Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/228
from the fragmentary remains of ancient Scandinavian songs, first collected in Iceland in the 11th century, and embodied in the 13th century with numerous other prose and poetic myths in a compilation now known to us as the Eddas. From these highly interesting but frequently obscure sources we are able to reproduce to a certain extent the image and conception of each of the Æsir, as they presented themselves to the imagination of their early northern worshippers.
In Thor, who seems to have been a god of that earlier Phœnician form of nature-worship which was superseded in Scandinavia and Northern Germany by the faith of Odin, we have the impersonation of the disturbing and destructive agencies in the universe. He is the son of heaven and earth—of Odin, the All-father, and of Frigg or Fiörgvin, the vivifying—and is the strongest of the Æsir. From his hammer flashed the lightning, and his chariot wheels sent thunder rolling through the clouds as he went on his way, cleaving mountains, loosening the pent-up streams and fires, and slaying all giants and misshapen monsters. Every busily engaged in these labours, he seldom tarried in Asgard with the other Æsir, but dwelt in his mansion, Bilskirnir, in the densest gloom of the clouds. With his mallet he consecrated the newly-wedded, and hence the sign of the mallet or hammer was made by the Northmen when they took an oath and bound themselves by vows, whether of marriage or any other obligation. The early Christian missionaries of Norway, finding the faith in Thor too strong to be suddenly uprooted, tried to transfer many of his characteristics to their zealous royal convert, St Olaf, who was said to have resembled the old northern god in his comeliness of person, his bright red beard, hot, angry temper, and personal strength; while some of the monks of a later period endeavoured to persuade the Northmen that in Thor their forefathers had worshipped the Christ, the strong and mighty Saviour of the oppressed, and that his mallet was the rude image of the cross. Slaves and all thralls killed in battle were believed to be under the protection of Thor, who, as god of the Finns before the spread of the As religion, was honoured as their special guardian against the tyranny of their new masters.
In Baldur the Northmen honoured all that was beautiful, eloquent, wise, and good, and he was the spirit of activity, joy, and light; but his name signifies the strong in mind, and the earliest conception of Baldur is that of mental rather than physical or material perfection. His wife, Nanna, reflected these attributes in a less degree. On his life depended the activity and happiness of all the Æsir, excepting only Loki, the earthly fire or incarnation of evil, and hence this As, from envy of the beauty and innocence of Baldur, brought about his death, and hindered his release from the power of Hel, the goddess of death.
According to the myth, the Æsir, distressed at Baldur's presentiment of his own approaching end, joined his mother, Frigg, in exacting an oath from animals, plants, and minerals, not to injure him. The mistletoe alone among plants had been forgotten, and when this was discovered by Loki he pulled a wand of it, and hastening to the assembly of the Æsir, where all were engaged in the sport of shooting at Baldur, as he was supposed to be invulerable, he gave it to Höd, the blind god of brute strength, and directed him how to aim it. The mistletoe pierced Baldur through, and he fell dead to the ground in the presence of the Æsir, who, foreseeing the evil that would befall them, since light and purity had been taken from them, gave way to sorrow and fear. When all their efforts to release Baldur from Hel had been thwarted by the machinations of Loki, they resolved to avenge themselves. Having captured their foe, they confined him within a mountain-cave, and hung above his head a venomous snake, to drop its poison on his face; but his wife, Sigyn, stood by him, and caught the drops in a cup, and it was only while she emptied the goblet that the venom touched him, when he shrank aside, and caused the earth to be shaken as with an earthquake. There Loki will remain till Ragnaröck, the twilight of the world, when the Æsir, the earth, and all dwellers therein, will be destroyed by the powers of evil, the rescuers and companions of Loki. Only Odin, the All-father, will survive, and gather around him on Ida's plain, where Asgard had once stood, the Æsir, regenerate and purified by Surt's black fire, and then a new and better world will arise, in which Baldur will again com ewith his unconscious slayer, Höd, and all evil will cease, and light and darkness will dwell together in unity.
Under one form of the myth of Baldur's death he is the bright god of day or summer, and Höd, the blind and the strong, is dark night or fiercly-raging winter, his preordained foe and destroyer. After that final purification by suffering or fire, and the regeneration to which the Northmen looked as the means of the ultimate adjustment of the disturbed balance between evil and good, and from which they did not exempt their gods, the influence of good was to prevail. Baldur would reappear, and Loki, the consuming power of evil, be no more heard of.
Loki, in the beginning of time, under the name of Lodthur, flame, and as the foster-brother of the All-father, had united with him in imparting blessings to the universe, and had given blood and a fair colour to Ask and Embla, from which the first men were created. Afterwards he left the council of the Æsir, and like a fallen angel wandered away into regions of space, desolating and consuming all things that came in contact with his fierce flame. Descending into the bowels of the earth, where his presence is made manifest by volcanic fires, he consorted with evil giantesses, by whom he became the father of Hel, pallid death; of Augurboda, the announcer of sorrow; and of the wolf Fenrir, and the serpent of Midgard, which are ever threatening the destruction of the world and the peace of the Æsir.
Loki can assume all forms. As sensuality he courses through the veins of men, and as heat and fire he pervades nature, causing death and destruction. After the introduction of Christianity, the attributes and mystic deeds of Loki were transferred to Satan by the people of Scandinavia, amongst whose descendants his name still retains its evil reputation. In Iceland an ignis fatuus is known as Loki's burning; and in Jutland, when there is a dazzling light or a waving motion in the air which impedes the sight of distant objects, the peasants say, "Loki is sowing his oats."
Niörd, supposed to be the Nerthus known to the Romans, and his children Frey or Fricco and Freyia, appear to have been honoured in the north before the time of Odin, and to have been worshipped by peoples powerful enough to have been admitted into friendly alliance with his followers. Niörd is said to have lived in Vanaheim, and to have ruled over the Vanir, or light elves, long before he became one of the Æsir. He is god of the ocean, the ruler of winds and stiller of waves, and to him the seafarer and fisherman raise altars and make prayers. His attributes and powers seem to point to the existence of a superior knowledge of navigation among those ancient races of Scandinavia who have been idealised in the imagination of the Northmen as good, bright, and agile elves and water-sprites—the Liós Alfar—or Vanir of their mythology. Niörd's son Frey is the god of rain, plenty, and fruitfulness; and his worship, according to the early northern chronicler, Adam of Bremen, was accompanied with phallic rites. His sister and wife, Freyia, who holds a high place among the Æsir, is the goddess of love; but her influence, unlike her husband's, is not always beneficient, and varies with the form which she assumes in operating on the minds of men. Her chariot is drawn by cats, as emblematic of fondness and passion, and a hog attends upon her and upon Frey, whose name, like her own, implies fructification or enjoyment.