Thjasse's claim to become a table-companion of the gods and to eat with them, af helgu skutli, points in all probability to an ancient mythological fact of which we find a counterpart in the Iranian records. This fact is that, as a compensation for the services he had rendered the gods, Thjasse was anxious to be elevated to their rank and to receive sacrifices from their worshippers. This demand from the Teutonic star-hero Thjasse is also made by the Iranian star-hero Tistrya, Rigveda's Tishya. Tistrya complains in Avesta that he has not sufficient strength to oppose the foe of growth, Apaosha, since men do not worship him, Tistrya, do not offer sacrifices to him. If they did so, it is said, then he would be strong enough to conquer. Tishya-Tistrya does not appear to have obtained complete rank as a god; but still he is worshipped in Rigveda, though very seldom, and in cases of severe dry weather the Iranians were commanded to offer sacrifices to him.
(17) In Haustlaung Thjasse is called ving-Rögnir vagna, "the Rogner of the winged cars," and fjardarblads leik-Regin, "the Regin of the motion of the feather-leaf (the wing)." In the mythology Thjasse, like Volund, wears an eagle guise. In an eagle guise Volund flies away from his prison at Mimer-Nidadr's. When Thjasse, through Loke's deceit, is robbed of Idun, he hastens in wild despair, with the aid of his eagle guise, after the robber, gets his wings burned in the vaferflames kindled around Asgard, falls pierced by the javelins of the gods, and is slain by Thor. The original meaning of Regin is maker, creator, arranger, worker. The meaning has been preserved through the ages, so that the word regin, though applied to all the creative powers (Völsupa), still retained even in Christian times the signification of artist, smith, and reappears in the heroic traditions in the name of the smith Reginn. When, therefore, Thjasse is called "the Regin of the motion of the feather-leaf," there is no reason to doubt that the phrase alludes not only to the fact that he possessed a feather guise, but also to the idea that he was its "smith;" the less so as we have already seen him characterised as an ancient artist in the phrases thiaza thingskil, hapta snytrir, and fadir mörna. Thus we here have a fourth proof of the same kind. The phrase "the Rognir of the winged cars" connects him not only with a single vehicle, but with several. "Wing-car" is a paraphrase for a guise furnished with wings, and enabling its owner to fly through the air. The expression "wing-car" may be applied to several of the strange means used by the powers for locomotion through the air and over the sea, as, for instance, the cars of Thor and Frey, Balder's ship Ringhorn, Frey's ship Skidbladner, and the feather garbs of the swan-maids. The mythology which knew from whose hands Skidbladner proceeded certainly also had something to say of the masters who produced Ringhorn and the above-mentioned cars and feather garbs. That they were made by ancient artists and not by the highest gods is an idea of ancient Aryan birth. In Rigveda it was the Ribhus, the counterparts of the Ivalde sons, who smithied the wonderful car-ship of the Asvinians and Indra's horses.
The appellations Rögnir and Regin also occur outside of Haustlaung in connection with each other, and this even as late as in the Skida-Rima, composed between 1400 and 1450, where Regin is represented as a smith (Rögnir kallar Regin til sín: rammliga skaltu smida—str. 102). In Forspjallsljod (10) we read: Galdr gólo, gaundom ritho Rögnir ok Regin at ranni heimis—"Rogner and Regin sang magic songs at the edge of the earth and constructed magic implements." They who do this are artists, smiths. In strophe 8 they are called viggiar, and viggi is a synonym of smidr (Younger Edda, i. 587). While they do this Idun is absent from Asgard (Forspjallsljod, str. 6), and a terrible cold threatens to destroy the earth. The words in Völuspa, with which the terrible fimbul-winter of antiquity is characterised, loptr lævi blandinn, are adopted by Forspjallsljod (str. 6—lopti med lævi), thus showing that the same mythic event is there described. The existence of the order of the world is threatened, the earth and the source of light are attacked by evil influences, the life of nature is dying, from the north (east), from the Elivagar rivers come piercing, rime-cold arrows of frost, which kill men and destroy the vegetation of the earth. The southern source of the lower world, whose function it is to furnish warming saps to the world-tree, was not able to prevent the devastations of the frost. "It was so ordained," it is said in Forspjallsljod, str. 2, "that Urd's Odrærir (Urd's fountain) did not have sufficient power to supply protection against the terrible cold."[11] The destruction is caused by Rogner and Regin. Their magic songs are heard even in Asgard. Odin listens in Lidskjalf and perceives that the song comes from the uttermost end of the world. The gods are seized by the thought that the end of the world is approaching, and send their messengers to the lower world in order to obtain there from the wise norn a solution of the problem of the world and to get the impending fate of the world proclaimed.
In the dictionaries and in the mythological text-books Rögnir is said to be one of Odin's epithets. In his excellent commentary on Vellekla, Freudenthal has expressed a doubt as to the correctness of this view. I have myself made a list of all the passages in the Old Norse literature where the name occurs, and I have thereby reached the conclusion that the statement in the dictionaries and in the text-books has no other foundation than the name-list in Eddubrott and the above-cited Skidarima, composed in the fifteenth century. The conceptions of the latter in regard to heathen mythology are of such a nature that it should never in earnest be regarded as an authority anent this question. In the Old Norse records there cannot be found a single passage where Rögnir is used as an epithet of Odin. It is everywhere used in reference to a mythic being who was a smith and a singer of magic songs, and regularly, and without exception, refers to Thjasse. While Thjodolf designates Thjasse as the Rogner of the wing-cars, his descendant Hakon Jarl gets the same epithet in Einar Skalaglam's paraphrases. He is hjörs brak-Rögnir, "the Rogner of the sword-din," and Geirrásargard-Rögnir, "the Rogner of the wall of the sword-flight (the shield)." The Thjasse descendant, Sigurd Hladejarl, is, in harmony herewith, called fens furs Rögnir. Thrym-Rögnir (Eg., 58) alludes to Thjasse as ruler in Thrymheim. A parallel phrase to thrym-Rögnir is thrym-Regin (Younger Edda, i. 436). Thus, while Thjasse is characterised as Rögnir, Saxo has preserved the fact that Volund's brother, Orvandel-Egil, bore the epithet Regin. Saxo Latinises Regin into Regnerus, and gives this name to Ericus-Svipdag's father (Hist., 192). The epithet Rögnir confines itself exclusively to a certain group—to Thjasse and his supposed descendants. Among them it is, as it were, an inheritance.
The paraphrases in Vellekla are of great mythological importance. While other mythic records relate that Thjasse carried away Idun, the goddess of vegetation, the goddess who controls the regenerating forces in nature, and that he thus assisted in bringing about the great winter of antiquity, we learn from Vellekla that it was he who directly, and by separate magic acts, produced this winter, and that he, accordingly, acted the same part in this respect as Rogner and Regin do in Forspjallsljod.
Thus, for example, the poem on Hakon Jarl, when the latter fought against the sons of Gunhild, says: Hjörs brak-Rögnir skók bogna hagl or Hlakkar seglum, "the Rogner of the sword-din shook the hail of the bows from the sails of the valkyrie." The mythic kernel of the paraphrase is: Rögnir skók hagl ur seglum, "Rogner shook hails from the sails." The idea is still to be found in the sagas that men endowed with magic powers could produce a hailstorm by shaking napkins or bags, filling the air with ashes, or by untying knots. And in Christian records it is particularly stated of Hakon Jarl that he held in honour two mythic beings—Thorgerd and Irpa—who, when requested, could produce storms, rain, and hail. No doubt this tradition is connected with Hakon's supposed descent from Thjasse, the cause of hailstorms and of the fimbul-winter. By making Rogner the "Rogner of the sword-din," and the hail sent by him "the hail of the bows," and the sails or napkins shook by him "the sails of the valkyrie"—that is to say, the shields—the skald makes the mythological kernel pointed out develop into figures applicable to the warrior to the battle.
In other paraphrases Vellekla says that the descendant of Thjasse, Hakon, made "the death-cold sword-storm grow against the life of udal men in Odin's storm," and that he was "an elf of the earth of the wood-land" coming from the north, who, with "murder-frost," received the warriors of the south (Emperor Otto's army) at Dannevirke. Upon the whole Vellekla chooses the figures used in describing the achievements of Hakon from the domain of cold and storm, and there can be no doubt that it does so in imitation of the Thjasse-myth.
In another poem to Hakon Jarl, of which poem there is only a fragment extant, the skald Einar speaks of Hakon's generosity, and says: Verk Rögnis mer hogna, "Rogner's works please me." We know that Hakon Jarl once gave Einar two gilt silver goblets, to which belonged two scales in the form of statuettes, the one of gold, the other of silver, which scales were thought to possess magic qualities, and that Hakon on another occasion gave him an exceedingly precious engraved shield, inlaid between the engraved parts with gold and studded with precious stones. It was customary for the skalds to make songs on such gifts. It follows, therefore, that the "works of Rogner," with which Einar says he was pleased, are the presents which Hakon, the supposed descendant of Rogner-Thjasse, gave him; and I find this interpretation the more necessary for the reason that we have already found several unanimous evidences of Thjasse's position in the mythology as an artist of the olden time.
Forspjallsljod's Rogner "sings magic songs" and "concocts witchcraft" in order to encourage and strengthen by these means of magic the attack of the powers of frost on the world protected by the gods. Haustlaung calls Thjasse ramman reimud Jötunheima, "the powerful reimud of Jotunheim." The word reimud occurs nowhere else. It is thought to be connected with reimt and reimleikar, words which in the writings of Christian times refer to ghosts, supernatural phenomena, and reimudr. Jötunheima has therefore been interpreted as "the one who made Jotunheim the scene of his magic arts and ghost-like appearances." From what has been stated above, it is manifest that this interpretation is correct.
