Tales from the Norse grandmother (the Elder Edda)

Preface

THE Norse myths are only the ideals of our ancestors— a more or less perfect string of crystals — preserved amid the forgotten dust and rubbish of the past. They are the thoughts and beliefs of those old men and women, which they strove to express in daily life. Childish as some of them may seem, they shaped the destiny of a powerful nation, and furnished it with motives of action.

I think our young people ought to know something of these myths, because they belong to our family history. They are part of the archives of the race. Norse mythology is perhaps chiefly valuable as the source of unnumbered superstitions, which still live in the fancy of the ignorant and fetter multitudes of minds. Mr. Baring-Gould says we can look through the Norse myths as through glacier ice, and see where most of our popular superstitions lie embedded.

We shall see that many of them sprang out of our ancestors’ thoughts about nature and the different orders of beings supposed to people the earth. Myths die very hard, and what were once mere mountains and thunder-clouds live on, after the meaning has escaped, to scare the mind in the form of giants and hobgoblins.

PREFACE.

There were myths of exceeding beauty born in the North, and if we study them we shall learn to respect the ancient poets of our race, who struggled with the same great questions that occupy the minds of scholars and thinkers to-day. We shall see the mighty change Christianity has wrought in the old types of character, and how Odin, the all-powerful Valfather, was doomed to die.

The myths are, many of them, attractive wonderstories, filled with the quaint conceits of Northern fancy. They have given birth to the richest folk-lore in the world. They are the treasure-house from which materials have been drawn to amuse and interest the children of countless generations. They are like the old Egyptian temples, that have been pulled down piecemeal during centuries to build the little huts of the poor.

Because I have felt that the ancient religion of our own great race ought not to be entirely unknown to the young, I have undertaken to give in this volume all the myths, with such slight historical sketches as I trusted would render them more intelligible, and perhaps throw a little light on some of the strange doctrines held by our remote ancestors.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Introduction — Who was Edda? 7

II. The Ancient German 18

Chapter I. Introduction — Who Was Edda?

I HAVE named my little book after the Norse Great-Grandmother because, my young readers, she is your great-grandmother and mine ; indeed, she is the great-grandmother of all the German and English speaking peoples, and probably, in a remote way, of the Celtic races also. But of that it is not necessary to speak, because it takes us too wide of our subject.

Her name is Edda, which means ancestress, or grandmother. She is a very aged dame — hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years old — and her memory for what happened in the dim past is still clear and bright, though she cares not at all for the hurry and bustle of her remote descendants, who have spread over so large a part of the earth’s surface, and are called by so large a variety of names, but who have some kindred blood coursing in their veins, whether they be called Danes in Denmark, Norwegians in Norway, Dutchmen in Holland, Germans in Germany, or Englishmen in England and America.

The Great-Grandmother is the old lady of history, of poetry, of romance, and religion, whose only business is to remember. In the ancient Norse tongue she is called Edda, and you will learn that there is an elder and a younger Edda; but the younger is the direct descendant of the elder, and derives all her knowledge and importance from her. Therefore, we might aptly call them Great-Grandmother and Grandmother Edda.

The two Eddas, as you may know, are two Icelandic books containing the oldest account of Norse mythology and legend ; and I shall explain to you how it happens that nearly all we know of ancient Northern religion, which is believed on good grounds to be the religion of our Saxon, Danish, and Norman forefathers, comes to us from Iceland, which has very prettily been called the foster-mother of Northern history. Were it not for that desolate, ice-bound, volcanic island, lying on the verge of the Arctic circle, we should be far poorer in the annals of our great race than we are to-day. Every English and American child owes a debt of gratitude to Iceland for preserving so much that is valuable and instructive about his or her Northern ancestors. Is it not very strange that from this cold by-corner of the world should come nearly all we know of the Norseman, or Northman, while he still remained a pagan worshiper of Odin and Thor, Njord and Frey? That worship was probably spread over the whole of northern Europe, but when Christianity took root and prevailed there nearly every vestige of it was swept away. Men did not care to inquire what

INTRODUCTION — WHO WAS EDDA?

their ancestors had believed in the old time, but we, to-day, are very curious and eager to know what our ancestors believed. We feel that we cannot know what manner of men they were unless we know what they thought and how they felt about the chief concerns of the soul and of human life ; about God and destiny and immortality. We must know them to know ourselves, and to get down to the roots of a great many things that exist in us to-day. The youngest little child is only what the long ages have made him. The past lives in him as well as the present. This is a great thought, and hard to understand, but you will comprehend it better when I show you that many of the nursery tales that were told to you in your cradle are the remains of that old heathen faith in which our forefathers so devoutly believed.

Now, while Europe was too busy or too heedless to gather up those precious old myths and traditions, before they faded out of the popular mind and were forgotten, the learned Icelanders, during their long half-year of night, found time and zeal to do this very work, and to do it well. The whole history of Iceland is a captivating romance ; and, in order to show what the life of the North really was in the middle of the ninth century, I shall have to transport you to that frozen island, because there we find data for repainting the picture, which does not exist elsewhere. Owing to its isolation and entire independence, old habits and modes of living were retained in Iceland after they had been considerably modified in Norway, the mother country;

IO TALES FROM THE NORSE GRANDMOTHER.

and to this day much in the Icelander’s way of life can be directly traced back to hdathen times^when Thor was the beloved god of the island worshipers.

Northern mythology has a peculiar interest to those who find the study of old myths the most delightful and fascinating of pursuits. It excels in grandeur, sublimity, and power, but it does not equal the Grecian mythology in beauty, symmetry, or poetic suggestiveness. The Greek mythology reflects the repose and tranquility of the Greek mind. The Norse mythology reflects the wild, untamed energy and restlessness of the Norse nature. The impulse which made the Norsemen precipitate themselves in floods and tidal waves over many parts of Europe struck the ke^-note of their religious faith. Owing to the severe nature of the climate, the rugged wildness and grandeur of the scenery, they developed in strength and power rather than in grace and in proportion. The warlike propensity grew out of all comparison with other traits of character, and had a striking effect on the development of the national religion.

The element of wonder that abounds in these myths suggests the tremendous torrents and precipices, snow mountains and glaciers, with which the land abounds., and which infected the fancy of childlike, ignorant man like a fantastic nightmare. Some of them do singularly resemble sublime dreams, and I have been led to ask myself how the very first myths came into being ; if they did not spring from a kind of lethargy into which the mind was cast by contemplation of the wonders of nature, until from

INTRODUCTION— WHO WAS EDDA > II

these musings and communings grew those great fables that stalk along the Northern world like the shadow of the giant along the Brocken.

These myths, though of the deepest general interest, are of especial importance to every girl and boy with a drop of Teutonic blood in their veins. It was formerly thought that myths were but wicked and foolish stories about idols and false gods, not worthy of much attention ; or, if attended td at all, only to be condemned. This view of the heathen religion was encouraged by the early Christian priests, because they found the attachment of the people for the old faith strongly rooted, and hard to eradicate. They taught that some of the old gods were mere devils, while the attributes of others, especial favorites of the people, were transferred to Catholic saints. In this way most of the distinguishing traits of Thor, the beloved god of Norway and Iceland, were bestowed upon the great St. Olaf.

Though this treatment of the old faith may find some excuse in the necessities of a rude age, and the difficulty of grafting a new religion on the wild, fierce nature of the Northern people, it grew mainly out of ignorance and a want of respect for the religious nature of mankind ; and the spirit which gave it birth is fast vanishing before more humane and enlightened views. We now know that all religions have some precious gleams of truth, however mixed with error; that, even though low and gross in their forms of worship, there was always a yearning, a vague reaching of the soul after God, “ if, haply, it might find him.” We now perceive that these ancient faiths must be studied in a charitable frame of mind, to discover how the human spirit has groped its way along the darkness of the ages toward a better and purer religion.

Every Anglo-Saxon child should know something of the form and meaning of the Norse myths, which practically embody the religion of our ancestors. “The child is father to the man” has been beautifully said by a great poet. Acting on this hint, we go back to the early history of our race, and study its infancy, as far as it can be traced, with great profit and pleasure. Its first lispings, which have survived, about religion, and law, and government, and the mode of living together in communities, and securing order and justice, are of great importance. There we find the germs of our own institutions, manners, and customs, and can trace them to their source. Religious ideas are generally allowed to be the oldest, and are certainly the most important, that belong to an individual, or to a nation. Some notion of how the world was made, of who made it, and governs it, is found in nearly every tribe as soon as it has produced a language which will express ideas apart from things — the images and thoughts of the mind as well as the names of objects. And, as you will see, the early history of races is so blended with their religious ideas, that you must study the one in order to discern the outlines of the other.

I think these myths have been too much neglected by the young of English and German speaking peoples. They contain nearly all the poetry pro-

INTRODUCTION— WHO WAS EDDA? 1 3

duced by the race for many ages, and their grandeur and beauty as poems have never been denied. They have been neglected because they have not been presented to the -young in an easy and attractive form. Many of the ancient poems are obscure and hard to understand ; and a multitude of scholars through two or three centuries labored to throw light upon the shadowed parts. It would take too long to recount their names, or their unremitting toils in this pursuit. Suffice it to say, that within the past fifty years, a great flood of light has been thrown on the whole field of mythology, which enables us to read easily some of the riddles of this Northern faith, and for want of which learned men have gone widely astray by seeking to solve them in accordance with their own ingenious theories.

We shall see how these myths are connected with the Greek mythology, and, more remotely, with the Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Phoenician, and Hindu mythologies, that lie far back of the Greek, and are allied to it in the relation of maternal ancestors to children. The origin of the Norse faith is not easy to trace. It was undoubtedly brought from Asia by the emigrating tribes that finally peopled the north of Europe. But, scan it as closely as we may, we cannot discover that its gods are precisely the same as any pf the Eastern or old Greek divinities. The resemblances are striking, but the differences are equally striking. Tacitus, the Roman historian, who wrote a chronicle of the ancient Germans, thought he had discovered that their chief god was identical with the Roman Mercury and the Greek Hermes, simply because Odin or Woden was ruler over the dead, and Mercury, as the messenger of Zeus, was employed to conduct the dead to Hades. But the connection was more apparent than real, and we shall see that though the Northern gods are more or less remotely connected with the Eastern and Greek gods, by type or general resemblance, they are not identical.

I shall try to show you that although the Norsemen and the old Germans brought most of their gods with them from the ancient home in Asia, they probably borrowed some of them from the aboriginal peoples, who were subdued or driven farther to the North. Owing to the rigor of the climate, and the energy developed by hardship and privation, the Norseman became the best seaman and the boldest fighter of Europe. It is probable that in the course of centuries a great change took place in the Norseman’s character, and a corresponding change in the nature of his gods and his modes of worship. From a pastoral man, living by tillage and grazing, and the care of flocks and herds, he may gradually have been transformed into the bold viking and the tremendous fighter. But some traits of the original character were preserved. Life in the North was always more or less pastoral. In Iceland, in the most flourishing days of its independence, the great chiefs worked on their farms, and were also excellent seamen and redoubtable warriors. The national religion was gradually changed by the changes in national character ; but it retained enough of the original type to show its

INTRODUCTION — WHO WAS EDDA ? I 5

alliance with the great Eastern systems of mythology, and we can see how and why, in the course of ages, these great changes took place.

As the Norse religion has come down to us it seems in great part a creation of the Norse mind ; therefore, to comprehend it, we must know something of the ancient Norse man and woman, and of life in the far North as early as the ninth century of our era. For this reason I intend to give you a slight sketch of Northern history and manners and ideas, as manifested in Norway and Iceland at this period — just sufficient to show you what manner of men our old Norse ancestors were; how they lived at home, and struggled and fought abroad, in the belief that unflinching courage and endurance would give them admittance to Valhalla, the blest abode of Odin. This will form some groundwork for understanding how their gods came into being, or were modified, and why they took the form and meaning they finally assumed.

It seems a startling thing to say that God is made in the image of man, but a moment’s reflection will show you that each man’s idea of God must be in accordance with the development of his mind, and the growth of his spirit toward reverence and worship. The lowest savage worships his dead ancestors, or bows down to a stick or stone, because he can conceive of no higher or better divinity. Poor and low as his worship is, it is a recognition of something wiser and stronger than himself, and even though he regard his divinity as an evil demon to be appeased by prayers and offerings, it is the dim, pathetic beginning of religions faith. The idea of God, (in the absence of written revelation,) whether high or low, good or evil, must spring from the mind of man. Man is largely molded by the climate, the soil, air, water, winds, the sea, the shape and direction of mountain ranges, the animals, plants, the colors and forms, that surround him. Therefore, to know the man, we must know something of his country ; to know his gods, we must know him, and thus, in a strange, new way, we arrive at the old Norse doctrine that both gods and men were fashioned from matter. But these gods are only the effect of that effort of man’s mind, of which I spoke, to give shape to a power which, we feel, but never see, that is in all and over all.*

Myths should be studied by children, because, in part, they belong to the child-mind, and, however fantastic, they always embody a truth or fact of

* Whether man be capable of arriving at the knowledge of God, independently of divine revelation, is a question whose affirmative side is incapable of demonstration. As a matter of fact, the human race has never been without some knowledge of the true God. In the primitive ages this knowledge was clear, and comparatively definite. In the absence of written revelation, it was gradually corrupted and lost, and the nations sank into the depths of superstition and barbarism.

“ When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful ; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up,”' etc. Rom. i, 21, el seq. This is a terribly true description of human apostasy and deterioration, and wholly in harmony with what is known of the history of different peoples. — Ed.

INTRODUCTION — WHO WAS EDDA? 1 7

nature, which they cover, but do not quite conceal, by a poetical dress. Myths are in some sense such pictures as children make, before they begin to think, about persons whom they fancy are hidden behind mountains and rocks, in the sea and in clouds. But the thought comes later and fits itself to the picture, and thus the gods are clothed with attributes. Myths have an immense advantage over all purely fancy stories, because they are rooted in truth, and lead 6very-where to the study of nature and sympathy with all its forms.

Chapter II. The Ancient German

E will now take a peep at the oldest man of

V V our race that history describes. He is the ancient German, first cousin to the Scandinavian. At a time in the remote past, which it is now impossible for us to determine with accuracy, as it dates back to a period long previous to any written records which have been preserved to the world, we know that most of the families and tribes from which the modern European nations have sprung lived together with other allied families, like the Persians and the Hindus, somewhere in the wide regions of central or north-western Asia.

It would take too long to explain minutely how we know this, but, in general terms, I can say that we know it from the kinship or likeness which exists between all their languages, showing that the races and tribes who spoke the common tongue were closely allied — were relatives in degree nearer or more remote. This vast ancient family was called the Aryan family, and we have a specimen of the language spoken by a branch of that family, before its tribes were scattered over the face of the earth, in Sanskrit, the most ancient tongue of the Hindus.

The time when the great migration took place,

THE ANCIENT GERMAN.

and the Aryan tribes poured into Europe, is now forgotten, for it occurred long before history began to be written. But the old myths and fairy tales, and even the old nursery rhymes, have not been forgotten. These were dearer to the people, and clung more tenaciously to the memory, than the story of their wanderings and wars and the conquest and settlement of new lands. Some of these tales, which our Grandam Edda knew by heart, and many more, which furnished the foundation for what is called folk-lore, have survived, and out of them have been gleaned whole volumes of most delightful and instructive knowledge, which makes a dead and buried world rise before our eyes in fresh and living colors.

We now know that a popular story, dear to the hearts of the children, and which is repeated at the fireside by successive generations of mothers and grandmothers, is one of the things the least likely to be forgotten. Traces of many of the little stories which pleased us in our infancy, and are delighting the children of to-day, can be found in nearly every allied language belonging to the Aryan group. But what I wish to call your attention to is the fact that many of these tales have their roots far back in the old mythology, which dealt with gods and supernatural beings, and thus preserve for us some faint traces of the religion of our forefathers.

After the great migration, or successive waves of migration, had rolled over Europe out of Asia, and after centuries had passed away, great changes took place in the myths of the people and their ideas about the gods. If we could trace them accurately we should see that they exactly correspond to outward and inward changes in the life of the people. The Greeks borrowed some of their religious ideas from the Pelasgians, probably the ancient inhabitants of Greece. They also borrowed from the Phoenicians, Assyrians, and Egyptians. The beliefs of their fathers, brought in dim ages past from the old Aryan home, were transformed in a thousand ways. The German and Scandinavian tribes spread over the north of Europe, and, in the course of ages, equally great, though not similar, changes there took place. A new faith arose on the foundations of the old, and the ancient myths were wrought into new forms. But remnants of that primitive faith can, doubtless, by patient research, be traced among all related nations.

The Teutones, or Germans, to whom our Anglo- Saxon forefathers belonged, are closely allied to the Scandinavian races, and are members of the great Gothic family. Some of the gods of their worship ■we know to have been the same as the Scandinavian gods, although the facts for reconstructing the old German religion are few and scanty. Roman history and tradition, where we would naturally look for such knowledge, contain no accounts of the early Scandinavians older than the wars of the Cimbri.

Perhaps you already know that the Romans were the most powerful and highly-civilized nation on the earth at the time that some of the Northern tribes were naked savages, who painted their bodies

THE ANCIENT GERMAN.

when they went into battle, like North American Indians.

The Cimbri were the ancient inhabitants of Denmark, who, suddenly and without warning, invaded the Roman Empire in a vast savage horde, in the year of Rome 640, or hi B. C. They streamed down from their dark northern forests like locustswarms, and, uniting with a numerous savage tribe called the Teutones — the Germans — poured themselves suddenly upon Gaul and Italy, spreading dismay into minds that had never even heard of their existence. History has nothing to tell us of these mysterious Cimbri until nearly the whole nation took up its line -of march toward the South. It was the emigration of a people rather than the march of an army, for they traveled in wagons, with their wives and children and household goods and gear. We do not know what impulse drove them forth, but we can conjecture that they were poor and restless, hungry, perhaps, as savages often are, and incited by the hope of plunder and conquest. They were, doubtless, dazzled by stories of the riches and splendor of the Romans, which they flattered themselves would fall an easy prey to their rude attacks.

We do not even know whether these ancient inhabitants of Denmark were true Norsemen, but we may be tolerably certain that they belonged to the great Germanic family. More than three hundred thousand are said to have thrown themselves thus unprovoked upon the South. Twice they invaded Gaul, and the borders of Italy were imperiled, so that terror spread to the gates of mighty Rome.

For a time a portion of the invaders lingered on the banks of the Danube, and four Roman armies, which were successively destroyed, were sent against them. Their wild looks, gigantic stature, barbarous shouts, strange modes of warfare, and savage dress, struck dismay to the hearts of the veteran soldiers of old Rome, who had conquered in a hundred battles. The great city quaked with fear, for she seemed wholly at the mercy of these strange foes, who had emerged from the dreadful Northern woods, which the excited fancy of that age peopled with monsters and hobgoblins.

In a fortunate moment the great Marius, conqueror of Jugurtha, came home, and was appointed general-in-chief of the forces. He reorganized the army on a new and better plan, and applied himself to the study of the enemy’s tactics, and taught this new mode of warfare to his soldiers, trying to accustom his army to the sight of the savages until familiarity should breed contempt. At last, when his army was nerved for conquest, he drew on a great battle with the Teutones, and more than one hundred thousand of them are said to have perished. The Cimbri had separated themselves from their allies, and had halted on the banks of the Po. Marius came up with them, flushed with victory, and the Cimbri were exterminated. Their women sat on chariots and wagons around the battle-field, clothed in black, and bewailing the slain. Those of their husbands, sons, and brothers who had retreated from the fight they cut down and massacred with their own hands. Then these terrible women

THE ANCIENT GERMAN.

dashed out the brains of their children, and threw themselves under chariot-wheels, hung themselves from trees and wagon-poles, or put each other to death, that they might not fall alive into the hands of the victorious Romans. One hundred and twenty thousand are said to have perished that day.

A number of sacred women, priestesses or prophetesses, clad in long white linen garments, accompanied the Cimbri, in some sacred and mysterious character. We are told that this nation reverenced women. The wives and mothers had great authority with the people. In courage the women equaled, if they did not excel, the men.

This strange, pathetic story of the Cimbri — a whole nation misled by a false hope, and revealed to the Romans only to be destroyed — is the first glimpse we have of the Norsemen, if Norsemen they were. That they were Norsemen, or some nearly-related branch of the Teutonic family, seems pretty clear. Respect for woman was one of the distinguishing qualities of that great race, which historians observed first and dwelt upon longest, bringing it out in vivid colors. In the story of the Cimbri we first discover the two types of Northern women which re-appear in all the old Norse legends and sagas from the earliest days down to historical times. One is the Amazonian woman, the fighter and inspirer of courage, who slays her husband or brother if he does not come back victorious from the battle ; the other is the priestess, or seeress, who forecasts the future and is endowed with divine attributes. Sometimes the two types are blended in the same person, as in the case of Brynhild, who, as we shall see, united the warrior’s courage and strength with the supernatural gifts of a prophetess. It is difficult to recall these ferocious, gigantic, half-naked Cimbri, with their fierce women and broods of wild children, and see in them the beginnings of our own great race. But it is well ' to remember that we came remotely from just such savages, and that our propensities are only their natures tamed and civilized. The woods of northern Europe, as dense and tangled as the wildest American forest, were the cradle where the German and English nations were rocked, with a warrior woman sitting beside it, and singing prophetic songs of the past and the future.

Tacitus, the great Roman historian, who wrote in the first century of our era, has helped us to fill up and color the picture of our forefathers by his famous sketch of the manners and customs of the ancient Germans. In the time of Tacitus the Romans had already been at war with the Northern tribes more than two hundred years. No power had ever proved so formidable to Roman rule as German love of liberty. The struggle was yet to go on for centuries, until the Northern hordes, like successive waves of the sea, had blotted out the empire, to give the world new races of men and a new age. German vigor and the sturdy spirit of independence became the inheritors of Roman civilization and the spirit of law and order.