109.
FREY FOSTERED IN THE HOME OF ORVANDEL-EGIL AND VOLUND. ORVANDEL'S EPITHET ISOLFR. VOLUND'S EPITHET AGGO.
The mythology has handed down several names of the coast region near the Elivagar, where Orvandel-Egil and his kinsmen dwelt, while they still were the friends of the gods, and were an outpost active in the service against the frost-powers. That this coast region was a part of Alfheim, and the most northern part of this mythic land, appears already from the fact that Volund and his brothers are in Volundarkvida elf-princes, sons of a mythic "king." The rule of the elf-princes must be referred to Alfheim for the same reason as we refer that of the Vans to Vanheim, and that of the Asa-gods to Asgard. The part of Alfheim here in question, where Orvandel-Egil's citadel was situated, was in the mythology called Ýdalir, Ýsetr (Grimnersmal, 5; Olaf Trygveson's saga, ch. 21). This is also suggested by the fact that Ullr, elevated to the dignity of an Asa-god, he who is the son of Orvandel-Egil, and Svipdag's brother (see No. 102), according to Grimnersmal, has his halls built in Ýdalir. Divine beings who did not originally belong to Asgard, but were adopted in Odin's clan, and thus became full citizens within the bulwarks of the Asa-citadel, still retain possession of the land, realm, and halls, which is their udal and where they were reared. After he became a denizen in Asgard, Njord continued to own and to reside occasionally in the Vana-citadel Noatun beyond the western ocean (see Nos. 20, 93). Skade, as an asynje, continues to inhabit her father Thjasse's halls in Thrymheim (Grimnersmal, 11). Vidar's grass and brush-grown realm is not a part of Asgard, but is the large plain on which, in Ragnarok, Odin is to fall in combat with Fenrer (Grimnersmal, 17; see No. 39). When Ull is said to have his halls in Ydaler, this must be based on a similar reason, and Ydaler must be the land where he was reared and which he inherited after his father, the great archer. When Grimnersmal enumerates the homes of the gods, the series of them begins with Thrudheim, Thor's realm, and next thereafter, and in connection with Alfheim, is mentioned Ydaler, presumably for the reason that Thor's land and Orvandel-Egil's were, as we have seen, most intimately connected in mythology.
Land er heilact,
er ec liggia se
asom oc olfom nær;
en i thrudheimi
scal thórr vera,
unz um rivfaz regin.
Ydalir heita.
thar er Ullr hefir
ser úm gorva sali;
Alfheim Frey
gáfo i árdaga
tivar at tannfæ.
Ýdalir means the "dales of the bow" or "of the bows." Ýsetr is "the chalet of the bow" or "of the bows." That the first part of these compound words is ýr, "a bow," is proved by the way in which the local name Ýsetr can be applied in poetical paraphrases, where the bow-holding hand is called Ysetr. The names refer to the mythical rulers of the region, namely, the archer Ull and his father the archer Orvandel-Egil. The place has also been called Geirvadills setr, Geirvandills setr, which is explained by the fact that Orvandel's father bore the epithet Geirvandel (Saxo, Hist., 135). Hakon Jarl, the ruler of northern Norway, is called (Fagrsk., 37, 4) Geirvadills setrs Ullr, "the Ull of Geirvandel's chalet," a paraphrase in which we find the mythological association of Ull with the chalet which was owned by his father Orvandel and his grandfather Geirvandel. The Ydales were described as rich in gold. Ysetrs eldr is a paraphrase for gold. With this we must compare what Volund says (Volundarkvida, 14) of the wealth of gold in his and his kinsmen's home. (See further, in regard to the same passage, Nos. 114 and 115.)
In connection with its mention of the Ydales, Grimnersmal states that the gods gave Frey Alfheim as a tooth-gift. Tannfé (tooth-gift) was the name of a gift which was given (and in Iceland is still given) to a child when it gets its first tooth. The tender Frey is thus appointed by the gods as king over Alfheim, and chief of the elf-princes there, among whom Volund and Orvandel-Egil, judging from the mythic events themselves, must have been the foremost and most celebrated. It is also logically correct, from the standpoint of nature symbolism, that the god of growth and harvests receives the government of elves and primeval artists, the personified powers of culture. Through this arrangement of the gods, Volund and Orvandel become vassals under Njord and his son.
In two passages in Saxo we read mythic accounts told as history, from which it appears that Njord selected a foster-father for his son, or let him be reared in a home under the care of two fosterers. In the one passage (Hist., 272) it is Fridlevus-Njord who selects Avo the archer as his son's foster-father; in the other passage (Hist., 181) it is the tender Frotho, son of Fridlevus and future brother-in-law of Ericus-Svipdag, who receives Isulfus and Aggo as guardians.
So far as the archer Avo is concerned, we have already met him above (see No. 108) in combat by the side of Anundus-Volund against one Halfdan. He is a parallel figure to the archer Toko, who likewise fights by the side of Anundus-Volund against Halfdan, and, as has already been shown, he is identical with the archer Orvandel-Egil.
The name Aggo is borne by one of the leaders of the emigration of the Longobardians, brother of Ebbo-Ibor, in whom we have already discovered Orvandel-Egil.
The name Isolfr, in the Old Norse poetic language, designates the bear (Younger Edda, i. 589; ii. 484). Vilkinasaga makes Ebbo (Wild-Ebur) appear in the guise of a bear when he is about to rescue Volund's son Vidga from the captivity into which he had fallen. In his shield Ebbo has images of a wild boar and of a bear. As the wild boar refers to one of his names (Ebur), the image of the bear should refer to another (Isolfr).