Part 21

In the mythology there was a circle of a few individuals who were celebrated players on stringed instruments. They are Balder, Hoder, Slagfin, and Brage. In the heroic poems the group is increased with Slagfin-Gjuke's son, Gunnar, and with Hjarrandi, the Horund of the German poem "Gudrun," to whom I shall recur in my treatise on the heroic sagas. Balder's playing is remembered by Galfrid of Monmouth. Hoder's is mentioned in Saxo, and perhaps also in the Edda's _Hadarlag_, a special kind of metre or manner of singing. Slagfin's quality as a musician is apparent from his name, and is inherited by his son, Gunnar. Hjarrandi-Horund appears in the Gudrun epic by the side of Vate (Ivalde), and there is reason for identifying him with Gevarr himself. All these names and persons are connected with the myth concerning the _soma_ preserved in the moon. While the first drink of the liquid of inspiration and of creative force is handed to Odin by Mimer, we afterwards find a supply of the liquid preserved by the moon-god; and those mythic persons who are connected with him are the very ones who appear as the great harp-players. Balder is the son-in-law of the moon-god, Hoder and Slagfin are his foster-sons, Gunnar is Slagfin's son, Brage becomes the husband of Bil-Idun, and Hjarrandi is no doubt the moon-god himself, who sings so that the birds in the woods, the beasts on the ground, and the fishes in the sea listen and are charmed ("Gudrun," 1415-1418, 1523-1525, 1555-1558).

Both in Saxo and in Galfrid Hoder meets Slagfin with the bow in his conflict with him (Cheldricus in Galfrid; Gelderus in Saxo). The bow plays a chief part in the relation between the gods and the sons of Ivalde. Hoder also met Egil in conflict with the bow (see No. 112), and was then defeated, but Egil's noble-mindedness forbade his harming Slagfin's foster-brother. Hoder, as an archer, gets satisfaction for the defeat in Saxo, when with his favourite weapon he conquers Egil's brother, Slagfin (Gelderus), who also is an archer. And finally, with an arrow treacherously laid on Hoder's bow, Volund, in demoniac thirst for revenge and at Loke's instigation, takes the life of Balder, Hoder's brother.

[15] Thus Vigfusson's opinion that the Asgard bridge is identical with the Milky Way is correct. That the rainbow should be regarded as the Bilrost with its bridge-heads is an invention by the author of Gylfaginning.

122.

REVIEW OF THE SYNONYMS OF THE SONS OF IVALDE.

The names by which Slagfin is found in our records are accordingly _Idi_, _Gjúki_, Dankrat (_thakkrádr_), Irung, Aldrian, Cheldricus, Gelderus, _Hjúki_. We have yet to mention one more, Hengest (_Hengist_), to which I shall return below. Of these names, Gelderus (_Geldr_), Cheldricus, and Aldrian form a group by themselves, and they are possibly simply variations of the same word. The meaning of the name Hengest, "a gelding," is connected with the same group, and particularly to the variation _Geldr_. The most important Slagfin epithets, from a mythological standpoint, are Ide, Gjuke, Hjuke, and Irung.

The names of Volund (Wieland, Veland) in the various records are, as we have seen, _thjazi_, Ajo (Aggo), Anund (_Önundr_), _Rögnir_, _Brunni_, _Ásólfr_, _Vargr_, _Fjallgyldir_, _Hlébardr_, _Byrr_, _Gustr_, _Loptr_, Haquinus (Aki, Ecke). Of these names and epithets _Ásólfr_, _Vargr_, _Fjallgyldir_, and _Hlébardr_ form a group by themselves, and refer to his animal-symbol, the wolf. The other brothers also have animal-symbols. Egil is symbolised as a wild boar and a bear by the names _Aurnir_, _Ebur_, _Isólfr_. Slagfin is symbolised as a horse in Hengest, and also in the paraphrase _öndr-Jálkr_, "the gelding of the skees." Like his brothers, he is a runner on skees. The Volund epithet, _Brunni_, also alludes to skee-running. _Rögnir_ and _Regin_ are names of Volund and his brothers in their capacity of artists. The names Ajo, Anund, and Thjasse (the sparkling) may have their origin in ancient Aryan times.

The names of the third brother, Egil, are _Gangr_, _Örvandill_, _Egill_, Agelmund, Eigel, Euglin, _Hödbroddr_, Toko, and Avo, the archer; Ebur (Ibor, Wild-Ebur, Villefer, Ebbo), _Aurnir Isólfr_. Of these names _Egill_, Agelmund, Egil, and Euglin form a separate group; _Örvandill_, _Hödbroddr_, Toko, and Avo sagittarius form another group, referring to his fame as an archer; Ebur, Aurnir, and Isolfr a third, referring to his animal-symbols.

123.

IVALDE.

In the course taken by our investigation we have already met with and pointed out several names and epithets by which Ivalde occurs in the mythology and in the heroic poems. Such are _Geirvandill_, with the variation _Geirvadill_; _Vadi_ (Vate), _Allvaldi_, _Audvaldi_, _Olvaldi_, _Svigdir_ (_Svegdir_), _Ölmódr_, _Sumbl Finnakonungr_ (Sumblus Phinnorum rex), _Finnakonungr_, _Vidfinnr_, _Finnálfr_, _Fin Folcvalding_, _Hlaudverr_.

Of these names _Ívaldi_, _Allvaldi_, _Audvaldi_, and _Ölvaldi_ form a group by themselves, inasmuch as they all have the part, _valdi_, _valdr_, "mighty," an epithet preserved from the mythology in those heroic sagas which have treated distinct portions of the Ivalde-myth, where the hero reappears as Walther, Valthari, Valdere, Valtarius Manufortis.

Another group is formed by _Ölvaldi_, _Ölmodr_, _Svidir_, _Sumbl Finnakonungr_. _Svigdir_ means, as already shown, "the great drinker," and _Sumbl_ is a synonym of "ale," "mead." All the names in this group refer to the quality of their bearer as a person belonging to the myth about the mead.

The name _Sumbl Finnakonungr_ is at the same time connected with a third group of names--_Finnakonungr_, _Finnr_, _Vidfinnr_, _Finnálfr_, _Fin Folcvalding_. With this group the epithets _Vadi_ and _Vadill_ (in _Geirvadill_) have a real mythological connection, which shall be pointed out below.

Finally, _Geirvadill_ is connected with the epithet _Geirvandill_ from the fact that both belong to Ivalde on account of his place in the weapon-myth.

As has been shown above, Geirvandill means "the one occupied with the spear," or, more accurately, "the one who exhibits great care and skill in regard to the spear" (from _geir_, spear, and _vanda_, to apply care to something in order that it may serve its purpose). In Saxo, Gervandillus-Geirvandel is the father of Horvendillus-Orvandel; the spear-hero is the father of the archer. It is evident that the epithets of the son and father are parallel formations, and that as the one designates the foremost archer in mythology, the other must refer to a prominent spear-champion. It is of no slight importance to our knowledge of the Teutonic weapon-myth that the foremost representatives of the spear, the bow, and the sword among the heroes are grandfather, father, and son. Svipdag, Ivalde's grandson, the son of Orvandel-Egil, is above all others the sword-champion, "the sword-elf" (_sverdálfr_--see Olaf Trygv., 43, where Svipdag-Erik's namesake and supposed descendant, Erik, Jarl Hakonson, is called by this epithet). It is he who from the lower world fetches the best and most terrible sword, which was also probably regarded as the first of its kind in that age, as his uncle, who had made it, was called "the father of swords" (see Nos. 113, 114, 115). Svipdag's father is the most excellent archer whose memory still survives in the story about William Tell. The grandfather, Ivalde, must have been the most excellent marksman with the spear. The memory of this survives not only in the epithets, _Geirvandill_ and _Geirvadill_, but also in the heroic poem, "Valtarius Manufortis," written before the year 950 by Eckehard in St. Gallen, and in Vilkinasaga, which has preserved certain features of the Ivalde-myth.

Clad in an armour smithied by Volund (_Vuelandia fabrica_), Valtarius appears as the great spear-champion, who despises all other weapons of attack--

Vualtarius erat vir maximus undique telis Suspectamque habuit cuncto sibi tempori pugnam (v. 366-7).

With the spear he meets a sword-champion--

Hic gladio fidens hic acer et arduus hasta (v. 822);

and he has developed the use of the spear into an art, all of whose secrets were originally known by him alone, then also by Hagano, who learned them from the former (v. 336, 367). Vilkinasaga speaks of Valthari as an excellent spear-champion. Sure of success, he wagers his head in a competitive contest with this weapon.

It has already been shown above (see No. 89) that _Svigdir_-Ivalde in the mythic saga concerning the race-heroes was the first ruler of the Swedes, just as his sons, Volund and Egil, became those of the Longobardians and Slagfin that of the Burgundians, and, as shall be shown below, also that of the Saxons. Even in the Ynglingasaga, compiled in the twelfth century, he remains, by the name _Svegdir_ among the first kings of the Yngling race, and in reality as the first hero; for his forerunners, _Fjölnir_, _Freyr_, and _Odinn_, are prehuman gods (in regard to _Fjölnir_, see Völuspa). That _Svidir_ was made the race-hero of the Swedes is explained by the fact that Ivalde, before his sons, before he had yet become the foe of the gods and a "perjured _hapt_," was the guardian of the northern Teutonic world against the powers of frost, and that the Sviones were the northernmost race of the Teutonic domain. The elf-citadel on the southern coast of the Elivagar was _Geirvadill_-Ivalde's _setr_ before it became that of his sons (see Nos. 109, 113-115, 117, 118). The continental Teutons, like their kinsmen on the Scandian peninsula, knew that north of the Swedes and in the uttermost north lived a non-Teutonic people who ran on skees and practised hunting--the Finns. And as the realm that was subject to the race-hero of the Swedes in the mythology extended to the Elivagar, where his _setr_ was situated, even the Finns must have been subject to his sceptre. This explains his surname, _Finnakonungr_, _Finnr_, _Vidfinnr_, Fin Folcvalding, and also the fact that his descendants form a group of skee-runners. To the location of the _setr_ near the Elivagar, at the point where Thor was wont to wade across this body of water (see Nos. 109, 114), we have a reference in the Ivalde epithets, _Vadill Vadi_. They indicate his occupation as the keeper of the ford. Vilkinasaga makes him a wader of the same kind as Thor, and makes him bear his son, Volund, across a sound while the latter was still a lad. Reasons which I may yet have an opportunity to present indicate that Ivalde's mother was the mightiest amazon of Teutonic mythology, whose memory survives in Saxo's account of Queen Rusila, Rusla (_Hist._, 178, 365, 394-396), and in the German heroic-saga's Rütze. This queen of the elves, dwelling south of the Elivagar, is also remembered by Tactitus' informer. In _Germania_ (45) we read: _Svionibus Sitonum gentes continuantur. Cetera similes uno different quod femina dominatur.... Hic Suebiæ fines_--"The Sviones are bounded by the Sitones. While they are like each other in other things they differ in the one respect, that a woman rules over the Sitones. Here the confines of Suebia end." The name Sitones does not occur elsewhere, and it would be vain to seek it in the domain of reality. Beyond the domain of the Sviones extended at that time that of the mythic geography. The Sitones, who were governed by a queen, belonged to the Teutonic mythology, like the Hellusians and Oxionians, mentioned elsewhere in _Germania_. It is not impossible that the name _Sitones_, of which the stem is sit, is connected with the Norse mythological name of the chief citadel in their country--_setr_ (_Geirvadill's setr_, _Ide's setr_; cp. _setr-verjendr_ as a designation in Ynglingasaga [17] of the descendants of _Svigdir_-Ivalde). The word _setr_ is derived from _setja_, a causative form of _sitja_, the Gothic _sitan_.

I now pass to the name _Hlaudverr_, in Volundarkvida. This poem does not state directly who Volund's, Egil's, and Slagfin's father was, but it does so indirectly by mentioning the name of the father of Volund's and Slagfin's swan-maids, and by stating that these swan-maids were sisters of the brothers. Volund's swan-maid is called _theirra systir_ in str. 2. Among the many uncalled-for "emendations" made in the text of the Elder Edda is also the change of _theirra_ to _theirrar_, made for the reason that the student, forgetting that Volundarkvida was a poem born of mythology, regarded it as impossible for a brother and sister to be husband and wife, and for the reason that it was observed in the prose introduction to Volundarkvida that the father of the three brothers was _Finnakonungr_. _Hlaudverr_ is also found in a German source, "Biterolf," as King Liutwar. There he appears in the war between Hadding-Dieterich and Gudhorm-Ermenrich, and the poem makes him a champion on the side where all who in the mythology were foes of the Asas generally got their place, that is, on Ermenrich's. There he occupied the most conspicuous place as Ermenrich's standard-bearer, and, with Sabene, leads his forces. The same position as Ermenrich's standard-bearer occupies is held in "Dieterich's Flucht" by Vate, that is to say, _Vadi_-Ivalde, and in Vilkinasaga by Valthari, that is to say again, Ivalde. Liutwar, Vate, and Valthari are originally one and the same person in these German records, just as Hlaudver (corresponding to Liutwar), Vade (corresponding to Vate), and Ivalde (corresponding to Valthari) are identical in the Scandinavian Volundarkvida's statement, that Volund's and Slagfin's swan-maids are their sisters (half-sisters, as we shall see), and, like them, daughters of Ivalde, is thus found to be correct by the comparison of widely-separated sources.

While the father of these two swan-maids is called _Hlaudverr_ in Volundarkvida, the father of the third swan-maid, Egil's beloved, is called King _Kiarr_ in Valland. As Egil was first married to the dis of vegetation, Groa, whose father is Sigtryg in the heroic saga, and then to Sif, his swan-maid must be one of these two. In Volundarkvida, where none of the swan-maids have their common mythological names, she is called Olrun, and is said to be not a sister, but a kinswoman (_kunn_--str. 15) of both the others. _Hlaudverr_ (Ivalde) and _Kiarr_ are therefore kinsmen. Who _Kiarr_ was in the mythology I cannot now consider. Both these kings of mythological descent reappear in the cycle of the Sigurd songs. It has already been shown above (No. 118) that the Gjukungs appear in the Sigurd saga as heirs and possessors of _Hlaudverrs halls_ and treasures; it is added that "they possess the whitest shield from _Kiarr's_ hall (Gudrunarkvida, ii. 25; Atlakvida, 7). Here we accordingly once more find the connection already pointed out between the persons appearing in Volundarkvida and those in the Gjukungsaga. The fathers of the swan-maids who love Volund and his brothers reappear in the Sigurd songs as heroes who had already left the scene of action, and who had owned immense treasures, which after their death have passed by inheritance into the possession of the Gjukungs. This also follows from the fact that the Gjukungs are descendants of Gjuke-Slagfin, and that Slagfin and his brothers are Niflungs, heirs of Hlaudver-Ivalde, who was _gullaudigr mjök_ (Younger Edda).

Like his sons, Ivalde originally stood in a friendly relation to the higher reigning gods; he was their sworn man, and from his citadel near the Elivagar, _Geirvadills setr_, he protected the creation of the gods from the powers of frost. But, like his sons, and before them, he fell into enmity with the gods and became "a perjured _hapt_." The features of the Ivalde-myth, which have been preserved in the heroic poems and shed light on the relation between the moon-god and him, are told partly in the account of Gevarus, Nanna's father, in Saxo, and partly in the poems about Walther (Valtarius, Walthari) and Fin Folcvalding. From these accounts it appears that Ivalde abducted a daughter of the moon-god; that enmity arose between them; that, after the defeat of Ivalde, Sunna's and Nanna's father offered him peace, and that the peace was confirmed by oath; that Ivalde broke the oath, attacked Gevar-Nokver and burnt him; that, during the hostilities between them, Slagfin-Gjuke, though a son of Ivalde, did not take the side of his natural father, but that of his foster-father; and that Ivalde had to pay for his own deeds with ruin and death.

Concerning the point that Ivalde abducted a daughter of Gevar-Nokver and married her, the Latin poems Valtarius Manufortis, Nibelunge Noth, Biterolf, Vilkinasaga, and Boguphalus (Chronicon Poloniæ) relate that Walther fled with a princess named Hildigund. On the flight he was attacked by Gjukungs, according to Valtarius Manufortis. The chief one of these (in the poem Gunthari, Gjuke's son) received in the battle a wound "clean to the hip-bone." The statement anent the wound, which Walther gave to the chief one among the Gjukungs, has its roots in the mythology where the chief Gjukung, that is, Gjuke himself, appears with surnames (Hengest, Geldr, _öndr-Jálkr_) alluding to the wound inflicted. In the Anglo-Saxon heroic poem Fin Folcvalding is married to Hildeburh, a daughter of Hnæf-Hoce, and in Hyndluljod (cp. str. 17 with str. 15) _Hildigunnr_ is the mother of Halfdan's wife Almveig, and consequently the wife of _Sumbl Finnakonungr_, that is, Ivalde. _Hildigunnr's_ father is called Sækonungr in Hyndluljod, a synonym of _Nökkver_ ("the ship-captain," the moon-god), and Hildigun's mother is called _Sváfa_, the same name as that by which Nanna is introduced in the poem concerning Helge Hjorvardson. Hildeburh, Hnæf-Hoce's daughter, is identical with Hildigun, daughter of _Sækonungr_. Compare furthermore str. 20 in Hyndluljod, which speaks of Nanna as Nokver's daughter, and thus refers back to str. 17, where Hildigun is mentioned as the daughter of _Sækonungr_. The phrase _Nanna vat næst thor Nauckva dottir_ shows that _Nökkver_ and another elder daughter of his were named in one of the immediately preceding strophes. But in these no man's name or epithet occurs except _Sækonungr_, "the sea-king," which can refer to _Nökkver_, "the ship-owner," or "ship-captain," and the "daughter" last mentioned in the poem is _Hildigunnr_.

Of the names of Ivalde's wife the various records contain the following statements:

Hlaudver-Ivalde is married to Svanfeather (_Svanfjödr_, Volundarkvida).

Finnalf-Ivalde is married to Svanhild Gold-feather, daughter of Sol (Fornal. saga).

Fin Folcvalding-Ivalde is married to Hildeburh, daughter of Hnæf-Hoce (Beowulf poem).

Walther-Ivalde is married to Hildigunt (German poems).

Sumbl-Finnakonungr is married to Hildigun, daughter of Sækonungr Nokver, the same as _Hnæfr_, _Hnefr_, Nanna's father (Hyndluljod, compared with Saxo and other sources).

She who is called Svanfeather, the sun-daughter Svanhild Gold-feather, Hildeburh, Hildigunt, and Hildigun is accordingly a sister of the moon-dis Nanna, and a daughter of the ruler of the atmosphere and of the moon. She is herself a sun-dis. In regard to the composition of the name, we must compare Hildigun, _Hiltigunt_, with Nanna's surname _Sinhtgunt_. The Teutonic, or at all events the Norse, mythology knew two divinities of the sun, mother and daughter. Grimnersmal (47) tells us that the older one, _Alfraudull_, has a daughter, who, not at the present time, but in the future, is to drive the car of the sun (_eina dottur berr Alfraudull ..._). The elder is the wife of the moon-god. The younger one is the Sunna mentioned in the Merseburg formula (see No. 92), Sinhtgunt-Nanna's sister. As a surname, Sunna also occurs in the Norse literature (Alvissmal, 17; Younger Edda, i. 472, and elsewhere).

In the Beowulf poem and in "Battle of Furnesburg," we find Fin Folcvalding, Hildeburh's husband, as the foe of his father-in-law Hnæf, and conquered by him and Hengest. After a war ending unluckily for him, he makes peace with his victors, breaks the peace, attacks the citadel in the night, and cremates the slain and wounded in an immense funeral pyre. Hnæf is among those fallen, and Hildeburh weeps at his funeral pyre; Hengest escapes and afterwards avenges Hnæf's death. Saxo confirms the fact, that the historified person who in the mythology is the moon-god is attacked and burnt by one of his "satraps," and afterwards avenged. This he tells of his Gevarus, Nanna's father (_Hist._, 131). The correspondence on this point shows that the episode has its root in the mythology, though it would be vain to try to find out the symbolic significance from a standpoint of physical nature of the fact that the moon-god was attacked and burnt by the husband of his daughter, the sun-dis.

Meanwhile we obtain from these scattered mythic fragments preserved in the heroic poems, when compared with the statements found in the mythology itself, the following connected story as the myth about the mead: