Chapter 25

It is only the Edda that brings in the name of Surtr; but our OHG. poetry seems to have interwoven features of him into the church doctrine about Antichrist, OHG. Antichristo (p. 173-4), which, originally founded on the 11^th chap. of Revelation, was afterwards worked out further on Jewish-christian lines of thought. The name occurs in two epistles (1 John 2, 18. 4, 3. 2 John 7), not in the Apocalypse, where he is meant by the many-headed beast. In his time two prophetic witnesses are to be sent from heaven to earth, but to be conquered and slain by him. Their names are not given either; that they are Enoch and Elias follows from the power given them to shut heaven that it rain not, and is expressly acknowledged by the Fathers. (47) Their bodies lie unburied in the street: after this victory the power of the Antichrist attains its greatest height, until he gets upon the Mount of Olives, to ascend into heaven; then the angel Michael appears, and cleaves his skull. (48)

With this narrative our O. Bavarian poet had become acquainted through learned men (weroltrehtwîsê), but still the old heathen pictures of the world's destruction came floating before him as 'muspilli' draws nigh: he makes much of the flames, he sees the mountains set on fire by the blood of the mortally wounded Elias dropping on the earth; no such circumstance is found in the christian tradition. The sky swelters in a blaze (suilizôt lougiû), the earth burns (prinnit mittilagart), and his already quoted 'dar ni mac denne mâk andremo helfan vora demo muspille', supported as it may be by Mark 13, 12. Luke 21, 16, sounds very like the Eddic

brœðr muno berjaz ok at bönom verða,

muno systrûngar sifjum spilla,

man ecki maðr öðrum þyrma (Sæm. 7b 8ª).
He has 'mâno fallit,' as Sæmunc has 'sôl tekr sortna, hverfa af himni heiðar stiörnur.' Again Sn. 71: 'þâ drepaz brœðr fyrir âgirni sakar, oc engi þyrmir föðr eða syn î manndrâpum oc sifjasliti.' (49) So even a MHG. poet of the 12^th cent. (Fundgr. 194): 'sô ist danne niht triuwe diu frowe der diuwe (maid), noch der man dem wîbe; si lebent alle mit nîde; sô hazzet der vater den sun,' etc. One would like to know what heathen figure Antichristo took the place of to Bavarians and Alamanns, it must have been one similar to the Norse Surtr. Antichristo plays the fiendish hypocrite, Surtr is painted as the adversary of the Ases, as a giant, and his fire consumes the world. The muspells-synir are all drawn up in squadrons of light, they and Surtr by their fighting bring about a higher order of things, while Antichristo is but transiently victorious, and is finally overthrown by a mightier power (see Suppl.).

What adds new weight to the whole comparison is the affinity between Donar and Elias, which was made out on p. 173-4 and is clear on other grounds. To the 8^th cent. Elias might well seem something more than the Hebrew prophet, viz. a divine hero, a divinity. The Edda makes all the Ases, Oðinn, Thôrr, Freyr and Týr, unite their powers to do battle with the sons of fire and their confederates, yet they are beaten like Enoch and Elias: Elias bears a marked resemblance to Thôrr (or Donar), Michael to the queller of Garmr or Fenris-ûlfr; I do not say that Enoch is equally to be identified with any particular god, but he might. Surtr with the flaming sword may remind us of the angel that guards Paradise, but he also finds his counterpart in the story of Enoch and Elias, for these two, at least in the legend of Brandan (in Bruns p. 187), have an angel with a fiery sword standing by their side. (50)----An AS. homily De temporibus Antichristi quoted by Wheloc on Beda p. 495 (supra p. 161n) contains remarkable statements. Arrogant Antecrist, it says, not only strives against God and his servants, but sets himself up above all heathen gods: 'He âhefð hine silfne ofer ealle þâ þe hæþene men cwædon þæt godas beon sceoldon, on hæþene wîsan. Swylc swâ wæs Erculus se ent, and Apollinis, þe hî mærne god lêton, Dhôr eác and Eowðen, þe hæþene men heriað swîðe. Ofer ealle þæs he hine ænne up âhefð, forðam he læt þæt he âna sî strengra þonne hî ealle.' Why does the preacher say all this? Had Saxon songs also identified the advent of Antichrist with heathen traditions, and recognised his victory, like that of Surtr, over Wôden and Thunor? The un-Saxon forms Eowðen and Dhôr indicate a Norse or Danish influence.-----But a decisive connection is established by the AS. Salomon and Saturn (Kemble p. 148): in the great battle between God and Antichrist, we are told, Thunder was threshing with his fiery axe, 'se Thunor hit þrysceð mid þære fýrenan œcxe,' by which is unmistakably meant Thôr's Miölnir, the torrida chalybs (p. 180), and the confluence of heathen beliefs with those about Antichrist is placed beyond the reach of doubt. The devil too is called malleus, hammer, chap. XXXIII.

Whoever is inclined to refer the characteristics of our antiquity as a whole to Roman and christian tradition, could easily take advantage of this harmony between the two pictures of the world's destruction, to maintain that the Eddic doctrine itself sprang out of those traditions of the Antichrist. This I should consider a gross perversion. The Norse narrative is simple, and of one piece with all the rest of the Edda; the myth of Antichrist is a jumble, nay artificially pieced together. The two leading personages, Surtr and Antichrist, have totally different characters. How should the Scandinavians have foisted-in a number of significant accessories, notably this of muspell, andagain a H. German poet unconnected in time and place have tacked on the very same?

What the Edda tells of Surtr and his combat with the Ases is the winding-up of a fuller representation of the end of the world, (51) whose advent is named aldar rök (Sæm. 36ª), aldar lag, aldar rof (37b. 167ª), (52) but more commonly ragna rök (7ª. 38b. 96b. 166b) or ragna rökr (65ª. Sn. 30. 36. 70. 88. 165), i.e. twilight, darkening, of time and the sovran gods (supra p. 26). Rök and rökr both mean darkness, rök rökra in Sæm. 113ª is an intensified expression for uttr darkness; Biörn renders röckur (neut.) crepusculum, röckva vesperascere. It is akin to the Goth. riqis skotoj, riqizeins skoteinoj, riqizjan skotizesqai, only that is increased by a suffix -is, and has its radical vowel alien from the Norse ö, which must be a modified a, so that rök stands for raku. This is confirmed by the Jutish rag nebula, still more by the AS. racu: 'þonne sweart racu stîgan onginneð,' Cædm. 81, 34 must be rendered 'cum atra caligo surgere incipit.' Rökstôlar (Sæm. 1b, conf. supra p. 136) are the chairs of mist whereon the gods sit up in the clouds. To this rök, racu I refer the expression quoted on p. 753, 'die finstre ragende nacht,' which can hardly be explained from our ragen (rigere) stick out. (53) Ragnarök then is the night of the gods, which comes over all beings, even the highest, p. 316 (see Suppl.).

Then the evil beings, long held in check and under spell, break loose and war against the gods: a wolf swallows the sun, another the moon (p. 705-6), the stars fall from heaven, the earth quakes, the monstrous world-snake Iörmungandr, seized with giant fury (iötunmôðr, p. 530), rises out of the waters on to the land, Fenrisûlfr is set free (p. 244), and Naglfar afloat, a ship constructed out of dead men's nails. (54) Loki brings up the hrîmthurses and the retinue of Hel (Heljar sinnar), all the hellish, wolfish kindred have mustered together. But it is from the flame-world that the gods have most danger to dread: Surtr and his glittering host come riding over Bifröst the rainbow (p. 732) in such strength that they break it down. The single combatants are disposed thus: Oðinn fights with Fenrisûlfr, Thôrr with Iörmungandr, Freyr with Surtr, Týr with Garmr, (55) Heimdall with Loki; in every case the old gods go down, though Garmr and Loki fall too, and Fenrisûlfr is slain by Vîðar. (56) That Loki and all his kin should come out as allies to the sons of flame, follows from his very nature, he being a god of fire (p. 241). After the world-conflagration or Surtalogi, a new and happier earth rises out of the sea, with gods made young again, but still called Aesir, Sæm. 10: a finale bearing an indisputable likeness to the Last Judgment (57) and New Jerusalem of the christians. Strophe 65 of the Völuspâ, which expressly mentions the regindômr, has been pronounced an interpolation, because it is wanting in some MSS.; but interpolation is not a thing to be gauged by the contents alone, it must be incontrovertibly established by character of the myth nor the age of the poem as a whole is thereby brought under suspicion. For, as the heathen faith among early converted races was not demolished at a blow,(58) so here and there a christian dogma may also have penetrated even to nations that were still heathen; conversely some heathen ways of thinking lingered on among christians. Consider how the author of the Heliand (131-2-3), while following the Gospels in describing the approach of the Last Day, yet admits such rank heathenisms as 'Gebanes strôm' and 'Mudspelli.' In the very personifying of the Judgment day ('verit stuatago in lant,' like 'muspelli kumit') there is a flavour of heathenism.

There seem to have existed some other traditions about the world's destruction, which have not come down to us in their fulness. Among these I reckon the folk-tale mentioned on p. 429, of the ring which the swan will drop from his mouth: it sounds altogether antique, and possibly harks back to the notion of the world-ring, p. 794.

To the destruction of the world by fire, which heathens and christians (59) look forward to as future, stands opposed that by water, like the histories of both represent as past. The Burning, like the Deluge (pp. 576-81), is not to destroy for ever, but to purify, and bring in its wake a new and better order of things (see Suppl.).

The church tradition of the Mid. Ages (based on Matth. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) accepts fifteen signs as premonitions of the Judgement-day; (60) these do not include the unearthly winter, fimbulvëtr, that wind-age (vindöld, p. 793, Haupt's Zeitschr. 7, 309), which according to both Eddas (Sæm. 36b. Sn. 71) precedes the ragnarökr, and is doubtless a truly Teutonic fancy; (61) but we have a darkening of the sun and moon described (p. 244), and an earthquake, which equally precedes the twilight of the gods: 'griotbiörg gnata, himinn klofnar, gnýr allr Iötunheimr,' Sæm. 8b; the ordinary term in ON. is land-skiâlfti, Sn. 50, or 'iörd skâlf;' 'landit skâlf, sem â þræði lêki,' Fornald. sög. 1, 424. 503. (62) For seismoj Ulphilas gives the fem. reirô, he says 'aírþa reiráida;' OS. 'ertha bivôda,' Hel. 168, 23; OHG. 'erda bibinôta,' O. iv. 34, 1, and the subst. erdpipa, erdbibunga, erdgiruornessi. Reinardus 1, 780 puts in juxtaposition: 'nec tremor est terrae, judiciive dies;' and Servian songs: 'illi grmi, il se zemlia trese?' does it thunder, or does the earth shake? (Vuk 2, 1. 105). But the earth's quaking, like the Deluge, is oftener represented as a past event, and is ascribed to various causes. The Greek fable accounts for it by imprisoned cyclops or titans (Ov. Met. 12, 521); the Norse by the struggles of chained Loki when drops of poison fall upon his face (Sæm. 69. Sn. 70), or by Fâfnir's journey to the water (Fornald. sög. 1, 159. 160). The earth also quakes at the death of certain heroes, as Heimir (Fornald. sög. 1, 232), and of the giant (Vilk. saga cap. 176). At Roland's death there is lightning, thunder and earthquake, Rol. 240, 22. To the Indians the earth quakes every time one of the eight elephants supporting the glob is tired of his burden, and gives his head a shake. (63) The Japanese say of an earthquake: 'there is another whale crept away from under our country;' the Tahitians: 'God shakes the earth;' (64) the Lettons: 'Drebkuls beats the earth, and makes her tremble,' just as the Greeks call their Poseidon (Neptune) Ennosigaioj, Ennosidaj (see Suppl.).

Our forefathers thought of the sky not only s a roof to the earth (p. 698), but as a heavenly kingdom, the dwelling-place of the gods and of blessed men whom they had taken up. The bridge of the heavenly bow leads into it (p. 732), so does the milky way (p. 356).

We must first suppose all that to have happened which was told in Chap. XIX about the creation of the world according to ON. views. After the gods had set in order heaven and earth, created Ask and Embla, and appointed Miðgarð to be the habitation of man, they fitted up for themselves in the centre of the world, a dwelling place named Asgarðr, in whose vast extent however a number of particular spots are specified.

None of these separate mansions is more celebrated than the Odinic Valhöll (OHG. Walahalla ?), whose name has an obvious reference to the god's own appellation of Valföðr and to the valkyrs (p. 417). (65) Into this abode, sometimes known as Oðins salir (Sæm. 148b), the war-maidens have conducted to him all the heroes that from the beginning of the world have fallen in valr, on the battle-field (the vâpn-bitnir, weapon-bitten, Yngl. saga c. 10); these he adopts as children, they are ôskasynir, sons by wishing, ad-option, (66) and likewise sons of the god Wish (p. 143). Their usual name is einherjar, egregii, divi, as Oðinn himself is called Herjan and Herjaföðr, and heri means the fighting hero (p. 342-3). It must not be overlooked, that Thôrr himself is called an einheri, Sæm. 68ª, as if a partaker of Valhöll. From the existence of a proper name Einheri in OHG. (e.g. Meichelbeck no. 241. 476. Schannat 137), I argue the former prevalence of the mythical term amongst us also; yet not with certainty, as it may be a contracted form of Eginheri, Aganheri, like Einhart for Eginhart, Reinhart for Reginhart. Valhöll is covered with shields (Sn. 2) and numbers 540 doors, each affording passage to 800 einheries at once, or 432,000 in all, Sæm. 43ª. In the midst of it stands a mighty tree Ljeraðr, Lœrâðr, whose foilage is cropt by the she-goat Heiðrûn; the goat's udder yields (as Amalthea's horn did nectar) a barrelful of mead a day, enough to nourish all the einheries. The stag Eikþyrnir gnaws at the branches of the tree, and out of his horns water trickles down into Hvergelmir continually, to feed the rivers of the underworld (pp. 558. 561).




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