Part 5

Groa's son Svipdag is mentioned by this name in two Old Norse songs, Gróugaldur and Fjölsvinnsmál, which, as Bugge has shown, are mutually connected, and describe episodes from the same chain of events.

The contents of Gróugaldur are as follows:

Groa is dead when the event described in the song takes place. Svipdag is still quite young. Before her death she has told him that he is to go to her grave and call her if he needs her help. The grave is a grave-chamber made of large flat stones raised over a stone floor, and forming when seen from the outside a mound which is furnished with a door (1, 15).

Svipdag's father has married a second time. The stepmother commands her stepson to go abroad and find Menglöðum, "those fond of ornaments". From Fjölsvinnsmál we learn that one of those called by this name is a young maid who becomes Svipdag's wife. Her real name is not given: she is continually designated as Menglöð, Menglad, one of "those fond of ornaments," whom Svipdag has been commanded to find.

This task seems to Svipdag to exceed his powers. It must have been one of great adventures and great dangers, for he now considers it the proper time to ask his deceased mother for help. He has become suspicious of his stepmother's intentions; he considers her lævís (cunning), and her proposition is "a cruel play which she has put before him" (3).

He goes to Groa's grave-chamber, probably in the night (verða öflgari allir á nóttum dauðir - Helg. Hund. II. 51), bids her wake, and reminds her of her promise. That of Groa which had become dust (er til moldar er komin), and that of her which had left this world of man and gone to the lower world (úr ljóðheimum liðin), become again united under the influence of maternal love and of the son's prayer, and Svipdag hears out of the grave-chamber his mother's voice asking him why he has come. He speaks of the errand on which he has been sent by his stepmother (3, 4).

The voice from the grave declares that long journeys lie before Svipdag if he is to reach the goal indicated. It does not, however, advise him to disobey the comnnand of his stepmother, but assures him that if he will but patiently look for a good outcome of the matter, then the norn will guide the events into their right course (4).

The son then requests his mother to sing protecting incantations over him. She is celebrated in mythology as one mighty in incantations of the good kind. It was Groa that sang healing incantations over Thor when with a wounded forehead he returned from the conflict with the giant Hrungnir (Skáldskaparmál 25).

Groa hears his prayer, and sings from the grave an incantation of protection against the dangers which her prophetic vision has discovered on those journeys that now lie before Svipdag: first, the incantation that can inspire the despondent youth who lacks confidence in himself with courage and reliance in his own powers. It is, Groa says, the same incantation as another mother before her sang over a son whose strength had not yet been developed, and who had a similar perilous task to perform. It is an incantation, says Groa, which Rind, Vali's mother, sang over Ránr. This synonym of Vali is of saga-historical interest. Saxo calls Vali Bous, the Latinised form for Beowulf, and Beowulf's grave-mound, according to the Old English poem which bears his name, is situated on Hrones næss, Ránr's ness. Here too a connection between Vali and the name Ránr is indicated.

Groa's second incantation contains a prayer that when her son, joyless, travels his paths and sees scorn and evil before his eyes, he may always be protected by Urd's lokur (an ambiguous expression, which may on the one hand refer to the bonds and locks of the goddess of fate, on the other hand to Groa's own prophetic magic song: lokur means both songs of a certain kind and locks and prisons).

On his journey Svipdag is to cross rivers, which with swelling floods threaten his life; but Groa's third incanntation commands these rivers to flow down to Hel and to fall for her son. The rivers which have their course to Hel (falla til Heljar héðan - Grímnismál 28) are subterranean rivers rising on the Hvergelmir mountain (Nos. 59, 93).

Groa's fourth and fifth incantations indicate that Svipdag is to encounter enemies and be put in chains. Her songs are then to operate in such a manner that the hearts of the foes are softened into reconciliation, and that the chains fall from the limbs of her son. For this purpose she gives him that power which is called "Leifnir's fires" (see No. 38), which loosens fetters from enchanted limbs (9, 10).

Groa's sixth incantation is to save Svipdag from perishing in a gale on the sea. In the great world-mill (lúður) which produces the maelstrom, ocean currents, ebb and flood tide (see Nos. 79-82), calm and war are to "gang thegither" in harmony, be at Svipdag's service and prepare him a safe voyage.

The seventh incantation that comes from the grave-chamber speaks of a journey which Svipdag is to make over a mountain where terrible cold reigns. The song is to save him from becoming a victim of the frost there.

The last two incantations, the eighth and the ninth, show what was already suggested by the third, namely, that Svipdag's adventurous journeys are to be crowned with a visit in the lower world. He is to meet Nott á Niflvegi, "on the Nifl-way," "in Nifl-land". The word nifl does not occur in the Old Norse literature except in reference to the northern part of the Teutonic Hades, the forecourt to the worlds of torture there. Niflhel and Niflheim are, as we know, the names of that forecourt. Niflfarinn is the designation, as heretofore mentioned, of a deceased whose soul has descended to Niflhel; Niflgóðr is a nithing, one deserving to be damned to the tortures of the lower world. Groa's eighth incantation is to protect her son against the perilous consequences of encountering a "dead woman" (dauð kona) on his journey through Niflhel. The ninth incantation shows that Svipdag, on having traversed the way to the northern part of the lower world, crosses the Hvergelmir mountain and comes to the realm of Mimir; for he is to meet and talk with "the weapon-honoured giant," Mimir himself, under circumstances which demand "tongue and brains" on the part of Groa's son:

ef þú við inn naddgöfga
orðum skiptir jötun:
máls ok mannvits
sé þér á Mímis hjarta
gnóga of getið.

In the poem Fjölsvinnsmál, which I am now to discuss, we read with regard to Svipdag's adventures in the lower world that on his journey in Mimir's domain he had occasion to see the ásmegir's citadel and the splendid things within its walls (33; cp. No. 53).