In this connection it must not be forgotten that tradition has attached the qualities of giants, not only to Thjasse, but also to Volund. That this does not appear in the Elder Edda depends simply on the fact that Volund is not mentioned by this name in the genuine mythic songs, but only in the heroic fragment which we have in Volundarkvida. The memory that Volund, though an elf-prince in the mythology, and certainly not a full-blooded giant on his father's side, was regarded and celebrated in song as an iötunn,—the memory of this not only survives in Vilkinasaga, but appears there in an exaggeration fostered by later traditions, to the effect that his father Vade (see No. 110) is there called a giant, while his father's mother is said to have been a mermaid. In another respect, too, there survives in Vilkinasaga the memory of a relationship between Volund and the most famous giant-being. He and the giants Etgeir (Eggther) and Vidolf are cousins, according to chapter 175. If we examine the Norse sources, we find Vidolf mentioned in Hyndluljod (53) as progenitor of all the mythological valas, and Aurboda, the most notorious of the valas of mythology, mentioned in strophe 30 as a kinswoman of Thjasse. Thus while Hyndluljod makes Thjasse, the Vilkinasaga makes Volund, a kinsman of the giant Vidolf.

Though in a form greatly changed, the Vilkinasaga has also preserved the memory of the manner in which Volund's father closed his career. With some smiths ("dwarfs") who lived in a remote mountain, Vade had made an agreement, according to which, in return for a certain compensation, his son Volund should learn their wonderful art as smiths. When, toward the close of the time agreed upon, Vade appeared outside of the mountain, he was, before entering, killed by an avalanche in accordance with the treacherous arrangement of these smiths.

In the mythology Thjasse's father is the great drink-champion who, among his many names and epithets, as we have seen, also has some that refer to his position in the mythology in regard to fermented beverage; Svigdir (the great drinker) Ölvaldi, Ölmódr, Sumbl Finnakonungr. In regard to Svigdir's death, it has already been shown (see No. 89) that, on his complete disappearance from the mythology, he is outside of a mountain in which Suttung and Suttung's sons, descendants of Surt-Durinn, with Mimer the most ancient smith (see No. 89), have their halls; that on his arrival a treacherous dwarf, the doorkeeper of Suttung's sons, goes to meet him, and that he is "betrayed" by the dwarf, never enters the rocky halls, and consequently must have died outside.

Vilkinasaga's very late statements (probably taken from German traditions), in regard to the death of Volund's father, thus correspond in the main features with what is related in the Norse records as to how Thjasse's father disappeared from the scene of mythology.

In regard to the birth and rank of Thjasse's father among the mythic powers, the following statements in poems from the heathen time are to be observed. When Haustlaung tells how Thjasse falls into the vaferflames kindled around Asgard, it makes use of the words Greipar bidils son svidnar, "the son of Greip's wooer is scorched." Thus Thjasse's mother is the giantess Greip, who, according to a stanza cited in the Younger Edda, i. 288, is a daughter of the giant Geirrödr and a sister of Gjalp. One of these sisters, and, so far as we can see, Greip, is, in Thorsdrapa, called meinsvarans hapts arma farmr, "the embrace of the arms of the perjurous hapt." Höpt, sing hapt, is like bönd, meaning the same, an appellation of lower and higher powers, numina of various ranks. If by the perjurous mistress of the hapt Greip, and not the sister Gjalp, is meant, then Thjasse's father is a being who belonged to the number of the numina of the mythology, and who, with a giantess whose bidill he had been, begat the son Thjasse, and probably also the latter's brothers Idi and Gángr (Aurnir). What rank this perjurous hapt held among the powers is indicated in Vellekla, strophe 9, which, like the foregoing strophe 8, and the succeeding strophes 10, 11, treats of Hakon Jarl's conflicts at Dannevirke, whither he was summoned, in the capacity of a vassal under the Danish king, Harald Blue-tooth, to defend the heathen North against Emperor Otto II.'s effort to convert Denmark to Christianity by arms. The strophe, which here, too, in its paraphrases presents parallels between Hakon Jarl and his mythic progenitor Thjasse, says that the Danish king (fémildr konungr) desired that the Morkwood's Hlodyn's (Mork-wood's earth's, that is to say, the woody Norway's) elf, he who came from the North (myrkmarkar Hlodynjar alfs, thess er kom nordan), was to be tested in "murder-frost," that is to say, in war (vid mord-frost freista), when he (Denmark's king) angrily bade the cold-hard storm-watcher (stirdan vedrhirdi, Hakon Jarl) of the Hordaland dwellers (of the Norsemen) defend Dannevirke (Virki varda) against the southland Njords of the shield-din (fyr serkja-hlym-val-Njördum, "the princes of the southland warriors").

Here, too, the myth about Thjasse and of the fimbul-winter forms the kernel out of which the paraphrases adapted to Hakon Jarl have grown. Hakon is clothed with the mask of the cold-hard storm-watcher who comes from the North and can let loose the winter-winds. Emperor Otto and the chiefs who led the southern troops under him are compared with Njord and his kinsmen, who, in the mythology, fought with Volund and the powers of frost, and the battle between the warriors of the South and the North is compared with a "murder-frost," in which Hakon coming from the North meets the Christian continental Teutons at Dannevirke.

Thus the mythical kernel of the strophe is as follows: The elf of the Morkwood of Hlodyn, the cold-hard storm-watcher, tested his power with frost-weather when he fought with Njord and his kinsmen.

The Hlodyn of the Morkwood—that is to say, the goddess of the Jotunheim woods—is in this connection Thjasse's daughter Skade, who, in Haleygjatal, is called Járnvidja of Járnvidr, the Ironwood, which is identical with the Morkwood (Darkwood). Thjasse himself, whose father is called "a perjurous hapt" in Thorsdrapa, is here called an elf. Alone, this passage would not be sufficient to decide the question as to which class of mythical beings Thjasse and his father belonged, the less so as álfr, applied in a paraphrase, might allude to any sort of being according to the characterisation added. But "perjurous hapt" cannot possibly be a paraphrase for a giant. Every divinity that has violated its oath is "a perjurous hapt," and the mythology speaks of such perjuries. If a god has committed perjury, this is no reason why he should be called a giant. If a giant has committed perjury, this is no reason why he should be called a hapt, for it is nothing specially characteristic of the giant nature that it commits perjury or violates its oath. In fact, it seems to me that there should be the gravest doubts about Thjasse's being a giant in the strictest and completest sense of the word, from the circumstances that he is a star-hero; that distinguished persons considered it an honour to be descended from him; that Hakon Jarl's skalds never tired of clothing him with the appearance of his supposed progenitor, and of comparing the historical achievements of the one with the mythical exploits of the other; and that he, Thjasse, not only robbed Idun, which indeed a genuine giant might do, but that he also lived with her many long years, and, so far as we can see, begat with her the daughter Skade. It should be remembered, from the foregoing pages, what pains the mythology takes to get the other asynje, Freyja, who had fallen into the hands of giants, back pure and undefiled to Asgard, and it is therefore difficult to believe that Idun should be humiliated and made to live for many years in intimacy with a real giant. It follows from this that when Thjasse, in the above-cited mythological kernel of the strophe of Vellekla, is called an álfr, and when his father in Thorsdrapa is called a hapt, a being of higher or lower divine rank, then álfr is a further definition of the idea hapt, and informs us to which class of numina Thjasse belonged—namely, the lower class of gods called elves. Thus, on his father's side, Thjasse is an elf. So is Volund. In Volundarkvida he is called a prince of elves. Furthermore, it should be observed that, in the strophe-kernel presented above, Thjasse is represented as one who has fought with Njord and his allies. In Saxo it is Anund-Volund and his brother the archer who fight with Njord-Fridlevus and his companions; and as Njord in Saxo marries Anund-Volund's daughter, while in the mythology he marries Thjasse's daughter, then this is another recurrence of the fact which continually comes to the surface in this investigation, namely, that whatever is told of Volund is also told of Thjasse.

114.

PROOFS THAT IVALDE'S SONS ARE OLVALDE'S (continued). A REVIEW OF THORSDRAPA.