Part 3

The conflict between the gods has its counterpart in, and is connected with, a war between all the Teutonic races, and the latter is again a continuation of the feud between Halfdan and Svipdag. The Teutonic race comes to the front fighting under three race-representatives - (1) Yngvi-Svipdag, the son of Orvandel and Groa; (2) Gudhorm, the son of Halfdan and Groa, consequently Svipdag's half-brother; (3) Hadding, the son of Halfdan and Alveig (in Saxo called Signe, daughter of Sumbel), consequently Gudhorm's half-brother.

The ruling Vans favour Svipdag, who is Freyja's husband and Frey's brother-in-law. The banished Asas support Hadding from their place of refuge. The conflict between the gods and the war between Halfdan's successor and heir are woven together. It is like the Trojan war, where the gods, divided into parties, assist the Trojans or assist the Danai. Odin, Thor, and Heimdall interfere, as we shall see, to protect Hadding. This is their duty as kinsmen; for Heimdall, having assumed human nature, was the lad with the sheaf of grain who came to the primeval country and became the father of Borgar, who begat the son Halfdan. Thor was Halfdan's associate father; hence he too had duties of kinship toward Hadding and Gudhorm, Halfdan's sons. The gods, on the other hand, that favour Svipdag are, in Hadding's eyes, foes, and Hadding long refuses to propitiate Frey by a demanded sacrifice (Saxo, Hist., 49, 50).

This war, simultaneously waged between the clans of the gods on the one hand, and between the Teutonic tribes on the other, is what the seeress in Völuspá calls "the first great war in the world". She not only gives an account of its outbreak and events among the gods, but also indicates that it was waged on the earth. Then -

Godthjod is the Teutonic people and the Teutonic country.

When Svipdag had slain Halfdan, and when the Asas were expelled, the sons of the Teutonic patriarch were in danger of falling into the power of Svipdag. Thor interested himself in their behalf; and brought Gudhorm and Hadding to Jotunheim, where he concealed them with the giants Hafli and Vagnhofdi - Gudhorm in Hafli's rocky gard and Hadding in Vagnhofdi's. In Saxo, who relates this story, the Asa-god Thor appears partly as Thor deus and Thoro pugil, Halfdan's protector, whom Saxo himself identifies as the god Thor (Hist., 324), and partly as Brac and Brache, which name Saxo formed from Thor's epithet, Asa-Bragr. It is by the name Brache that Thor appears as the protector of Halfdan's sons. The giants Hafli and Vagnhofdi dwell, according to Saxo, in "Svetia" probably, since Jotunheim, the northernmost Sweden, and the most distant east were called Svíþjóð in kalda. [* Filii Gram, Guthormus et Hadingus, quorum alterum Gro, alterum Signe enixa est, Svipdagero Daniam obtinente, per educatorem suum Brache nave Svetiam deportati, Vagnophto et Haphlio gigantibus non solum alendi, verum etiam defensandi traduntur (Saxo, Hist., 34).]

Svipdag waged war against Halfdan, since it was his duty to avenge the disgrace of his mother Groa, and also that of his mother's father, and, as shall be shown later, the death of his father Orvandel (see Nos. 108, 109). The revenge for bloodshed was sacred in the Teutonic world, and this duty he performed when he with his irresistible sword felled his stepfather. But thereby the duty of revenge for bloodshed was transferred to Halfdan's sons - less to Gudhorm, who is himself a son of Groa, but with all its weight to Hadding, the son of Alveig, and it is his bounden duty to bring about Svipdag's death, since Svipdag had slain Halfdan. Connecting itself with Halfdan's robbery of Groa, the goddess of growth, the red thread of revenge for bloodshed extends throughout the great hero-saga of Teutonic mythology.

Svipdag makes an effort to cut the thread. He offers Gudhorm and Hadding peace and friendship, and promises them kingship among the tribes subject to him. Groa's son, Gudhorm, accepts the offer, and Svipdag makes him ruler of the Danes; but Hadding sends answer that he prefers to avenge his father's death to accepting favours from an enemy (Saxo, Hist., 35, 36).

Svipdag's offer of peace and reconciliation is in harmony, if not with his own nature, at least with that of his kinsmen, the reigning Vans. If the offer to Hadding had been accepted, we might have looked for peace in the world. Now the future is threatened with the devastations of war, and the bloody thread of revenge shall continue to be spun if Svipdag does not prevent it by overpowering Hadding. The myth may have contained much information about the efforts of the one camp to capture him and about contrivances of the other to frustrate these efforts. Saxo has preserved a partial record thereof. Among those who plot against Hadding is also Loki (Lokerus - Saxo, Hist., 40, 41), [* The form Loki is also duplicated by the form Lokr. The latter is preserved in the sense of "effeminated man," found in myths concerning Loki. Compare the phrase "veykr Lokr" with "hinn veyki Loki".] the banished ally of Aurboða. His purpose is doubtless to get into the favour of the reigning Vans. Hadding is no longer safe in Vagnhofdi's mountain home. The lad is exposed to Loki's snares. From one of these he is saved by the Asa-father himself. There came, says Saxo, on this occasion a rider to Hadding. He resembled a very aged man, one of whose eyes was lost (grandævus quidam altero orbus oculo). He placed Hadding in front of himself on the horse, wrapped his mantle about him, and rode away. The lad became curious and wanted to see whither they were going. Through a hole in the mantle he got an opportunity of looking down, and found to his astonishment and fright that land and sea were far below the hoofs of the steed. The rider must have noticed his fright, for he forbade him to look out any more.

The rider, the one-eyed old man, is Odin, and the horse is Sleipnir, rescued from the captured Asgard. The place to which the lad is carried by Odin is the place of refuge secured by the Asas during their exile í Manheimum. In perfect harmony with the myths, Saxo refers Odin's exile to the time preceding Hadding's juvenile adventures, and makes Odin's return to power simultaneous with Hadding's great victory over his enemies (Hist., 42-44). Saxo has also found in his sources that sword-slain men, whom Odin chooses during "the first great war in the world," cannot come to Valhall. The reason for this is that Odin is not at that time the ruler there. They have dwelling-places and plains for their warlike amusements appointed in the lower world (Hist., 51).

The regions which, according to Saxo, are the scenes of Hadding's juvenile adventures lie on the other side of the Baltic down toward the Black Sea. He is associated with "Curetians" and "Hellespontians," doubtless for the reason that the myth has referred those adventures to the far east.

The one-eyed old man is endowed with wonderful powers. When he landed with the lad at his home, he sang over him prophetic incantations to protect him (Hist., 40), and gave him a drink of the "most splendid sort," which produced in Hadding enormous physical strength, and particularly made him able to free himself from bonds and chains. (Compare Hávamál 149, concerning Odin's freeing incantations by which "fetters spring from the feet and chains from the hands".) A comparison with other passages, which I shall discuss later, shows that the potion of which the old man is lord contains something which is called "Leifnir's flames," and that he who has been permitted to drink it, and over whom freeing incantations have simultaneously been sung, is able with his warm breath to free himself from every fetter which has been put on his enchanted limbs (see Nos. 43, 96, 103).

The old man predicts that Hadding will soon have an opportunity of testing the strength with which the drink and the magic songs have endowed him. And the prophecy is fulfilled. Hadding falls into the power of Loki. He chains him and threatens to expose him as food for a wild beast - in Saxo a lion, in the myth presumably some one of the wolf or serpent prodigies that are Loki's offspring. But when his guards are put to sleep by Odin's magic song, though Odin is far away, Hadding bursts his bonds, slays the beast, and eats, in obedience to Odin's instructions, its heart. (The saga of Sigurd Fafnisbani has copied this feature. Sigurd eats the heart of the dragon Fafnir and gets wisdom thereby.)

Thus Hadding has become a powerful hero, and his task to make war on Svipdag, to revenge on him his father's death, and to recover the share in the rulership of the Teutons which Halfdan had possessed, now lies before him as the goal he is to reach.

Hadding leaves Vagnhofdi's home. The latter's daughter, Hardgrep, who had fallen in love with the youth, accompanies him. When we next find Hadding he is at the head of an army. That this consisted of the tribes of Eastern Teutondom is confirmed by documents which I shall hereafter quote; but it also follows from Saxo's narrative, although he has referred the war to narrower limits than were given to it in the myth, since he, constructing a Danish history from mythic traditions, has his eyes fixed chiefly on Denmark. Over the Scandian tribes and the Danes rule, according to Saxo's own statement, Svipdag, and as his tributary king in Denmark his half-brother Gudhorm. Saxo also is aware that the Saxons, the Teutonic tribes of the German lowlands, on one occasion were the allies of Svipdag (Hist., 34). From these parts of Teutondom did not come Hadding's friends, but his enemies; and when we add that the first battle which Saxo mentions in this war was fought among the Curetians east of the Baltic, then it is clear that Saxo, too, like the other records to which I am coming later, has conceived the forces under Hadding's banner as having been gathered in the East. From this it is evident that the war is one between the tribes of North Teutondom, led by Svipdag and supported by the Vans on the one side, and the tribes of East Teutondom, led by Hadding and supported by the Asas on the other. But the tribes of the western Teutonic continent have also taken part in the first great war of mankind. Gudhorm, whom Saxo makes a tributary king in Yngvi-Svipdag's most southern domain, Denmark, has in the mythic traditions had a much greater empire, and has ruled over the tribes of Western and Southern Teutondom, as shall be shown hereafter.