Myths of the Norsemen - H. A. Guerber (e reader TXT) 📗
- Author: H. A. Guerber
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Further horrors, however, awaited those whose lives had been criminal or impure, these spirits being banished to Nastrond, the strand of corpses, where they waded in ice-cold streams of venom, through a cave made of wattled serpents, whose poisonous fangs were turned towards them. After suffering untold agonies there, they were washed down into the cauldron Hvergelmir, where the serpent Nidhug ceased for a moment gnawing the root of the tree Yggdrasil to feed upon their bones.
“A hall standing
Far from the sun
In Nâströnd;
Its doors are northward turned,
Venom-drops fall
In through its apertures;
Entwined is that hall
With serpents’ backs.
She there saw wading
The sluggish streams
Bloodthirsty men
And perjurers,
And him who the ear beguiles
Of another’s wife.
There Nidhog sucks
The corpses of the dead.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
Hel herself was supposed occasionally to leave her dismal abode to range the earth upon her three-legged white horse, and in times of pestilence or famine, if a part of the inhabitants of a district escaped, she was said to use a rake, and when whole villages and provinces were depopulated, as in the case of the historical epidemic of the Black Death, it was said that she had ridden with a broom.
The Northern races further fancied that the spirits of the dead were sometimes allowed to revisit the earth and appear to their relatives, whose sorrow or joy affected them even after death, as is related in the Danish ballad of Aager and Else, where a dead lover bids his sweetheart smile, so that his coffin may be filled with roses instead of the clotted blood drops produced by her tears.
“‘Listen now, my good Sir Aager!
Dearest bridegroom, all I crave
Is to know how it goes with thee
In that lonely place, the grave.’
“‘Every time that thou rejoicest,
And art happy in thy mind,
Are my lonely grave’s recesses
All with leaves of roses lined.’
“‘Every time that, love, thou grievest,
And dost shed the briny flood,
Are my lonely grave’s recesses
Filled with black and loathsome blood.’”
Ballad of Aager and Else (Longfellow’s tr.).
Besides Niörd and Mimir, who were both ocean divinities, the one representing the sea near the coast and the other the primæval ocean whence all things were supposed to have sprung, the Northern races recognised another sea-ruler, called Ægir or Hler, who dwelt either in the cool depths of his liquid realm or had his abode on the Island of Lessoe, in the Cattegat, or Hlesey.
“Beneath the watery dome,
With crystalline splendour,
In radiant grandeur,
Upreared the sea-god’s home.
More dazzling than foam of the waves
E’er glimmered and gleamed thro’ deep caves
The glistening sands of its floor,
Like some placid lake rippled o’er.”
Valhalla (J. C. Jones).
Ægir (the sea), like his brothers Kari (the air) and Loki (fire), is supposed to have belonged to an older dynasty of the gods, for he ranked neither with the Æsir, the Vanas, the giants, dwarfs, or elves, but was considered omnipotent within his realm.
He was supposed to occasion and quiet the great tempests which swept over the deep, and was generally represented as a gaunt old man, with long white beard and hair, and clawlike fingers ever clutching convulsively, as though he longed to have all things within his grasp. Whenever he appeared above the waves, it was only to pursue and overturn vessels, and to greedily drag them to the bottom of the sea, a vocation in which he was thought to take fiendish delight.
Ægir was mated with his sister, the goddess Ran, whose name means “robber,” and who was as cruel, greedy, and insatiable as her husband. Her favourite pastime was to lurk near dangerous rocks, whither she enticed mariners, and there spread her net, her most prized possession, when, having entangled the men in its meshes and broken their vessels on the jagged cliffs, she would calmly draw them down into her cheerless realm.
“In the deep sea caves
By the sounding shore,
In the dashing waves
When the wild storms roar,
In her cold green bowers
In the Northern fiords,
She lurks and she glowers,
She grasps and she hoards,
And she spreads her strong net for her prey.”
Story of Siegfried (Baldwin).
Ægir
J. P. Molin
Ran was considered the goddess of death for all who perished at sea, and the Northern nations fancied that she entertained the drowned in her coral caves, where her couches were spread to receive them, and where the mead flowed freely as in Valhalla. The goddess was further supposed to have a great affection for gold, which was called the “flame of the sea,” and was used to illuminate her halls. This belief originated with the sailors, and sprang from the striking phosphorescent gleam of the waves. To win Ran’s good graces, the Northmen were careful to hide some gold about them whenever any special danger threatened them on the sea.
“Gold, on sweetheart ramblings,
Pow’rful is and pleasant;
Who goes empty-handed
Down to sea-blue Ran,
Cold her kisses strike, and
Fleeting her embrace is—
But we ocean’s bride be-
Troth with purest gold.”
Viking Tales of the North (R. B. Anderson).
Ægir and Ran had nine beautiful daughters, the Waves, or billow-maidens, whose snowy arms and bosoms, long golden hair, deep-blue eyes, and willowy, sensuous forms were fascinating in the extreme. These maidens delighted in sporting over the surface of their father’s vast domain, clad lightly in transparent blue, white, or green veils. They were very moody and capricious, however, varying from playful to sullen and apathetic moods, and at times exciting one another almost to madness, tearing their hair and veils, flinging themselves recklessly upon their hard beds, the rocks, chasing one another with frantic haste, and shrieking aloud with joy or despair. But they seldom came out to play unless their brother, the Wind, were abroad, and according to his mood they were gentle and playful, or rough and boisterous.
The Waves were generally supposed to go about in triplets, and were often said to play around the ships of vikings whom they favoured, smoothing away every obstacle from their course, and helping them to reach speedily their goals.
“And Æger’s daughters, in blue veils dight,
The helm leap round, and urge it on its flight.”
Viking Tales of the North (R. B. Anderson).
To the Anglo-Saxons the sea-god Ægir was known by the name of Eagor, and whenever an unusually large wave came thundering towards the shore, the sailors were wont to cry, as the Trent boatmen still do, “Look out, Eagor is coming!” He was also known by the name of Hler (the shelterer) among the Northern nations, and of Gymir (the concealer), because he was always ready to hide things in the depths of his realm, and could be depended upon not to reveal the secrets entrusted to his care. And, because the waters of the sea were frequently said to seethe and hiss, the ocean was often called Ægir’s brewing kettle or vat.
The god’s two principal servants were Elde and Funfeng, emblems of the phosphorescence of the sea; they were noted for their quickness and they invariably waited upon the guests whom he invited to his banquets in the depths of the sea. Ægir sometimes left his realm to visit the Æsir in Asgard, where he was always royally entertained, and he delighted in Bragi’s many tales of the adventures and achievements of the gods. Excited by these narratives, as also by the sparkling mead which accompanied them, the god on one occasion ventured to invite the Æsir to celebrate the harvest feast with him in Hlesey, where he promised to entertain them in his turn.
Surprised at this invitation, one of the gods ventured to remind Ægir that they were accustomed to dainty fare; whereupon the god of the sea declared that as far as eating was concerned they need be in no anxiety, as he was sure that he could cater for the most fastidious appetites; but he confessed that he was not so confident about drink, as his brewing kettle was rather small. Hearing this, Thor immediately volunteered to procure a suitable kettle, and set out with Tyr to obtain it. The two gods journeyed east of the Elivagar in Thor’s goat chariot, and leaving this at the house of the peasant Egil, Thialfi’s father, they wended their way on foot to the dwelling of the giant Hymir, who was known to own a kettle one mile deep and proportionately wide.
“There dwells eastward
Of Elivagar
The all-wise Hymir,
At heaven’s end.
My sire, fierce of mood,
A kettle owns,
A capacious cauldron,
A rast in depth.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
Only the women were at home, however, and Tyr recognised in the elder—an ugly old hag with nine hundred heads—his own grandmother; while the younger, a beautiful young giantess, was, it appeared, his mother, and she received her son and his companion hospitably, and gave them to drink.
After learning their errand, Tyr’s mother bade the visitors hide under some huge kettles, which rested upon a beam at the end of the hall, for her husband Hymir was very hasty and often slew his would-be guests with a single baleful glance. The gods quickly followed her advice, and no sooner were they concealed than the old giant Hymir came in. When his wife told him that visitors had come, he frowned so portentously, and flashed such a wrathful look towards their hiding-place, that the rafter split and the kettles fell with a crash, and, except the largest, were all dashed to pieces.
“In shivers flew the pillar
At the Jötun’s glance;
The beam was first
Broken in two.
Eight kettles fell,
But only one of them,
A hard-hammered cauldron,
Whole from the column.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
Ran
M. E. Winge
The giant’s wife, however, prevailed upon her husband to welcome Tyr and Thor, and he slew three oxen for their refection; but great was his dismay to see the thunder-god eat two of these for his supper. Muttering that he would have to go fishing early the next morning to secure a breakfast for so voracious a guest, the giant retired to rest, and when at dawn the next day he went down to the shore, he was joined by Thor, who said that he had come to help him. The giant bade him secure his own bait, whereupon Thor coolly slew his host’s largest ox, Himinbrioter (heaven-breaker), and cutting off its head, he embarked with it and proceeded to row far out to sea. In vain Hymir protested that his usual fishing-ground had been reached, and that they might encounter the terrible Midgard snake were they to venture any farther; Thor persistently rowed on, until he fancied they were directly above this monster.
“On the dark bottom of the great salt lake,
Imprisoned lay
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