Asgard and the Gods

The holy gods dwelt peacefully in their golden palaces and rejoiced in their power. The Walkyries, choosers of the dead, messengers of Odin, rode about in splendid armour on their white horses. They bore the hero-spirits they had taken from bloody battle-fields back with them to Asgard. On reaching the grove Glasir, they dismounted from their horses, and led the heroes under the shade of its golden foliage to Walhalla. There

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the mists of death passed from the eyes of the warriors; they recognised the hall intended for them on seeing Odin’s coat of arms, the wolf and the eagle. They saw the roof made of the shafts of spears covered with shields, and the seats spread with soft chain-mail. Weapons flashed as they entered, and foaming goblets were emptied in their honour by the great band of heroes, who had reached the halls of blessedness before them. And they drank of the sweet mead provided for them by the goat Heidrun, and feasted on the roasted flesh of the boar Sährimnir, which was restored to life every evening, that it might again furnish a repast for the heroes on the following day.

The ruling gods sat on twelve thrones, and highest amongst them was Odin in all his glory, his spear Gungnir in his right hand, and his golden helmet on his head. He was not now terrible to look upon, as when he led armies on to battle or when he hurled the death-spear over their ranks; a gentle smile lighted up his face, for he rejoiced in the arrival of the noble warriors. Two pet wolves played at his feet and fawned upon him, when he threw them the food provided for himself at the board. For he needed no food to eat; for him it was sufficient to drink of the blood-red wine, which refreshed and strengthened his mind. Then great Odin rose from the board, walked through the hall, and went to his throne Hlidskialf, all Asgard trembling beneath his tread. He seated himself, and gazed thoughtfully over the worlds. Far away in the distance gleamed Muspelheim, where dark Surtur, flame-girdled, and holding his fiery sword in his hand, watched his opportunity as yet in vain; in Midgard were the mortal men; in the depths below, the Dwarfs toiled and laboured. The mighty god’s two ravens, Hugin (thought) and Munin (memory), flew quickly up to him; they perched one on his right shoulder and the other on his left, and whispered in his ears the secrets they had heard during their flight through the

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worlds. Anxiously the monarch turned his gaze towards Jotunheim, for things were going on there which threatened the general peace.

LOKI AND HIS KINDRED
In the grey twilight enveloping the giants’ world, the king recognised his old comrade Loki, with whom he had sworn brotherhood at the beginning of time. Loki had set up house in Jotunheim and had married the dreadful giantess Angurboda (bringer of anguish). They had three children, all horrible monsters: the Wolf Fenris, the Snake Jörmungander, and terrible Hel, at the sight of whom all living creatures stiffened in death. One side of her face was of corpse-like pallor, and the other was dark as the grave. The young wolf was not less appalling to look upon, when he opened wide his blood-red jaws to devour the food his father offered him; nor the snake which wound itself round Angurboda as though desirous of crushing her to death in its coils.

Allfather turned away from the horrible sight with a shudder of disgust, and saw his bright son Hermodur standing before him. Pointing down at Jotunheim, he desired him to bear his commands to the gods, that they should at once go and bring him the brood of giants. In obedience to the king’s orders, the powerful gods at once arose, and with brave Tyr at their head, crossed the bridge Bifröst and the river Ifing, and so reached the inhospitable land of the Hrimthurses.

Loki was beautiful like all the gods, but his heart was full of guile. They found him in the court-yard of his castle. He went on playing with his monstrous progeny, and took no notice of the messengers, until they approached quite close to him, and made known the commands of Odin. He would have refused to obey, but strong Tyr shook his fist threateningly, upon which he gave

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way, and followed them to Asgard, accompanied by his children. He was immediately brought before the king’s throne. Terrible Hel grew visibly more gigantic, lightnings flashed from her deepset eyes, and she stretched out her arms as though she wished to destroy the great Father. At the same moment Jörmungander reared her head in the air, till she resembled a twisted column, gnashed her jaws and emitted a venomous foam, before which the very gods shrank back. But the king seized both monsters in his powerful arms, and flung them far out of Asgard into immeasurable space.

Hel sank nine days’ journey past the bogs, morasses, and rocks of ice in Nifelheim, past the river Giöll and down into the kingdom of Helheim, which was allotted to her, and where she henceforth ruled over the dead. But the Snake fell into the ocean that flows round Midgard. Hidden in its depths, and unseen by gods and men, she was to grow, until, after having twisted herself into innumerable coils, her ugly head should touch the tip of her tail. Then, at last, when the twilight of the gods (the judgment of the gods) should come to pass, she was again to rise, and help to bring about the destruction of the worlds. When the Wolf saw his playfellows flung out of Asgard, he began to howl so loud, that his voice was heard over in Jotunheim. Yet he did not venture to resist, and great Tyr bore him away from before the face of the angry Father, away from the heavenly towers, to where the hills of Asgard slope towards Midgard; there he brought him food every day.

Odin still remained on Hlidskialf, thinking of all, caring for all. The gods stood silently around him; but Loki slipped out of the circle unnoticed, and went out to plan more mischief. Then the king pointed towards the south, where the sons of Muspel were moving about in the fiery heat like flashes of lightning, and where the dark giant Surtur was pointing his flaming sword up at the

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heavenly palaces. “Gird on your armour,” said Allfather, “keep your swords drawn, ye faithful ones, for the day approaches when the heavens shall fall and the Destroyer shall come up from the South across Bifröst with his fiery hosts. The spirit of prophecy has come upon me, and I foresee that the monsters, whose power we have broken for the present, will one day join the Destroyer and fight against us. Up, brave ones! Watch lest any sin defile the purity of the holy towers, for thus only can we ward off the hour of our destruction.”

Having said this, great Odin went on before his loyal subjects to Walhalla.

Meanwhile the wicked race of giants remained hostile to the gods. They brooded over schemes for avenging the murder of their ancestor, Ymir. The warlike Hrungnir awaited his opportunity in Jotunheim; Thrym, who was hard as his native rocks, Thiassi and Geiröd, who dwelt in proud castles, and other giants besides, were all armed for the fight, and often made onslaughts upon the hated gods. But Heimdal watched over the safety of Asgard, and strong Thor was always ready to go out and fight the monsters.

This myth reveals to us in its deeper meaning, the ideas of these northern races respecting the struggle between good and evil in the world, the eternal warfare waged by the kingdom of light against the kingdom of darkness, by the mild beneficent powers of nature against those that are hurtful and destructive. The terrors of the long dark winter, or the dreadful snow-storms, of the wild mountain ranges with their glaciers, and of the tempestuous ocean, appeared in the imagination of the people to take the form of pernicious monsters intended to bring about the destruction of the world. Thus Hel, the secret, healing goddess, who was originally the all-nourishing Mother Earth, became the goddess of death, a hideous monster the very sight of whom caused death;

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the stormy sea, which according to the northern idea encircled the round earth, was transformed to the Midgard-Snake; the universal destruction which was to come at the end of days was typified in the all-devourer, the Fenris-Wolf, who was to devour the Father of the world himself. It is striking, that Loki, who in earlier times was looked upon as a beneficent being, as the god of fire, of the warming domestic hearth, is accounted one of the powers of evil in the foregoing legend, and that he grows even more diabolical in the later poems, in spite of the fact that fire is absolutely indispensable to the North-man.

The first divine trilogy given us was that of the sons of Bör, i.e. Odin, Wili and We; and these correspond to the elements, air, water and fire. The last of the three gave the newly created human beings blood and blooming complexion; he was therefore a beneficent god. Nevertheless he was also represented as a giant in the trilogy Kari, Ögir, and Logi, another form of air, sea and fire. That he belonged to the race of giants is proved from further evidence, by which it appears that his father was the giant Farbauti (oarsman), and his mother the giantess Laufey (leafy isle), the former of whom was perhaps the giant who saved himself from the flood in a boat, and the latter, the island to which he rowed.

At the beginning Loki was a helpful and a great god, as the pretty Faroe-island song of the Peasant and the Giant shows. He was not regarded as the principle of evil, until he had been completely separated from the element to which he belonged, and had been developed into an independent personality. The idea of the destructive power of fire was equally connected with the giant Muspel, but he never showed himself as an active agent of harm. His sons, the flames, alone threatened evil in Glow-heim or Muspelheim, and finally mustered in great force for the Last Battle on the field of Wigrid. Their leader, however, was not Muspel, but

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dark Surtur (black smoke), out of which flashed a tongue of flame, like a shining sword.

That these ideas were common to all the Germanic races is shown by some Bavarian and Saxon manuscripts of the 8th and 9th centuries, which contain the mysterious word Muspel, as will be seen from the following translations: “Muspel’s (world-fire’s) power passes over man.” “Muspel creeps in stealthily and suddenly, like a thief in the darkness of night,” “Then will a friend be of no profit to his friend because of Muspel, for even the broad ocean will be burnt up,” viz. at the Last Day.

This struggle was an eternal one; it went on and on without being decided. But if the Aryans believed Ormuzd to be pure and spotless, the gods certainly were not so; they were neither sinless nor immortal. Like the Grecian Herakles, they fought against harmful monsters; they were victorious over them to a certain extent, but not entirely; they sinned, and at last, like the Greek hero who burnt himself to death, they passed away in the universal fire that burnt up the world. These conceptions are peculiar to the Germanic races; it is possible, however, that they brought the seeds of their grand poems from the common home of the Aryans, then developed and polished them in their own peculiar way, when settled in the land they had colonized, and when surrounded by the influences of a climate and country favourable in some points and disadvantageous in others.