Part 5

The most important question put to Fjolsvith by Svipdag is, of course, the one whether a stranger can enter. Fjolsvith's answer is to the effect that this is, and remains, impossible, unless the stranger brings with him a certain sword. The wall repels an uninvited comer; the gate holds him fast if he ventures to lay hands on it; of the two wolf-dogs one is always watching while the other sleeps, and no one can pass them without permission.

To this assurance on the part of Fjolsvith are added a series of questions and answers, which the author of the poem has planned with uncommon acumen. Svipdag asks if it is not, after all, possible to get past the watching dogs. There must be something in the world delicate enough to satisfy their appetite and thus turn away their attention. Fjolsvith admits that there are two delicacies that might produce this effect, but they are pieces of flesh that lie in the limbs of the cock Vidofnir (17, 18). He who can procure these can steal past the dogs. But the cock Vidofnir sits high in the top of the world-tree and seems to be inaccessible. Is there, then, asks Svipdag, any weapon that can bring him down dead? Yes, says Fjolsvith, there is such a weapon. It was made outside of the Na-gates (nágrindur). The smith was one Loftur. He was robbed (rúinn) of this weapon so dangerous to the gold-glittering cock, and now it is in the possession of Sinmara, who has laid it in a chest of tough iron beneath nine njard-locks (25, 26).

It must have been most difficult and dangerous to go to the place where Sinmara has her abode and try to secure the weapon so well kept. Svipdag asks if anyone who is willing to attempt it has any hope of returning. Fjolsvith answers that in Vidofnir's ankle-bones (völum) lies a bright, hook-shaped bone. If one can secure this, bring it to Lúður (the place of the lower-world mill), and give it to Sinmara, then she can be induced to part with the weapon in question (27-30).

It appears from this that the condition on which Svipdag can get into the castle where Menglad dwells is that he shall be in possession of a weapon which was smithied by an enemy of the gods, here called Loftur, and thus to be compared with Loki, who actually bears this epithet. If he does not possess this weapon, which doubtless is fraught with danger to the gods, and is the only one that can kill the gold-glittering cock of the world-tree, then the gate of the citadel is not opened to him, and the watching wolf-dogs will not let him pass through it.

But Fjolsvith also indicates that under ordinary circumstances, and for one who is not particularly chosen for this purpose by Fate, it is utterly impossible to secure possession of the sword in question. Before Sinmara can be induced to lend it, it is necessary to bring Vidofnir dead down from the branches of the world-tree. But to kill the cock that very weapon is needed which Sinmara cannot otherwise be induced to part with.

Meanwhile the continuation of the poem shows that what was impossible for everybody else has already been accomplished by Svipdag. When he stands at the gate of the castle in conversation with Fjolsvith he has the sword by his side, and knows perfectly well that the gate is to be opened so soon as it pleases him to put an end to the talk with Fjolsvith and pronounce his own name. The very moment he does this the gate swings on its hinges, the mighty wolf-dogs welcome (fagna) him, and Menglad, informed by Fjolsvith of his arrival, hastens eagerly to meet him (42, &c.). Fjölsvinnsmál, so far as acumen in plot and in execution is concerned, is the finest old poem that has been handed down to our time, but it would be reduced to the most absurd nonsense if the sword were not in Svipdag's possession, as the gate is never to be opened to anyone else than to him who brings to Menglad's castle the sword in question.

So far as the sword is concerned we have now learned:

That it was made by an artist who must have been a foe of the gods, for Fjolsvith designates him by the Loki-epithet Loftur;

That the place where the artist dwelt when he made the weapon was situated fyr nágrindur neðan;

That while he dwelt there, and after he had finished the sword, he was robbed of it (Loftur rúinn fyr nágrindur neðan);

That he or they who robbed him of it must have been closely related to Night and the night dises, for the sword was thereafter in the keeping of the night-being Sinmara;

That she regarded it as exceedingly precious, and also dangerous if it came into improper hands, since she keeps it in a "tough iron chest" beneath nine magical locks;

That the eleven guards that dwell in the same castle with Menglad regard it as of the greatest importance to get the sword within their castle wall;

That it has qualities like no other weapon in the world: this sword, and it alone, can kill the golden cock on the world-tree - a quality which seems to indicate that it threatens the existence of the world and the gods.

It is evident that the artist who made this incomparable and terrible weapon was one of the most celebrated smiths in mythology. The question now is, whether the information given us by Fjölsvinnsmál in regard to him is sufficient to enable us to determine with certainty who he is.

The poem does not name him by any of his names, but calls him by the Loki-epithet Loftur, "the airy". Among the ancient smiths mentioned in our mythic fragments there is one who refers to himself with the epithet Byrr, "Wind," suggesting to us the same person - this one is Volund. After he in his sleep had been made prisoner by Mimir-Niðaður and his Njarians (see No. 87), he says when he awakes:

Hverir eru jöfrar
þeir er á lögðu
besti Byr síma
og mig bundu?

"Who are the mighty, who with bonds (besti, dative of böstr) bound the wind (lögðu síma á Byr) and fettered me?" The expression implies that it is as easy to bind the wind as Volund. He was also able to secure his liberty again in spite of all precautions.

According to the Norse version of the Volund saga, one of the precautions resorted to is to sever the sinews of his knees (Völundarkviða 17 and the prose). It is Niðaður's queen who causes this cruel treatment. In Fjölsvinnsmál the nameless mythic personality who deprived the "airy one" of his weapon has left it to be kept by a feminine person, Sinmara. The name is composed of sin, which means "sinew," and mara, which means "the one that maims". (Mara is related to the verb merja, "to maim" - see Vigfusson's Dictionary) Thus Sinmara means "the one who maims by doing violence to the sinews". The one designated by this epithet in Fjölsvinnsmál has therefore acted the same part as Mimir-Niðaður's queen in the Völundarkviða.

Mimir-Niðaður, who imprisons Volund and robs him of his sword and the incomparable arm-ring, is the father of Night and her sisters (see No. 85). He who robs "the airy one" of his treasures must also have been intimately related to the dises of night, else he would not have selected as keeper of the weapon Sinmara, whose quality as a being of night is manifested by the meaning incubus nocturnes which is the name Mara acquired. In Fjölsvinnsmál 29 Sinmara is called hin fölva gýgur, "the ashes-coloured giantess " - a designation pointing in the same direction.

She is also called Eir aurglasis (28), an expression which, as I believe, has been correctly interpreted as "the dis of the shining arm-ring" (cp. Bugge Edda, p. 348). In Völundarkviða the daughter of Mimir-Niðaður receives Volund's incomparable arm-ring to wear.

According to Fjölsvinnsmál "the airy one" makes his weapon fyr nágrindur neðan. The meaning of this expression has already been discussed in No. 60. The smith has his abode in the frost-cold and foggy Niflheim, while he is at work on the sword. Niflheim, the land fyr nágrindur neðan, as we already know, is the northern subterranean border-land of Mimir's domain. The two realms are separated by Mount Hvergelmir, on which the Na-gates are set, and where the world-mill, called Eylúður and Lúður have their foundation-structure (see Nos. 59, 60, 79, 80). In its vicinity below the southern slope of the Hvergelmir mountain Night has her hall (Nos. 84, 93). According to Fjölsvinnsmál Sinmara also dwells here. For Fjolsvith says that if Svipdag is to borrow the sword which she keeps, he must carry the above-mentioned hooked bone "to Lúður and give it to Sinmara" (ljósan ljá skaltu í Lúður bera, Sinmöru að selja - stanza 30). Lúður, the subterranean world-mill, which stands on the Nida mountain above Night's hall, has given its name to the region where it stands. In Völundarkviða Mimir-Niðaður suddenly appears with his wife and daughter and armed Njarians in the remote cold Wolfdales, where Volund thinks himself secure, and no one knows whence these foes of his come. The explanation is that the "Wolfdales" of the heroic saga were in the mythology situated in Niflheim, the border-land of Mimir's realm. Like "the airy one," Volund made his sword fyr nágrindur neðan; the latter, like the former, was robbed of the weapon as soon as it was finished by a lower-world ruler, whose kinswomen are dises of the night; and in the saga of the one, as of the other, one of these night dises has caused a maiming by injuring the sinews.

Thus we can also understand why Svipdag must travers Niflheim, "meet Night on Niflway," visit the world-mill, wade across Hel-rivers, and encounter Mimir himself, "the weapon honoured". If Svipdag wants the sword made by Loftur, he must risk these adventures, since the sword is kept in the lower world by a kinswoman of Mimir.

The heroic saga about Volund is therefore identical with the myth concerning the maker of the sword which opens Asgard for Svipdag. The former, produced in Christian times, is only a new version of the latter. Volund is a foe of the gods, an elf-prince whc was deeply insulted by beings more powerful than himself (No. 87). "The airy one" must likewise be a foe of the gods, since the weapon he has made is dangerous to the golden cock of the world-tree, and is bought by "the eleven wards" with the opening of Asgard's gate and the giving of Menglad as wife to Svipdag. Its danger to Asgard must also be suggested by Fjolsvith's statement, that the splendid hall, called Hýrr, "the gladdener," "the soul-stirring," that hall which is situated within the castle wall, which is encircled by vaferflames, and which from time out of mind has been celebrated among men - that this hall has already long trembled á brodds oddi, "on the point of the sword" (32). No other weapon can here be meant than one which was fraught with the greatest danger to the safety of the gods, and which filled them with anxiety; and unless we wish to deny that there is sense and connection in the poem, this sword can be no other than that which Svipdag now has with him, and which, having been brought to Asgard, relieves the gods of their anxiety. And to repeat the points of similarity, Volund, like "Loftur," makes his weapon in the northern borderland of Mimir's domain; and when the sword is finished he is surprised by subterranean powers. In Loftur's saga, as in Volund's, a magnificent arm-ring is mentioned, and in both a dis of night received this ring to wear. In Loftur's saga, as in Volund's, a night-dis is mentioned who injures sinews. And Volund himself calls himself Byrr, "the wind," which is a synonym of Lofturr.

Thus Svipdag has made a journey to the lower world to get possession of the sword of Volund, and he has been successful.