“The three Hus are: Hu cylch y Cengant=the Hu of the circle of infinitude; Hu cylch y Sidydd=the Hu of the circle of the zodiac and Hu yn Nghnawd=Hu incarnate. The latter was incarnate in the Arch Druid. He, standing in the middle of the Gorsedd circle, where the triple life lines met, implied by his action that the three emanations which had their root in the dual Ced-Celi, focussed themselves in him. He stood facing the east where the sun rises” (cf. the ceremonial position assumed by the king of Erin in council and that of the Roman augur on drawing his templum). “The name for the physical sun was Huan, translated as ‘the abode of divinity.’ ” “The Druidic bards of N. Wales worshipped Beli.”[133]
In Welsh legend a god named Peredur Paladye Hir (of the long spear or pal) is associated with his brother, both sons of Eliffer, one of the thirteen princes of the north. Peredur is one of seven brothers; there were seven profound mysteries of Druidism, i. e. seven divisions of the reverberations of the Word, emanating from Ced, and the seven Tattaras or seven rays.
SCANDINAVIA.
According to the Icelandic historian Snorri Sturlesson, whose opinion was the re-echo of ancient traditional beliefs, Odin and his eight sons and four companions, twelve in all, were earthly kings and priests of a sacerdotal caste, who had emigrated from Asia—perhaps from Troy—and who conquered and ruled over various parts of Scandinavia and Northern Germany where, after their death, they were regarded by the people as deities (Chambers' Encyclopædia).
O'Neil states “that Odin was named Mith-Odinn (Mid-Odin?) [pg 472] by Saxo Grammaticus,” and quotes the following: “Odinn died in his bed, in Sweden, and when he was near his death he made himself be marked with the point of a spear and said he was going to Godheim” (Ingliga Saga). “The twelve godes or diar or drotnar of Odin were obviously cognate to our god as a name of a deity. They (or the priests who represented them) directed sacrifices and judged the people, and all the people served and obeyed them” (O'Neil i, p. 76).
A strange reality is given to Odin and his twelve “godes,” when it is realized that at Mora, near Upsala, Sweden, there exists the ancient stone throne on which the ancient kings of Sweden were crowned and this central stone is surrounded by twelve lesser stones, just as the Irish “Mound-chief” was surrounded by twelve idols.
While the above facts suffice to indicate that, in remotest antiquity, the government of the state was vested in one supreme and twelve minor chiefs, the following brief extracts from the Eddas reveal the cosmical beliefs of the Norsemen: “In the cold north existed Niflheim in the middle of which was a well from which sprang twelve rivers. In the south existed the warm Muspelheim. There was a contention between both of these worlds.... The union of heat and cold produced Oergelmer or Chaos, and the first human being, Ymir. The revolving eye of the Norse world-millstone was directly above Oergelmer and through it the waters flowed to and from the great fountain of the Universe waters.” Ymir drew his nourishment from four streams of milk proceeding from the mythical cow Aedhumla. Subsequently he was slain by three divine brothers who carried his body to the middle of Ginnungagap, and formed from it the earth and the heavens ... of his skull they formed the heavens, at each of the four corners of which stood a dwarf, viz: Austri at the East, Vestri at the west, Northri at the north and Suthri at the south.... When heaven and earth were formed, the chief gods or Oesir, of whom there were twelve, met in the Centre of the world and built Midgardr or Asgard, the yard, city or stronghold of the Middle and of the Asen=the gods. It was situated on the Himinbiorg, or Hill of Heaven, on the summit of which was the ash-tree, Yggdrasil, whose branches spread over the whole world and tower over the heavens.
The following is from the prose Edda: “Then the sons of [pg 473] Bõr built in the middle of the universe the city called Asgard, where dwell the gods and their kindred, and from that abode work out so many wondrous things both on earth and in the heavens above it. There is in that city a place called Hlidskjalf, and when Odin is seated there upon his lofty throne, he sees over the whole world.”
In the Eddas we find evidences that while Odin or All-fader was the ruler of heaven, his powerful son Thor was “the ruler of Thrudheim and drove through the world in a chariot and became the supreme god.”
The following facts, taken from Mr. Allen's “Star-names,” established the association of Thor with Polaris and the Ursæ. “In ancient times the northern nations termed Ursa Major ‘the wagon of Odin, Woden or Wuotan, the father of Thor.’[134] The Danes, Swedes and Icelanders also knew it as Stori Vagn, the Great Wagon and as Karl's Vagn; Karl being Thor, their chief god of whom the old Swedish Rhyme Chronicle of Upsala says ‘... The god Thor was the highest of them. He sat naked as a child, seven stars in his hand and Charles' Wain.’ ”