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MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.

BOOK II.


self, and also the race of the gods or Æsir, the self-existent beings,[1] who dwell in Asgard or Aither, while the middle air, between the upper and under worlds, the ἀὴρ of the Greeks on which Zeus looks down, is Vanaheim, the home of the Vanir, or spirits of the breathing wind.[2] To this race belong Fre}T and Freya, the deities of beauty and love, "the children of Mordur, the sea-god who dwells in the sea-city (Noatun), and whose spouse, Skadi (Elster ?) is the daughter of the giant Thiassi, for he is indeed himself the shore."[3]

Odin as the Creator of Man. The idea of the composite nature of man must have preceded the rise of the myth which assigns the creation of the soul to Odin, of the mind to Hahnir, of the blood and outward complexion to Lodur. This Hahnir is probably the same word as hahn, the cock, "in its wider import the bird, the animal belonging to the air;"[4] and thus possibly the framers of this theogony may have intended to set forth their belief that a Trinity, consisting of Ether, Air, and Fire, was concerned in the creation of man, Lodur being certainly fire, and in fact only another form of Loki, the shining god. But we approach the regions of pure mythology when we read that when Odur sets forth on his wanderings, his bride, the beautiful Freya,[5] sheds gold-gleaming tears—"an image of the bright gleams shooting across the rugged morning sky"[6] From these parents springs Hnossa, the jewel, the world under the aspect of beauty, while Frigga, as the wife of Odin, doubtless only another form of Odur, is the mother of Jord, the earth, in the character of the nourishing Dêmêtêr.

The end of the Æsir. But all this visible Kosmos is doomed to undergo a catastrophe, the results of which will be not its destruction but its renovation. The whole world will be consumed by fire, kindled by Lodur (der Lodernde, the glowing god), the Loki who brought about the death

    place the four dwarfs—Nordri, Sudri, Austri, Vestri. These are probably the growth of an artificial system like Svartalfaheim, that which assigned twelve labours to Heraklês. For an excellent summary of Norse mythology see Brown, Religion and Mythology of the Aryans of Northern Europe., § 11.

  1. ↑ From the root as, to be; the word is thus simply another form of Wesen.
  2. ↑ The original form of the word Æsir connects it immediately with Atman as a name of Brahman, and the Latin animus, &c.—Bunsen, God in History, ii. 4S6. Besides Asgard and Vanaheim, we have Ljosalfaheim, the world of the light elves; Mannaheim, a name for Midgard, the world of man; and below the earth plain, the land of the dark elves, and Helheim, the abode of Hel. Below all lies Niflheim, the dwelling of the serpent Nidhogr, who gnaws the world-tree Yggdrasil, Jötunhcim lying beyond the ocean-stream which surrounds Midgard.
  3. ↑ Bunsen, God in History, ii. 487.
  4. ↑ Ibid.
  5. ↑ For the several changes through which the names Freyr and Freya have passed, see Grimm, D. M. 276, &c.
  6. ↑ Bunsen, God in History, ii. 491.
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