Part 3

The duty of the Vana-deities becomes even more plain, if it can be shown that Gullveig-Heid is Gerd's mother; for Frey, supported by the Vana-gods, then demands satisfaction for the murder of his own mother-in-law. Gerd's mother is, in Hyndluljóð 30 (Völispá in Skamma 2), called Aurboða, and is the wife of the giant Gymir:

Freyr átti Gerði,
hún var Gymis dóttir,
jötna ættar
og Aurboðu.

It can, in fact, be demonstrated that Aurboða is identical with Gullveig-Heid. The evidence is given below in two divisions: (a) Evidence that Gullveig-Heid is identical with Angurboða, "the ancient one in the Ironwood"; (b) evidence that Gullveig-Heid-Angurboða is identical with Aurboða, Gerd's mother.

(a) Gullveig-Heid identical with Angurboða.

Hyndluljóð 40-41 (Völuspá in skamma 12-13), says:

Ól úlf Loki
við Angurboðu,
(en Sleipni gat
við Svaðilfara);
eitt þótti skass
allra feiknazt,
það var bróður frá
Byleists komið.

Loki [át] af hjarta
lindi brenndu,
fann hann hálfsviðinn
hugstein konu;
varð Loftur kviðugr
af konu illri;
þaðan er á foldu
flagð hvert komið.

From the account we see that an evil female being (ill kona) had been burnt, but that the flames were not able to destroy the seed of life in her nature. Her heart had not been burnt through or changed to ashes. It was only half-burnt (hálfsviðinn hugsteinn), and in this condition it had together with the other remains of the cremated woman been thrown away, for Loki finds and swallows the heart.

Our ancestors looked upon the heart as the seat of the life principle, of the soul of living beings. A number of linguistic phrases are founded on the idea that goodness and evil, kindness and severity, courage and cowardice, joy and sorrow, are connected with the character of the heart; sometimes we find hjarta used entirely in the sense of soul, as in the expression hold og hjarta, soul and body. So long as the heart in a dead body had not gone into decay, it was believed that the principle of life dwelling therein still was able, under peculiar circumstances, to operate on the limbs and exercise an influence on its environment, particularly if the dead person in life had been endowed with a will at once evil and powerful. In such cases it was regarded as important to pierce the heart of the dead with a pointed spear (cp. Saxo, Hist., 43, and No. 95).

The half-burnt heart, accordingly, contains the evil woman's soul, and its influence upon Loki, after he has swallowed it, is most remarkable. Once before when he bore Sleipnir with the giant horse Svaðilfari, Loki had revealed his androgynous nature. So he does now. The swallowed heart redeveloped the feminine in him (Loki lindi af brendu hjarta). It fertilised him with the evil purposes which the heart contained. Loki became the possessor of the evil woman (kviðugr af konu illri), and became the father of the children from which the trolls (flagð) are come which are found in the world. First among the children is mentioned the wolf, which is called Fenrir, and which in Ragnarok shall cause the death of the Asa-father. To this event point Njord's words about Loki, in Lokasenna 33: áss ragr er hefir börn of borið. The woman possessing the half-burnt heart, who is the mother or rather the father of the wolf, is called Angurboða (ól úlf Loki við Angurboðu). N. M. Petersen and other mythologists have rightly seen that she is the same as "the old one," who in historical times and until Ragnarok dwells in the Ironwood, and "there fosters Fenrir's kinsmen" (Völuspá 40), her own offspring, which at the close of this period are to issue from the Ironwood, and break into Midgard and dye its citadels with blood (Völuspá 41).

The fact that Angurboða now dwells in the Ironwood, although there on a former occasion did not remain more of her than a half-burnt heart, proves that the attempt to destroy her with fire was unsuccessful, and that she arose again in bodily form after this cremation, and became the mother and nourisher of were-wolves. Thus the myth about Angurboða is identical with the myth about Gullveig-Heid in the two characteristic points:

1. Unsuccessful burning of an evil woman.
2. Her regeneration after the cremation.

These points apply equally to Gullveig-Heid and to Angurboða, "the old one in the Ironwood".

The myth about Gullveig-Heid-Angurboða, as it was remembered in the first period after the introduction of Christianity, we find in part recapitulated in Helgakviða Hundingsbana i. 37-40, where Sinfjotli compares his opponent Gudmund with the evil female principle in the heathen mythology, the vala in question, and where Gudmund in return compares Sinfjotli with its evil masculine principle, Loki.

Sinfjotli says:

Þú vart völva
í Varinseyju,
skollvís kona,
bartu skrök saman;
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
Þú vart, in skæða,
skass valkyrja,
ötul, ámátleg
að Alföður;
mundu einherjar
allir berjast,
svévís kona,
um sakar þínar.
Níu áttum við
á nesi Ságu
úlfa alna,
eg var einn faðir þeirra.

Faðir varattu
fenrisúlfa...

The evil woman with whom one of the two heroes compares the other is said to be a vala, who has practised her art partly on Varin's Isle, partly in Asgard at Alfather's, and there she was the cause of a war in which all the warriors of Asgard took part. This refers to the war between the Asas and Vans. It is the second feud among the powers of Asgard.

The vala must therefore be Gullveig-Heid of the myth, on whose account the war between the Asas and Vans broke out, according to Völuspá. Now it is said of her in the lines above quoted, that she gave birth to wolves, and that these wolves were "fenrisúlfar". Of Angurboða we already know that she is the mother of the real Fenris-wolf, and that she, in the Ironwood, produces other wolves which are called by Fenrir's name (Fenris kindir - Völuspá). Thus the identity of Gulveig-Heid and Angurboða is still further established by the fact that both the one and the other is called the mother of the Fenris family.

The passage quoted is not the only one which has preserved the memory of Gulveig-Heid as mother of the were-wolves. Völsungasaga (c. ii. 8) relates that a giantess, Hrímnir's daughter, first dwelt in Asgard as the maid-servant of Frigg, then on earth, and that she, during her sojourn on earth, became the wife of a king, and with him the mother and grandmother of were-wolves, who infested the woods and murdered men. The fantastic and horrible saga about these were-wolves has, in Christian times and by Christian authors, been connected with the poems about Helgi Hundingsbani and Sigurd Fafnisbani. The circumstance that the giantess in question first dwelt in Asgard and thereupon in Midgard, indicates that she is identical with Gullveig-Heid, and this identity is confirmed by the statement that she is a daughter of the giant Hrímnir.

The myth, as it has come down to our days, knows only one daughter of this giant, and she is the same as Gullveig-Heid. Hyndluljóð states that Heiðr is Hrímnir's daughter, and mentions no sister of hers, but, on the other hand, a brother Hrossþjófr (Heiðr og Hrossþjófr Hrímnis kindar - Hyndl. 30 = Völuspá in skamma 4). In allusion to the cremation of Gullveig-Heid fire is called in Þórsdrápa Hrímnis drósar lyftisylgr, "the lifting drink of Hrímnir's daughter," the drink which Heid lifted up on spears had to drink. Nowhere is any other daughter of Hrímnir mentioned. And while it is stated in the above-cited strophe that the giantess who caused the war in Asgard and became the mother of fenris-wolves was a vala on Varin's Isle (völva í Varinseyju), a comparison of Helg. Hund. i. 26, with Völsungasaga, c. 2, shows that Varin's Isle and Varin's Fjord were located in that very country, where Hrímnir's daughter was supposed to have been for some time the wife of a king and to have given birth to were-wolves.

Thus we have found that the three characteristic points -

unsuccessful cremation of an evil giantess,
her regeneration after the cremation,
the same woman as mother of the Fenrir race -

are common to Gullveig-Heid and Angurboða.

Their identity is apparent from various other circumstances, but may be regarded as completely demonstrated by the proofs given. Gullveig's activity in anitiquity as the founder of the diabolical magic art, as one who awakens man's evil passions and produces strife in Asgard itself, has its complement in Angurboða's activity as the mother and nourisher of that class of beings in whose members witchcraft, thirst for blood, and hatred of the gods are personified. The activity of the evil principle has, in the great epic of the myth, formed a continuity spanning all ages, and this continuous thread of evil is twisted from the treacherous deeds of Gullveig and Loki, the feminine and the masculine representatives of the evil principle. Both appear at the dawn of mankind: Loki has already at the beginning of time secured access to Allfather (Lokasenna 9), and Gullveig deceives the sons of men already in the time of Heimdal's son Borgar. Loki entices Idun from the secure grounds of Asgard, and treacherously delivers her to the powers of frost; Gullveig, as we shall see, plays Freyja into the hands of the giants. Loki plans enmity between the gods and the forces of nature, which hitherto had been friendly, and which have their personal representatives in Ivaldi's sons; Gullveig causes the war between the Asas and Vans. The interference of both is interrupted at the close of the mythic age, when Loki is chained, and Gullveig, in the guise of Angurboða, is an exile in the Ironwood. Before this they have for a time been blended, so to speak, into a single being, in which the feminine assuming masculineness, and the masculine effemninated, bear to the world an offspring of foes to the gods and to creation. Both finally act their parts in the destruction of the world. Before that crisis comes Angurboða has fostered that host of "sons of world-ruin" which Loki is to lead to battle, and a magic sword which she has kept in the Ironwood is given to Surt, in whose hand it is to be the death of Frey, the lord of harvests (see Nos. 89, 98, 101, 103).

That the woman who in antiquity, in various guises, visited Asgard and Midgard was believed to have had her home in the Ironwood [* In Völuspá the wood is called both Jarnviðr, Gaglviðr (Cod. Reg.), and Galgviðr (Cod. Hauk.). It may be that we here have a fossil word preserved in Völuspá meaning metal. Perhaps the wood was a copper or bronze forest before it became an iron wood. Compare ghalgha, ghalghi (Fick., ii. 578) = metal, which, again, is to be compared with khalkos = copper, bronze.] of the East during the historical age down to Ragnarok is explained by what Saxo says - viz., that Odin, after his return and reconciliation with the Vans, banished the agents of the black art both from heaven and from earth. Here, too, the connection between Gullveig-Heid and Angurboða is manifest. The war between the Asas and Vans was caused by the burning of Gullveig by the former. After the reconciliation with the Asas this punishment cannot again be inflicted on the regenerated witch. The Asas must allow her to live to the end of time; but both the clans of gods agree that she must not show her face again in Asgard or Midgard. The myth concerning the banishment of the fatuous vala to the Ironwood, and of the Loki progeny which she there fosters, has been turned into history by Jordanes in his De Goth. Origine, ch. 24, where it is stated that a Gothic king compelled the suspected valas (haliorunas) found among his people to take their refuge to the deserts in the East beyond the Moeotian Marsh, where they mixed with the wood-sprites, and thus became the progenitors of the Huns. In this manner the Christian Goths got from their mythic traditions an explanation of the source of the eastern hosts of horsemen, whose ugly faces and barbarous manners seemed to them to prove an other than purely human origin. The vala Gullveig-Heid and her like become in Jordanes these haliorunæ; Loki and the giants of the Ironwood become these wood-sprites; the Asa-god who caused the banishment becomes a king, son of Gandaricus Magnus (the great ruler of the Gandians, Odin), and Loki's and Angurboða's wonderful progeny become the Huns.

Stress should be laid on the fact that Jordanes and Saxo have in the same manner preserved the tradition that Odin and the Asas, after making peace and becoming reconciled with the Vans, do not apply the death-penalty and burning to Gullveig-Heid-Angurboða and her kith and kin, but, instead, sentence them to banishment from the domains of gods and men. That the tradition preserved in Saxo and Jordanes corresponded with the myth is proved by the fact that we there rediscover Gullveig-Heid-Angurboða with her offspring in the Ironwood, which was thought to be situated in the utmost East, far away from the human world, and that she remains there undisturbed until the destruction of the world. The reconciliation between the Asas and Vans has, as this conclusively shows, been based on an admission on the part of the Asas that the Vans had a right to find fault with and demand satisfaction for the murder of Gullveig-Heid. Thus the dispute which caused the war between Asas and Vans was at last decided to the advantage of the latter, while they on their part, after being satisfied, reinstate Odin in his dignity as universal ruler and father of the gods.

(b) Gullveig-Heid-Angurboða identical with Aurboða.

In the Ironwood dwells Angurboða, together with a giant, who is gýgjar hirðir, the guardian and watcher of the giantess. He has charge of her remarkable herds, and also guards a sword brought to the Ironwood. This vocation has given him the epithet Egther (Eggþér - Völuspá), which means sword-guardian. Saxo speaks of him as Egtherus, an ally of Finns, skilled in magic, and a chief of Bjarmians, equally skilful in magic (cp. Hist., 248, 249, with Nos. 52, 53). Bjarmians and Finns are in Saxo made the heirs of the wicked inhabitants of Jotunheim. Vilkinasaga knows him by the name Etgeir, who watches over precious implements in Isung's wood. Etgeir is a corruption of Egther, and Isung's wood is a reminiscence of Isarnvidr, Isarnho, the Ironwood. In the Vilkinasaga he is the brother of Vidolf. According to Hyndluljóð, all the valas of the myth come from Vidolf. As Gullveig-Heid-Angurboða is the chief of all valas, and the teacher of the arts practised by the valas, this statement in Hyndluljóð makes us think of her particularly; and as Hrímnir's daughter has been born and burnt several times, she may also have had several fathers. Among them, then, is Vidolf, whose character, as described by Saxo, fits well for such a daughter. He is a master in sorcery, and also skilful in the art of medicine. But the medical art he practises in such a manner that those who seek his help receive from him such remedies as do harm instead of good. Only by threats can he be made to do good with his art (Hist., 323, 324). The statement in Vilkinasaga compared with that in Hyndluljóð seems therefore to point to a near kinship between Angurboða and her sword-guard. She appears to be the daughter of his brother.

In Völuspá's description of the approach of Ragnarok, Egther, Angurboða's shepherd, is represented as sitting on a mound - like Aurboða's shepherd in Skírnismál - and playing a harp, happy over that which is to happen. That the giant who is hostile to the gods, and who is the guardian of the strange herds, does not play an idyl on the strings of his harp does not need to be stated. He is visited by a being in the guise of the red cock. The cock, says Völuspá, is Fjalarr (44).

What the heathen records tell us about Fjalar is the following: [* In Skáldskaparmál's pseudo-mythic account of the Skaldic mead (Younger Edda, 216 ff.) the name Fjalarr also appears. In regard to the value of this account, see the investigation in No. 89.]

(a) He is the same giant as the Younger Edda (i. 144 ff.) calls Utgard-Loki. The latter is a fire-giant, Logi's, the fire's ruler (Younger Edda, 152), the cause of earthquakes (Younger Edda, 144), and skilled in producing optical delusions. Fjalar's identity with Utgard-Loki is proved by Hárbarðsljóð 26, where Thor, on his way to Fjalar, meets with the same adventures as, according to the Younger Edda, he met with on his way to Utgard-Loke.

(b) He is the same giant as the one called Suttung. The giant from whom Odin robs the skaldic mead, and whose devoted daughter Gunnlod he causes bitter sorrow, is called in Hávamál sometimes Fjalar and sometimes Suttung (cp. 13-14, 104-105).

(c) Fjalar is the son of the chief of the fire-giants, Surtr, and dwells in the subterranean dales of the latter. A full account of this in No. 89. Here it will suffice to point out that when Odin flies out of Fjalar's dwelling with the skaldic mead, it is "from Surt's deep dales" that he "flying bears" the precious drink (hinn er Surts úr sökkdölum farmögnuðr fljúgandi bar, a strophe by Eyvind, quoted in the Younger Edda, p. 242), and that this drink while it remained with Fjalar was "the drink of Surt's race" (sylgr Surts ættar, Fornms., iii. 3).

(d) Fjalar, with Frosti, takes part in the attack of Þjazi's kinsmen and the Skilfings from Svarin's Mound against "the land of the clayey plains, to Jaravall" (Völuspá 14, 15; see Nos. 28, 32). Thus he is allied with the powers of frost, who are foes of the gods, and who seek to conquer the Teutonic domain. The approach of the fimbul-winter was also attended by an earthquake (see Nos. 28, 81).

When, therefore, Völuspá makes Fjalar on his visit to the sword-guardian in the Ironwood appear in the guise of the red cock, then this is in harmony with Fjalar's nature as a fire-giant and as a son of Surt.

Sat þar á haugi
og sló hörpu
gýgjar hirðir,
glaður Eggþér;
Gól um honum
í galgviði
fagurrauður hani
sá er Fjalar heitir (Völuspá 42).

That what Odin does against Fjalar - when he robs him of the mead, which in the myth is the most precious of all drinks, and when he deceived his daughter - is calculated to awaken Fjalar's thirst for revenge and to bring about a satisfaction sooner or later, lies in the very spirit of Teutonic poetry and ethics, especially since Odin's act, though done from a good motive, was morally reprehensible. What Fjalar's errand to Angurboða's sword-guard was appears from the fact that when the last war between the gods and their enemies is fought a short time afterwards, Fjalar's father, the chief of the fire-giants, Surt, is armed with the best of the mythical weapons, the sword which had belonged to a valtívi, one of the gods of Asgard (Völuspá 52), and which casts the splendour of the sun upon the world. The famous sword of the myth, that which Þjazi finished with a purpose hostile to the gods (see No. 87 and elsewhere), the sword concealed by Mimir (see Nos. 87, 98, 101), the sword found by Svipdag (see Nos. 89, 101, 103), the sword secured through him by Frey, the one given by Frey to Gymir and Aurboða in exchange for Gerd, - this sword is found again in the Ragnarok conflict, wielded by Surt, and causes Frey's death (Völuspá), it having been secured by Surt's son, Fjalar, in the Ironwood from Angurboða's sword-guard.

Gulli keypta
léztu Gymis dóttur
og seldir þitt svo sverð;
en er Múspells synir
ríða myrkvið yfir
veizt-a þú þá, vesall, hve þú vegur (Lokasenna 42).

This passage not only tells us that Frey gave his sword in exchange for Gerd to the parents of the giantess, Gymir and Aurboða, but also gives us to understand that this bargain shall cause his death in Ragnarok. This bride-purchase is fully described in Skírnismál, in which poem we learn that the gods most unwillingly part with the safety which the incomparable sword secured to Asgard. They yield in order to save the life of the harvest-god, who was wasting away with longing and anxiety, but not until the giants had refused to accept other Asgard treasures, among them the precious ring Draupnir, which the Asa-father once laid on the pulseless breast of his favourite son Baldur. At the approach of Ragnarok, Surt's son, Fjalar, goes to the Ironwood to fetch for his father the sword by which Frey, its former possessor, is to fall. The sword is then guarded by Angurboða's shepherd, and consequently belongs to her. In other words, the sword which Aurboða enticed Frey to give her is now found in the possession of Angurboða. This circumstance of itself is a very strong reason for their identity. If there were no other evidence of their identity than this, a sound application of methodology would still bid us accept this identity rather than explain the matter by inventing a new, nowhere-supported myth, and thus making the sword pass from Aurboða to another giantess.

When we now add the important fact in the disposition of this matter, that Aurboða's son-in-law, Frey, demands, in behalf of a near kinsman, satisfaction from the Asas when they had killed and burnt Gullveig-Heid-Angurboða, then it seems to me that there can be no doubt in regard to the identity of Aurboða and Angurboða, the less so, since all that our mythic fragments have to tell us about Gymir's wife confirms the theory that she is the same person. Aurboða has, like Gullveig-Heid-Angurboða, practised the arts of sorcery: she is one of the valas of the evil giant world. This is told to us in a strophe by the skald Refr, who calls her "Gymir's primeval cold vala" (úrsvöl Gymis völva - Younger Edda, i. 326, 496). She might be called "primeval cold" (úrsvöl) from the fact that the fire was not able to pierce her heart and change it to ashes, in spite of a threefold burning. Under all circumstances, the passage quoted informs us that she is a vala.

But have our mythic fragments preserved any allusion to show that Aurboða, like Gullveig-Heid-Angurboða, ever dwelt among the gods in Asgard? Asgard is a place where giants are refused admittance. Exceptions from this prohibition must have been very few, and the myths must have given good reasons for them. We know in regard to Loki's appearance in Asgard, that it is based on a promise given to him by the Asa-father in time's morning; and the promise was sealed with blood (Lokasenna 9). If, now, this Aurboða, who, like Angurboða, is a vala of giant race, and, like Angurboða, is the owner of Frey's sword, and, like Angurboða, is a kinswoman of the Vans - if now this same Aurboða, in further likeness with Angurboða, was one of the certainly very few of the giant class who was permitted to enter within the gates of Asgard, then it must be admitted that this fact absolutely confirms their identity.

Anrboða did actually dwell in Asgard. Of this we are assured by the poem "Fjölsvinnsmál". There it is related that when Svipdag came to the gates of Asgard to seek and find Menglad-Freyja, who was destined to be his wife (see Nos. 96, 97), he sees Menglad sitting on a hill surrounded by goddesses, whose very names, Eir, Björt, Blid, and Frid, tell us that they are goddesses of lower or higher rank. Eir is an asynja of the healing art (Younger Edda, i. 114). Björt, Blid, and Frid are the dises of splendour, benevolence, and beauty. They are mighty beings, and can give aid in distress to all who worship them (Fjölsvinnsmál 40). But in the midst of this circle of dises, who surround Menglad, Svipdag also sees Aurboða (Fjölsvinnsmál 38).

Above them Svipdag sees Mimir's tree - the world-tree (see No. 97), spreading its all-embracing branches, on which grow fruits which soothe kelisjukar konur and lighten the entrance upon terrestrial life for the children of men (Fjölsvinnsmál 22). Menglad-Freyja is, as we know, the goddess of love and fertility, and it is Frigg's and her vocation to dispose of these fruits for the purposes for which they are intended.

The Völsungasaga has preserved a record concerning these fruits, and concerning the giant-daughter who was admitted to Asgard as a maid-servant of the goddesses. A king and queen had long been married without getting any children. They beseeched the gods for an heir. Frigg heard their prayers and sent them in the guise of a crow the daughter of the giant Hrímnir, a giantess who had been adopted in Asgard as Odin's "wish-maid". Hrímnir's daughter took an apple with her, and when the queen had eaten it, it was not long before she perceived that her wish would come to pass (Völsungasaga, pp. 1, 2). Hrímnir's daughter is, as we know, Gullveig-Heid.

Thus the question whether Aurboða ever dwelt in Asgard is answered in the affirmative. We have discovered her, though she is the daughter of a giant, in the circle around Menglad-Freyja, where she has occupied a subordinate position as maid-servant. At the same time we have found that Gullveig-Heid has for some time had an occupation in Asgard of precisely the same kind as that which belongs to a dis serving under the goddess of fertility. Thus the similarity between Aurboða and Gullveig-Heid is not confined to the fact that they, although giantesses, dwelt in Asgard, but they were employed there in the same manner.

The demonstration that Gullveig-Heid-Angurboða is identical with Aurboða may now be regarded as completed. Of the one as of the other it is related that she was a vala of giant-race, that she nevertheless dwelt for some time in Asgard, and was there employed by Frigg or Freyja in the service of fertility, and that she possessed the sword, which had formerly belonged to Frey, and by which Frey is to fall. Aurboða is Frey's mother-in-law, consequently closely related to him; and it must have been in behalf of a near relation that Frey and Njord demnanded satisfaction from the Asas when the latter slew Gullveig-Heid. Under such circumstances it is utterly impossible from a methodological standpoint to regard them otherwise than identical. We must consider that nearly all mythic characters are polyonomous, and that the Teutonic mythology particularly, on account of its poetics, is burdened with a highly-developed polyonomy.

But of Gullveig-Heid's and Aurboða's identity there are also other proofs which, for the sake of completeness, we will not omit.

So far as the very names Gullveig and Aurboða are concerned the one can serve as a paraphrase of the other. The first part of the name Aurboða, the aur of many significations may be referred to eyrir, pl. aurar, which means precious metal, and is thought to be borrowed from the Latin aurum (gold). Thus Gull and Aur correspond. In the same manner veig in Gullveig can correspond to boða in Aurboða. Veig means a fermenting liquid; boða has two significations. It can be the feminine form of boði, meaning fermenting water, froth, foam. No other names compounded with boða occur in Norse literature than Aurboða and Angurboða.

Ynglingasaga (ch. 4) relates a tradition that Freyja kendi fyrst med Ásum seið, that Freyja was the first to practise sorcery in Asgard. There is no doubt that the statement is correct. For we have seen that Gullveig-Heid, the sorceress and spreader of sorcery in antiquity, succeeded in getting admission to Asgard, and that Aurboða is mentioned as particularly belonging to the circle of serving dises who attended Freyja. As this giantess was so zealous in spreading her evil arts among the inhabitants of Midgard, it would be strange if the myth did not make her, after she had gained Freyja's confidence, try to betray her into practising the same arts. Doubtless Völuspá and Saxo have reference to Gullveig-Heid-Aurboða when they say that Freyja, through some treacherous person among her attendants, was delivered into the hands of the giants.

In his historical account relating how Freyja (Syritha) was robbed from Asgard and came to the giants but was afterwards saved from their power, Saxo (Hist., 331; cp. No. 100) tells that a woman, who was secretly allied with a giant, had succeeded in ingratiating herself in her favour, and for some time performed the duties of a maid-servant at her home; but this she did in order to entice her in a cunning manner away from her safe home to a place where the giant lay in ambush and carried her away to the recesses of his mountain country. (Gigas fæminam subornat, quæ cum obtenta virginis familiaritate, ejus aliquamdiu pedissequam egisset, hanc tandem a paternis procul penatibus, quæsita callidius digressione, reduxit; quam ipse mox irruens in arctiora montanæ crepidinis septa devexit.) Thus Saxo informs us that it was a woman among Freyja's attendants who betrayed her, and that this woman was allied with the giant world, which is hostile to the gods, while she held a trusted servant's place with the goddess. Aurboða is the only woman connected with the giants in regard to whom our mythic records inform us that she occupied such a position with Freyja; and as Aurboða's character and part, played in the epic of the myth, correspond with such an act of treason, there is no reason for assuming the mere possibility, that the betrayer of Freyja may have been some one else, who is neither mentioned nor known.

With this it is important to compare Völuspá 25-26, which not only mentions the fact that Freyja came into the power of the giants through treachery, but also informs us how the treason was punished:

Þá gengu regin öll
á rökstóla,
ginnheilög goð,
og um það gættust,
hverir hefði loft allt
lævi blandið
eða ætt jötuns
Óðs mey gefna.

Þórr einn þar vá
þrunginn móði,
hann sjaldan situr
er hann slíkt um fregn.

These Völuspá lines stand in Codex Regius in immediate connection with the above-quoted strophes which speak of Gullveig-Heid and of the war caused by her between the Asas and Vans. They inform us that the gods assembled to hold a solemn counsel to find out "who had filled all the air with evil," or "who had delivered Freyja to the race of giants"; and that the person found guilty was at once slain by Thor, who grew most angry.

Now if this person is Gullveig-Aurboða, then it follows that she received her death-blow from Thor's hammer, before the Asas made in common the unsuccessful attempt to change her body into ashes. We also find elsewhere in our mythic records that an exceedingly dangerous woman met with precisely this fate. There she is called Hyrrokin. A strophe by Thorbjorn Disarskald, preserved in the Younger Edda, states that Hyrrokin was one of the giantesses slain by Thor. But the very appellation Hyrrokin, which must be an epithet of a giantess known by some other more common name, indicates that some effort worthy of being remembered in the myth had been made to burn her, but that the effort resulted in her being smoked rather than that she was burnt; for the epithet Hyrrokin means the "fire-smoked". For those familiar with the contents of the myth, this epithet was regarded as plain enough to indicate who was meant. If it is not, therefore, to be looked upon as an unhappy and misleading epithet, it must refer to the thrice in vain burnt Gullveig. All that we learn about Hyrrokin confirms her identity with Aurboða. In the symbolic-allegorical work of art, which toward the close of the tenth century decorated a hall at Hjardarholt, and of which I shall give a fuller account elsewhere, the storm which from the land side carried Baldur's ship out on the sea is represented by the giantess Hyrrokin. In the same capacity of storm-giantess carrying sailors out upon the ocean appears Gymir's wife, Aurboða, in a poem by Refr:

Færir björn, þar er bára
brestr, undinna festa,
opt í Ægis kjapta
úrsvöl Gymis völva.

"Gymir's ancient-cold vala often carries the ship amid breaking billows into the jaws of Ægir." Gymir, Aurboða's husband, represents in the physical interpretation of the myth the east wind coming from the Ironwood. From the other side of Eystrasalt (the Baltic) Gymir sings his song (Ynglingatal 25); and the same gale belongs to Aurboða, for Ægir, into whose jaws she drives the ships, is the great open western ocean. That Aurboða represents the gale from the east finds its natural explanation in her identity with Angurboða "the old," who dwells in the Ironwood in the uttermost east, Austr býr in aldna í Járnviði (Völuspá).

The result of the investigation is that Gullveig-Heiðr, Aurboða, and Angurboða are different names for the different hypostases of the thrice-born and thrice-burnt one, and that Hyrrokin, "the fire-smoked," is an epithet common to all these hypostases.