History of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by S. A. Dunham

Were the thick clouds

All created.

This heaven, made from the giant’s skull, was supported by four dwarfs, East, West, North, South, and at one of the corners, a living pillar. (What supports the earth, or the dwarfs themselves, we are not informed). The globes of fire which ascended from Muspelheim, and spread through all space, were now placed by the three gods in the firmament, and made sun, moon, and stars, to enlighten heaven and earth.

That these notions are wild and extravagant will be asserted by most readers; but do they not involve physical truths? Were they not invented by the priests of old to cover their learning from the vulgar gaze? Let us hear the interpretation of Finn Magnussen, the most learned, the most acute, though, in too many instances, the most visionary, of northern commentators. The giant Ymer, he observes, represents the chaotic undigested state of the earth, produced by the combined effects of heat and cold upon water. That water was the first existing matter, is evident even from holy scripture. Many nations regarded it as the source of all things. The opinions of the Greek philosopher on this subject are well known; but we may mention the Orphic fragment preserved by Athenagoras. The water produced mud; the mud produced a monster with three heads,—the head of a god, of a lion, of an ox. This monster, which, however, was a deity, laid an egg, the upper half of which formed the heaven, the lower half the earth. From the union of heaven and earth, the offspring were, first the three fates, and then the giants and cyclops who rebelled, and were eventually cast into the Tartarean gulf. The Greeks, like all other people, had seen the mud deposited by water give birth to animals, after receiving for a time the solar heat. The action, therefore, of fire on the slimy particles thus deposited, was received as a generative principle; and assuredly there is nothing more irrational in the system of Scandinavia than in that of Greece. The Egyptian system was conformable with it. An original chaos; the separation of the mud from the waters; the action of the sun, or of heat, on the mud; the fermentation which followed; and the origin of animal existence, are the great features: as a necessary result, the sun, no less than the water, was deified. In the Scandinavian, as in the other systems, some kinds of matter were eternal. Eternal were the mists of Nifleheim, and the well Vergelmer; eternal perhaps the abode of Surtur, Surtur himself, and his fiery spirits. From the beneficent Alfadur nothing evil was to spring; he, therefore, we suppose, could not create Muspelheim, or its inhabitants; nor could he give birth to the giants of the frost, who are emphatically called wicked: hence their origin from the poisonous waters of Nifleheim.

If, in respect to water and fire, the cosmogony of the Scandinavians was kindred with that of other people, the resemblance furnished by the cow was equally great. “We need not be surprised,” observes Magnussen, “that men selected the ox, the most useful and widely-spread animal with which they were acquainted, for a cosmic symbol in its various forms. The cow was probably our first nurse; and the oldest nations, especially the Hindoos and the Egyptians, regarded her with religious veneration, and called her the mother of mankind. When men applied poetry to cosmogony, they elevated a mythic cow to the place of earth’s mother, or nurse. Such is our Audumbla. And if the cow was the mother, well may the bull (as in India) be held the father: he propagated the race, drew the plough, and in both cases might be said to rear or nurse mankind.” Among the Persians, the cow was held in even greater veneration than among the Scandinavians. The Abudad was the earth, which Jemsheed (the sun) pierced with his dagger. The cow was the symbol of creation, the instrument which Ormuzd employed for the production of the first human being. A cow, too, received the soul of Zoroaster, and transmitted it in the form of milk to the father of the prophet; but the notion was common to most people. The Cimbri in Italy had their copper ox, on which they swore, just as the Egyptians swore by Apis. It was the symbol of heaven, just as the cow was that of earth; it was held to be the father, just as the female was the mother, of all. The chariot of Hertha, or mother earth, was, as Tacitus informs us, drawn by cows. The Io of the Greeks was probably derived from the same widely-spread doctrine.

The cow, according to Finn Magnussen, is a purification of the atmosphere in the Scandinavian mythos of the creation. This, however, is not very clear; nor do we perceive more justice in the explanation given of Burè’s origin,—that the licking of the salt-rocks betokens the emersion of the solid earth from the deep waters. In another of his analogies, he is whimsical—that which makes Bôrr, or Bors, to be the Elbors, the Caucasus of the Persians. A correspondence of names is, in most cases, purely accidental, and proves nothing. More rational, perhaps, is our commentator, when he treats of Odin, Vilè, and Vè, which he makes into air, light and fire. The three gods destroyed Ymer, that is, the elements in question destroyed chaos. Whether, however, he is equally successful in the derivation of the three words, may be disputed; but there is much ingenuity, and some plausibility, in all. The Greek ατμός, the Sanscrit atma, the Teutonic athem, all signifying air or breath, are certainly cognate; and they are probably the same with the Othem, or Odin, or Woden, of the Germans. But whether Odin or Woden is derived from the Latin vado, to go through, to pervade, is not so clear. If this etymology were established, we should have no difficulty in conceiving Odin to be the air, the breath, the soul of the world. Still the subject is worthy of consideration; and the reader may adopt or reject it. He will be less inclined to admit the derivation of Vilè, which seems far-fetched. Nor are we quite sure that Vè, akin to Vesta, is to be taken for elemental fire, or metaphorically for life. Yet on a subject so obscure, we are unwilling to pronounce dogmatically.

The destruction of Ymer and his offspring, the wicked giants of the frost, by the divine race, is evidently the same mythos as the defeat of the Titans by Jove; of Ahriman and the evil genii, by Ormuzd and the Amshaspands. Surtur is the Ahriman of Scandinavia. He is the author of evil, viz., of the giants; and is destined one day to assist in the destruction of the universe. We read of the great Alfadur,—another than Odin who is sometimes called eternal. It is pleasing to read such notions of a First Cause, in such an age. To this omnipotent, eternal, and beneficent Being, who is far above all the worlds, inaccessible to any thing created, there are more allusions than one in the Edda of Sæmund. Thus the Hyndlu-mâl, after mentioning the destruction of Odin, with all the gods:—

Yet there shall come

Another mightier,

Although him