Solemn judicial assemblies were frequently held upon this sacred isle, the jurists always drawing water and drinking it in silence, in memory of Forseti’s visit there. The waters of his spring were, moreover, considered so holy that all who drank of them were pronounced sacred, and even the cattle who had tasted of them could not be slain. As Forseti was said to hold his assizes in spring, summer, and autumn, but never in winter, it soon became customary, in all the Northern countries, to dispense justice in those seasons, the people declaring that it was only when the light shone clearly in the heavens that right could become apparent to all, and that it would be utterly impossible to render an equitable verdict during the dark winter season. Forseti is seldom mentioned except in connection with Balder. He apparently has no share whatever in the closing battle in which all the other gods play such prominent parts.
CHAPTER XIII.
HEIMDALL.
Odin was once walking along the seashore when he beheld nine beautiful giantesses, the wave maidens, Gialp, Greip, Egia, Augeia, Ulfrun, Aurgiafa, Sindur, Atla, and Iarnsaxa, sound asleep on the white sand. To secure possession of these charming girls was not much trouble for the god of the sky, who married all nine of them at once, and was very happy indeed when they simultaneously bore him a son called Heimdall.
“Born was I of mothers nine,
Son I am of sisters nine.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
The nine mothers now proceeded to nourish this babe on the strength of the earth, the moisture of the sea, and the heat of the sun, which singular diet proved so strengthening that the new god acquired his full growth in a remarkably short space of time, and hastened to join his father in Asgard. There he found the gods proudly contemplating the rainbow bridge Bifröst, which they had just constructed out of fire, water, and air, which three materials can still plainly be seen in its long arch, where glow the three primary colors: the red representing the fire, the blue the air, and the green the cool depths of the sea.
Guardian of the rainbow.
Fearing lest their enemies, the frost giants, should make their way over this bridge, which, connecting heaven and earth, ended under the shade of the mighty world tree Yggdrasil, close beside the fountain where Mimir kept guard, the gods bade the white-clad Heimdall watch it night and day.
“Bifröst i’ th’ east shone forth in brightest green;