Amongst the goddesses who were called Asyniur, Frigga stands out chief in the Eddas as Odin's wife, but several others are named, and also the Valkyrior, swayers of the battle and heavenly serving maidens. The peace between the Æsir and the Vanir, and the perceptible difference between these races of gods, points to an amalgamation of the religions of two tribes of Teutons in very early times: their faiths would be similar, drawn indeed from one source, but would have been modified by the circumstances and requirements of the divergent tribes. Simrock supposes that the Vanir worshippers may have been dwellers by the sea, and have had a special reverence for wind and water deities—mild, wide, beneficent airs. Their gods are a little milder in nature than those of Asgard, they are also more purely nature deities, with less of the moral element in their characters, which looks as if the two faiths had joined at different stages of development, at different levels one may say, so that the line between them is still discernible. We have seen how Har explains to Gangler the formation of the universe in Ginnungagap out of the strange ice waves; primeval giant; beneficent might of the gods; its endurance, rooted in the mighty Tree, that reached from depth to height,—
"Laved with limpid water,
Gnawed by more serpents
Than any one would think
Of witless mortals."
He had also something to say concerning the future of the world. "What hast thou to tell me about it?" said Gangler; and Har replied,—"In the first place there will come a winter;" and then he described the destruction of the world—flood and storm, and ice and fire, and warfare, a supreme conflict; all the powers of evil, the chaotic powers—primeval chaos surging again out of Niflheim and Muspellheim—on one side, the gods, the forming orderly principle of the course of the universe, on the other—all rage within, and through the mighty ash, which itself trembles, "Groans that aged tree." Monsters and gods alike fall, killing each other, and one cannot say with whom the victory lies; for though the sun, moon, and stars are made away with, and the earth sinks into the flood, it soon emerges again, "beauteously green," destined, as it would seem, to run a second course. Brighter, purer? The account is so mixed that one cannot say, and why should we puzzle over it; perhaps they knew as little what they thought and hoped as we know about them—those old song-singers and myth-spinners of days gone by, as one of them says,—
"Few may see
Further forth
Than when Odin
Meets the wolf."
Notwithstanding, we cannot help feeling, as we contemplate this myth, that there was something noble, very grimly courageous in its fatalism. Simrock says, "the course of Northern mythology is like a drama." The world's beginning, the golden years, the first shadow of evil, evil that came with times, evil fated to come, the troubles of various kinds, all death shadows which fell upon the gods (we shall trace them in the following tales); and above all, hanging over all, crowning all, the twilight, the struggle, the end, the renewing; for it is not, be it observed, the end of the world, of time, of succession of events that is recorded in this myth (called the Ragnarök Myth), but rather of the struggling powers that had been brought by these, that had formed these. Looking through this drama two things chiefly strike us, fatalism and combat. The two do not contradict one another. The gods fight the giants from the earliest times; they go on fighting them in a thousand ways, even though they know that their own final defeat and destruction are fixed—they ward off the evil day as far as possible, hoping through its shadow again and again, dauntless to the end. It is impossible to help admiring the impulses which led to the building up, and dictated the worship of this idea,—the worship of the gods who were to die, who were, in spite of most courageous defiance of it, after all but the servants of the inevitable. Of course it was perfectly simple and natural that this conception of unceasing strife, of the alternate victory and defeat of light and darkness, cold and heat, should arise in the minds of any worshippers of the natural world, but it must, one would think, have acquired some moral significance to these heathen Northmen by the time that Odin had come to be Allfather, even Valfather, and Frigga, through the nourishing earth, the lady of married love and of the hearth. A good deal of this courageous spirit of conflict and self-surrender comes into the Scandinavian myths and heroic tales. We read of one of the gods' messengers, who, when implored to desist from an undertaking because danger threatened, replied, "For one day was my age decreed and my whole life determined." In a lay of Odin, it says, "We ourselves die, but the fair fame never dies of him who has earned it;" and this reminds us of the Scandinavian custom of engraving the records of their warlike deeds upon their shields. "When a young warrior was at first enlisted," it is said, "they gave him a white and smooth buckler, which was called the 'shield of expectation,' which he carried until he had earned its record." It is related of one of the celebrated Jomsburg sea-rovers called Bui, that finding himself defeated in an engagement, and seeing that all further resistance was fruitless, he took his treasure—two chests full of gold—and, calling out "Overboard all Bui's men," plunged into the sea and perished. But better far is the following:—"A warrior having been thrown upon his back in wrestling with his enemy, and the latter finding himself without arms, the vanquished person promised to wait without changing his posture while the other fetched a sword to kill him, and he faithfully kept his word."
Such traits as these lie on the light side of the Northern character, pity that the other side is such a dark one. Craft, avarice, cruelty—we cannot shut our eyes to them—cropping up everywhere, in the stories of the gods, and still more frequently in the sagas whose details are sometimes most revolting. Amongst other stories, we have one of a young sea-rover, called Sigurd, by-the-bye, a son of that very Bui mentioned above. Sigurd and his companions had been taken prisoners, and were condemned to be beheaded. They were all seated on a log of wood, and one after another had his head struck off, whilst king Hakon their capturer looked on; the account says, that he came out after breakfast to watch the execution. The sea-rovers all met their fate with unflinching courage, and as the executioner asked each one, before he struck the blow, what he thought of death, each gave some fierce mocking answer; but when it came to Sigurd's turn, and he was asked what he thought of death, he answered, "I fear not death, since I have fulfilled the greatest duty of life, but I must pray thee not to let my hair be touched by a slave, or stained with my blood." The story tells us he had long fair hair, as fine as silk, flowing in ringlets over his shoulders. One of the cruel king Hakon's followers, being moved, it seems, either with pity for Sigurd's hair or admiration of his courage, stept forward and held the ringlets whilst the executioner struck, upon which Sigurd twitched his head forward so strongly that the warrior who was holding his hair had both his hands cut off, "and this practical joke so pleased the king's son," continues the tale, "that he gave Sigurd his life."
"Thou tellest me many wonderful things," said Gangler; "what are the names of the Homesteads in heaven?" In answer, Har tells him about Odin's halls, and Thor's, and Baldur's, and Frigga's, and many another bounteous, wide-spreading, golden-roofed mansion; amongst them of Valhalla, which Odin had prepared especially for warriors who fell in battle and who were thenceforth to be his sons, called Einherjar, heroes, champions. "Methinks," said Gangler, "there must be a great crowd in Valhalla, and often a great press at the door among such a number of people constantly thronging in and out." "Why not ask," says Har, "how many doors there are?—
"Five hundred doors
And forty eke
I think are in Valhall.
"But what does Odin give the warriors to eat?" asked Gangler. "The flesh of the good boar Sæhrimnir, and this is more than enough (though few know how much is required for heroes), for in spite of its being eaten every day it becomes whole again every night; truly it is the best of flesh." "And what have the heroes to drink?" asked Gangler "for they must require a plentiful supply; do they drink only water?" "A silly question that," replied Har; "dost thou imagine that Allfather would invite kings and jarls and other great men and give them nothing to drink but water? In that case the heroes would think they had paid dearly to get to Valhall, enduring great hardships and receiving deadly wounds; they would find they had paid too great a price for water drink. No, no, the case is quite otherwise, in Valhall there is a famous goat that supplies mead enough for all the heroes and to spare." "Mighty things these," said Gangler; "but how do the heroes amuse themselves when they are not drinking?" "Every day they ride into the court and fight till they cut each other in pieces, this is their pastime; but when meal-tide approaches they return to drink in Valhall." "Odin is great and mighty," answered Gangler, "as it is said in one of the Æsir's own poems,—
"The ash Yggdrasill
Is the first of Trees,
As Skidbladnir of ships,
Odin of Æsir
Sleipnir of steeds,
Bifrost of bridges,
Bragi of Bards,
Habrok of hawks
And Garm of hounds is."