The next step was to examine whether a similar proof of the identity of Thjasse's and Volund's mother was to be found. In one Norse mythological source Thjasse's mother is called Greip. Volund's and Egil's (Ayo's and Ibor's, Aggo's and Ebbo's) mother is in Paulus Diaconus and in Origo Longobardorum called Gambara, in Saxo Gambaruc. The Norse stem in the Latinised name Gambara is Gammr, which is a synonym of Greip, the name of Thjasse's mother. Thus I found a reference to the identity of Thjasse's mother and Volund's mother.
From the parents I went to the brothers. One of Volund's brothers bore the epithet Aurnir, "wild boar." Aurnir's wife is remembered in the Christian traditions as one who forebodes the future. Ebur's wife is a mythological seeress. One of Thjasse's brothers, Ide, is the only one in the mythology whose name points to an original connection with Ivalde (Idvalde), Volund's father, and with Idun, Volund's half-sister. Volund himself bears the epithet Brunne, and Thjasse's home is Brunnsacre. One of Thjasse's sons is slain at the instigation of Loke, and Loke, who in Lokasenna takes pleasure in stating this, boasts in the same poem that he has caused the slaying of Thjasse.
In regard to bonds of relationship in general, I found that on the one side Volund, like Thjasse, was regarded as a giant, and had relations among the giants, among whom Vidolf is mentioned both as Volund's and Thjasse's relative, and that on the other hand Volund is called an elf-prince, and that Thjasse's father belonged to the clan of elves, and that Thjasse's daughter is characterised, like Volund and his nearest relatives, as a skee-runner and hunter, and in this respect has the same epithet as Volund's nephew Ull. I found, furthermore, that so far as tradition has preserved the memory of star-heroes, every mythic person who belonged to their number was called a son of Ivalde or a son of Olvalde. Orvandel-Egil is a star-hero and a son of Ivalde. The Watlings, after whom the Milky Way is named, are descendants of Vate-Vade, Volund's father. Thjasse is a star-hero and the son of Olvalde. Ide, too, Thjasse's brother, "the torch-bearer," may have been a star-hero, and, as we shall show later, the memory of Volund's brother Slagfin was partly connected with the Milky Way and partly with the spots on the moon; while, according to another tradition, it is Volund's father whose image is seen in these spots (see Nos. 121, 123).
I found that Rogner is a Thjasse-epithet, and that all that is stated of Rogner is also told of Volund. Rogner was, like the latter, first the friend of the gods and then their foe. He was a "swan-gladdener," and Volund the lover of a swan-maid. Like Volund he fought against Njord. Like Volund he proceeded to the northernmost edge of the world, and there he worked with magic implements through the powers of frost for the destruction of the gods and of the world. And from some one he has taken the same ransom as Volund did, when the latter killed Nidhad's young sons and made goblets of their skulls.
I found that while Olvalde's sons, Ide, Aurner (Gang), and Thjasse, still were friends of the gods, they had their abode on the south coast of the Elivagar, where Ivalde had his home, called after him Geirvadils setr, and where his son Orvandel-Egil afterwards dwelt; that Thor on his way to Jotunheim visits Ide's setr, and that he is a guest in Egil's dwelling; that the mythological warriors who dwell around Ide's setr are called "warrior-vans," and that these "Gang's warrior-vans" have these very persons, Egil and his foster-son Thjalfe, as their leaders when they accompany Thor to fight the giants, wherefore the setr of the Olvalde sons Ide and Gang must be identical with that of the Ivalde sons, and Ide, Gang, and Thjasse identical with Slagfin, Egil, and Volund.
On these foundations the identity of Olvalde's sons with Ivalde's sons is sufficiently supported, even though our mythic records had preserved no evidence that Thjasse, like Volund, was the most celebrated artist of mythology. But such evidence is not wanting. As the real meaning of Regin is "shaper," "workman," and as this has been retained as a smith-name in Christian times, there is every reason to assume that Thjasse, who is called fjadrar-blads leik-Regin and vingvagna Rögnir, did himself make, like Volund, the eagle guise which he, like Volund, wears. The son of Ivalde, Volund, made the most precious treasures for the gods while he still was their friend, and the Olvalde son Thjasse is called hapta snytrir, "the decorator of the gods," doubtless for the reason that he had smithied treasures for the gods during a time when he was their friend and Thor's ofrúni (Thor's confidential friend). Volund is the most famous and, so far as we can see, also the first sword-smith, which seems to appear from the fact that his father Ivalde, though a valiant champion, does not use the sword but the spear as a weapon, and is therefore called Geirvandill. Thjasse was the first sword-smith, otherwise he would not have been called fadir mörna, "the father of the swords." Splendid implements are called verk Rögnis and Thjaza thingskil, Idja glýsmál, Idja ord—expressions which do not find their adequate explanation in the Younger Edda's account of the division of Olvalde's estate, but in the myth about the judgment which the gods once proclaimed in the contest concerning the skill of Sindre and the sons of Ivalde, when the treasures of the latter presented in court had to plead their own cause.
116.
A LOOK AT THE MYTH CONCERNING THJASSE-VOLUND. HIS EPITHET HLEBARDR. HIS WORST DEED OF REVENGE.
What our mythic records tell us about the sons of Olvalde and the sons of Ivalde is under such circumstances to be regarded as fragments which come to us from one and the same original myth. When combined, the fragments are found to dovetail together and form one whole. Volundarkvida (28) indicates that something terrible, something that in the highest degree aroused his indignation and awakened his deep and satanic thirst for revenge, had happened to Volund ere he, accompanied by his brothers, betook himself to the wintry wilderness, where he smithied the sword of revenge and the gand rings; and the poem makes Volund add that this injustice remained to be avenged when he left the Wolf-dales. It lies in the nature of the case that the saga about Volund did not end where the fragment of the Volundarkvida which we possess is interrupted. The balance of the saga must have related what Volund did to accomplish the revenge which he still had to take, and how the effort to take vengeance resulted. The continuation probably also had something to say about that swan-maid, that dis of vegetation, who by the name Hervor Alvitr spends nine years with Volund in the Wolfdales, and then, seized by longing, departs with the other swan-maids, but of whose faithful love Volund is perfectly convinced (Volundarkvida, 10). While Volund is Nidhad's prisoner, the hope he has built on the sword of revenge and victory smithied by him seems to be frustrated. The sword is in the power of Mimer-Nidhad, the friend of the gods. But the hope of the plan of revenge must have awakened again when Svipdag, Volund's nephew, succeeded in coming up from the lower world with the weapon in his possession. The conflict between the powers of frost and the kinsmen of Ivalde, who had deserted the gods, on the one side, and the gods and their favourite Halfdan, the Teutonic patriarch, on the other side, was kindled anew (see No. 33). Halfdan is repulsed, and finally falls in the war in which Volund got satisfaction by the fact that his sword conquered Thor's Mjolner and made Thor retreat. But once more the hope based on the sword of revenge is frustrated, this time by the possessor of the sword itself, Volund's young kinsman, who—victor in the war, but conquered by the love he cherished for Freyja, rescued by him—becomes the husband of the fair asynje and gives the sword of Volund to Frey, the god of the harvests. That, in spite of this crossing of his plan of revenge, Volund still did not give it up may be taken for granted. He is described not only as the most revengeful, but also as the most persistent and patient person (see "Doer the Scald's Complaint"), when patience could promote his plans. To make war on the gods with the aid of the giants, when the sword of victory had fallen into the hands of the latter, could not give him the least hope of success. After the mythology has given Volund satisfaction for the despicable judgment passed on the products of his skill, it unites the chain of events in such a manner that the same weapon which refuted the judgment and was to cause the ruin of the gods became their palladium against its own maker. What was Volund able to do afterwards, and what did he do? The answer to this question is given in the myth about Thjasse. With Idun—the Hervor Alvitr of the heroic poem—he confined himself in a mountain, whose halls he presumably decorated with all the wonders which the sagas of the middle ages, describing splendid mountain-halls and parks within the mountains, inherited from the mythology. The mountain must have been situated in a region difficult of access to the gods—according to Bragarædur in Jotunheim. At all events, Thjasse is there secure against every effort to disturb him, forcibly, in his retreat. The means against the depredations of time and years which Idun possesses have their virtue only when in her care. Without this means, even the gods of Asgard are subject to the influence of time, and are to grow old and die. And in the sense of a myth symbolising nature, the same means must have had its share in the rejuvenation of creation through the saps rising every year in trees and herbs. The destruction of the world—the approach of which Volund wished to precipitate with his sword of revenge—must come slowly, but surely, if Idun remains away from Asgard. This plan is frustrated by the gods through Loke, as an instrument compelled by necessity—compelled by necessity (Haustlaung, str. 11), although he delighted in the mischief of deceiving even his allies. Near Thjasse's mountain-halls is a body of water, on which he occasionally rows out to fish (Bragarædur.) Once, when he rows out for this purpose, perhaps accompanied by Skade, Idun is at home alone. Loke, who seems to have studied his customs, flies in a borrowed feather guise into the mountain and steals Idun, who, changed into a nut, is carried in his claws through space to Asgard. But the robbing of Idun was not enough for Loke. He enticed Thjasse to pursue. In his inconsiderate zeal, the latter dons his eagle guise and hastens after the robber into Asgard's vaferflames, where he falls by the javelins of the gods and by Thor's hammer. Sindre's work, the one surpassed by Volund, causes his death, and is avenged. I have already pointed out that this event explains Loke's words to Idun in Lokasenna, where he speaks of the murder of one of the Ivalde sons, and insists that she, Idun, embraced the one who caused his death.
The fate of the great artist and his tragical death help to throw light on the character of Loke and on the part he played in the mythology. Ivalde's sons are, in the beginning, the zealous friends of the gods, and the decorators and protectors of their creation. They smithy ornaments, which are the symbols of vegetation; and at their outpost by the Elivagar they defend the domain of vegetation against Jotunheim's powers of frost. As I have already stated, they are, like the Ribhus, at the same time heroes, promoters of growth, and artists of antiquity. The mythology had also manifestly endowed the sons of Ivalde with pleasing qualities—profound knowledge of the mysteries of nature, intelligence, strength, beauty, and with faithfulness toward their beloved. We find that, in time of adversity, the brothers were firmly united, and that their swan-maids love them in joy and in distress. For the powers of evil it was, therefore, of the greatest moment to bring about strife between the gods and these their "sworn men." Loke, who is a gedreynir (Thorsdrapa), "a searcher of the qualities of the soul," a "tempter of the character," has discovered in the great artist of antiquity the false but hitherto unawakened qualities of his character—his ambition and irreconcilable thirst for revenge. These qualities, particularly the latter, burst forth fully developed suddenly after the injustice which, at Loke's instigation, the gods have done to the sons of Ivalde. The thirst for revenge breaks out in Thjasse-Volund in a despicable misdeed. There is reason for assuming that the terrible vengeance which, according to the heroic saga, he took against Nidhad, and which had its counterpart in the mythology itself, was not the worst crime which the epic of the Teutonic mythology had to blame him for. Harbardsljod (20) alludes to another and worse one. Speaking of Thjasse (str. 19), Hárbardr-Loke[12] there boasts that—