Chapter 13

We cannot but feel it significant, that where the gospel simply speaks of to agion sacrum (Matt. 7, 6), the OS. poet makes it a hêlag halsmeni (holy necklace), Hel. 52, 7; an old heathen reminiscence came over him, as once before about doves perching on shoulders (p. 148). At the same time, as he names only the swine, not the dogs, it is possible that he meant halsmeni to be a mere amplification of 'merigrioton,' pearls.

But this legend of the goddess's necklace gains yet more in importance, when we place it by the side of Greek myths. Brîsînga men is no other than Aphrodite's ormoj (Hymn to Venus 88), and the chain is her girdle, the kestoj imaj poikiloj which she wears on her bosom, and whose witchery subdues all gods and mortals. How she loosens it off her neck (apo sthqesfin) and lends it to Here to charm her Zeus with, is told in a lay that teams with world-old myths, Il. 14, 214-8. As the imaj is worn in turn by Here and by Aphrodite, the Norse fable gives the jewel now to Frigg and now to Freyja, for that 'gold of Frigg' in Saxo is the same as Brîsînga men. Then there is another similarity: the same narrative makes Freyja possess a beautiful chamber, so strong that, when the door is locked, no one can enter against her will: 'hun âtti ser eina skemmu, er var bæði fögr ok sterk, avâ at þat segja menn, ef hurðin var læst, at eingi mâtti komast î skemmuna ân (without) vilja Freyju,' Sn. 354. We are told the trick by which Loki after all got in, and robbed her of the necklace; (117) Homer says nothing about that, but (Il. 14, 165-8) he knows of Here's qalamoj, ton oi filoj uioj eteuxen Hfaistoj, pukinaj de quraj staqmoisin ephrse klhidi krupth, thn d ou qeoj alloj anwgen. What can be more exactly in accordance with that inaccessible apartment of Freyja, especially as the imaj is spoken of directly after? Hephaistos (Vulcan), who built his mother the curiously contrived bedchamber, answers to the dwarfs who forged the necklace for Freyja. The identity of Frigg and Freyja with Here and Aphrodite must after this mythus be as plain as day.

Another thing that betrays the confusion of Frigg with Freyja is, that the goddess Follâ, now proved by the Merseburg poem to belong to our German mythology, is according to it a sister of Frûâ, while the ON. Fulla again is handmaid to Frigg, though she takes rank and order among the Asynjor themselves (Sn. 36-7)(118). Her office and duties are sufficiently expressed in her name; she justifies our reception of the above-mentioned Abundia or dame Habonde into German mythology, and corresponds to the masculine god of plenty Plinitis, Pilnitus, whom the Lettons and Prussians adored. Like dame Herke on p. 253, she bestowed prosperity and abundance on mortals, to her keeping was intrusted the divine mother's chest (eski), out of which gifts were showered upon them.

It may be, that Fullâ or Follâ was at the same time thought of as the full-moon (Goth. Fulliþs, Lith. Pilnatis, masc.), as another heavenly body, Orion, was referred to Frigg or Freyja: in the Merseburg MS. she is immediately followed by Sunnâ with a sister Sindgund, whose name again suggests the path of a constellation. The Eddic Sôl ranks with the Asynjor, but Sindgund (ON. Sinngunnr?) is unknown to the Edda. In ch. XXII, on the constellations I shall come back to these divinities (see Suppl.).

From surviving proper names or even impersonal terms, more rarely from extant myths, we may gather that several more goddesses of the North were in earlier times common to the rest of Teutondom.

Frey's beloved, afterwards his wife, was named Gerðr, she came of the giant breed, yet in Sn. 79 she is reckoned among the Asynjor. The Edda paints her beauty by a charming trait: when Freyr looked from heaven, he saw her go into a house and close the door, and then air and water shone with the brightness of her arms (Sæm. 81. Sn. 39). His wooing was much thwarted, and was only brought to a happy issue by the dexterity of his faithful servant Skîrnir. The form of her name Gerðr, gen. Gerðar, acc. Gerði (Sæm. 117b), points to a Goth. Gardi or Gardja, gen. Gardijôs, acc. Gardja, and an OHG. Gart or Garta, which often occurs in the compounds Hildigart, Irmingart, Liutkart, &c., but no longer alone. The Latin forms Hildegardis, Liudgardis have better preserved the terminal i, which must have worked the vowel-change in Gerðr, Thôrgerðr, Valgerðr, Hrîmgerðr. The meaning seems to be cingens, muniens [Gurth?], Lat. Cinxia as a name of Juno (see Suppl.).

The Goth. sibja, OHG. sippia, sippa, AS. sib gen. sibbe, denote peace, friendship, kindred; from these I infer a divinity Sibja, Sippia, Sib, corresponding to the ON. Sif gen. Sifjar, the wife of Thôrr, for the ON. too has a pl. sifjar [[affinity, connection by marriage]] meaning cognatio, sifi amicus (OHG. sippio, sippo), sift genus, cognatio. By this sense of the word, Sif would appear to be, like Frigg and Freyja, a goddess of loveliness and love; as attributes of Oðinn and Thôr agree, their wives Frigg and Sif have also a common signification. Sif in the Edda is called the fair-haired, 'it hârfagra goð,' and gold is Sifjar haddr (Sifae peplum), because, when Loki cut off her hair, a new and finer crop was afterwards forged of gold (Sn. 119. 130). Also a herb, polytrichum aureum, bears the name haddr Sifjar. Expositors see in this the golden fruits of the Earth burnt up by fire and growing up again, they liken Sif to Ceres, the xanqh Dhmhthr (Il. 5, 500); and with it agrees the fact that the O Slav. Siva is a gloss on 'Ceres dea frumenti' (Hanka's glosses 5ª 6ª,b); only the S in the word seems to be the Slav. zhivète = Zh, and V does not answer to the Teut. F, B, P. The earth was Thôr's mother, not his wife, yet in Sn. 220 we find the simple Sif standing for earth. To decide, we ought to have fuller details about Sif, and these are wholly wanting in our mythology. Nowhere amongst us is the mystic relation of seed-corn to Demeter, whose poignant grief for her daughter threatens to bring famine on mankind (Hymn to Cer. 305---315), nor anything like it, recorded.

The Gothic language draws a subtle distinction between sunja (veritas) and sunjô (defensio, probatio veritatis); in OHG. law, sunna, sunnis means excusatio and impedimentum. The ON. law likewise has this syn gen. synjar [[from synja - to deny, gen. - to deny a charge]], for excusatio, defensio, negatio, impedimentum, but the Edda at the same time exhibits a personified Syn, who was to the heathen a goddess of truth and justice, and protected the accused (Sn. 38). To the same class belongs Vor gen. Varar, goddess of plighted faith and covenants, a dea foederis (Sn. 37-8), just as the Romans deified Tutela. The phrase 'vigja saman Varar hendi,'

consecrare Tutelae manu (Sæm. 74b), is like the passages about Wish's hands, p. 140. As in addition to the abstract wish we saw a Wish endowed with life, so by the side of the OHG. wara foedus there may have been a goddess Wara, and beside sunia a Suniâ (see Suppl.).

In the same way or sage (saw, tale) is intensified into a heathen goddess Sagâ, daughter of Wuotan; like Zeus's daughter the Muse, she instructs mankind in that divine art which Wuotan himself invented. I have argued in a separate treatise (Kleine schr. 1, 83-112), that the frou Aventiure of the Mid. Ages is a relic of the same.

Nanna the wife of Baldr would be in Goth. Nanþô, OHG. Nandâ, AS. Nôðe, the bold, courageous (p. 221), but except in ON., the simple female name is lost; Procopius 1, 8 has Gothic Qeudenanqa, ON. Thioðnanna (see Suppl.).

Inferences like these, from dying words to dead divinities, could be multiplied; to attempt them is not unprofitable, for they sharpen the eye to look in fresh quarters [for confirmation or confutation]. The discovery from legend or elsewhere of a harmony between myths may raise our guesses into demonstrations. (119)




ENDNOTES:

117. He bore a hole and crept through as a fly, then as a flea, he stung the sleeping goddess till she shook off the ornament: an incident still retained in nursery-tales. Conf. the stinging fly at the forging, Sn. 131. Back

118. If we read Frîa for Frûa, then Folla would stand nearer to her as in the Norse, whether as aattendant goddess or as sister. Yet, considering the instability of those goddesses' names, she may keep her place by Frouwa too. Back

119. It seems almost as if the MHG. poets recognised a female personage frô Fuoge or Gefuoge (fitness), similar in plastic power to the masc. Wish, a personified compages or armonia. Lachmann directs me to instances in point. Er. 7534-40 (conf. Iwein, p. 400): Back

So hete des meisters sin --------------------So had the master's thought

geprüevet ditz gereite-----------------------turned out this riding-gear

mit grôzer wîsheite;-------------------------with great wisdom;

er gap dem helfenbeine---------------------he gave the ivory

und dâ bî dem gesteine---------------------and withal the jewelry

sîn gevellige stat,---------------------------each its proper place,

als in diu Gevuoge bat.--------------------as him dame Fitness bade.

(Conf. Er. 1246: als in mîn wâre schulde bat).---Parz. 121, 11:

Wer in den zwein landen wirt,------------Whoso in the two lands thrives,

Gefuoge ein wunder an im birt;----------Fitness a wonder in him bears;

he is a miraculous birth of Fitness, her child, her darling.---Conversely, Walther 64, 38:

Frô Unfuoge, ir habt gesiget.--------------Dame Unfitness, thou hast triumphed.

And 65, 25:

Swer Ungefuoge swîgen stieze!-----------and hurled her from her strongholds.

It is true, the prefixes ge-, un-, argue a later and colder allegory. And the weak fem. form

(acc. in -en) would be preferable, OHG. Fuogâ, gen. Fuogûn, as in N. cap. 135 hifuogûn,

sotigenam (see Suppl.).