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

by Viktor Rydberg

The first meaning, that of war-trumpet, is not found in the songs of the Elder Edda, and upon the whole does not occur in the Old Norse poetry. Heimdal's war-trumpet is not called lúdr, but horn or hljód. Lúdr in this sense makes its first appearance in the sagas of Christian times, but is never used by the skalds. In spite of this fact the signification may date back to heathen times. But however this may be, lúdr in Vafthrudnersmal does not mean a war-trumpet. The poem can never have meant that Bergelmer was laid on a musical instrument.

The other meaning remains to be discussed. Lúdr, partly in its more limited sense of the timbers or beams under the mill, partly in the sense of the subterranean mill in its entirety, and the place where it is found, occurs several times in the poems: in the Grotte-song, in Helge Hund. (ii. 2), and in the above-quoted strophe by Snæbjorn, and also in Grogalder and in Fjölsvinnsmal. If this signification is applied to the passage in Vafthrudnersmal: á var lúdr um lagidr, we get the meaning that Bergelmer was "laid on a mill," and in fact no other meaning of the passage is possible, unless an entirely new signification is to be arbitrarily invented.

But however conspicuous this signification is, and however clear it is that it is the only one applicable in this poem, still it has been overlooked or thrust aside by the mythologists, and for this Gylfaginning is to blame. So far as I know, Vigfusson is the only one who (in his Dictionary, p. 399) makes the passage á lúdr lagidr mean what it actually means, and he remarks that the words must "refer to some ancient lost myth."

The confusion begins, as stated, in Gylfaginning. Its author has had no other authority for his statement than the Vafthrudnersmal strophe in question, which he also cites to corroborate his own words; and we have here one of the many examples found in Gylfaginning showing that its author has neglected to pay much attention to what the passages quoted contain. When Gylfaginning has stated that the frost-giants were drowned in Ymer's blood, then comes its interpretation of the Vafthrudnersmal strophe, which is as follows: "One escaped with his household: him the giants call Bergelmer. He with his wife betook himself upon his lúdr and remained there, and from them the races of giants are descended" (nema einn komst undan med sinu hyski: thann kalla jötnar Bergelmi; hann fór upp á lúdr sinn ok kona hans, ok helzt thar, ok eru af theim komnar), &c.

What Gylfaginning's author has conceived by the lúdr which he mentions it is difficult to say. That he did not have a boat in mind is in the meantime evident from the expression: hann fór upp á lúdr sinn. It is more reasonable to suppose that his idea was, that Bergelmer himself owned an immense mill, upon whose high timbers he and his household climbed to save themselves from the flood. That the original text says that Bergelmer was laid on the timbers of the mill Gylfaginning pays no attention to. To go upon something and to be laid on something are, however, very different notions.

An argument in favour of the wrong interpretation was furnished by the Resenian edition of the Younger Edda (Copenhagen, 1665). There we find the expression fór upp á lúdr sinn "amended" to fór á bát sinn. Thus Bergelmer had secured a boat to sail in; and although more reliable editions of the Younger Edda have been published since from which the boat disappeared, still the mythologists have not had the heart to take the boat away from Bergelmer. On the contrary, they have allowed the boat to grow into a ship, an ark.

As already pointed out, Vafthrudnersmal tells us expressly that Bergelmer, Aurgelmer's grandson, was "laid on a mill" or "on the supporting timbers of a mill." We may be sure that the myth would not have laid Bergelmer on "a mill" if the intention was not that he was to be ground. The kind of meal thus produced has already been explained. It is the mould and sand which the sea since time's earliest dawn has cast upon the shores of Midgard, and with which the bays and strands have been filled, to become sooner or later green fields. From Ymer's flesh the gods created the oldest layer of soil, that which covered the earth the first time the sun shone thereon, and in which the first herbs grew. Ever since the same activity which then took place still continues. After the great mill of the gods transformed the oldest frost-giant into the dust of earth, it has continued to grind the bodies of his descendants between the same stones into the same kind of mould. This is the meaning of Vafthrudner's words when he says that his memory reaches back to the time when Bergelmer was laid on the mill to be ground. Ymer he does not remember, nor Thrudgelmer, nor the days when these were changed to earth. Of them he knows only by hearsay. But he remembers when the turn came for Bergelmer's limbs to be subjected to the same fate.

"The glorious Midgard" could not be created before its foundations raised by the gods out of the sea were changed to bjód (Völuspa). This is the word (originally bjódr) with which the author of Völuspa chose to express the quality of the fields and the fields themselves, which were raised out of the sea by Bor's sons, when the great mill had changed the "flesh" of Ymer into mould. Bjód does not mean a bare field or ground, but one that can supply food. Thus it is used in Haustlaung (af breidu bjódi, the place for a spread feast—Skaldskaparmal, ch. 22), and its other meanings (perhaps the more original ones) are that of a board and of a table for food to lie on. When the fields were raised out of Ymer's blood they were covered with mould, so that, when they got light and warmth from the sun, then the grund became gróin grænum lauki. The very word mould comes from the Teutonic word mala, to grind (cp. Eng. meal, Latin molere). The development of language and the development of mythology have here, as in so many other instances, gone hand in hand.

That the "flesh" of the primeval giants could be ground into fertile mould refers us to the primeval cow Audhumbla by whose milk Ymer was nourished and his flesh formed (Gylfaginning). Thus the cow in the Teutonic mythology is the same as she is in the Iranian, the primeval source of fertility. The mould, out of which the harvests grow, has by transformations developed out of her nourishing liquids.

Here, then, we have the explanation of the lidmeldr which the great mill grinds, according to Snæbjorn. Lidmeldr means limb-grist. It is the limbs and joints of the primeval giants, which on Amlode's mill are transformed into meal.