Part 5

From Slagfinn-Gelderus' part in the war between the two divine brothers Baldur and Hödur, as described both by Saxo and by Galfrid, we must draw the conclusion that he is a mythic person historified, and one who had taken an important part in the Baldur-myth as Baldur's friend, and also as Hödur's, though he bore weapons against the latter. According to Saxo, Hödur honours the dust of his slain opponent Gelderus in a manner which indicates a previous friendly relation between them. He first gives Gelderus a most splendid funeral (pulcherrimum funeris obsequium), then he builds a magnificent grave-mound for him, and decorates it with tokens of his respect (veneratio) for the dead one.

The position of Slagfinn-Gelderus to the two contending divine brothers, his brothership-in-arms with Baldur, the respect and devotion he receives from his opponent Hödur, can only be explained by the fact that he had very intimate relations with the two brothers and with the mythical persons who play a part in the Baldur-myth, According to Saxo, Hödur was fostered by Gevarr, the moon-god, Nanna's father. As Nanna's foster-brother, he falls in love with her who becomes the wife of his brother, Baldur. Now the mythology actually mentions an individual who was adopted by the moon-god, and accordingly was Hödur's foster-brother, but does not in fact belong to the number of real gods. This foster-son inherits in the old Norse records one of the names with which the moon-god is designated in the Anglo-Saxon poems - that is, Hoce, a name identical with the Norse Hjúki. Hnaf (Hnæfur, Næfr, Nanna's father) is also, as already shown, called Hoce in the Beowulf poem (see Nos. 90, 91). From the story about Bil and Hjuki, belonging to the myth about the mead and preserved in the Gylfaginning 11, we know that the moon-god took these children to himself, when they were to carry to their father, Viðfinnur, the precious burden which they had dipped out of the mead-fountain, Byrgir (see Nos. 90, 91).

That this taking up was equivalent to an adoption of these children by the moon-god is manifest from the position Bil afterwards got in the circle of gods. She becomes an asynje (Gylfaginning 35) and distributes the Teutonic mythological soma, the creative sap of nature and inspiration, the same liquid as she carried when she was taken up by the moon-god. The skalds of earth pray to her (ef unna ítur vildi Bil skáldi!), and Asgard's skald-god, Bragi, refreshes himself with her in Gevarr-Nokver's silver-ship (see Sonatorrek; cp. Nos. 90, 91). Odin came to her every day and got a drink from the mead of the moon-ship, when the latter was sinking toward the horizon in the west. The ship is in Grímnismál called Sökkvabekkur, "the setting or sinking ship," in which Odin and Sága "daily drink from golden goblets," while "cool billows in soughing sound flow over" the place where they sit. The cool billows that roar over Sokkvabekk are the waves of the atmospheric sea, in which Nokver's ship sails, and they are the waves of the ocean when the silver-ship sinks into the sea. The epithet Sága is used in the same manner as Bil, and it probably has the same reason for its origin as that which led the skalds to call the bucket which Bil and Hjuki carried Sægur. Bil, again, is merely a synonym of Idunn. In Haustlaung, Idunn is called Byrgis ár-Gefn, "Byrgir's harvest-giving dis"; Thjazi is called Byrgis ár-Gefnar bjarga-Týr, "the mountain-Tyr of Byrgir's harvest-giving dis". Idunn is thus named partly after the fountain from which Bil and Hjuki fetched the mead, partly after the bucket in which it was carried.

That Hjuki, like Bil-Idunn, was regarded by the moon-god as a foster-child, should not be doubted, the less so as we have already seen that he, in the Norse sources, bears his foster-father's name. As an adopted son of the moon-god, he is a foster-brother of Hödur and Nanna. Hjuki must therefore have occupied a position in the mythology similar to that in which we find Gelderus as a brother-in-arms of Nanna's husband, and as one who was held in friendship even by his opponent, Hödur. As a brother of the Ivaldi daughter, Bil-Idunn, he too must be an Ivaldi son, and consequently one of the three brothers, either Slagfinn, or Örvandil-Egil, or Völund. The mythic context does not permit his identification with Völund or Egil. Consequently he must be Slagfinn. That Gelderus is Slagfinn has already been shown.

This also explains how, in Christian times, when the myths were told as history, the Niflungs-Gjukungs were said to be descended from Næfr, Nefir (Nefir er Niflungar eru frá komnir - Skáldskaparmál 80). It is connected with the fact that Slagfinn, like his brothers, is a Niflung (see No. 118) and an adopted son of the moon-god, whose name he bore.

Bil's and Hjuki's father is called Viðfinnur. We have already seen that Slagfinn's and his brothers' father, Ivaldi, is called Finnur, Finnakonungr (Introduction to Völundarkviða), and that he is identical with Sumbli Finnakonungur, and Finnálfur. In fact the name Finnur never occurs in the mythic records, either alone or in compounds or in paraphrases, except where it alludes to Ivaldi or his son, Slagfinn. Thus, for instance, the byrnie, Finnsleif in Ynglingsaga, is borne by a historified mythic person, by whose name Saxo called a foster-son of Gevarr, the moon-god. The reason why Ivaldi got the name Finnur shall be given below (see No. 123). And as Ivaldi (Sumbli Finnakonungr - Ölvaldi) plays an important part in the mead-myth, and as the same is true of Vidfinn, who is robbed of Byrgir's liquid, then there is every reason for the conclusion that Vidfinn, Hjuki's and Bil-Idunn's father, is identical with Finnakonungur, the father of Slagfinn and of his sister.

Gjuki and Hjuki are therefore names borne by one and the same person - by Slagfinn, the Niflung, who is the progenitor of the Gjukungs. They also look like analogous formations from different roots.

This also gives us the explanation of the name of the Asgard bridge, Bilröst, "Bil's way". The Milky Way is Bil-Idunn's way, just as it is her brother Hjuki's; for we have already seen that the Milky Way is called Irung's way, and that Irung is a synonym of Slagfinn-Gjuki. Bil travelled the shining way when she was taken up to Asgard as an asynje. Slagfinn travelled it as Baldur's and Hödur's foster-brother. If we now add that the same way was travelled by Svipdag when he sought and found Freyja in Asgard, and by Thjazi-Völund's daughter, Skadi, when she demanded from the gods a ransom for the slaying of her father, then we find here no less than four descendants of Ivaldi who have travelled over the Milky Way to Asgard; and as Völund's father among his numerous names also bore that of Vati, Vadi (see Vilkinasaga), then this explains how the Milky Way came to be called Watling Street in the Old English literature. [*]

[* Thus Vigfusson's opinion that the Asgard bridge is identical with the Milky Way is correct. That the rainbow should be regarded as the Bilrost with its bridge-heads is an invention by the author of Gylfaginning. ]

In the mythology there was a circle of a few individuals who were celebrated players on stringed instruments. They are Baldur, Hödur, Slagfinn, and Bragi. In the heroic poems the group is increased with Slagfinn-Gjuki's son, Gunnar, and with Hjarrandi, the Horund of the German poem "Gudrun," to whom I shall recur in my treatise on the heroic sagas. Baldur's playing is remembered by Galfrid of Monmouth. Hödur's is mentioned in Saxo, and perhaps also in the Edda's Haðarlag, a special kind of metre or manner of singing. Slagfinn's quality as a musician is apparent from his name, and is inherited by his son, Gunnar. Hjarrandi-Horund appears in the Gudrun epic by the side of Vati (Ivaldi), and there is reason for identifying him with Gevarr himself. All these names and persons are connected with the myth concerning the soma preserved in the moon. While the first drink of the liquid of inspiration and of creative force is handed to Odin by Mimir, we afterwards find a supply of the liquid preserved by the moon-god; and those mythic persons who are connected with him are the very ones who appear as the great harp-players. Baldur is the son-in-law of the moon-god, Hödur and Slagfinn are his foster-sons, Gunnar is Slagfinn's son, Bragi becomes the husband of Bil-Idunn, and Hjarrandi is no doubt the moon-god himself who sings so that the birds in the woods, the beasts on the ground, and the fishes in the sea listen and are charmed ("Gudrun," 1415-1418, 1523-1525, 1555-1558).

Both in Saxo and in Galfrid Hödur meets Slagfinn with the bow in his conflict with him (Cheldricus in Galfrid; Gelderus in Saxo). The bow plays a chief part in the relation between the gods and the sons of Ivaldi. Hödur also met Egil in conflict with the bow (see No. 112), and was then defeated, but Egil's noble-mindedness forbade his harming Slagfinn's foster-brother. Hödur, as an archer, gets satisfaction for the defeat in Saxo, when with his favourite weapon he conquers Egil's brother, Slagfinn (Gelderus), who also is an archer. And finally, with an arrow treacherously laid on Hödur's bow, Völund, in demoniac thirst for revenge and at Loki's instigation, takes the life of Baldur, Hödur's brother.