Memories of the Svipdag-myth have also been preserved in the story about Hamlet, Saxo's Amlethus (Snæbjorn's Amlodi), son of Horvendillus (Orvandel). In the medieval story Hamlet's father, like Svipdag's father in the mythology, was slain by the same man, who marries the wife of the slain man, and, like Svipdag in the myth, Hamlet of the medieval saga becomes the avenger of his father Horvendillus and the slayer of his stepfather. On more than one occasion the idea occurs in the Norse sagas that a lad whose stepfather has slain his father broods over his duty of avenging the latter, and then plays insane or half idiot to avoid the suspicion that he may become dangerous to the murderer. Svipdag, Orvandel's son, is reared in his stepfather's house amid all the circumstances that might justify or explain such a hypocrisy. Therefore he has as a lad received the epithet Amlodi, the meaning of which is "insane," and the myth having at the same time described him as highly-gifted, clever, and sharp-witted, we have in the words which the mythology has attributed to his lips the key to the ambiguous words which make the cleverness, which is veiled under a stupid exterior, gleam forth. These features of the mythic account of Svipdag have been transferred to the middle-age saga anent Hamlet—a saga which already in Saxo's time had been developed into an independent narrative. I shall return to this theme in a treatise on the heroic sagas. Other reminiscences of the Svipdag-myth reappear in Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian ballads. The Danish ballads, which, with surprising fidelity, have preserved certain fundamental traits and details of the Svipdag-myth even down to our days, I have already discussed. The Norwegian ballad about "Hermod the Young" (Landstad Norske Folkeviser, p. 28), and its Swedish version, "Bergtrollet," which corresponds still more faithfully with the myth (Arvidson, i. 123), have this peculiar interest in reference to mythological synonymics and the connection of the mythic fragments preserved, that Svipdag appears in the former as in the Beowulf poem and in the Younger Edda under the name Hermod, and that both versions have for their theme a story, which Saxo tells about his Otharus when he describes the flight of the latter through Jotunheim with the rediscovered Syritha. It has already been stated above (No. 100) that after Otharus had found Syritha and slain a giant in whose power she was, he was separated from her on their way home, but found her once more and liberated her from a captivity into which she had fallen in the abode of a giantess. This is the episode which forms the theme of the ballad about "Hermod the Young," and of the Swedish version of it. Brought together, the two ballads give us the following contents:
The young Hermod secured as his wife a beautiful maiden whom he liberated from the hands of a giantess. She had fallen into the hands of giants through a witch, "gigare," originally gýgr, a troll-woman, Aurboda, who in a great crowd of people had stolen her out of a church (the divine citadel Asgard is changed into a "house of God"). Hermod hastens on skees "through woods and caverns and recesses," comes to "the wild sea-strand" (Elivagar) and to the "mountain the blue," where the giantess resides who conceals the young maiden in her abode. It is Christmas Eve. Hermod asks for lodgings for the night in the mountain dwelling of the giantess and gets it. Resorting to cunning, he persuades the giantess the following morning to visit her neighbours, liberates the fair maiden during her absence, and flies on his skees with her "over the high mountains and down the low ones." When the old giantess on her return home finds that they have gone she hastens (according to the Norwegian version accompanied by eighteen giants) after those who have taken flight through dark forests with a speed which makes every tree bend itself to the ground. When Hermod with his young maiden had come to the salt fjord (Elivagar), the giantess is quite near them, but in the decisive moment she is changed to a stone, according to the Norse version, by the influence of the sun, which just at that time rose; according to the Swedish version, by the influence of a cross which stood near the fjord and its "long bridge."
The Swedish version states, in addition to this, that Hermod had a brother; in the mythology, Ull the skilful skee-runner. In both the versions, Hermod is himself an excellent skee-man. The refrains in both read: "He could so well on the skees run." Below, I shall prove that Orvandel, Svipdag's and Ull's father, is identical with Egil, the foremost skee-runner in the mythology, and that Svipdag is a cousin of Skade, "the dis of the skees." Svipdag-Hermod belongs to the celebrated skee-race of the mythology, and in this respect, too, these ballads have preserved a genuine trait of the mythology.
In their way, these ballads, therefore, give evidence of Svipdag's identity with Hermod, and of the latter's identity with Saxo's Otherus.
Finally, a few words about the Svipdag synonyms. Of these, Odr and Hermodr (and in the Beowulf poem Svidferhd) form a group which, as has already been pointed out above, refer to the qualities of his mind. Svipdag ("the glimmering day") and Skirner ("the shining one") form another group, which refers to his birth as the son of the star-hero Orvandel, who is "the brightest of stars," and "a true beam from the sun" (see above). Again, anent the synonym Eirekr, we should bear in mind that Svipdag's half-brother Gudhorm had the epithet Jormunrekr, and the half-brother of the latter, Hadding, the epithet thódrekr. They are the three half-brothers who, after the patriarch Mannus-Halfdan, assume the government of the Teutons, and as each one of them has large domains, and rules over many Teutonic tribes, they are, in contradistinction to the princes of the separate tribes, great kings or emperors. It is the dignity of a great king which is indicated, each in its own way, by all these parallel names—Eirekr, Jormunrekr, and thódrekr.
108.
SVIPDAG'S FATHER ORVANDEL. EVIDENCE THAT HE IS IDENTICAL WITH VOLUND'S BROTHER EGIL. THE ORVANDEL SYNONYM EBBO (EBUR, IBOR).
Svipdag's father, Orvandel, must have been a mortal enemy of Halfdan, who abducted his wife Groa. But hitherto it is his son Svipdag whom we have seen carry out the feud of revenge against Halfdan. Still, it must seem incredible that the brave archer himself should remain inactive and leave it to his young untried son to fight against Thor's favourite, the mighty son of Borgar. The epic connection demands that Orvandel also should take part in this war, and it is necessary to investigate whether our mythic records have preserved traces of the satisfaction of this demand in regard to the mythological epic.
As his name indicates, Orvandel was a celebrated archer. That Ör- in Orvandel, in heathen times, was conceived to be the word ör, "arrow"—though this meaning does not therefore need to be the most original one—is made perfectly certain by Saxo, according to whom Örvandill's father was named Geirvandill (Gervandillus, Hist., 135). Thus the father is the one "busy with the spear," the son "the one busy with the arrow."
Taking this as the starting point, we must at the very threshold of our investigation present the question: Is there among Halfdan's enemies mentioned by Saxo anyone who bears the name of a well-known archer?