Part 19 (1/2)
Through the same darkness, according to Gorm's saga, one comes to Gudmund's Glittering Plains, where there is a pleasure-farm bearing delicious fruits, while in that Bjarmaland whence the Glittering Plains can be reached reign eternal winter and cold. A river separates the Glittering Plains from two or more other domains, of which at least one is the home of departed souls. There is a bridge of gold across the river to another region, ”which separates that which is mortal from the superhuman,” and on whose soil a mortal being must not set his foot.
Further on one can pa.s.s in a boat across the river to a land which is the place of punishment for the d.a.m.ned and a resort of ghosts.
Through the same darkness one comes, according to Hadding's saga, to a subterranean land where flowers grow in spite of the winter which reigns on the surface of the earth. The land of flowers is separated from the Elysian fields of those fallen in battle by a river which hurls about in its eddies spears and other weapons.
These statements from different sources agree with each other in their main features. They agree that the lower world is divided into two main parts by a river, and that departed souls are found only on the farther side of the river.
The other main part on this side the river thus has another purpose than that of receiving the happy or d.a.m.ned souls of the dead. There dwells, according to Gorm's saga, the giant Gudmund, with his sons and daughters. There are also the Glittering Plains, since these, according to Hervor's, Herrod's, Thorstein Baearmagn's, and Helge Th.o.r.eson's sagas, are ruled by Gudmund.
Some of the accounts cited say that the Glittering Plains are situated in Jotunheim. This statement does not contradict the fact that they are situated in the lower world. The myths mention two Jotunheims, and hence the Eddas employ the plural form, Jotunheimar. One of the Jotunheims is located on the surface of the earth in the far North and East, separated from the Midgard inhabited by man by the uttermost sea or the Elivogs (Gylf.a.ginning, 8). The other Jotunheim is subterranean. According to Vafthrudnismal (31), one of the roots of the world-tree extends down ”to the frost-giants.” Urd and her sisters, who guard one of the fountains of Ygdrasil's roots, are giantesses. Mimer, who guards another fountain in the lower world, is called a giant. That part of the world which is inhabited by the G.o.ddesses of fate and by Mimer is thus inhabited by giants, and is a subterranean Jotunheim. Both these Jotunheims are connected with each other. From the upper there is a path leading to the lower. Therefore those traditions recorded in a Christian age, which we are here discussing, have referred to the Arctic Ocean and the uttermost North as the route for those who have the desire and courage to visit the giants of the lower world.
When it is said in Hadding's saga that he on the other side of the subterranean river saw the shades of heroes fallen by the sword arrayed in line of battle and contending with each other, then this is no contradiction of the myth, according to which the heroes chosen on the battle-field come to Asgard and play their warlike games on the plains of the world of the G.o.ds.
In Voluspa (str. 24) we read that when the first ”folk”-war broke out in the world, the citadel of Odin and his clan was stormed by the Vans, who broke through its bulwark and captured Asgard. In harmony with this, Saxo (_Hist._, i.) relates that at the time when King Hadding reigned Odin was banished from his power and lived for some time in exile (see Nos. 36-41).
It is evident that no great battles can have been fought, and that there could not have been any great number of sword-fallen men, before the _first_ great ”folk” war broke out in the world. Otherwise this war would not have been the first. Thus Valhal has not before this war had those hosts of einherjes who later are feasted in Valfather's hall. But as Odin, after the breaking out of this war, is banished from Valhal and Asgard, and does not return before peace is made between the Asas and Vans, then none of the einherjes chosen by him could be received in Valhal _during_ the war. Hence it follows that the heroes fallen in this war, though chosen by Odin, must have been referred to some other place than Asgard (excepting, of course, all those chosen by the Vans, _in case_ they chose einherjes, which is probable, for the reason that the Vanadis Freyja gets, after the reconciliation with Odin, the right to divide with him the choice of the slain). This other place can nowhere else be so appropriately looked for as in the lower world, which we know was destined to receive the souls of the dead. And as Hadding, who, according to Saxo, descended to the lower world, is, according to Saxo, the same Hadding during whose reign Odin was banished from Asgard, then it follows that the statement of the saga, making him see in the lower world those warlike games which else are practised on Asgard's plains, far from contradicting the myth, on the contrary is a consequence of the connection of the mythical events.
The river which is mentioned in Erik Vidforle's, Gorm's, and Hadding's sagas has its prototype in the mythic records. When Hermod on Sleipner rides to the lower world (Gylf.a.ginning, 10) he first journeys through a dark country (compare above) and then comes to the river _Gjoll_, over which there is the golden bridge called the Gjallar bridge. On the other side of _Gjoll_ is the Helgate, which leads to the realm of the dead. In Gorm's saga the bridge across the river is also of gold, and it is forbidden mortals to cross to the other side.
A subterranean river hurling weapons in its eddies is mentioned in Voluspa, 33. In Hadding's saga we also read of a weapon-hurling river which forms the boundary of the Elysium of those slain by the sword.
In Vegtamskvida is mentioned an underground dog, b.l.o.o.d.y about the breast, coming from Nifelhel, the proper place of punishment. In Gorm's saga the bulwark around the city of the d.a.m.ned is guarded by great dogs.
The word ”nifel” (_nifl_, the German _Nebel_), which forms one part of the word Nifelhel, means mist, fog. In Gorm's saga the city in question is most like a cloud of vapour (_vaporanti maxime nubi simile_).
Saxo's description of that house of torture, which is found within the city, is not unlike Voluspa's description of that dwelling of torture called Nastrand. In Saxo the floor of the house consists of serpents wattled together, and the roof of sharp stings. In Voluspa the hall is made of serpents braided together, whose heads from above spit venom down on those dwelling there. Saxo speaks of soot a century old on the door frames; Voluspa of _ljorar_, air- and smoke-openings in the roof (see further Nos. 77 and 78).
Saxo himself points out that the Geruthus (_Geirrodr_) mentioned by him, and his famous daughters, belong to the myth about the Asa-G.o.d Thor.
That Geirrod after his death is transferred to the lower world is no contradiction to the heathen belief, according to which beautiful or terrible habitations await the dead, not only of men but also of other beings. Compare Gylf.a.ginning, ch. 46, where Thor with one blow of his Mjolner sends a giant _nidr undir Niflhel_ (see further, No. 60).
As Mimer's and Urd's fountains are found in the lower world (see Nos.
63, 93), and as Mimer is mentioned as the guardian of Heimdal's horn and other treasures, it might be expected that these circ.u.mstances would not be forgotten in those stories from Christian times which have been cited above and found to have roots in the myths.
When in Saxo's saga about Gorm the Danish adventurers had left the horrible city of fog, they came to another place in the lower world where the gold-plated mead-cisterns were found. The Latin word used by Saxo, which I translate with cisterns of mead, is _dolium_. In the cla.s.sical Latin this word is used in regard to wine-cisterns of so immense a size that they were counted among the immovables, and usually were sunk in the cellar floors. They were so large that a person could live in such a cistern, and this is also reported as having happened.
That the word _dolium_ still in Saxo's time had a similar meaning appears from a letter quoted by Du Cange, written by Saxo's younger contemporary, Bishop Gebhard. The size is therefore no obstacle to Saxo's using this word for a wine-cistern to mean the mead-wells in the lower world of Teutonic mythology. The question now is whether he actually did so, or whether the subterranean _dolia_ in question are objects in regard to which our earliest mythic records have left us in ignorance.
In Saxo's time, and earlier, the epithets by which the mead-wells--Urd's and Mimer's--and their contents are mentioned in mythological songs had come to be applied also to those mead-buckets which Odin is said to have emptied in the halls of the giant Fjalar or Suttung. This application also lay near at hand, since these wells and these vessels contained the same liquor, and since it originally, as appears from the meaning of the words, was the liquor, and not the place where the liquor was kept, to which the epithets _Odraerir_, _Bodn_, and _Son_ applied. In Havamal (107) Odin expresses his joy that _Odraerir_ has pa.s.sed out of the possession of the giant Fjalar and can be of use to the beings of the upper world. But if we may trust Bragar, (ch. 5), it is the drink and not the empty vessels that Odin takes with him to Valhal. On this supposition, it is the drink and not one of the vessels which in Havamal is called _Odraerir_. In Havamal (140) Odin relates how he, through self-sacrifice and suffering, succeeded in getting runic songs up from the deep, and also a drink dipped out of _Odraerir_. He who gives him the songs and the drink, and accordingly is the ruler of the fountain of the drink, is a man, ”Bolthorn's celebrated son.” Here again Odraerer is one of the subterranean fountains, and no doubt Mimer's, since the one who pours out the drink is a man. But in Forspjalsljod (2) Urd's fountain is also called Odraerer (_Odhraerir Urdar_). Paraphrases for the liquor of poetry, such as ”Bodn's growing billow” (Einar Skalaglam) and ”Son's reedgrown gra.s.s edge” (Eilif Gudrunson), point to fountains or wells, not to vessels. Meanwhile a satire was composed before the time of Saxo and Sturlason about Odin's adventure at Fjalar's, and the author of this song, the contents of which the Younger Edda has preserved, calls the vessels which Odin empties at the giant's _Odhraerir_, _Bodn_, and _Son_ (Brogaraedur, 6). Saxo, who reveals a familiarity with the genuine heathen, or supposed heathen, poems handed down to his time, may thus have seen the epithets _Odraerir_, _Bodn_, and _Son_ applied both to the subterranean mead-wells and to a giant's mead-vessels. The greater reason he would have for selecting the Latin _dolium_ to express an idea that can be accommodated to both these objects.
Over these mead-reservoirs there hang, according to Saxo's description, round-shaped objects of silver, which in close braids drop down and are spread around the seven times gold-plated walls of the mead-cisterns.
[35]
Over Mimer's and Urd's fountains hang the roots of the ash Ygdrasil, which sends its root-knots and root-threads down into their waters. But not only the rootlets sunk in the water, but also the roots from which they are suspended, partake of the waters of the fountains. The norns take daily from the water and sprinkle the stem of the tree therewith, ”and the water is so holy,” says Gylf.a.ginning (16), ”that everything that is put in the well (consequently, also, all that which the norns daily sprinkle with the water) becomes as white as the membrane between the egg and the egg-sh.e.l.l.” Also the root over Mimer's fountain is sprinkled with its water (Volusp., Cod. R., 28), and this water, so far as its colour is concerned, seems to be of the same kind as that in Urd's fountain, for the latter is called _hvitr aurr_ (Volusp., 18) and the former runs in _aurgum forsi_ upon its root of the world-tree (Volusp., 28). The adjective _aurigr_, which describes a quality of the water in Mimer's fountain, is formed from the noun _aurr_, with which the liquid is described which waters the root over Urd's fountain.
Ygdrasil's roots, as far up as the liquid of the wells can get to them, thus have a colour like that of ”the membrane between the egg and the egg-sh.e.l.l,” and consequently recall both as to position, form, and colour the round-shaped objects ”of silver” which, according to Saxo, hang down and are intertwined in the mead-reservoirs of the lower world.
Mimer's fountain contains, as we know, the purest mead--the liquid of inspiration, of poetry, of wisdom, of understanding.
Near by Ygdrasil, according to Voluspa (27), Heimdal's horn is concealed. The seeress in Voluspa knows that it is hid ”beneath the hedge-o'ershadowing holy tree.”
Veit hon Heimdallar hljod um folgit undir heidvonum helgum badmi.