140. SCANDINAVIAN HEATHENISM
THE GOD ODIN
The religion of the Northmen bore a close resemblance to that of the other Teutonic peoples. The leading deity was Odin (German Woden), whose exploits are celebrated in many of the songs of the Elder Edda. Odin was represented as a tall, gray-bearded chieftain, carrying a shield and a spear which never missed its mark. Though a god of battle, Odin was also a lover of wisdom. He discovered the runes which gave him secret knowledge of all things. Legend told how Odin killed a mighty giant, whose body was cut into pieces to form the world: the earth was his flesh, the water his blood, the rocks his bones, and the heavens his skull. Having created the world and peopled it with human beings, Odin retired to the sacred city of Asgard, where he reigned in company with his children.
THE GOD THOR
Enthroned beside Odin sat his oldest son, Thor (German Thunor), god of thunder and lightning. His weapon, the thunderbolt, was imagined as a hammer, and was especially used by him to protect gods and men against the giants. The hammer, when thrown, returned to his hand of its own accord. Thor also possessed a belt of strength, which, when girded about him, doubled his power.
THOR'S DEEDS OF STRENGTH
Many stories were told of Thor's adventures, when visiting Jötunheim, the abode of the giants. In a drinking-match he tried to drain a horn of liquor, not knowing that one end of the horn reached the sea, which was appreciably lowered by the god's huge draughts. He sought to lift from the ground a large, gray cat, but struggle as he might, could raise only one of the animal's feet. What Thor took for a cat, however, was really the Midgard serpent, which, with its tail in its mouth, encircled the earth. In the last trial of strength Thor wrestled with an old woman, and after a violent contest was thrown down upon one knee. But the hag was in truth relentless old age, who sooner or later lays low all men.
MYTH OF BALDER
Most beautiful and best beloved of the Scandinavian divinities was Odin's son, Balder. He was represented as a gentle deity of innocence and righteousness. As long as he lived, evil could gain no real control in the world and the power of the gods would remain unshaken. To preserve Balder from all danger his mother Frigga required everything on earth to swear never to harm her son. Only a single plant, the mistletoe, did not take the oath. Then the traitor Loki gathered the mistletoe and came to an assembly where the gods were hurling all kinds of missiles at Balder, to show that nothing could hurt him. Loki asked the blind Höder to throw the plant at Balder. Höder did so, and Balder fell dead. The gods tried to recover him from Hel, the gloomy underworld, but Hel demanded as his ransom a tear from every living creature. Gods, men, and even things inanimate wept for Balder, except one cruel giantess—Loki in disguise— who would not give a single tear. She said, "Neither living nor dead was Balder of any use to me. Let Hel keep what it has."
"TWILIGHT OF THE GODS"
Disasters followed Balder's death. An immense fire burned up the world and the human race. The giants invaded Asgard and slaughtered its inhabitants. Odin fell a victim to the mighty wolf Fenris. Thor, having killed the Midgard serpent, was suffocated with the venom which the dying monster cast over him. The end of all things arrived. This was the catastrophe which had been predicted of old—the "Twilight of the Gods."
VALHALLA
Besides the conception of Hel, the Northmen also framed the idea of Valhalla, [6] the abode to which Odin received the souls of those who had died, not ingloriously in their beds, but on the field of battle. A troop of divine maidens, the Valkyries, [7] rode through the air on Odin's service to determine the issue of battles and to select brave warriors for Valhalla. There on the broad plains they fought with one another by day, but at evening the slayer and the slain returned to Odin's hall to feast mightily on boar's flesh and drink deep draughts of mead.
SUPERNATURAL BEINGS
As with most heathen religions that of the Northmen was full of terrors. Their lively imagination peopled the world with many strange figures. Fiends and monsters inhabited the marshes, giants lived in the dark forest, evil spirits haunted all solitary places, and ghosts stalked over the land by night. The use of charms and spells to guard against such creatures passed over into Christian times. Their memory also survives in folk tales, which are full of allusions to giants, dwarfs, goblins, and other supernatural beings.
CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE NORTHMEN
Christianity first gained a foothold in Denmark through the work of Roman
Catholic missionaries sent out by Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious. [8]
Two centuries elapsed before the Danes were completely converted. From
Denmark the new faith spread to Sweden. Norway owed its conversion largely
to the crusading work of King Olaf (1016-1029 A.D.), whose zeal for
Christianity won him the title of Olaf the Saint. The Norwegians carried
Christianity to Iceland, where it supplanted the old heathenism in the
year 1000 A.D. With the general adoption of the Christian religion in
Scandinavian lands, the Viking Age drew to an end.
[Illustration: NORSE METAL WORK (Museum, Copenhagen) A door from a church in Iceland; date, tenth or eleventh century. The iron knob is inlaid with silver. The slaying of a dragon is represented above and below is shown the Midgard serpent.]