Part 4

The series of traditions above narrated in regard to Odainsakur, the Glittering Plains, and their ruler Gudmund, and also in regard to the neighbouring domains as habitations of the souls of the dead, extends, so far as the age of their recording in writing is concerned, through a period of considerable length. The latest cannot be referred to an earlier date than the fourteenth century; the oldest were put in writing toward the close of the twelfth. Saxo began working on his history between the years 1179 and 1186. Thus these literary evidences span about two centuries, and stop near the threshold of heathendom. The generation to which Saxo's father belonged witnessed the crusade which Sigurd the Crusader made in Eastern Smaland, in whose forests the Asa-doctrine until that time seems to have prevailed, and the Odinic religion is believed to have flourished in the more remote parts of Sweden even in Saxo's own time.

We must still add to this series of documents one which is to carry it back another century, and even more. This document is a saga told by Adam of Bremen in De Situ Daniæ. Adam, or, perhaps, before him, his authority Adalbert (appointed archbishop in the year 1043), has turned the saga into history, and made it as credible as possible by excluding all distinctly mythical elements. And as it, doubtless for this reason, neither mentions a place which can be compared with Odainsakur or with the Glittering Plains, I have omitted it among the literary evidences above quoted. Nevertheless, it reminds us in its main features of Saxo's account of Gorm's journey of discovery, and its relation both to it and to the still older myth shall be shown later (see No. 94). In the form in which Adam heard the saga, its point of departure has been located in Friesland, not in Denmark. Frisian noblemen make a voyage past Norway up to the farthest limits of the Arctic Ocean, get into a darkness which the eyes scarcely can penetrate, are exposed to a maelstrom which threatens to drag them down ad Chaos, but finally come quite unexpectedly out of darkness and cold to an island which, surrounded as by a wall of high rocks, contains subterranean caverns, wherein giants lie concealed. At the entrances of the underground dwellings lay a great number of tubs and vessels of gold and other metals which "to mortals seem rare and valuable". As much as the adventurers could carry of these treasures they took with them and hastened to their ships. But the giants, represented by great dogs, rushed after them. One of the Frisians was overtaken and torn into pieces before the eyes of the others. The others succeeded, thanks to our Lord and to Saint Willehad, in getting safely on board their ships.