Part 4

If we consider the position of the authors or recorders of these sagas in relation to the views they present in regard to Odainsakur and the Glittering Plains, then we find that they themselves, with or without reason, believe that these views are from a heathen time and of heathen origin. The saga of Erik Vidforli states that its hero had in his own native land, and in his heathen environment, heard reports about Odainsakur. The Mikligard king who instructs the prince in the doctrines of Christianity knows, on the other hand, nothing of such a country. He simply conjectures that the Odainsakur of the heathens must be the same as the Paradise of the Christians, and the saga later makes this conjecture turn out to be incorrect.

The author of Hervarar saga mentions Odainsakur as a heathen belief, and tries to give reasons why it was believed in heathen times that Odainsakur was situated within the limits of Gudmund's kingdom, the Glittering Plains. The reason is: "Gudmund and his men became so old that they lived through several generations (Gudmund lived five hundred years), and therefore the heathens believed that Odainsakur was situated in his domain".

The man who compiled the legend about Helgi Þórisson connects it with the history of King Ólafr Tryggvason, and pits this first king of Norway, who laboured for the introduction of Christianity, as a representative of the new and true doctrine against King Gudmund of the Glittering Plains as the representative of the heathen doctrine. The author would not have done this if he had not believed that the ruler of the Glittering Plains had his ancestors in heathendom.

The saga of Þorsteinn Bæjarmagn puts Gudmund and the Glittering Plains in a tributary relation to Jotunheim and to Geirrod, the giant, well known in the mythology.

Saxo makes Gudmund Geirrod's (Geruthus') brother, and he believes he is discussing ancient traditions when he relates Gorm's journey of discovery and Hadding's journey to Jotunheim. Gorm's reign is referred by Saxo to the period immediately following the reign of the mythical King Snö (Snow) and the emigration of the Longobardians. Hadding's descent to the lower world occurred, according to Saxo, in an antiquity many centuries before King Snow. Hadding is, in Saxo, one of the first kings of Denmark, the grandson of Skjold, progenitor of the Skjoldungs.

The saga of Erik Vidforli makes the way to Odainsakur pass through Syria, India, and an unknown land which wants the light of the sun, and where the stars are visible all day long. On the other side of Odainsakur, and bordering on it, lies the land of the happy spirits, Paradise.

That these last ideas have been influenced by Christianity would seem to be sufficiently clear. Nor do we find a trace of Syria, India, and Paradise as soon as we leave this saga and pass to the others, in the chain of which it forms one of the later links. All the rest agree in transferring to the uttermost North the land which must be reached before the journey can be continued to the Glittering Plains and Odainsakur. Hervarar saga says that the Glittering Plains and Odainsakur are situated north of Halogaland, in Jotunheim; Bósa saga states that they are situated in the vicinity of Bjarmaland. The saga of Þorsteinn Bæjarmagn says that they are a kingdom subject to Geirrod in Jotunheim. Gorm's saga in Saxo says it is necessary to sail past Halogaland north to a Bjarmia ulterior in order to get to the kingdoms of Gudmund and Geirrod. The saga of Helgi Þórisson makes its hero meet the daughters of Gudmund, the ruler of the Glittering Plains, after a voyage to Finmarken. Hadding's saga in Saxo makes the Danish king pay a visit to the unknown but wintry cold land of the "Nitherians," when he is invited to make a journey to the lower world. Thus the older and common view was that he who made the attempt to visit the Glittering Plains and Odainsakur must first penetrate the regions of the uttermost North, known only by hearsay.

Those of the sagas which give us more definite local descriptions in addition to this geographical information all agree that the region which forms, as it were, a foreground to the Glittering Plains and Odainsakur is a land over which the darkness of night broods. As just indicated, Erik Vidforli's saga claims that the stars there are visible all day long. Gorm's saga in Saxo makes the Danish adventurers leave sun and stars behind to continue the journey sub Chao. Darkness, fogs, and mists envelop Hadding before he gets sight of the splendidly-clad proceres who dwell down there, and the shining meadows whose flowers are never visited by winter. The Frisian saga in Adam of Bremen also speaks of a gloom which must be penetrated ere one reaches the land where rich giants dwell in subterranean caverns.

Through this darkness one comes, according to the saga of Erik Vidforli, to a plain full of flowers, delicious fragrances, rivers of honey (a Biblical idea, but see Nos. 89, 123), and perpetual light. A river separates this plain from the land of the spirits.

Through the same darkness, according to Gorm's saga, one comes to Gudmund's Glittering Plains, where there is a pleasure-farm bearing delicious fruits, while in that Bjarmaland whence the Glittering Plains can be reached reign eternal winter and cold. A river separates the Glittering Plains from two or more other domains, of which at least one is the home of departed souls. There is a bridge of gold across the river to another region, "which separates that which is mortal from the superhuman," and on whose soil a mortal being must not set his foot. Further on one can pass in a boat across the river to a land which is the place of punishment for the damned and a resort of ghosts.

Through the same darkness one comes, according to Hadding's saga, to a subterranean land where flowers grow in spite of the winter which reigns on the surface of the earth. The land of flowers is separated from the Elysian fields of those fallen in battle by a river which hurls about in its eddies spears and other weapons.

These statements from different sources agree with each other in their main features. They agree that the lower world is divided into two main parts by a river, and that departed souls are found only on the farther side of the river.

The other main part on this side the river thus has another purpose than that of receiving the happy or damned souls of the dead. There dwells, according to Gorm's saga, the giant Gudmund, with his sons and daughters. There are also the Glittering Plains, since these, according to Hervör's, Bósi's, Þorsteinn Bæjarmagn's, and Helgi Þórisson's sagas, are ruled by Gudmund.

Some of the accounts cited say that the Glittering Plains are situated in Jotunheim. This statement does not contradict the fact that they are situated in the lower world. The myths mention two Jotunheims, and hence the Eddas employ the plural form, Jötunheimar. One of the Jotunheims is located on the surface of the earth in the far North and East, separated from the Midgard inhabited by man by the uttermost sea or the Élivágar (Gylfaginning 8). The other Jotunheim is subterranean. According to Grímnismál 31, one of the roots of the world-tree extends down "to the frost-giants". Urd and her sisters, who guard one of the fountains of Ygdrasill's roots, are giantesses. Mimir, who guards another fountain in the lower world, is called a giant. That part of the world which is inhabited by the goddesses of fate and by Mimir is thus inhabited by giants, and is a subterranean Jotunheim. Both these Jotunheims are connected with each other. From the upper there is a path leading to the lower. Therefore those traditions recorded in a Christian age, which we are here discussing, have referred to the Arctic Ocean and the uttermost North as the route for those who have the desire and courage to visit the giants of the lower world.

When it is said in Hadding's saga that he on the other side of the subterranean river saw the shades of heroes fallen by the sword arrayed in line of battle and contending with each other, then this is no contradiction of the myth, according to which the heroes chosen on the battle-field come to Asgard and play their warlike games on the plains of the world of the gods.

In Völuspá 24 we read that when the first "folk"-war broke out in the world, the citadel of Odin and his clan was stormed by the Vans, who broke through its bulwark and captured Asgard. In harmony with this, Saxo (Book I) relates that at the time when King Hadding reigned Odin was banished from his power and lived for some time in exile (see Nos. 36-41).

It is evident that no great battles can have been fought, and that there could not have been any great number of sword-fallen men, before the first great "folk"-war broke out in the world. Otherwise this war would not have been the first. Thus Valhall has not before this war had those hosts of einherjar who later are feasted in Valfather's hall. But as Odin, after the breaking out of this war, is banished from Valhall and Asgard, and does not return before peace is made between the Asas and Vans, then none of the einherjar chosen by him could be received in Valhall during the war. Hence it follows that the heroes fallen in this war, though chosen by Odin, must have been referred to some other place than Asgard (excepting, of course, all those chosen by the Vans, in case they chose einherjar, which is probable, for the reason that the Vanadís Freyja gets, after the reconciliation with Odin, the right to divide with him the choice of the slain). This other place can nowhere else be so appropriately looked for as in the lower world, which we know was destined to receive the souls of the dead. And as Hadding, who, according to Saxo, descended to the lower world, is, according to Saxo, the same Hadding during whose reign Odin was banished from Asgard, then it follows that the statement of the saga, making him see in the lower world those warlike games which else are practised on Asgard's plains, far from contradicting the myth, on the contrary is a consequence of the connection of the mythical events.

The river which is mentioned in Erik Vidforli's, Gorm's, and Hadding's sagas has its prototype in the mythic records. When Hermod on Sleipnir rides to the lower world (Gylfaginning 49) he first journeys through a dark country (compare above) and then comes to the river Gjöll, over which there is the golden bridge called the Gjöll-bridge [Gjallarbrú]. On the other side of Gjöll is the Hel-gate [Helgrindur], which leads to the realm of the dead. In Gorm's saga the bridge across the river is also of gold, and it is forbidden mortals to cross to the other side.

A subterranean river hurling weapons in its eddies is mentioned in Völuspá 36. In Hadding's saga we also read of a weapon-hurling river which forms the boundary of the Elyseum of those slain by the sword.

In Vegtamskviða [Baldurs draumar 2-3] is mentioned an underground dog, bloody about the breast, coming from Niflhel, the proper place of punishment. In Gorm's saga the bulwark around the city of the damned is guarded by great dogs. The word nifl (the German Nebel), which forms one part of the word Niflhel, means mist, fog. In Gorm's saga the city in question is most like a cloud of vapour (vaporanti maxime nubi simile).

Saxo's description of that house of torture, which is found within the city, is not unlike Völuspá's description of that dwelling of torture called Náströnd ["corpse-shore"]. In Saxo the floor of the house consists of serpents wattled together, and the roof of sharp stings. In Völuspá the hall is made of serpents braided together, whose heads from above spit venom down on those dwelling there. Saxo speaks of soot a century old on the door frames; Völuspá of ljórar, air- and smoke-openings in the roof (see further Nos. 77 and 78).

Saxo himself points out that the Geruthus (Geirröðr) mentioned by him, and his famous daughters, belong to the myth about the Asa-god Thor. That Geirrod after his death is transferred to the lower world is no contradiction to the heathen belief, according to which beautiful or terrible habitations await the dead, not only of men but also of other beings. Compare Gylfaginning 42, where Thor with one blow of his Mjölnir sends a giant niðr undir Niflhel (see further, No. 60).

As Mimir's and Urd's fountains are found in the lower world (see Nos. 63, 93), and as Mimir is mentioned as the guardian of Heimdall's horn and other treasures, it might be expected that these circumstances would not be forgotten in those stories from Christian times which have been cited above and found to have roots in the myths.

When in Saxo's saga about Gorm the Danish adventurers had left the horrible city of fog, they came to another place in the lower world where the gold-plated mead-cisterns were found. The Latin word used by Saxo, which I translate with cisterns of mead, is dolium. In the classical Latin this word is used in regard to wine-cisterns of so immense a size that they were counted among the immovables, and usually were sunk in the cellar floors. They were so large that a person could live in such a cistern, and this is also reported as having happened. That the word dolium still in Saxo's time had a similar meaning appears from a letter quoted by Du Cange, written by Saxo's younger contemporary, Bishop Gebhard. The size is therefore no obstacle to Saxo's using this word for a wine-cistern to mean the mead-wells in the lower world of Teutonic mythology. The question now is whether he actually did so, or whether the subterranean dolia in question are objects in regard to which our earliest mythic records have left us in ignorance.

In Saxo's time, and earlier, the epithets by which the mead-wells - Urd's and Mimir's - and their contents are mentioned in mythological songs had come to be applied also to those mead-buckets which Odin is said to have emptied in the halls of the giant Fjalar or Suttung. This application also lay near at hand, since these wells and these vessels contained the same liquor, and since it originally, as appears from the meaning of the words, was the liquor, and not the place where the liquor was kept, to which the epithets Óðrærir, Boðn, and Són applied. In Hávamál 107 Odin expresses his joy that Óðrærir has passed out of the possession of the giant Fjalar and can be of use to the beings of the upper world. But if we may trust Skáldskaparmál 6, it is the drink and not the empty vessels that Odin takes with him to Valhall. On this supposition, it is the drink and not one of the vessels which in Hávamál is called Óðrærir. In Hávamál 140 Odin relates how he, through self-sacrifice and suffering, succeeded in getting runic songs up from the deep, and also a drink dipped out of Óðrærir. He who gives him the songs and the drink, and accordingly is the ruler of the fountain of the drink, is a man, "Bölthorn's celebrated son". Here again Óðrærir is one of the subterranean fountains, and no doubt Mimir's, since the one who pours out the drink is a man. But in the second stanza of Forspjallsljóð [Hrafnagaldur Óðins] Urd's fountain is also called Óðrærir (Óðhrærir Urðar). Paraphrases for the liquor of poetry, such as "Boðn's growing billow" (Einar Skálaglamm) and "Són's reed-grown grass edge" (Eilífr Guðrúnarson) [Skáldskaparmál 10], point to fountains or wells, not to vessels. Meanwhile a satire was composed before the time of Saxo and Sturluson about Odin's adventure at Fjalar's, and the author of this song, the contents of which the Younger Edda has preserved, calls the vessels which Odin empties at the giant's Óðhrærir, Boðn, and Són (Skáldskaparmál 5-6). Saxo, who reveals a familiarity with the genuine heathen, or supposed heathen, poems handed down to his time, may thus have seen the epithets Óðrærir, Boðn, and Són applied both to the subterranean mead-wells and to a giant's mead-vessels. The greater reason he would have for selecting the Latin dolium to express an idea that can be accommodated to both these objects.

Over these mead-reservoirs there hang, according to Saxo's description, round-shaped objects of silver, which in close braids drop down and are spread around the seven times gold-plated walls of the mead-cisterns (Inde digressis dolia septem zonis aureis circumligata panduntur, quibus pensiles ex argento circuli erebros inseruerant nexus).

Over Mimir's and Urd's fountains hang the roots of the ash Ygdrasill, which sends its root-knots and root-threads down into their waters. But not only the rootlets sunk in the water, but also the roots from which they are suspended, partake of the waters of the fountains. The norns take daily from the water and sprinkle the stem of the tree therewith, "and the water is so holy," says Gylfaginning 16, "that everything that is put in the well (consequently, also, all that which the norns daily sprinkle with the water) becomes as white as the membrane between the egg and the egg-shell". Also the root over Mimir's fountain is sprinkled with its water (Völuspá 27), and this water, so far as its colour is concerned, seems to be of the same kind as that in Urd's fountain, for the latter is called hvítr aurr (Völuspá 19) and the former runs in aurgum fossi upon its root of the world-tree (Völuspá 27). The adjective aurigr, which describes a quality of the water in Mimir's fountain, is formed from the noun aurr, with which the liquid is described which waters the root over Urd's fountain. Ygdrasill's roots, as far up as the liquid of the wells can get to them, thus have a colour like that of "the membrane between the egg and the egg-shell," and consequently recall both as to position, form, and colour the round-shaped objects "of silver" which, according to Saxo, hang down and are intertwined in the mead-reservoirs of the lower world.

Mimir's fountain contains, as we know, the purest mead - the liquid of inspiration, of poetry, of wisdom, of understanding.

Near by Yggdrasill, according to Völuspá 27, Heimdall's horn is concealed. The seeress in Völuspá knows that it is hid "beneath the hedge-o'ershadowing holy tree,"

Veit hún Heimdallar
hljóð um fólgið
undir heiðvönum
helgum baðmi.

Among the treasures taken care of by Mimir is the world's foremost sword and a wonderful arm-ring, smithied by the same master as made the sword (see Nos. 87, 98, 101).

Near the gorgeous horn Gorm's men see a gold-plated tooth of an animal and an arm-ring. The animal tooth becomes a sword when it is taken into the hand. [The word biti = a tooth (cp. bite) becomes in the composition leggbiti, the name of a sword.] Near by is a treasury filled with a large number of weapons and a royal robe. Mimir is known in mythology as a collector of treasures. He is therefore called Hoddmímir, Hoddrofnir, Baugreginn.

Thus Gorm and his men have on their journeys in the lower world seen not only Náströnd's place of punishment in Niflhel, but also the holy land, where Mimir reigns.

When Gorm and his men desire to cross the golden bridge and see the wonders to which it leads, Gudmund prohibits it. When they in another place farther up desire to cross the river to see what there is beyond, he consents and has them taken over in a boat. He does not deem it proper to show them the unknown land at the golden bridge, but it is within the limits of his authority to let them see the places of punishment and those regions which contain the mead-cisterns and the treasure chambers. The sagas call him the king on the Glittering Plains, and as the Glittering Plains are situated in the lower world, he must be a lower world ruler.

Two of the sagas, Helgi Þórisson's and Gorm's, cast a shadow on Gudmund's character. In the former this shadow does not produce confusion or contradiction. The saga is a legend which represents Christianity, with Olaf Tryggvason as its apostle, in conflict with heathenism, represented by Gudmund. It is therefore natural that the latter cannot be presented in the most favourable light. Olaf destroys with his prayers the happiness of Gudmund's daughter. He compels her to abandon her lover, and Gudmund, who is unable to take revenge in any other manner, tries to do so, as is the case with so many of the characters in saga and history, by treachery. This is demanded by the fundamental idea and tendency of the legend. What the author of the legend has heard about Gudmund's character from older sagamen, or what he has read in records, he does not, however, conceal with silence, but admits that Gudmund, aside from his heathen religion and grudge toward Olaf Tryggvason, was a man in whose home one might fare well and be happy.

Saxo has preserved the shadow, but in his narrative it produces the greatest contradiction. Gudmund offers fruits, drinks, and embraces in order to induce his guests to remain with him for ever, and he does it in a tempting manner and, as it seems, with conscious cunning. Nevertheless, he shows unlimited patience when the guests insult him by accepting nothing of what he offers. When he comes down to the sea-strand, where Gorm's ships are anchored, he is greeted by the leader of the discoverers with joy, because he is "the most pious being and man's protector in perils". He conducts them in safety to his castle. When a handful of them returns after the attempt to plunder the treasury of the lower world, he considers the crime sufficiently punished by the loss of life they have suffered, and takes them across the river to his own safe home; and when they, contrary to his wishes, desire to return to their native land, he loads them with gifts and sees to it that they get safely on board their ships. It follows that Saxo s sources have described Gudmund as a kind and benevolent person. Here, as in the legend about Helgi Þórisson, the shadow has been thrown by younger hands upon an older background painted in bright colours.

Hervarar saga says that he was wise, mighty, in a heathen sense pious ("a great sacrificer"), and so honoured that sacrifices were offered to him, and he was worshipped as a god after death. Bósa saga says that he was greatly skilled in magic arts, which is another expression for heathen wisdom, for fimbul-songs, runes, and incantations.

The change for the worse which Gudmund's character seems in part to have suffered is confirmed by a change connected with, and running parallel to it, in the conception of the forces in those things which belonged to the lower world of the Teutonic heathendom and to Gudmund's domain. In Saxo we find an idea related to the antique Lethe myth, according to which the liquids and plants which belong to the lower world produce forgetfulness of the past. Therefore, Thorkil (Thorkillus) warns his companions not to eat or drink any of that which Gudmund offers them. In Guðrúnarkviða in forna 21, and elsewhere, we meet with the same idea. I shall return to this subject (see No. 50).