Voro i horni
hverskyns stafir
ristnir oc rodnir
ratha ec ne mattac,
lyngfiscr langr
lands Haddingja,
ax oscorit,
innleid dyra.
"Grimhild handed me in a filled horn to drink a cool, bitter drink, in order that I might forget my past afflictions. This drink was prepared from Urd's strength, cool-cold sea, and the liquor of Son."
"On the horn were all kinds of staves engraved and painted, which I could not interpret: the Hadding-land's long heath-fish, unharvested ears of grain, and animals' entrances."
The Hadding-land is, as Sv. Egilsson has already pointed out, a paraphrase of the lower world. The paraphrase is based on the mythic account known and mentioned by Saxo in regard to Hadding's journey in Hel's realm (see No. 47).
Heath-fish is a paraphrase of the usual sort for serpent, dragon. Hence a lower-world dragon was engraved on the horn. More than one of the kind has been mentioned already: Nidhog, who has his abode in Nifelhel, and the dragon, which, according to Erik Vidforle's saga, obstructs the way to Odain's-acre. The dragon engraved on the horn is that of the Hadding-land. Hadding-land, on the other hand, does not mean the whole lower world, but the regions of bliss visited by Hadding. Thus the dragon is such an one as Erik Vidforle's saga had in mind. That the author did not himself invent his dragon, but found it in mythic records extant at the time, is demonstrated by Solarljod (54), where it is said that immense subterranean dragons come flying from the west—the opposite direction of that the shades have to take when they descend into the lower world—and obstruct "the street of the prince of splendour" (glævalds götu). The ruler of splendour is Mimer, the prince of the Glittering Fields (see Nos. 45-51).
The Hadding-land's "unharvested ears of grain" belong to the flora inaccessible to the devastations of frost, the flowers seen by Hadding in the blooming meadows of the world below (see No. 47). The expression refers to the fact that the Hadding-land has not only imperishable flowers and fruits, but also fields of grain which do not require harvesting. Compare herewith what Völuspa says about the Odain's-acre which in the regeneration of the earth rises from the lap of the sea: "unsown the fields yield the grain."
Beside the heath-fish and the unharvested ears of grain, there were also seen on the Hadding-land horn dyrainnleid. Some interpreters assume that "animals entrails" are meant by this expression; others have translated it with "animal gaps." There is no authority that innleid ever meant entrails, nor could it be so used in a rhetorical-poetical sense, except by a very poor poet. Where we meet with the word it means a way, a way in, in contrast with útleid, a way out. As both Gorms saga and that of Erik Vidforle use it in regard to animals watching entrances in the lower world, this gives the expression its natural interpretation.
So much for the staves risted on the horn. They all refer to the lower world. Now as to the drink which is mixed in this Hades-horn. It consists of three liquids:
|
Urdar Magn, svalkaldr sær, Sonar dreyri. |
Urd's strength, cool-cold sea, Son's liquid. |
Son has already been mentioned above (No. 21) as one of the names of Mimer's fountain, the well of creative power and of poetry. Of Son Eilif Gudrunson sings that it is enwreathed by bulrushes and is surrounded by a border of meadow on which grows the seed of poetry.