“Sit, ye victorious women (or women of victory) descend to earth, never fly ye wildly to the wood: be ye as mindful of good to me, as every man is of food and landed possession.” Grimm has remarked with great justice[[761]] that the sígewíf here recalls the names of Wælcyrian, Sigrdrífa, Sigrún and Sigrlinn. I certainly see in Sigewíf, women who give victory; and the allusion to the wild flight and the wood are both essentially characteristic of the Wælcyrian, whom Saxo Grammaticus calls feminae and nymphae sylvestres. For many examples of this peculiar character, it is sufficient to refer to the Deutsche Mythologie[[762]].
CREATION AND DESTRUCTION.—The cosmogony of the Pentateuch was necessarily adopted by the Saxon converts; yet not so entirely as to exclude all the traditions of heathendom. In the mythology of the Northern nations, the creation of the world occupied an important place: its details are recorded in some of the most striking lays of the earlier Edda; and several of them appear unconsciously to have acted upon the minds of our Christian poets. The genius of the Anglosaxons does not indeed seem to have led them to the adoption of those energetic and truly imaginative forms of thought which the Scandinavians probably derived from the sterner natural features that surrounded them: the rude rocks and lakes of Norway and Sweden, the volcanoes, hot springs, ice plains and snow-covered mountains of Iceland, readily moulded the Northmen to a different train of thought from that which satisfied the dwellers in the marshlands of the Elbe and the fat plains of Britain. But as in the main it cannot be doubted that the heathendom of both races was the same, so even in many modes of expression we meet with a resemblance which can hardly be accidental. Like almost every other people, the Northmen considered a gigantic chaos to have preceded the world of order. While the giant Ymer lived, the earth was “without form and void.” Listen to the words of the Vaulu Spá, or Prophetess’s Song:
| Ár var alda þar er Ýmir bygði: vara sandr né sær né svalar unnir: jörð fannsk æva né uppkiminn, gap var ginnunga, en gras hvergi[[763]]. | When Ymer dwelt here, 'twas the dawn of time: cool streams were not, neither sands, nor seas: earth was not nor o’er it heaven, yawned the gap, and grass was nowhere. |
The sons of Bur however, Oþinn, Vile and Ve, created the vast Midgard, or realm of earth:
| Sól skein sunnan á salar steina þá var grand gróin grœnum lauki[[764]]. | The sun shone southward on the stone halls, then was earth grown with green produce. |
The constellations however as yet had no appointed course:
| Sól þat ne vissi hvar hon sali átti, máni þat ne vissi hvat hann megins átti, stjörnur þat ne vissu hvar þær staði áttu[[765]]. | But the sun knew not where her seat should be, and the moon knew not what his might should be, planets knew not where their place should be. |
So the holy Gods went to council, and divided the seasons, giving names to night and noon and morning, to undern and evening, that the years might be reckoned[[766]].
The construction of the world out of the fragments of Ymer’s body, the doctrine of the ash Yggdrasil, and of wondrous wells beneath its roots, could of course find no echo here, after the conversion. But it is very remarkable how nearly the description of creation given in Cædmon sometimes coincides with the old remains of heathendom:
| Ne wæs hér ðágiet nymðe heólstersceado wiht geworden, ac ðes wída grund stód deóp and dim, drihtne fremde, ídel and unnyt; on ðone eágnm wlát stíðfrihð cining, and ða stowe beheóld dreáma leáse. Geseah deorc gesweorc sémian sinnihte, sweart under roderum, wonn and wéste ... folde wæs ðágyt græs ungréne; gársecg þeahte sweart synnihte wíde and síde wonne wægas[[767]]. | There had not here as yet save cavern shade aught existed, but this wide abyss stood deep and dim, strange to its lord, idle and useless; on which looked with his eyes the king firm of mood and beheld the place devoid of joys. He saw the dark cloud lour in endless night, swart under heaven, dusky and desert ... the earth was yet not green with grass; but ocean covered dark in endless night far and wide the dusky ways. |