Chapter 12

Of this Hlêr I have nothing more to tell (see Suppl.), but his father Forniotr has left a notable trace of himself behind; he belongs even less than Oegir to the circle of Ases, being one of the older demonic giants, and proving that even these demigods or personified powers of nature must also have borne sway among the Teutonic races outside of Scandinavia. Forniotr is to be explained, not as for-niotr primus occupans, but rather as forn-iotr, the ancient Iotr (Rask, afhand. 1, 78), a particularly apt expression for those giants, and closely connected with iötunn itself, AS. eoton, as will be shown further on. Now in the AS. Liber medicinalis, from which Wanley, pp. 176-80 gives insufficient extracts, there is according to Lye's dictionary a plant of healing virtue spoken of (twice apparently, from the various spelling) by the name of Forneotes folme, Fornetes folme (i.e. Forneoti manus). As none of the ON. writings allude to this herb, its name must be a remnant of the Saxon people's own mythology. In OHG. the giant may have been called Firnëz, and the plant Firnëzes folma. We remember how, in Beow. 1662, Grendel has torn off the hand of a water-sprite, and presents it as tâcen of his victory, just as Tristan chops off the giant Urgan's hand, and takes it with him to certify the deed, 16055-65-85. The amputation of the huge giant-hand seems therefore part of an ancient myth, and to have been fitly retained in the name of a broad-leaved vegetable; there is also a plant called devil's-hand, and in more than one legend the Evil one leaves the print of his hand on rocks and walls.

If these last allusions have led us away from the beneficent deities rather to hurtful demons and malignant spirits, we have here an easy transit to the only god whom the teaching of the Edda represents as wicked and malevolent, though it still reckons him among the Ases.

Logi, as we have seen, was a second son of Forniotr, and the three brothers Hlêr, Logi, Kari on the whole seem to represent water, fire and air as elements. Now a striking narrative (Sn. 54. 60) places Logi by the side of Loki, a being from the giant province beside a kinsman and companion of the gods. This is no mere play upon the words, the two really signify the same thing from different points of view, Logi the natural force of fire, and Loki, with a shifting of the sound, a shifting of the senseÆ of the burly giant has been made a sly seducing villian. The two may be compared to the Prometheus and the Hephæstus (Vulcan) of the Greeksæ Okeanos was a friend and kinsman of the former. But the two get mixed up. In Loki, sâ er flestu ill ræðr (Sn. 46), who devises the most of ill, we see also the giant demon who, like Hephæstus sets the gods a-laughing; his limping reminds us of Hephæstus and the lame fire (N. Cap. 76), his chaining of Prometheus's, for Loki is put in chains like his son Fenrir. As Hephæstus forges the net for Ares and Aphrodite, Loki too prepares a net (Sn. 69), in which he is caught himself. Most salient of all is the analogy between Hephæstus being hurled down from Olympus by Zeus (Il. 1, 591-3) and the devil being cast out of heaven into hell by God (ch. XXXIII, Devil), though the Edda neither relates such a fall of Loki, nor sets him forth as a cunning smith and master of dwarfs, probably the stories of Loki and Logi were much fuller once. Loki's former fellowship with Oðinn is clearly seen, both from Sæm. 61b, and from the juxtaposition of three creative deities on their travels, Oðinn, Hœnir, Loðr, Sæm. 3ª, instead of which we have also Oðinn, Hœnir, Loki, Sæm. 180, or in a different order Oðinn, Loki, Hœnir, Sn. 80. 135 (conf. supra, p. 162). This trilogy I do not venture to identify with that of Hlêr, Logi, Kari above, strikingly as Oðinn corresponds to the ij anemoio; and though from the creating Oðinn proceed breath and spirit (önd), as from Loðr (blaze, glow) come blood and colour (lâ ok litr), the connexion of Hœnir, who imparts sense (ôð), with water is not so clear: this Hœnir is one of the most unmanageable phenomena of the Norse mythology, and with us in Germany he has vanished without leaving a trace. But the fire-god too, who according to that gradation of sounds ought either to be in Goth. Laúha and OHG. Loho, or in Goth. Luka and OHG. Locho, seems with the loss of his name to have come up again purely in the character of the later devil. He lasted longer in Scandinavia, and myths everywhere show how nearly Loki the âs approaches Logi the giant. Thorlacius (spec. 7, 43) has proved that in the phrase 'Loki fer yfir akra' (passes over the fields), and in the Danish 'Locke dricker vand' (drinks water), fire and the burning sun are meant, just as we say the sun is drawing water, when he shines through in bright streaks between two clouds. Loka daun (Lokii odor) is Icelandic for the ignis fatuus exhaling brimstone (ibid. 44); Lokabrenna (Lokii incendium) for Sirius; Loka spœnir are chips for firing. In the north of Jutland, a weed very noxious to cattle (polytrichum comm.) is called Lokkena havre, and there is a proverb 'Nu saaer Lokken sin havre,' now Locke sows his oats, i.e., the devil his tares; the Danish lexicon translates Lokeshavre avena fatua, others make it the rhinanthus crista galli. When the fire crackles, they say 'Lokje smacks his children,' Faye p. 6. Molbech's Dial. lex. p. 330 says, the Jutland phrase 'Lokke saaer havre idag (to-day),' or what is equivalent 'Lokke driver idag med sine geder (drives out his goats),' is spoken of vapours that hang about the ground in the heat of the sun. When birds drop their feathers in moulting time, people say that 'gaae i Lokkis arri (pass under L.'s harrow?)'; 'at höre paa Lockens eventyr (adventures)' means to listen to lies or idle tales (P. Syv's gamle danske ordsprog 2, 72), According to Sjöborg's Nomenklatur, there is in Vestergötland a giant's grave named Lokehall. All of them conceptions well deserving notice, which linger to this day among the common people, and in which Loki is by turns taken for a beneficent and for a hurtful being, for sun, fire, giant or devil. Exactly the same sort of harm is in Germany ascribed to the devil, and the kindly god of light is thought of as a devastating flame (see Suppl.).

On this identity between Logi and Loki rests another vestige of the Norse dæmon, which is found among the other Teutonic races. If Logi comes from liuhan (lucere), Loki will apparently fall to the root lukan (claudere, conf. claudus lame); the ON. lok [[lock; cover; conclusion]] means finis, consummatio, and loka repagulum, because a bolt or bar closes. In Beowulf we come upon an odious devilish spirit, a thyrs (Beow. 846) named Grendel, and his mother, Grendeles môdor (4232-74), a veritable devil's mother and giant's mother. An AS document of 931 in Kemble 2, 172 mentions a place called Grendles mêre (Grendeli palus). Now the AS. grindel, OHG. krintil, MHG. grintel is precisely repagulum, pessulus; so the name Grendel seems related to grindel (obex) in the same way as Loki to loka; the ON. grind [[a barred gate]] is a grating, which shuts one in like bolt and bar. Gervase of Tilbury (in Leibn. 1, 980) tells of an English fire-demon named Grant. It is very remarkable, that we Germans have still in use a third synonymous expression with 'hell'; höllriegel vectis infernalis, hell-bar, a hell-brand, devil or the devil's own; a shrewish old hag is styled höllriegel or the devil's grandmother; and Hugo von Langenstein (Martina 4b) already used this hellerigel as a term of abuse. Now hell was imagined as being tightly bolted and barred; when Christ, says Fundgr. 1, 178, went down to Hades in the strength of a lion, he made 'die grintel brechen'. Lastly, we may even connect the OHG. dremil (pessulus, Graff 5, 531) with the ON. trami or tremill [[fiends, demons]], which mean both cacodaemon and also, it seems, clathri, cancelli: 'tramar gneypa þrami, with which our dremil would more exactly accord. Thus from several sides we see the mythical notions that prevailed on this subject joining hands, and the merging of Logi into Loki must be of high antiquity. Foersom (on Jutl. superstit. p. 32) alleges, that the devil is conceived of in the form of a lässeträ, i.e., the pole with which a load is tied down.

Beside Loki the âs, Snorri sets another before us in the Edda, Utgarðaloki, as a king whose arts and power deceive even godlike Thôrr; it was one of his household that outdid the other Loki himself, Sn. 54 seq. (13) Saxo, who in the whole of his work never once names the Eddic Loki, tells wonderful things of this 'Ugarthilocus,' pp. 163-6: he paints him as a gigantic semi-divine monster, who dwells in a distant land, is invoked in a storm like other gods, and grants his aid. A valiant hero, named Thorkill, brooks the adventurous journey to Ugarthilocus: all this is but legendary variation of the visit which, in Snorri, Thôrr pays to Utgarðaloki. Still it is worth noticing, that Thorkill plucks out one of Ugarthilocus's huge spear-like hairs, and takes it home with him (Saxo 165-6). The utgarðar were the uttermost borders of the habitable world, where antiquity fixed the abode of giants and monsters, i.e., hell; and here also may have been present that notion of the bar, closing up as it were the entrance to that inaccessible region of ghosts and demons.  
 



ENDNOTES:

13. 'Thorlacius's theory, of an older nature-worship supplanted by the Ases, rest mainly on the antithesis of an Ökuþôrr to Asaþôrr of Logi to Loki, and probably of Hlêr to Oegir, each pair respectively standing for thunder, fire, water. To the elder series must be added Sif = earth, and the miðgarðsormr (world-snake). But what nature-god can Oðinn have taken the place of ? None? And was his being not one of the primeval ones?' &c. [Quoted from Suppl., vol. iii] Back