1890  Mary Elizabeth Litchfield
The Nine Worlds, Stories from Norse Mythology
(reprinted by Freedonia Books, Amsterdam in 2001).

My aim has been to write a story simple enough for children, but not so simple as to be uninteresting to older persons. My own interest in Norse mythology was aroused many years ago by two books, "Heroes of Asgard" by A. and E. Keary and "Wonderful Stories of Northern Lands" by Julia Goddard. The excuse for this book is, that, in many respects, it is unlike any that have been written on the same subject. And this is partly owing to the fact that Rydberg's researches have made it possible, for the first time, for one to form a definite conception of the cosmography of the mythology, and also because he clears away many inconsistencies'that have long clung to it.

I have written the story of the gods as it has formed itself in my mind after much reading and thinking. In some cases the words of the poems of Saemund's Edda have been used, especially in the last chapter, The Twilight of the Gods. I have taken the liberty of putting a part of the " Vala's Prophecy " and of other prophecies into the mouth of Odin, because he is represented in the Eddas as knowing all that is to come in the future. In the story of Baldur, I have followed Rydberg rather than the author of the Younger Edda. Rydberg claims that the latter has departed from the old mythology in many instances, and especially in his version of the Baldur myth. In order to make a dramatic whole out of the separate stories, it has been necessary to supply connecting links and to give special prominence to certain characters. Loki is the central figure ; and Thiassi, as portrayed by Rydberg, plays an important part. Whatever is coarse or unpoetic in the old stories has been left out, and much has been added from my own imagination. For instance, there is no foundation for the chapter, Odin seeks Wisdom from Mimir, except in the lines quoted from Odin's Rune-song."

Litchfield takes a favorable view of Rydberg’s work, but does not follow it precisely. Foremost, she accepts his Old Norse cosmology and provides original pictures of it in the introduction. She writes:
 
“In the plan of the nine worlds, Rydberg has been followed.”
 
 

The Canopy of Yggdrassils Askur

Ariel View

 
       Clearly Litchfield understands Rydberg's explanation of Old Norse cosmology. The original pictures accompanying the text (reproduced above) are excellent visual representations of Rydberg's cosmological theory.

      In her retelling of the myths, however, Litchfield rarely follows Rydberg's direction. When she does, her knowledge of his work is limited to Anderson's English translation of volume I. Rydberg's influence isn't readily apparent throughout most of the text. His reconstruction of the myth of Ivaldi's son Thjazi is told as one of a series of individual tales retelling the mythology, except that she omits his capture (as Völund) and imprisonment by Mimir (as Nidhad). She retells Rydberg’s version of the contest between the artists, the kidnapping and recovery of Idun, but strangely omits the entire Svipdag story. She introduces Hermod and Skirnir as individual characters, rather than as hyposatises of Svipdag (She calls Hermod a son of Odin, and Skirnir a human servant of Frey).  Her retelling of the Baldur myth and Ragnarök also contains elements of Rydberg’s reconstruction, but ignores others.   Litchfield writes:         

 “In the story of Baldur, I have followed Rydberg rather than the author of the Younger Edda. Rydberg claims that the latter departed from the old mythology in many instances, and especially in his version of the Baldur myth. In order to make a dramatic whole out of the separate stories, it has been necessary to supply connecting links and to give special prominence to certain characters. Loki is the central figure; and Thjassi, as portrayed by Rydberg plays an important part.”         Clearly, Litchfield had only read UGM1 in English translation, as she only uses the elements of the Baldur myth contained there. For example, she has Loki bring the mistletoe to Thjassi who make an arrow of it. But she isn’t sure whether Hödur is blind or not, and if Loki directs his aim or not. She has Loki hand him the arrow, which he immediately shoots from a bow. She says “Some say he was blind….” Rydberg only outlines the Baldur myth in UGM1, providing evidence and the complete argument in UGM2, published in Swedish in 1889, but not translated into English. So it's probably safe to assume that Litchfield did not read Swedish.

  1890
Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie - p. 375  

Ich weiss nicht, wem die fruchtbare idee gehört, den toten namcu des alten Skäldatals lebensvolle biographien der einzelnen dichter zuzufügen, ob Sigurdsson oder Egilsson. Jedenfalls verdient sio volle anerkennung und dio vollendete tatsache ist der schönste grundstein zu einem corpus scaldicum. Die Zusammenstellungen über die dichter sind rein philologischer natur. Ihre verfassor geben das tatsächliche aus den quellen und bauen mit diesem einen soliden lebensabriss der einzelnen dichter auf Widersprechende nachrichten weiden kritisch beleuchtet und das für und wider einfach aber klar dargelegt. Dabei war freilich dio arbeit des bearbeitors dos lezten teiles eine umfassendere und weitgehendere als bei der bearbeitung dos erston halbbandes. Als dieser bearbeitet wurde,  fand man noch nichts ähnlichos vor, man hatte also keine falschen ansichton zu bekämpfen, sondern einfach aufzubauen. Der bearbeiter des zweiten halbbaudes hatte dagegen bereits Gudm. forläkssons Udsigt und das Cpb. in bänden, mit deren Verfassern er sich öfters auseinandersetzen muste. Und zweifelsohne hat er dies mit ebensoviel geschick als Scharfsinn getau und dadurch manchen oingenisteten fehler beseitigt. Dagegen hätte für die geschichte der skaldendichtung, für eine Schilderung ihres almählichen aufsteigons und ihres verfals noch mehr getan weiden können. Die philologische griiudlichkeit hätte mit dem feinen beobachtungssinu eines V. Rydberg gepaart werden müssen, und wir sind überzeugt, dass dadurch dio skaldendichtung erst auf dio stufe gehoben worden wäre, auf dio sie gehört. Von den drei höhenpunkten eines Egil, Sighvat, Sturla förflarson lässt sich das woito fold schön und klar überblicken. So sehr es auch anzieht, an einzelnen gostalton die arbeitsweiso der Verfasser zu zeigen, so muss ich mich doch mit besprechung nur einiger stellen begnügen.  1890 William Musham Metcalfe, Ruaraidh Erskine

 

The Scottish Review, Volume 15‎,  p. 81

But the conclusions to be drawn from what has now been said are obvious. The formal mythology of the Icelandic literature is not that of the sea-kings who were so long a terror to Europe, and the old method of simply citing passages indiscriminately from the Prose Edda or the Heimskringla in proof of what it was will no longer suffice. These together with the rest of the Saga and Eddie literature, require to be subjected to analysis and criticism, and the native and foreign mythology must be disentangled before anything like a satisfactory idea of the religion and beliefs of the Viking can be obtained. This Mr. Du Chaillu has failed to do; but a beginning has been made by Dr. Vigfusson in a couple of Excursus in his Corpus Poeticum Boreale, and by Dr. Rydberg in that very excellent volume which we have so often referred to and cited. p. 63 The Northmen themselves, according to their older mythology, believed that they were autochthones; but so also have many other ancient peoples. As evidence the belief is practically worthless. On the question of the locality of their original home various opinions are held. Following the Heimskringla, Mr. Du Chaillu places it in the south of Central Europe between the Don and the Dneiper. By others it is placed further to the North and West, and still in Europe; while by others it is placed in Asia. The question is one of considerable interest, and is of course bound up with that of the original home of the Aryan race. This latter question is still undecided, but its present position is well described by Dr. Rydberg, who also gives a full account of the various opinions on the subject, in the following words: ' On one point—and that is for our purpose the most important one—the advocates of both hypotheses [the Asiatic and the European] have approached each other. The leaders of the defenders of the Asiatic hypothesis have ceased to regard Asia as the cradle of all the dialects into which the ancient Aryan tongue has been divided. Whilst they cling to the theory that the Aryan inhabitants of Europe have immigrated from Asia, they have well-nigh entirely ceased to claim that these peoples, already before their departure from their Eastern home, were so distinctly divided linguistically that it is necessary to imagine certain branches of the race speaking Celtic, others Teutonic, others, again, Greco-Italian, even before they came to Europe. The prevailing opinion among the advocates of the Asiatic hypothesis now doubtless is, that the Aryans who immigrated to Europe formed one homogeneous mass which gradually, on our continent, divided itself definitely into Celts, Teutons, Slavs, and Greco-Italians. The adherents of both hypotheses have thus been able to agree that there has been a European Aryan country? (p. 14). This modification of the hypotheses is of importance. It avoids many difficulties which stood in the way of their acceptance in their original form. For the definition of the original home of the Teutons, or of the locality in which the wave of Aryan population which is now known as the Teutonic race, originally settled, and whence, after a longer or shorter period of development, during which it differentiated itself both from the parent stock and from the other European branches, it again spread, it is of the utmost importance. In the hands of Dr. Rydberg it has yielded considerable results. Taking it as his starting point, and availing himself of the aid afforded by philology, he is able to fix with a degree of probability amounting almost to certainty the original Teutonic home. His own account of the matter is too long for reproduction here, but it may be briefly put as follows:  A comparison of the ancient words which to-day are common to all or several of the Aryan-European languages, which, as Schrader observes, are presumably a mere remnant of the ancient European-Aryan vocabulary, leads to the following conclusions respecting the Aryan country in Europe. It was situated in latitudes where snow and ice are common phenomena. Only three seasons of the year—winter, spring, summer—were recognised, the Teutons having no word for autumn. It was a land of mountains, valleys, streams and brooks. It was a land also of trees. The trees known were the fir, birch, willow, elm, hazel, elder, and a beech called bhaga, which means a tree with eatable fruit. From this word comes the Greek ***, the Latin fagus the German buche, and the Swedish bok. But by the Greeks the oak was called ***, while among the Romans fagus was the name not for the oak but for the beech. Hence the word bhaga was applied by the European Aryans both to the beech and the oak since both bear similar fruit, but in some parts it was applied particularly to the beech and in others to the oak. On the continent of Europe the beech is not found east of a line drawn from Konigsberg across Poland and Podolia to the Crimea. ' This leads to the conclusion that the Aryan country of Europe must to a great extent have been situated west of this line, and that the regions inhabited by the ancestors of the Romans, and north of them by the progenitors of the Teutons, must be looked for west of this botanical line, and between the Alps and the North Sea.' Further, the Aryan territory of Europe was situated near an ocean or large body of water. Scandinavians, Germans, Celts and Romans, having preserved a common name for the ocean—Old Norse mar, O. H. German mart, Latin mare. The names of certain sea animals were also common. The Swedish hummer, a lobster, corresponds to the Greek (*** and the Swedish sal, a seal, to the Greek rAaxos. The ass which belongs to the plains of Central Asia was not known ; the cow, sheep, goat and horse were. So also were the bear, wolf, otter, and beaver. One at least, if not two kinds of grain must have been cultivated. Flax also was. The art of brewing mead from honey was known, and that the art of drinking it to excess was may be taken for granted. It is not probable that the European Aryans knew bronze or iron, or if they did know any of the metals, that they had any large quantity or made daily use of them so long as they linguistically formed one homogeneous body or lived together in that part of Europe which is here called the Aryan domain. The only common name for metal is the Latin aes, Gothic aiz, Hindooic dyas, which originally meant copper, and is used both for copper and bronze. A common word for tin is wanting. All the Aryan-European languages, even those most akin, lack a common word for the tools of a smith and the inventory of a forge and also for the various kinds of weapons of defence and attack. The names for weapons in the Greek and Roman tongues are very dissimilar. Still the ancient Aryan used the club, hammer, axe, knife, spear and crossbow—all of which could be made of stone, wood, and horn. It is probable therefore that the European Aryans were in the Stone Age and at best were acquainted with copper before and during the period when their language was divided into several dialects (pp. 14-17).

 

  

1890 Frederick York Powell
 Folklore Society Publications, Vol. 27 

The next book to be noticed is one of much greater importance. It is the Researches in Teutonic Mythology of Viktor Rydberg, translated by R. B. Anderson. This is on one side the most important addition to our knowledge of early Teutonic myths since Grimm. It is a book with a good deal of humanity about it, and though one is far from agreeing with all its conclusions, it is eminently suggestive. The author has studied his Saxo to good purpose, and has been rewarded. The peculiar merit of the author is his sagacity in grasping clues that have escaped others; his weak side is the over-tendency to identifications; yet it must be admitted that the existence of parallel myths in the North has been neglected unduly, and that one must suppose that in the spread of governmental area by the leaguing of tribes into nations, various forms of the same myth would appear side by side, and where the differentiation of the parallels had been great they would tend to survive with the differentiation accented, while where the differentiation was slight they would merge, leaving perhaps in a word or phrase the traces of a brief separate existence.

The first portion of this volume is devoted to a clear and good summary of the mediaeval Trojan hypothesis in its relation to the Scandinavians, and to a review of the earlier native traditions respecting migrations from the North. Next follows an examination into the mythic culture-god or hero, the Teutonic Triptolemus, Sheaf, with an identification of Skelfir-Sheaf and Heimdall, which I should hardly be disposed to admit, and further equations of Skiold-Borgar-Rig-Earl, and of Gram Skioldson Halfdan, the old-Halfdan, Borgarsson-Halfdan Berg-gram, which I think, in essentials, must be accepted along with the ingenious identification of Groa, Orwandil's wife, and Groa, Svipdag's mother, with the considerations it involves. On the other hand, the suggested equation Halfdan-Mannus must fall to the ground, and the reasons that support it are wholly illusory, e.g., Guðormr is taken as Guðhormr instead of Guðhormr, and falsely connected with Hermio. The suggestion that Heimdall was the husband of Sol the sun-goddess will require further proof. The identification of Saxo's Halfdan-Gram with the Eddic Helge Hundingsbane is of course correct. The treatment of the Eddic lay itself is poor, with a curious suggestion that in the lines "Þa es Borgarr [Borgir R.] braut i Bralunde", and "Drott Þotti sa deglingr uesa", the names of Halfdan's father and mother, Borgarr and Drott are preserved; ch. 35 on Svipdag is not convincing. The following discussion on the first war and its incidents, and the hag Gulveig-Heið-Angerboda, is exceedingly ingenious. The adventures of Hadding are next treated, with much skill. But there is too much forcing of analogies in what follows, and to identify Hadding-Hartung with Theodoric of Verona is absurd, though there are false traditions connected with the great king which have some relation with those told of Hadding.
An investigation into the myths relating to the Lower World follows, but its results are too consistent. The fact is that we have existing traditions respresenting not only divergent sister legends of the same type, but survivals from successive strata of very different age, from the most archaic and "petral" to those which are deeply tinged with Christian ideas.

However, one may note the identification Gudmund-Mimer-Modsogner, and the Iranic parallels adduced to explain Mimer's grove by Jima's garden. In his geography of the Teutonic underworld and the equation Hel-Urd which follow, one cannot follow Dr. Rydberg. Chapters Ixix, lxx, Ixxi, on the thingsteads and dooms of the gods, are over-ingenious, and the writer does not seem to understand the curious geography of an old Teutonic mootstead, with its law-hill, or rock or slope, and the fenced ring of seats for the court lying to the east thereof, the two connected by a path, along which the judges pass to the dooming. There follows an examination of the World-mill legends, which is suggestive, but cannot be wholly accepted. The mill traditions are evidently late (because the quern is a late instrument preceded by the pounder, and probably not developed till the regular cultivation of cereals came in), and they are mere outcomes of the desire to explain the salt of the sea and the sand of the shore.
An ingenious equation of Heimdall with Agni as the god of the auger-born fire is to be noticed. The Niðað-Mimer equation is by no means acceptable. An excellent note on p. 486 on Saxo's rules for Latinising vernacular names is to be mentioned, but the speculations on the Moon-god, with much that seems reasonable, include a good deal of forced analogy and doubtful theory. Falr-Balder is a good equation, and there is a clever essay on the legend of the Seven Sleepers.

The third part of the volume deals with the Ivalde Race, and first with Swipdag-Oðr and Freyja-Menglad, and connects the former with the historic Eric, the Swede god, and with Hermod, while Orwandil is made a synonym of Egil and Ibor. The weakness of much of this lies in the ignoring of the patent fact that myths are continually being transferred from a half-forgotten hero to the one fresh in fame, and that round persons like Hnef, Hermod, and Eric old myths crystallise afresh.
Chapter iii sums up admirably the plot of part of Voluspa, and shows the identity of the Vedic legend of Tvashtar and the Ribhas with the Teutonic Sindre-Ivalde tradition. The next chapter deals with Thjasse-Tishja-Rogner. The authority of Forspiallsliod (in the authenticity of which Dr. Rydberg unaccountably believes) is of course more than useless. The analysis of Thorsdrapa is ingenious, even plausible, but it is impossible to build securely upon what is left of this fine poem, so unsafe is the text. The identifications Wayland-Thjasse, Slagfin-Gjuke, are alluring, but one is hardly prepared to assent to them off-hand, while with the guesses about Hengest it is impossible to agree.

In conclusion, one may commend to every mythologist or student of the old Northern literature this bold and ingenious book. It is not easy reading, nor is it easy to criticise, its strength and weakness alike depend upon detail. The author's experience in belles lettres has given him a quick eye for a plot, a delight in character, and a desire to bring harmony out of confusion. No professional scholar of the modern German type would have attempted or could have achieved this book, which, with all its imperfections, contains the most important work done in Northern mythology by a Scandinavian book during the last fifty years.
The next work is of a wholly different character, a book showing on every page marks of methodic training, of wide reading, some ingenuity, and slow, persevering labour, a book deserving careful consideration, and with which one is bound in future to reckon, but not to my mind a book that carries conviction with it. Its thesis is that Voluspá is a book-poem composed in Iceland cir. 1125, in "the first quarter of the 12th century". A careful analysis, commentary, reconstructed text (but no index), make up a volume of 300 pages. (Voluspá, eine Untersuchung, von Elard Hugo Meyer, Berlin, 1889.) While quite willing to admit, as he was himself, that Vigfusson has not said the last word on Voluspa, and entertaining very little of Dr. Meyer's respect for Müllenhoff's work on this poem, it is a large demand that is made upon the reader's faith, and at present I must confess to regarding the thesis advanced as a mere piece of prettily constructed speculation. The striking character of Voluspa as a work of art, and the exaggerated importance as a mythologic authority which its systematic eschatology has given it in the minds of modern readers, have obscured the fact that it has a peculiar and unique position among the other Eddie Lays, that it is isolated in character and tone. It is a work neither of daylight nor dark, in fact, a creation of the passing twilight. But to my mind there is a power, a simplicity, a spontaneity in it that absolutely forbids one to look upon it as the learned product of a reconstructive book-worm of the 12th century in Iceland.

The wide reading and ingenuity of Bugge and the discoveries of Bang have led incautious followers into doubtful tracks. Mediaeval Christianity in Teutonic lands is to a great extent Teutonic heathendom with a thin varnish of Christian ideas, but it is not true that Teutonic heathendom is permeated by Latino-Greek or Judaeo-Christian thought. The fantastic theories of mediaeval book-writers such as Jordanes Dudo, the Editor of what is called the Prose Edda, were not persons who represented the general ideas and feelings of their time, but learned speculators who had no more influence on the thought of the mass of their fellow creatures than the Bishop of Oxford's researches into the British Constitution have on the ordinary member of a Liberal Three Hundred or a Primrose League Habitation. The good old mythology and ritual went on as old wives' fables and charms many a century after, and survive in the fairy-tales and superstitious observances of today.

F. York Powell.
 
 

1890 Detter, Ferdinand
 “Anmálan av ‘Undersökningar i Germanisk mythologi av Viktor Rydberg. Första delen.’ Arkiv  för Nordisk Filologi.    

1891 Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Project Muse American Journal of Philology - p. 361

 No chapter of the Grundriss required more careful discrimination than that treating of Mythology. Not unfrequently the native mists which have enveloped German mythology have become denser by the foggy accretions of researches in this domain. Prominent among these fog-brewers was Simrock, who, not possessing in a high degree the clear insight of his illustrious master, J. Grimm, was too frequently unable to penetrate the great masses of his knowledge. But whatever may have been the shortcomings of the older mythologists, their labors have given unfailing stimulus, which bids fair, with a sounder method in philology and history, to raise up a new generation of investigators whose trained eye can pierce the primeval gloom. Signs of better method (for mythology needs method more than anything else) are to be found in Brer (Germania, 33) and in the article in the Grundriss by Mogk. Mogk maintains that the presentation of the mythology of the German people can be successful only when the "critical sifting of the material," "the grouping of sources under more general points of view," in an "analytical way," have preceded. The author classifies his materials as mittclbar and tmmitttlbar (cf. S. 984). Mogk justly censures the tendency of the Grimm school to regard fairy tales, sagas, customs and usages as "degenerated forms of belief and the last traces of heathenism." Continuing the history of mythological study, the author characteriies briefly the work of W. Muller, A. Kuhn, W. Schwartz, comparing the "meteoric" theory of Kuhn and his school with the "solar" theory of Max Muller, and shows how Mannhardt introduced a new element into the comparison by proving that the same myth may develop in the same period from the same germ among very different peoples (S. 90,1) ; and how E. H. Meyer united the methods of Mannhardt and Kuhn. Then the views of Laistner, Lif.pet, Lachmann, Müllenhoff, Uhland, Bugge and Rydberg are reviewed. Mogk next discusses the relation of Northern to German mythology, regarding the Icelandic mythology as a distinct development, to some extent the creation of the Skalds. The method of separation is good, but further research will doubtless show that the kernel of Icelandic mythology was imported from Skandinavia.    1891 D. Macinnes, Alfred Nutt
Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition  524 pages
"Rydberg carefully distinguishes between the Hades and the Gehenna of the Teutons, both, however, being figured as forming one whole, situate beneath the earth, as Asgard, the abode of the gods, ..."

1891
George H Boehmer
"Prehistoric Naval Architecture in the North of Europe"
Report of the National Museum

Viktor Rydberg' accepts the bronze age theory from a comparison of the shape of the ships decribed by Tacitus,' from Avhose account it will be seen that the ships of the Suiones had stem and stern alike, both offering a front against attack from either side; furthermore, in both an inward curvature existed, while the boats of the bronze age, as illustrated by the rock sculptures, showed a marked difference between stem and stern.

Baltzer, L.: Bohüslans Hållristningar,
1881 (introduction by Viktor Rydberg).

 1891 Elard Hugo Meyer
Germanische Mythologie

[Rydberg's Undersökningar i germanisk mytologi,
Volumes I and II, are cited throughout the text]

 
1892 Book Advertisement

«.—TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY, by Victor Rydberg.
 Translated from the original Swedish with notes by Rasmus B. Anderson (United States Minister at Copenhagen).
"There is no doubt that the book is one of the most original" and valuable contributions to the study of Teutonic Mythology "that have appeared since the great work of Grimm.''—Athenaum.

1891 Nordisk Tidskrift för Vetenskap, Konst och Industri, Volume 4: Review by U. Båath
Undersökningar i Germanisk Mythologi af Viktor Rydberg.

Professor Viktor Rydberg har med den för ej längesedan utkomna andra delen fullbordat sitt väldiga arbete i den Germaniska mythologien. Medan den första delens hufvudsakliga uppgift var att utforska det episka sambandet mellan de särskilda specifikt germaniska mytherna, så utsträckes i den andra delen jämförelsen till myther af fornariskt ursprung; för hvilket ändamål förf. ingått i undersökningar af dels den äldsta Vedalitteraturen, dels de iraniska (persiska) mythkretsarne. Hvad först Rydbergs egen forskningsmetod angår, drages af honom en bestämd gräns mellan mythogoni och mythologi, hvilka bägge hafva olika uppgifter och olika metoder. Den förras uppgift är att söka lösa den psykologiska frågan om mythernas uppkomst. som är en allmänmänsklig fråga, och-att finna de mänskligt allmängiltiga lagarne för deras prehistoriska utveckling — lagar lika giltiga för mongolen och semiten som för ariern. Mythologien på sin nuvarande ståndpunkt har däremot, såsom vetenskap, att behandla de ariska folkens mythkomplexer såsom en grupp för sig, de semitiska folkens såsom en annan grupp för sig, de mongoliska folkens såsom en tredje o. s. v. samt att först efter genomforskningen af hvarje sådan mythkomplex vända sig till frågan om en möjlig beröring och ett möjligt idéutbyte mellan dessa olika mythgrupper. Båda dessa vetenskaper, mythogonien, och mythologien hafva städse lidit och hämmats i sin utveckling, emedan de blifvit konfunderade med hvarandra. Den s. k. väderleksmythologien eller naturmythiken, som under detta århundrade varit den förberskande, visas af Rydberg vara egentligen intet annat än mythogoni, men en mythogoni, som illa fattat sin uppgift och begagnat en oduglig metod och för den mythogoniska forskningen dels otillräckligt, dels olämpligt material. Naturmythikerna, hvilka i gudarne se personifikationer af blixten, stormen, solen, regnet o. s. v., hafva aldrig tagit på allvar, att mytherna, sådana de i den prehistoriska tiden gestaltat sig och sådana de föreligga i den äldsta litteraturen, äro gudasagor, »episka produkter, berättelser om gudarnes frändskapsförhållanden, deras karakteristiska egendomligheter, deras verksamhetssfärer, deras strider för världens värnande mot dämonerna, deras ingripande i det af dem skapade och beskyddade människolifvets öden, deras umgänge med urfäderna o. s. v.» Det har därför ej fallit alla dessa »väderleksmytologer» in att beakta de många intyg, som i de ariska mytherna själfva föreligga om ett episkt sammanhang dem emellan samt att undersöka, huru långt detta samband sträckt sig. Dessa myther förete i episkt afseende begynnelsepunkter och slutpunkter i världens uppkomst å ena sidan, dess förstörelse och förnyelse å den andra; och mellan dessa punkter förläggas så de stora tilldragelserna i guda- och människovärlden: »kulturens uppkomst, strider mellan ordningen och oordningen, mellan det goda och det onda, mellan de heliga krafterna och trolldomens Rydberg menar med skäl, att man då åtminstone borde frågat sig eller, rättare, mytherna själfva, om dessa tilldragelser varit kausalt förknippade och bildat en kedja eller icke. Men en sådan fråga har aldrig af naturmythikerna uppstälts. »Hon,» säger Rydberg, »skulle stört deras cirklar, ty den obesvärade frihet, hvarmed de göra hvilken mythföreställning som helst till uttryck för solens, blixtens, stormens o. s. v. verksamhet, är icke möjlig utan på det villkor, att mytherna betraktas såsom hvar för sig fristående och utgörande tillsammans en kaotisk massa». Den egentliga mythologiens hufvuduppgift är däremot att fastställa den ursprungliga identiteten mellan mythbildningar, som blifvit skilda till tid och rum. Härigenom — och endast härigenom — är det möjligt att uppvisa det tankesammanhang, som naturligen öfverhufvud råder mellan alla mer eller mindre stambesläktade folks arfsägner. Linguistiken har härvid gjort det stora förarbetet. Den har gjort mythologiens vetenskap den icke nog uppskattbara tjänsten att skänka densamma trogna texter med tillhörande läsarter. Gäller det så för forskaren att underkasta dessa historisk kritik och gruppera källorna och bedöma uppgifternas relativa värde efter denna kritiks utslag; hvarefter han har att sammanställa alla fakta, som vidkomma samma myth. Härvid har han att använda två methoder, den nominala och den reala. Den förra användes där det är möjligt att styrka mythidentiteten därigenom, att de gudar och heroer, som i de jämförda mytherna förekomma, bära namn, som, trots deras möjliga yttre olikhet, dock äro att hänföra till en och samma namnform. Den andra methoden den reala, hvars träffsäkerhet är vida större, jämför däremot mythernas sakinnehåll för att därigenom fastställa en' ursprunglig identitet emellan dem. Och dessa bägge methoder måste användas med ständig hänsyn till methodologiens såväl »enkelhetsprincip» som »konvergensprincip» d. v. s. att undersökningen skall utgå från så enkla antaganden som möjligt samt att den har att iakttaga och draga slutsatser af samtliga sakförhållanden, som peka mot en och samma punkt. Blott pa detta sätt uppnas ett fullt tillfredsställande resultat. Rydberg framhåller vidare i det kapitel — »till mythologiens methodik»— hvari han sålunda redogör för sin forskningsmethod öfver hufvud, de tvänne synpunkter, ur hvilka man har att betrakta den del af forskningsmaterialet, i hvilken hedniska och kristna element synas blandade. Hufvudsynpunkten är den historiska kontinuitetens, som följes af Jakob Grimm, den förste som på vetenskapligt sätt behandlade Tysklands språk, litteratur och fornkunskap, af den åldrige lärde mythologen Mullenhoff i Berlin samt Viktor Rydberg själf. Enligt denna synpunkt är ingen trosrevolution — om än så stark som den kristendomen åstadkommit — i stånd att med ens afieda den väldiga strömmen af mythologiska idéer, hvilka genomflutit oräkneliga släktleds själar. Det är därför psykologiskt och historiskt nödvändigt, att mycket i det blandade forskningsmaterialet är af hedniskt ursprung, äfven då det framträder i kristen omklädnad. Den andra synpunkten, som är prof. Bugges, lämnar den historiska kontinuiteten obeaktad och vill i det blandade materialet hellre se kristna idéer i hednisk omklädnad. Rydberg förkastar ingalunda denna senare synpunkt obetingadt men påyrkar den förras methodologiska foreträdesrätt, så länge fenomenen låta sig från henne förklara. — Hvad själfva forskningmaterialet beträffar, är det så fullständigt som möjligt, på samma gång det ordnats i enlighet med den historiska kritiken och synbarligen noga undersökts i minsta enskildheter. En del af detta material, har först af Rydberg blifvit användt. Dit höra ett stort antal historierade berättelser hos Saxo, som fått vittna, sedan de genom analys och komparation blifvit till sitt mythiska skick så långt som möjligt återstälda och sedan deras sammanhang eller identitet med redan förut, men endast fragmentariskt kända, myther blifvit genom användning af den nominala och den reala methoden upptäckt. Till dessa af Rydberg först använda källor hör äfven det mythiska stoffet i de syntetiska omskrifningar, som den nordiska hedendomens historiska dikter innehålla. Till grund för dessa ligger nästan alltid en jämförelse mellan den hjälte, skalden besjunger, och någon mythisk personlighet samt mellan någon af den förres gärningar och någon af den senares. Sådan är Viktor Rydbergs forskningsmetod; sådan hans behandling af materialet, som i hög grad riktats icke minst genom hans från så många skilda håll sammanhopade fynd. — Vi vilja så framlägga de viktigare upptäckter, Rydberg gjort. Han har visat det yttersta ursprunget till medeltidssagan om germanernas trojanska härkomst och om Oden som vandringshöfding; samt att den hos germanfolken i hedendomen rådande föreställningen att de utvandrat från Skandinavien, har förefunnits före Tacitus' tid; vidare att denna föreställning har sin rot i en allmängermanisk myth om mänsklighetens vid ett haf belägna ursprungsland. Han har uppvisat mythen om världskvarnen. Som andra resultat af hans forskning möter man: identiteten af Heimdall och Scef, kulturbringaren, ståndens anherre och germanernas förste patriark, identiteten af Berich (Borgar, Borcharus, Berchter) med Sköld, Scefs son, den andre patriarken, germanernas förste domare, mythen om människosläktets försämring genom trolldomens uppkomst och spridning, hvilket sker genom den »tre gånger födda» Gullveig —- Heid — Aurboda, det ondas kvinliga princip och Lokes motbild; återställelsen af det ursprungliga mythen om Mannus Halfdan, Skölds son (och Thors tillika), germanernas förste konung; mythen om Egils säter, utpost vid Elivågor och Thors natthärberge; identiteten af Ivaldes söner med Völund och Egil; mythen om den första Fimbulvintern, om natursmeders utvandring under Dvalins ledning och germanernas utvandring under Berichs; Fimbulvinterns orsak: den af Loke vållade fiendskapen mellan gudarne och deras klenodsmeder samt mellan de två smedgrupperna, Mimers söner och Ivaldes, inbördes; — Fröj utlämnas af sina fosterfäder till jättevärlden, medan denna äfven är i besittning af Idun och Fröja; mytherna om Fimbulvinterns aftagande och slut med bevisen: a) att det af Völund i Ulfdalarne smidda hämdesvärdet är identiskt med den i Eddasångerna omtalade Gambanteinn, Havuteinn, att det smiddes till gudavärldens fördärf och, sedan Völund blifvit längslad, förvarades i underjorden inuti världsträdet; b) att Groas son Svipdag är son af Völunds broder Egil och att denne är identisk med Örvandel; c) att Mannus-Halfdansagan sammanhänger med mythen om Fimbulvintern — Halfdan, understödd af gudar och mimersmeder, eröfrar från vintermakterna norden upp till Svarins hög, som vid Fimbulvinterns början var utgångspunkten för natursmedernas och svearnes vandring mot söder —; d) att »slaget på isen >, på Moins hedar, vid Svarins hög, ursprungligen äro moment i sagan härom samt att till mytherna om utvandringen och tlen partiella tillbakavandringen knyta sig samtliga de fragmentariskt bevarade vandringssagorna om vandringshöfdingarne och kolonisterna Berich, Ajo, och Ibor, Thjalve, Vifel, Vesete o. s. v. Rydbergs ytterligare forskningsresultat äro dessa: mytherna om Svipdag Egilsson (med binamnen OSr. Skirner, Hermod, Erik), huru han befriar Fröja ur jättevåld, hämtar Gambanteinn i underjorden, tillfogar sin styfFader Halfdan banesår samt slutligen kommer till Asgard, förmäles med Fröja och lämnar som gåfva Gambanteinn till Fröj, ur hvars hand det kommer till Gymer till Eggther i Järnskogen och slutligen till Surt; bevis gifvas dessutom därpå, att kriget mellan asar och vaner uppkom af den anledning, att de förra icke velat ge de senare böter för den dödade och brända Gullveig — Aurboda, ehuru hon blifvit vanernas frände genom Fröjs giftermål med hennes dotter Gerd. Icke minst vetenskapligen intressanta äro de nyupptäckta enskildheterna om Valhalls eröfring genom vanerna, hvad äfven gäller mythen om storkriget i Midgard, d. v. B. kriget mellan Halfdans styfson Svipdag Egilsson, dennes halfbroder Gudhorm Halfdansson och Gudhorms halfbroder Hadding Halfdansson. Slående måste de bevis erkännas vara, med hvilken Rydberg lägger i dagen, att denna myth på det närmaste sammanhänger med mythen om kriget mellan asar och vaner, att de kämpande halfbröderna representera de tre germanstammarne ingevoner, hermioner och istevoner, att Loke deltagit i kriget såsom Gudhorms rådgifvare och fältherre samt att sagan om Dieterich af Bern har sitt ursprung ur denna myth. På dessa återstälda myther och på det samband, de visat sig ega inbördes, grundar Rydberg sin bevisning, att de bilda ett episkt sammanhängande helt samt att gudamytherna och herosmytherna varit liksom i andra ariska mythologier oskiljaktigt förenade med hvarandra. Till dessa nyvunna resultat sluter sig en rad af andra. Rydberg har med skarpsinne framlagt, att de s. k. dsmegir äro de i Mimers land och i Balders borg därstädes under tidsåldrar lefvande Lif och Leifthraser, som skola varda yärldsförnyelsens människosläktes stamföräldrar; att den-jord, som efter världsbranden uppkommer ur hafvet, är Mimers underjordsrike. Därtill har han belyst många hitintills oförstådda eller missförstådda enskildheter i t. ex. Völuspa, Grimnersmal, Svipdagssångerna, Harbardsljod och Skirnersmal. Genom analys af samtliga ställen, hvari ordet Hel förekommer, har han ådagalagt, att Hel såsom person var identisk med Urd, och har han i sammanhang härmed kriticerat den i Snorres Edda förekommande Gylfaginnings kosmologi och eskatologi. Bland smärre enskildheter, som likväl äro af vikt, vilja vi påpeka upptäckten af omskrifningen Sunds — Hdrbarbs för pangbrands i en vers af Ulf Uggeson, hvilken upptäckt afgör den så länge omstridda frågan om rätta sammanhanget af nämda vers. Efter de undersökningar, han sålunda egnat den germaniska mythologien inom hennes eget omrade, har han till sist genom komparativ undersökning af de öfriga bevarade ariska mythkretsarne såsom fornariska återfunnit grunddragen af den germaniska kosmogonien, guda- och hjälteepopéen och eskatologien. Därvid må särskildt anmärkas de många karakteristiska likheterna mellan Thors och Indras karakterer och äfventyr, gemensamheten i de myther, som omtala natursmederna och deras svanemör, brytningen mellan de förra och gudarne och den däraf förorsakade Fimbulvintern. Afvenså har han framstält och gifvit skäl för de yngre, rent germaniska mythernas uppkomst dels under bronsåldern, dels under järnåldern. At de ariska begrafningsbruken egnas ett särskildt kapitel, hvari Rydberg söker visa, att likbränningens införande haft sin yttersta orsak i den allmänna tron på onda dubbelgängare. Rydbergs arbete är utan allt tvifvel ett verk af den största betydelse för den vetenskapliga forskningen. Det är ju alltid möjligt, att en och annan af hans upptäckter icke alldeles oförändrad kommer att utgå ur kritikens skärseld, trots den noggranna och försiktiga omsorg, som den fräjdade forskaren nedlagt på sofrandet af såväl materialet som ock de slutsatser, det gifvit anledning till; men i alla händelser föreligger här ett nationalverk, vittnande om en förening af lärdom, skarp och djup kombinationsförmåga och forskarfantasi af den mest sällsynta art. Såväl vetenskapen som fosterlandet äro förvisso Viktor Rydberg den varmaste tack skyldiga för detta arbete, hvilket fordrat för sitt genomförande ej blott de nyssnämda egenskaperna utan också uppbjudandet af en den högsta andliga kraft och den ihärdigaste möda.

A. U. Bådth.    1892 Íslenzka bókmenntafélag
Tímarit - p. 155 “Um Sæmundar-Eddu og norræna goðafræði, skoðanir Bugges og Rydbergs.” Eptir Benedict Gröndal, pp. 82-169

Rydberg is mentioned throughout the work, including his interpretation of Harbardsljod, where Harbard is Loki, from the second volume of his work. 

 

1892 Stopford Augustus Brooke
The History of Early English Literature:
Being the History of English Poetry

  This is our ancestral myth, the story of the first culture-hero of the North, "the patriarch," as Rydberg calls him, " of the royal families of Sweden, Denmark, Angeln, Saxland, and England. We might say that Sceaf (the Scyld of the poem) belongs especially to England, for it is only in England that this myth has been preserved. It is told, not only in Beowulf, but by four English chroniclers, who add details not given in Beowulf—Aethelweard, William of Malmesbury, Simeon of of Durham, and Matthew of Westminster. The myth lasted then in the popular voice till the time of Henry II., and Rydberg says, with that certainty of a theorist which awakens doubt, that " a close examination shows that these chroniclers, with the Beowulf poem, have their information from three different sources, which again have a common origin in a heathen myth." They describe the boat drawing near the Scanian land, and a little boy asleep in it, with his head on a sheaf of corn, and around him treasures and tools, swords and coats of mail. The boat is richly adorned, and moves without sail or oar. The people draw it ashore, take up the boy with gladness, make him their king, and call him Seef or Sceaf, because he came to them with a sheaf of grain. This Sceaf is the same as the Scyld of Beowulf, or, as Scyld in the poem is the son of Sceaf (Earle translates Scyld Scefing, Scyld of the sheaf), the story of the father is there attributed to the son. Though the tale exists only in these English sources, yet the name Scef or Sceaf is elsewhere found in Northern Saga, and according to statements which may be traced to a Scef Saga, Denmark, Angeln, the north of Saxlaud, Gotaland, and Svealand were ruled by him. " Legend derives from him," says Rydberg, " the dynasty of Upsala." Beowulf, as we have seen, brings all the royal family of Denmark from Scyld, the son of Sceaf, who in the Formanna sogur is called the god of the Scaniaus. Matthew of Westminster says that he ruled in Angeln, and the AngloSaxon Chronicle, in the complete genealogy of Wessex, traces back to Sceaf the origin of the West-Saxon kings. He is also, if we may believe Rydberg,1 the same as Skelfir, in the Icelandic Sagas, who is the progenitor of the Skjoldings and the Ynglings, and is further identified with Heimdal, the Vana god, who, nuder the name of Rig, lived among men for a time, and did for them the same good deeds that Sceaf did for Scania. He is then, it seems, the mythical hero from whom the tribes round the mouth of Elbe, and north of it in Denmark, South Sweden and the islands derive their origin and their civilisation. His story is the myth of the man who first taught them agriculture, and this is signified by the sheaf which is his pillow in the boat, and by his very name. The lines in Beowulf continue the sketch of him as the " culture-hero." When he waxed to man's estate he became, we hear, the king, established law and government, and first welded together from one centre the scattered tribes into a people. " All the folk abiding round had to give him service."  Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology, pp. 87-05. When we have made every allowance for a certain fancifuluess. and for the bias which a well-loved theory creates, this book is a real contribution to Northern mythology, and the myth of one original ancestor hero of the Danes, the English, the Saxons, and others, is rendered extremely probable. The question as to the place where he set up his kingdom, and whence he spread his cultivating influence, also belongs to the myth, and may belong to the larger question — Whence, in distant prehistoric times, came the Teutonic Aryans ? The old Teutonic myth declares that out of Ash and Embla, two trees, the gods made the first human pair. These trees were found upon the seashore, as if they had drifted thither out of the great Ocean. We may infer then that there was a tradition that on some place on the seacoast the Northern race stepped into history. The myth of Sceaf, in all its forms, tells the same tale; and the very region is named. The coast to which he comes from the sea is the coast of Southern Scandinavia. It is in Scedeland, we hear from Beowulf, that this dawn of Northern culture begins. " Scef," writes Æthelweard, " cum uno dromone advectus est in insula oceani quae dicitur Scani." William of Malmesbury and Matthew of Westminster bring him to the same place. When he grows up, he is, however, especially linked to Augeln. In the tale William of Malmesbury heard, Sceaf reigns, in a town which was then called Slaswich, but now Haithaby. Aethelweard tells the same tale—"Anglia Vetus sita est inter Saxones et Giotos, habens oppidum capitale quod sermoue Saxonico Sleswic nuncupatur, secundum vero Danes, Haithaby." According then to the English tradition, Sceaf is our origin; the maker of the old England realm, the root of the English stem, and probably the divine race-hero and then the tribal deity whom the Angles worshipped when they came to Britain. It is in Sceaf then, as I dare to conjecture, and not in Woden, that we English find our earliest origin. He, veiled in the mists of ancient myth, may be our most ancient forefather, our ancestral god. The traditions of English chroniclers enshrine the story, and the ancient lay, of which we here speak, used as the introduction to Beowulf, tells of him — under the name of his son Scyld — of his advent to the land whence our fathers came, of his glory, his death, and his romantic burial. This ancestor-worship was part of the ancient religion of the Angles. The founders of their tribes, the heroes who taught them agriculture and organised war, who had wrought many peoples into one nation, were supposed to be still alive in the hills and barrows where they had been buried, and to have a continual interest in their folk. In process of time they became more and more divine, and the mysterious passage of Scyld after his death into the unknown seas, and his reception by unknown beings, may symbolise his gradual rise from the hero into the semi-divine personage.  1894

Archiv für Anthropologie, Völkerforschung und kolonialen Referate p. 483
8. Bugge, Sophus: Der Runenstein zu Rök und die Spange von Fonnäs.
 —Rydberg, Victor: Die Heldensage auf dem Runenstein zu Rök.

Erfahren unter den vielen Rnnendenkmälern des Nordens manche immer neue Untersuchungen und Auslegungen, so dürfte doch kaum eines Gegenstand so vielseitigen und vielfachen Studiums gewesen sein, wie der Runenstein von Rök in Ostgotland. Nachdem derselbe 1862 zuerst von Peter Säve gezeichnet und von Stephens gelesen war, haben die besten nordischen Runologen sich an ihm versucht, so auch wiederholt Professor Bugge. Die Inschrift ist dunkel in Schriftzeichen und Inhalt. Runen der längeren und kürzeren Zeile und eine Art Chiffreschrift erschweren die Lesung und Deutung. Die in dem 31. Bande (neue Folge Band XI) der Verhandlungen der königl. schwedischen Vitterhets-Historie och Antiquitets Akademie abgedruckte Abhandlung von Bugge ist eine Umarbeitung seiner Eintrittsrede in die Akademie 1885. Auf die gründlichen, erschöpfenden , sprachlichen Erläuterungen einzugehen, ist hier nicht der Ort, ich beschränke mich auf die Mittheilung seiner Auslegung. Diese lautet: „Zum Andenken Vaaraods stehen diese Runen. Aber Warin, der Vater, Hess sie ritzen nach seinem durch des Schicksals Bestimmungen dem Tode verfallenen Sohne. — Wir erzählen allem Volke, welch zwei Beuten (spolie) es waren, die 12 Mal, beide gleichzeitig, von verschiedenen Männern genommen wurden. Das erzählen wir zum andern, wer vor neun Altern bei den Reidgoten zur Welt kam und unter ihnen starb, weil er sich verbrochen hatte.
Einstmals ritt Dieterich, der furchtlose König, Führer der Seekämpfer, über den Strand des Reidmeeres. Sitzt auf gotischem Ross nun gerüstet, den Schild über die Achsel, der Edling der Maeringer. Das erzählen wir zum zwölften, wie das Ross der Kampfjungfrau (der Wolf) Frass auf dem Walplatze erblickt, wo 20 Könige gefällt waren. — Das erzählen wir zum dreizehnten, welche 20 Könige auf Seeland sassen, vier Winter, mit vier Namen, Söhne von vier Brüdern : fünf Namens Valke, Söhne des Rodulf; fünf Reidulv, Söhne des Rugolf; fünf Haaislar, Söhne des Hord; fünf Ganmund, Söhne des Eiern. — Ich habe nach manchen Männern gefragt vollständig.. Wir erzählen allem Volk, welchem Helden ein Sohn geboren ist. Das ist Vile. Wir erzählen allem Volk, wer nun die grimmen Krieger im Lande, die grimmen Krieger unter dem Haselstrauch der Erde (auf der ganzen Erde) in ihrem Blute niedersinken Hess. Er flieht (vor niemand ?). — Biare der Priester ritzte, der weise Runenmeister."

9. Rydberg, Victor: Die Heldensage auf dem Runensteine zu Rök.

Professor Rydberg lenkt dio Aufmerksamkeit darauf hin, dass die Inschrift des Röksteines nicht nur vom linguistischen, sondern auch vom sagenhistorischen Gesichtspunkte eine Untersuchung erfordert, zumal dieselbe nicht nur eine Localsage zu behandeln, sondern mit der Heldensage im allgemeinen sich zu berühren scheint. Sind diese Berührungspunkte so charakteristisch und so zahlreich, dass man daraus sichere Schlüsse auf das Verhältniss der hier in Frage kommenden Sagen zu einander ziehen kann, so verdienen sie eine gründliche Untersuchung. Das Resultat einer solchen legt Verf. vor.

Professor Rydberg sucht und findet dieselben Namen, die auf dem Rökstein stehen, in mehreren nordischen Sagen. In der Fornaldersage sind Rugolf und Harud Brüder. Rugolf's Enkel ist Ogwald. Auf dem Rökstein sind Rugolf und Harud unter den Königen genannt, die auf Seeland sassen, denen Varin feindlich gegenüber stand. Nach der Heimskringla wird Ogwald von Varin besiegt und erschlagen. — Nach der Fornaldersage heisst Varin auch Heckling (= Hegeling). Die Lodbrokiden waren Hegelinge, Söhne und Nachkommen des Varin = Hegeling. — In der ganzen Namen- und Personenreihe der altnordischen Sagenliteratur sind Varin, Rugolf und Harud (Hard) nur in den hier citirten Quellen genannt. Ein anderes Resultat ist, dass der in der altisländischen Sage genannte Varin der Lodbroksage angehört, und dass seine Nachkommen Lodbrokiden sind. Und da, nach dem Verf., dieser Varin identisch ist mit dem auf dem Rökstein genannten Varin, so ist es geboten, zunächst zu untersuchen,

 

1892 William Nicolson
Myth and Religion, or, An enquiry into their nature and relations 

[For Rydberg's Original Essay from Undersökningar i Germanisk Mytologi, vol. II, click HERE] The Methodology of Myths.  "Mr. Victor Rydberg in his great work, has given us a contribution towards the Methodology of Mythology. He opens the consideration of this subject by enquiring whether mythology is a science and is forced to reply in the negative, that it is not. He holds, we fear, with justice, that a multitude of works appearing on this subject, when we consider their logical constitution, or mode of treating the subject, have no proper title to be considered as science. It has seemed to us, that very many of these works are simply collections of myths or mythical stories, that their treatment is sufficiently loose and illogical, and that if we look at the derivative of the Greek word Aoyog as made use of here, it is used far otherwise than in such compounds, as geology, philology, biology etc. etc. Myths are an important part of folk-literature, as the traditional records of the ancient life. Undersokningar i Germanisk Mythologi Vol. II. ss. 428—482.  ...Mythology must be considered to be the comparative study of myths first, in relation to the various groups within themselves, and when this is complete, to compare them internationally, or as between races. Mythogony has a less extended aim. its purpose beiug merely to solve the question of the origin of the myths in the light of psychology, or their pre-historic development, under laws which are alike for Aryan or Semitic. He believes that the confusing of these separate lines of enquiry, has been detrimental to the successful investigation of the objects of both. Mythogony, he considers to be a branch of folk-lore, whose aim is to find the psychological laws in accordance with which the myths have originated.   ...Among other things, the myths ought to be investigated, if possible in the circumstances, and under the local influences, under which they have arisen. They are not to be thrown promiscuously together, but like the plants of the botanist, they ought to be investigated in the habitat, where they have grown. These principles are identical with those which Mr Rydberg cites from Wundt, with approbation of their acuteness and applicability. That myths that have become separated from one another, are to be placed if possible in space and time, in their original relations, this is pretty nearly identical with the rules of mythical treatment which we have quoted from Professor Mogk. Mr. Rydberg proceeds forthwith to apply this principle to the Scandinavian mythical sources, which he perhaps rightly considers to contain a richer material than any other. He would first consider the poems of known authors, which have come down to us from heathen times such as Vellekla, Haustlaung, Thorsdrapa and a fragment in the Skaldskaparmal; second, those Relieved to belong to heathen times, but whose authors are unknown, such as he believes certain poems in the poetical Edda to be; third, songs of the transitional period from heathenism to Christianity, which may also contain some an cient myths worthy of examination. Fourthly, Mr. Rydberg would take out of the heroic poems or even out of the historical, what may be believed to be of heathen origin, but which has been more or less freely handled by the poets and historians, into whose hands the ancient materials have come. Such for example are the first nine books of Saxo's Gesta Danorum, the poems concerning Helge Hjorvardsson, and also Helge Hundings-bane. Lastly, he would examine narratives from a later period, which gives an account of the ancient heathen faith such as Gylfaginning etc. In this investigation, the first thing to be procured are texts as far as possible free from emendations, especially those in which conjectural criticism has been applied, in the use of which, even the greatest scholars may fall into error! When due investigation has been made as to native sources, and the arrangement of the myths in proper relation to one another, then the investigator may pass on to the examination of mythological matter of the peoples with which the Scandinavians were best acquainted, viz. the Anglo-Saxons, the Germans etc. But here also we may fall into error. Heimdall does not appear among German gods, and it is therefore held that he may be taken for a merely Norse local god, and the research led off from the proper point of view. Mr Rydberg questions the accuracy of this conclusion on the ground, that a god may belong to related peoples, such as the peoples belonging to the Indo-Germanic stock, without, nevertheless, being known by the same name! We are inclined to agree with Mr. Rydberg as to his low estimate of local myths, which have in some parts, been much sought after and collected. There can be little doubt that such myths are difficult to estimate at their true value. Mr. Rydberg notices the tendency of myths which have more impressed themselves upon the imagination, to pass into larger myth complexes, or I suppose into what he otherwise calls the epical form. But still there are certain local myths which may be said to possess a geographical character, or which have arisen from certain peculiarities of the landscape, and which therefore deserve that careful examination in their relations to the locality, which Professor Mogk desiderates.  ...Mr Rydberg comments also, as connected with this methodology of myths on two methods which have been followed in dealing with myths, the linguistic so named by Wundt, and the philological. He believes, that the first of these has been greatly over estimated as to its practical value, and frequently carried too far in its application.  ...The application thus overdriven has been to find similarities of a nominal kind between the gods and heroes which are found in kindred mythologies, such for example, as the identity which has been traced between Vata and Vodana, as Slavic forms between Parganya and Fjörgynn, and in Greek and Italian forms between Hestia and Vesta, Juno and Dione etc. Mr Rydberg holds that the same god can appear under differing names and yet in reality be identical. The polyonomy which is believed by certain mythologists to have arisen or been diffused at a certain stage of human development, could easily result in certain tribes having one name for a certain god; while a neighbouring tribe may have fallen upon another. The struggle for existence prevails, as M. Rydberg points out in the regions of mythology, as in other forms of life; and thus one deity happens to obtain a certain name, while another name falls to the lot of another. There are also besides, in these poetic regions, the elements of change to be found, and thus conservative as men are, in relation to such things, one name replaces another. It is thus, that deities having the same or nearly the same attributes bear different names with the Greeks, the Germans and the Slavs. In reference to such gods belonging to the Aryan or Indo-European cycle, the linguistic method already referred to, would seem to be more applicable, though even within this limited area; it may be misapplied as may be seen from the following example. The god Varuna of the Rig-Veda has been taken to be substantially the same as the Uranos of the Greeks. This however Mr. Rydberg believes not to be the case, indeed never to have been the case. To the former of these, no mythical personality is believed to have belonged, not indeed during the time that there was any community of life, between the forefathers of the Greeks and their kindred who retained their Asiatic homes. It was only after the separation took place between the forefathers of the Greeks and their congeners in the uplands of Asia that a mythological signification began to attach to this word. Passing on to deal with the psychological or real method, as dealt with by M. Rydberg in his Methodology, we find that he regards it much more favourably than the linguistic or nominal. This method lays less stress upon names and designations, and more upon similar characteristics. A favour able example is given in tke case of Agni and Heimdall. Both are born of several mothers; both have yellow or golden teeth; it belongs to each of them to belong to the watches of heaven; both are sent over the ocean to bring religion and culture to men; both are patrons of the division of men into different orders or grades of society; both have fought with a demon for the possession of a wonderful ornament and have obtained it. From the similarity of the characteristics thus noted, they would seem to lead to the inference, that both personages are therefore mythically the same, a conclusion which seems confirmed by the further similarity, that Heimdall is sent by the patriarchs to Bhrigu and Manu; while in the other case, the Skandinavian Heimdall is sent to Berich and Mannus. But while M. Rydberg holds fast by the validity of the psychological method, when applied by a sound understanding, he points out at the same time, that the myths to be compared may be of such a general character that their comparison proves nothing, and then passes on to note another incorrect application of the psychological method, which he indicates by the equation S(a + b + c + d) — P (a + b) + P (c + d) as compared with an equation previously given, which he considers to be legitimate P(a + b + c + d & c) = S(a + b + c + d & c). Next applying the illegitimate form, obviously to Professor Bugge's treatment of the Baldr myth, in finding traces in it, not only drawn from Achilles as in the form drawn from Saxo; but also traces from the character of Christ, as in the Icelandic form of the myth, which M. Rydberg holds to be improbable and out of keeping with the proper scientific treatment of the myth. But what if there be such curious additions to mythical characters in point of fact? E. H. Meyer in his treatise on the Voluspa, has pointed out a similar strange mixture, in the character of the god Heimdall as he is referred to in the Hynduljoð and the Voluspa hinni skamma 2.   The principle of the identification of myths which have been broken up into smaller fragments in time and place, adopted by Mr. Rydberg from Wundt  is quite in accordance with rules laid down by Professor Mogk and others. There can be no doubt but that the convergence principle which Mr. Rydberg discusses and gives us an example of the use of, may be followed with advantage in the process of identifying myths, or fragments of myths with one another.   Mr. Rydberg concludes his chapter on the methodology of myths by some observations on the preservation and permanence of myths. He accounts for this permanence by supposing that there may have been priests whose office it was to preserve and transmit in unaltered form the stock of myths or sagas which belonged to the tribe or clan. Such a priesthood, he finds in the Skalds or minstrels who made use of the common stock of traditions and legends, sang them themselves and handed them over to their successors and descendants. This process he believes to have been facilitated by the similarity of linguistic forms in the Indo-European speech. There can be no doubt that there is much truth in this picture of the preservation and transmission of the mythical, legendary and saga forms, which formed the common stock, — the intellectual and poetical wealth of the various peoples into which the Indo-Germanic race were divided. But there is so much that is plausible and even probable, that we must not forget, that there were influences at work which led to the transformation of the mythical sagas, and poetic mythical songs, as well as to their preservation.  Mr. Rydberg himself touches upon these in the course of his enquiry.   The myths which have been reduced to the epical condition, what does this imply? It certainly implies that these myths are generally recognized by mythologists as belonging to the higher or more recent and artificial class of myths. This they owe, doubtless to the treatment they have received from that 'priesthood' who were in possession of an ,,uralt" stock of mythological songs from the time of the beginning of the Christian era, according to the testimony of Tacitus. These priests were the predecessors and progenitors of the skalds and minstrels of a later period; and we know that while they preserved the ancient myths, these myths passed, while in their keeping, through a change analogous to that through which the Grecian myths passed in the hands of Homer and Hesiod, and similar also to that through which the myths, wrought up in the Rig-Veda, are believed to have passed, in the importation into them of a purer and more elevated tone, such as the process of the ages had wrought upon the minds of the skalds and minstrels themselves.   In the transmission of these myths too, through new poetic forms, such as they must, more or less have undergone we know that besides the elements of change which came from the ethical change to which we have already referred, that there was in the working over of the mythical material into new poetic forms, a change also of an artistic kind. This also must have had its effect, as we see that the same materials when wrought up by Oehlenschlager in his "Nordens Glider" [click here for an English translation], differ from the form they take in the Edda. Light is thrown upon these changes in the relation of the rude and savage myths which are believed, we understand universally, to be the oldest mythical forms in Greece, as compared with those which have passed through the hands of Homer or Hesiod, though the latter seems to have been disposed to preserve the older forms. Mr Lang refers as follows to the earlier myths: "The object has been to notice a few of the myths which appear to be the most ancient, and the most truly native and original. These are the traditions preserved in Mystery plays, tribal genealogies and temple legends, the traditions surviving from the far-off period of the village Greeks."    

 1892 Rasmus Björn Anderson
Scandinavian Mythology: The Religion of our Forefathers

TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY, by Viktor Rydberg. Translated from the Swedish, with author's consent, by Rasmus B. Anderson, LL. ... The Younger Edda,' etc. One volume...

 

1892 Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain

... - p. 344  ...By Viktor Rydberg, Ph.D. Translated by RB Anderson. (Swan Sonnenschein, 1889.) 8vo., pp. 706. ... in regard to the emigration from Troy-Asgard) ; reminiscences in the popular traditions of the Middle Ages of the heathen migration Saga. ...

1892 Benedict Gröndal
Um Sæmundar Eddu—og norræna goðafræði, skoðanir Bugges og RydbergsTímirat, vol 13, pp. 82-169

This appears to be a thorough review of UGM Volumes I and II

1892 Adolf Noreen
Ny Svensk Tidskrift
"Fornnordisk Religion, Mytologi och Teologi" p. 172f.


1893 Hugo Elard Meyer,
 Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum und Deutsche Litteratur
March 20, p. 356  p. 327

....gebet zu golt beginnt das meer zu stürmen, alle gebn unter, nur 0. treibt an eine diele geklammert hin und her, ruft nochmals gott und S.V Vieland von Bare an. auf dem sande beklagt er sein und seiner leute loos. — abgesehen von der selbstverwundung Jourdains, die übrigens ebenfalls aus einem spätem motiv des Apollonius nur weitergebildet ist (vgl. Hofmann aao. s. Lv), kehren die hauptmotive des 3., wenn auch teilweise schlecht verschoben , im 0. wider, der sich enger au den A. anschliefst, vielleicht enthält auch SanctWieland von Bare (Augsburger druck; Berger zu v. 480) den Neptun des romans in christlicher und noch dazu entstellter verkappung. denn dieser seltsame meerheilige, in welchem Rydberg eine der Orendelsage von alters her zugehörige Persönlichkeit zu erkennen glaubt1, hiefs im urtext des gedichts sicherlich SNicolas oder Niclas, der als christianisierter Neptun oder Poseidon im mittelalter wie noch heute im östlichen mittelmeere und seit 1087 vorzugsweise in Bari verehrt wurde und wird, nach einer bulgarischen, offenbar aus Griechenland stammenden sage erhält Nicolaus bei der teilung der weit die herschafl über das meer, gerade wie Poseidon II. xv 1 90 im heutigen Griechenland wird er wie dieser als Vorsteher der Schiffahrt, besonders als retter aus sturmesnot, angerufen, auf der statte des Poseidontempels bei Aegae auf Euboea steht jetzt das kloster des Hagios Nikolaos Galalas1, von der Levante und von Italien aus ist er später bei verschiedenen slavischen und germanischen Völkern der schifferpatron geworden5. im j. 1087 baute herzog Roger v. Apulien in Bari die (alte) kirche SNicola, welche die aus Myra in Lycien damals überführten gebeine des heiligen aufnehmen sollte, und 1089 weihte sie Papst Urban IL Peter von Amiens eilte, von der vision Christi getrieben, von Auliochien nach Bari, um in der Nicolauskirche für den erfolg des ersten kreuzzugs zu beten6, in jenen Jahrhunderten war Bari neben Brindisi7 der beliebteste pilgerhafen, wie auch die...  1 Rydberg Undersökningar in germanisk mythologi i 625.    

Als den grundbestand der Orendelsage können wir nach obigem nicht einmal mehr die wenigen von Vogt2 ihr zugeschriebenen drei züge: '1.0. fährt ins riesenland und gerät dort in knechtschalt, 2. 0. gewinnt nach erlangung von ross und schwert im riesenlande die Jungfrau, 3. 0. kehrt aus dem riesenlande heim', ohne weiteres anerkennen; denn riesen, ross und schwert können aus der enlwicklung des Apolloniusromans erklärt werden, wie aus dem Jourdain, der nicht den geringsten Zusammenhang mit der Orendelsage zeigt, ersichtlich ist. aber man muss ja allerdings auch verwarne motive in der alten Orendelsage voraussetzen, weil zum teil der nordische Aurvandilmythus darauf hinführt, und auch der deutsche dichter ohne solche kaum anlass hatte, seinen fremden beiden mit dem altheimischen heroennamen auszustatten, aber ich glaube mit Vogt aao., dass sich diese etwaigen verblassten mythischen züge viel eher aus dem kreise des Jahreszeitmythus eines Svipdag, als aus dem von Müllenhoff reconstruierten und auch von Beer und Berger vorausgesetzten heimkehrmythus eines germanischen Odysseus erklären lassen, vollends aber muss unserm helden die vornehme rolle abgesprochen werden, die er nach Rydberg l als Orendel-Svipdag in einem allumfassenden germanischen mythenepos gespielt haben soll.  p. 191 Harbardssängen jämte grundtexten tili Völuspä. mythologiska undersökningar af dr Fredrik Sander med nägra Eddaillustrationer. Stockholm, Norstedt & söner, 1891. 72 ss. gr. 8°. 2,25 m.* — die abhandlung polemisiert gegen zwei punete: 1) gegen die neuerdings von Rydberg (Undersökn. i. germ. myth. u 296 ff) wider behauptete identität Harbards mit Loki. hierin ist S. durchaus beizupflichten, die obseöne auffassung der Vorgänge am Radseyjarsund sowie die erklärung dieses wortes und Hildolfr werden als verfehlt erwiesen, ebenso Rydbergs versuch, v. 30 auf Idun zu deuteu. dort ist von mehreren frauen die rede, die leinweifse und goldglanzende 8ind verschiedene persoaen, jene geht auf Billings maid, diese auf die tochter Gunalöds. beides ist freilich schon vor S. behauptet, da auch in der Strophe Ulf Uggasons, wie Jonsson hervorhebt, die worte Hárbarð via fjorfir eine Umschreibung für poesie enthalten und auf Loki nicbt gelin können, füllt damit die letzte stutze für Rydbergs behaupteng. es wäre zu wünschen, dass, nachdem so reiches beweismaterial (vgl. Aarb. f. uord. oldk. 1688, 140 ff und Zs. 31, 217 ff) für Harhanlodin angeführt ist, das von Bergmann heraufbeschworene trugbild des Harbardlobi endlich einmal verschwände.

1893 Ferdinand Detter
Review of Elard Meyer's Germanische Mythologie
Anzeiger für Deutsches Alterthum und Deutsche Litteratur,
XIX, April 1893 

"In der Wikingerzeit, welche den gesichtskreis des nordländer? erweiterte, trat die mylhcnentwicklung in ein neues Stadium, in das religionsphilosophische. die mythen werden verlieft und bekommen ethischen gehalt, der einfluss des Christentums macht sich geltend, die alten götler werden immer christlicher, aber die altheidnische religion lebt auch noch in christlicher zeit fort. es entsteht das, was Noreen mit altnordischer theologie bezeichnei, nämlich die systematische bearbeilung von religiösen Vorstellungen, der norden habe zwei solcher Ideologen gehabt, Snorri im 13 und — Rydberg im 19 Jh., dessen Undersökningar Noreen mit köstlichem humor characterisiert."

1893, The Nation
p. 165  KEARY'S NORWAY.  Norway and the Norwegians. By C. F. Keary, M.A., F.S.A. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1892

 The present book, Mr. Keary's latest essay in the exposition of matters Scandinavian, is for the general rather than the special reader. Its purpose and scope aro tolerably well indicated by two live figures contained in the preface. It has been discovered in his intercourse with travellers in Norway, says the author, that, with only the vaguest ideas of the ancient heroic past of the country, their imaginations at once "rose" to words like Edda, and Saga, Viking, Thor, and tho like, as do the salmon of Norwegian streams to the fly of the fisher. The likeness is not carried further, but the inference that the traveller is henceforth to be furnished with a better kind of bait, or, at least, with pabulum upon which more satisfactorily to feed, is strengthened by the other figure at the bottom of the same page. Mr. Keary has, he says, from the information he has gathered together, designedly selected the "plums." But, although this has consciously been done, he has aimed at supplying enough dough to imbed them properly. Of the two the second figure is undoubtedly the better. There are plums in the book of information and of expression, but sometimes they are too deeply imbedded in dough in which a proper measure of the leaven of enlightenment is now and then lacking. All images apart, the author's intention is to furnish the English-speaking traveller in Norway—and his name is legion—with information, usually extremely difficult to get upon the ground, connecting the Norway of to-day with the Norway of the past. Accordingly, his work is in no sense a guide-book. Very little space is given to actual description of the topography or scenery of the country, and none at all to routes of travel. The land in its main physical characteristics is described, but the principal part of the book is devoted to the people, their history, their ancient religion, and their literature, old and new. The last chapter is a contribution by Eva Tindall on the wild flowers of Norway.   Mr. Keary divides visitors to Norway into three classes : those who come for sport, principally fishing; those who come in private yachts, or "yacht steamers," as they are called; and regular tourists. The class first mentioned settle on a salmon river or a lake near the coast, while the second class steam from fjord to fjord, or only occasionally make a short journey inland. Their knowledge of Norway is consequently almost entirely confined to the coast region; and while this coast scenery is confessedly the finest which the country has to show, and in places is grand and magnificent beyond description, it is, after all, but a small part of Norway. The regular tourists of the interior, who, nevertheless, are in a minority, are the only ones who adequately see Norway and tho Norwegians, or even get an idea of Norwegian scenery as a whole. The picture of the country gathered from the fjords is greatly modified by a journey inland, where the rounded hill-tops of the coast are replaced by real mountain scenery, and there is a varying panorama of cultured fields and farmsteads, of lakes and rivers and waterfalls, and of pine forests in grandeur scarcely equalled in any other part of Europe. The traveller, Mr. Keary rightly concludes, both for the sake of the scenery and for a sight of primitive Norway, should not leave the country without seeing at least some parts of it back from the coast. This he can now do with but little personal discomfort or inconvenience, although, out of the beaten track, which is, after all, still somewhat limited, there is enough of both. The section devoted to the land and the people is interestingly written and is plainly based on a somewhat intimate personal knowledge. The chapters, too, on modern Norway, which describe political and social conditions, education and religion, although their information in many instances is necessarily fragmentary, contain much that is valuable and well put, and are, no doubt, adequate for their present purpose, that he who runs, or rather " posts," may read. Theoretically, the author finds in Norway under the Constitution the ideal of a republic where there is no great wealth and no excessive poverty, and where, through the abolition of hereditary titles, there should be a real feeling of social equality. If the condition of the country as he actually does find it is not ideal, it is in some points, at least, not unsatisfactory. There is everywhere an absence of anything like abject poverty, and serious crime in the rural districts is totally unknown, so that in such regions there is no regular system of police or gendarmerie. There is a fair condition of popular education, and the vice of excessive intemperance has been met and successfully grappled with. There is still a very large proportion of illegitimate births. With Ibsen's pictures of the people of Norway in his social dramas the author does not at all agree. Ho does, however, find the narrow bureaucracy of the towns that Ibson is so fond of satirizing, and, instead of an expected social equality, a rare chase for Government office and official title for the sake of the distinction they confer. The following chapter, on modern Norse literature, is occupied principally with Bjornsen and Ibsen, the former, in a new characterization, being styled " The Muscular Christian of Norway" and compared with Charles Kingsley—a juxtaposition that would probably as much astonish the poet himself as it will any one who knows him and his work. Mr. Keary dwells at greatest length on ancient Norway, its histor3r, mythology, and literature. Of the three topics, the history, from Harold Pairhair down, has been treated most fully and circumstantially. One may get from it a good idea of political influences and results, and descriptions are helped out by quotations from the historical sagos. These chapters are well digested and not too abstrusely written, as befits their popular purpose. They contain, furthermore, many of the plums spoken of in the preface. There are, however, a few inaccuracies of statement and one or two downright errors. The following, for instance, is a lapsus calami whose occurrence it is quite impossible to understand. In the account of the reign of Hakon Hakonsson we are told in unmistakable terms that "Hakon really incorporated Iceland with Norway—a union which has lasted ever since." Iceland, as we all know, fell with Norway under Danish sovereignty in 188S, and although some few of the first officials under the new regime were Norsemen, Danish influence, political and social, has been paramount there ever since. The chapters on the ancient literature, which include also an account of the Edda mythology, are the least satisfactory in the book. The mythology contains, perhaps, in some form or other, the principal material from the Eddas, but it is given in a haphazard and unsystematic way. The purpose to give a picture of the Northern mythology based solely upon the ancient poetry might be, no doubt, from some points of view laudable, but it is impracticable and unwise for the work in hand, for it is utterly impossible to get even a tolerably complete idea of the old mythology from the poems alone. The picture proves to be merely a series of studies without cohesion or correlation. Some of the statements show a close reading of Rydberg. The desire to be "popular" crops out here and there. On page 99 we are told, for instance, that "there is no 'highfalutin' about Thor." It may be more than suspected that those imaginations which are ready and willing to "rise" to names of the old gods will, after all, in some cases refuse the author's new flies. The account of the ancient literature itself has, even more than the mythology, an encyclopaedic character. It is unmistakably that part of tho subject in which tho author has read least, and many of its statements are hasty and ill-considered, while not a few are absolutely wrong. There is a certain advantage, to be sure, in this sort of knowledge, since it enables a writer to deal in an off-hand way with mooted points which would else require careful statement. The whole vexed question of the place of origin of the so-called Eddie poems is, in this manner, disposed of in a single paragraph, where the conclusion is arrived at that the scene of this development of Northern verse was in some part of the Norse colonies of the British Isles. "Nay," says the author, "we may say, almost for certain, that it had its origin eithor in the Scottish or Irish settlements." This is, of course, Vigfusson's well-known theory, and as such is worthy of consideration. It may even bo true of single songs, but it is, after all, an unsubstantiated theory, whose greatest support consists principally in the boldness of the assumption. In the statement of the likeness in form of the earliest Germanic verse everywhere a curious mistake occurs. The au thor, namely, cites the German " Hildebrandslied," from which he quotes, as he says, "the passage where Hildebrand mourns over the son he has slain by his own hand." The last verse cited in reality is: "Now shall my own child smite me with the sword." The " Hildebrandslied " is only a fragment and the end is missing. It may possibly have had such a tragic termination as the author supposes, but the poem iteelf leaves us in doubt as to the outcome of the combat. The chapter on the sagas is devoted principally to Iceland, and there is a long quotation from the Njals saga, perhaps the most national of them all. This was hardly necessary, since, although the saga in its development was principally or even almost specifically Icelandic, its scene of action was not infrequently Norway, and its descriptions are often of Norwegian affairs and conditions, which would have been much more appropriate in a book on Norway. In the historical part of the book, the Icelander Snorri's " Lives of the Kings of Norway " in the ' Heunskringla' are necessarily cited. In the chapter on the sagas, we are told that for his material " Snorri seems to have been very largely indebted to the court ballad poetry." If we may believe his own statement in the preface to his. history, he undoubtedly was. ''Part is written down after old songs and ballads," he says. "We rest the foundations of our history principally upon tho songs." If, as appears from the foregoing, there are blemishes in Mr. Keary's book, there aro parte, nevertheless, which aro admirably written. Mr. Keary, it must be remembered, is abovo all a writer of history, and the historical chapters, with those on modern Norway, would, taken alone, have amply justified the volume. As a whole, however, the work is too hastily done to be well done, and in places it needs a rather careful revision.

1893
Advertisement in endpapers of
The Social Horizon  by George F. Millin 1893

 
6. Teutonic Mythology: By Victor Rydberg, Ph.D. Translated from the Swedish by Rasmus B. Anderson, LL.D., United States Minister to Denmark, author of "Norse Mythology," "Viking Tales of the North," etc., etc. "An indispensable part of the mythological library. . . . Students who neglect it will do so to their own blame and loss. ... A solid piece of hard work."—Saturday Review.

1893  William Musham Metcalfe,
The Scottish Review - p. 237 ICELAND. TlMAKIT HINS ISLBNZKA BOKMENNTAFJELAGS.—(1892. Vol. 13.)

 Review of some foreign books about Iceland and Icelandic literature,' by Dr. Valtyi Gudmundsson, deals principally with Prof. Bugge's theories on Northern Mythology. Ernst Baasch's ' Die Islandsfahrt der Deutschen,' etc., in ' Forschungen zur hamburgischen Handelsgeschichte,' Vol. I., and Arthur Reeves ' Finding of Wineland the Good,' together with some pertinent remarks on William Morris's translation of the ' Saga of Howard the Halt.'—Benedict Grondal's article 'Saemund's Edda and Northern Mythology: the views of Bugge and Rydberg,' is interesting and sometimes humorous.—Thorkel Bjarnason gives a sketch of Icelandic life, 'Forty years ago.'—Janus Jonsson discusses the verses in the Saga of Horder Grimkelsson, and Grimur Thomson contributes a translation of Pindar's second Olympian Ode.   

1893  William Widgery Thomas
Sweden and the Swedes - p. 40

One day I took a little steamer south along the coast thirteen miles; thence a carriage conveyed me over picturesque, wooded hills. Among the foliage on a high slope I soon caught sight of the pretty countryseat, Billdal. Three flags—American, Swedish, and Norwegian—were flying in perpendicular line from the single flag-staff upon the tower. The breeze was strong, the flags flew straight out, and the stafi buckled and swayed under its threefold burden. And who was that up on the tower, waving his handkerchief in welcome, but Victor Rydberg himself! Now we wheel up across the graveled yard, and Victor claps me on the shoulder; and there is his charming little wife on the winding staircase, and her father and mother just beyond, and lots of relatives streaming forth to greet me. And so we sat down to a grand dinner; and there were toasts for America and Sweden, and good old times, and for everything else anyone could think of. And after a right royal evening of it, I was escorted to the guest’s chamber that looked out over the hills of Billdal to the distant sea asleep in the moonlight. Next morning I awoke with the consciousness of a presence in the room. Upon my word, there was a pretty maid, with a pretty kerchief about her head, rifling the pockets of every garment I possessed! You, gentle reader, would have been frightened, no doubt, but I was only reminded of the good old times. The maiden fair places pocket-book, watch, knife, and keys on the round centertable, and departing with clothes and boots, soon reappears ‘with them nicely brushed. Again she comes softly in with a carafe of fresh water from the spring, and bottles of Seltzer, and places them on the little stand at the head_ of the bed. “Oh, yes, the day is quite pleasant,” she says; “and will Herr Minister have the curtains raised? ” And so she cosily moves about, as Swedish house-servants always do, putting everything to rights, and makes her final appearance with a tray on which are placed a cup of steaming coffee and little squares of sugar in a baby glass saucer, rich cream in a thimble-sized pitcher, and little rolls and cakes. ' Victor Rydberg is easily the first living prose writer of the kingdom. He is a profound-scholar as well, and the deep and searching investigation he is now giving the myths of Germany and the N orthland promise to throw new light not only upon the story of Scandinavia, but of the entire Aryan race. One day in Stockholm I dropped into a bookstore and inquired for the latest good Swedish novel. The proprietor, after some thought and much fumbling among the books, handed me a copy of "The Last Athenian,” by Rydberg. “ But bless you,” said I, “this can’t be new. I translated it into English more than twenty years ago.” “ Very true.” answered the book-seller; “ but we’ve had nothing as good since.”

FOLK-LORE
A QUARTERLY REVIEW OF
MYTH, TRADITION, INSTITUTION, & CUSTOM
Vol. V—1894
W. P. Ker
"The Roman Walewin (Gawain)"

In the second Gaelic version the Princess is the Sun Goddess (or Sunbeam? Campbell, ii, p. 357 ), daughter of the King of the Gathering of Fionn. This would seem to connect the story with the myth of the quest for the Sunbright unknown maiden, oversea—the story of Frey and Gerd; of the Danish ballad of Child Svendal, as of its original the Fiölsvinnsmál; of Alfhild in Saxo (cf. Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology, p. 113); of Orendel and Bride, in the middle High-German poem; of Conall Gulban and his search for "Breast o' Light"; and of the King's Son of Ireland and the daughter of the King with the Red Cap, in Macdougall's Tales (Celtic Tradition, iii, p. 145). It is the same story that recurs again in Walewein: the princess recognises Gawain, as Svipdag is recognised by Menglad. Even if the story of the various minor quests, for the chessboard, or the blue bird, or the sword of light, have no necessary connexion with the myths of Alfhild or Menglad, which is the myth of Berecynthia (Hjalmar Falk, Martianus Capella og den nordiske Mytologi, Aarbog for nord. Oldkyndighed, 1891), it was inevitable that the popular story of these adventures should come, in some of its aberrations, within the orbit of the oldest romance and most famous quest in the world—the story of the Princess at the World's End.  

22 Juli 1894.
Olrik: Anmälen [Review]
Leipzig-Gohlis  H. Hirt.

The first nine books of the Danish history of Saxo Grammaticus translated by Oliver Elton. With some considerations on Saxo's sources, historical methods, andfolk-lore by Fr. Tork Powell. (Publications of the Folk-lore Socidy No. XXXIII) London, David Nutt, 1894. cxxviii, 436 s. …Om det mytologiske afsnit skal jeg fatte mig kortere. Det gengiver stadig Rydberg, således at forf. forkaster enkelte af hans tydninger men slår sig til ro med de fleste af hans mere væaenlige sammenstillinger; desuden handler et indledende og et afsluttende stykke om mytedannelsen i det hele. Disse betragtninger grunder sig på nyere engelske videnskabsmænds opfattelse af myterne som en mængde forsøg på forklaring af naturlivet, foregående stadig hos folkeslag med primitiv kultur. Forf. har næppe været sig klart bevidst, hvor langt hele denne tankegang ligger fra det uhyre gudeepos, som Rydberg konstruerer, hvor myterne aldrig får lov til at være det de er på folkemunde, men omdøbes til en lille vanskabt del af de rydbergske myter. — Forf:s store forkærlighed for disse hypoteser vilde endda være forholdsvis uskadelig, om den indskrænkede sig til den paragraf, der hedder Ihe Mythology; men vi finder Rydbergs forklaringer med alle deres sprogfejl anvendte i tekstens noter, og alle de mytologiske afsnit af Folk-lore Index optager dem på lidet heldig måde. Det er endda en uskyldig förnöjelse at opregne en række af Sakses Fröia-myter (på Rydbergs autoritet), skönt Sakse slet ikke kender gudinden Froja; men det er værre, når Rydbergs hypoteser udgives for Sakses tekst. Der f. eks. en viking Liserus, med hvem fladding på, Odins opfordring indgik fostbroderskab. Så fik Rydberg den tanke, at Liserus betød Lysir (hvad der er sproglig umuligt) og gjorde ham til "lysbringeren" — "Heimdal den hvideste af aserne". Forf. omdøber ham til Odin, og vi læser iblandt Odins-myter (s. lx): "As Lysir, a rover of the sea, he [Odin] helps Hadding", — skönt han ikke hedder Lysir, og skönt selve den "enöjede gubbe" står ved siden af som en fra vikingen forskellig person. Et andet eksempel har vi i Erik den målspage, der hos Sakse og Islændingene er en yderst menneskelig helt fra det sydvestlige Norge, men hos Rydberg er en dublet af Svipdag, der opsøger sin fortryllede fæstemø i jætteverdenen.  

           

1895 Mrs. Woods Baker
Pictures of Swedish Life: or, Svea and her children - p. 70

Among the rural homes clustered at lovely Djursholm, there is none more proudly pointed out to Swede and stranger than that of Victor Rydberg, the most famous of Swedish living authors. This home, like a true eagle's nest, is perched high above the walks of men, where the poet can look out on forest and inlet, as he sits in his study and ponders great thoughts.

Even in an aristocratic country a man from the people can be a kind of king, the first among his fellow-citizens, and elected to the highest eminence by the unanimous voice of his countrymen. Such a position is awarded in Sweden to Victor Rydberg.

We had almost said that Victor Rydberg was a selfmade man. He is rather a God-made man. Gifted from childhood, left early an orphan, he began alone his struggle with life. He soon found that his head was a better reliance for daily bread than his friendless, untrained hands. By teaching other boys, and using his skilful pen, he got on as best he could, until his rare gifts compelled admiration, and won for him friends who rejoiced to lovingly smooth the path of the brilliant youth. He is now happy in a home of his own, a professor of the University of Stockholm, famous throughout the civilized world, and almost adored in his own land.

Rydberg is no spoiled, conceited author. His simple, modest nature is too noble to be so tainted. One feels; in his presence, that he is a great man, but a great man not locked up in himself, but full of loving human sympathies. He is shy and quiet and retiring, until some kindred subject warms him into lively conversation, and brings out his brilliant powers. Rydberg is a true friend and lover of the people, and a strong reliance for struggling youth and suffering humanity. Rydberg has a refined woman's sensitiveness as to what is true and honest and pure and tender, and a love for little children that draws them about him as they would cluster in the sunlight.  Such is the man. As a poet, one must look up to him as one far raised above the common ranks of his fellows. We think of him as of the Amazon among rivers,— that great flood that springs from the solemn, rocky heights of the snow-clad Andes, and makes its way, now through wild tracts that bold explorers are seeking to map out, and now by the haunts of men, to pour at last its volume of waters, itself like a pure ocean, to meet the surging Atlantic.  

Translated into many languages, "Roman Days," "The Last Athenian," "The Armorer," etc., have established Rydberg's fame as a deep prose writer. As for his poetry, only a nightingale can sing a nightingale's song, and only Rydberg could properly translate his own poetry; and even then, in another language it could never be so a part of himself as when coming in its natural form from his thoroughly Swedish heart.  

1895 Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia: a new edition

Rydberg, Abraham Victor: author; b. at Jönkoping, Sweden, Dec. 18, 1829; educated in the Latin school of Wexio, studied at the University of Lund, and was for many years editor of Göteborgs Handels- och SjSfartstidning, one of the most influential papers of Scandinavia. He has published several translations (Goethe's Faust) and novels, among which Den siste Athenaren (The Last of the Athenians, 1859), a picture of the last contests between Greek paganism and Christianity, was translated into German and English; several poems characterized by finish and originality; a number of u;sthetical and historical studies, Venus frdn Milo (1874), Romerska dagar (1875-77), etc.; and a series of works belonging to the philosophy of religion—Iiibelns Idra om Krislus (The Teaching of the Bible about Christ, 1862), Medehilidens magi (Magic of the Middle Ages, 1864), Romerska sagnar om Aposllarin Pauhis och Pttrus (Romish Legends about the Apostles Peter and Paul, 1871), Urpatriarkernes tafia i Genesis (The Primitive Patriarchs' Tables in Genesis. 1873), etc. His Undersokningar i germanisk Mythologi (1886: Eng. trans. 1889, under the title Teutonic Mythology) is a brilliant but wholly unscientific work. Revised by 1). K. Dodge.  

1895 Kuno Meyer
The Voyage of Bran, son of Febal, to the land of the living, - p. 307

Odainsakr in Norse Mythology.  Of far more moment is the relation of the Scandinavian accounts of Odainsacre and the journeys thither with the mythical system vouched for by the mythological poems, the Skaldic Kennings and Snorre's thirteenth-century exposition (in the prose Edda) based upon these and other authorities now lost. Practically, the only scholar who has investigated this question is Viktor Rydberg. The brilliant ingenuity, the subtle insight, the capacity for divining and sympathising with the mythopceic faculty displayed throughout his work, render it one of the most fascinating in the whole range of mythological research. But in dealing with his reconstructions of Norse mythology, it is always doubtful if we have before us what the Teutonic theologian-poets really believed, or what a man of genius familiar with the results of nineteenth century research thinks they must have believed. With this preliminary caution I proceed to briefly state his theory.1 1 Of course the possible influence of the Odyssey hinted at, supra 299, would likewise account for the Maelduin episode. The Volospa summarises the history of the Universe in the terms of Norse mythology. It describes the creation of the material universe, the creation of man, the strife among the god clans with its consequent train of moral and physical ills, culminating in the final disappearance of the present order divine as well as human, to make way for a brighter and better world. But where were the inhabitants of this world to come from? The survival of part of the kin of the gods is expressly provided for. How about man? The existing race is ex hypothesi corrupt and unfit to inhabit the new universe. Provision is therefore made for the seclusion of a human pair, Lif and Leifthraser, before the human race has suffered corruption, in a land into which death cannot enter, a land free from all ills, from which, after the final catastrophe which is to overwhelm both Asgard and Midgard, i.e. the existing polities both of gods and men, they are to issue and repeople the Universe. This land is Odainsakr, the acre of the not dead, jort lifanda manna, the earth of living men. It is guarded by the seven sons of Mimer, the giant smiths who fashioned the primeval weapons and ornaments; these, sunk in a deep sleep, which shall last until the Dusk of the gods, when they awake to take their part in the final conflict between the powers of good and evil, and to ensure the existence of Odainsakr, rest in a hall wherein are preserved a number of products of their skill as smiths, as also Heimdall's horn, the blast of which is to summon the gods and their allies against the impious kin of Loki. The mortals who have penetrated thither and sought to carry off these objects, necessary in the final conflict, or to waken the sleepers before the destined time when, Asgard and its inmates having disappeared, upon them alone rests the hope of a rejuvenated world, these mortals are punished by death or dire disease. When Christianity supplanted the Asgard religion, Mimer, lord of the grove where dwell Lif and Leifthraser nourished upon morning dew, suffered the same change as did so many of the deities of classic paganism. From being a wholly beneficent being, he takes on a half demoniac nature, and, as Gudmund of the Glittering Plains, comes before us in later sagas profoundly modified in their passage through the minds of Christian writers, wearing a strangely enigmatic aspect. Rydberg's reconstruction of this, as he deems it one of the essential elements of the mythology, derives its chief support from comparison with an Iranian myth found in the Avesta. Before passing on to the consideration of this and other expressions of the Happy Otherworld conception in Iranian mythic literature, it may be well to briefly note the resemblances and differences between the Irish and Scandinavian accounts of the wonderland apart from any hypothetical mythological signif1cance attached to the latter. It is less essentially in Scandinavia than in Ireland, the Land of Heart's Desire; even in the story of Eric the traveller it is disparaged by comparison with the Christian paradise, whilst in the other stories its proximity to the Northern Tartarus and the uncanny semidemoniac nature of its inmates, are far more prominent features than are the joys and delights of their realm. Again, whilst in many Irish stories the Otherworld is differentiated from this by the fact that the wanderer who returns thence at once falls subject to mortality and decay, in Scandinavia death and disease are his portion who partakes of the food or accepts the love offered by its denizens. In this respect the Irish account differs not only from the Scandinavian and later Greek, but also with current folk-belief both of the backward classes among the civilised races and of a number of the uncivilised races. Current folk-belief in Ireland is as strong as elsewhere against partaking of fairy food or joining in fairy revels, and yet, as we see, Irish mythic literature is full of the delight of Faery. This instance may be commended to those who look upon folk-belief as wholly a product of literature. The geographical relations of the two worlds differ greatly in Ireland and Scandinavia; in the former the Otherworld is definitely placed in the realm of the setting sun, or vaguely located within the hollow hill; in the latter a systematised eschatology has left its mark upon the accounts of Gudmund's land; it is as much a part of the Underworld as the post fifth-century Greek Elysium is a part of Hades, and to obtain access to it the mortal has to travel northwards. Scandinavian legend does not insist, as does Irish, upon the amorous nature of the Otherworld inhabitants; its princes do not come wooing mortal maidens, its ladies are not fain of mortal lovers. True, this element is not altogether lacking in Scandinavian mythic saga, but it has assumed a different aspect, and manifests itself at a different stage of mythic development. In the stories of Helge Thoreson or of Thorkill, Gudmund's daughters lack the independence, the initiation, the sense of personal freedom and dignity displayed by Fann, or the damsels who seek out Bran and Connla. In all these respects the Scandinavian stories approximate more closely to the later, the Irish to the earlier, aspects of Greek mythology. The ideal of a god's land, untouched by ethical speculation, standing in no moral relation to the world of men, has been transformed in Scandinavia to meet the requirements of a highly developed mythological system. Its original signification has been further obscured, thanks to the fact that the stories in which it found expression have suffered the alien influence of Christianity. Nevertheless, the primitive elements persist to a larger extent than might have been expected. The land is still one of simple sensuous joys, its inhabitants are still eager to welcome and retain mortal visitors.  Iranian Mythic Literature. The Iranian mythology to which Rydberg has appealed for conformation of the myth concerning the future inhabitants of the world, and their present existence in a land of delights where death may not enter, is, as found in the Avesta, in a more advanced stage of development than the Eddaic. Whether on the cosmological or the eschatological side, it is as highly organised as the Hellenic mythology. The cosmology, as is well known, is extremely elaborate. The creative impulse works through the medium of many subordinate powers. Among the beings who play a necessary part in the scheme of things, is Yima, a glorified Adam, conceived of not only as the first man to whom Ahura Mazda revealed his law, but as an abiding representative and guide of humanity. The second fargad of the Vendidad tells how Ahura Mazda confided humanity to the care of Yima. ' Multiply my creatures, cause them to grow, have charge of them, rule them, watch over them.' Yima accepts and answers: ' In my realm there shall be neither cold wind nor hot wind, neither sickness nor death.' In token of his empire Ahura Mazda gave him a golden seal and a gold-incrusted sword. Time passes, and thrice Yima has to enlarge the habitable earth to make room for the increase of human and animal life. After 900 years Ahura Mazda warns Yima that an evil winter, a hard killing frost, shall come upon the material world. The animal world is to take refuge in underground shelter. Yima is to construct an enclosure some two miles square, and to transport thither seed, the largest, fairest and best of cattle, small and large, of men, of dogs, of birds, of red and blazing fires, also of plants and fruits, and there they shall remain.' And there shall be there no crooked person or hunchback, no impotent or lawless man, no wicked or deceitful, no envious or jealous person, nor any man with ill-formed teeth, or any leper, or marked with any of the signs which Afigra Mainyu (Ahriman) puts on mortals.' Yima did as he was bid, and in that enclosure the one thing lacking was the sight of stars and moon and sun, and a year passed as a day. Every 40 years there was born offspring to each couple, human or animal. 'And in Yima's enclosure men led the fairest of lives.' Thus the mythic literature of the Aryan inhabitants of Persia know of three blessed regions—the dwelling-place of humanity at the beginning of time or the Iranian counterpart of the Hesiodic golden age; Yima's enclosure in which life is stored up during a catastrophe which would otherwise destroy it, the Iranian counterpart, according to Rydberg of the Scandinavian Odainsakr in which Lif and Leifthraser await Ragnarok and the destruction of the existing order of things; and a heaven to which the righteous go after death.  

1895 Mandell Creighton, Justin Winsor, et al.
The English Historical Review, Volume 10‎ - p. 145

Dr. Rydberg takes a very different view of the mythological situation (see his 'Teutonic Mythology,' translated in 1889). He regards Swipdag, the slayer of Gram and the deadly foe of Gram's son Hadding, as the earthly representative of Frey and the other Vana-gods, whilst Hadding fights on the side of the Asa-gods. At last Hadding finds that the Asas have deserted him, and that he has offended the Vans by killing the sea monster (which is nothing less than Swipdag himself), and so he forces himself to sacrifice to Frey.  Dr. Rydberg mentions elsewhere the stanzas of Niord and Skathe, and makes a slight allusion to their appearing in Saxo, but he draws no deduction from their being attributed to Hadding and his wife. Mr. Powell, in like manner, only says, 'That Saxo' attribution is, when it differs from Icelandic attribution, wrong, is pretty clear in such a case as that of Hadding's verses, for the authority of the prose " Edda " is unquestioned.'7 Perhaps, then, the whole episode may have been a mere piece of embroidery used by a narrator to adorn the Hadding legend, and perhaps the same might be said with regard to other passages that have engaged the more serious attention of modern mythologists. In a part of Mr. Powell's section on ' Mythology' (§ 9, pp. cxv-cxxvii) he makes good use of Dr. Rydberg's really wonderful volume. He gives a summary of the long discourse on the Swipdag myth (so far as it relates to Saxo), and he accepts the most important conclusions. At the same time he objects to one or two of the minor points. For instance, he says,' The identification of Swipdag with Hamlet, " Teutonic Mythology," 572, is not at all convincing.'8 I will here mention one more point (only a small detail) upon which Dr. Rydberg and Mr. Powell are agreed, whereas I am compelled to differ from them. Dr. Rydberg thinks he has reason for identifying Alf Sigarsson, of book vii. (see p. 274), with the white god, Heimdal; and he adds that Saxo's description of him confirms this conjecture, for 'rays of light seemed to issue from his silvery locks.', But surely the words of Saxo need not be taken to imply anything supernatural. They are, Cuius eciam insigiiem candore cesariem tantus come decor asperserat, ut argenteo crine nitere imtarctr. And nothing more is said about it, except that Alfhild is captivated by the beauty of the youth.  

1895 Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia: a new edition‎ Johnson, A. J., Company, A.J. Johnson & Company, p. 338

 The most prominent writers on Scandinavian mythology of the nineteenth century are Finn Magnusson, Lexicon Mythologicum (Copenhagen, 1828); Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie (4th ed. 1875; an Eng. trans, by Stallybruss London, 1880); Karl Simrock, Deutsche Mythologie" (several editions); Wilhelm Mannhardt, Germanische Mythen (1858); P. A. Munch, Nordmandenes Gudelare i Hedenold (Christiania, 1847); R. Keyser, Nordmandenes Religions forfatning i Hedendommen (Christiania, 1847); N. F. S. Grundtvig, Nordens Mythologi (Copenhagen, 1808-32); N. M. Petersen, Nordisk Mythologi (Copenhagen, 1849); Benjamin Thorpe, Northern Mythology (London, 1851); Rasmus B. Anderson, Norse Mythology (5th ed. Chicago, 1891). Finally, special attention should be called to the elaborate investigations made since 1880 by the Norwegian linguist Sophus Bugge (Studier over de nordiske gude- og helte-sagns Oprindelse. Christiania, 1890) and by the Swedish scholar Viktor Rydberg (Undersokningar i germanisk mythologi (Goteborg, 1886-90). Bugge attempts to show the influence of classical mythologv and early Christianity upon Scandinavian myths, while Rydberg, in opposition to Bugge, vindicates the exclusive Teutonic origin, and seeks to establish the harmonious connection between the various myths as parts of an all-embracing mythological epic. In his conflict with Bugge he is ably supported by the German scholar Mullenlioff (Deutsche Alterthumskunde, vol. v., 1883). An English translation of Rydberg's work by R. B. Anderson appeared in London in 1889, and bears the title Teutonic Mythology.

1896  Jessie Laidlay Weston, The Legends of the Wagner Drama

Since concluding the above study the writer has met with Professor Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology, containing an interesting and carefully worked-out theory of the origin of the Nibelung Hoard. As the theory suggests an explanation of some of the points noted in these studies, an abstract of it may be of interest to the reader. Rydberg identifies the sons of Iwaldi, who were cunning workmen, and adorned Asgard by their skill, and wrought golden treasures for the gods, Odin's spear among them, with Volund (Wieland) the smith, and his brothers, Egil and Slagfinn. At first friends and servants of the gods, they quarrelled with them on account of their work being judged inferior to that of Sindri, who forged Thor's hammer; and went forth from Asgard to the lower world, where they forged a wondrous 'sword of victory,' with which to attack the gods, who try by every means to get the sword into their own hands. (If Wieland be really identical with the son of Iwaldi, then the 'sword of victory'=Mimung, and we see at once why that weapon is represented in the Thidrek-saga as superior to Gram, supra, p. 100.) Rydberg considers that the Nibelungen Hoard is the treasure which these three brothers took with them from Asgard, and, being unable to carry, concealed either in the earth or in the water (probably in both). Volund (i.e. Wieland) himself apparently possessed a marvellous arm-ring, the special virtue of which is not clearly indicated; Rydberg thinks that it had the power of multiplying itself. When Wieland flies from King Nidung he leaves seven hundred gold rings behind him. Volund's brother, Egil, has by others besides Rydberg been identified with the dwarfking Eugel, whose treasure Siegfried wins; and Rydberg proves that Slagfinn, the third brother, is also known by the name of Gjuki; he therefore considers that the Gjukings (i.e. Niblungs) were hereditary owners of at least part of the Hoard. The weak point of the theory is that if this were the case they ought not to be affected by the curse, which falls on them equally with Siegfried. But if the sons of Iwaldi had, in the first instance, no right to the gold which had been intrusted to them by the gods for the decoration of Asgard, but had stolen it when they fled to the lower world, then the position becomes perfectly clear. The theory is in any case an ingenious one, and certainly seems to clear up some points of special difficulty.

1896 Joseph Jacobs, John Dickson Batten
The Book of Wonder Voyages  

“The late Dr. Rydberg was as ingenious as usual in his treatment of the myth."  1897 James John Garth Wilkinson The Book of Edda called Völuspá: a study in its scriptural and spiritual correspondences.‎ - p. 23  This book mentions Rydberg several times, yet ironically, as the thesis of the book runs parallel to the argumnent of Bang and Bugge and contrary to Rydberg Victor Rydberg says of this — " In the morning of time the gods and the earliest artificers work there, carve tools, erect furnaces, rear fanes, ...   

1896 Johan Wallinder
 Runa öfver Viktor Rydberg
 
 Review of UGM1 by Elard Hugo Meyer.
 
XVII, 4 October, 1891.  
1896 Poet Lore, Vol. 8

The review of the 2nd volume (UGM2)
appears in the same journal

Albert Bonnier of Stockholm is beginning to publish an edition of the writings of Victor Rydberg, to appear in numbers at about 50 ore. The edition will contain a number of pieces which have not previously appeared. After Victor Rydberg had departed from the ranks of the living, the immediate preparation of a complete and cheap edition of his writings was a duty. The first story to appear in this edition is the tale of ' The Armorer.'

1897 Viktor Rydberg som Uppfostrare

1897 Folklore Society (Great Britain)
TRANSACTIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.
 Vol. VIII. DECEMBER, 1897. No. IV.  NOTES ON ORENDEL AND OTHER STORIES
by PROFESSOR W. P. KERR, M.A.

 (Read at meeting of 16th February, 1897.) The German poem of Orendel (edd. von der Hagen, 1844; Ettmiiller, 1858 ; Berger, 1888) is a confused and rambling story, belonging to one of the lowest orders of medieval romance, the hack-work of the professional minstrels. Its date is uncertain: the authorities for the text are late, a manuscript of 1477 (burnt in 1870, at Strasburg), and an early printed book (Augsburg, 1512). The last editor dates the poem about 1160, but the date is brought considerably lower down by Dr. Richard Heinzel in his study of the subject (1892). The author has combined two principal motives in his story: (1) the adventures of a king's son; he goes on a voyage to win the princess of a distant country, who is known to him only by report as the fairest woman on earth; and (2) the legend of the Holy Coat of Treves, the Seamless Coat (tunica inconsutilis), which is found by Orendel in his wanderings. The whole thing is the work of an irresponsible poet who has little qualification for his art except a command of all the commonplaces of popular romance, and the usual healthy appetite of travelling minstrels (die varnde diet, the wayfaring men, according to their old German appellation), which, like the rest of his tribe, whatever their language, he is ready to confess at the most thrilling moment by stopping to ask for a drink (1. 2791). Orendel has been the subject of learned commentaries far out of proportion to the author's claims as a poet. One of the best reasons for this is the attraction of the name. Orendel corresponds to a name of some importance in Teutonic mythology: Aurvendill, Orvendill, the husband of Groa; he was brought back by Thor in a basket when Thor came back from the land of the giants; one of his toes was frostbitten on the journey, and Thor flung it at the sky, where it is a star, Orvendils ta. The story is one that lends itself to the interpreters of solar and summer myths, and naturally the German Orendel has been compared with the Icelandic story as told by Snorri. The name is found elsewhere ; Horvendillus in Saxo is the name of Hamlet's father, and the Anglo-Saxon Earendel is a name by which Cynewulf addresses the Lord in a passage where Christ is the "brightest of angels," "the radiance of the sun above the stars ; " it is evidently in this case an old mythical or poetical name capable of meaning the sun, or the light of the sun (Crist, 1. 103). Besides these mythological associations and possibilities in Orendel, there is the other motive, of the Gray Coat, and its association with the legend of the Invention of the Cross. The story is so indefinite, and so full of repetitions and commonplaces, that it is difficult to say what its main design is, if it has any, and very easy to support different theories of its origin. It may be regarded as a clumsy mixture of an old German heroic tradition with the legendary story of the Seamless Coat. Or again, the legendary part of it, the part resembling the Saints' Lives, may be considered as the foundation of the whole, the suggestions of the name Orendel being dismissed as merely fortuitous, and the hero's adventures being taken, not as a survival of old mythology, but merely as a mass of commonplaces, which lay ready to hand for any professional story-teller to pick up, just as the ordinary machinery of the romance of chivalry might be used again and again without infringing any copyright. This second view is represented in Dr. Heinzel's treatise. Of the first party, regarding Orendel as an ancient German hero with a right to his name, and possibly even to high honour as a Sun-god, there are different advocates, the most thorough-going representative of this view being Mullenhoff, who is followed by Berger in his edition of the story. Another view, but one which at the same time recognises a line of native old tradition in Orendel, is given by Rydberg.1 Grimm puts together the Aurvendill-EarendelOrendel references without trying to reconcile the evidence, still taking the name Orendel in its mythological bearings. He calls attention also to the things resembling the Odyssey in the shipwreck of Orendel. These are some of the incidents of the story:— King Ougel of Trier had three sons; the youngest was Orendel. It was on St. Stephen's day that he was knighted; he asked his father to find him a wife. His father told him that he knew of no match for him but one, who was a queen over sea, wise and glorious—Bride, the Queen of the Holy Sepulchre: Si ist ein edel klinigin here Und ist gesezzen vil ferre Uber des wilden sewes fluot, Si ist ein edele kilnigin guot. Orendel set out on the voyage with seventy-two keels. They were driven into the Klebermere—more correctly Lebermere, the sticky or curdled sea {la mer betie), which, according to some, lies over the drowned island of Atlantis.2 Orendel's ships were kept there for three years. They got ... 1 Teutonic Mythology (Engl, tr.), p. 566 sqq. Orendel is equated with Svipdag, and the princess with Freyja, according to Rydberg's interpretation of the Svipdag myth, which has been summarised by Mr. York-Powell, introduction to Saxo, p. cxvii. sqq. (F. L. S. 1894).  
1897 Henrik Schück
Ur gamla papper: populära kulturhistoriska uppsatser - p. 219

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1898  Kungl. Vetenskaps- och Vitterhets-Samhället i Handlingar - p. 51

Vid ett barns födelse är där alltid ett hjärta — hennes, som under smärtor burit det — som med oro ställer sig det bibliska spörsmålet: »Hvad månde varda af detta barn»? — Och när sedermera lifvet ger sitt svar på detta spörsmål, huru ofta händer det icke att detta svar bittert och grymt gäckar de förhoppningar, som den spörjande själf ville lägga in i svaret på sin fråga; mera sällan gifver lifvet ett svar, som öfverträffar äfven kärlekens aningar. Det hjärta, som närmast ställde för sig det spörsmålet vid VIKTOR RYDBERGS vagga, väntade sig säkert i sin kärlek mycket för den späde, såsom ju också legenden berättar, att modren tidigt fick visshet om, att »det skulle gå hennes lille Viktor väl» Men den torftiga eller åtminstone enkla omgifning, i hvilken den lilles vagga stod, lät säkerligen icke ens hos modren den föreställningen komma upp att. när en gång äfven han lyktat sin lefnad, ett helt folk skulle sörja vid hans bår.  Så var det dock, när Viktor Rydberg staddes till hvila.  De späda röster, som kring hans hår, i det hem han byggt sig för detta lifvet, sjöngo hans sång om  »stjärnan från Bethlehem», som »visar ej bort, men hem» vittnade om, att Viktor Rydberg haft något att skänka äfven åt de små, något att bjuda äfven barnets sinne; och när våra högskolors studerande ungdom, närvarande eller frånvarande, bragte sin hyllning åt den ädles stoft, låg däri en tack för de väckelser, han gifvit, och ett vittnesbörd om att icke, med slocknandet af hans egen tanke, äfven den brodd skulle vissna, till hvilken han i ädel kärlek sökt så frön i de ungas sinnen; och när hans stoft vigdes till hvila under Klara kyrkas hvalf, skedde det i närvaro af en samling, sådan man linner endast när ett folk begråter en erkänd andens furste: främst i sorgetåget syntes Sveriges konung, — hvars därvaro vältaligt tolkade hans folks förlust — och till hans höga gestalt slöto sig Sveriges arffurste, Svea Rikes Ärkebiskop, talrika medlemmar ur vår högsta ämbetsmannavärld, representanter för lärda samfund och akademier, närmare och fjärmare vänner och beundrare. ..  Det var i sanning ett helt folk, som sörjde vid Viktor Rydbergs bår.  Hvad skola vi ytterligare säga om honom ? Är där icke sagt nog om den, om hvilken det med rätta säges, att hans folk känner att han lefvat för det? Visserligen! Och äfven om vi kände det stå i vår makt, skulle stunden dock icke tillåta oss att ens tillnärmelsevis skildra omfattningen af hans begåfning, vidden af hans lärdom, makten af hans personlighet. Icke desto mindre manas vi att söka antyda spridda drag af den individualitet, som i lifvet bar Viktor Rydbergs namn.   Sedan Erik Gustaf Geijers dagar har ingen svensk lefvat, till hvars bildning så inånga vetandets områden fått lämna sin tribut. Arbetsfördelningen är i våra dagar strängt genomförd äfven inom den vetenskapliga forskningen. Den enda möjligheten att inom en vetenskap bringa fram något verkligt nytt är för vanliga lärda att intensivt bearbeta en viss begränsad del af densamma. De äro ytterst få, som därjämte äga en vidare öfversikt öfver större vetandesområden. Men denna långt drifna arbetsfördelning inom den vetenskapliga forskningen har sin våda med sig. Ty de olika vetenskapsgrenarne isoleras från hvarandra, under det att hvardera af dem endast kommer till sin rätt, när den får sin belysning från en totalvy af det vetenskapliga arbetet. Viktor Rydberg var nu visserligen icke en polyhistor, en mångvetandets man i den betydelse, i hvilken man förr hade både saken och namnet. Så oändligt har det mänskliga vetandets gränser vidgat sig, att vi icke längre kunna vänta oss att någon hädanefter skall som Aristoteles elles Leibnitz eller som renässansmannen, hvars mångsidighet Viktor Kydberg sjäJf tecknat, Lionardo da Vinci, spänna öfver hela dess vidd. Men inom det humanistiska vetandets hufvudgrenar rörde sig Viktor Rydberg med den själfständighet, som endast en djup förtrogenhet med materialet och metoden för dess behandling kan förläna, och jag innesluter då under humanistiskt vetande jämväl religionshistoriska och socialpolitiska discipliner. Därtill kom att han var så förtrogen med den naturvetenskapliga forskningens resultat, att han kunde på ett själfständigt sätt bedöma den världsåskådnings vetenskapliga och etiska värde, hvilken hvilade endast på naturvetenskapliga rön. Den man, som icke blott i sin andes vetande, utan i sin litterära produktion så att säga gaf syntesen af så många eljest skilda vetenskapsgrenar, har därigenom gjort sin samtid en omätlig tjänst.  Viktor Rydberg började sin bana som publicist. Själf lär han icke hafva högt skattat sin lämplighet för detta kall. Sådan han träder oss till mötes i den alstring, i hvilken han företrädesvis delar med sig åt oss af sin egen ursprunglighet, förefaller det, som skulle hans naturell hafva kraft att vid hvarje tillfälle fördjupa sig i en fråga, men också helt gå upp i den, under det att det af publicisten fordras, att han ständigt skall vara redo att kasta sig in på nya uppgifter. Emellertid är det från omdömesgildt håll intygadt, att han underskattade sig själf i detta hänseende. Och i hvarje fall står det fast, att han som publicist gjorde tungt vägande inlägg i dagens stridsfrågor, för att icke tala om don frikostighet, med hvilken han, när dagens händelser därtill gåfvo anledniag, strödde omkring sig små artiklar af väckande etiskt innehall, sådana en och annan af dem återfinnas i hans Varia.  En romersk skald bekänner om sig själf att det var »fattigdomen, som gaf honom mod att dikta». Det var också medellösheten, som dref Viktor Rydberg in på den publicistiska stråten och därigenom medelbart räddade honom iifven åt skönlitteraturen. Det var inom publicistiken, han fann den vän, som med ett beundransvärdt hjärtats skarpsinne anade livad Viktor Rydberg kunde blifva för Sveriges sköna litteratur och som sedan med aldrig svikande trohet värnade om den mera för pannan och för studerkammaren än för lifvets brytningar danade skalden. Hos denne vän fann också Viktor Rydberg ersättning för ett hem, till dess han själf byggde ett sådant. Viktor Rydberg tänkte sig ursprungligen ett annat verksamhetsområde än litteratörens. Otvifvelaktigt låg där icke blott i hans öfverlägsna begåfning, utan framförallt i hans allvarliga uppfattning af plikten att vara sina medmänniskor till gagn en borgen för, att han på ett utmärkt sätt skulle gjort sig gällande, inom hvilket område han än kommit att arbeta, Men vår kultur torde i alla fall icke hafva förlorat på bytet, då den visserligen gått miste om en måhända utmärkt civilingeniör, eller förträfflig jurist, men i stället vunnit en stor skald, en djup tänkare, en lärd och skarpsinnig forskare.  Eftervärlden skall säkerligen af Viktor Rydbergs värksamhet sätta högst hans skönlitterära författarskap, så i bunden som i obunden form.  Hvad han som vitter författare inom prosan åstadkommit är väl i det närmaste kändt af hvarje bildad svensk. Släktled efter släktled skall säkerligen gripas af den intensiva mystiska stämning. som talar till oss från hvarje sida af herr Erlands och Singoallas dystra kärlekssaga — väl inom prosadikten Viktor Rydbergs mästerverk, ett utflöde af den fullödigaste romantik. Då jag fäller detta omdöme, vet jag väl att man skall spörja mig, om jag då glömmer Den siste Atenaren, för att nu icke tala om Fribytaren på Östersjön och Vapensmeden. Så är dock ingalunda fallet. Mitt omdöme om Singoalla torde vara motiveradt därmed, att hvad konstläran kallar för tendens där i ingen mån tränger sig fram mellan konstnären och ämnet, så som fallet är i viss grad med hans öfriga större prosadikter. I Fribytaren på Östersjön är hjältens öde endast helt löst beroende af hvad som utgör romanens större del, skildringen i upplysningsvänligt syfte af hexprocessernas mörka skede. I de bägge skildringarna från vår tideräknings stora brytningsepoker, Den siste Atenaren och Vapensmeden, har Viktor Rydbergs egen religiösa uppfattning måhända i någon mån omdanat karaktären af de historiska motsatser, hvilkas strid med hvarandra utgör den konstnärliga skildringens material. Men jag uttalar här icke ordet tendens som en estetisk dom. Det märkes nogsamt på dessa arbeten, att de i hög grad fylla den konstvärkets grundlag, genom hvilken det blir i stånd att med makt tala till människor. De hafva sprungit fram ur en individualitet, som danat sig, etiskt och religiöst, till ett personligt konstvärk. Och därför tala de också till läsaren med den harmoniska personlighetens vinnande allvar.  Det var väl egentligen först den grandiosa kantaten vid Uppsala Universitets jubelfest, som uppenbarade för oss, att vi i Viktor Rydberg ägde en stor skald. Det var, som fölle där från den äfven öfver hans äldre diktning en reflex, i hvars ljus man först med häpnad såg äfven dess skönhet. Men med kantaten var också slaget vunnet. Måhända var det det geniala kraftprofvet att på svenska tolka Goethes Faust, som öfvertygade Viktor Rydberg om, att han ägde den suveräna makt äfven öfver den bundna diktningens form. hvilkcn man länge tillerkänt honom inom prosan. Säkert är att sedan den tiden flödade Viktor Rydbergs skaldeåder rikligt. Än skänkte han oss tankedigra dikter, sysslande med frågor, som nedärfts från mänsklighetens urtid, såsom Prometheus och Ahasverus, eller bildande indignerade inlägg i social-politiska missförhållanden, som Den nya Grottesången; än åter skildrade hans dikt sällheten af att kunna våga ett offer för lifvets ideala makter, såsom Dexippos, än åter räckte den oss den älskligaste, enklaste barnapoesi. Vi kunna här icke analysera Viktor Rydbergs författarskap. Men det gäller om hans poesi i ännu högre grad än om hans prosadiktning, att den vuxit fram ur en ideelt mättad grund. Bakom så godt som hvarje rad af densamma skymtar hans människoideal fram, — en mänsklighet, som kroppsligen återger den grekiska forntidens apolliniska skönhet, sådan vår idealiserande uppfattning, närd af det ädlaste inom forntidens egen konst, föreställer sig den, men en mänsklighet, på samma gång adlad af den medvetna uppgiften att andligen förvärkliga ett ideal, för hvilket all antikens skönhet var främmande, människosonens ideal.  Människosonen! Men förnekade då icke Viktor Rydberg honom?  Om jag här vidrör de religiösa meningsstrider, hvilka äro intimt knutna till Viktor Rydbergs namn, sker det, emedan de i hans historia spelat en alltför stor roll för att här med tystnad förbigås; men jag fattar det icke som min uppgift att vare sig anklaga eller försvara. Viktor Rydberg sökte i en annan formel än kyrkans uttrycket för människosonens väsen. Han fattade Kristus som det fullkomliga uttrycket för Guds eviga tanke med människan, idealmänniskan, i, genom och till hvilken allt människosläktet är vordet till. Mänsklighetens förlossare från synden och försonare med Gud varder Kristus därigenom, att människan, fattad af honom, låter göra sig till en lem i hans lekamen, en gren i det andliga vinträdet, ledes af hans anda till ett lif i hans tro på den himmelska fadren och så kan mottaga Guds oändliga kärlek i Kristus. Viktor Rydberg ägnade mycket arbete och mycken lärdom åt denna den kristna åskådningens centrala fråga. Den som här har det grannlaga värfvet att teckna Viktor Rydberg, vill för egen del blott tillägga, att han har det intrycket af hans hithörande författarskap, att det i äldre tider bars af ett mera enbart teoretiskt intresse, men att detta teoretiska intresse allt mer och mer genombröts af ett praktiskt-religiöst. Det är åtminstone det intryck, som slår mig till mötes ur de märkliga slutorden i hans djuptänkta afhandling Till läran om de yttersta tingen, och samma intryck födes ur hvad man kan kalla hans testamente till sitt folk, då han bland det sista, som flöt ur hans penna, såsom enda medlet till undanrödjande af de skuggsidor, hans kärleksfulla öga upptäckte i våra dagars sociala organisation, visar hän på det nya testamentets lära om mänskligheten som »en andlig lekamen i Guds tankevärld», hvilken mänsklighet, »splittrad genom syndens, åter »skall sammanfogas till ett helt af lefvande stenar, till en fullkomlig man, till en förnyad lekamen, hvars hufvud är Kristus, hvars lemmar äro alla mänsklighetens släktleder. — Det var icke endast ett talesätt eller en dekoration, då ur fönstret till hans arbetsrum strålade emot honom: desidera ardua, desidera den in. I sanning, den mannen hade en trängtan till det himmelska, han längtade efter Gud.  Nära Viktor Rydbergs teologiska författarskap låg hans filosofiska, eller måhända riktigare: under hans teologiska författarskap och väsentligen gestaltande detta låg hans filosofiska åskådning, en idealistisk personlighetsfilosofi, hvars vetenskapliga grundtankar han torde hafva utbildat under inflytande af det filosofiska system, som bär Boströms namn. Till det märkligaste af Viktor Rydbergs författarskap hör utan tvifvel hans filosofiska uppsatser: hans språkkonst har i dem firat triumfen att behandla de djupaste och sprödaste filosofiska problem så, att de kunna fattas äfven af andra än dem, som erhållit filosofisk fackbildning.  Men tiden manar mig att sluta. Jag kan här endast i förbigående omnämna Viktor Rydbergs värksamhet som föreläsare, på uppdrag af Styrelsen för Göteborgs undervisningsfond, under de sista åren af hans Göteborgs vistelse — en värksamhet, genom hvilken han förberedde Göteborgs Högskola; jag kan icke heller dröja vid hans arbete som lärare vid Stockholms Högskola först i kulturhistoria, sedan i de sköna konsternas teori och historia, eller vid hans digra forskningar inom den germanska mytologiens område, inledda genom hans ridderliga fejd med Sophus Bugge, eller vid de kulturella och konsthistoriska skildringar af rang, hvilka han samlat under titeln Romerska dagar. Skörden af Viktor Rydbergs arbete är för rik för att här kunna öfverskådas.  Viktor Rydberg var, mänskligt att se, en lycklig man. Han hade fäst sig en maka, som med aldrig tröttnande kärlek helt gick upp i hans tankar, främjade hans arbete och, så långt det i hennes makt stod, rödde ur vägen för hans fot de stötestenar, som aldrig helt saknas på en människas stig. Tillgifvenhet mötte honom från alla håll; äfven motståndare hemburo honom sin oskrymtade aktning. Han hade makt som få att främja de idéer, som voro honom kära: fällde han ett ord för dem, var han viss att det blef af alla behjärtadt; och det var detta, som företrädesvis gaf känslan af ett tomrum efter honom, att man fruktlöst såg sig om efter någon, som med hans auktoritet kunde ge röst åt lifvets ideala intressen. — Själf kände han sig också lycklig, och det var ett älskligt drag hos honom, att han icke märkte att människors godhet mot honom endast var en reflex af hans eget goda hjärtelag mot andra, ett hjärtelag, hvars djup vackert återgifves i de ord han lägger i anakoretens mun: »det är lodlös synd att jubla, när syskon lida».  Till sist skall det äfven korteligen sägas om honom att han var en god son af sitt fosterland. Svensk historia, svensk kultur, svenskt språk älskade han med en ynglings lidelsefullhet. Det är en händelse under hvilken vi älska att se en djupare mening, att den sista sång, som föddes hos honom under hans vandring i Djursholms lundar, innesluter hans tack för att han föddes medlem af ett folk, som till symbol af sin ädla ätteledning har himmmelsblått i vana barnaögon och himmelsblått i ärekrönta fanor. Och med ädel stolthet utropar han:  Till ariskt blod, det renaste och äldsta, Till svensk jag vigdes af en vänlig norna. Så pekar han så att säga döende hän på den stora idé, till hvars tjänst vi alla böra viga våra krafter, större eller mindre, fosterlandets idé. Få är det gifvet att verka här i lifvet så, att deras arbete göres omedelbart i det större fosterlandets, i mänsklighetens tjänst. Det gäller som regel att hvad som göres för mänskligheten, det kommer densamma tillgodo först därigenom, att det kommit det egna folket till godo. Så kände också Viktor Rydberg sig alltid arbeta i sitt eget folks tjänst.  Men det är oss trösterikt, att hvar och en, huru ringa än hans krafter äro, kan göra en god gärning för sitt eget folk, är han endast trogen i sitt kall. Den stund, vi här ägnat de bortgångnes minne, har för oss låtit framträda bjudande föredömen på trohet mot den uppgift, som ställes oss i lifvet.   

1898 The International Theosophist
 Volume 1, Issues 1-7‎ - Page 48
THEOSOPHY IN NORSE LEGEND.   
(Continued from p. 46.)

We have in these two examples—the coin with its Theosophical indications; the square chamber, its low entrance, its runic inscriptions —something that will serve as a substantial introduction to the study of the written records of Norse Mythology ; and with these definite facts before us we shall also know how to estimate the fantastic theory of the comparative mythologists, Max Miiller and his co-believers, who hold that " all Aryan Myths are in the last resort mere descriptions of natural phenomena, especially those of the visible firmament, such as sunrise and sunset, dawn and dark, clouds and storm ; and that they (the Myths) may be adequately explained by reference to these appearances." Well, first of all I may state that Norse legends—the Sagas written and unwritten—had their chief treasury in the far distant Iceland— which I cannot help regarding as a sort of minor Thibet in former days. There these sagas remained—being orally transmitted only, until the twelfth century of our era, when we find that " Ari the learned, the mass priest, son of Thorgil, son of Gelhr, was the first man of the land who wrote down lore, both old and new, in the speech of the North. He was fostered by Hal the mild, who was well acquainted with old Icelandic Histories." Here I would remark that to this day Icelanders are to be found who can repeat whole sagas by heart.  Following Ari, came Saemund, whose early life was spent in Norway. Returned to Iceland, he read Ari's writings, and wrote and collected Sagas. The meaning of the word Saga may be discovered in our familiar terms " sage " and " saw." Saemund's chief work was the collection of the Elder (or poetic) Edda. He died in 1133.  Next in point of time comes Saxo Grammaticus, a priest, who wrote a history of the Danes. This work is useful chiefly for comparison with those just mentioned. Saxo did not belong to Iceland. Last in order we have the writings of Snorri Sturlasson, a rich Icelander. He wrote the "Heimskringla," which, beginning with myths and traditions, is a history of the Norse Kings down to the year 1177. A translation of this work is to be found in the Guildhall Library. Snorro also wrote a collection of sagas known as the younger Edda. It is said that he was famous as a scald. Which means, I take it, that he was somewhat of an occultist. Besides these works there is one called the Volsunga saga (probably written in Iceland at the close of the I3th century). " Had more than one author. Its chief source was the songs and recitations of the people. Its subjects were chiefly prehistoric. It has a decided heathen indication."   These then are the scriptures of our race. Some of their transcribers, being Christian priests, have more or less adapted them to the ideas set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures—in other words, they have " Bowdlerised " the sagas. But we must put up with that. Fortunately a work was written in 1889 by a learned Norseman, Dr. Victor Rydberg, that puts things straight once more. It was not until I got hold of this work, entitled Teutonic Mythology, that I could make much headway in pursuing the study of Norse Mythology along Theosophic lines. With its aid point after point becomes clear. For the method of the writer is simply splendid. Starting with one or another Norse mythic character or concept, as described in the sagas, he follows it step by step through the traditions and folk lore of all Europe. Thus, many a christianised fairy tale, stripped of its more modern embellishments, becomes a definite item in Norse occultism.   Rydberg is not a Theosophist. Rather he tries, and tries vainly, to be a Max-Mullerite. But when the spirit of his Norse ancestors is upon him, he quite forgets the modern spirit—with its barbaric explanations of man's thought about the universe and himself—and speaks as though he had sat at the feet of H. P. B. This conflict between the writer and the man is sometimes quite amusing to note.

1898 William Jameson
THEOSOPHY IN NORSE LEGEND. 49  

Coming at last to the Mythology itself, I feel a difficulty where to begin. At best it is but a fragment that I can deal with on the present occasion. I will just give the barest outline of the system ; then invite your study of the two chief gods, Odin and Thor, and conclude with one or two stories that are full of Theosophic idea*.  The Secret Doctrine will best give us our outline. There it is said "The Ases (or Æsir), the rulers of the world which preceded ours, create the whole visible world from the remains of the slain giant Ymir; but they do not create man, but only his form from the Ask or Ash tree. Odin endows him with life and soul, after Lodur has given him blood and bones. Finally, Honir furnishes him with intellect (manas) and conscious senses.  " The tree Yggdrasil is man himself, and the serpents dwelling in each, the conscious mind, the connecting link between spirit and matter, heaven and earth."  Here is Rydberg's more detailed statement of the same idea of man's evolution as picked out of the various sagas :—  " Man consists of six elements. " These six elements, united into one in human nature, were of course, constant in reciprocal activity. The personal kernel, is on the one hand influenced by the spirit, and on the other by the animal, vegetative and corporal elements, and the personality being endowed with will, it is responsible for the result of this reciprocal activity. If the spirit became superior to the other elements then it penetrates and sanctifies not only the personal kernel, but also the animal, vegetative, and corporal elements. Then human nature becomes a being that may be called divine and deserves divine honour.  (2.) " The elements of the dead buried in the grave continued for more or less time their reciprocal activity. This alter ego of the deceased retained his character.  (3.) " The idea of a. regeneration was not foreign to the faith of the Teutonic heathens. To judge from the very few statements we have on thi? point, it would seem that it was only the very best and the very worst who were born anew in the present world." (Olaf Geirstad-alf= Olaf the Saint.)  Here then we have a detailed account of man's nature, found" in Norse Mythology, that corresponds, so far as it goes, with the account given in Theosophical literature. The lower side of mind— that aspect of it which is earthward, that which Paul the Apostle, so. forcibly describes as the "carnal mind"—is not overlooked in the  Norse explanation of man's make-up. For that well-known bird the Stork is Honir's emblem.* The stork, that is one moment wading in the filth and mud of the earth ; the next flying aloft in the Heavens ! Such delicate discrimination of ethical ideas had our Norse ancestors, who, in popular belief, have been regarded as barbarous Vikings and plunderers, whose chief taste was to drink out of the skulls of their enemies !   Now let us consider the two chief gods described in Norse Mythology—Odin and Thor. But first I would impress on your minds that these gods were in no sense idols. Indeed no ancient race was more free from the worship of the outward than were o.ur Northern ancestors. The gods of the Norse people must be looked upon rather as aspects of the One Di\'ine, if we are to understand them. That One that the wisdom religion asserts is to be found rooted in the religions of all races at all times.   The chief of the Norse gods was undoubtedly Odin, or Woden as he was called in England. He is described as the father of gods and men, the all-powerful, all-penetrating being, the grace-bestowing god. At other times he is called the stormful, the terror-striking, who sends a thrill through nature. He is said to be "one-eyed." ("If thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light.") It was his custom when he sent his men to war, or on some errand, to lay his hands on their head and give them bjanak (bread). Then there is another significant thing said in connection with Odin. The space between the thumb and forefinger extended was one of his signs, or symbols. This, you will observe, makes the rude outline of a triangle, A little story from the sagas will illustrate this idea further. A certain man sought Odin. He came to a citadel. After answering sundry questions from the doorkeeper he was allowed to enter. Entering he came to a Hall— Odin's Hall, and saw not one throne but three thrones, and upon each of these was a chief. Asking their names he received an answer indicating that none of the three alone was Odin, but that Odin who was able to turn man's vision, was present in them all—Odin the Thrice highest.   William Jameson. ( To be continued.)

1897 The International Theosophist
Volume 1, Issues 1-7, p. 48

These then are the scriptures of our race. Some of their transcribers, being Christian priests, have more or less adapted them to the ideas set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures—in other words, they have " Bowdlerised " the sagas. But we must put up with that. Fortunately a work was written in 1889 by a learned Norseman, Dr. Victor Rydberg, that puts things straight once more. It was not until I got hold of this work, entitled Teutonic Mythology, that I could make much headway in pursuing the study of Norse Mythology along Theosophic lines. With its aid point after point becomes clear. For the method of the writer is simply splendid. Starting with one or another Norse mythic character or concept, as described in the sagas, he follows it step by step through the traditions and folk lore of all Europe. Thus, many a christianised fairy tale, stripped of its more modern embellishments, becomes a definite item in Norse occultism. Rydberg is not a Theosophist. Rather he tries, and tries vainly, to be a Max-Mullerite. But when the spirit of his Norse ancestors is upon him, he quite forgets the modern spirit—with its barbaric explanations of man's thought about the universe and himself—and speaks as though he had sat at the feet of H. P. B. This conflict between the writer and the man is sometimes quite amusing to note.
 

1898 J. Rogers Rees
"The Norse Element in Celtic Myth"
in Archaeologia Cambrensis

They remembered the story of the tyrant Frode, who held two captive giant maidens, Fenja and Menja, as mill-maids. The grist they had to grind him out of the quern Grotti was fulfilment of joy and "abundance of riches on the bin of bliss"; meanwhile, however, he allowed them for sleep or rest no longer time than the cessation of the cuckoo's song, or the singing of a single stave. So they grew aweary of the thankless task, and ground for their master fire and death instead. Then came the sea-king Mysing and slew Frode, taking away both mill and maidens to his ship. The new taskmaster commanded that salt should be ground, which was so vigorously done that the ship was sunk ; and as it went down it produced floods and a great whirlpool. But a larger mill had also a place in the mythology of the Norse, one that was simply immense.
"The storms and showers which lash the sides of the mountains and cause their disintegration ; the breakers of the sea which attack the rocks on the strands, make them hollow, and cast the substance thus scooped out along the coast in the form of sand-banks"
—all this was symbolised by the larger mill, of which the skald Snaebiorn sang :—
"Men say that Eyludr's nine maidens are working hard turning the Skerry-quern out near the edge of the earth, and that for ages past they have been grinding at Amloði's mealbin (the sea) .... So that the daughters of the Island-grinder spirt the blood of Ymir."
Associated with this mill-myth, but how intimately we cannot tell, for its details no longer exist—probably the pronounced heathenism of it all so clashed with the scriptural account of the Creation that it was purposely permitted to die after the acceptance of Christianity by the Norsemen—associated with this myth was the great flood occasioned by the immense quantity df blood which ran from the wounds of Ymir, the giant, when he was slain by Bor's sons, and which drowned all the giants save one, Bergelmer, who, Noah-like, escaped with his wife upon his lúðr, and ultimately landed on the top of a mountain ; from these two descended the second generation of giants.
A considerable difference of opinion exists among Norse scholars as to the meaning of this word lúðr.
Frye says that Bergelmer escaped on a "wreck", whilst Dasent calls it, in prose, a "boat", and in poetry a " skiff", and Pigott, a " boat". Thorpe translates the word into "chest" in his prose, and into "ark" in his poetry. Vigfusson gives it as "ark" in one place, and as "box" in another, in his Corpus Poeticum Boreale ; but in translating the "Grotta-Songr" he renders fegins-lúðr as " bin of bliss".  In his Dictionary, however, he sets down "bin", more especially a "flourbin", as the equivalent of lúðr; whilst Rydberg, in a learned disquisition on the word, gives his opinion that the object on which Bergelmer found safety in the great flood was in some way intimately connected with the world-mill. Both he and Vigfusson, referring to the phrase vas ludr um lagidr, agree that it refers to some ancient lost myth. Does it not all simply mean that, in the great flood, Bergelmer possessed himself of the first floating object that would answer his purpose, which chanced to be a bin from the great mill, the property of the gods? In time, the bin, from the use it had been put to, became a boat, then a ship, finally developing into an ark. A touch of poetic justice characterises the incident, permitting, as it does, Bergelmer to escape on a bin of the very mill in which his father's (Ymer's) flesh was ground into earth and his bones into rocks, whilst his blood went to make the mighty waters of the troubling flood.

 
1898 Kungl. Vetenskaps- och vitterhets-samhället i Göteborg  Handlingar, Vol.  I

Vid ett barns födelse är där alltid ett hjärta — hennes, som under smärtor burit det — som med oro ställer sig det bibliska spörsmålet: »Hvad månde varda af detta barn»? — Och när sedermera lifvet ger sitt svar på detta spörsmål, huru ofta händer det icke att detta svar bittert och grymt gäckar de förhoppningar, som den spörjande själf ville lägga in i svaret på sin fråga; mera sällan gifver lifvet ett svar, som öfverträffar äfven kärlekens aningar. Det hjärta, som närmast ställde för sig det spörsmålet vid VIKTOR RYDBERGS vagga, väntade sig säkert i sin kärlek mycket för den späde, såsom ju också legenden berättar, att modren tidigt fick visshet om, att »det skulle gå hennes lille Viktor väl» Men den torftiga eller åtminstone enkla omgifning, i hvilken den lilles vagga stod, lät säkerligen icke ens hos modren den föreställningen komma upp att. när en gång äfven han lyktat sin lefnad, ett helt folk skulle sörja vid hans bår.

Så var det dock, när Viktor Rydberg staddes till hvila.
De späda röster, som kring hans hår, i det hem han byggt sig för detta lifvet, sjöngo hans sång om »stjärnan från Bethlehem», som »visar ej bort, men hem» vittnade om, att Viktor Rydberg haft något att skänka äfven åt de små, något att bjuda äfven barnets sinne; och när våra högskolors studerande ungdom, närvarande eller frånvarande, bragte sin hyllning åt den ädles stoft, låg däri en tack för de väckelser, han gifvit, och ett vittnesbörd om att icke, med slocknandet af hans egen tanke, äfven den brodd skulle vissna, till hvilken han i ädel kärlek sökt så frön i de ungas sinnen; och när hans stoft vigdes till hvila under Klara kyrkas hvalf, skedde det i närvaro af en samling, sådan man linner endast när ett folk begråter en erkänd andens furste: främst i sorgetåget syntes Sveriges konung, — hvars därvaro vältaligt tolkade hans folks förlust — och till hans höga gestalt slöto sig Sveriges arffurste, Svea Rikes Ärkebiskop, talrika medlemmar ur vår högsta ämbetsmannavärld, representanter för lärda samfund och akademier, närmare och fjärmare vänner och beundrare.

...Det var i sanning ett helt folk, som sörjde vid Viktor Rydbergs bår.

Hvad skola vi ytterligare säga om honom ? Är där icke sagt nog om den, om hvilken det med rätta säges, att hans folk känner att han lefvat för det? Visserligen! Och äfven om vi kände det stå i vår makt, skulle stunden dock icke tillåta oss att ens tillnärmelsevis skildra omfattningen af hans begåfning, vidden af hans lärdom, makten af hans personlighet. Icke desto mindre manas vi att söka antyda spridda drag af den individualitet, som i lifvet bar Viktor Rydbergs namn.

Sedan Erik Gustaf Geijers dagar har ingen svensk lefvat, till hvars bildning så inånga vetandets områden fått lämna sin tribut. Arbetsfördelningen är i våra dagar strängt genomförd äfven inom den vetenskapliga forskningen. Den enda möjligheten att inom en vetenskap bringa fram något verkligt nytt är för vanliga lärda att intensivt bearbeta en viss begränsad del af densamma. De äro ytterst få, som därjämte äga en vidare öfversikt öfver större vetandesområden. Men denna långt drifna arbetsfördelning inom den vetenskapliga forskningen har sin våda med sig. Ty de olika vetenskapsgrenarne isoleras från hvarandra, under det att hvardera af dem endast kommer till sin rätt, när den får sin belysning från en totalvy af det vetenskapliga arbetet. Viktor Rydberg var nu visserligen icke en polyhistor, en mångvetandets man i den betydelse, i hvilken man förr hade både saken och namnet. Så oändligt har det mänskliga vetandets gränser vidgat sig, att vi icke längre kunna vänta oss att någon hädanefter skall som Aristoteles elles Leibnitz eller som renässansmannen, hvars mångsidighet Viktor Kydberg sjäJf tecknat, Lionardo da Vinci, spänna öfver hela dess vidd. Men inom det humanistiska vetandets hufvudgrenar rörde sig Viktor Rydberg med den själfständighet, som endast en djup förtrogenhet med materialet och metoden för dess behandling kan förläna, och jag innesluter då under humanistiskt vetande jämväl religionshistoriska och socialpolitiska discipliner. Därtill kom att han var så förtrogen med den naturvetenskapliga forskningens resultat, att han kunde på ett själfständigt sätt bedöma den världsåskådnings vetenskapliga och etiska värde, hvilken hvilade endast på naturvetenskapliga rön. Den man, som icke blott i sin andes vetande, utan i sin litterära produktion så att säga gaf syntesen af så många eljest skilda vetenskapsgrenar, har därigenom gjort sin samtid en omätlig tjänst.

Viktor Rydberg började sin bana som publicist. Själf lär han icke hafva högt skattat sin lämplighet för detta kall. Sådan han träder oss till mötes i den alstring, i hvilken han företrädesvis delar med sig åt oss af sin egen ursprunglighet, förefaller det, som skulle hans naturell hafva kraft att vid hvarje tillfälle fördjupa sig i en fråga, men också helt gå upp i den, under det att det af publicisten fordras, att han ständigt skall vara redo att kasta sig in på nya uppgifter. Emellertid är det från omdömesgildt håll intygadt, att han underskattade sig själf i detta hänseende. Och i hvarje fall står det fast, att han som publicist gjorde tungt vägande inlägg i dagens stridsfrågor, för att icke tala om don frikostighet, med hvilken han, när dagens händelser därtill gåfvo anledniag, strödde omkring sig små artiklar af väckande etiskt innehall, sådana en och annan af dem återfinnas i hans Varia.

En romersk skald bekänner om sig själf att det var »fattigdomen, som gaf honom mod att dikta». Det var också medellösheten, som dref Viktor Rydberg in på den publicistiska stråten och därigenom medelbart räddade honom iifven åt skönlitteraturen. Det var inom publicistiken, han fann den vän, som med ett beundransvärdt hjärtats skarpsinne anade livad Viktor Rydberg kunde blifva för Sveriges sköna litteratur och som sedan med aldrig svikande trohet värnade om den mera för pannan och för studerkammaren än för lifvets brytningar danade skalden. Hos denne vän fann också Viktor Rydberg ersättning för ett hem, till dess han själf byggde ett sådant. Viktor Rydberg tänkte sig ursprungligen ett annat verksamhetsområde än litteratörens. Otvifvelaktigt låg där icke blott i hans öfverlägsna begåfning, utan framförallt i hans allvarliga uppfattning af plikten att vara sina medmänniskor till gagn en borgen för, att han på ett utmärkt sätt skulle gjort sig gällande, inom hvilket område han än kommit att arbeta, Men vår kultur torde i alla fall icke hafva förlorat på bytet, då den visserligen gått miste om en måhända utmärkt civilingeniör, eller förträfflig jurist, men i stället vunnit en stor skald, en djup tänkare, en lärd och skarpsinnig forskare.

Eftervärlden skall säkerligen af Viktor Rydbergs värksamhet sätta högst hans skönlitterära författarskap, så i bunden som i obunden form.

Hvad han som vitter författare inom prosan åstadkommit är väl i det närmaste kändt af hvarje bildad svensk. Släktled efter släktled skall säkerligen gripas af den intensiva mystiska stämning. som talar till oss från hvarje sida af herr Erlands och Singoallas dystra kärlekssaga — väl inom prosadikten Viktor Rydbergs mästerverk, ett utflöde af den fullödigaste romantik. Då jag fäller detta omdöme, vet jag väl att man skall spörja mig, om jag då glömmer Den siste Atenaren, för att nu icke tala om Fribytaren på Östersjön och Vapensmeden. Så är dock ingalunda fallet. Mitt omdöme om Singoalla torde vara motiveradt därmed, att hvad konstläran kallar för tendens där i ingen mån tränger sig fram mellan konstnären och ämnet, så som fallet är i viss grad med hans öfriga större prosadikter. I Fribytaren på Östersjön är hjältens öde endast helt löst beroende af hvad som utgör romanens större del, skildringen i upplysningsvänligt syfte af hexprocessernas mörka skede. I de bägge skildringarna från vår tideräknings stora brytningsepoker, Den siste Atenaren och Vapensmeden, har Viktor Rydbergs egen religiösa uppfattning måhända i någon mån omdanat karaktären af de historiska motsatser, hvilkas strid med hvarandra utgör den konstnärliga skildringens material. Men jag uttalar här icke ordet tendens som en estetisk dom. Det märkes nogsamt på dessa arbeten, att de i hög grad fylla den konstvärkets grundlag, genom hvilken det blir i stånd att med makt tala till människor. De hafva sprungit fram ur en individualitet, som danat sig, etiskt och religiöst, till ett personligt konstvärk. Och därför tala de också till läsaren med den harmoniska personlighetens vinnande allvar.

Det var väl egentligen först den grandiosa kantaten vid Uppsala Universitets jubelfest, som uppenbarade för oss, att vi i Viktor Rydberg ägde en stor skald. Det var, som fölle där från den äfven öfver hans äldre diktning en reflex, i hvars ljus man först med häpnad såg äfven dess skönhet. Men med kantaten var också slaget vunnet. Måhända var det det geniala kraftprofvet att på svenska tolka Goethes Faust, som öfvertygade Viktor Rydberg om, att han ägde den suveräna makt äfven öfver den bundna diktningens form. hvilkcn man länge tillerkänt honom inom prosan. Säkert är att sedan den tiden flödade Viktor Rydbergs skaldeåder rikligt. Än skänkte han oss tankedigra dikter, sysslande med frågor, som nedärfts från mänsklighetens urtid, såsom Prometheus och Ahasverus, eller bildande indignerade inlägg i social-politiska missförhållanden, som Den nya Grottesången; än åter skildrade hans dikt sällheten af att kunna våga ett offer för lifvets ideala makter, såsom Dexippos, än åter räckte den oss den älskligaste, enklaste barnapoesi. Vi kunna här icke analysera Viktor Rydbergs författarskap. Men det gäller om hans poesi i ännu högre grad än om hans prosadiktning, att den vuxit fram ur en ideelt mättad grund. Bakom så godt som hvarje rad af densamma skymtar hans människoideal fram, — en mänsklighet, som kroppsligen återger den grekiska forntidens apolliniska skönhet, sådan vår idealiserande uppfattning, närd af det ädlaste inom forntidens egen konst, föreställer sig den, men en mänsklighet, på samma gång adlad af den medvetna uppgiften att andligen förvärkliga ett ideal, för hvilket all antikens skönhet var främmande, människosonens ideal.
Människosonen! Men förnekade då icke Viktor Rydberg honom?

Om jag här vidrör de religiösa meningsstrider, hvilka äro intimt knutna till Viktor Rydbergs namn, sker det, emedan de i hans historia spelat en alltför stor roll för att här med tystnad förbigås; men jag fattar det icke som min uppgift att vare sig anklaga eller försvara. Viktor Rydberg sökte i en annan formel än kyrkans uttrycket för människosonens väsen. Han fattade Kristus som det fullkomliga uttrycket för Guds eviga tanke med människan, idealmänniskan, i, genom och till hvilken allt människosläktet är vordet till. Mänsklighetens förlossare från synden och försonare med Gud varder Kristus därigenom, att människan, fattad af honom, låter göra sig till en lem i hans lekamen, en gren i det andliga vinträdet, ledes af hans anda till ett lif i hans tro på den himmelska fadren och så kan mottaga Guds oändliga kärlek i Kristus. Viktor Rydberg ägnade mycket arbete och mycken lärdom åt denna den kristna åskådningens centrala fråga. Den som här har det grannlaga värfvet att teckna Viktor Rydberg, vill för egen del blott tillägga, att han har det intrycket af hans hithörande författarskap, att det i äldre tider bars af ett mera enbart teoretiskt intresse, men att detta teoretiska intresse allt mer och mer genombröts af ett praktiskt-religiöst. Det är åtminstone det intryck, som slår mig till mötes ur de märkliga slutorden i hans djuptänkta afhandling Till läran om de yttersta tingen, och samma intryck födes ur hvad man kan kalla hans testamente till sitt folk, då han bland det sista, som flöt ur hans penna, såsom enda medlet till undanrödjande af de skuggsidor, hans kärleksfulla öga upptäckte i våra dagars sociala organisation, visar hän på det nya testamentets lära om mänskligheten som »en andlig lekamen i Guds tankevärld», hvilken mänsklighet, »splittrad genom syndens, åter »skall sammanfogas till ett helt af lefvande stenar, till en fullkomlig man, till en förnyad lekamen, hvars hufvud är Kristus, hvars lemmar äro alla mänsklighetens släktleder. — Det var icke endast ett talesätt eller en dekoration, då ur fönstret till hans arbetsrum strålade emot honom: desidera ardua, desidera den in. I sanning, den mannen hade en trängtan till det himmelska, han längtade efter Gud.

Nära Viktor Rydbergs teologiska författarskap låg hans filosofiska, eller måhända riktigare: under hans teologiska författarskap och väsentligen gestaltande detta låg hans filosofiska åskådning, en idealistisk personlighetsfilosofi, hvars vetenskapliga grundtankar han torde hafva utbildat under inflytande af det filosofiska system, som bär Boströms namn. Till det märkligaste af Viktor Rydbergs författarskap hör utan tvifvel hans filosofiska uppsatser: hans språkkonst har i dem firat triumfen att behandla de djupaste och sprödaste filosofiska problem så, att de kunna fattas äfven af andra än dem, som erhållit filosofisk fackbildning.

Men tiden manar mig att sluta. Jag kan här endast i förbigående omnämna Viktor Rydbergs värksamhet som föreläsare, på uppdrag af Styrelsen för Göteborgs undervisningsfond, under de sista åren af hans Göteborgs vistelse — en värksamhet, genom hvilken han förberedde Göteborgs Högskola; jag kan icke heller dröja vid hans arbete som lärare vid Stockholms Högskola först i kulturhistoria, sedan i de sköna konsternas teori och historia, eller vid hans digra forskningar inom den germanska mytologiens område, inledda genom hans ridderliga fejd med Sophus Bugge, eller vid de kulturella och konsthistoriska skildringar af rang, hvilka han samlat under titeln Romerska dagar. Skörden af Viktor Rydbergs arbete är för rik för att här kunna öfverskådas.

Viktor Rydberg var, mänskligt att se, en lycklig man. Han hade fäst sig en maka, som med aldrig tröttnande kärlek helt gick upp i hans tankar, främjade hans arbete och, så långt det i hennes makt stod, rödde ur vägen för hans fot de stötestenar, som aldrig helt saknas på en människas stig. Tillgifvenhet mötte honom från alla håll; äfven motståndare hemburo honom sin oskrymtade aktning. Han hade makt som få att främja de idéer, som voro honom kära: fällde han ett ord för dem, var han viss att det blef af alla behjärtadt; och det var detta, som företrädesvis gaf känslan af ett tomrum efter honom, att man fruktlöst såg sig om efter någon, som med hans auktoritet kunde ge röst åt lifvets ideala intressen. — Själf kände han sig också lycklig, och det var ett älskligt drag hos honom, att han icke märkte att människors godhet mot honom endast var en reflex af hans eget goda hjärtelag mot andra, ett hjärtelag, hvars djup vackert återgifves i de ord han lägger i anakoretens mun: »det är lodlös synd att jubla, när syskon lida».

Till sist skall det äfven korteligen sägas om honom att han var en god son af sitt fosterland. Svensk historia, svensk kultur, svenskt språk älskade han med en ynglings lidelsefullhet. Det är en händelse under hvilken vi älska att se en djupare mening, att den sista sång, som föddes hos honom under hans vandring i Djursholms lundar, innesluter hans tack för att han föddes medlem af ett folk, som till symbol af sin ädla ätteledning har himmmels blått i vana barnaögon och himmelsblått i ärekrönta fanor.  Och med ädel stolthet utropar han:

Till ariskt blod, det renaste och äldsta,
   Till svensk jag vigdes af en vänlig norna.

Så pekar han så att säga döende hän på den stora idé, till hvars tjänst vi alla böra viga våra krafter, större eller mindre, fosterlandets idé. Få är det gifvet att verka här i lifvet så, att deras arbete göres omedelbart i det större fosterlandets, i mänsklighetens tjänst. Det gäller som regel att hvad som göres för mänskligheten, det kommer densamma tillgodo först därigenom, att det kommit det egna folket till godo. Så kände också Viktor Rydberg sig alltid arbeta i sitt eget folks tjänst.

Men det är oss trösterikt, att hvar och en, huru ringa än hans krafter äro, kan göra en god gärning för sitt eget folk, är han endast trogen i sitt kall. Den stund, vi här ägnat de bortgångnes minne, har för oss låtit framträda bjudande föredömen på trohet mot den uppgift, som ställes oss i lifvet.

 1898 Victor Nilsson 
Loddfáfnismál: an Eddic study - p. 24  

IDENTITY OF LODDFAFNIR: RYDBERG'S THEORY.

[Rydberg's original essay can be found on page 46 of the following document:

HÖDUR-LODDFAFNIR. THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE MYTH ABOUT HÖDUR TO THE STORY OF SIGURD FAFNISBANE’S YOUTH.]

 The purpose of Viktor Rydberg's monumental work on Teutonic mythology is to gather and sift all Teutonic myths and myth-fragments, in order to prove their mutual relationship, and the common Indo-European relation, or origin, of a great number of them. To the heavenly twins Baldr and Hoðr correspond, according to Rydberg, the two gods and brothers Urvakhshaia and Kerecaspa of the Irano-Indian myth. In proportion as the Teutons became Christians, and the formidable old pile of myths crumbled, fragments were, one by one, extricated out of its ruins, which served as foundation stones for the hero saga and the legend. Rydberg quotes the Beowulf epic as a proof of the fact that this process had already advanced quite far in Christian England during the eighth century. Within the Scandinavian literature, episodes from the myth of Baldr have been used as subject matter for poems and historical legends. In the heroic poem of Helgi Hjorvarðsson the central figure is Baldr, transformed into a hero. Together with him Hoðr appears, under the name of Heðinn. Helgi and Heðinn are brothers. The leading theme of the poem is that Helgi and Heðinn love the same maiden and, on that account, fall out with each other, as do Baldr and Hóðr for a similar reason.

To make clear the identity of the names Heðinn and Hóðr, Rydberg gives the different forms of the letter's declension: nom. Hóðr, gen. Haðar, dat. Heði. Rydberg considers the poem of Helgi Hjorvarðsson a very good illustration of the manner in which a mythic episode was transformed into a heroic saga. It is Rydberg's opinion that the Baldr myth has also furnished material for the saga of Sigurd Fafnisbani, at least such traits of it as concern Hóðr. With this opinion he connects his theory of Loddfafnismal.  According to Rydberg, the latter part of Havamal, such as we know it, consists of an ethical poem, with Odin as the speaker, giving counsel to a youth, called Loddfafnir.

Rydberg accepts s. 111 as an introduction in which Loddfafnir himself tells that he has received from Odin the advice which follows. He has received his instruction in Valhall (Hava haullo at). When he recounts it, he is not in Valhall but in the speaker's chair, at the well of Urð (þular stoli a, Urðar brunni at). The mythic personage who carries the strange name, or surname, Loddfafnir, must have been one of the inhabitants of Asgard, reasons Rydberg, and have been in close communion with Odin, since the poet introduces him as receiving from Odin iu Valhall the counsel destined to guide him through life. From the expression "ef þu nemr, ef þu getr," and words in the (interpolated) s. 162, "ljóða þessa mun þú, Loddfafnir lengi vanr vera," Rydberg judges that among the advice given must be some hints at events in the future, and that some of these are neglected by the youth Loddfafnir. Rydberg admits that Loddfafnismal is encumbered by a large number of interpolations, crediting a coarse joker with s. 112, line 6, the same, he thinks,who has added the tiresome refrain, "Ráðumc  þér, Loddfafnir, etc."

 Among strophes and parts of strophes, as to the genuineness of which there can be no doubt, he looks for allusions to what the myth has had to tell of Loddfafnir. He quotes s. 113-115, 117, 118, 121, 126, 131, 134, as important from this point of view.  "Odin's" advice to the young Loddfafnir is summed up by Rydberg in the following manner: 1st, Not to sleep in an enchantress' embrace. If he does not follow this counsel, such disgust of life will possess him that he cares little for the most important matters, loses his appetite and acquaintances, and goes sorrowful to sleep; 2nd, Never to win the secret confidence of another's wife. Loddfafnir is counseled to be exceedingly cautious at ale-feasts, and in his actions towards another's wife;  3rd, To remember that a wicked woman's tongue may cause a man's death;  4th, Never to sever the ties of faithful friendship;  5th, Not to confide in a bad man, giving him part in one's sorrows and trials; for he pays back confidence with evil;  6th, Not to spurn the advice of aged men;

7th, To make shafts for arrow and spear, for his own use, if he can. He who makes such things for another, or uses those belonging to another, causes anger to follow. Collecting the information thus gathered in regard to Loddfafnir, Rydberg comes to the following conclusions:

1) That Loddfafnir was a dweller in Valhall, in his youth, and received from Odin paternal counsel which he, later in his life, for some time neglected;
2) that he was bewitched by an enchantress and, through her, became unhappy;
3) that he was unwary at an ale-feast, and that he desired another's wife;
4) that he abandoned a true friend and, instead, confided in a false one who repaid his confidence with evil;
5) that he received, but neglected, the advice of aged men;
6) that a wicked woman's tongue, perhaps the enchantress spoken of previously, caused the death of a blameless man;
7) that a missile, crookedly shafted, and not made by the one who threw, or shot it, played a part in Loddfafnir's history;
8) that Loddfafnir left Asgard for the lower regions of Hel.

Rydberg shows that all these points occur in the myth of Hodr, and is convinced that Loddfafnir and Hodr are identical. Then he proceeds to explain the strange epithet Loddfafnir. Fafnir is the name of a giant monster in a serpent's disguise. Sigurd kills Famir Reidraarsson, who watches over the treasures in a serpent's or dragon's form; Ragnar kills the serpent Grafafnir. Rhetorically, the word is used for serpent in general. Rydberg supposes that it is a derivation of the Indo-European root pap, with the original meaning of "swollen," "pouring." Loddfafnir thus is thought to mean Slow-Fafnir, a serpent or dragon moving slowly.  The reason why a god or a hero should receive such an epithet is given by Rydberg, as follows: If he kills a monster of this order, he is not only called its slayer (Sigurðr Fafnisbani), but he could also inherit its name. Thus the hero Heimr received his name from a serpent or dragon, named Heimr, which he had killed. The reason for such a transmission of names Rydberg finds in Fafnismal, where in a prose insertion in the poem we read: "Sigurð concealed his name (from the dying Fáfnir), because there was in former days a belief that words of a person destined to die had great power, if he cursed his enemy by his name." If the dying one questioned the name of his slayer in order to curse him, the latter could turn the curse back on the curser, by calling himself by a name alluding to the questioner. Thus Rydberg explains how poets may have called Hóðr Loddfafnir or Fafnir, because he killed a dragon of that name. He adds that Hóðr has been described as a huntsman. It is while hunting that Saxo's Hotherus is bewitched. The big game which the warlike gods, or demigods, encounter are, in the Teutonic as well as the Vedic and Iranian mythologies, giant creatures and demons of various animal forms. From such a demon, killed by Hodr while hunting, Rydberg conjectures that he must have received the epithet of Loddfafnir.  The latter part of Rydberg's chapter on Hodr-Loddfafnir is devoted to an investigation of the relation in which the saga of Sigurd Fafnisbani's youth stands to the myth of Hodr-Loddfáfnir. He speaks first of Fafnismal. Rydberg thinks that while the hera of Loddfafnismal tells the good counsel of practical wisdom given him, in the poem preserved, be must, in another one, now lost to the greater part, have apppeared as a teacher of mythological secrets. He further claims that two strophes of Fafnismál which speak of the nornir who select mothers for the children and of the events of Ragnarok originally belong to this lost poem. The unknown person who gave Fafnismal its present form, Rydberg supposes to have known these two strophes of the old mythological poem and to have known them to be put in the mouth of a mythic being called Loddfafnir or Fafnir. From the name he then might have been led to believe that the wise counsellor was the dragon Fafhir, and interpolated the strophes in question, as a part of the conversation between Sigurd and the dying Fafnir. Sigurd's answer to Fafhir's question about his name: gaufagt dyrek heiti, Rydberg translates "I am called Slow-animal." Since Rydberg interprets Loddfafnir as meaning "SlowFafnir," it seems evident to him that the one epithet alludes to the other, the one being the prototype of the other. Gaufagt he derives from göfa "to be slow," and compares it with loddari and English "loiterer." Then Rydberg turns his attention to Sigrdri fumal on which he gives a highly interesting dissertation, showing that the meeting between Sigurd and the valkyria Sigrdrifa has no direct connection with Sigurd's future, and trying to prove that a large portion of the advice given by Sigrdrifa has no bearing on the episodes of Sigurd's life. On the other hand, he shows that Sigrdrifa herself and her counsel have direct connection with the myth of Hóðr. Rydberg thinks that the author or editor of Fafnismal is responsible for having revised Sigrdrifumal and connected it with the cycle of songs about Sigurd. He thinks this editor was the first one to give the hero, who awakens Sigrdrifa, Sigurd's name, while his actual name was Hoðr-Loddfafnir, the editor thinking of the two poems of Loddfafnir when he gave Fafnismal its present form. Rydberg may be right when he asserts that Hodr is the hero who finds Sigrdrifa and that the saga of Sigurd Fafnisbani's early adventures has borrowed from the myth of Hóðr. But his comparisons of parallel points in Sigrdrifumal and Loddfafnismal lose a great deal in interest and value, because evident interpolations in both poems are not critically considered. The principal reason why we cannot accept Rydberg's theory is the same as in the case of Bugge's. It is based chiefly on strophe 111 [of Havamal], which has no connection with Loddfafnismal proper. Furthermore, Rydberg, from the interpolated s. 162, which likewise does not belong to the old Loddfafnismal, conies to the conclusion that Loddfdfnir neglected the counsel given, a conclusion which he afterwards uses freely. In summing tip the points of advice, Rydberg quotes the contents of the interpolated s. 114 and s. 118, but as these are apparently quite old and only offer variations and additional details to the respective strophes preceding, this fact is of minor importance. Next let us consider the conclusions drawn from the analysis of the counsel. Conclusions 1 and 8 must be discarded with the discarded strophes 111 and 162. Conclusion 5 is right, so far as it is evident from the poem that Loddfathir received counsel from a hoary sage, s. 134, but that he neglected his advice is the faulty part of the conclusion, based on the interpolated s. 162. Conclusion 7, as based on s. 126, is altogher too far reaching; s. 126 counsels Loddfafnir not to be "a shoemaker or a shaftmaker, except for himself; for a badly made shoe or a crooked shaft will bring him ill thanks." This seems a counsel of the simplest and most trivial generality; shoes and shafts being mentioned throughout as of equal importance, and agrees not at all with Rydberg's conclusion as pointing to a great and singular event ("that a missile, crookedly shafted and not made by the one who threw or shot it, played a part in Loddfafnir's history.") The conclusions made by Rydberg are quite important, for, if correct, they would directly connect Loddfafnismal with the myth of Baldr and Hóðr. With conclusions 1, 5, 7, and 8, the strongest supports of Rydberg's theory have fallen, as far as the contents of the poein are concerned. The remaining conclusions (2, 3, 4 and 6) will be taken up later.  The weakest point of Rydberg's theory is the one which has a bearing on the meaning of the name or epithet Loddfafnir, and its connection with the contents, or the hero, of the poem. Rydberg offers "Slow-serpent," "Slow-Fáfnir," as a translation of the name. Between the name and the contents of the poem he has found no connection. In applying the name to Hodr, Rydberg has been forced to make the conjecture that the hero must have met a demon in animal form, while out hunting; killing the monster, he has inherited its name. But in regard to this meeting, the monster, its slaying, and its name, both Norwegian-Icelandic and Swedish-Danish sources are silent. Hóðr and the name Loddfafnir are connected in Rydberg's theory only. Rydberg's translation of the name Loddfafnir as SlowFafnir, is perhaps not altogether incompatible with Bugge's etymology, as far as the former component is concerned. For as the original sense of loða, lodda is "to cleave to,""to cling fast,"it seems that "to be slow" may be accepted as a secondary meaning: to cleave to,  to be slow (in leaving). When Rydberg translates gaufngt dyr (in Fafnismal) as meaning "slow animal,"he deviates from the course of all other scholars who have ventured a translation of it, "noble," "valiant,"etc., being the adjectives used. Rydberg considers gaufugt a derivation of gaufa, "to be slow," while all others accept it as gofugt { gofga, "to honor," "to adore." In the oldest Icelandic manuscripts preserved, gofga and several related words appear frequently, while gaufa and the noun gauf, the only related word, are nowhere found in these sources.  Notwithstanding the great ingenuity of the theories offered by Bugge and Rydberg, they have their defects, as we have seen. In order to discover the identity of Loddfafnir, they both go far outside of what has been supposed to be the arena of ideas ani subjectsof the Eddic poems. An attempt to find a satisfactory solution at lesser distance, in more intimate connection with the other poems of the Edda, may therefore seem legitimate.  

V. IDENTITY OF LODDFAFNIR: GRIPIR AND SIGURD.

  Before attempting to give a new solution of the question of Loddfamir's identity and to define the proper position of Loddfafnismal, within the collection of Eddic poems, let us gather the results obtained through the preceding review of opinions and theories.  We find that Loddfafnismal (Havamal IV) is estimated to be from twenty-five to fifty years older than the other poems of the Hava collection. An old sage and speaker, Óðinn, is giving counsel to a youth called Loddfafnir. We could not accept Odin as being this old sage, for his wisdom is of a different order, the moral standards of his counsel are different. Nothing indicates that the speaker is a god. The youth is supposed to be a mytho-poetic personage, and his name or epithet of poetic origin. Bugge offers as a translation of Loddfafnir "one who embraces firmly," ''who keeps (another) firmly embraced." Rydberg makes it appear likely that the counsel contains hints at Loddfafnir's future destiny, although nothing in the poem makes it apparent that he did not follow, or attempt to follow, the good counsel given him. If we are able to find such hints in the poem which clearly point to events in the life of a person known to us, through the Eddic poems, and the name finds explanation as being fittingly given to this same personage, we consider the question of Loddfafnir's identity solved.  The situation such as given in Loddfafnismal, is found in another Eddic poem, Gripisspa. This poem has also been called "Sigurðarkviða Fafnisbana hin fyrsta," but neither title occurs iu Codex Regius. It stands first of the poems about Sigurd in Codex Regius and gives, in dialogue form, a prophetic outlook over the principal incidents in his life. In reality, it is a look backward, as it is one of the most recent poems of the Edda, nearly the only one about which it can be said, with any degree of certainty, that it was written in Iceland (between 1150-1200). Its regular strophes and verses, and its smoothly-flowing language, testify to its recent origin. The episodes of Sigurd's life on which it touches are given in a form which makes it evident that the author was acquainted with the majority of Eddic poems, not only those about Sigurd, but also the Helgi poems and others. The author knew a written collection of Eddic poems, and this is a conclusive proof of the late origin of the poem. Mullenhoff and Simrock think that Gripir is an invention of the moment, to suit the author and his objects. J6nsson thinks that Gripir always has been connected with Eylimi and Hiordis, as the son of the former and the brother of the latter. J6nsson also considers it plausible that older poems, now lost, about Gripir and his meeting with Sigurd, his nephew, have existed.  Our aim will be to prove that Loddfafnismal is a poem or fragment of a poem, dealing with the meeting of Gripir and Sigurd, and that Loddfafnir is a name given to Sigurd.

 

1898 Aaron Swensson
Again in Sweden: Sketches and Reminiscenes from the Land of Our Forefathers

"Later Writers:—King Oscar II., today the most learned monarch of Europe, well-known poet, eminent orator, successful translator and great linguist, and withal one of the most interesting and noble persons now living in Europe, several times arbitrator; Victor Rydberg, 1895, the greatest Swedish writer of modern days, poet, author, novelist, journalist, author of "The Last Athenian," translated into English by Hon. W. W. Thomas, Jr. The prose of Rydberg is looked upon as ideal."


 

In a review of Samual Laing’s translation of Snorri’s Heimskringla By  W. J. Mutch.  

YALE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN. No. 97
—Week Ending October 5, 1889.

Of the old religion there is but little said. We read of Olaf's entering temples on his missionary expeditions and smashing images of Thor, and also of sacrifices of horse-flesh being made to Odin. Laing finds in this fact an indication of the eastern origin of the race because the practice is too expensive in the north to spring spontaneously from the people of that region, but Dr. Penka in his " Herkunft der Arier " and Viktor Rydberg in his "Researches in Teutonic Mythology" (translated by Dr. Anderson) are finding in this very religion a reason for believing that Scandinavia was the primitive Aryan home.
As one reads these volumes he cannot fail to be impressed by their solid literary character, and the broad culture of the author. It is strange that this Ultima Thule, lying under the Arctic circle, separated by an ocean from all the world, at an age when all the world was lying under an apathy which extended to every phase of human activity, should be able to produce such a work as this, and many others nearly as good. Surely our American scholarship would do well to become more generally familiar with this work of which Emerson said : "It is the Iliad and Odyssey of the Anglo-Saxon race." Frederick Metcalfe says: "Here is a Macaulay in the thirteenth century." Carlyle says: "The early kings of Norway deserves were it once well edited, furnished with accurate maps, chronological summaries, etc., to be reckoned among the great history books of the world." In this new edition these requirements have been fairly well supplied.

1899 Hjalmar Rued
Scandinavian Influence on English Literature

It is strange that editors of Beowulf have hitherto overlooked the identity of the Herebeald-Hothcyn episode and the Balder-Hoth myth, to which the former is clearly indebted, as the Norse myth is of millennial antiquity.

In the reference to Hama and the "Brosings' collar"(P.) we also hear a faint echo of Heimdal's fight with Loke for the possession of the Brisingamen— Freya's choicest ornament — which forms one of the interesting episodes of the Elder Edda. Bugge, Rydberg, and other mythologists have recognized the identity of Hama and Heimdal, and his appearance in connection with the Brisingamen and Eormenric puts all doubt aside. In the several references to Wayland's arms and armor, we see also that the author had a distant acquaintance with Volundarkvida (the Lay of Wayland), the only poem that gives an extended account of the old Germanic smith. Rydberg has also pointed out the identity of Beowulf's Heremod, here posing as the cruel King of the Danes, with Hermod, the messenger of the gods, and one of the early Teutonic deities, whose adventures are told at length in the Elder Edda. (3). In fact, a close study of Peowulf will reveal that nearly all of its incidents, as well as its heroes are later versions of Eddic myths, much confused and corrupted by time and transcription. Thus, the central theme of the story . the slaying of Grendel and his dam, is a confused plagiarization of the old Norse myth of Hate and Angurboda who were set to guard the terrible sword of Wayland until the last day, when it is to be used against the gods. Hate and his mother, Angurboda, like Grendel and his mother, are jotuns; their description tallies in most respects; both pairs live in dark, frightful recesses where the deer will never venture. Just like Angurboda, the mother of Hate, keeps the wonderful sword of Wayland, made in ancient days, on which is scratched mysterious runes telling of the early destruction of the jotuns; so Grendel's mother is the keeper of a wonderful sword made in ancient days, on which is scratched mysterious runes telling of the early destruction of the jotuns, and compared to which all other swords are worthless. Rut while in Beowulf the sword is consumed by the victim, and its keepers killed, it plays in the Elder Edda, with its keepers, a most vital part. Its history is closely associated with the fortunes of the gods from the early times to the final destruction of the world.

 

l) Elder Edda: Hyndluljod,

2) Beowulf 1192-1201.

3) Rydberg: Undersokningar i Germanisk mythologi.

...We are further told in the same saga that Wayland, after having revenged himself upon Nidung or Nithad, made a pair of wings with which he was to fly away. (He could not use his legs as he was hamstrung). He had saved some of the blood of the sons of Nithad whom he had killed, and this he put in a bladder and tied under his arm. He informed his brother Egil, who was then serving the king, of his intention, and told him, if the king commanded to shoot him, to aim at the little bag of blood hid in his armpit. He then flew off and began to taunt King Nithad from some little distance. As foreseen, the King commanded his sharpshooters to bring down the fugitive. Egil shot, piercing the bag of blood. Upon seeing the heavy trail of blood, Nithad felt satisfied that Wayland could not fly far.

We are now far away from traditional history into the land of myth. Pursuing our quest a little further, we find that the prowess of this Egil was known far back among the heathen poets of Scandinavia, centuries before Saxo or Wilkina Saga. These early poets speak of the bow as "Egil's weapon," arrows are called "the hail of Egil's weapon," and similar metaphors are common.

Besides the name of Toko, under which appellation he is known in Saxo's Historia, Egil also bears the name of Orvandel, Earvendil, Orentel. The identity of this Orvandel with Egil can easily be proven from Saxo, as Rydberg has fully pointed out.(l) The name Orvandel was originally probably a metaphor for Egil, coming from ör, meaning arrow, and vandil, meaning "to busy one self with;" that is, Egil was called Orvandal because he was the patron of the arrow, which is the meaning of Orvandel.

This Egil-Orvandel was, as we have seen, a brother of Wayland, and with him plays a most important part in the Morse pantheon. Without going much into details it will suffice to say that they were Elves, the third class of gods, who were probably descended from Lodur. From the Younger Edda we learn that they were once friends with the Arises or Odinic gods and the Vanes. As Egil-Orvandel was one of the swiftest of ski-runners and renowned for his unerring aim, he was associated with Thor in his skirmishes against the Jotuns and filled the place of watchman for the gods on the banks of Elivagor, which separated the territory of the Jotuns from that of the gods and men.(l) In one of his extensive journeys through the bitter cold of those boreal regions, Egil froze a toe and almost succumbed to the cold. Thor found him and broke off his frozen toe, which he, as a reward for the faithfulness of the watchman, cast up into the sky where it there shone as one of the most brilliant of the stars. (2) This is still known as Orvandil's Toe, and because of this bright starry toe he was known as Solbjart, that is, sunbright.(3) In an early Anglo-Saxon hymn to Christ we find the memory of this adventure still preserved. The name of Orvandel will be recognized in the Anglo-Saxon Earendel:

Eala Earendel,
engla bearhtast,
ofer Middangeard
monnum sended
and sodfasta
s'innan lcoma,
torht over tunglap
thu tida gehvane
of sylfum the
symle indihtes.(i)

Orvandel the "brightest star" and "ray of the sun" has here become Eerendel the "brightest angel" and "ray of the sun."

(1) Elder Edda: Lay of Hymer.
(2) Younger Edda 276, 277.
(3) Elder Edda: Lay of Swipdag and Menglad.
(4) Codes exoniensis.

But this friendship did not continue.long. Through the crafty machinations of the mischief-maker Loke, Egil and his brother Wayland believed themselves insulted by the other gods and began to plot revenge. In this Wayland proved so formidable that the gods found it necessary to surprise him and take him prisoner. he was rendered powerless in the manner described in Deor's Lament and Lay of Wayland , and kept prisoner by Nithad-Mimer. To rescue his brother, Orvandel came to Nithad's Court, where he made his apple-shot which has since become so famous, and the more dextrous pretense at killing his brother already described. Shis visit of Orvandel to Nithad would seem to be at the bottom of the Swiss tradition which tells that Gesaier made Tell a prisoner in his "castle in the lake." Orvandel is here confused with his brother who was made prisoner by Nithad in a castle on an island and was visited by his brother. His further history does not concern this discussion.

To clinch this argument a word or two on the origin of the name of William Tell, on which there has been much guesswork. The first name is unimportant as it does not occur until l570 and seems to be an invention of Tschudi, who in his work of that date christens Tell Wilhelm. This writer also gives the name of Konrad to Gessler, Werner to Stauffacher, and Walther to Furst. The earlier accounts know only that Tell was from Ure (Uri). Now Egil, as we have seen, was commonly called Orvandel. This changed in form so as sometimes to be spelled Earendol, sometimes Orentel. Earendel became the established Anglo-Saxon form, Orentel the German. This later became, in writing, Oren Tell, which came to be understood as meaning Uri 'ern Tell, or Tell the man from Uri.

The best known English version of the Tell in myth is preserved in the long ballad or romance of Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough and William of Cloudesley. Only a small part of the ballad, that of shooting the apple off the boy's head at the usual distance and splitting the hazel rod, has, however, anything in common with the usual form of the Tell myth. Moreover, the dramatic power of the story is much weakened in the English ballad by the father's volunteering to shoot the apple off his son's head, thus needlessly endangering his life. In this ballad three brothers are associated just like in the original Norse myth of Wayland, Egil and Slagfin, but this is probably only a coincidence and deserves no thought.

(l) Undersokningar i Germanisk Myth. no. 108

There is also much probability that Scott was influenced by this myth in writing his celebrated archery scene in the thirteenth chapter of Ivanhoe. Scott was much interested in the Northern Sagas, and may have run across the saga of Heming which has much in common with Scott's Locksley. The two great feats of Locksley were those of shivering his opponent's arrow which stood fixed in the center of the mark, and splinting a tiny rod at a great distance. These two incidents we find paralleled under similar circumstances in the Saga of Heming, written a number of hundred years earlier.(l) The great popularity which the story has now gained on the stage and in popular fiction and anecdote is directly traceable to Schiller's play.

The history of Hamlet's origin and introduction into English literature is so well known that nothing need be said about it here. Its treatment by Shakespeare will properly fall under the discussion of Shakespeare. A few words about its place as a folk-tale will not, however, be amiss. Saxo has treated the story of Hamlet, or Amleth, in a masterly way, so much so that Goethe, on reading the narrative, felt disposed to work up the story independently of Shakespeare. However, the story as told by Saxo and understood by the world, stands as a separate tale which shows little or no connection with the Scandinavian mythology. Yet a closer study would show that the story of Hamlet forms a link in the great world-drama of the Northmen, and stands in close connection with other myths, especially with the story of Orvandel, already discussed in this chapter. In Gylfaginning(l) we learn that Orvandel-Tell, whose adventures have already been discussed, was married to Groa. They had a son whose name we know from Ejolsvinnsmal to be Swipdag. Thanks to the exhaustive researches of Rydberg and other mythologists, it is now generally known that Swipdag is identical with Hermod, Skirner, and Eirek, who figure so largely in Worse mythology, and whose adventures are also referred to by the author of Beowulf. From a comparison of various sources, fully discussed by Rydberg,(2) we learn that Orvandel was killed by the same man who married the widow and usurped the kingdom. Swipdag-Hermod, in planning revenge, then feigned imbecility, and was therefore called Amleth or Amlothe, which means foolish. Here this genealogy unites with Saxo's, who also knows that Amleth was a son of Orvandel (Horvendillus). We now see the rela tionship of these various actors. In Scandinavian mythology, Hamlet, or Amleth, is a son of Tell or Orvandel, and their adventures, preserved in modern literature, form a rational sequence. A most interesting discovery indeed! The hero of the most popular play of Central Europe is the father of the hero of the greatest drama of the English language. Truly blood will tell!

(l) Younger Edda.
(2) Undersokningar i Germanisk Mythologi. I, pp.56l-75l.