Freyja's surname Hörn (also Horn) may possibly be explained by what Saxo relates about the giant's manner of treating her hair, which he pressed into one snarled, stiff, and hard mass. With the myth concerning Freyja's locks, we must compare that about Sif's hair. The hair of both these goddesses is subject to the violence of the hands of giants, and it may be presumed that both myths symbolised some feature of nature. Loke's act of violence on Sif's hair is made good by the skill and goodwill of the ancient artists Sindre and Brok (Younger Edda, i. 340). In regard to Freyja's locks, the skill of a "dwarf" may have been resorted to, since Saxo relates that an iron instrument was necessary to separate and comb out the horn-hard braids. In Völuspa's list of ancient artists there is a smith by name Hornbori, which possibly has some reference to this.
Reasons have already been given in No. 35 for the theory that it was Gulveig-Heid who betrayed Freyja and delivered her into the hands of the giants. When Saxo says that this treachery was committed by a woman, but also suggests the possibility that it was a man in the guise of a woman, then this too is explained by the mythology, in which Gulveig-Heid, like her fellow culprit, has an androgynous nature. Loke becomes "the possessor of the evil woman" (kvidugr af konu illri). In Fjölsvinnsmal we meet again with Gulveig-Heid, born again and called Aurboda, as one of Freyja's attendants, into whose graces she is nestled for a second time.
101.
SVIPDAG IN SAXO'S ACCOUNT OF HOTHERUS.
From the parallel name Otharus, we must turn to the other parallel name Hotherus. It has already been shown that if the Svipdag synonym Odr occurs in Saxo, it must have been Latinised into Otherus or Hotherus. The latter form is actually found, but under circumstances making an elaborate investigation necessary, for in what Saxo narrates concerning this Hotherus, he has to the best of his ability united sketches and episodes of two different mythic persons, and it is therefore necessary to separate these different elements borrowed from different sources. One of these mythic persons is Hödr the Asa-god, and the other is Odr-Svipdag. The investigation will therefore at the same time contain a contribution to the researches concerning the original records of the myth of Balder.
Saxo's account of Hotherus (Hist., 110, &c.), is as follows:
Hotherus, son of Hothbrodus (Hödbrodd), was fostered in the home of Nanna's father, King Gevarus (Gevarr; see Nos. 90-92), and he grew up to be a stately youth, distinguished as a man of accomplishments among the contemporaries of his age. He could swim, was an excellent archer and boxer, and his skill on various musical instruments was so great that he had the human passions under his control, and could produce, at pleasure, gladness, sorrow, sympathy, or hate. Nanna, the daughter of Gevarus, fell in love with the highly gifted youth and he with her.
Meanwhile, fate brought it to come to pass that Balder, the son of the idol Odin, also fell in love with Nanna. He had once seen her bathing, and had been dazzled by the splendour of her limbs. In order to remove the most dangerous obstacle between himself and her, he resolved to slay Hotherus.
As Hotherus on a foggy day was hunting in the woods he got lost and came to a house, where there sat three wood-nymphs. They greeted him by name, and in answer to his question they said they were the maids who determine the events of the battle, and give defeat or success in war. Invisible they come to the battlefield, and secretly give help to those whom they wish to favour. From them Hotherus learned that Balder was in love with Nanna, but they advised him not to resort to weapons against him, for he was a demigod born of supernatural seed. When they had said this, they and the house in which Hotherus had found them disappeared, and to his joy he found himself standing on a field under the open sky.
When he arrived home, he mentioned to Gevarus what he had seen and heard, and at once demanded the hand of his daughter. Gevarus answered that it would have been a pleasure to him to see Hotherus and Nanna united, but Balder had already made a similar request, and he did not dare to draw the wrath of the latter down upon himself, since not even iron could harm the conjured body of the demigod.