithying, until he is suddenly attacked by _Nidadr_ (_Nidudr_), "the Njara-king" (Volundarkv., 6), who puts him in chains and robs him of two extraordinary treasures--a sword and an arm-ring. Seven hundred arm-rings hung in a string in Volund's hall; but this one alone seemed to be worth more than all the rest, and it alone was desired by _Nidadr_ (str. 7, 8, 17).

Before Volund went to the Wolfdales, he had lived with his people a happy life in a land abounding in gold (str. 14). Not voluntarily, but from dire necessity he had exchanged his home for the distant wilderness of the Wolfdales. "Deor the Scald's Complaint" says he was an exile (_Veland him be vurman vreces cannade_). A German saga of the middle ages, "Anhang des Heldenbuchs," confirms this statement. Wieland (Volund), it is there said, "was a duke who was banished by two giants, who took his land from him," whereupon "he was stricken with poverty," and "became a smith." The Volundarkvida does not have much to say about the reason for his sojourn in the Wolfdales, but strophe 28 informs us that, previous to his arrival there, he had suffered an injustice, of which he speaks as the worst and the most revenge-demanding which he, the unhappy and revengeful man, ever experienced. But he has had no opportunity of demanding satisfaction, when he finally succeeds in getting free from _Nidadr's_ chains. Who those mythic persons are that have so cruelly insulted him and filled his heart with unquenchable thirst for revenge is not mentioned; but in the very nature of the case those persons from whose persecutions he has fled must have been mightier than he, and as he himself is a chief in the godlike clan of elves, his foes are naturally to be looked for among the more powerful races of gods.

And as Volundarkvida pictures him as boundlessly and recklessly revengeful, and makes him resort to his extraordinary skill as a smith--a skill famous among all Teutonic tribes--in the satisfaction which he demands of _Nidadr_, there is no room for doubt that the many years he spent in Wolfdales, he brooded on plans of revenge against those who had most deeply insulted him, and that he made use of his art to secure instruments for the carrying out of these plans. Of the glittering sword of which _Nidadr_ robbed him, Volund says (str. 18) that he had applied his greatest skill in making it hard and keen. The sword must, therefore, have been one of the most excellent ones mentioned in the songs of Teutonic heathendom. Far down in the middle ages, the songs and sagas were fond of attributing the best and most famous swords wielded by their heroes to the skill of Volund.

In the myths turned by Saxo into history, there has been mentioned a sword of a most remarkable kind, of untold value (_ingens præmium_), and attended by success in battle (_belli fortuna comitaretur_). A hero whose name Saxo Latinised into Hotherus (see _Hist. Dan._, p. 110) got into enmity with the Asa-gods, and the only means with which he can hope to cope with them is the possession of this sword. He also knows where to secure it, and with its aid he succeeds in putting Thor himself and other gods to flight.

In order to get possession of this sword, Hotherus had to make a journey which reminds us of the adventurous expeditions already described to Gudmund-Mimer's domain, but with this difference, that he does not need to go by sea along the coast of Norway in order to get there, which circumstance is sufficiently explained by the fact that, according to Saxo, Hotherus has his home in Sweden. The regions which Hotherus has to traverse are pathless, full of obstacles, and for the greater part continually in the cold embrace of the severest frost. They are traversed by mountain-ridges on which the cold is terrible, and therefore they must be crossed as rapidly as possible with the aid of "yoke-stags." The sword is kept concealed in a _specus_, a subterranean cave, and "mortals" can scarcely cross its threshold (_haud facile mortalibus patere posse_). The being which is the ward of the sword in this cave is by Saxo called Mimingus.