47.
MIDDLE AGE SAGAS (continued). FJALLERUS AND HADINGUS (HADDING) IN THE LOWER WORLD.
Two other Danish princes have, according to Saxo, been permitted to see a subterranean world, or Odainsaker. Saxo calls the one Fjallerus, and makes him a sub-regent in Scania. The question who this Fjallerus was in the mythology is discussed in another part of this work (see No. 92). According to Saxo he was banished from the realm by King Amlethus, the son of Horvendillus, and so retired to Undensakre (Odainsaker), "a place which is unknown to our people" (Hist. Dan. iv.).
The other of these two is King Hadingus (Hist. Dan., i.), the above-mentioned Hadding, son of Halfdan. One winter's day, while Hadding sat at the hearth, there rose out of the ground the form of a woman, who had her lap full of cowbanes, and showed them as if she was about to ask whether the king would like to see that part of the world where, in the midst of winter, so fresh flowers could bloom. Hadding desired this. Then she wrapped him in her mantle and carried him away down into the lower world. "The gods of the lower world," says Saxo, "must have determined that he should be transferred living to those places, which are not to be sought until after death." In the beginning the journey was through a territory wrapped in darkness, fogs, and mists. Then Hadding perceived that they proceeded along a path "which is daily trod by the feet of walkers." The path led to a river, in whose rapids spears and other weapons were tossed about, and over which there was a bridge. Before reaching this river Hadding had seen from the path he travelled a region in which "a few" or "certain" (quidam), but very noble beings (proceres) were walking, dressed in beautiful frocks and purple mantles. Thence the woman brought him to a plain which glittered as in sunshine (loca aprica, translation of "The Glittering Plains"), and there grew the plants which she had shown him. This was one side of the river. On the other side there was bustle and activity. There Hadding saw two armies engaged in battle. They were, his fair guide explained to him, the souls of warriors who had fallen in battle, and now imitated the sword-games they had played on earth. Continuing their journey, they reached a place surrounded by a wall, which was difficult to pass through or to surmount. Nor did the woman make any effort to enter there, either alone or with him: "It would not have been possible for the smallest or thinnest physical being." They therefore returned the way they had come. But before this, and while they stood near the wall, the woman demonstrated to Hadding by an experiment that the walled place had a strange nature. She jerked the head off a chicken which she had taken with her, and threw it over the wall, but the head came back to the neck of the chicken, and with a distinct crow it announced "that it had regained its life and breath."
48.
MIDDLE AGE SAGAS (continued). A FRISIAN SAGA IN ADAM OF BREMEN.
The series of traditions above narrated in regard to Odainsaker, the Glittering Plains, and their ruler Gudmund, and also in regard to the neighbouring domains as habitations of the souls of the dead, extends, so far as the age of their recording in writing is concerned, through a period of considerable length. The latest cannot be referred to an earlier date than the fourteenth century; the oldest were put in writing toward the close of the twelfth. Saxo began working on his history between the years 1179 and 1186. Thus these literary evidences span about two centuries, and stop near the threshold of heathendom. The generation to which Saxo's father belonged witnessed the crusade which Sigurd the Crusader made in Eastern Smaland, in whose forests the Asa-doctrine until that time seems to have prevailed, and the Odinic religion is believed to have flourished in the more remote parts of Sweden even in Saxo's own time.
We must still add to this series of documents one which is to carry it back another century, and even more. This document is a saga told by Adam of Bremen in De Situ Daniæ. Adam, or, perhaps, before him, his authority Adalbert (appointed archbishop in the year 1043), has turned the saga into history, and made it as credible as possible by excluding all distinctly mythical elements. And as it, doubtless for this reason, neither mentions a place which can be compared with Odainsaker or with the Glittering Plains, I have omitted it among the literary evidences above quoted. Nevertheless, it reminds us in its main features of Saxo's account of Gorm's journey of discovery, and its relation both to it and to the still older myth shall be shown later (see No. 94). In the form in which Adam heard the saga, its point of departure has been located in Friesland, not in Denmark. Frisian noblemen make a voyage past Norway up to the farthest limits of the Arctic Ocean, get into a darkness which the eyes scarcely can penetrate, are exposed to a maelstrom which threatens to drag them down ad Chaos, but finally come quite unexpectedly out of darkness and cold to an island which, surrounded as by a wall of high rocks, contains subterranean caverns, wherein giants lie concealed. At the entrances of the underground dwellings lay a great number of tubs and vessels of gold and other metals which "to mortals seem rare and valuable." As much as the adventurers could carry of these treasures they took with them and hastened to their ships. But the giants, represented by great dogs, rushed after them. One of the Frisians was overtaken and torn into pieces before the eyes of the others. The others succeeded, thanks to our Lord and to Saint Willehad, in getting safely on board their ships.
49.
ANALYSIS OF THE SAGAS MENTIONED IN NOS. 44-48.