Home of the Eddic Lays
Introduction
In Völuspá, the Sibyl first mentions Baldr when she predicts his death. She begins her utterances regarding him with the following words (Cod. Reg., st. 32):
Ek sá Baldri
'blóđgom tivor'
Óđins barni
řrlög fólgin.
'I saw fate (i.e. death) decreed for Baldr.....Odin's son.' The Icelanders in the Middle Ages, and even the author of this poem himself, probably understood the expression blógom tívor of Baldr as 'the bloody god,' and connected tívor with tívar, 'gods'; (11) but this interpretation cannot, in my opinion, be what was originally intended by the expression. (12)
The word tívor is unmistakably borrowed from English. It is the Anglo-Saxon tîber, tîfer, neut., 'a sacrifice, victim.' (13) From the fact that it is usually written tîber with b, seldom tîfer, and that it has a long vowel, I infer that the word is a compound. AS tîber is a later form of *tîbor, as eofer of eofor. I explain the word as derived from an old Germanic tuvabra alongside *tiwabora, 'what is borne forward to the gods,' formed like Gothic gabaur, 'tax.' (14) By dissimilation, tuvabra was contracted into *tibra.
Now, 'bloody' is a natural epithet to apply to a sacrifice. It seems to me certain, therefore, that the expression blóđgom tívor used of Baldr in Völuspá was taken from the expression blôdig tîbor (=tîber), 'the bloody sacrifice,' in some Northumbrian poem.
This circumstance, in my opinion, supports the view that Völuspá was composed by a Norwegian in Northern England, in a district where both English and Norse were spoken. It leads us to believe, also, that at any rate some of the lines of Völuspá were formed under the influence of English verse. Of course, Völuspá cannot be, in its entirety, a redaction of an English poem; for while Völuspá is heathen in appearance, the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of Northern England in the period in question were Christian. But that does not prevent Völuspá from being at bottom an imitation of an English poem; and we may even believe that in some parts it may have kept fairly near to its model, and have reproduced almost literally certain of the expressions of the latter. Furthermore, from a mythological point of view, it is highly significant that the expression blóđgom tívor is a reproduction of an English expression which meant 'the bloody sacrifice'; for, as I have said, at the time when Völuspá was composed, the English were Christians. The phrase blôdig tîbor cannot, therefore, have been used by them of a heathen god, but must have referred to Christ, the God of the Christians. This becomes still more evident if we observe that Germanic heathendom, when uninfluenced by Christianity, had no conception of any god as a bloody sacrifice. Indeed, the English expression, blôdig tîbor, 'the bloody sacrifice,' follows naturally from the way in which Christ's death was regarded in the Christian Middle Ages, and agrees with the Christian way of speaking of the Redeemer. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, v. 2, as regularly in the Middle Ages, Christ is designated as hostia; in a hymn, Crux benedicta, of Venantius Fortunatus, and in many other places, as victima. And whenever the conception of Christ as the sacrifice or 'Lamb of God' is presented in the Middle Ages, the blood of Christ is invariably dwelt upon (as, e.g., in Old Eng. Homilies, 279, ţat blisfule blodi bodi, where the same adjective is used that we find in Völuspá).
Now in Völuspá we find Baldri alliterating with blóđgom tívor. May we not, in the light of what precedes, infer that in the lost North-English Christian poem from which Völuspá here borrowed, baldor in like manner alliterated with blôdig tîbor, 'the bloody sacrifice'? In the Christian English poem, baldor, of course, was not used of Baldr, the god of the heathen, but must have signified 'lord,' i.e. the Lord of the Christians, Christ, even as He is called in the AS poem Andreas (547), ţéoda bealdor.
In Völuspá we have, therefore, evidence that the conception of a god who was offered up as a bloody sacrifice was transferredfrom Christ, the God of the English Christians, to Baldr, the god of the heathen Norsemen.
Baldr's slayer is called Höđr in all Scandinavian sources. The account of his evil deed is given most fully in Gylfaginning. In Snorri's Edda, Höth is said to be blind. We may infer from Völuspá also that Höth was blind; for that poem likewise represents Loki as the real slayer of Baldr. In Old Norse (Norwegian-Icelandic) mythology Höth is significant only as being Baldr's slayer, and his blindness must, therefore, be connected with his slaying of Baldr. Höth's blindness is the outer sign of his inner spiritual blindness: he is not moved by malice, like Loki, but acts without knowing what he does.
In the blind Höth the Norwegian mythological poets in the West saw the blind Loginus, who pierced Christ. In Gylfaginning we read that the blind Höth stands without weapon and inactive in the outermost circle of those who are shooting at Baldr. Then Loki comes to him, begs him to shoot at Baldr, puts a mistletoe into his hand, and directs him where to aim his dart. The dart pierces Baldr, and he falls dead to the earth. Völuspá presupposes essentially the same story. In medićval accounts of the death of Christ, current among the English and irish, as well as among some other peoples, we are told that the blind Longinus, who is standing near by, or going past, has a lance put into his hand with which to pierce Christ, who is nailed to the cross. Longinus is led forward. One of the company shows him in what direction to aim, and the lance pierces Christ's heart.
It is certain that this story about Longinus is entirely Christian, and has not been in the least affected by the Scandinavian myth. The amazing likeness between the Christian legend of Longinus and the story of Höth can, therefore, be explained only on the theory that the story received its Old Norse form under the influence of the legend.
Baldr is slain by Höth's dart. It was a common belief in the Middle Ages, especially in England and Ireland, that Jesus did not die until pierced by the lance, and that it was the wound of the lance that caused His death.
Loki by his wicked counsel brings about the death of Baldr; and he is, therefore, called ráđbani Baldrs. Loki urges Höth to shoot at Baldr, hands him the mistletoe which alone can harm the sinless god, and shows him in which direction to aim. It is Lucifer, as conceived in the Middle Ages, who has thus been carried over into the Scandinavian mythological world as Loki. This I shall endeavour to prove in the following section.
Even as Loki by his counsel causes Baldr's death, so in the Cornish mystery, 'The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ,' Lucifer says that it is he who induced Pilate to slay Our Lord. Lucifer often appears in the Middle Ages as the prince of the devils, and thus corresponds to Satan princeps in the Gospel of Nicodemus. In the redaction of the second part of this gospel, which was known in England, Satan princeps says to Inferus, the ruler of the domain of death: 'I sharpened the lance that pierced Jesus.' Similarly, it is Loki who prepares the weapon that pierces Baldr.
In Gylfaginning we read that the gods, before Höth was brought forward by Loki, stood about the invulnerable Baldr. Some shot at him; others struck at him; and still others cast stones at him. This also shows connection with certain features in stories of the death of Christ. In the AS poem 'Satan,' Christ says: 'On the rood-tree men pierced me with spears (gârum) on the gallows; the young man hewed there' (510-11). And in the AS poem 'The Dream of the Holy Rood,' the cross on which Christ is crucified says: 'Everywhere I was wounded with arrows.'
It is to honour Baldr that the gods shoot at him. Loki says to Höth: 'Will you not, like the others, do Baldr honour?' In this we may hear an echo of the devilish mockery of the soldiers when they hail the thorn-crowned Christ as their king. In medićval English writings the mocking is represented as occurring at the same place as the crucifixion.
Höth pierces Baldr with the mistletoe. In Völuspá the Sibyl says: 'The mistletoe stood grown up higher than the level plains (i.e. in a tree above the earth), slender and very fair.' The mistletoe changes in Höth's hand into a spear, and thus becomes a deadly weapon.
Neither in Iceland nor in Norway can the mythical motive have arisen that it is from the mistletoe that Baldr gets his death wound. This plant does not grow in Iceland. In Norway it grows in but a few places, in the south-eastern part, near the present town of Horten. But it has been sufficiently proved that the Norwegians who exerted influence on the formation of the oldest extant mythical poems were from western Norway, not from the south-eastern part of the country. In England, on the other hand, the mistletoe is well known and very widespread. It occupies, moreover, a prominent position in popular superstition. It has the same name in Anglo-Saxon as in Old Norse (AS misteltân, ON mistelteinn). In the west of England the superstition is current even now that the cross was made of mistletoe, which at the time of Christ was a fair tree in the forest, but which was cursed because of the evil use to which it had been put, and condemned to live ever afterwards as an insignificant plant. We may, therefore, suppose that the Norwegians who first told how Baldr was pierced by the mistletoe, and through whom the account heard by the author of Völuspá spread itself in tradition, lived in England, and fashioned that mythical incident under the influence of English superstitions about the mistletoe.
The story about the mistletoe in the prose Gylfaginning is based on older verses. When Baldr dreamed that his life was in danger, Frigg made the trees, and all other things in Nature, swear an oath not to harm Baldr; but a slender sapling which grew west of Valhöll she regarded as so harmless that she did not demand an oath from it. Loki, hearing this, tore up the mistletoe, bore it into the assembly of the gods, and with it Baldr was slain. This story, as Konrad Hofmann first pointed out, is amazingly like a legend of the death of Jesus in a Jewish work of the Middle Ages, though it has not yet been possible to trace the historical connection between the Norse and the Jewish narratives. This work, Toledóth Jeschu, which has been ascribed to the thirteenth century, is in reality much older than Völuspá. (15) In it we are told that Jesus, aware of the danger which threatened His life, required an oath from every tree except a big stalk that grew in Judas's garden. Judas brings this stalk to the assembly of the Jews, and on it Jesus is hanged.
Even as Baldr dreams of a danger which threatens his life and tells his dreams to Frigg and the other gods, so in a medićvel Danish ballad on the sufferings of Jesus, 'the Son sits on the mother's knees and says out of his dreams: I dreamed a dream last night, that the Jews will condemn me.' This feature in the Danish ballad is not to be explained as due to the influence of the Baldr myth; it has developed from the statement, which we also find in the Middle Ages outside of Scandinavia, that Jesus tells his mother of his impending crucifixion.
It was the best of the gods who was pierced by the mistletoe. In Gylfaginning we read of Baldr; 'He is the best, and him all praise. He is so fair and radiant that light shines from him.' And the whitest of all plants (16) is compared with Baldr's eye-lashes. In this Scandinavian description of the highest god's son, we seem to have a reflection of the holy light with which the Christians surrounded, in pictures, the Son of God, the 'white' Christ (Hvítakristr). In the Middle Ages Jesus was represented as the whitest of all human beings, with golden hair; in body also he was without spot.
Of Baldr's dwelling Breiđablik (i.e. 'what gleams far and wide'), we read in Grímnismál:
á ţví landi
er ek liggja veit
fćsta feiknstafi,
which is reproduced in Gylfaginning as follows: 'in that place can be nothing impure.' This agrees literally with what we read in Rev. xxi. 27, of the New Jerusalem: 'And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth.'
Baldr, like Christ, visited Hel(l), the abode of the dead.
As punishment for Baldr's death, Loki was taken and bound, not to be loosed until the end of the world. This is connected with statements in Christian narratives from the Middle Ages, that Lucifer lies bound in darkness for ever. We are told that when Christ descended into the place of departed spirits. He seized the devil and bound him, so that he still lies bound in hell. In Völuspá the Sibyl says:
Hapt sá hon liggja......
lćgjarns líki
Loka áţekkjan;
ţar sitr Sigyn
ţeygi um sínum
ver velglýjuđ.
'She saw a fettered man lie, like unto Loki in appearance; there Sigyn sits over her husband, but not very glad.' (17) In Gylfaginning we are told that Loki's wife Sigyn sits beside him and holds a cup under the drops of poison which drip from the serpent placed over him. When the cup is full, Sigyn empties it; but while she is thus occupied the poison drips on Loki's face. It is worthy of note that we find this mythical picture, in all probability for the first time, in England and on a Christian monument. The Gosforth Cross in Cumberland seems to date from the ninth century (or, at the latest, from about 900), and is certainly older than the poem Völuspá. On the west side of this cross may be seen (18) a woman sitting over a fettered man. She is holding a cup in her hand in such a position that she appears to be pouring out its contents. The man is lying on his back, bound hand and foot, as it seems, to a rock. Close to the man's head may be seen the head of a snake.
ENDNOTES:
11. Compare the expression fróđgum tífi (tífa in Codex Wormianus) in the poem Haustlöng in Snorri's Edda, I, 310. This expression seems to have been chosen by the poet because blóđgom tívor echoed in his ear. I regard the poem Haustlöng as later than Völuspá. Back
12. There is not sufficient analogy for the derivation of tívorr from the stem tiwa-, 'god.' If the word were very old in Norse, w would have fallen out before o. It would also be remarkable if blóđgom were here used in anticipation, although we do find in Béowulf, 2439: his mćg ofscęt, brôđor ôđerne, blôdigan gâre. Müllenhoff's change of blóđgom to blauđgom is extremely unhappy; for he thus applies to the god an expression which the ancients would have regarded as gođgá, 'blasphemy.' Back
13. This comparison has already been made by J. Grimm, Deutsche Myth., 177, note 209, and Vigfusson, Corp. Poet. Bor., II, 643, 648. Sievers has shown that tîber has a long î. Back
14. In OHG zebar, 'sacrificium, hostia, victima,' short e has developed out of short i; and short i has taken the place of long i before br. Back
15. See Karpele, Gesch. d. Jüd. Lit., I, 397, and E. H. Meyer, Völuspá, p. 157. Back
16. Namely, the flower Baldrsbrá (Anthemis cotula and Matricaria inodora), which are still called by the name Baldeyebrow in northern England. Back
17. In the poem Haustlöng also, Sigyn is named as Loki's wife; but that poem is, in my opinion, later than Völuspá. Back
18. See the drawing given by Stephens in Aarböger for nordisk Oldkyndighed, 1884, pp. 19 and 23. Back
<< Previous Page Next Page >>
© 2004-2007 Northvegr.
Most of the material on this site is in the public domain. However, many people have worked very hard to bring these texts to you so if you do use the work, we would appreciate it if you could give credit to both the Northvegr site and to the individuals who worked to bring you these texts. A small number of texts are copyrighted and cannot be used without the author's permission. Any text that is copyrighted will have a clear notation of such on the main index page for that text. Inquiries can be sent to info@northvegr.org. Northvegr™ and the Northvegr symbol are trademarks and service marks of the Northvegr Foundation.
|