The name Sumbl Finnakonungr is at the same time connected with a third group of names—Finnakonungr, Finnr, Vidfinnr, Finnálfr, Fin Folcvalding. With this group the epithets Vadi and Vadill (in Geirvadill) have a real mythological connection, which shall be pointed out below.
Finally, Geirvadill is connected with the epithet Geirvandill from the fact that both belong to Ivalde on account of his place in the weapon-myth.
As has been shown above, Geirvandill means "the one occupied with the spear," or, more accurately, "the one who exhibits great care and skill in regard to the spear" (from geir, spear, and vanda, to apply care to something in order that it may serve its purpose). In Saxo, Gervandillus-Geirvandel is the father of Horvendillus-Orvandel; the spear-hero is the father of the archer. It is evident that the epithets of the son and father are parallel formations, and that as the one designates the foremost archer in mythology, the other must refer to a prominent spear-champion. It is of no slight importance to our knowledge of the Teutonic weapon-myth that the foremost representatives of the spear, the bow, and the sword among the heroes are grandfather, father, and son. Svipdag, Ivalde's grandson, the son of Orvandel-Egil, is above all others the sword-champion, "the sword-elf" (sverdálfr—see Olaf Trygv., 43, where Svipdag-Erik's namesake and supposed descendant, Erik, Jarl Hakonson, is called by this epithet). It is he who from the lower world fetches the best and most terrible sword, which was also probably regarded as the first of its kind in that age, as his uncle, who had made it, was called "the father of swords" (see Nos. 113, 114, 115). Svipdag's father is the most excellent archer whose memory still survives in the story about William Tell. The grandfather, Ivalde, must have been the most excellent marksman with the spear. The memory of this survives not only in the epithets, Geirvandill and Geirvadill, but also in the heroic poem, "Valtarius Manufortis," written before the year 950 by Eckehard in St. Gallen, and in Vilkinasaga, which has preserved certain features of the Ivalde-myth.
Clad in an armour smithied by Volund (Vuelandia fabrica), Valtarius appears as the great spear-champion, who despises all other weapons of attack—
Vualtarius erat vir maximus undique telis
Suspectamque habuit cuncto sibi tempori pugnam (v. 366-7).
With the spear he meets a sword-champion—
Hic gladio fidens hic acer et arduus hasta (v. 822);
and he has developed the use of the spear into an art, all of whose secrets were originally known by him alone, then also by Hagano, who learned them from the former (v. 336, 367). Vilkinasaga speaks of Valthari as an excellent spear-champion. Sure of success, he wagers his head in a competitive contest with this weapon.
It has already been shown above (see No. 89) that Svigdir-Ivalde in the mythic saga concerning the race-heroes was the first ruler of the Swedes, just as his sons, Volund and Egil, became those of the Longobardians and Slagfin that of the Burgundians, and, as shall be shown below, also that of the Saxons. Even in the Ynglingasaga, compiled in the twelfth century, he remains, by the name Svegdir among the first kings of the Yngling race, and in reality as the first hero; for his forerunners, Fjölnir, Freyr, and Odinn, are prehuman gods (in regard to Fjölnir, see Völuspa). That Svidir was made the race-hero of the Swedes is explained by the fact that Ivalde, before his sons, before he had yet become the foe of the gods and a "perjured hapt," was the guardian of the northern Teutonic world against the powers of frost, and that the Sviones were the northernmost race of the Teutonic domain. The elf-citadel on the southern coast of the Elivagar was Geirvadill-Ivalde's setr before it became that of his sons (see Nos. 109, 113-115, 117, 118). The continental Teutons, like their kinsmen on the Scandian peninsula, knew that north of the Swedes and in the uttermost north lived a non-Teutonic people who ran on skees and practised hunting—the Finns. And as the realm that was subject to the race-hero of the Swedes in the mythology extended to the Elivagar, where his setr was situated, even the Finns must have been subject to his sceptre. This explains his surname, Finnakonungr, Finnr, Vidfinnr, Fin Folcvalding, and also the fact that his descendants form a group of skee-runners. To the location of the setr near the Elivagar, at the point where Thor was wont to wade across this body of water (see Nos. 109, 114), we have a reference in the Ivalde epithets, Vadill Vadi. They indicate his occupation as the keeper of the ford. Vilkinasaga makes him a wader of the same kind as Thor, and makes him bear his son, Volund, across a sound while the latter was still a lad. Reasons which I may yet have an opportunity to present indicate that Ivalde's mother was the mightiest amazon of Teutonic mythology, whose memory survives in Saxo's account of Queen Rusila, Rusla (Hist., 178, 365, 394-396), and in the German heroic-saga's Rütze. This queen of the elves, dwelling south of the Elivagar, is also remembered by Tactitus' informer. In Germania (45) we read: Svionibus Sitonum gentes continuantur. Cetera similes uno different quod femina dominatur.... Hic Suebiæ fines—"The Sviones are bounded by the Sitones. While they are like each other in other things they differ in the one respect, that a woman rules over the Sitones. Here the confines of Suebia end." The name Sitones does not occur elsewhere, and it would be vain to seek it in the domain of reality. Beyond the domain of the Sviones extended at that time that of the mythic geography. The Sitones, who were governed by a queen, belonged to the Teutonic mythology, like the Hellusians and Oxionians, mentioned elsewhere in Germania. It is not impossible that the name Sitones, of which the stem is sit, is connected with the Norse mythological name of the chief citadel in their country—setr (Geirvadill's setr, Ide's setr; cp. setr-verjendr as a designation in Ynglingasaga [17] of the descendants of Svigdir-Ivalde). The word setr is derived from setja, a causative form of sitja, the Gothic sitan.