That most of the preceding poems were composed at a period lost in the depths of antiquity, and in a region less remote than Scandinavia from the cradle of the human race, is exceedingly probable. Such are the Voluspa, Vafthrudnis-mâl, Grimnis-mâl, Alvis-mâl, Rafna-galdur-Odins, and Vegtams-guida. In regard to Hymis-guida, Hamars-heimt, Skirnirs-for, Hyndlu-liod, &c., they do not bear the impress of so high an antiquity: they are supposed to be the productions of the northern muse. They have their interest; but that interest is much stronger when we read the olden pieces. These have been compared by a living writer[[18]] “to the organic remains, the wrecks, of a more ancient world; or to the gigantic ruins of Egypt and Hindostan, speaking a more perfect civilisation, the glories of which have long since departed.” We see, however, no reason for assuming this “more perfect civilisation:” the nation or people who knew such doctrines might have been ignorant enough, while their priests were comparatively learned. The oriental impress which they bear cannot be mistaken; still less can we overlook the extreme antiquity which they may claim. Kindred with the most ancient superstitions of Rome, of Greece, of Persia, they must have been derived from the same common source.
4. Of the mytho-historical poems, there are many. In them magic is so joined with the ordinary knowledge of life, the supernatural with the human, that we are inclined to reject even that which has a real historical foundation. In this respect, however, they are like the poems of all heroic ages, and not more censurable than those of Homer or of Hindostan. A more interesting fact is, that from these lays have sprung most of the great Teutonic fictions which adorn the Nibelungenlied, and many even of those which we denominate the romantic or the chivalric. Probably the incidents are perversions of real facts, which happened in a period approaching that of Attila and his Huns, whose exploits occupy the attention of the northern muse. Some of them, we know, were sung at the court of Olaf Trygveson, the Norwegian king. It would not, however, be difficult to trace others to a higher source than the age of Attila,—to the source whence the heroic classical lore of Greece was derived; and others again bear a marked affinity with the legends of the Arabian Nights.
The prose or younger Edda, usually, but perhaps erroneously, ascribed to Snorro Sturleson, has also many of these chivalric or mytho-historical lays. Of this venerable monument of antiquity the world could form no just notion prior to the year 1818, when that admirable scholar professor Rask published his edition. The edition of Resenius—the only one previously known to Europe—is an imperfect work, derived from corrupted MSS. and the notes of the Scalds are often confounded with the text. It consists of several parts. The Formali, which is the introduction, has many legends and fables respecting the descent of nations, especially of the Scandinavian. They are evidently from both Asiatic and European sources. After the introduction, comes the Gylfa-ginning, or deception of Gylfa. This personage was a king of Swithiof (part of Sweden) and a famous magician,—the head of the native magical college which the Aser were endeavouring to subvert. To account for their superior power, the result of their superior wisdom, he determined to assume a disguise, and proceed at once to the cradle of the Aser in the east. Under the name of Gangler (the traveller), he reaches the celestial city, and finds an oracle capable of resolving all his doubts, of removing all his ignorance. To each of his questions the reply is in full, explaining the mythology of the elder Edda, illustrated by extracts from the Voluspa, the Hava-mâl, and the predictions of the Scalds. This part of the work is, in its design, and partly in its execution, so similar to the Vafthrudnis-mâl in the elder Edda, that it must have been derived from it, or from a source common to both. The second part of the prose Edda, called Braga-raedar, contains the recitation of his best pieces by the divine Braga, at the banquet of the sea-god Ægir. The Eptirmali is a kind of epilogue written by Icelandic poets immediately prior to Snorro, or possibly by Snorro himself. It is an attempt to explain many of the fables in the Edda, by the circumstances of the Trojan war. In addition to all these subjects, we have the Skalda, which is a kind of ars poetica, for the use of poetical students.
While mentioning the prose Edda, we are naturally drawn to its reputed compiler Snorro, the son of Sturle, who was also the compiler of the Heimskringla, our only sure guide for northern history down to the 13th century. This extraordinary man was born in 1178, near the bay of Hoams-fiord, on the domain of his family. He was, consequently, above a century later than Sæmund, whose birth was between 1050 and 1060. His descent was illustrious; it could be traced to the ancient Ynglings and to the jarls of Moria. In his fourth year he was sent to Oddé, which, as we have before related[[19]], had been the residence of that remarkable priest; and, strange to say, he was educated under the direction of Sæmund’s grandson, Jon Loptston. Here he remained until his twentieth year, and was instructed in Greek no less than in Roman literature. The MSS. collections made by Sæmund and Ari Frode, were his delight; and to them he was indebted for the ruling bias of his life. In 1197 he left Oddé, and by marrying the daughter of a rich priest, greatly increased his patrimonial inheritance. In every thing fortune smiled upon him; he became in a few years the richest man on the island; and when he appeared at the Al-thing, he was generally escorted by a body of some hundred horsemen. In 1202, he removed his residence from Borg, one of his patrimonial seats, to the estate of Reykholt, which he had also inherited. This place he fortified—a proof that deadly feuds were common—and adorned it with works that evinced alike his genius and his riches. In 1213, he was raised to the dignity of logsogomadr[[20]], or chief judge of the island. No man could be better qualified for duties, the nature and origin of which had occupied so much of his time. In 1218 he visited Norway, where he was well received by king and nobles. His fame, indeed, had travelled before him. Among his poetical compositions were some odes in honour of the great; and these, (for flattery has every where the same effect) procured him many valuable presents, not only in Norway, but in Sweden. His sojourn in West and East Gothland doubtless originated in his desire to collect all the information which tradition, and possibly MSS., could furnish him in regard to his ancestors, and the Yngling princes. But his patriotism seems to have been inferior to his genius. That he entered into a conspiracy for the complete subjection of his country to the Norwegian court is certain. In 1220, both enriched and honoured, he returned to Iceland; but we no longer perceive in him the great qualities which had led to his election in 1213. Avaricious, haughty, revengeful, he made enemies on every side, and in 1237 was compelled to seek a refuge from their fury. Again he repaired to Norway, where he found one of his old patrons, Skule, the jarl, plotting for the crown of the realm. That plot he favoured; he even wrote a poem in support of that nobleman’s claims. Yet he also flattered the king, from whom he received the title of jarl. But he had designs deeper than either Skule or the king suspected; and in a short time some of his intrigues were known to that monarch. He was forbidden to sail for Iceland; and when he departed in defiance of that prohibition, secret instructions were sent to his son-in-law, Gissur Thorwaldson, to seize him and send him bound to Norway; or if this should be impossible, to put him to death. The extremities to which feuds in a barbarous age may be carried, are clearly illustrated by the conduct of Gissur. Though so nearly connected with the historian; though formerly the most intimate of his friends; he performed the more atrocious part of the proposal. The great wealth of Snorro, there can be no doubt, was one inducement to the deed of blood; but this must have been inferior to the feeling of vengeance. His measures required caution, for Snorro was powerful; and to be prepared, had only to be warned. His design was penetrated by one of Snorro’s friends, who in a Runic letter acquainted him with his danger. But this letter the poet could not understand;—we are told even that he could not read it; and that all to whom he showed it were equally unable to decipher it. However this be, Thorwaldson, marching at the head of a strong body of men belonging to a clan at deadly feud with his victim, hastened to Reykholt, where he surprised and murdered the noble owner, September 22., 1241.
Snorro, as we have observed, is the reputed collector of the prose Edda, and of the Heimskringla. A collector merely he seems to have been; but he exhibited great judgment in selecting, arranging, and modernising the poetic compositions which he followed. For his history, no less than his mythology, the pagan Scalds were his authorities.
So much for matter purely introductory. From the two Eddas, assisted by the commentaries of the best northern scholars, we proceed to lay before the reader the most striking features of the cosmogony and religion of the Scandinavians; and to accompany them by such reflections as may seem necessary to show their origin and nature.
SECTION I.
THE SCANDINAVIAN UNIVERSE, ITS WORLDS, AND THEIR INHABITANTS IN GENERAL, WITH THE PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.
CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE.—YMER.—THE GIANTS.—THE GODS.—OTHER BEINGS.—THE NINE WORLDS, WITH THEIR POSITION AND PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.—THE TWELVE HOUSES OF ASGARD.—SWARTALFAHEIM.—INHABITANTS OF THE NINE WORLDS.—THE ASER.—THE VEVER, &c.
In the Voluspa, or Song of the Prophetess, the Vala, who is probably Urda, the Norny of the past, being seated on a high throne, and surrounded by the deities, acquaints them with the wonders of creation, and of the destiny reserved for them all,—destruction. In the Grimnis-mâl[[21]], Odin gives a similar account of the origin of all things; and throughout the elder Edda, we have allusion to the same doctrines. From them was derived the relation in the younger or prose Edda, with the merit of being much clearer. According to both, there existed in the beginning, on the site of the world, a vast abyss, Ginnunga-gap, which contained nothing. But to the north of that abyss there was another world, called Nifleheim, the cold and misty. It contained nothing but a spring, Vergelmer, from which flowed eleven great rivers into the abyss. They were called Elivagar (the cold waters), and their streams were poisonous as they were cold. As they flowed on, owing to the cold they became more sluggish in their course; so that when they reached the centre of the abyss, they were converted into ice. Still they flowed, and still the ice increased, until the whole Ginnunga-gap was filled. Out of such materials what could be made? It was necessary to create some other power before the visible universe could be formed. This northern realm, Nifleheim, which contained nothing except the fountain, which had no quality except that of coldness, which was covered with darkness, could, of itself, produce nothing; it could only send the sluggish poisonous waters into the centre of the abyss. That these waters were eternal we may infer; but we cannot infer how long the ice had accumulated when the real events of creation began. The agent of that creation is placed in another region, or rather world, Muspelheim, which lay far to the south of Ginnunga-gap, and which was intolerably hot,—more hot than Nifleheim was cold. The origin of this earth and its inhabitants, therefore, was the work of these two agencies, heat and cold, operating on the poisonous waters which lay between them. (Muspelheim, we suppose, with its numerous fiery inhabitants, and their mighty chief Surtur, the dark, the incomprehensible, the great evil principle, had no beginning; or if it had, the Odinian theologians were unacquainted with it.) What was frozen by the one influence was thawed by the other. It was probably some centuries before the heat from Surtur’s fiery empire dissolved the prodigious mass into a liquid element. From that element sprung the giant Ymer, by a process of generation which the northern sages do not deign to explain; and his vast bulk filled no inconsiderable portion of the abyss, as will soon appear from the use made of his corpse. This giant begat others. How? By a process no less odd than that which brought him into being. While asleep, a male and a female sprung from his left armpit; and he had the felicity too, by rubbing one foot against another, to produce a son. Why there should be three ancestors to the Rimthurser, or frost-giants, when, in our humble notion, two might have sufficed, is another mystery which we shall not attempt to penetrate. How were all nourished, seeing that there was no alimentary substance created? By the Supreme Being, the Great Alfadur, a cow with four teats was created; and from these flowed four rivers of milk. The cow herself was sustained by licking the salt-rocks, on which the hoar frost still lay. But her destiny was not fulfilled by this service; she was to call into existence a new race. When she had licked one day, the hair appeared; when she had licked two, there was a head; when three, there was a complete animal,—a man or giant, named Burè. This Burè, in his turn, became the father (probably by marriage with a descendant of Ymer) of Bur, or Bôrr, or Bore, who was more famous than any of his predecessors. His son married a lady of the giant race, named Bestla, and by her had three gods, Odin, Vilè, and Vè. Before these were long born, they slew the old giant Ymer. His blood was sufficient to drown all of the giant race, except Bergelmer and his wife, who sailed away to the mountains, and became the progenitors of a new race of giants. The corpse was now cast into the Ginnunga-gap; and from it heaven and earth were created. Thus the Grimnis-mâl:—