It may be added here that many of the poems of the Elder Edda, as well as much of the Old Norse poetry generally, are very difficult to understand, on account of the bold metaphorical language in which they are written. The poet did not call an object by its usual name, but borrowed a figure by which to present it, either from the mythology or from some other source. Thus he would call the sky the skull of the giant Ymer; the rainbow he called the bridge of the gods; gold was the tears of Freyja; poetry, the present or drink of Odin. The earth was called indifferently the wife of Odin, the flesh of Ymer, the daughter of night, the vessel that floats on the ages, or the foundation of the air; herbs and plants were called the hair or the fleece of the earth. A battle was called a bath of blood, the hail of Odin, the shock of bucklers; the sea was termed the field of pirates, the girdle of the earth; ice, the greatest of all bridges; a ship, the horse of the waves; the tongue, the sword of words, etc.
II. The Younger Edda,
written by Snorre Sturleson, the author of the famous Heimskringla (born 1178, died 1241) is mostly prose, and may be regarded as a sort of commentary upon the Elder Edda. The prose Edda consists of two parts: Gylfaginning (the deluding of Gylfe), and the Bragaræður or Skáldskaparmál (the conversations of Brage, the god of poetry, or the treatise on poetry). Gylfaginning tells how the Swedish king Gylfe makes a journey to Asgard, the abode of the gods, where Odin instructs him in the old faith, and gradually relates to him the myths of the Norsemen. The manner in which the whole is told reminds us of A Thousand and One Nights, or of poems from a later time, as for instance Boccaccio’s Decameron. It is a prose synopsis of the whole Asa faith, with here and there a quotation from the Elder Edda by way of elucidation. It shows a great deal of ingenuity and talent on the part of its author, and is the most perspicuous and clear presentation of the mythology that we possess.
But all the material for the correct presentation of the Norse mythology is not found in the Eddas; or rather we do not perfectly understand the Eddas, if we confine our studies to them alone. For a full comprehension of the myths, it is necessary to study carefully all the semi-mythological Icelandic Sagas, which constitute a respectable library by themselves; and in connection with these we must read the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf’s Drapa, and the German Niebelungen-Lied. In the next place, we must examine carefully all the folk-lore of the Gothic race, and we must, in short, study the manifestations of the Gothic mind and spirit everywhere: in the development of the State and of the Church, in their poetry and history, in their various languages and numerous dialects, in their literature, in their customs and manners, and in their popular belief. If we neglect all these we shall never understand the Eddas; if we neglect the Eddas we shall never understand the other sources of mythology. They mutually explain each other, and the Gothic race must sooner or later begin to study its own history.
That the Odinic mythology exercised a mighty influence in forming the national character of the Norsemen, becomes evident when we compare the doctrines of their faith with the popular life as portrayed in the Sagas. Still we must bear in mind that this national spirit was not created by this faith. The harsh climate of the North modified not only the Norse mythology, but also moulded indefinitely the national character, and then the two, the mythology and the national character, acted and reacted upon each other. Thus bred up to fight with nature in a constant battle for existence, and witnessing the same struggle in the life of his gods, the Norseman became fearless, honest and truthful, ready to smite and ready to forgive, shrinking not from pain himself and careless about inflicting it on others. Beholding in external nature and in his mythology the struggle of conflicting forces, he naturally looked on life as a field for warfare. The ice-bound fjords and desolate fells, the mournful wail of the waving pine-branches, the stern strife of frost and fire, the annual death of the short-lived summer, made the Norseman sombre, if not gloomy, in his thoughts, and inured him to the rugged independence of the country. The sternness of the land in which he lived was reflected in his character; the latter was in turn reflected in the tales which he told of his gods and heroes, and thus the Norseman and his mythology mutually influenced each other.
The influence of the Asa faith, says Prof. Keyser, upon the popular spirit of the Norsemen, must be regarded from quite another point of view than that of Christianity at a later period. The Asa faith was, so to speak, inborn with the Norsemen, as it had developed itself from certain germs and assumed form with the popular life almost unconsciously to the latter. Christianity, on the other hand, was given to the people as a religious system complete in itself, intended for all the nations of the earth; one which by its own divine power opened for itself a way to conviction, and through that conviction operated on the popular spirit in a direction previously pointed out by the fundamental principles of the religion itself. As the system of the Asa faith arose without any conscious object of affecting the morals, therefore it did not embrace any actual code of morals in the higher sense of this term. The Asa doctrine does not pronounce by positive expression what is virtue and what is vice; it presupposes a consciousness thereof in its votaries. It only represents virtue as reaping its own rewards and vice its own punishment, if not here upon the earth, then with certainty beyond the grave. Thus Keyser.
The Norse system of mythology embodied the doctrine of an imperishable soul in man; it had Valhal and Gimle set apart for and awaiting the brave and virtuous, and Helheim and Naastrand for the wicked.
The moral and social maxims of the Norsemen are represented as being uttered by Odin himself in the Hávamál (high song of Odin), the second song of the Elder Edda, and by the valkyrie Sigdrifa in the Sigrdrífumál (the lay of Sigdrifa), the twenty-first poem of the same work. Read these poems and maxims, and judge whether they will warrant the position repeatedly taken in this work, that the electric spark that has made England and America great and free came not from the aboriginal Britons, not from the Roman enslavers, but must be sought in the prophetic, imaginative and poetic childhood of the Gothic race. Read these poems and judge whether the eminent English writer, Samuel Laing, is right when he says:
All that men hope for of good government and future improvement in their physical and moral condition,—all that civilized men enjoy at this day of civil, religious and political liberty,—the British constitution, representative legislation, the trial by jury, security of property, freedom of mind and person, the influence of public opinion over the conduct of public affairs, the Reformation, the liberty of the press, the spirit of the age,—all that is or has been of value to man in modern times as a member of society, either in Europe or in the New World, may be traced to the spark left burning upon our shores by these northern barbarians.
Read these poems and find truth in the words of Baron Montesquieu, the admirable author of The Spirit of Laws (L’Esprit des Lois), when he says: The great prerogative of Scandinavia, and what ought to recommend its inhabitants beyond every people upon earth, is, that they afforded the great resource to the liberty of Europe, that is, to almost all the liberty that is among men; and when he calls the North the forge of those instruments which broke the fetters manufactured in the South.