Part 5

We have not yet exhausted Saxo's contributions to the myth concerning Svipdag. In two other passages in his Historia Danica Svipdag reappears, namely, in the accounts of the reigns of Frodi III. and of Halfdan Berggram, in both under the name Ericus (Eirekur), a name applied to Svipdag in the mythology also (see No. 108).

The first reference showing that Svipdag and Erik are identical appears in the following analogies:

Halfdan (Gram), who kills a Swedish king, is attacked in war by Svipdag.
Halfdan (Berggram), who kills a Swedish king, is attacked in war by Erik.
Svipdag is the son of the slain Swedish king's daughter.
Erik is the son of the slain Swedish king's daughter.

Saxo's account of King Frodi is for the greater part the myth about Frey told as history. We might then expect to find that Svipdag, who becomes Frey's brother-in-law, should appear in some rôle in Frodi's history. The question, then, is whether any brother-in-law of Frodi plays a part therein. This is actually the case. Frodi's brother-in-law is a young hero who is his general and factotum, and is called Ericus, with the surname Disertus, the eloquent. The Ericus who appears as Halfdan's enemy accordingly resembles Svipdag, Halfdan's enemy, in the fact that he is a son of the daughter of the Swedish king slain by Halfdan. The Ericus who is Frodi-Frey's general, again, resembles Svipdag in the fact that he marries Frodi-Frey's sister. This is another indication that Erik and Svipdag were identical in Saxo's mythic sources.

Let us now pursue these indications and see whether they are confirmed by the stories which Saxo tells of Halfdan's enemy Erik and Frodi-Frey's brother-in-law, Erik the eloquent.

Saxo first brings us to the paternal home of Erik the eloquent. In the beginning of the narrative Erik's mother is already dead and his father is married a second time (Book V, p. 123). Compare with this the beginning of Svipdag's history, where his mother, according to Gróugaldur, is dead, and his father is married again.

The stepmother has a son, by name Rollerus, whose position in the myth I shall consider hereafter. Erik and Roller leave their paternal home to find Frodi-Frey and his sister Gunvara, a maiden of the most extraordinary beauty. Before they proceed on this adventurous journey Erik's stepmother, Roller's mother, has given them a wisdom-inspiring food to eat, in which one of the constituent parts was the fat of three serpents. Of this food the cunning Erik knew how to secure the better part, really intended for Roller. But the half-brothers were faithful friends.

From Saxo's narrative it appears that Erik had no desire at all to make this journey. It was Roller who first made the promise to go in search of Frodi and his sister, and it was doubtless Erik's stepmother who brought about that Erik should assist his brother in the accomplishment of the task. Erik himself regarded the resolve taken by Roller as surpassing his strength.

This corresponds with what Gróugaldur tells us about Svipdag's disinclination to perform the task imposed on him by his stepmother. This also gives us the key to Gróugaldur's words, that Svipdag was commanded to go and find not only "the one fond of ornaments," but "those fond of ornaments" (koma móti Menglöðum). The plural indicates that there is more than one "fond of ornaments" to be sought. It is necessary to bring back to Asgard not only Freyja, but also Frey her brother, the god of the harvests, for whom the ancient artists made ornaments, and who as a symbol of nature is the one under whose supremacy the forces of vegetation in nature decorate the meadows with grass and the fields with grain. He, too, with his sister, was in the power of the giant-world in the great fimbul-winter (see below).

The food to which serpents must contribute one of the constituent parts reappears in Saxo's account of Hotherus (No. 101), and is there described with about the same words. In both passages three serpents are required for the purpose. That Baldur should be nourished with this sort of food is highly improbable. The serpent food in the stories about Hotherus and Ericus has been borrowed from the Svipdag-myth.

The land in which Frodi and his beautiful sister live is difficult of access, and magic powers have hitherto made futile every effort to get there. The attendants of the brother and sister there are described as the most savage, the most impudent, and the most disagreeable that can be conceived. They are beings of the inmost disgusting kind, whose manners are as unrestrained as their words. To get to this country it is necessary to cross an ocean, where storms, conjured up by witchcraft, threaten every sailor with destruction.

Groa has predicted this journey, and has sung a magic song of protection over her son against the dangers which he is to meet on the magic sea:

Þann gel eg þér inn sétta
ef þú á sjó kemur
meira en menn viti:
logn ok lögur
gangi þér í lúður saman
ok ljái þér æ friðdrjúgrar farar.

When Erik and Roller, defying the storms, had crossed this sea and conquered the magic power which hindered the approach to the country, they entered a harbour, near which Frodi and Gunvara are to be sought. On the strand they meet people who belong to the attendants of the brother and sister. Among them are three brothers, all named Grep, and of whom one is Gunvara's pressing and persistent suitor. This Grep, who is a poet and orator of the sort to be found in that land, at once enters into a discussion with Erik. At the end of the discussion Grep retires defeated and angry. Then Erik and Roller proceed up to the abode where they are to find those whom they seek. Frodi and Gunvara are met amid attendants who treat them as princely persons, and look upon themselves as their court-circle. But the royal household is of a very strange kind, and receives visitors with great hooting, barking of dogs, and insulting manners. Frodi occupies the high-seat in the hall, where a great fire is burning as a protection against the bitter cold. It is manifest from Saxo's description that Frodi and Gunvara, possibly by virtue of the sorcery of the giants, are in a spiritual condition in which they have almost forgotten the past, but without being happy in their present circumstances. Frodi feels unhappy and degraded. Gunvara loathes her suitor Grep. The days here spent by Erik and Roller, before they get an opportunity to take flight with Gunvara, form a series of drinking-bouts, vulgar songs, assaults, fights, and murders. The jealous Grep tries to assassinate Erik, but in this attempt he is slain by Roller's sword. Frodi cannot be persuaded to accompany Erik, Roller, and Gunvara on this flight. He feels that his life is stained with a spot that cannot be removed, and he is unwilling to appear with it among other men. In the mythology it is left to Njord himself to liberate his son. In another passage (Book VI, p. 167) Saxo says that King Fridlevus (Njord) liberated a princely youth who had been robbed by a giant. In the mythology this youth can hardly be anyone else than the young Frey, the son of the liberator. Erik afterwards marries Gunvara.

Among the poetical paraphrases from heathen times are found some which refer to Frey's and Freyja's captivity among the giants. In a song of the skald Kormákur the mead of poetry is called jast-rín fentanna Sýrar Greppa, "the seething flood of the sea ranks (of the skerry) of Syr (of Freyja) of the Greps". This paraphrase evidently owes its existence to an association of ideas based on the same myth as Saxo has told in his way. Sýr, as we know, is one of Freyja's surnames, and as to its meaning, one which she must have acquired during her sojourn in Jotunheim, for it is scarcely applicable to her outside of Jotunheim. Greppur, the poet there, as we have already seen, is Freyja's suitor. He has had brothers also called Greppr, whence the plural expression Sýrar Greppa ("Syr's Greps"), wherein Freyja's surname is joined with more than one Grep, receives its mythological explanation. The giant abode where Frodi and Gunvara sojourn, is according to Saxo, situated not far from the harbour where Erik and Roller entered (portum a quo Frotho non longe deversabatur). The expression "the Greps of Syr's skerries" thus agrees with Saxo.

A northern land uninhabited by man is by Eyvind Skaldaspillir called útröst Belja dólgs, "the most remotely situated abode of Beli's enemy (Frey)". This paraphrase is also explained by the myth concerning Frey's and Freyja's visit in Jotunheim. Beli is a giant-name, and means "the bellower". Erik and Roller, according to Saxo, are received with a horrible howl by the giants who attend Frey. "They produced horrible sounds like those of howling animals" (ululantium more horrisonas dedere voces). To the myth about how Frey fell into the power of the giants I shall come later (see Nos. 109, 111, 112).

Erik is in Saxo called disertus, the eloquent. The Svipdag epithet Óður originally had a meaning very near to this. The impersonal óður means partly the reflecting element in man, partly song and poetry, the ability of expressing one's self skilfully and of joining the words in an agreeable and persuasive manner (cp. the Gothic weit-wodan, to convince). Erik demonstrates the propriety of his name. Saxo makes him speak in proverbs and sentences, certainly for the reason that his Northern source has put them on the lips of the young hero. The same quality characterises Svipdag. In Gróugaldur his mother sings over him: "Eloquence and social talents be abundantly bestowed upon you"; and the description of him in Fjölsvinnsmál places before our eyes a nimble and vivacious youth who well understands the watchman's veiled words, and on whose lips the speech develops into proverbs which fasten themselves on the mind. Compare augna gamans, &c. (stanza 5), and the often quoted Urðar orði kveður engi maður (stanza 47).

Toward Gunvara Erik observes the same chaste and chivalrous conduct as Otharus toward Syritha (intacta illi pudicitia manet). As to birth, he occupies the same subordinate position to her as Odur to Freyja, Otharus to Syritha, Svipdag to Menglad.

The adventures related in the mythology from Svipdag's journey, when he went in search of Freyja-Menglad, are by Saxo so divided between Ericus Disertus and Otharus that of the former is told the most of what happened to Svipdag during his visit in the giant abode, of the latter the most of what happened to him on his way thence to his home.

Concerning Erik's family relations, Saxo gives some facts which, from a mythological point of view, are of great value. It has already been stated that Erik's mother, like Svipdag's, is dead, and that his father, like Svipdag's, is married a second time where his saga begins. The father begets with his second wife a son, whom Saxo calls Rollerus. When Erik's father also is dead, Roller's mother, according to Saxo, marries again, and this time a powerful champion called Brak (Book V, p. 137), who in the continuation of the story proves himself to be Ása-bragur, the god Thor (cp. No. 105), to whom she brings her son Roller. In our mythological records we learn that Thor's wife was Sif, the goddess of vegetation, and that Sif had been married and had had a son, by name Ullur, before she became the wife of the Asa-god, and that she brought with her to Asgard this son, who became adopted among the gods. Thus the mythic records and Saxo correspond in these points, and it follows that Rollerus is the same as Ullur, whom Saxo elsewhere (Book III, pp. 78-79; cp. No. 36) mentions as Ollerus. The forms Ollerus and Rollerus are to each other as Ólfur to Hrólfur. Hrólfur is a contraction of Hróð-úlfur; Rollerus indicates a contraction of Hróð-Ullur, Hríð-Ullur. The latter form occurs in the paraphrase Hríðullr hrotta, "the sword's storm-Ull," a designation of a warrior (Grettis saga). It has already been pointed out that in the great war between Odin's clan and the Vans, Ull, although Thor's stepson, takes the side of the Vans and identifies his cause with that of Frey and Svipdag. Saxo also describes the half-brothers as faithfully united, and, in regard to Roller's reliable fraternity, makes Erik utter a sentence which very nearly corresponds to the Danish:

"End svige de Sorne og ikke de Baarne" (optima est affinium opera opis indigo). Saxo's account of Erik and Roller thus gives us the key to the mythological statements, not otherwise intelligible, that though Ull has in Thor a friendly stepfather (cp. the expression gulli Ullar - Þórsdrápa 17), and in Odin a clan-chief who distinguishes him (cp. Ullar hylli, &c. - Grímnismál 42), nevertheless he contends in this feud on the same side as Erik-Svipdag, with whom he once set out to rescue Frey from the power of the giants. The mythology was not willing to sever those bonds of fidelity which youthful adventures shared in common had established between Frey, Ull, and Svipdag. Both the last two therefore associate themselves with Frey when the war breaks out between the Asas and Vans.

It follows that Sif was the second wife of Orvandil the brave before she became Thor's, and that Ull is Orvandil's son. The intimate relation between Orvandil on the one side and Thor on the other has already been shown above. When Orvandil was out on adventures in Jotunheim his first wife Groa visited Thor's halls as his guest, where the dis of vegetation might have a safe place of refuge during her husband's absence. This feature preserved in the Younger Edda is of great mythological importance, and, as I shall show further on, of ancient Aryan origin. Orvandil, the great archer and star-hero, reappears in Rigveda and also in the Greek mythology - in the latter under the name Orion, as Vigfusson has already assumed. The correctness of the assumption is corroborated by reasons, which I shall present later on.