Völuspa's words are these: The gods
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fundu á landi litt megandi Ask ok Embla orlauglausa. Aund thau ne átto, óth thau ne haufdo, la ne læti, ne lito goda. |
found on the land with little power, Ask and Embla without destiny. Spirit they had not, "ódr" they had not, neither "lá" nor "læti," nor the form of the gods. |
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Aund gaf Odin, oth gaf Henir, la gaf Lodur ok lito goda. |
Spirit gave Odin, "ódr" gave Honer, "lá" gave Loder and the form of the gods. |
The two lowest factors, the earthly material and the vegetative force, were already united in Ask and Embla when the three gods found them "growing as trees." These elements were able to unite themselves simply by the course of nature without any divine interference. When the sun for the first time shone from the south on "the stones of the hall," the vegetative force united with the matter of the primeval giant Ymer, who was filled with the seed of life from Audhumbla's milk, and then the "ground was overgrown with green herbs."
Thus man was not created directly from the crude earthly matter, but had already been organised and formed when the gods came and from the trees made persons with blood, motion, and spiritual qualities. The vegetative force must not be conceived in accordance with modern ideas, as an activity separated from the matter by abstraction and at the same time inseparably joined with it, but as an active matter joined with the earthly matter.
Loder's first gift lá with læti makes Ask and Embla animal beings. Egilsson's view that lá means blood is confirmed by the connection in which we find the word used. The læti united with lá (compare the related Swedish word "later," manners) means the way in which a conscious being moves and acts. The blood and the power of a motion which is voluntary were to the Teutons, as to all other people, the marks distinguishing animal from vegetable life. And thus we are already within the domain of psychical elements. The inherited features, growth, gait, and pose, which were observed as forming race- and family-types, were regarded as having the blood as efni and as being concealed therein. The blood which produced the family-type also produced the family-tie, even though it was not acquired by the natural process of generation. A person not at all related to the family of another man could become his blódi, his blood-kinsman, if they resolved at blanda blódi saman. They thereby entered into the same relations to each other as if they had the same mother and father.
Loder also gave at the same time another gift, litr goda. To understand this expression (hitherto translated with "good complexion"), we must bear in mind that the Teutons, like the Hellenes and Romans, conceived the gods in human form, and that the image which characterises man was borne by the gods alone before man's creation, and originally belonged to the gods. To the hierologists and the skalds of the Teutons, as to those of the Greeks and Romans, man was created in effigiem deorum and had in his nature a divine image in the real sense of this word, a litr goda. Nor was this litr goda a mere abstraction to the Teutons, or an empty form, but a created efni dwelling in man and giving shape and character to the earthly body which is visible to the eye. The common meaning of the word litr is something presenting itself to the eye without being actually tangible to the hands. The Gothic form of the word is wlits, which Ulfilas uses in translating the Greek prosopon—look, appearance, expression. Certain persons were regarded as able to separate their litr from its union with the other factors of their being, and to lend it, at least for a short time, to some other person in exchange for his. This was called to skipta litum, vixla litum. It was done by Sigurd and Gunnar in the song of Sigurd Fafnersbane (i. 37-42). That factor in Gunnar's being which causes his earthly body to present itself in a peculiar individual manner to the eyes of others is transmitted to Sigurd, whose exterior, affected by Gunnar's litr, accommodates itself to the latter, while the spiritual kernel in Sigurd's personality suffers no change.
Lit hefir thu Gunnars
oc læti hans,
mælsco thina
oc meginhyggior (Sig., i. 39).
Thus man has within him an inner body made in the image of the gods and consisting of a finer material, a body which is his litr, by virtue of which his coarser tabernacle, formed from the earth, receives that form by which it impresses itself on the minds of others. The recollection of the belief in this inner body has been preserved in a more or less distorted form in traditions handed down even to our days (see for example, Hyltén-Cavallius, Värend och Virdarne, i. 343-360; Rääf in Småland, Beskr. öfver Ydre, p. 84).
The appearance of the outer body therefore depends on the condition of the litr, that is, of the inner being. Beautiful women have a "joyous fair litr" (Havamál, 93). An emotion has influence upon the litr, and through it on the blood and the appearance of the outward body. A sudden blushing, a sudden paleness, are among the results thereof, and can give rise to the question, Hefir thu lit brugdit?—Have you changed your litr? (Fornald., i. 426). To translate this with, Have you changed colour? is absurd. The questioner sees the change of colour, and does not need to ask the other one who cannot see it.