Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland, Vol. 2

by Viktor Rydberg

Nagelfar is the largest of all ships, larger than Skidbladner (Skidbladnir er beztr skipanna ... en Naglfari er mest skip—Gylfag., 43). This very fact shows that it is to have a large number of persons on board when it departs from Loke's rocky island. Völuspa says:

Str. 47, 8. Naglfar losnar, Str. 48. Kioll ferr austan, koma muno Muspellz um laug lydir, en Loki styrir; fara Fifls megir med Freka allir, theim er brodir Byleipts i fór.

Nagelfar becomes loose, a ship comes from the east, the hosts of Muspel come o'er the main, Loke is pilot; all Fifel's descendants come with Freke, Byleipt's brother is with them on the journey.

Here it is expressly stated that "the hosts of Muspel" are on board the ship, Nagelfar, guided by Loke, after it has been "freed from its moorings" and had set sail from the island where Loke and other damned ones were imprisoned.

How can this be harmonised with the doctrine based on the authority of Gylfaginning, that the sons of Muspel are inhabitants of the southernmost region of light and warmth, Gylfaginning's so-called Muspelheim? or with the doctrine that Surt is the protector of the borders of this realm? or that Muspel's sons proceed under his command to the Ragnarok conflict, and that they consequently must come from the South, which Völuspa also seems to corroborate with the words Surtr ferr sunnan med sviga læfi?

The answer is that the one statement cannot be harmonised with the other, and the question then arises as to which of the two authorities is the authentic one, the heathen poem Völuspa or Gylfaginning, produced in the thirteenth century by a man who had a vague conception of the mythology of our ancestors. Even the most uncritical partisan of Gylfaginning would certainly unhesitatingly decide in favour of Völuspa, provided we had this poem handed down in its pure form from the heathen days. But this is clearly not the case. We therefore need a third witness to decide between the two. Such an one is also actually to be found.

In the Norse heathen records the word muspell occurs only twice, viz., in the above-mentioned Völuspa strophe and in Lokasenna, 42, where Frey, who has surrendered his sword of victory, is threatened by Loke with the prospect of defeat and death—er Muspellz synir rida Myrcvith yfir, "when Muspel's sons ride over Darkwood." The Myrkwood is mentioned in Volundarkvida (1) as a forest, through which the swan-maids coming from the South flew into the wintry Ulfdales, where one chases bears on skees (snow-shoes) to get food. This is evidently not a forest situated near the primeval fountains of heat and fire. The very arbitrary manner in which the names of the mythical geography is used in the heroic poems, where Myrkwood comes to the surface, does not indicate that this forest was conceived as situated south of Midgard, and there is, as shall be shown below, reason for assuming that Darkwood is another name for the Ironwood famous in mythology; the wood which, according to Völuspa, is situated in the East, and in which Angerboda fosters the children of Loke and Fenrer.

One of these, and one of the worst, is the monster Hate, the enemy of the moon mentioned in Völuspa as tungls tiugari, that makes excursions from the Ironwood and "stains the citadels of rulers with blood." In the Ragnarok conflict Hate takes part and contends with Tyr (Gylfag.), and, doubtless, not only he, but also the whole offspring of the Fenris-wolf fostered in the Ironwood, are on the battlefield in that division which is commanded by Loke their clan-chief. This is also, doubtless, the meaning of the following words in the Völuspa strophe quoted above: "Fifel's descendants all come with Freke (the wolf), and in company with them is Byleipt's (or Byleist's) brother." As Loke, Byleipt, and Helblinde are mentioned as brothers (Gylfag., 33), no one else can be meant with "Byleipt's brother" than Loke himself or Helblinde, and more probably the latter, since it has already been stated, that Loke is there as the commander of the forces. Thus it is Muspel's sons and Loke's kinsmen in the Ironwood who are gathered around him when the great conflict is at hand. Muspel's sons accompany the liberated Loke from his rocky isle, and are with him on board Nagelfar. Loke's first destination is the Ironwood, whither he goes to fetch Angerboda's children, and thence the journey proceeds "over Myrkwood" to the plain of Vigrid. The statements of Völuspa and Lokasenna illustrate and corroborate each other, and it follows that Völuspa's statement, claiming that Muspel's sons come from the East, is original and correct.

Gylfaginning treats Muspel as a place, a realm, the original home of fire and heat (Gylfag., 5). Still, there is a lack of positiveness, for the land in question is in the same work called Múspellsheimr (ch. 5) and Múspells heimr (ch. 8), whence we may presume that the author regarded Múspell as meaning both the land of the fire and the fire itself. The true etymology of Múspell was probably as little known in the thirteenth century, when Gylfaginning was written, as it is now. I shall not speak of the several attempts made at conjecturing the definition of the word. They may all be regarded as abortive, mainly, doubtless, for the reason that Gylfaginning's statements have credulously been assumed as the basis of the investigation. As a word inherited from heathen times, it occurs under the forms mutspelli and muspilli in the Old Saxon poem Heliand and in an Old High German poem on the final judgment, and there it has the meaning of the Lord's day, the doom of condemnation, or the condemnation. Concerning the meaning which the word had among the heathens of the North, before the time of the authors of Völuspa and Lokasenna, all that can be said with certainty is, that the word in the expression "Muspel's sons" has had a special reference to mythical beings who are to appear in Ragnarok fighting there as Loke's allies, that is, on the side of the evil against the good; that these beings were Loke's fellow-prisoners on the rocky isle where he was chained; and that they accompanied him from there on board Nagelfar to war against the gods. As Gylfaginning makes them accompany Surt coming from the South, this must be the result of a confounding of "Muspel's sons" with "Surt's (Suttung's) sons."