Here ruled king Gylfe. When he heard of the expedition of Odin and his Asiatics he went to meet them, and offered Odin as much land and as much power in his kingdom as he might desire. One reason why people everywhere gave Odin so hearty a welcome and offered him land and power was that wherever Odin and his men tarried on their journey the people got good harvests and abundant crops, and therefore they believed that Odin and his men controlled the weather and the growing grain. Odin went with Gylfe up to the lake "Logrin" and saw that the land was good; and there he chose as his citadel the place which is called Sigtuna, founding there the same institutions as had existed in Troy, and to which the Turks were accustomed. Then he organised a council of twelve men, who were to make laws and settle disputes. From Svithiod Odin went to Norway, and there made his son Sæming king. But the ruling of Svithiod he had left to his son Yngve, from whom the race of Ynglings are descended. The Asas and their sons married the women of the land of which they had taken possession, and their descendants, who preserved the language spoken in Troy, multiplied so fast that the Trojan language displaced the old tongue and became the speech of Svithiod, Norway, Denmark, and Saxland, and thereafter also of England.
The Prose Edda's first part, Gylfaginning, consists of a collection of mythological tales told to the reader in the form of a conversation between the above-named king of Sweden, Gylfe, and the Asas. Before the Asas had started on their journey to the North, it is here said Gylfe had learned that they were a wise and knowing people who had success in all their undertakings. And believing that this was a result either of the nature of these people, or of their peculiar kind of worship, he resolved to investigate the matter secretly, and therefore betook himself in the guise of an old man to Asgard. But the foreknowing Asas knew in advance that he was coming, and resolved to receive him with all sorts of sorcery, which might give him a high opinion of them. He finally came to a citadel, the roof of which was thatched with golden shields, and the hall of which was so large that he scarcely could see the whole of it. At the entrance stood a man playing with sharp tools, which he threw up in the air and caught again with his hands, and seven axes were in the air at the same time. This man asked the traveller his name. The latter answered that he was named Ganglere, that he had made a long journey over rough roads, and asked for lodgings for the night. He also asked whose the citadel was. The juggler answered that it belonged to their king, and conducted Gylfe into the hall, where many people were assembled. Some sat drinking, others amused themselves at games, and still others were practising with weapons. There were three high-seats in the hall, one above the other, and in each high-seat sat a man. In the lowest sat the king; and the juggler informed Gylfe that the king's name was Har; that the one who sat next above him was named Jafnhar; and that the one who sat on the highest throne was named Thride (thridi). Har asked the stranger what his errand was, and invited him to eat and drink. Gylfe answered that he first wished to know whether there was any wise man in the hall. Har replied that the stranger should not leave the hall whole unless he was victorious in a contest in wisdom. Gylfe now begins his questions, which all concern the worship of the Asas, and the three men in the high-seats give him answers. Already in the first answer it appears that the Asgard to which Gylfe thinks he has come is, in the opinion of the author, a younger Asgard, and presumably the same as the author of Heimskringla places beyond the river Tanakvisl, but there had existed an older Asgard identical with Troy in Tyrkland, where, according to Heimskringla, Odin had extensive possessions at the time when the Romans began their invasions in the East. When Gylfe with his questions had learned the most important facts in regard to the religion of Asgard, and had at length been instructed concerning the destruction and regeneration of the world, he perceived a mighty rumbling and quaking, and when he looked about him the citadel and hall had disappeared, and he stood beneath the open sky. He returned to Svithiod and related all that he had seen and heard among the Asas; but when he had gone they counselled together, and they agreed to call themselves by those names which they used in relating their stories to Gylfe. These sagas, remarks Gylfaginning, were in reality none but historical events transformed into traditions about divinities. They described events which had occurred in the older Asgard—that is to say, Troy. The basis of the stories told to Gylfe about Thor were the achievements of Hektor in Troy, and the Loke of whom Gylfe had heard was, in fact, none other than Ulixes (Ulysses), who was the foe of the Trojans, and consequently was represented as the foe of the gods.
Gylfaginning is followed by another part of the Prose Edda called Bragaroedur (Brage's Talk), which is presented in a similar form. On Lessö, so it is said, dwelt formerly a man by name Ægir. He, like Gylfe, had heard reports concerning the wisdom of the Asas, and resolved to visit them. He, like Gylfe, comes to a place where the Asas receive him with all sorts of magic arts, and conduct him into a hall which is lighted up in the evening with shining swords. There he is invited to take his seat by the side of Brage, and there were twelve high-seats in which sat men who were called Thor, Njord, Frey, &c., and women who were called Frigg, Freyja, Nanna, &c. The hall was splendidly decorated with shields. The mead passed round was exquisite, and the talkative Brage instructed the guest in the traditions concerning the Asas' art of poetry. A postscript to the treatise warns young skalds not to place confidence in the stories told to Gylfe and Ægir. The author of the postscript says they have value only as a key to the many metaphors which occur in the poems of the great skalds, but upon the whole they are deceptions invented by the Asas or Asiamen to make people believe that they were gods. Still, the author thinks these falsifications have an historical kernel. They are, he thinks, based on what happened in the ancient Asgard, that is, Troy. Thus, for instance, Ragnarok is originally nothing else than the siege of Troy; Thor is, as stated, Hektor; the Midgard-serpent is one of the heroes slain by Hektor; the Fenris-wolf is Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who slew Priam (Odin); and Vidar, who survives Ragnarok, is Æneas.
8.
THE TROY SAGA IN HEIMSKRINGLA AND THE PROSE EDDA
(continued).
The sources of the traditions concerning the Asiatic immigration to the North belong to the Icelandic literature, and to it alone. Saxo's Historia Danica, the first books of which were written toward the close of the twelfth century, presents on this topic its own peculiar view, which will be discussed later. The Icelandic accounts disagree only in unimportant details; the fundamental view is the same, and they have flown from the same fountain vein. Their contents may be summed up thus:
Among the tribes who after the Babylonian confusion of tongues emigrated to various countries, there was a body of people who settled and introduced their language in Asia Minor, which in the sagas is called Tyrkland; in Greece, which in the sagas is called Macedonia; and in Crete. In Tyrkland they founded the great city which was called Troy. This city was attacked by the Greeks during the reign of the Trojan king Priam. Priam descended from Jupiter and the latter's father Saturnus, and accordingly belonged to a race which the idolaters looked upon as divine. Troy was a very large city; twelve languages were spoken there, and Priam had twelve tributary kings under him. But however powerful the Trojans were, and however bravely they defended themselves under the leadership of the son of Priam's daughter, that valiant hero Thor, still they were defeated. Troy was captured and burned by the Greeks, and Priam himself was slain. Of the surviving Trojans two parties emigrated in different directions. They seem in advance to have been well informed in regard to the quality of foreign lands; for Thor, the son of Priam's daughter, had made extensive expeditions in which he had fought giants and monsters. On his journeys he had even visited the North, and there he had met Sibil, the celebrated prophetess, and married her. One of the parties of Trojan emigrants embarked under the leadership of Æneas for Italy, and founded Rome. The other party, accompanied by Thor's son, Loride, went to Asialand, which is separated from Tyrkland by a mountain ridge, and from Europe by the river Tanais or Tanakvisl. There they founded a new city called Asgard, and there preserved the old customs and usages brought from Troy. Accordingly, there was organised in Asgard, as in Troy, a council of twelve men, who were high priests and judges. Many centuries passed without any political contact between the new Trojan settlements in Rome and Asgard, though both well remembered their Trojan origin, and the Romans formed many of their institutions after the model of the old fatherland. Meanwhile, Rome had grown to be one of the mightiest empires in the world, and began at length to send armies into Tyrkland. At that time there ruled in Asgard an exceedingly wise, prophetic king, Odin, who was skilled in the magic arts, and who was descended in the twentieth generation from the above-mentioned Thor. Odin had waged many successful wars. The severest of these wars was the one with a neighbouring people, the Vans; but this had been ended with compromise and peace. In Tyrkland, the old mother country, Odin had great possessions, which fell into the hands of the Romans. This circumstance strengthened him in his resolution to emigrate to the north of Europe. The prophetic vision with which he was endowed had told him that his descendants would long flourish there. So he set out with his many sons, and was accompanied by the twelve priests and by many people, but not by all the inhabitants of the Asia country and of Asgard. A part of the people remained at home; and among them Odin's brothers Vile and Ve. The expedition proceeded through Gardarike to Saxland; then across the Danish islands to Svithiod and Norway. Everywhere this great multitude of migrators was well received by the inhabitants. Odin's superior wisdom and his marvellous skill in sorcery, together with the fact that his progress was everywhere attended by abundant harvests, caused the peoples to look upon him as a god, and to place their thrones at his disposal. He accordingly appointed his sons as kings in Saxland, Denmark, Svithiod, and Norway. Gylfe, the king of Svithiod, submitted to his superiority and gave him a splendid country around Lake Mælar to rule over. There Odin built Sigtuna, the institutions of which were an imitation of those in Asgard and Troy. Poetry and many other arts came with Odin to the Teutonic lands, and so, too, the Trojan tongue. Like his ancestors, Saturnus and Jupiter, he was able to secure divine worship, which was extended even to his twelve priests. The religious traditions which he scattered among the people, and which were believed until the introduction of Christianity, were misrepresentations spun around the memories of Troy's historical fate and its destruction, and around the events of Asgard.
9.
SAXO'S RELATION OF THE STORY OF TROY.