Complete Index to

Veratis: The Journal of the Viktor Rydberg Society

1987 to present

 

2000 Klaus von See, Beatrice LaFarge, et. al.

Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, bd. 3

Grottosöngr, p. 839

 

       Rydberg postuliert zwei ursprünglich getrennte Mytheme von einer grossen und einer kleinen Grotti-Mühle. Die grosse Mühle sei jene, die im Wasser mahle und Sturm, Brandung und Strudel erzeuge. Ausgehend von der Strophe des Skalden Snæbjorn (s. 4c) rekonstruiert er einen umfassenden Mythos von einer ‘kosmichen Mühle.’ Die gesamte Natur und den Sternenhimmel bewege (so stellt er z.B. eine Verbindung her zwischen der Bezeichnung der Mühl kurbel, möndull, und der Bezeichnung für den Vater des Mondes, Mundilfæri, in Vm. 23) In christlicher Zeit sei die kosmische Mühle dann weitgehend in Vergessenheit geraten, während die ursprünglich der Heldendichtung entstammende ‘kleine Mühle’ durch die Aufnahme des Grt in Skskm. Der Nachwelt bewahrt worden sei (1886. 425-451). Diese Deutung Rydberg’s greift in jüngster Zeit noch Tolley auf (1995). Er vergleicht die Mühle in Grt mit dem finnischen Sampo, einem nirgends genau beschreiben, von ihm aber als ‘kosmische Mühle’ identifizierten Gerät, das mit der Fruchtbarkeit des Landes und dem Ablauf der Jahrezeiten verknüpft ist; dieses Gerät zerbricht schliesslich ebenfalls und setzt dem Reichtum und der Fruchtbarkeit Grenzen.

                                                                                                                                                           

p. 840

 

          "Rydberg postulates two originally separate mythemes of a large and a small Grotti mill. The large mill is that which grinds storms, surf in the water and produces the whirlpool. On the basis of a strophe by the skald Snæbjorn (s. 4c) he reconstructs a comprehensive myth of a 'cosmic mill.'   The whole of nature and the starlit sky moves (in such a way it places e.g. a connection between the designation of the mill-crank, möndull, and the name for the father of the moon, Mundilfæri, in Vafthrudnismal 23. In Christian times the cosmic mill is then to a large extent regulated to oblivion, while the originally heroic tale's coming of the 'small mill ' by the admission of the Grotti-song in Skaldskaparmal. Future generations remembered it (1886. 425-451). This interpretation of Rydberg's was taken up by Tolley in recent times (1995). He compares the mill in Grotti-song with the Finnish Sampo, never exactly described,  however the appartus is identified as the 'cosmic mill ' which is linked with the fertility of the country and the progression of the seasons; this equipment finally breaks too and sets limits on wealth and fertility."

 2001 Kees Samplonius

"Notes on the Structure of Völuspá"

in Germanic Texts and Latin Models: Medieval Reconstructions

 

SIBYLLINE LITERATURE IN THE WEST

 

Rydberg and others have objected that sibylline literature was almost totally unknown in tenth-century Western Europe, which, it was claimed, excludes the possibility of Völuspá being indebted to it. The argument, which constituted Rydberg's main defence against Bang's thesis of a Christian influenced Völuspá, has lost much of its weight since the find of a probably seventh-century Latin sibylline prophecy, Mundus origo mea, preserved in three manuscripts, two of which date from the ninth century. As Dronke points out, the prophecy's unusual theology and vitality of idiom shows it to be a fresh creation within a living sibylline tradition, not an isolated antiquarian work. The observation is weighty, because the more we reckon with individual genius, the less we are obliged to look for corresponding models in order to assume that the poet, in composing Völuspá was influenced by Sibylinne tradition."

 

 

 

2001  Johannes Hoops

Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde p. 595

p. 544 Referenced by Beatrice LaFarge in the entry on Loddfafnismal
p. 595 Referenced by A. Hultgård in the article on Loki

2002 Paul Acker, Carolyne Larrington

The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology‎ - p. 117

  

Presenting a collection of topical essays, reprinting Carol Clover's 1987 article on Harbardsljod (see 1980s)

 

2002

Operator Methods in Ordinary and Partial Differtial Equations

Sonja Kovalevsky Symposium

University of Stockholm, June 2002

 

"Sonja [Kovalevsky]'s appointment as associate professor in June 1884 was an exclusive event. At that time there were only four professors at Stockholm University except for Gösta Mittag-Leffler in mathematics, there were professorships in chemistry, zoology and history of arts. This last chair was held by Viktor Rydberg who was a great poet and learned historian."

 

 

2002 Fornvännen
Rescensioner

Anne Nörgård Jörgensen, Waffen & Gräber. Typologische und chronologische Studien zu skandinavischen Waffengräbern 520/50 bis goo n. Chr. Nordiske Fortidsminder Serie B Volym 17. Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab. Köpenhamn 1999.
 
Ur 1800-talets germanism föddes drömmar om del forntida »Arien», vars underavdelning »Forngermanien» förlades till i södra Skandinavien ock angränsande delar av Tyskland. Härvidlag blev den ursprungligen liberale Viktor Rydberg en väsentlig ideolog. Hans verk om fornnordisk mytologi spreds till en vid läsekrets under sena 1800-talet ock blev säkerligen väsentliga för skapandet av en folklig svensk identitet. En annan slags svensk identitet kar sedan århundraden fokuserats på symboler för kristnande och riksbildning. Gamla Uppsala med storhögarna, det av Adam av Bremen beskrivna hednatemplet samt den senare domkyrkan har i svensk historia sedan århundraden fyllt sädana roller.
....Fast menade, i Rydbergs anda, att den från Island och kontinenten kända forngermanska diktningen hade sin bakgrund i Västergötland. Beowulf skulle vara begravd i Skahindahögen och Uppsala förlagt till Kinnekulle. Fast rörde sig också på 1930-talet nära nazistiska kretsar i Samfundet Manhem Sverige behöver, liksom andra stater, ibland monument. Gamla Uppsala har länge fyllt denna funktion. Människor på den svenska landsbygden behöver ibland andra monument, det må vara »den forngermanska diktningens landskap » eller den av Viktor Rydbergs tomte skyddade »urgamla» gården. Monument skapas i kriser.
...Myten behövdes för landsbygdens människor. Diktens gård, som Rydbergs tomte tassade kring, var i verkligheten något annat. Efter laga skiftets bysprängningar låg gårdarna utspridda  över slätterna, med nya byggnader och allt mer förädlade djur.

2002 Bengt Ljunggren
The Nobel Prize in Medicine and the Karolinska Institute

 
"Viktor Rydberg: One of the greatest authors in Sweden with a major interest for history; an exceptionally learned man who was also a poet and prose writer; expressed radical political opinion; member of the Swedish Academy in 1878; Professor in History of Civilization at University of Stockholm in 1884."

 

2002 J. Magnus Fladmark   

Heritage and Identity: Shaping the Nations of the North ‎

  

"The migration myth in the Prose Edda originally was the result, as shown by Rydberg, of a confusion between Po and the Rhine, and between Pavia and Batavia."

 

2002  John Lindow

Tears of the Gods: A Note on the Death of Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology

  The Journal of English and Germanic Philology.

 "Viktor Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland, trans. Rasmus B. Anderson."

 

2003 Henrik Williams

"... ok brann hann": Varför sparkade Tor in dvärgen Lit i Balders bål?

[Why did Thor kick the dwarf Lit into Baldur's pyre?]

Saga och Sed. Kungl. Gustav Adolfs akademiens årsbok, pp. 83-95

 

Den som verkligen engagerat sig i Lits roll vid Balders bålfärd är Viktor Rydberg som skriver (1889 s. 289):

 

Hela denna episod bildar en kedja af orimligheter om man vill betrakta den som en redogorelse for hvad mythen varkligen berattat om Balders balfard.

 

"One who really engaged himself in Lit's role in Balder funeral pyre is Viktor Rydberg, who writes (1889, p. 289): "

"This whole episode forms a chain of absurdities if one wishes to treat it as a source for what the myth actually told about Balder funeral pyre."

  

2003  Houghton Mifflin Company

The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography

 

 

"Rydberg, (Abraham) Viktor 1828-95 « Swedish writer and scholar. He was born in Jonkoping, and after a hard childhood and early struggles to gain an education he worked as a journalist on the liberal newspaper ...From 1884 to 1895 he was a professor at Stockholm University. The leading cultural figure of his day, he also wrote works on philosophy, philology and aesthetics, translated Goethe's Faust, and published a mythological study, ..."

 

 

2003 Hildor Arnold Barton

Sweden and Visions of Norway

 

Before the opening of the Stockholm-Christiania rail connection in 1871 and the introduction of steam vessels in coastal traffic, cultivated Swedes seldom had, as has been seen, any direct experience of Norway. A few had earlier wandered there on foot, including the artists August Malmstrom and Egron Lundgren in the 1850s and in 1861, respectively, the Stockholm physician and Old Norse enthusiast Carl Curman in 1854 and 1858, and the writer Viktor Rydberg in 1858. The wider reading public became acquainted with Norway largely thanks to the vivid accounts by Peter August Godecke, an avid Scandinavianist and onetime member of the "Nameless Society" in Uppsala

 

2003 Matti Huttunen  

Sibelius Forum II: Proceedings from the

Third International Jean Sibelius Conference,

 Helsinki, December 7-10, 2000

 

Of the mainland Swedish poets, the great romantic poet Victor Rydberg (1828–1895), had the most profound influence on Sibelius and provided the young composer with a rich poetic source that “projects a vision of an enigmatic universe but finds solace in a belief in an idealistic and indestructible human spirit (Steene 1996: 231),” and combines well with both Sibelius’s musical style and Nationalistic views. Rydberg was already a well-established novelist, as well as a Swedish translator of such works as Goethe’s Faust and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, by the time he published his first volume of poetry, Dikter (Poems), in 1882. Dikter: Andra Samlingen (Poems: Second Collection) was published in 1891. Like most Romantic writers, Rydberg had a strong interest in the distant past and the fantastic. As a result, much of both his prose and poetry includes historical, classical, and/or mythological themes and motifs, as well as metaphysical quests, depicted through the use of rhetorical language. Rydberg’s affinity for Nordic mythology resulted in the lengthy 1886 study Researches in Teutonic Mythology. Further, the same “Hegelian synthesis of classical thought and Christian ethics” so pervasive in Rydberg’s historical novels Fribytaren på Östersjön (The Freebooter of the Baltic, 1857) and Den siste atenaren (The Last Athenian, 1859) found its way into his poems (Steene 1996: 211). The composer’s Rydberg settings include Atenarnes sång (Song of the Athenians, 1899); Snöfrid (1900); Skogsrået (The Wood-Nymph, 1888–89); and four of the five Op. 38 songs (1903–04); as well as a handful of other songs.

For Sibelius, Rydberg’s poetry reflected not only the composer’s patriotism, but also more personal expressions. Sibelius’s relatively simple strophic setting of Atenarnes sång, and his setting for reciter, mixed chorus, and orchestra of portions of Snöfrid, display the extroverted side of Sibelius’s Rydberg compositions by appealing to the Finnish heroic spirit of the time against the oppressive control of Russia. The former poem, set in Athens in 267 A.D., depicts the Greek’s struggle against the mighty Persians; while the latter poem, much more Nordic in theme, is Rydberg’s legend of the Teutonic hero Gunnar and his struggles to resist the tempting forest sylph Snöfrid. Of these two works, Atenarnes sång was particularly successful – becoming a popular rallying cry for a country undergoing its own struggle against a mighty oppressor.

The composer’s settings of Skogsrået and two of the songs from the Op. 38 set are more introverted and personal than Atenarnes sång and Snöfrid. Skogsrået – steeped in Nordic atmosphere – provided Sibelius with the material for two related works: a melodrama setting of the poem’s text for narrator, piano, two horns, and strings; and a tone poem based on the thematic material of the work. According to Lisa de Gorog, the plot of the poem – the luring of the strong and handsome lad Björn into the woods by evil forest spirits, whereupon the Wood-Nymph steals his heart, preventing him from ever falling in love – represents “the temptations of life as a threat to duty, [and] reflect[s] Sibelius’s feelings as a head of a household, a role he was entirely unsuited for” (Gorog 1989: 39). The first and second of the five Opus 38 songs, Höstkväll (Autumn Evening, 1903) and På verandan vid havet (On a Balcony by the Sea, 1903), use Rydberg texts and reflect Sibelius’s pantheistic religious view – a view he shared with Rydberg that the presence of God is manifested in nature and man. According to Valerie Sirén, Höstkväll represents a high point in Sibelius’s song composition as essentially “a tone poem for voice and piano” (Sirén 1996: 178). His unambitious, though emotionally intense, setting of På verandan vid havet expresses what Tawaststjerna refers to as the “nearest thing to religious feeling that he experienced […] his awe of Nature” (Tawaststjerna 1976: 20)."

 

 

2004 Anthony Winterbourne

When Norns Have Spoken:

Time and Fate in Germanic Paganism, p. 64-65

   

There have been a number of attempts made to integrate the horizontal and vertical models. Whether one believes that either version was somehow primary depends very often on the role given to fate. One of the most unusual (and detailed) interpretations comes from the Swedish scholar Viktor Rydberg who, by taking Snorri s introductory remarks in the Gylfaginning at more or less face value, suggested that in that place an entirely foreign cosmography had been interpolated into Norse mythology, producing all of the various tensions and inconsistencies that have troubled scholars ever since. Rydberg says that a careful examination of this text demonstrates that the entire mographical and eschatological structure which Snorri builds out of fragmentary mythic traditions "is based on a conception wholly foreign to Teutonic mythology i.e., on the conception framed by the scholars in Frankish cloisters and then handed down, that the Teutons were descended from the Trojans. This conception found its way to the North, eventually into the Younger Edda. The cosmography developed from this assumtion has the Aesir's origin in Troy, which was the center of the earth, just as Asgard would become in Northern mythology. Bifrost then becomes a bridge from Troy to the heavens, with Urd's Well located at the other end. As Rydberg points out, this means that when the Asas (Aesir) ride to the heavens, they must be riding upward, not downward. Now according to Voluspa, Urd's Well is beneath one of Yggdrasill's roots. Since Urd's Well is in the heavens, it must be "further up," and if the placing of the root "is done with consistency," Rydberg says that we end up with a series of faulty localizations: on the earth is Asgard-Troy; thence upward via Bifrost to the heavens. Above Bifrost, there is Urd's Well, and still farther above this, is one of Yggdrasill's three roots-"which in the mythology are all in the lower world." Since one of these roots is placed far up in the heavens, a second root had to be placed on a level with earth, while the third retained its position m the lower world. "Thus was produced a just distribution of the roots among the three regions constituting the universe: heavens, earth, hell. two myths, says Rydberg, were in this way pressed into service in relatton to the remaining roots of Yggdrasill. One was taken from Voluspa-- Mimr's Well is located below the tree, as we have seen: evergreen o'ertops Urth's well this tree." The other was taken from Grimnismal where we are told that the frost giants dwell under another of the three roots. "The manner in which Gylfaginning has placed the roots of Yggdrasill makes us first of all conceive [it] as lying horizontal in space: this gives us the following picture :

  

 

 

 

 

   

But as Rydberg points out, Gylfaginning does not draw this conclusion, since it insists that the world ash-tree "stands erect" on its three roots. He says that Gylfaginning's "pretended account" of the Norse cosmography, because of its making Troy its starting-point, "and  doubtless as a result of Christian methods of thought, is a monstrous caricature of the mythology."

           And so here we have a very strange picture indeed. If we insist on trying to superimpose the cosmography of the world ash-tree onto that model of Bifrost, Midgard, Asgard, and so on, from other sources in the mythology, we can make little sense of it as a two-dimensional mappa mundi. even with Yggdrassil laid on its side rather than erect- as the Voluspa tells us it must e we ave to manipulate and rethink natural directions to accomodate the topography of its roots. It is clear that the tree should be upright; from that we then do the best we can to fit the other accounts into this structure. There are other options. One of these is to introduce into this picture of Yggdrasill a  dynamic, shamanistic component. In other words, we add time to space. The Germanic folkloric tradition and the associated mythology each contribute something to the idea that ecstatic techniques were known and used, though how widespread this was is not clear. There are certainly elements of the mythology with obvious shamanistic implications. Yggdrasill linked worlds together, thereby offering a path for shamanic journeys. Such world-trees linking one realm to another can be found in many Asian mythologies, and some have suggested that this is the likely source for the Germanic case-for Cosmic trees are related to so-called world poles (as in Amerindian culture, and the mythologies of parts of Australasia). These poles are routes to the sky for shamans, not unlike Bifrost.

  

 

As a reminder to the reader, this is the cosmology that Viktor Rydberg, in fact, advocated:

   

 

       

   

2004 Anatoly Liberman

 Some Controversial Aspects of the Balder Myth  

Alvismal 11

 

 

"In the Eddas, the deadly weapon is the mistletoe. The component -teinn enters into several sword names, the most famous of them being Lævateinn. The description in Volospá 32.5–8, amplified by Snorri, is so obscure and the mistletoe so ill-suited for the role of a spear that a reconstructed tale has been offered, according to which a sword called Mistilteinn inflicted a mortal wound on Baldr. In MacCulloch’s words, “[t]he swordname might easily be mistaken for that of the plant, which would then be supposed to be the instrument of Balder’s death” ( 1930, 136). Among those who thought so, we find Rydberg (1886–89, 1:592–93), Golther (1895, 379), Niedner (1897, 308–13), and von der Leyen (1938, 162)."

 

"Only exceptionally is mistelten a popular plant name and it is then used of other winter green plants, as, for example, the ivy.” Mistilteinn is the only Old Icelandic compound ending in -teinn that is not a sword name ( Rydberg 1886–89, 1:612; Jónsson 1913–16, s.v. “teinn”)."

 

"The first thunderous Snorri basher was Viktor Rydberg (for a detailed analysis of the scene of Baldr’s death see Rydberg 1886–89, 2:285–91), who did not mince words (“ absurdity,” “grotesque,” “burlesque”) in tearing Snorri to pieces. In his opinion, Snorri took the deeply symbolic and allegorical strophes of Húsdrápa literally. Whether Rydberg, steeped in the ideas of romanticism, understood Úlfr Uggason (the author of Húsdrápa, containing a description of Baldr’s funeral as it was represented in the carvings in Óláfr pá’s hall) better than Snorri did is open to doubt."

 

"A comparison of Saxo’s and Snorri’s versions shows how fluid this plot was: suffice it to say that in Gesta Danorum the gods fight on Høther’s side against Balder ( Kauffmann 1902, 244, 256). Merging eddic characters and looking for hypostases is an unprofitable occupation. It allows any god (giant, dwarf) to become anybody else, as happened under Rydberg’s pen. Hoðr should remain Hoðr, a blind god distinct from the one-eyed All-Father Óðinn, and there is no justification in the idea of Baldr’s being sacrificed to Loki or Óðinn, for he was murdered, not sacrificed." 

 

 

 

2004  Walter Rüegg -

Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

(1800-1945)‎ -p. 126

 

 

“The University of Stockholm, founded in 1878, was as different as possible to the Uppsala-Lund state university tradition, since in the beginning there was no examination, the professors represented only the natural sciences with one exception, and the famous writer and liberal journalist Viktor Rydberg (1828-95) was given a chair in History of Culture (later History and Theory of Art) The institutuion did not like being called a university, but was named Stockholms Högskola. From 1904, the Högskola gained the right to set examinations, and with a new faculty of law and social sciences and semi-municipal status from 1907, became de facto a university, finally attaining the status of a state university in 1960, at which time is name changed to Stockholms Universitet. The number of professors of Jewish origin was remarkably higher in Stockholms Hogskola than in the state universities, and one of the world’s first female professors taught there.”
...

 

 

2004

 International Who's Who in Poetry- p. 489

 

"Rydberg, (Abraham) Viktor (1828-1895), Swedish writer and poet."

 

 

 2004 Anna Lindén  

Viktor Rydberg och den jämförande indoeuropeiska religionshistorien

 Viktor Rydberg and the Comparative Study of the History of Indo-European Religion

Lychnos, pp. 45-67

 

 Abstract: In the United States of today, there is an increasing interest taken in the books on comparative religion written by the Swedish poet and scholar Viktor Rydberg (1828-95). Last year two of his major works, Researches in Teutonic mythology (Undersokningar i germanisk mythologi, I) and Magic of the Middle Ages (Medeltidens magi), appeared in English reprint. At the same-time Rydberg's Our father's god saga (Fädernas gudasaga) was translated into English. In this essay, I have studied Rydberg's mythological research of the 1880s - especially his Indo-European comparisons - in its scholarly context and asked why it did not attract as much attention as one would have expected. Rydberg's research is, of course, far too fanciful for our modern taste; yet, I think it deserves better than being ignored as a mere curiosity. Even today, Rydberg's Indo-European comparisons in the second part of Undersokningar (not yet available in English translation) can give the Indo-European scholar much inspiration. Characteristic for Rydberg as a scholar of comparative religion is his independence. The main thesis in Undersokningar is that the originally individual myths were arranged in an epical (lain, starting with claos and creation, and ending with Ragnarok and the new creation, during the Neolithic period (the oldest Indo-European age, according to Rydberg). Rydberg sees the epical chain as the essence of the Teutonic and Indo-Iranian mythologies. He probably got this idea from the Old Norse poem Völuspá, which contains a kind of eschatological epos. The focus on apocalypse and eschatology in the ancient Iranian religion probably also inspired him. Rydberg's mythological research had little influence on the scholars of his time, since comparative religion was dominated by schools that Rydberg did not belong to. He was in fact sometimes very critical of them, and the representatives of those schools were of course as critical to Rydberg as he was to them. Rydberg's Undersokningar was written in the Swedish language. Although the first part of this work was translated into English in 1889, the from a scholarly perspective most interesting Indo-European comparisons were to be found in the second part, not available in any of the world languages. This fact surely diminished Rydberg's international influence.

 

 

  2004

Saga och Sed: Kungl. Gustav Adolfs akademiens årsbok

 

 p. 16  "Man skulle kunna jämföra vår tids medeltidsromantik med Rydberg’s dito eller likna Sagan om svärdet vid Tolkiens Sagan om ringen, där likande alver, vaner, och dvärger förekommer (jfr Myrstener 1995). Man kan ta fasta Rydbergs betydelse för kriminalromanen (Wendel 1995:50), beskriva honom som föregängare till det radikala ..."

 

p. 29 Title chapter is “Viktor Rydberg som kulturhistoriker”

 

 

 

  2004 Lärdomshistoriska samfundet

Annuaire de la Société suédoise d'histoire des sciences:

 

 

Oskar Bandle; Britt-Mari Näsström, "Diktens stigar och tankens ljus: Om Viktor Rydberg som religionshistoriker", i Tyst nu talar jag ... der germanischen Religionswissenschaft: (Von Jacob Grimm zu Georges Dumézil) (Bonn, 1968), 38 ff. ...

 

 

 2005 Oskar Bandle, Kurt Braunmüller, Ernst Hakon

The Nordic Languages: an International Handbook

 

In Swedish literature, Viktor Rydberg is the single exception. Rydberg built on the romantic and rhetorical tradition but in an independent way. His vocabulary is much wider and more varied than that of the romantics but limited by the fact that Rydberg was a purist who energetically fought against loan words in the Swedish language. Rydberg was a contemplative poet who favored words for thoughts, longing and mysticism, but not for sensory impressions. He was fond of coining words and many of them have first elements typical of Rydberg, e.g. ande- ‘spirit’, ‘spiritual.’ The level of style is lofty even when “unpoetic” word” are incorporated, a novel technique in imitation of Runeberg.”  

 

2005 Dean Williams
Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations
Face their Toughest Challenges 

 

"Odin's quest for insight led him to the World Tree (Yggdrasil), the center of creation. The World Tree represented the moral and physical laws of the world.⁵

 

⁵Victor Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology [London, Schonenschein 1891], 491.

 

 

2005 Gunnar Broberg, Nils Roll-Hansen

Eugenics and the Welfare State, p. 79-80

 

"The foremost cultural figure in Sweden at the end of the nineteenth century was Viktor Rydberg, writer and cultural historian. As it happened, his last publication a long introduction to an 1895 Swedish edition of Benjamin Kidd's Social Evolution entitled "The Downfall of the White Race" [Den Hvita Rasens Framtid]. Dissenting from Kidd's Darwinian optimism, Rydberg European culture being overthrown by the Chinese. He predicted that the downfall would come in the very near future and would come about because of moral degeneration, demographic conditions and the ensuing defects in the population. Rydberg's belief  in a swift, negative transformation has clear Lamarckian features, but the cure that he suggests is not initially eugenic or biological; instead he advocates moral rearmament. With the pathos of a prophet he really sees no other possible outcome than his own death and that of his own race."

 

p. 81 "...her writing could be linked to contemporary science,  as was the case with Rydberg and Fahlbeck..."

 

2005 F. Gregorius
Modern Asatro och dess Historia

 ...det fornnordiska samhällets religion och kultur: dels att det går att finna ett någorlunda enhetligt och koherent religiöst och mytologiskt system i ... av de författare som försökte bevisa att det existerade ett enhetligt germanskt mytologiskt system var Viktor Rydberg (1828–1895). ...

 

 

2005  American Heritage Dictionary

The Riverside Dictionary of Biography - Page 697

"Rydberg. (Abraham) Viktor 1828-95. Swedish writer and scholar- He was born  in Jönkoping, and after a hard childhood and early struggles to gain an education, he worked as a journalist, wrote historical novels... and published a mythological study, "

 

2006 Maja Hagerman
Det Rena Landet:
om konsten att uppfinna sina förfäder

När Rydberg läste Völuspá funderade han över att göra en undersökning av diktens ursprung och förhållande till andra germanska myter. Han anhöll om att Vitterhetsakademien i Stockholm skulle stödja arbetet, men av det blev intet. Däremot tyckte en av akademiens ledamöter, Oscar Montelius, att idén var intressant och att Rydberg borde skriva en artikel i ämnet för den ansedda Nordisk Tidskrift som Montelius var redaktör för. Det blev tre långa uppsatser där Rydberg tog itu med forskare som hävdade att det fanns spår av kristen medeltid i Eddans Völuspá. Tanken var löjeväckande för Rydberg, som hade en helt annan uppfattning om textens ursprung och ålder. ...

When Rydberg read Völuspá he thought about doing a study of the poem's origin and relationship to other Germanic myths. He requested that the Science Academy in Stockholm would support the work, but of it nothing came. However, said one of the academy's members, Oscar Montelius, the idea was interesting and that Rydberg should write an article on the subject for the prestigious Nordic Journal of which Montelius was editor. It was three long essays in which Rydberg tackled scientists who claimed that there were traces of the Christian Middle Ages in the Edda's Völuspá. The idea was ridiculous for Rydberg, who had a very different view of the text, age and origin. ...

 

 

  2006 Stefan Arvidsson

Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology

as Ideology and Science 

 

       "About the anti-Semitic view of the Jew as nomad, see Mosse 1997, xix 49f., 60-69, 115f., 121, 128-36, and Poliakov, 1974, 274, 284-90. In Sweden, Prometheus was contrasted to the Jew Ahasverus by the country's foremost representative of the Aryanist progressives, Victor Rydberg. In Rydberg's poem “Prometheus och Ahasverus” (Rydberg 1889), the Titan Promethus is presented as an unconquerable freedom fighter chained in the Caucasus, is tortured by a vulture. This is the punishment for having stolen the gods' fire and given it to the enslaved people, which made them aware of their divine origin." If Prometheus begs the god of Olympus, Zeus ("the god of time; who for the Platonist Rydberg personifies egotism, hedonism, and materialism), for forgiveness for his transgression, he will turn into the Antichrist. Ahasverus, son of a rabbi and shoemaker, tries to convince him to do this, since it breaks his own curse. Rydberg presents Ahasverus as a cynic who has made himself subject to worldly power and who hates Jesus, the god of eternity, since the latter fights to create a better world for the oppressed. At the end of the poem, Jesus appears to Prometheus and says that his suffering will cease on the day when he learns to love fully and completely. However, Prometheus's pathos of justice gives rise to a wrath that makes this liberation impossible. In Undersokningar i germansk mythologi, which should be mentioned somewhere in this book since it had quite a great impact, Rydberg criticizes the nature mythologists ("weather mythologists"). Unlike them, he believes that Indo-European mythology can be traced back to a great epic-"the mythological epopee of the ancient Aryan"-which was about the creation and destruction of the world and of religion and where the gods were personalities "in whose existence one believed" (Rydberg 1886-89, 2:174f.. 431). See also Siegert 1941-42, 75. p. 103-4  
 

 2006 Barbro Klein

"Cultural Hertiage: The Swedish Folklife Sphere

 and the Others."

 

"... While Hazelius and his collaborators frequently emphasized that the new museum was concerned with kulturhistoria (culutral history), I have found no instances in which they used kulturarv ['cultural-inheritance']. The word did exist, however. It is said that Victor Rydberg, a celebrated novelist who also called himself a "cultural historian," introduced it into Swedish in 1883 (SAOB 1939; Svenson 2003)."

  

2006 Svansson, Artur.
Otto Pettersson: oceanografen, kemisten, uppfinnaren
[Otto Petterson; Oceanographer, Chemist, Inventor]

"Men ett långt brev från OP till SH-kollegan Viktor Rydberg (VR) den 9/12 86 (KB) om rektorsval, avslöjar, att de nedan under OPs rektorstid (1893- 96) omtalade inre stridigheterna var aktuella redan nu.

Man skulle välja ny rektor för tvåårsperioden 1887-88. Om VR hade kandiderat, hade han sannolikt blivit vald. För det var nog inte bara den mindre gruppen kring OP, som menade att "Du står utom partierna och är den ende som kan bringa fred inom Högskolan."

Majoritetens kandidat blev då omval av matematikprofessorn Gösta Mittag-Leffler, som i NE, efter att ha prisats för sina stora insatser, på sluttampen karakteriseras: "Han skydde inte strid för att nå sina mål och blev därigenom en kontroversiell och ibland fruktad person". Det senare motsägs inte av brevet till VR, vilket jag citerar delar av: Efter värt samtal i Tisdags ansäg jag vid närmare eftertänkande, att det var ärligast och bäst, att utan längre dröjsmål meddela mina yngre kolleger, [Knut] Ångström och [Nordal] Wille, det svar Du gav åt mig och [Robert] Rubenson. Jag sade dem: att Rydberg avböjt valet till rektor för sin egen del; att han icke har förtroende till [Gösta Mittag-] Leffler och anser, att det icke vore lyckligt för Högskolan, om L. bleve rektor, men av ett skäl, som är personligen bindande för Rydberg själv, beslutit skänka Leffler sin röst vid valet. Jag tillade, att enligt min uppfattning var Rydbergs beslut orubbligt. Därpå bad jag mina kamrater att förena sig med mig om en annan kanidat, eftersom ingen av oss kunde vara med om att välja L. utan att handla mot sin övertygelse. Jag hade väntat att få mina kamrater med mig häruti, men fann istället ett motstånd, som jag knappt torde kunna besegra, och fick ögonen öppna för ett förhållande, som jag borde tänkt på förut. Om L. blir rektor för de kommande båda åren, så är detta egentligen endast en obehaglig händelse för oss andra, som vi ej kunna ha något ont av - endast ledsamheter. Men för Wille och Ångström blir det en allvarsam sak. Deras ställning vid Högskolan är, som Du vet, osäker, deras fullmakter lyda på några månader i sänder och måste nu t.ex. i denna månad förnyas, om de ej skola tvingas att lämna...

 

But a long letter from Otto Pettersson to his Stockholms Högskola-colleague Viktor Rydberg (VR) dated 9/12 86 (KB) regarding the selection of a principal, reveals that during Otto Petterson's time as rector (1893-96) talk about internal strife was already relevant.

A new president [of Stockholm College] for the two-year period from 1887 to '88 was to be chosen. If Viktor Rydberg had stood as a candidate, he'd probably have been elected. For it was not only the smaller group around Otto Petterson who said that "You are outside of the dispute and are the only one who can bring peace within the University."

The majority's candidate was then re-elected —mathematics professor Gösta Mittag-Leffler, who in NE, after being praised for his great efforts, is in closing characterized, "He spared no battle to reach his goals and thus became a controversial and sometimes fearsome person." The latter is not contradicted by the letter to Viktor Rydberg which I quote parts of:

"After much conversation I carefully considered, thinking it was best, without further delay, to inform my younger colleagues, [Knut] Angström and [Nordal] Wille, of the response you gave to me and [Robert] Rubenson. I told them that Rydberg declined election to the Vice Chancellor for himself; that he does not have confidence in [Gösta Mittag-] Leffler and believes, that it would not be good for the University, if Leffler became principal, but for personal reasons Rydberg himself intended to give Leffler his vote at the election. I added that I believed that Rydberg's decision was steadfast. Then I asked my friends to join me in support of another candidate, because none of us could be involved in choosing Leffler except we act against our beliefs. I had been expecting my comrades to join with me on this, but found instead a resistor, which I would barely be able to defeat, and had my eyes opened to a relationship, which I should have seen before. If Leffler becomes president for the next two years, it will certainly be an unpleasant event for us, not anything harmful- just sadness. But for Wille and Angström it becomes a serious matter. Their position at the University is, as you know, uncertain, their contacts last a few months at a time and must now— e.g. this month, be renewed, if they are not forced to leave."

 

 

2006 Jan Sjavik

Historical Dictionary of Scandinavian Literature

 and Theatre, p. 223

"A Swedish novelist and poet, Rydberg wrote historical novels in which he expressed his own ideas about contemporary issues. Writing about the past satisfied the romantic in him, and as a journalist working in a liberal newspaper, he was very aware of the issues of the day. His first successful novel was Fribytaren på Östersjön (1857; tr. The Freebooter of the Baltic) set during the 17th century. " "Like that of his romantic predecessors, Rydberg's poetry combined his interest in classical culture with his concern about folklore and the national past. He published two volumes of poetry, Dikter (1882; Poems) and Dikter, andra samlingen (1891, Poems, Second Collection). Rydberg's poems from the 1880s are distinguished by their concern for social justice and his abhorrence of narrow-mindedness and bigotry of all kinds."

  2006 Encyclopedia Americana

 Volume 30

"RYDBERG, Viktor ... After studying at the University of Lund, he was a contributor (1855-1876) to the Goteborg liberal newspaper ..."

  

 

 2006   Ernest L. Abel

Intoxication in Mythology: a Worldwide Dictionary of Gods, Rites, Intoxicants, and Places.

 

 

"Ivaldi: In Norse mythology, a dwarf king who lived in Jotunheim, the land of the giants, and discovered a well, called Byrgir, whose water contained a magic mead that conferred wisdom and ecstasy. To keep the mead secret, Ivaldi sent his son Hjuki and daughter Bil with a pail to empty the well out at night and bring the mead back to him. One night, however, Nepur, the Moon God, whose children Ivaldi had earlier abducted, and who was waiting for an opportunity to retaliate, noticed Ivaldi's children and kidnapped them in return. When he brought them and their pail back to his home in the moon he discovered the mead's magical effects and gave some of it to the Aesirgods. When Ivaldi learned what had happened, he became infuriated, and waited for Nepur to pass through the Underworld on his nightly journey captured him, rescued his children and got his mead back. Ivaldi knew that the Aesir would try to get the mead, so he formed an alliance with their enemies, the frost giants, and entrusted his mead to the giant, Fjalarr, for safekeeping. In return, Fjalarr gave him permission to marry his daughter, Gunnlod. On the day before the wedding, Odin arranged to have Ivaldi ambushed and killed.  Then he disguised himself as the bridegroom, stole the mead, and brought it back to Asgard. (Rydberg, No. 123)."

 

 2006 Adolpho Zavorini—Reggio Emilia

Mead and Aqua Vitae:

Functions of Mimir, Odinn, Vidofnir and Svipdagr

Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik, Band 61

"After all, Rydberg (1891) had a great insight when he considered Mimir as" the original smith", the guardian "of the Well of Creative Power" and ruler of "the mill regulating the flowing of waters, revolving the dome of heaven." p. 81
 

  

In the comprehensive multi-volume ''Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, Bd. 2, currently one of 5 volumes commenting on Eddic poems individually, edited by Klaus Von See, Beatrice LaFarge, Eve Picard, Ilona Priebe, and Katja Schultz, ISBN3825305341  and in Carol Clover's article "Hárbardsljóð as Generic Farce", The Poetic Edda, Essays on Old Norse Mythology. Edited by Paul Acker and Carolyne Larrington, 2002, ISBN 0815316607. 

 

 Rydberg is named as one of the scholars who identified the ferryman Harbard of the Eddic poem ''Hárbardsljóð'' as Loki, rather than Odin.  The others were Frederich Bergmann and Klingenberg.

Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, Bd. 2, p. 155-156:

"Because there is no explicit revelation in the poem Harbardsljod concerning the identity of the title figure, Harbard, who is concealed under this name remained disputed until the end of the 19th century. The hostile attitude toward Thor, which continues throughout the poem, contributed to Harbard being understood as an enemy of the gods. Thus Gunnar Pálsson and others saw in Harbard a giant, Bergmann and Rydberg, in contrast, Loki," adding “The identity Harbard-Odin has been generally accepted since the detailed rejection of the opinions of Bergmann and Rydberg by Niedner and Finnur Jónsson. ...But Klingenberg affirms that Harbardr-Odin presents himself as 'Loki-like.'”.

2007  Farīdūn Vahman, Claus V. Pedersen

Religious Texts in Iranian Languages: Symposium held in Copenhagen, May 2002‎

"Priority for Sweden should be given to the writer and poet Viktor Rydberg who, although an amateur, was a forerunner of comparative Indo-European studies, see Rydberg 1886- 1889."

 

2007 Hildor Arnold Barton

  The Old Country and the New

Opinion turned, however, in a clearly pro-Union direction following the Union's decisive victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in the summer of 1863.

Among the most prominent newspapers that changed course in that regard was the liberal Goteborgs Handels- och Sjofartstidning in Gothenburg. It was certainly in that connection that Thomas became acquainted with its influential publisher, Sven Adolf Hedlund, and his editor for foreign affairs, Viktor Rydberg, both of whom became his good friends. They in turn surely aroused the young counsel's interest in Nordic antiquity and Swedish history, culture, traditions and customs. (William Widgery) Thomas quickly learned Swedish and mingled with leading Swedish cultural figures. 

It was presumably through such contacts that Fredrika Bremer in Jannuary 1864 invited thomas to a dinner party in Stockholm. When conversation turned to Viktor Rydberg, Fredrika Bremer praised his newly published novel, Den siste atenaren (The Last Athenian) and warmly expressed the wish that it might be translated into English to make its author known to the wider world. Before Thomas took his leave. She urged that he take this task upon himself. After returning to Gothenburg,  Thomas read Rydberg's novel with great enthusiasm, and before Fredrika Bremer died the following year, Thomas was able to assure her that he would heed her appeal.

 

   2007 Magnus Nilsson
 Prometheusmotivet hos Viktor Rydberg och i den tidiga arbetarlitteraturen  
Svenska Litteratursällskapet, vol. 128, pp. 110-128

 

Abstract:  This essay focuses on the Prometheus motif in Viktor Rydberg’s poetry and in early Swedish working-class literature. Many working-class writers were influenced by Rydberg. But the Prometheus motif undergoes a radical transformation when taken up in their poetry. Whereas Rydberg’s use of the motif is firmly rooted within a bourgeois (liberal and Christian) world-view, the ‘proletarian Prometheus’ — often referred to as ‘Lucifer’ — is a symbol for atheism and revolutionary socialism. This re-definition of the Prometheus motif is a product of a sub-cultural logic that characterized the early Swedish labour movement — a logic which necessitates an almost total rejection and/or inversion of bourgeois values. The working-class writers use the Prometheus motif to construct a proletarian, class-conscious writer identity. This is done in dialogue with hegemonic, bourgeois representations of the working class as non-respectable, which they affirm, but re-valorise. Through celebrations of and identification with Prometheus, working-class writers construct an identity based on the negation of bourgeois values. They thus recognize the status of the working class as “the Other”, in analogy with the interpretation of Prometheus as an incarnation of the negation of bourgeois, Christian ideals, yet attribute positive values to this ‘otherness’. The fact that the ‘proletarian Prometheus’ is characterized by an affirmation of a radical negativity, above all manifested in atheism, results in an almost unbridgeable gap between Rydberg and working-class writers. And this gap corresponds to a more overriding conflict, namely, that between aesthetic idealism and modernist anti-idealism. Even if the working class writers weren’t programmatic or self-conscious modernists, this places them within the literary tradition that rebels against aesthetic idealism and paves the way for the emergence of modernism. Thus the use of the Prometheus-motif in early Swedish working-class literature sheds light, not only on the relationship between this tradition and the political and social conditions in Sweden around the turn of the twentieth century, but also on its relationship to the most important currents in the literary history of that period.

      

2007 Anders Hultgård

"The Askr and Embla Myth in a Comparative Perspective"

pp. 58-62

in Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, et al 

Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives

 

"Such a myth telling the origin of the primordial couple from a tree or plant is found in the Iranian tradition and it has been referred to as a parallel to the Askr and Embla myth (Mannhardt 1875:7–8; Rydberg 1889:69–7)

     

2008 Peter Jens Schjodt 

Initation Between Two Worlds, p. 182-3

 

"Without further proof, it is hardly possible to determine who Óðinn's mother's bother is, and it is hardly of vital importance (cf. Clunies Ross 1994, 227). Viktor Rydberg (1886-89, I, 259) and others have suggested that he is Mimir, which is a possibility considering the latter's role as purveyor of knowledge in other connections (see also SG III, 151), although such a kinship tie between Mimir and Óðinn has not otherwise been recorded."

      

 

2008

Francisco Vaz da Silva

Archeology of Intangible Heritage  

 

 

"Viktor Rydberg adds that Hvergelmir provided Germanic peoples with an explanation of ebb-tide and flood-tide."

 

 

 

2008 
Ramus: Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases

 

"Rydberg, Viktor. Born in 1828 and died in 1895, authored "Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland", by Viktor Rydberg. Authorised translation from the Swedish by Hon. Rasmus B. Anderson, editor-in-chief, J.W. Buel, PhD, managing editor. Published in 1906."

 

 

2008 Robert Dennis Fulk, Robert E. Bjork, John D. Niles

Map is Not Territory:

Studies in the History of Religions p. 234

 

"... in 1852 (tr. in Shippey & Haarder 1998: 294); Gru. xliii & 175; V. Rydberg Undersökningar i germanisk mythologi, I (Stockholm, ..."

 2009 Erik Svendsen
Danske Studier
"Grottesangen i Johannes V. Jensens
 og Viktor Rydbergs regi"

 

ABSTRACT: The authors Viktor Rydberg from Sweden and Johannes V. Jensen from Denmark both recreated Grottasǫngr from Snorri’s Edda, Rydberg in 1891 and Jensen both in Kongens Fald (1900-01) and Digte 1906. Remarkably, it is the proclaimed idealist Rydberg who uses the original as a means to social criticism, whereas Jensen, the materialist, in a much more abstract manner points out how the work of the singing maidens Fenja and Menja ends up as a hymn to decline and fall. The article argues that whereas Rydberg calls for compassion and love among people, Jensen pays tribute to a mythical order.

 

2009 M. Nilsson
Radikalen och offentligheterna

English abstract. The article analyses the relationship between the Swedish labour movement and the poet Viktor Rydberg. Swedish abstract. I artikeln analyseras den svenska arbetarrörelsens förhållande till Viktor Rydberg

 

2009 Birgitta Svensson och Birthe Sjöberg (red.)
Kulturhjälten. Viktor Rydbergs humanism
Stockholm: Atlantis,

Ur baksidestexten: Viktor Rydberg (1828-1895) kämpade under hela sitt verksamma liv för humanistiska ideal. Ryktbarhet vann han som diktare. Mindre känd är han som forskare och kulturhistoriker. I en tid då såväl etik och människors lika värde som den fria forskningens ställning diskuteras finns det all anledning att begrunda den väg som Rydberg visar.
I boken lyfter tjugotre forskare från nio humanistiska ämnen fram Rydbergs betydelse för dagens humanistiska forskning.

2009 Tore Lund
Varför diktades Rydbergs myt?