BOOK Relations of Fro to Freya. The Lord In the oldest Teutonic mythology we find a god Fro or Friuja," which is worshipped as the lord of all created things. If we may judge from the name, the conception of this deity was probably far above the ideas formed of any of the Vedic or Olympian gods. If the word is connected with the modern German froh, it expresses an idea which is the very opposite of the Hebrew tendency to worship mere strength and power. For Fro is no harsh taskmaster, but the merciful and eternal God. He is, in short, the beneficence and longsuffering of nature. Fro is thus the power which imparts to human life all its strength and sweetness, and which consecrates all righteous efforts and sanctions all righteous motives. Nor can we doubt that Freya stands to Fro in precisely the relation of Liber and Libera in the cultus of Ceres, the connexion between these deities being precisely that of Fro and Freya with the goddess whom Tacitus call Nerthus, the Teutonic Niördr. In this aspect Freya is the bringer of rain and sunshine for the fruits of the earth, while the worship of Fro runs parallel with that of Priapos. To this deity belongs the wonderful ship Skidbladnir, which can be folded up like a cloth,-in fact, a vessel much like the magic barks of the Phaiakians. But though this ship could carry all the Æsir, yet these beings do not belong to their exalted race. They are Vanir, whose abode is in Vanaheim, as the Alfar or Elves live in Alfheim or Elfland and the Jotnar in Jötunheim. SECTION IX.-HEIMDALL, BRAGI, AND OEGIR. The Hellenic Iris is represented by Heimdall in the mythology of Himin- of northern Europe. This deity, who like Baldur is a white or lightbiorg. giving god, is the guardian of the bridge which joins heaven and Lay of Thrym, 16, 17, 31, 32. * Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, In the Teutonic mythology no moral significance seems to be attached to this bridge. In the Zoroastrian system it becomes the Bridge of the Judge, which the righteous only can cross by the aid of a beautiful maiden, in whom is embodied the holiness after which they had been striving in life, and who in answer to their question TEUTONIC GODS OF THE LIGHT. I. 199 earth (bif-rost, the waving resting-place),1 and his abode is in Himin- CHAP. biorg, the hill of heaven, the Latin Mons Cœlius, the first syllable of his name being, like himin, only another form of himmel. In other respects he resembles Argos Panoptes. Like him, he needs less sleep than a bird; by night as by day he can see a hundred miles, and so keen are his senses that he can hear the corn growing on the earth and the wool lengthening on the sheep's back. As the watcher and warder of the gods, he carries a horn, the point of which sticks in Niflheim at the root of Yggdrasil; and it was easy to add that he rode a horse with a golden mane and that his own teeth were of gold. He speaks of himself as the son of nine mothers, a phrase which in Bunsen's opinion has nothing to do with the watches of the night, and must be referred to the nine mythological worlds of the Völuspa Saga, of which Niflheim is the ninth and the lowest; and thus the myth would mean that "the sun-light is the common divine child of all these worlds." 8 lord of Another god of the gleaming heaven is Bragi, the brilliant, while, Bragi, the like Donar or Baldur, he is a son of Odin. As the god of poetry day. and eloquence, he is the guardian and patron of bards and orators, and his name, like that of Vach or Saga, passes from the signification of light to that of fluent and honied speech. Thus bragr Karla was simply an eloquent man, and a further step degraded the name of åsa bragr, the chief among the gods, and left it as an epithet of vain boasters. The name of the god Oegir, with whom Bragi is sometimes asso- Oegir, the sea-god. ciated in the Edda, has shared a similar fate. Used first as a name for the sea, it has come to denote the Ogres with which nurses frighten children. If, as Grimm supposes, the word belongs to the same root with the Gothic agas and ôg, the Anglo-Saxon ege, egesa, Old High German akî, ekî, fear, dread, horror, the later meaning is quite in accordance with its original form. But however this may be, the word Oegir as a name for the sea carries us to the Greek stream these, one has to keep a bandage over God in History, ii. 412, 490. BOOK II. which surrounds the earth. The phrase Sôl gengr î oeginn simply spoke of the sun going down into the sea, as Helios sinks into the ocean. The other forms Ogen, Ogyges, approach still more closely to the Teutonic Oegir. We find the idea of fear as attached to the name more fully developed when we come to the Oegishialm, or helmet of dread, which the dragon Fafnir wears as he lies on the golden treasures, to strike terror into those who may dare to gaze on him, and again in the Eckesax or Uokesahs, the fearful sword tempered by the dwarfs in the Vilkina Saga,' weapons which, although there may perhaps be no affinity between the names, must remind us of the Aigis of Athêne and the helmet of Hades. Oegir's wife Ran is the mother of nine children, who become the eponymoi of fountains and streams. In the Dietrich story it is the sword with which the hero slays the gigantic Ecke. ( 201 ) CHAPTER II. THE LIGHT. SECTION I.-SÛRYA AND SAVITRI. CHAP. Surya, the NEITHER Dyaus nor Varuņa, Indra nor Agni, occupies that precise place which is filled by Helios in Greek mythology as the dweller in the globe of the sun, or by Nereus as the actual inhabitant of the sea. pervading This place in the Veda is reserved for Sûrya1 or Savitri, the former irresistible luminary. name being etymologically identical with that of Helios or Hêrê. Like Helios and Heimdall, Sûrya sees all things and hears all things, noting the good and evil deeds of men. Like Indra and Agni, he is sometimes independent, sometimes the servant of others; but he is never, like Dyaus, without a parent. His light is his own, and yet it has been given to him by Indra or by Soma, who is often spoken of as his father. He is the husband of the Dawn, but the Dawn is also his mother, as Iokastê is both mother and wife of Oidipous. In all such phrases it was impossible to lose sight of his real character. He is the most active of all the active gods, he is the third in the earlier trimùrtti in which he is associated with Agni and Vayu, he has measured the worlds with their undecaying supports, he is the divine leader of all the gods; but as such, he is still "the pervading irresistible luminary."2 His chariot is drawn by seven mares, and he "comes with them self-harnessed." Like Ixîôn, Tantalos, and Sisyphos, he is the "lord of all treasures." " He is the eye of Mitra, Varuna, and Agni. Sometimes again he is "without steeds, without stay; borne swift-moving and loud-sounding, he travels ascending The name remains in the Russian Swarog, of whom Mr. Ralston speaks as having been originally the supreme deity of the Slavonic tribes, and as having been displaced by Perun, as amongst the Greeks Zeus displaced Ouranos.-Songs of the Russian People, 85. 2 Muir, Sanskrit Texts, part iv. p. 96. R. V. viii. 90, 12. R. H. Wilson, R. V. i. 189. • Ib. i. 304. BOOK 11. Odin as the Creator of Man. The end of the Æsir. self, and also the race of the gods or Æsir, the self-existent beings,1 who dwell in Asgard or Aithêr, while the middle air, between the upper and under worlds, the aǹp of the Greeks on which Zeus looks down, is Vanaheim, the home of the Vanir, or spirits of the breathing wind. To this race belong Freyr and Freya, the deities of beauty and love, "the children of Mördur, the sea-god who dwells in the sea-city (Noatun), and whose spouse, Skadi (Elster?) is the daughter of the giant Thiassi, for he is indeed himself the shore." 8 The idea of the composite nature of man must have preceded the rise of the myth which assigns the creation of the soul to Odin, of the mind to Hahnir, of the blood and outward complexion to Lodur. This Hahnir is probably the same word as hahn, the cock, "in its wider import the bird, the animal belonging to the air;" and thus possibly the framers of this theogony may have intended to set forth their belief that a Trinity, consisting of Ether, Air, and Fire, was concerned in the creation of man, Lodur being certainly fire, and in fact only another form of Loki, the shining god. But we approach the regions of pure mythology when we read that when Odur sets forth on his wanderings, his bride, the beautiful Freya,” sheds gold-gleaming tears-" an image of the bright gleams shooting across the rugged morning sky."" From these parents springs Hnossa, the jewel, the world under the aspect of beauty, while Frigga, as the wife of Odin, doubtless only another form of Odur, is the mother of Jörd, the earth, in the character of the nourishing Dêmêtêr. But all this visible Kosmos is doomed to undergo a catastrophe, the results of which will be not its destruction but its renovation. The whole world will be consumed by fire, kindled by Lodur (der Lodernde, the glowing god), the Loki who brought about the death place the four dwarfs-Nordri, Sudri, 1 From the root as, to be; the word The original form of the word world of the light elves; Mannaheim, a name for Midgard, the world of man; and below the earth plain, Svartalfahein, the land of the dark elves, and Helheim, the abode of Hel. Below all lies Niflheim, the dwelling of the serpent Nidhogr, who gnaws the worldtree Yggdrasil, Jotunheim lying beyond the ocean-stream which surrounds Midgard. Bunsen, God in History, ii. 487. • Ibid. For the several changes through which the names Freyr and Freya have passed, see Grimm, D. M. 276, &c. Bunsen, God in History, ii. 491. |