Musical myths.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, who could attract all living creatures by his music, is like Orpheus or Amphion, whose lyres had the same power; and Odin, as leader of the dead, is the counterpart of Mercury Psychopompus, both being personifications of the wind, on whose wings disembodied souls were thought to be wafted away from this mortal sphere.
The trusty Eckhardt, who would fain save Tannhäuser and prevent his returning to expose himself to the enchantments of the sorceress in the Hörselberg, is like the Greek Mentor, who not only accompanied Telemachus, but who gave him good advice and wise instructions, and would like to have rescued Ulysses from the hands of Calypso.
Thor and the Greek gods.
Thor, the Northern thunder-god, also has many points of resemblance with Jupiter. He bears the hammer Miölnir, the Northern emblem of the deadly thunderbolt, and, like Jupiter, uses it freely when warring against the giants. In his rapid growth Thor resembles Mercury, for while the former playfully tosses several loads of ox hides about a few hours after his birth, the latter steals Apollo’s oxen before he is one day old. In physical strength Thor resembles Hercules, who also gave early proofs of uncommon vigor by strangling the serpents sent to slay him in his cradle, and who delighted, later on, in attacking and conquering giants and monsters. Hercules became a woman and took to spinning to please Omphale, the Lydian queen, and Thor assumed a woman’s apparel to visit Thrym and recover his hammer, which had been buried nine rasts underground. The hammer, his principal attribute, was used for many sacred purposes. It consecrated the funeral pyre and the marriage rite, and boundary stakes driven in by a hammer were considered as sacred among Northern nations as the Hermæ or statues of Mercury, whose removal was punished by death.
Thor’s wife, Sif, with her luxuriant golden hair, is, as we have already stated, an emblem of the earth, and her hair of its rich vegetation. Loki’s theft of these tresses is equivalent to Pluto’s rape of Proserpine. To recover the golden locks, Loki must visit the dwarfs (Pluto’s servants), crouching in the low passages of the underground world; so Mercury must seek Proserpine in Hades.
The gadfly which hinders Jupiter from recovering possession of Io, after Mercury has slain Argus, reappears in the Northern myth to sting Brock and prevent the manufacture of the magic ring Draupnir, which is merely a counterpart of Sif’s tresses, as it also represents the fruits of the earth. It continues to torment the dwarf during the manufacture of Frey’s golden-bristled boar, a prototype of Apollo’s golden sun chariot, and it prevents the perfect formation of the handle of Thor’s hammer.
The magic ship Skidbladnir, also made by the dwarfs, is like the swift-sailing Argo, which was a personification of the clouds sailing overhead; and just as the former was said to be large enough to accommodate all the gods, so the latter bore all the Greek heroes off to the distant land of Colchis.
The Germans, wishing to name the days of the week after their gods, as the Romans had done, gave the name of Thor to Jove’s day, and thus made it the present Thursday.
Thor’s struggle against Hrungnir is like the fight between Hercules and Cacus or Antæus; while Groa is evidently Ceres, for she, too, mourns for her absent child Orvandil (Proserpine), and breaks out into a song of joy when she hears it will return.