Norse mythology; or, The religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted

by Rasmus Björn Anderson

Of which no one knows.

All the tribes of nature partake of this universal tree, from the eagle who sits on the topmost bough down through the different stages of animal life; the hawk in the lower strata of air, the squirrel who busily leaps about in the branches, the stags by the fountain, to the serpents beneath the surface of the earth.

The peculiar feature of this myth is its comprehensiveness. How beautiful the sight of a large tree! Its far-extending branches, its moss-covered stem, its high crown and deep roots, remind us of the infinity of time; it has seen ages roll by before we were born. In the evening, when our day’s work is done, we lie down in its broad shade and think of the rest that awaits us when all our troubles are ended. Its leaves rustle in the breezes and the sunshine; they speak to us of that which is going on above this sorrow-stricken earth. But the tree is not the whole symbol. It is connected with the great waters, with the clear fountain with its egg-white waves, and with the turbulent streams that flow in the bowels of the earth. While the calm firmness of the tree and the monotonous rustling of the wind through its leaves invites the soul to rest, the ceaseless activity of the various tribes of animals that feed upon its roots and branches remind us of nature never at rest and never tiring. The tree sighs and groans beneath its burden; the animals move about in it and around it; every species of animals has its place and destination; the eagle soars on his broad wings over its top; the serpent winds his slimy coils in the deep; the swan swims in the fountain; and while all the tribes of animated life are busily engaged, the dew-drops fall to refresh and cool the earth and the heart of man. Nay, this is not all. There is one who has planted the tree, and there are many who watch and care for it; higher beings protect it. Gods and men, all that possesses life and consciousness, has its home in this tree and its work to do. The norns constantly refresh it with water from the Urdar-fountain; the elves hover about it; Heimdal suspends his tri-colored arch beneath it; the glory of Balder shines upon it; Mimer lifts his head in the distance, and the pale Hel watches the shades of men who have departed this earth and journey through the nine worlds over Gjallarbro to their final rewards. The picture is so grand that nothing but an infinite soul can comprehend it; no brush can paint it, no colors can represent it. Nothing is quiet, nothing at rest; all is activity. It is the whole world, and it can be comprehended only by the mind of man, by the soul of the poet, and be symbolized by the ceaseless flow of language. It is not a theme for the painter or sculptor, but for the poet. Ygdrasil is the tree of experience of the Gothic race. It is the symbol of a great race, sprung originally from the same root but divided into many branches, Norsemen, Englishmen, Americans, etc. It has three roots, and experience has taught the Goths that there are in reality but three kinds of people in the world: some that work energetically for noble and eternal purposes, and their root is in Asaheim; some that work equally energetically, but for evil and temporal ends, and their root is in Jotunheim; and many who distinguished themselves only by sloth and impotence, and their root is in Niflheim with the goddess Hel or death, in Hvergelmer, where the serpent Nidhug, with all his reptile brood, gnaws at their lives. Thus the Gothic race is reflected in Ygdrasil, and if our poets will study it they will find that this grand myth is itself in fact a root in the Urdar-fountain, and from it may spring an Ygdrasil of poetry, extending long branches throughout the poetical world and delighting the nations of the earth.

Beneath that root of Ygdrasil, which shoots down to Jotunheim, there is a fountain called after its watcher Mimer’s Fountain, in which wisdom and knowledge are concealed. The name Mimer means the knowing. The giants, being older than the asas, looked deeper than the latter into the darkness of the past. They had witnessed the birth of the gods and the beginning of the world, and they foresaw their downfall. Concerning both these events, the gods had to go to them for knowledge, an idea which is most forcibly expressed in the Völuspá, the first song in the Elder Edda, where a vala, or prophetess, from Jotunheim is represented as rising up from the deep and unveiling the past and future to gods and men. It is this wisdom that Mimer keeps in his fountain. Odin himself must have it. In the night, when the sun has set behind the borders of the earth, he goes to Jotunheim. Odin penetrates the mysteries of the deep, but he must leave his eye in pawn for the drink which he receives from the fountain of knowledge. But in the glory of morning dawn, when the sun rises again from Jotunheim, Mimer drinks from his golden horn the clear mead which flows over Odin’s pawn. Heaven and this lower world mutually impart their wisdom to each other.

The norns watch over man through life. They spin his thread of fate at his birth and mark out with it the limits of his sphere of action in life. Their decrees are inviolable destiny, their dispensations inevitable necessity. The gods themselves must bow before the laws of the norns; they are limited by time; they are born and must die. Urd and Verdande, the Past and Present, are represented as stretching a web from east to west, from the radiant dawn of life to the glowing sunset, and Skuld, the Future, tears it to pieces. There is a deeply-laid plan in the universe, a close union between spirit and matter. There is no such thing as independent life or action. The ends of the threads wherewith our life is woven lie deeply hid in the abyss of the beginning. Self-consciousness is merely an abstraction. The self-conscious individual is merely a leaf, which imagines itself to be something, but is in fact only a bud that enfolds itself and falls off from the tree of the universe. The self-contradiction between absolute necessity and free will was an unsolved riddle with our heathen ancestors, and puzzles the minds of many of our most profound thinkers still. Thus, says the Elder Edda, the norns came to decide the destiny of Helge Hundingsbane:

It was in times of yore,

When the eagles screamed,

Holy waters fell

From the heavenly hills;

Then to Helge,