Of the poems of the Elder Edda, to which additions have been
made from other MSS. than the Codex Regius at Copenhagen, some
refer to the gods and some to heroes. First in the series is the
"Völuspa," a "spae" wife's inspired vision of the life and death of
the world, according to the old faith of our forefathers. "Spa" is
the Scottish "spae," a sight beyond our human ken, and "völu" is the
genitive of "völva," of which word there is a suggestion that it may
possibly have been picked up by the Greeks from outlying tribes in
an earlier form “svölva,” and became their σίβυλλα. The
"völva," or wise woman, had a recognised place in the old
Scandinavian life. She went through the country with a following of
maidens, at the autumn feasts and sacrifices, sat on a high seat at
the feasts, sang magic songs of fate, and told men secrets of the
future. In the first poem of the elder Edda the conception is of a
sublime Volva on her high seat, prophesying at the Feast of the
Gods, and addressing her chant first to Odin, then to gods and men.
|
1. They called her Heið, where she came to a house,
The witchwoman cunning in words;
She dealt in sorcery, she worked her spells,
Everywhere, with mind intent,
She worked her spells;
Always she had the love
Of the bad bride.
2. Alone she sat without, when there came
The old one,[1]
the Frowner, and looked in her eye;
"Why do you ask me, why do you tempt me?
Odin, I know all, know where your eye was lost."[2]
3. The father of hosts gave her necklace and rings
To fetch wise spells, prophetic charms,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
She saw wide and broad over all the worlds.
4. Listen, of all holy children I ask,
Of the great and the small, of the race of Heimda
Thou wilt, Father of Slain, that I tell forth thy cra
The far sayings of men as I heard them of old.
5. I mind me of the giants, born of yore,
They who aforetime were my fosterers,
I mind me of nine homes, of nine supports,
The great mid pillar
in the earth below.[3]
6. Once was of old
Where Ymir dwelt;
There was no sand, no sea,
Nor the cool wave.
Earth was not to be found,
Nor heavens above,
But the great void was there,
And nowhere grass.
7. Ere the Sons of Bur,
They who shaped the mid earth,
Had uplifted its table,
And the sun shone from south
On the structure of stone.
Then with the green herb
The ground was grown over.
8. The sun threw from the south
Her companion the moon,
And laid her right hand
On the borders of heaven.[4]
The sun knew not where
Were the halls that she owned;
The moon knew not what
Was the power he had;
The stars knew not where
Were the stations for them.
9. Then went all the Rulers,
The gods to the judgment-seat,
The gods[5]
the most holy,
Around it took counsel.
They gave names to the night
And the waning moons,[6]
The morning they named also,
And the mid day,
Undern[7]
and eventide,
To count the years.
10. The gods met together
In Idafield;[8]
Altar and
temple
There
they built high.
Forge-hearths they laid;
Treasures they made;
They shaped the tongs,
Prepared the tools.
11. They played draughts in their homes,[9]
They were glad,
They had no want of gold,
Until there came three
Of the giant maids,
Three of great strength,
Out of Jötunheim.
12. Then went all the Rulers,
The gods to the judgment-seat,
The gods the most holy
Around it took counsel,
The race of the Dwarfs
Who should shape
From the blood out of Brim,
From the lineage of Bláin.[10]
13. There was Móðsognir,[11]
The greatest to tell of
Among all the dwarfs,
And Durinn the other.
They made many beings
In human shape,
Dwarfs on the earth,
As Durinn said.
14. Nýi and Niði,
Norðri and Suðri,
Austri and Vestri,
|
|
with many more. There are here three stanzas of the names of
dwarfs that seem to stand for outward forces touching human life:
Full-Moon and New-Moon, North and South, East and West, All-thief
and Tarry [Night and Twilight?]. Through the disguise of
alliterative jingle there still glimmer suggestions of
this under-thought, as Twist-elf [lightning] and Thunder. And at the
close of the sixteenth stanza the spae woman says—
| |
Now have I
told of the dwarfs,
Gods and strong Counsellors,
Well counted up.
|
|
Then follows another list of names—
| |
Fili, Kili,
Fundinn, Nali,
Hepti, Vili,
|
|
and so forth, through whose masks the living eyes seem still to peep with suggestions
in this stanza that appear to play about the works of men, as plank
and stream, or axe and house. The mythical spae woman goes on to
tell of the dwarfs in Dwalin's people, down to Lofar. Still
we are among mythical suggestions of the world about us and within
us. Lofar, who ends the list, is Loki, the evil principle, who will
fall when the gods fall, destroying and destroyed, in the last
conflict between good and evil, which leads in the Scandinavian
mythology to the ideal of a new heaven, a new earth, and one Supreme
God who is all in all.
|
20. Then there
came three
Out of the people,
Powerful, dearly loved;
They found on the shore,
Having little of power,
Ask and Embla,[12]
Without purpose of life.
21. Breath
they had not,
Sense they had not,
Blood nor manner,
Nor good colour.
Breath gave Odin,
Sense gave Hsenir,
Blood gave Loðurr,
And good colour.
22. I know
there stands an Ash
Named Yggdrasil,
A high tree
sprinkled
With white dew;
Thence comes the dew
When it falls in the dales;
It stands ever green
Over Urdar's fountain.
23. Thence
come women,
Greatly knowing,
Three from the Hall,
And stand round the tree.
One is called Urd,
Another Verðandi—
They cut upon staves—
Skild is the third;
They lay the lots,
Determine life
To the children of men,
They tell of destiny.
24. She knows
the eye of Odin buried
In the famous Mimir fount;
From the
pledge of the Father of slaughter
Mimir drinks mead every morn.
Know ye of that, or what?[13]
25. She knows
the horn of Heimdall buried
In shade of the holy tree,
In herself she
sees
The high
spring rush
From the
pledge of the Father of slaughter.
Know ye of
that, or what?
26. She minds
her of battle,
The first in the world,
When with
spears they supported
The thirst after gold,
And scattered their fire
In the Halls
of Hár,[14]
Three times burnt
The three times born.[15]
Oft, not seldom,
Although yet she lives.
27. Then went
all the Rulers
The gods to
the judgment-seat,
The gods the most holy
Around it took counsel,
Whether the gods should
Suffer a loss, or
Whether the gods should
Take them a tribute.
28.
Odin then stormed and
Shot among the people;
That was the first of the
Wars upon earth.
Of the burgs of the Æsir[16]
The bulwarks were broken,
The Vanir[17]
were able
To tread in their fields.
29. Then went
all the Rulers,
The gods to
the judgment-seat,
The gods the
most holy
Around it took
counsel,
What had filled
all the Heavens
With treason
and spoil,
Or to the race
of the Eotens
Had given the
bride of Oðar.[18]
30. But Thor
alone was
Pressed on by anger,
Seldom sits he still
When such he hears,
Broken all words, oaths,
All holy pledges,
That were
among them.
31. She sees
the Valkyri[19]
Come from afar,
Ready to ride
To the meeting
of gods.
Skuld held the shield,
But Skögul was the other,
Gunur, Göndal, and Geirskögel,
Now are named the Norns
Of the Lord of hosts,
Valkyri ready
To ride over earth.
32. Of Balder
I see, too,
The bleeding God,
Of Odin's son
The hidden
fate.
On the high
field
I see full grown,
F'air and
slender,
The mistletoe.[20]
33. There was
hurt therefrom,
As it seemed to me;
Danger was in the sorrow-flight
When Höður threw.
Balder's brother
Was newly
born,
I saw the son
of Odin
Fight, one
night old.[21]
34. Then his
hands he never washed,
Nor combed his head,
Before he bore
to the balefire
Him who shot against Balder.
But Freyja wept in Feusálir
The woe of Walhalla.
Know ye of that, or what?
35. Then knew
the Vala
How fetters of war—
They were bound the more surely—
Were twined from entrails.[22]
36. She sees
how he was bound
In monster form,
Like the bad
Loki.
There sits
Sigyn,[23]
Although she is not
Glad for her mate,
Know ye of that, or what?
37. Flows a
stream in the East
Through the poison-dale
With knives and with swords,
And Slidur its name.
38 There
stands in the North,
Near Nida fell,
A golden hall
Of Sindri's race.
Another stands
At Okolvir,
Beerhall of Eotens,
Brimir its name.[24]
39. She sees a
hall
Far from the sun,
In Náströnd,
Its doors turn
to the North;
Fall poison drops
Through the windows in,
The hall is woven
Of serpents' spines.
40. She sees
them wading
Through thick streams
False-swearing
men
And murderers,
And whisperers
in women's ears
Whom others
love;
There sucks
Niðhoggr
The soulless
corpses
Seized by the
tearer of man.
Know ye of
that, or what?
41. In the
East sat the old one,
In the Iron Wood,[25]
And fostered
there
The race of Fenrir.
Will
come of them all
One worst,
The Moon's
destroyer,
In a monster form.
42. He is fed
on the marrow
Of fated men,
He sprinkles
with red blood
The seat of the gods.
The sunshine is darkened
In summers to come;
All the storms blow.
Know ye of that, or what?
43. There sat
on the hill,
And there
struck on the harp,
The ogresses' guardian,
The joyous Egðir.[26]
There sang by him,
In the wildgoose wood,
The fair red cock
Whose name is Fiallar.
44. To the
gods sang
Gullinkambi,[27]
Wakened the warriors
With the war-father.
Under the earth
Is another that sings,
The dark red cock,
In Hela's halls.
45. Sorely
howls Garm
By Gnipahell.[28]
The chains are
broken,
The wolf runs;
The spae woman knows
Much, I see far things,
The wreck of the world
And the great gods' fall.
46. Brothers
with brothers
Will
war and bring death;
Kinsmen with kinsmen
Their kindred will
break;
The world will
be hard
And the wrong will
be great.
The age of the Beard
Of the
Sword—shields will
shiver—
The age of the
Storm and the Wolf are to come.
Before the
World falls,
Man shall have
no more reverence for man.
47. Mimir's
sons[29]
play;
The mid prop takes fire,
At the call of the horn
Of Giallar.
Loudly blows
Heimdall,
His horn is uplifted,
And Odin speaks
With Mimir's head.[30]
48. Yggdrasil
trembles,
Yet the ash stands;
The old tree rustles
When the beast breaks free.
Fear is to all
In the bonds
of Hel
Before they are seized
By Surtur's fire.[31]
49. How is it
with the Æsir?
How is it with the Elfs?
There is din in all Eotenheim;
Æsir are meeting;
Dwarfs groan
At the gates of stone,
Guides of the mountain ways.
Know ye of that, or what?
50. Sorely
howls Garm
By Gnipahell.
The chains are
broken,
The Wolf runs;
I, the spae woman, know
Much, I see far things,
The wreck of the world
And the great gods' fall.
51. From the
East comes Hrym[32]
And lifts the shield;
Jörmungand[33]
rolls
In giant
wrath,
The Serpent
beats the waves,
The Eagle
screams,
He tears the
corpses;
Naglfar is
loose.[34]
52. From the
east comes a ship,
The sons of Muspel come,
They sail over the sea,
But Loki
steers.
The brood of the monster
Are all with that wolf,
And the brother of Bileist[35]
Fares with them.
53. From the
south comes Surtur
With flaming sword,
From his sword
there shineth
The sun of the gods;
Strong rocks clash,
The fiends are abroad,
Heroes tread hellways,
The heavens are rent.
54. Then to
Hlín[36]
comes
Other harm,
When Odin goes
Against the Wolf.
Beli's slayer,[37]
Brightly shining,
Fails with Surtur,
There falls he whom
Freyja loved.
55. Sorely
howls Garm
By Gnipahell.
The chains are
broken,
The Wolf runs.
I, the spae woman, know
Much, I see far- things,
The wreck of the world
And the great gods' fall.
56. Then comes
Widarr,[38]
great son
Of the Father of Victory,
Ready to fight
With the
carrion wolf;
He thrusts to
the heart
Of Hwedrung's
son[39]
The steel
through the gaping jaws.
So is the
Father avenged.
57 is a stanza
now but half legible.
58. Now comes
the great son of Hlódyn,[40]
Comes Odin's son to the fight
With the Worm.
The holy guardian of Midgard
Strikes him with wrath.
All men must make empty the homestead.
The son of Fiörgyn
Recoils nine feet,
Hurt by the serpent,
Heedless of harm.
59. The Sun
grows black ;]
Earth sinks in sea;
The cheerful stars
Forsake the sky.
Reeks the smoke and
Fireglow rages,
The high heat licks
The heavens themselves.
60. Sorely
howls Garm
By Gnipahell,
The chains are
broken,
The Wolf runs
I, the spae woman, know
Much, I see far things,
The wreck of the World
And the great gods' fall.
61. She sees
arising
Once again
Earth from the
waters,
Green once more.
The floods abate,
The erne flies over,
Who from the fells
Goes down to fish.
62. The Æsir
meet
On Ida field,
Hold counsel
of
The great earth thong.[41]
There they recall
Great words of old,
And the far runes
Of Fimbultyr.[42]
63. Thereafter
again
Shall be found
on the grass
The wondrous golden balls
That in old days they owned.
64. The fields
unsown
Again will
grow;
Bad shall be better,
Balder return;
Höður and
Balder shall dwell
In the Father's Heaven,
Truly the gods of the slain.
Know ye of that, or what?
65. Then can
Hönir
Choose his
lot,
. . . . . . .
. . . .
And sons of
two brothers
Shall dwell in Windheim.
Know ye of that, or what?
66. A Hall she
sees standing,
More bright than the sun,
Thatched all with gold,
On Gimil's[43]
height.
Then shall the
true folk dwell
Ever in joy.
67. Then comes
the ruling of the Mighty Doom
In power from above,
Which speaks
to all.
68. Now the
dark dragon
Comes flying, the adder
Down from the Niðafells.
He bears on his wings,
Flying over the plain,
The dead serpent of Hate.[44]
Now she sinks; can no more.
|
|
So runs the "Völuspa," the
first, and probably the oldest, poem in the Edda, though in its date
later than
"Beowulf." It may be of the ninth century. It opens to us the heart
of the old faith of the Northmen in a myth of creation that shapes
gods, dwarfs, giants, and monsters as forces of the world without us
and within; that paints lost innocence, with growth of evil deed and
evil speech. The growth of evil leads to a great struggle of
conflicting powers, out of which breaks through the storm a new sun
bringing a new day. There rises a brighter earth under a brighter
heaven, through which the lost spirit of evil flies, bearing with it
on its wings the dead spirit of hate. The prophetess then sinks back
in her seat. She sees no more.
The whole mythology of
which this is the groundwork was rich in wisdom, coloured by a
thousand fancies that played over the stir of energetic life. The
spiritual teacher of the Norseman spoke by parable; the priest was
poet, and the poet was a man of action able to advise the warriors
and the chief. In a world of fighting men he saw the
ills of war, but allowed
the warrior a heaven of his own, which gave him courage in the
fight, for it was a heaven earned only by those who fell upon the
battle-field. There was another place for those who left this world
by a "straw death" upon their beds at home. But for all who could
follow his thought there was a clear glance forward to "the far
runes of Fimbultyr," to the end of the mere warrior's heaven, in a
world at peace, where God should be truly known, and should be all
in all. Read by the light of these bright flashes from the higher
heaven of their aspiration, we may find, perhaps, some traces of a
playful ridicule in the Walhalla that was painted as the soldier's
paradise. Every morning when the heroes have dressed they go out
into the yard and fight and kill one another, that—says
Hár in the younger Edda—is their play; and then the chopped-up
champions gather their pieces together and ride home to Walhalla to
eat and drink. Their drink is mead from the teats of the she-goat
Heiðrun, who fills
a stoup every day so great that all the champions are full drunken
out of it. Their meat is the boiled flesh of the boar Saerimnir, who
is sodden every day and eaten up, and whole again every evening
ready to be boiled again next day. The heroes eat and are drunken,
sleep, fight, cut one another up, come together, go to their mead
and boiled pork in Walhalla, and so forth daily; not only happy in
boiled pork for dinner every day, but—sacred monotony! —every day it
is pork from the same old pig. Surely the shapers of this Paradise
of Warriors laughed over their conception, for they are the earnest
men who are the readiest with kindly mirth; and they went to the
heart of the incomplete world, noisy with stupidities of strife that
serve their purpose for the growth of man, and therefore are not all
so stupid as they seem. At the heart of all they found, with the
latest of our great poets,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off Divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.
They shaped a day when there should
be no more war, no more Walhalla, but man at peace with man, and the
last Heaven uniting man to his Creator. The poems in the Elder Edda
deal with myths of gods and myths of heroes.
NOTES
[2]
Odin had a single eye, type of the Heavens with one eye, the
Sun. The other was left in pledge for a draught from Mimir's
Well, the waters of wisdom, that lie under one of the roots
of the ash Yggdrasil.
[3]
This passage—
níu man ek heima
níu iviðjur
miötvið mæran
fyr mold neðan—
is variously interpreted. Cleasby
in his Icelandic Dictionary suggests doubtfully that
"íviðjur" means ogresses, and thinks that perhaps they refer
to the nine giantesses who were the mothers of Heimdal.
Benjamin Thorpe translated them into trees, and read in the
next line "miötvið" as the mid tree, Yggdrasil; whilst
Cleasby held that "miötvið'' was miswritten for "miötuð,"
equivalent to the First-English "Metod," Measurer or
Dispenser, as a name for God. As to the question between
ogresses and trees, "iviðja," feminine, means an ogress,
probably akin to "inwid," fraud; but "viðr," kin to "wudu,"
is a tree, or wood, or timber, whence a derivative may mean
prop or pillar,
and so Ettmüller reads "íviðjur " as props, and "miötvið"
the mid prop, Yggdrasil; while for the nine homes he cites
an old song that makes them (1) the Blue; (2) the Home of
the Winds; (3) the Wide Blue Sky; (4) the Far Surrounding;
(5) the Cold (6) the Warm: (7) the Immeasurable ; (8)
the Sender of Storm; (9) the All Surrounding.
[4]
Or, on the horses of heaven. "Himin-ioður" the horizon,
"jaðar," an edge or border, forms "joðurr." "Himin-ióðyr"
could be from "jór" (Old High German, "ehu," Latin "equus"),
a horse, which yields "jóðyr," meaning draught animals.
[5]
"Ginnheilug goð." "Heilug" is neuter (m. helgir, f. helgar,
n. heilög and heilug). God in our old heathen times was
neuter, and almost always plural; not to suggest plurality,
but majesty and mystery. The "ginnheilug goð" are heavenly
powers, without special name, ruling the universe. After the
introduction of Christianity the word "goð" became masculine
singular, but never took the masculine suffix "r," and the
root vowel was changed to "u." The neuter, without change to
"u," was then used, in the singular and plural, of false
gods only, as "solar goð," Apollo.
[6]
"Nott
ok niðjum." "Nið
" was the waning, "ný" the new or waxing moon, up to and
including the full moon ; so " ný ok nið " was alliterative
for full moon and no moon. "Niða myrkr" was darkness with no
moon, and used to mean pitch dark without sense of any
reference to the moon.
[7]
"Undorn
" was a term used in all Teutonic languages for a light mid
meal between the chief meals, and then derived to the sense
of a time of day-morning at nine, or afternoon at three.
Here it means
three o'clock, and so is
placed between
midday and evening.
[8]
The Idavöll was in the midst of the divine abode.
[9]
"Teflðu i túni." Playing at tables or draughts was very
ancient, and is often mentioned in the old Norse poems.
"Tún," town, was an enclosed home. The word "town" has a
very limited meaning in our oldest literature. There was no
town in Norway before Niðaros was founded by St. Olave in
the tenth century; but the real founder of towns in Norway
was Olave the Quiet (1067—1093). In 1752 the only
“town" in
Iceland,
Reykjavik,
was a single isolated farm. Cleasby and Vigfusson, under the
word "tún." Of this excellent Icelandic English Dictionary
let it be said that anyone with that volume and Wimmer's
"Altnordische Grammatik " (translated by Sievers from the
Danish into German,
Halle, 1871)
may find his own way into much enjoyment of old Scandinavian
literature.
[10]
Brim, surf; Blá, the blue wave.
[11]
Móðsognir; móða, a large river ; sag, an inlet, in compounds
the inrush and outsuck of the surf.
[12]
Ash and Elm, the Scandinavian Adam and Eve. Jacob Grimm
derived Embla from "ambl," assiduous in labour; a quality of
woman.
[13]
"Vituð er enn, eða hvat?" "Hvat" here was an expression used
when expecting reply in the negative.
[14]
Hár, the High One, Odin, His Hall is here, the Earth.
[15]
Gold thrice refined by fire.
[16]
Gods, nom. áss, gen. ásar, dat. æsi, plural nom. aesir.
Therefore garðr being yard, enclosure, or home, Asgard was
home of the gods
[17]
Gods opposed to the Æsir, but afterwards reconciled.
[18]
Thrym, one of the Eotens, when the walls of Asgard were
broken, had offered to rebuild them, asking as his price
Freyja, the bride of Oður, with the sun and moon. By advice
of Loki, the gods agreed, on condition that the Eoten
completed the work in a year with no labour but that of
himself and his horse. The Eoten succeeded, and the gods
became angry with Loki, but Loki thwarted the giant by
borrowing the wings of Freyja, and personating her as
Thrym's willing bride. This bride ate
an ox at the wedding breakfast, also eight salmon, and all
the sweets provided for the ladies of the party, and she
drank also three tubs of mead. Thrym was surprised: but
pleased to hear that for eight days the bride had eaten or
drunk nothing through desire for him. Then Thrym would kiss
his bride, and her eyes glared fire. That was because for
eight nights she had had no sleep, through desire for him.
When Thrym called for Thor's hammer (that he had stolen) to
be used in the marriage ceremony, Thor recovered it and
struck the giant dead. This can be read as a myth of the
year. In the "Völuspa." it is alluded to among signs of the
lost innocence. There is another version of the tale in the
"Thrymskvidha."
[19]
Valkyri, choosers of the slain, sent by Odin to all battle
fields to choose those who shall fall and bring them to
Walhalla. The names next given suggest shield, shaft, war,
entangled clue, and spear shaft.
[20]
When Balder the Good was in danger, the Æsir charmed all
things that they should not hurt him, but overlooked the
slender mistletoe, which has no root in the earth. Then they
amused themselves with throwing at him stones, hatchets, and
so forth, that fell from him harmless. Loki, finding that
the mistletoe had not been charmed, contrived to get the
blind Höður to throw it, and by this Balder was pierced to
death. It was simple blindness warring against light, upon
prompting of the Spirit of Evil.
[21]
This is Odin's son Wali, who represents the swiftness of the
Spirit of revenge.
[22]
When Loki was caught and bound by the gods he was bound on
the points of rocks by cords made from his own intestines.
[23]
Sigyn, the wife of Loki, stood by him in his punishment and
caught in a cup the drops of venom that fell from a serpent
poised above. As the cup was filled she emptied it, but
whenever she did so some drops fell upon Loki, which caused
him to twist his body violently, and so cause earthquakes
[24]
Sindri is elsewhere named as one of the dwarfs who shaped
the jewels of the gods, and Brimir was a giant. Náströnd,
next mentioned, is the strand of the corpses (nár, a
corpse), to which those went who died in their beds; as
those who died in battle to Walhalla. In Náströnd is a house
of torment for the wicked, not conceived as a place of fire,
but of wading in poison stream, &c.
[25]
Iárnviðr, a mythical wood whose trees had iron leaves. It
was peopled by ogresses called Iarnvidjur. The "old one" is
the giant wife of the wolf Fenrir, whose offspring are like
wolves, one of whom, called Mánagarm, will one day swallow the
moon.
[26]
Egðir occurs nowhere else as a proper name in Scandinavian
mythology. It is a name for the eagle, and I take him to be
only a half personification of the eagle joyous in the
prospect of slaughter.
[27]
Golden comb, the cock that wakes the heroes in Walhalla to
their daily fight. The third cock, next mentioned, is dark
red, and will
hereafter call the people of the underworld to war against
the gods.
[28]
Gnipahell was a narrow cavern, at the mouth of which was
chained the dog Garm, who in the last struggle would break
loose at the same time with the wolf Fenrir. Garm would
destroy, and be destroyed by, the god Tyr.
[30]
The head of the wise Mimir, who kept the fountain at the
root of Yggdrasil (see note to stanza 2) spoke with Odin
after it had been cut off by the giants and sent by them to
the Æsir.
[31]
Surtur, a black giant born of fire, was to come to the last
conflict with sons of Muspel, and purge the world with fire.
He is black as smoke, and the fire flashing from the smoke
is Surtur's sword.
[32]
Hrym is a Frost Giant who will
steer Naglfar, the ship of the dead. Loki will
steer the ship that brings the sons of Muspel, sons of fire.
[33]
Jörmungandr, the Great Monster, is a name for the Midgard
Serpent, begotten by Loki, and bred by the Eotens, till
Thor threw him into the deep Ocean that surrounds the World.
There he grew till he himself, holding his
tail in his mouth, encircled all. In the last struggle he will
be killed
by, and kill, Thor.
[34]
Naglfar was said to be a ship made of the parings of dead
men's nails. Heed was taken, therefore, to the paring of
nails before death, that the building of Naglfar might be
delayed.
[35]
Loki, who had two brothers, Bileistr and Helblindi.
[36]
Hlín was a goddess appointed by Freyja as the protectress of
all who are in peril. Thence came a saying, Lean upon Hlín
when the need comes.
[37]
Beli was the bellowing storm wind, slain by Freyr, who
represents sunshine and the fruitfulness of peace. His
sister Freyja was goddess of love. In the last battle Freyr
was to contend with Surtur, as Odin with the wolf Fenrir,
and Thor with the Midgard Serpent.
[38]
Widarr, who signifies, perhaps, the renewing power, after
the wolf Fenrir, power of annihilation, has prevailed over
Odin, engages with the wolf, plants his shoed foot in his
throat, and tears his jaws asunder. From this belief grew a
custom of preserving bits of leather from the toes and heels
of shoes, which were to go to the making of Widarr's shoe.
There was old treatment of the shoe as a type of good works
that enable us to tread safely the rough, thorny ways of
evildoing.
[39]
Son for grandson. The Eoten Hwedrung was father to Fenrir's
mother, Angirboda.
[40]
Thor's mother, Jördh, was called also Hlódyn and Fiorgyn.
The stanza goes on to Thor's fight with the Midgard Serpent.
[41]
The Midgard Serpent coiled about the earth.
[43]
Gimil was the highest heaven, in which the just were to
dwell for ever after the new creation that followed
Ragnaröki, the twilight of the gods.
[44]
Niðhöggr nái. That root of the great ash Yggdrasil which
stretched over Niflheim was constantly gnawed at by the
snake Niðhöggr.
|