FOOTNOTES:
[1] For "brothers" the text, perhaps purposely, used the ambiguous word germani. This would, then, not be the only instance where the word is used in both senses at the same time. Cp. Quintil, 8, 3, 29.
[2] There is a story of the creation of man by three wandering gods, who become in mediæval stories Jesus and SS. Peter and Paul walking among men, as in Champfleury's pretty apologue of the bonhomme misére, so beautifully illustrated by Legros. In the eddic legend one of these gods is called Hœne; he is the speech-giver of Wolospa, and is described in praises taken from lost poems as "the long-legged one" [langifotr], "the lord of the ooze" [aurkonungr]. Strange epithets, but easily explainable when one gets at the etymology of Hœne = hohni = Sansc. sakunas = Gr. kuknos = the white bird, swan, or stork, that stalks along in the mud, lord of the marsh; and it is now easy to see that this bird is the Creator walking in chaos, brooding over the primitive mish-mash or tohu-bohu, and finally hatching the egg of the world. Hohni is also, one would fancy, to be identified with Heimdal, the walker, who is also a creator-god, who sleeps more lightly than a bird, who is also the "fair Anse," and the "whitest of the Anses," the "waker of the gods," a celestial chanticleer as it were (Vigfusson, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, vol. i., Introduction, p. cii., quoted by the translator).
[3] In strophe 8 Fjolsvin says of Menglad:
Menglöd of heitir,
en hana módir of gat
vid Svafrthorins syni.
Svafr alone, or as a part of a compound, indicates a Vana-god. According to an account narrated as history in Fornaldersaga (i. 415), a daughter of Thjasse was married to "king" Svafrlami. In the mythology it is Freyja's father, the Vana-god Njord, who gets Thjasse's daughter for his wife. The Sun-song (str. 79, 80) mentions Njord's daughters together with Svafr and Svafrlogi. The daughters are nine, like Menglad and her dises.
[4] In Saxo, as in other sources of about the same time, aspirated names do not usually occur with aspiration. I have already referred to the examples Handuuanus, Andvani, Helias, Elias, Hersbernus, Esbjörn, Hevindus, Eyvindr, Horvendillus, Orvandill, Hestia, Estland, Holandia, Oland.
[5] According to Gheysmer's synopsis. Saxo himself says nothing of the kind. The present reading of the passage in Saxo is distinctly mutilated.
[6] This Bugge, too, has observed, and he rightly assumes that the episode concerning the sword has been interpolated from some other source.
[7] This analysis will be given in the second part of this work in the treatise on the Balder-myth.
[8] As Jordanes confounded the mythological Gudhorm-Jormunrek with the historical Ermanarek, and connected with the history of the latter the heroic saga of Ammius-Hamdir, it lay close at hand to confound Hamdir with Heimdal, who, like Hamdir, is the foe of the mythical Jormunrek.
[9] Runic Monuments, by George Stephens.
[10] See for example Th. Wisén's investigations and Finnur Jonsson's Krit. Stud. (Copenhagen, 1884).
[11] The editions have changed Urdar to Urdr, and thereby converted the above-cited passage into nonsense, for which in turn the author of Forspjallsljod was blamed, and it was presented as an argument to prove that the poem is spurious.
[12] Holtzmann and Bergmann have long since pointed out that Harbard is identical with Loke. The idea that Harbard, who in every trait is Loke in Lokasenna, and, like him, appears as a mocker of the gods and boasts of his evil deeds and of his success with the fair sex, should be Odin, is one of the proofs showing how an unmethodical symbolic interpretation could go astray. In the second part of this work I shall fully discuss Harbardsljod. Proofs are to be found from the last days of heathendom in Iceland that it was then well known that the Harbard who is mentioned in this poem was a foe of the gods.
[13] When I come to consider the Balder-myth in the second part of this work, I shall point out the source from which the author of Gylfaginning, misunderstandingly, has drawn the conclusion that the man of exploits, the warrior, the archer, and the hunter Hoder was blind. The misunderstanding gave welcome support to the symbolic interpretation, which, in the blind Hoder, found among other things a symbol of night (but night has "many eyes").
[14] In Saxo Gervandillus (Geirvandill) is the father of Horvandillus (Örvandill). Orvandel has been proved to be identical with Egil. And as Egil is the son of Ivalde, Geirvandel is identical with Ivalde.
[15] Thus Vigfusson's opinion that the Asgard bridge is identical with the Milky Way is correct. That the rainbow should be regarded as the Bilrost with its bridge-heads is an invention by the author of Gylfaginning.