Pointing to the horizon, the conjurer now bade Hermod look, and the swift god saw a great stream of blood redden all the ground. While he was gazing wonderingly at this stream, a beautiful woman suddenly appeared, and a moment later a little boy stood beside her. To the god’s amazement, this child grew with such marvelous rapidity that he soon attained his full growth, and then only did Hermod notice that he fiercely brandished a bow and arrows.
As Hermod was gazing fixedly upon this vision, Rossthiof began to speak, and declared that the stream of blood portended the murder of one of Odin’s sons, but that if the father of the gods wooed and won Rinda, in the land of the Ruthenes (Russia), she would bear him a son who would attain his full growth in a few hours and would soon avenge his brother’s death.
“Rind a son shall bear,
In the western halls:
He shall slay Odin’s son,
When one night old.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
Satisfied with this prophecy, Hermod returned to Asgard, where he reported all he had seen and heard to Odin. The father of the gods thus definitely ascertained that he was doomed to lose a son by a violent death. He soon consoled himself, however, by the thought that another of his descendants would avenge the murder and thereby obtain all the satisfaction which a true Northerner ever required.
CHAPTER XV.
VIDAR.
Odin once saw and fell in love with the beautiful giantess Grid, who dwelt in a cave in the desert, and, wooing her, prevailed upon her to become his wife. The offspring of this union between Odin (mind) and Grid (matter) was a son as strong as taciturn, named Vidar, whom the ancients considered a personification of the primeval forest or of the imperishable forces of Nature.