III
‘BROSINGA MENE’
‘Brosinga Mene,’ p. 82, is the ‘Brisinga-mén’ mentioned in the Edda, an Icelandic poem. ‘This necklace is the Brisinga-mén—the costly necklace of Freja, which she won from the Dwarfs, and which was stolen from her by Loki, as is told in the Edda’ (Kemble).
Loki was a Scandinavian demi-god. He was beautiful and cunning. He was the principle of strife, the spirit of evil; cp. Job’s Satan. Freya was the Scandinavian Goddess of Love. She claimed half of the slain in battle. She was the dispenser of joy and happiness. The German frau is derived from Freya. Hama carried off this necklace when he fled from Eormanric. The origin of this legend, though worked up in the Edda, seems to have been German or Gothic, and ‘Brosinga’ has reference to the rock-plateau of Breisgau on the Rhine. It is probably a relic of the lost saga of Eormanric (see [Appendix IV].), the famous Ostrogothic king referred to in Chapter [XVIII]. Eormanric is one of the few historical personages of the poem.
IV
EORMANRIC
Gibbon mentions Eormanric in his chapter XXV. of the Decline and Fall, and, in spite of chronological discrepancies, this Eormanric is probably identical with the one mentioned in Beowulf (Chapter [XVIII].), in Jornandes (Chapter XXIV.), and in the Edda.
In Jornandes the story is as follows.