Part 23

The moon-god, like Nat, Dag, and Sol, is by birth and abode a lower-world divinity. As such, he too had his importance in the Teutonic eschatology. The god who on his journeys on "Nokve's holy way" serves _auldom at ártali_ (Vafthrudnersmal, 23) by measuring out to men time in phases of the moon, in months, and in years has, in the mythology also, received a certain influence in inflicting suffering and punishment on sinners. He is lord of the _heiptir_, the Teutonic Erinnyes (see No. 75), and keeps those _limar_ (bundles of thorns) with which the former are armed, and in this capacity he has borne the epithet _Eylimi_, which reappears in the heroic songs in a manner which removes all doubt that Nanna's father was originally meant. (See in Saxo and in Helge Hjorvardson's saga. To the latter I shall return in the second part of this work, and I shall there present evidence that the saga is based on episodes taken from the Balder myth, and that Helge Hjorvardson is himself an imitation of Balder). In this capacity of lord of the _Heiptir_ the moon-god is the power to whom prayers are to be addressed by those who desire to be spared from those sufferings which the _Heiptir_ represent (_Heithtom scal mána qvedja_--Havamál, 137). His quality as the one who keeps the thorn-rods of the _heiptir_ still survives in a great part of the Teutonic world in the scattered traditions about "the man in the moon," who carries bundles of thorns on his back (J. Grimm, _Myth._, 680; see No. 123).

92.

THE MOON-DIS NANNA. THE MERSEBURG FORMULA. BALDER'S NAME FALR.

Thus Nanna is the daughter of the ruler of the moon, of "the ward of the atmosphere." This alone indicates that she herself was mythologically connected with the phenomena which pertain to her father's domain of activity, and in all probability was a moon-dis (goddess). This assumption is fully confirmed by a contribution to Teutonic mythology rescued in Germany, the so-called Merseburg formula, which begins as follows:

Phol ende Uodan Falr and Odin vuoron zi holza went to the wood, dû vart demo Balderes then was the foot sprained volon sin vous birenkit on Balder's foal. thû biguolon Sinhtgunt. Then sang over him Sinhtgunt, Sunna era svister, Sunna her sister, thû biguolen Friia, then sang over him Frigg, Volla era svister Fulla her sister; thû biguolen Uodan then sang over him Odin sô hê wola conda. as best he could.

Of the names occurring in this strophe Uodan-Odin, Balder, Sunna (synonym of Sol--Alvissm., 17; Younger Edda, i. 472, 593), Friia-Frigg, and Volla-Fulla are well known in the Icelandic mythic records. Only Phol and Sinhtgunt are strangers to our mythologists, though Phol-_Falr_ surely ought not to be so.

In regard to the German form Phol, we find that it has by its side the form Fal in German names of places connected with fountains. Jacob Grimm has pointed out a "Pholes" fountain in Thuringia, a "Fals" fountain in the Frankish Steigerwald, and in this connection a "Balder" well in Rheinphaltz. In the Danish popular traditions Balder's horse had the ability to produce fountains by tramping on the ground, and Balder's fountain in Seeland is said to have originated in this manner (cp. P. E. Müller on Saxo, _Hist._, 120). In Saxo, too, Balder gives rise to wells (_Victor Balderus, ut afflictum siti militem opportuni liquoris beneficio recrearet, novos humi latices terram altius rimatus operuit_--p. 120).

This very circumstance seems to indicate that Phol, Fal, was a common epithet or surname of Balder in Germany, and it must be admitted that this meaning must have appeared to the German mythologists to be confirmed by the Merseburg formula; for in this way alone could it be explained in a simple and natural manner, that Balder is not named in the first line as Odin's companion, although he actually attends Odin, and although the misfortune that befalls "Balder's foal" is the chief subject of the narrative, while Phol on the other hand is not mentioned again in the whole formula, although he is named in the first line as Odin's companion.

This simple and incontrovertible conclusion, that Phol and Balder in the Merseburg formula are identical is put beyond all doubt by a more thorough examination of the Norse records. In these it is demonstrated that the name _Falr_ was also known in the North as an epithet of Balder.

The first books of Saxo are based exclusively on the myths concerning gods and heroes. There is not a single person, not a single name, which Saxo did not borrow from the mythic traditions. Among them is also a certain _Fjallerus_, who is mentioned in bk. i. 160. In the question in regard to the Norse form which was Latinised into _Fjallerus_, we must remember that Saxo writes _Hjallus_ (_Hist._, pp. 371, 672) for _Hjali_ (cp. p. 370), and alternately _Colo_, _Collo_, and _Collerus_ (_Hist._, pp. 56, 136, 181), and that he uses the broken form _Bjarbi_ for _Barri_ (_Hist._, p. 250). In accordance with this the Latin form _Fjallerus_ must correspond to the Norse _Falr_, and there is, in fact, in the whole Old Norse literature, not a single name to be found corresponding to this excepting Falr, for the name _Fjalarr_, the only other one to be thought of in this connection should, according to the rules followed by Saxo, be Latinised into _Fjallarus_ or _Fjalarus_, but not into _Fjallerus_.

Of this _Fjallerus_ Saxo relates that he was banished by an enemy, and the report says that _Fjallerus_ betook himself to the place which is unknown to our populations, and which is called _Odáins-akr_ (_quem ad locum, cui Undensakre nomen est, nostris ignotum populis concessisse est fama_--p. 160.)

The mythology mentions only a single person who by an enemy was transferred to _Odáinsakr_, and that is Balder. (Of _Odáinsakr_ and Balder's abode there, see Nos. 44-53).

The enemy who transfers _Falr_ to the realm of immortality is, according to Saxo, a son of _Horvendillus_, that is to say, a son of the mythological _Örvandill_, Groa's husband and Svipdag's father (see Nos. 108, 109). Svipdag has already once before been mistaken by Saxo for _Hotherus_ (see No. 101). _Hotherus_ is, again, the Latin form for _Hödr_. Hence it is Balder's banishment by _Hödr_ to the subterranean realms of immortality of which we here read in Saxo where the latter speaks of Fal's banishment to _Odáinsakr_ by a son of Orvandel.

When Balder dies by a _flaug_ hurled by _Hödr_ he stands in the midst of a rain of javelins. He is the centre of a _mannhringr_, where all throw or shoot at him: _sumir skjóta á hann, sumir höggva til, sumir berja grjóti_ (Gylfaginning). In this lies the mythical explanation of the paraphrase _Fal's rain_, which occurs in the last strophe of a poem attributed to the skald Gisle Surson. In Gisle's saga we read that he was banished on account of manslaughter, but by the aid of his faithful wife he was able for thirteen years to endure a life of persecutions and conflicts, until he finally was surprised and fell by the weapons of his foes. Surrounded by his assailants, he is said to have sung the strophe in question, in which he says that "the beloved, beautiful, brave Fulla of his hall," that is to say, his wife, "is to enquire for him, her friend," for whose sake "Fal's rain" now "falls thick and fast," while "keen edges bite him." In a foregoing strophe Gisle has been compared with a "Balder of the shield," and this shield-Balder now, as in the Balder of the myth, is the focus of javelins and swords, while he like Balder, has a beautiful and faithful wife, who, like Nanna, is to take his death to heart. If the name Nanna, as has been assumed by Vigfusson and others, is connected with the verb _nenna_, and means "the brave one," then _rekkilát_ Fulla, "the brave Fulla of Gisle's hall," is an all the more appropriate reference to Nanna, since Fulla and she are intimately connected in the mythology, and are described as the warmest of friends (Gylfaginning). Briefly stated: in the poem Gisle is compared with Balder, his wife with Nanna, his death with Balder's death, and the rain of weapons by which he falls with _Fal's rain_.

In a strophe composed by _Refr_ (Younger Edda, i. 240) the skald offers thanks to Odin, the giver of the skaldic art. The Asa-father is here called _Fals hrannvala brautar fannar salar valdi_ ("The ruler of the hall of the drift of the way of the billow-falcons of Fal"). This long paraphrase means, as has also been assumed by others, the ruler of heaven. Thus heaven is designated as "the hall of the drift of the way of the billow-falcons of Fal." The "drift" which belongs to heaven, and not to the earth, is the cloud. The heavens are "the hall of the cloud." But in order that the word "drift" might be applied in this manner it had to be united with an appropriate word, showing that the heavens were meant. This is done by the adjective phrase "of the way of the billow-falcons of Fal." Standing alone, "the drift of the way of the billow-falcons" could not possibly mean anything else than the billow white with foam, since "billow-falcons" is a paraphrase for ships, and the "way of the billow-falcons" is a paraphrase for the sea. By adding the name _Falr_ the meaning is changed from "sea" to "sky." By Fal's "billow-falcons" must therefore be meant objects whose course is through the air, just as the course of the ships is on the sea, and which traverse the drift of the sky, the cloud, just as the ships plough through the drift of the sea, the white-crested billow. Such a paraphrase could not possibly avoid drawing the fancy of the hearers and readers to the atmosphere strewn with clouds and penetrated by sunbeams, that is, to Odin's hall. Balder is a sun-god, as his myth, taken as a whole, plainly shows, and as is manifested by his epithet; _raudbrikar rikr rækir_ (see No. 53). Thus Fal, like Balder, is a divinity of the sun, a being which sends the sunbeams down through the drifts of the clouds. As he, furthermore, like Balder, stood in a rain of weapons under circumstances sufficiently familiar for such a rain to be recognised when designated as Fal's, and as he, finally, like Balder, was sent by an opponent to the realm of immortality in the lower world, then _Falr_ and Balder must be identical.

Their identity is furthermore confirmed by the fact that Balder in early Christian times was made a historical king of Westphalia. The statement concerning this, taken from Anglo-Saxon or German sources, has entered into the foreword to Gylfaginning. Nearly all lands and peoples have, according to the belief of that time, received their names from ancient chiefs. The Franks were said to be named after one Francio, the East Goth after Ostrogotha, the Angles after Angul, Denmark after Dan, &c. The name Phalia, Westphalia, was explained in the same manner, and as Balder's name was Phol, Fal, this name of his gave rise to the name of the country in question. For the same reason the German poem Biterolf makes Balder (Paltram) into king _ze Pülle_. (Compare the local name Pölde, which, according to J. Grimm, is found in old manuscripts written _Polidi_ and _Pholidi_.) In the one source Balder is made a king in Pholidi, since Phol is a name of Balder, and in the other source he is for the same reason made a king in Westphalia, since Phal is a variation of Phol, and likewise designated Balder. "Biterolf" has preserved the record of the fact that Balder was not only the stateliest hero to be found, but also the most pure in morals, and a man much praised. Along with Balder, Gylfaginning speaks of another son of Odin, _Siggi_, who is said to have become a king in Frankland. The same reason for which Fal-Balder was made a king in Westphalia also made the apocryphal _Siggi_ in question the progenitor of Frankian kings. The Frankian branch to which the Merovingian kings belonged bore the name _Sigambrians_, and to explain this name the son _Siggi_ was given to Odin, and he was made the progenitor and eponym of the Sigambrians.

After this investigation which is to be continued more elaborately in another volume, I now return to the Merseburg formula:

"Fall and Odin Went to the wood, Then the foot was sprained Of Balder's foal."

With what here is said about Balder's steed, we must compare what Saxo relates about Balder himself: _Adeo in adversam corporis valetudinem incidit, ut ni pedibus quidem incedere posset_ (_Hist._, 120).

The misfortune which happened first to Balder and then to Balder's horse must be counted among the warnings which foreboded the death of the son of Odin. There are also other passages which indicate that Balder's horse must have had a conspicuous signification in the mythology, and the tradition concerning Balder as rider is preserved not only in northern sources (Lokasenna, Gylfaginning), and in the Merseburg formula, but also in the German poetry of the middle ages. That there was some witchcraft connected with this misfortune which happened to Balder's horse is evident from the fact that the magic songs sung by the goddesses accompanying him availed nothing. According to the Norse ancient records, the women particularly exercise the healing art of witchcraft (compare Groa and Sigrdrifva), but still Odin has the profoundest knowledge of the secrets of this art; he is _galdrs fadir_ (Veg., 3). And so Odin comes in this instance, and is successful after the goddesses have tried in vain. We must fancy that the goddesses make haste to render assistance in the order in which they ride in relation to Balder, for the event would lose its seriousness if we should conceive Odin as being very near to Balder from the beginning, but postponing his activity in order to shine afterwards with all the greater magic power, which nobody disputed.

The goddesses constitute two pairs of sisters: Sinhtgunt and her sister Sunna, and Frigg and her sister Fulla. According to the Norse sources, Frigg is Balder's mother. According to the same records, Fulla is always near Frigg, enjoys her whole confidence, and wears a diadem as a token of her high rank among the goddesses. An explanation of this is furnished by the Merseburg formula, which informs us that Fulla is Frigg's sister, and so a sister of Balder's mother. And as Odin is Balder's father, we find in the Merseburg formula the Balder of the Norse records, surrounded by the kindred assigned to him in these records.

Under such circumstances it would be strange, indeed, if Sinhtgunt and the sun-dis, Sunna, did not also belong to the kin of the sun-god, Balder, as they not only take part in this excursion of the Balder family, but are also described as those nearest to him, and as the first who give him assistance.

The Norse records have given to Balder as wife Nanna, daughter of that divinity which under Odin's supremacy is the ward of the atmosphere and the owner of the moon-ship. If the continental Teutons in their mythological conceptions also gave Balder a wife devoted and faithful as Nanna, then it would be in the highest degree improbable that the Merseburg formula should not let her be one of those who, as a body-guard, attend Balder on his expedition to the forest. Besides Frigg and Fulla, there are two goddesses who accompany Balder. One of them is a sun-dis, as is evident from the name Sunna; the other, Sinhtgunt, is, according to Bugge's discriminating interpretation of this epithet, the dis "who night after night has to battle her way." A goddess who is the sister of the sun-dis, but who not in the daytime but in the night has to battle on her journey across the sky, must be a goddess of the moon, a moon-dis. This moon-goddess is the one who is nearest at hand to bring assistance to Balder. Hence she can be none else than Nanna, who we know is the daughter of the owner of the moon-ship. The fact that she has to battle her way across the sky is explained by the Norse mythic statement, according to which the wolf-giant Hate is greedy to capture the moon, and finally secures it as his prey (Völuspa, Gylfaginning). In the poem about Helge Hjorvardson, which is merely a free reproduction of the materials in the Balder-myth (which shall be demonstrated in the second part of this work), the giant Hate is conquered by the hero of the poem, a Balder figure, whose wife is a dis, who, "white" herself, has a shining horse (str. 25, 28), controls weather and harvests (str. 28), and makes _nightly_ journeys on her steed, and "inspects the harbours" (str. 25).

The name Nanna (from the verb _nenna_; cp. Vigfusson, _Lex._) means "the brave one." With her husband she has fought the battles of light, and in the Norse, as in the Teutonic, mythology, she was with all her tenderness a heroine.

The Merseburg formula makes the sun-dis and the moon-dis sisters. The Norse variation of the Teutonic myth has done the same. Vafthrudnersmal and Gylfaginning (ch. 11) inform us that the divinities which govern the chariots of the sun and moon were brother and sister, but from the masculine form _Máni_ Gylfaginning has drawn the false conclusion that the one who governed the car of the moon was not a sister but a brother of the sun. In the mythology a masculine divinity _Máni_ was certainly known, but he was the father of the sun-dis and moon-dis, and identical with _Gevarr-Nökkvi-Nefr_, the owner of the moon-ship. The god _Máni_ is the father of the sun-dis for the same reason as Nat is the mother of Dag.

Vafthrudnersmal informs us that the father of the managers of the sun- and moon-cars was called _Mundilföri_. We are already familiar with this mythic personality (see Nos. 81-83) as the one who is appointed to superintend the mechanism of the world, by whose _Möndull_ the starry firmament is revolved. It is not probable that the power governing the motion of the stars is any other than the one who under Odin's supremacy is ruler of the sun and moon, and ward of all the visible phenomena in space, among which are also the stars. As, by comparison of the old records, we have thus reached the conclusion that the managers of the sun and moon are daughters of the ward of the atmosphere, and as we have also learned that they are daughters of him who superintends the motion of the constellations, we are unable to see anything but harmony in these statements. _Mundilföri_ and _Gevarr-Nökkvi-Nefr_ are the same person.

It should be added that the moon-goddess, like her father, could be called _Máni_ without there being any obstacle in the masculine form of the word. The name of the goddess _Skadi_ is also masculine in form, and is inflected as a masculine noun (oblique case, _Skada_--Younger Edda, 212, 268).

93.

COSMOGRAPHIC REVIEW.

In the preceding pages various scattered contributions have been made to Teutonic cosmography, and particularly to the topography of the lower world. It may not be out of the way to gather and complete these fragments.

The world-tree's three roots, which divide themselves in the lower world and penetrate through the three lower-world fountains into the foundations of the world-structure and hold it together, stand in a direction from north to south--the northernmost over the Hvergelmer fountain, with its cold waters; the middle one over Mimer's well, which is the fountain of spiritual forces; and the third over Urd's well, whose liquids give warmth to Ygdrasil (see No. 63).

In a north and south direction stands likewise the bridge _Bifröst_, also called _Bilröst_, _Ásbru_ (Grimnersmal, 29), and in a bold paraphrase, hitherto not understood, _thiodvitnis fiscr_, "the fish of the folk-wolf." The paraphrase occurs in Grimnersmal (21) in its description of Valhal and other abodes of the gods:

thytr thund, unir thiódvitnis fiscr flódi i árstraumr thickir ofmicil valglaumi at vatha.

"Thund (the air-river) roars. The fish of the folk-wolf stands secure in the stream. To the noisy crowd of sword-fallen men the current seems too strong to wade through."

It has already been shown (No. 65) that those fallen by the sword ride with their psychopomps on Bifrost up to Valhal, and do not proceed thither through space, but have a solid foundation for the hoofs of their steeds. Here, as in Fafnersmal (15), the air is compared with a river, in which the horses are compelled to wade or swim if the bridge leading to Asgard is not used, and the current in this roaring stream is said to be very strong; while, on the other hand, "the fish" stands safe and inviting therein. That the author of Grimnersmal called the bridge a fish must seem strange, but has its natural explanation in Icelandic usage, which called every bridge-end or bridge-head a _spordr_, that is, a fish-tail. Compare Sigrdrifumal (16), which informs us that runes were risted on "the fish-tail" of the great mythic bridge (_á bruar spordi_), and the expression _brúarspordr_ (bridge-head, bridge-"fish-tail") in Njala (246) and _Biskupas_ (1, 17). As a bridge-pier could be called a fish-tail, it was perfectly logical for the poem to make the bridge a fish. On the zenith of the bridge stands Valhal, that secures those fallen in battle, and whose entrance is decorated with images of the wolf and of the eagle (Grimnersmal, 10), animals that satisfy their hunger on the field of battle. This explains why the fish is called that of the folk-wolf or great wolf. The meaning of the paraphrase is simply "the Valhal bridge." That the bow of Bifrost stands north and south follows from the fact that the gods pass over one end of the bridge on their way to Urd's fountain, situated in the south of the lower world, while the other end is outside of Nifelhel, situated in the north. From the south the gods come to their judgment-seats in the realm of the dis of fate and death. From the north came, according to Vegtamskvida, Odin when he rode through Nifelhel to that hall which awaited Balder. Why the Asa-father on that occasion chose that route Vegtamskvida does not inform us. But from Saxo (_Hist. Dan._, 126), who knew an old heathen song about Odin's visit in the lower world on account of Balder's death, we get light on this point. According to this song[17] it was Rostiophus Phinnicus who told Odin that a son of the latter and Rind was to avenge Balder's death. Rostiophus is, as P. E. Müller has already remarked, the rimthurs _Hrossthiófr_ mentioned in Hyndluljod as a son of _Hrimnir_ and brother of the sorceress _Heidr_, the vala and witch well known from Völuspa and other sources. Nifelhel is, as shown above (No. 60), the abode of the rimthurses transferred to the lower world. Where his father _Hrimnir_ (Bergelmer) and his progenitor _Hrimgrimnir_ (Thrudgelmer) dwell in the thurs-hall mentioned in Skirnersmal, there we also find _Hrossthiófr_, and Odin must there seek him. Vegtamskvida makes Odin seek his sister.

It is Bifrost's north bridge-head which particularly requires the vigilance of Heimdal, the ward of the gods, since the rimthurses and the damned are its neighbours. Heimdal is therefore "widely known" among the inhabitants of Nifelhel (Skirnersmal, 28), and Loke reproaches Heimdal that his vocation as watchman always compels him to expose his back to the torrents of an unfavourable sky (Lokas., 48). In the night which constantly broods over this northern zone shine the forms of the "white" god and of his gold-beaming horse _Gulltoppr_, when he makes spying expeditions there. His eye penetrates the darkness of a hundred "rasts," and his ear catches the faintest sound (Gylfag., 27). Near Bifrost, presumably at the very bridge-head, mythology has given him a fortified citadel, _Himinbjorg_, "the ward of heaven," with a comfortable hall well supplied with "the good mead" (Grimn., 13; Gylfag., 27).