INDEX.

Footnotes

[1]. Max Müller’s Review of Dr. Dasent’s The Norseman in Iceland.

[2]. The founder of Normandy in France.

[3]. Sæmund the Wise.

[4]. Snorre Sturleson.

[5]. Author of English of the Fourteenth Century and of An Introduction to the Study of the Anglo-Saxon Language.

[6]. A river in Norway.

[7]. A stone raised over a grave.

[8]. Beowulf, 1839.

[9]. The tailor makes the man.

[10]. The public assembly.

[11]. That is, dead on the funeral pile.

[12]. Odin.

[13]. Dead.

[14]. Such lines as this show the Norse origin of the Edda.

[15]. For the story of Suttung and Gunlad, see second part, pp. [246]-253.

[16]. In the North a holy oath was taken on a ring kept in the temple for that purpose.

[17]. Carving: runes are risted = runes are carved.

[18]. In a battle we must not look up, but forward.

[19]. To become panic-stricken, which the Norsemen called to become swine.

[20]. The meaning is, it is difficult to show hospitality to everybody. A door would have to be strong to stand so much opening and shutting.

[21]. The parenthesis refers to Fafner’s death.

[22]. The name of a rune; our N.

[23]. Odin.

[24]. Mimer.

[25]. The horses of the sun.

[26]. Odin.

[27]. Which thou mightest get by marriage.

[28]. Religion of the Northmen, chap. xvii.

[29]. The supreme god.

[30]. The Tower of Babel.

[31]. In the Norse language, as also in the Anglo-Saxon, the sun is of the feminine and the moon of the masculine gender.

[32]. Fax = mane.

[33]. Ash and Elm.

[34]. Wagner, p. 192.

[35]. Compare Shakespeare—Shylock and the pound of flesh:

... No jot of blood;

The words expressly are “a pound of flesh.”

[36]. Freyja, whom the gods had promised the giant, was Oder’s wife.

[37]. Jack the Giant-killer.

[38]. The vala, or prophetess.

[39]. Odin.

[40]. Odin.

[41]. See Vocabulary under the word Mimer.

[42]. He who hardens the hide.

[43]. Fence-breaker.

[44]. Compare with this myth Dido and the founding of Carthage.

[45]. Rind was daughter of Billing.

[46]. The goddess of the sea.

[47]. Suttung.

[48]. Ygdrasil.

[49]. Roots of trees were especially fitted for hurtful trolldom (witchcraft). They produced mortal wounds.

[50]. The old heathen Norsemen sprinkled their children with water when they named them.

[51]. The waker of the people.

[52]. Odin.

[53]. If the North American Review, or anybody else, thinks this is proof of barbarism, we can refer them to the monks in Trier, who preserved the skull of Saint Theodulf and gave sick people drink from it; and we know several other such instances. Our Norse ancestors were not, then, in this respect any more savage than the Christian bishops and monks. See North American Review, January, 1875, p. 195.

[54]. See Thomas Carlyle’s Heroes and Hero-worship.

[55]. Barry Cornwall.

[56]. The anthemis cotula is generally called Baldersbraa in the North.

[57]. Guardian spirits.

[58]. The sparks of fire are dry tears.

[59]. Milton.

[60]. Thor’s.

[61]. From Tales of a Wayside Inn.

[62]. Bil is a common word in Norseland, meaning moment.

[63]. But see also Vocabulary, under the word Mjolner.

[64]. Holmgang (literally isle-gang) is a duel taking place on a small island. Each combatant was attended by a second who had to protect him with a shield. The person challenged had the right to strike the first blow. When the opponent was wounded, so that his blood stained the ground, the seconds might interfere and put an end to the combat. He that was the first wounded had to pay the holmgang fine.

[65]. A name for Thor.

[66]. A Orvandel, from aur, earth, and vendill, the sprout (vöndr), ruler = the seed.

[67]. This Geirrod must not be confounded with Odin’s foster-son Geirrod, son of Hraudung (see p. [228]).

[68]. The next best thing is William Edward Frye’s translation of Œlenschlæger’s work entitled The Gods of the North. London, 1845.

[69]. Loke.

[70]. The goddess who presides over marriages.

[71]. Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-worship.

[72]. Loke.

[73]. How Skade came to choose Njord when she was permitted to choose a husband among the gods, seeing only their feet, was related on page [277].

[74]. Rocky islands.

[75]. Peasant, farmer.

[76]. To anyone who wishes to read this great epic of the North, we would recommend the Völsunga Saga translated by Eiríkr Magnússon and William Morris. London, 1872.

[77]. They are both derived from the Anglo-Saxon hélan or helian, to cover, to conceal; compare the English to hill.

[78]. For a more complete discussion of this subject the reader is referred to Keyser’s Religion of the Northmen translated by Barclay Pennock. New York, 1854.

[79]. The Fenris-wolf.

[80]. Thok.

[81]. Moongarm. See Vocabulary.

[82]. Angerboda. See p. [179].

[83]. Moongarm. See p. [180].

[84]. Hel’s dog.

[85]. Loke.

[86]. One of Frigg’s maid-servants.

[87]. Frey.

[88]. Odin.

[89]. Thor.

[90]. Another name for Frigg.

[91]. Defender.

[92]. Odin.

[93]. Odin’s.

[94]. The Supreme God.

[95]. Nidhug.

[96]. We present this view of the subject from N. M. Petersen, who suggests that the common reading of this passage hon ought to be hann,—that is he, not she. In our translation we have supplied the noun Nidhug, while if we had followed the other authorities we would have used the noun vala. Petersen remarks that the word sink (sökkvask) is a natural expression when applied to the dragon, who sinks into the abyss, but forced and unnatural when applied to the vala. He also quotes another passage (the last line in Brynhild’s Hel-ride, where Brynhild says to the hag: Sink thou (sökkstu!) of giantkind!) from the Elder Edda which corroborates his view. As the reader will observe, we have adopted Petersen’s view entirely.