Part 4

Saxo (Book VIII, pp. 267-270) relates that the experienced Captain Thorkil made, at the command of King Gorm, a second journey to the uttermost North, in order to complete the knowledge which was gained on the first journey. That part of the lower world where Loki (by Saxo called Ugartilocus) dwells had not then been seen. This now remained to be done. Like the first time, Thorkil sailed into that sea on which sun and stars never shine, and he kept cruising so long in its darkness that his supply of fuel gave out. The expedition was as a consequence on the point of failing, when a fire was suddenly seen in the distance. Thorkil then entered a boat with a few of his men and rowed thither. In order to find his way back to his ship in the darkness, he had placed in the mast-top a self-luminous precious stone, which he had taken with him on the journey. Guided by the light, Thorkil came to a strand-rock, in which there were narrow "gaps" (fauces), out of which the light came. There was also a door, and Thorkil entered, after requesting his men to remain outside.

Thorkil found a grotto. At the fire which was kindled stood two uncommonly tall men, who kept mending the fire. The grotto had an inner door or gate, and that which was seen inside that gate is described by Saxo in almost the same words as those of his former description of the hall at the Nastrands (obsoleti postes, ater situ paries, sordidum tectum, frequens anguibus pavimentum). Thorkil in reality sees the same hall again; he had simply come to it from another side, from the north, where the hall has its door opening toward the strand (norður horfa dyr - Völuspá), the pillars of which, according to Saxo's previous description, are covered with the soot of ages. The soot is now explained by the fire which is kindled in the grotto outside the hall, the grotto forming as it were a vestibule. The two gigantic persons who mend the fire are called by Saxo aquili.

In Marcianus Capella, who is Saxo's model in regard to style and vocabulary, persons of semi-divine rank (hemithei) are mentioned who are called aquili, and who inhabit the same regions as the souls of the dead (lares and larvæ - Marc. Cap., i., ii. Compare P. E, Müller, not., Hist. Dan., pp. 68, 69). Aquilus also has the signification, dark, swarthy, Icel. dökkur.

In the northern mythology a particular kind of elves are mentioned - black or swarthy elves, dökkálfar. They dwell under the farthest root of the world-tree, near the northern gate of the lower world (jörmungrundar í jódyr nyrðra), and have as their neighbours the Thurses and the unhappy dead (náir - Forspjallsljóð 25). Gylfaginning also (ch. 17) knows of the swarthy elves, at least, that they "dwell down in the earth" (búa niðri í jörðu). As to mythic rank, colour, and abode, they therefore correspond with the Roman aquili, and Saxo has forcibly and very correctly employed this Latin word in order to characterise them in an intelligible manner.

The two swarthy elves keeping watch outside of the hail of Nastrands ought naturally to have been astonished at seeing a living human being entering their grotto. Saxo makes them receive the unexpected guest in a friendly manner. They greet him, and, when they have learned the purpose of his visit, one of them reproaches him for the rash boldness of his undertaking, but gives him information in regard to the way to Loki, and gives him fire and fuel after he had tested Thorkil's understanding, and found him to be a wise man. The journey, says the swarthy elf, can be performed in four days' fast sailing. As appears from the context, the journey is to the east. The traveller then comes to a place where not a blade of grass grows, and over which an even denser darkness broods. The place includes several terrible rocky halls, and in one of them Loki dwells.

On the fourth day Thorkil, favoured by a good wind, comes to the goal of his journey. Through the darkness a mass of rock rising from the sea (scopulum inusitatæ molis) is with difficulty discerned, and Thorkil lays to by this rocky island. He and his men put on clothes of skin of a kind that protects against venom, and then walk along the beach at the foot of the rock until they find an entrance. Then they kindle a fire with flint stones, this being an excellent protection against demons; they light torches and crawl in through the narrow opening. Unfortunately Saxo gives but a scanty account of what they saw there. First they came to a cave of torture, which resembled the hall on the Nastrands, at least, in this particular, that there were many serpents and many iron seats or iron benches of the kind described above. A brook of sluggish water is crossed by wading. Another grotto which is not described was passed through, whereupon they entered Loki's awful prison. He lay there bound hands and feet with immense chains. His hair and beard resembled spears of horn, and had a terrible odour. Thorkil jerked out a hair of his beard to take with him as evidence of what he had seen. As he did this, there was diffused in the cave a pestilential stench; and after Thorkil's arrival home, it appeared that the beard-hair he had taken home was dangerous to life on account of its odour. When Thorkil and his men had passed out of the interior jurisdiction of the rock, they were discovered by flying serpents which had their home on the island (cp. Völuspá - þar saug Niðhöggur, &c., No. 77). The skin clothes protected them against the venom vomited forth. But one of the men who bared his eyes became blind. Another, whose hand came outside of the protecting garments, got it cut off; and a third, who ventured to uncover his head, got the latter separated from his neck by the poison as by a sharp steel instrument.

The poem or saga which was Saxo's authority for this story must have described the rocky island where Loki was put in chains as inhabited by many condemned beings. There are at least three caves of torture, and in one of them there are many iron benches. This is confirmed, as we shall see, by Völuspá.

Saxo also says that there was a harbour. From Völuspá we learn that when Yggdrasil trembles at the approach of Ragnarok, the ship of the dead, Naglfar, lies so that the liberated Loki can go aboard it. That it has long lain moored in its harbour is evident from the fact that, according to Völuspá, it then "becomes loose". Unknown hands are its builders. The material out of which it is constructed is the nail-parings of dead men (Gylfaginning 51 - probably according to some popular tradition). The less regard for religion, the less respect for the dead. But from each person who is left unburied, or is put into his grave without being, when possible, washed, combed, cleaned as to hands and feet, and so cared for that his appearance may be a favourable evidence to the judges at the Thing of the dead in regard to his survivors - from each such person comes building material for the death-ship, which is to carry the hosts of world-destroyers to the great conflict. Much building material is accumulated in the last days - in the "dagger-and-axe age," when "men no longer respect each other" (Völuspá).

Naglfar is the largest of all ships, larger than Skíðblaðnir (Skíðblaðnir er beztur skipanna . . . en Naglfari er mest skip - Gylfaginning 43). This very fact shows that it is to have a large number of persons on board when it departs from Loki's rocky island. Völuspá 47:8-48 says:

Here it is expressly stated that "the hosts of Muspell" are on board the ship, Naglfar, guided by Loki, after it has been "freed from its moorings" and had set sail from the island where Loki and other damned ones were imprisoned.

How can this be harmonised with the doctrine based on the authority of Gylfaginning, that the sons of Muspell are inhabitants of the southernmost region of light and warmth, Gylfaginning's so-called Muspellsheim? or with the doctrine that Surt is the protector of the borders of this realm? or that Muspell's sons proceed under his command to the Ragnarok conflict, and that they consequently must come from the South, which Völuspá also seems to corroborate with the words Surtur fer sunnan með sviga lævi?

The answer is that the one statement cannot be harmonised with the other, and the question then arises as to which of the two authorities is the authentic one, the heathen poem Völuspá or Gylfaginning, produced in the thirteenth century by a man who had a vague conception of the mythology of our ancestors. Even the most uncritical partisan of Gylfaginning would certainly unhesitatingly decide in favour of Völuspá, provided we had this poem handed down in its pure form from the heathen days. But this is clearly not the case. We therefore need a third witness to decide between the two. Such an one is also actually to be found.

In the Norse heathen records the word múspell occurs only twice, viz., in the above-mentioned Völuspá strophe and in Lokasenna 42, where Frey, who has surrendered his sword of victory, is threatened by Loki with the prospect of defeat and death - er Múspells synir ríða Myrkvið yfir, "when Muspell's sons ride over Darkwood". The Myrkwood is mentioned in Völundarkviða 1 as a forest, through which the swan-maids coming from the South flew into the wintry Wolfdales, where one chases bears on skees (snow-shoes) to get food. This is evidently not a forest situated near the primeval fountains of heat and fire. The very arbitrary manner in which the names of the mythical geography is used in the heroic poems, where Myrkwood comes to the surface, does not indicate that this forest was conceived as situated south of Midgard, and there is, as shall be shown below, reason for assuming that Darkwood is another name for the Ironwood famous in mythology; the wood which, according to Völuspá, is situated in the East, and in which Angurboda fosters the children of Loki and Fenrir.

One of these, and one of the worst, is the monster Hati, the enemy of the moon mentioned in Völuspá as tungls tjúgari, that makes excursions from the Ironwood and "stains the citadels of rulers with blood". In the Ragnarok conflict Hati takes part and contends with Tyr (Gylfaginning), and, doubtless, not only he, but also the whole offspring of the Fenris-wolf fostered in the Ironwood, are on the battlefield in that division which is commanded by Loki their clan-chief. This is also, doubtless, the meaning of the following words in the Völuspá strophe quoted above: "Fifl's descendants all come with Freki (the wolf), and in company with them is Byleipt's (or Byleist's) brother". As Loki, Byleipt, and Helblindi are mentioned as brothers (Gylfaginning 33), no one else can be meant with "Byleipt's brother" than Loki himself or Helblindi, and more probably the latter, since it has already been stated, that Loki is there as the commander of the forces. Thus it is Muspell's sons and Loki's kinsmen in the Ironwood who are gathered around him when the great conflict is at hand. Muspell's sons accompany the liberated Loki from his rocky isle, and are with him on board Naglfar. Loki's first destination is the Ironwood, whither he goes to fetch Angurboda's children, and thence the journey proceeds "over Myrkwood" to the plain of Vigrid. The statements of Völuspá and Lokasenna illustrate and corroborate each other, and it follows that Völuspá's statement, claiming that Muspell's sons come from the East, is original and correct.

Gylfaginning treats Muspell as a place, a realm, the original home of fire and heat (Gylfaginning 4). Still, there is a lack of positiveness, for the land in question is in the same work called Múspellsheimur (ch. 5) and Múspells heimur (ch. 8), whence we may presume that the author regarded Múspell as meaning both the land of the fire and the fire itself. The true etymology of Múspell was probably as little known in the thirteenth century, when Gylfaginning was written, as it is now. I shall not speak of the several attempts made at conjecturing the definition of the word. They may all be regarded as abortive, mainly, doubtless, for the reason that Gylfaginning's statements have credulously been assumed as the basis of the investigation. As a word inherited from heathen times, it occurs under the forms mutspelli and muspilli in the Old Saxon poem Heliand and in an Old High German poem on the final judgment, and there it has the meaning of the Lord's day, the doom of condemnation, or the condemnation. Concerning the meaning which the word had among the heathens of the North, before the time of the authors of Völuspá and Lokasenna, all that can be said with certainty is, that the word in the expression "Muspell's sons" has had a special reference to mythical beings who are to appear in Ragnarok fighting there as Loki's allies, that is, on the side of the evil against the good; that these beings were Loki's fellow-prisoners on the rocky isle where he was chained; and that they accompanied him from there on board Naglfar to war against the gods. As Gylfaginning makes them accompany Surt coming from the South, this must be the result of a confounding of "Muspell's sons" with "Surt's (Suttung's) sons".

A closer examination ought to have shown that Gylfaginning's conception of "Muspell's sons" is immensely at variance with the mythical. Under the influence of Christian ideas they are transformed into a sort of angels of light, who appear in Ragnarok to contend under the command of Surt "to conquer all the idols" (sigra öll goðin - Gylfaginning 4) and carry out the punishment of the world. While Völuspá makes them come with Loki in the ship Naglfar, that is, from the terrible rocky isle in the sea over which eternal darkness broods, and while Lokasenna makes them come across the Darkwood, whose name does not suggest any region in the realm of light, Gylfaginning tells us that they are celestial beings. Idols and giants contend with each other on Vigrid's plains; then the heavens are suddenly rent in twain, and out of it ride in shining squadrons "Muspell's sons" and Surt, with his flaming sword, at the head of the fylkings. Gylfaginning is careful to keep these noble riders far away from every contact with that mob which Loki leads to the field of battle. It therefore expressly states that they form a fylking by themselves (Í þessum gný klofnar himinninn, og ríða þaðan Múspells synir; Surtur ríður fyrstur, &c. . . . en Múspells synir hafa einir sér fylking, og er sú björt mjög - ch. 51). Thus they do not come to assist Loki, but to put an end to both the idols and the mob of giants. The old giant, Surt, who, according to a heathen skald, Eyvind Skaldaspillir, dwells in sökkdalir, in mountain grottos deep under the earth (see about him, No. 89), is in Gylfaginning first made the keeper of the borders of "Muspellsheim," and then the chief of celestial hosts. But this is not the end of his promotion. In the text found in the Upsala Codex, Gylfaginning makes him lord in Gimle, and likewise the king of eternal bliss. After Ragnarok it is said, "there are many good abodes and many bad"; best it is to be in Gimle with Surt (margar eru vistar góðar og margar illar, bezt er að vera á Gimle með Surti). The name Surt means black. We find that his dark looks did not prevent his promotion, and this has been carried to such a point that a mythologist who honestly believed in Gylfaginning saw in him the Almighty who is to come after the regeneration to equalise and harmonise all discord, and to found holy laws to prevail for ever.

Under such circumstances, it may be suggested as a rule of critical caution not to accept unconditionally Gylfaginning's statement that the world of light and heat which existed before the creation of the world was called Muspell or Muspellsheim. In all probability, this is a result of the author's own reflections. At all events, it is certain that no other record has any knowledge of that name. But that the mythology presumed the existence of such a world follows already from the fact that Urd's fountain, which gives the warmth of life to the world-tree, must have had its deepest fountain there, just as Hvergelmir has its in the world of primeval cold, and Mimir has his fountain in that wisdom which unites the opposites and makes them work together in a cosmic world.

Accordingly, we must distinguish between Múspells megir, Múspells synir, from Surt's clan-men, who are called Surts ætt, synir Suttunga, Suttungs synir (Skírnismál 34; Alvíssmál 34). We should also remember that Muspell in connection with the words synir and megir hardly can mean a land, a realm, a region. The figure by which the inhabitants of a country are called its sons or descendants never occurs, so far as I know, in the oldest Norse literature.

In regard to the names of the points of the compass in the poetic Edda, norðan and austan, it must not be forgotten that the same northern regions in the mythical geography to which various events are referred must have been regarded by the Icelanders as lying to the east from their own northern isle. The Bjarmia ulterior, in whose night-shrouded waters mythical adventurers sought the gates to the lower world, lay in the uttermost North, and might still, from an Icelandic and also from a Norwegian standpoint, be designated as a land in the East. According to the sagas preserved by Saxo, these adventurers sailed into the Arctic Ocean, past the Norwegian coast, and eastward to a mythical Bjarmia, more distant than the real Bjarmaland. They could thus come to the coast where a gate to the lower world was to be found, and to the Nastrands, and if they continued this same course to the East, they could finally get to the rocky isle where Loki lay chained.

We have seen that Loki is not alone with Sigyn on that isle where in chains he abides Ragnarok. There were unhappy beings in large numbers with him. As already stated, Saxo speaks of three connected caves of torture there, and the innermost one is Loki's. Of the one nearest to it, Saxo tells nothing else than that one has to wade across a brook or river in order to get there. Of the bound Fenrir, Loki's son, it is said that from his mouth runs froth which forms the river Ván (Gylfaginning 34). In Lokasenna 41 Frey says to the abusive Loki: "A wolf (that is, Fenrir) I see lying at the mouth of the river until the forces of the world come in conflict; if you do not hold your tongue, you, villain, will be chained next to him" (því næst - an expression which here should be taken in a local sense, as a definite place is mentioned in the preceding sentence). And as we learn from Völuspá, that Freki (the wolf) is with Loki on board Naglfar, then these evidences go to show that Loki and his son are chained in the same place. The isle where Fenrir was chained is called in Gylfaginning Lyngvi, and the body of water in which the isle is situated is called Ámsvartnir, a suitable name of the sea, over which eternal darkness broods. On the isle, the probably Icelandic author of Völuspá (or its translator or compiler) has imagined a "grove," whose trees consist of jets of water springing from hot fountains (hvera lundur). The isle is guarded by Garmur, a giant-dog, who is to bark with all its might when the chains of Loki and Fenrir threaten to burst asunder:

Geyr Garmur mjög
fyr Gnipahelli,
festur mun slitna,
en Freki renna.

According to Grímnismál, Garm is the foremost of all dogs. The dogs which guard the beautiful Menglod's citadel are also called Garms (Fjölsvinnsmál). In Gylfaginning, the word is also used in regard to a wolf, Hati Managarm. Gnipahellir means the cave of the precipitous rock. The adventures which Thorkil and his men encountered with the flying serpents, in connection with the watching Hel-dog, show that Lyngvi is the scene of demons of the same kind as those which are found around the Na-gates of Niflheim.

Bound hands and feet with the entrails of a "frost-cold son" (hrímkalda magar - Lokasenna 49), which, after being placed on his limbs, are transformed into iron chains (Gyfaginning 50), Loki lies on a weapon (á hjörvi - Lokasenna 49), and under him are three flat stones placed on edge, one under his shoulders, one under his loins, and one under his hams (Gylfaginning 50). Over him Skadi, who is to take revenge for the murder of her father, suspends a serpent in such a manner that the venom drops in the face of the nithing. Sigyn, faithful to her wicked husband, sits sorrowing by his side (Völuspá) and protects him as well as she is able against the venom of the serpent (Postscript to Lokasenna, Gylfaginning 50). Fenrir is fettered by the soft, silk-like chain Gleipnir, made by the subterranean artist, and brought from the lower world by Hermod. It is the only chain that can hold him, and that cannot be broken before Ragnarok. His jaws are kept wide open with a sword (Gylfaginning 34).