Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland, Vol. 1

by Viktor Rydberg

I think I have now pointed out the chief threads of the web of that scholastic romance woven out of Latin convent learning concerning a Teutonic emigration from Troy and Asia, a web which extends from Fredegar's Frankish chronicle, through the following chronicles of the middle age, down into Heimskringla and the Foreword of the Younger Edda. According to the Frankish chronicle, Gesta regum Francorum, the emigration of the Franks from the Trojan colony near the Tanais was thought to have occurred very late; that is, in the time of Valentinianus I., or in other words, between 364 and 375 after Christ. The Icelandic authors very well knew that Teutonic tribes had been far into Europe long before that time, and the reigns they had constructed in regard to the North indicated that they must have emigrated from the Tanais colony long before the Franks. As the Roman attack was the cause of the Frankish emigration, it seemed probable that these world-conquerors had also caused the earlier emigration from Tanais; and as Pompey's expedition to Asia was the most celebrated of all the expeditions made by the Romans in the East—Pompey even entered Jerusalem and visited its Temple—it was found most convenient to let the Asas emigrate in the time of Pompey, but they left a remnant of Teutons near the Tanais, under the rule of Odin's younger brothers Vile and Ve, in order that this colony might continue to exist until the emigration of the Franks took place.

Finally, it should be mentioned that the Trojan migration saga, as born and developed in antiquity, does not indicate by a single word that Europe was peopled later than Asia, or that it received its population from Asia. The immigration of the Trojans to Europe was looked upon as a return to their original homes. Dardanus, the founder of Troy, was regarded as the leader of an emigration from Etruria to Asia (Æneid, iii. 165 ff., Serv. Comm.). As a rule the European peoples regarded themselves in antiquity as autochthones if they did not look upon themselves as immigrants from regions within Europe to the territories they inhabited in historic times.

13.

THE MATERIALS OF THE ICELANDIC TROY SAGA.

We trust the facts presented above have convinced the reader that the saga concerning the immigration of Odin and the Asas to Europe is throughout a product of the convent learning of the middle ages. That it was born and developed independently of the traditions of the Teutonic heathendom shall be made still more apparent by the additional proofs that are accessible in regard to this subject. It may, however, be of some interest to first dwell on some of the details in the Heimskringla and in the Younger Edda and point out their source.

It should be borne in mind that, according to the Younger Edda, it was Zoroaster who first thought of building the Tower of Babel, and that in this undertaking he was assisted by seventy-two master-masons. Zoroaster is, as is well known, another form for the Bactrian or Iranian name Zarathustra, the name of the prophet and religious reformer who is praised on every page of Avesta's holy books, and who in a prehistoric age founded the religion which far down in our own era has been confessed by the Persians, and is still confessed by their descendants in India, and is marked by a most serious and moral view of the world. In the Persian and in the classical literatures this Zoroaster has naught to do with Babel, still less with the Tower of Babel. But already in the first century of Christianity, if not earlier, traditions became current which made Zoroaster the founder of all sorcery, magic, and astrology (Plinius, Hist. Nat., xxx. 2); and as astrology particularly was supposed to have had its centre and base in Babylon, it was natural to assume that Babel had been the scene of Zoroaster's activity. The Greek-Roman chronicler Ammianus Marcellinus, who lived in the fourth century after Christ, still knows that Zoroaster was a man from Bactria, not from Babylon, but he already has formed the opinion that Zoroaster had gotten much of his wisdom from the writings of the Babylonians. In the Church fathers the saga is developed in this direction, and from the Church fathers it got into the Latin chronicles. The Christian historian Orosius also knows that Zoroaster was from Bactria, but he already connects Zoroaster with the history of Nineveh and Babylon, and makes Ninus make war against him and conquer him. Orosius speaks of him as the inventor of sorcery and the magic arts. Gregorius of Tours told in his time that Zoroaster was identical with Noah's grandson, with Chus, the son of Ham, that this Chus went to the Persians, and that the Persians called him Zoroaster, a name supposed to mean "the living star." Gregorius also relates that this Zoroaster was the first person who taught men the arts of sorcery and led them astray into idolatry, and as he knew the art of making stars and fire fall from heaven, men paid him divine worship. At that time, Gregorius continues, men desired to build a tower which should reach to heaven. But God confused their tongues and brought their project to naught. Nimrod, who was supposed to have built Babel, was, according to Gregorius, a son of Zoroaster.

If we compare this with what the Foreword of the Younger Edda tells, then we find that there, too, Zoroaster is a descendant of Noah's son Cham and the founder of all idolatry, and that he himself was worshipped as a god. It is evident that the author of the Foreword gathered these statements from some source related to Gregorius' history. Of the 72 master-masons who were said to have helped Zoroaster in building the tower, and from whom the 72 languages of the world originated, Gregorius has nothing to say, but the saga about these builders was current everywhere during the middle ages. In the earlier Anglo-Saxon literature there is a very naïve little work, very characteristic of its age, called "A Dialogue between Saturn and Solomon," in which Saturnus tests Solomon's knowledge and puts to him all sorts of biblical questions, which Solomon answers partly from the Bible and partly from sagas connected with the Bible. Among other things Saturnus informs Solomon that Adam was created out of various elements, weighing altogether eight pounds, and that when created he was just 116 inches long. Solomon tells that Shem, Noah's son, had thirty sons, Cham thirty, and Japhet twelve—making 72 grandsons of Noah; and as there can be no doubt that it was the author's opinion that all the languages of the world, thought to be 72, originated at the Tower of Babel, and were spread into the world by these 72 grandsons of Noah, we here find the key to who those 72 master-masons were who, according to the Edda, assisted Zoroaster in building the tower. They were accordingly his brothers. Luther's contemporary, Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, who, in his work De occulta Philosophia, gathered numerous data in regard to the superstition of all ages, has a chapter on the power and sacred meaning of various numbers, and says in speaking of the number 72: "The number 72 corresponds to the 72 languages, the 72 elders in the synagogue, the 72 commentators of the Old Testament, Christ's 72 disciples, God's 72 names, the 72 angels who govern the 72 divisions of the Zodiac, each division of which corresponds to one of the 72 languages." This illustrates sufficiently how widespread was the tradition in regard to the 72 master-masons during the centuries of the middle ages. Even Nestor's Russian chronicle knows the tradition. It continued to enjoy a certain authority in the seventeenth century. An edition of Sulpicius Severus' Opera Omnia, printed in 1647, still considers it necessary to point out that a certain commentator had doubted whether the number 72 was entirely exact. Among the doubters we find Rudbeck in his Atlantica.

What the Edda tells about king Saturnus and his son, king Jupiter, is found in a general way, partly in the Church-father Lactantius, partly in Virgil's commentator Servius, who was known and read during the middle age. As the Edda claims that Saturnus knew the art of producing gold from the molten iron, and that no other than gold coins existed in his time, this must be considered an interpretation of the statement made in Latin sources that Saturnus' was the golden age—aurea secula, aurea regna. Among the Romans Saturnus was the guardian of treasures, and the treasury of the Romans was in the temple of Saturnus in the Forum.

The genealogy found in the Edda, according to which the Trojan king Priam, supposed to be the oldest and the proper Odin, was descended in the sixth generation from Jupiter, is taken from Latin chronicles. Herikon of the Edda, grandson of Jupiter, is the Roman-Greek Erichtonius; the Edda's Lamedon is Laomedon. Then the Edda has the difficult task of continuing the genealogy through the dark centuries between the burning of Troy and the younger Odin's immigration to Europe. Here the Latin sources naturally fail it entirely, and it is obliged to seek other aid. It first considers the native sources. There it finds that Thor is also called Lorride, Indride, and Vingthor, and that he had two sons, Mode and Magne; but it also finds a genealogy made about the twelfth century, in which these different names of Thor are applied to different persons, so that Lorride is the son of Thor, Indride the son of Lorride, Vingthor the son of Indride, &c. This mode of making genealogies was current in Iceland in the twelfth century, and before that time among the Christian Anglo-Saxons. Thereupon the Edda continues its genealogy with the names Bedvig, Atra, Itrman, Heremod, Skjaldun or Skold, Bjæf, Jat, Gudolf, Fjarlaf or Fridleif, and finally Odin, that is to say, the younger Odin, who had adopted this name after his deified progenitor Hermes-Priam. This whole genealogy is taken from a Saxon source, and can be found in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle name for name. From Odin the genealogy divides itself into two branches, one from Odin's son, Veggdegg, and another from Odin's son, Beldegg or Balder. The one branch has the names Veggdegg, Vitrgils, Ritta, Heingest. These names are found arranged into a genealogy by the English Church historian Beda, by the English chronicler Nennius, and in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle. From one of these three sources the Edda has taken them, and the only difference is that the Edda must have made a slip in one place and changed the name Vitta to Ritta. The other branch, which begins with Balder or Beldegg, embraces eight names, which are found in precisely the same order in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle.

In regard to Balder, the Edda says that Odin appointed him king in Westphalia. This statement is based on the tradition that Balder was known among the heathen Germans and Scandinavians by the name Fal (Falr, see No. 92), with its variation Fol. In an age when it was believed that Sweden got its name from a king Sven, Götaland from a king Göt, Danmark from a king Dan, Angeln from a king Angul, the Franks from a duke Francio, it might be expected that Falen (East- and West-Phalia) had been named after a king Fal. That this name was recognised as belonging to Balder not only in Germany, but also in Scandinavia, I shall give further proof of in No. 92.