Part 3

The circumstance that the different divine clans had their favourites in the different camps gives the war a peculiar character. The armies see before a battle supernatural forms contending with each other in the starlight, and recognise in them their divine friends and opponents (Hist., 48). The elements are conjured on one and the other side for the good or harm of the contending brother-tribes. When fog and pouring rain suddenly darken the sky and fall upon Hadding's forces from that side where the fylkings of the North are arrayed, then the one-eyed old man comes to their rescue and calls forth dark masses of clouds from the other side, which force back the rain-clouds and the fog (Hist., 53). In these cloud-masses we must recognise the presence of the thundering Thor, the son of the one-eyed old man.

Giants also take part in the conflict. Vagnhofdi and Hardgrep, the latter in a man's attire, contend on the side of the foster-son and the beloved Hadding (Hist., 45, 38). From Icelandic records we learn that Hafli and the giantesses Fenja and Menja fight under Gudhorm's banners. In the Gróttasong (13-14) these maids sing:

En við síðan
á Svíþjóðu
framvísar tvær
í fólk stigum;
beiddum björnu,
en brutum skjöldu,
gengum í gegnum
gráserkjað lið.
Steyptum stilli,
studdum annan,
veittum góðum
Gothormi lið.

That the giant Hafli fought on the side of Gudhorm is probable from the fact that he is his foster-father, and it is confirmed by the fact that Thor paraphrased (Grett., 30) is called fangvinr Hafla, "he who wrestled with Hafli". Since Thor and Hafli formerly were friends - else the former would not have trusted Gudhorm to the care of the latter - their appearance afterwards as foes can hardly be explained otherwise than by the war between Thor's protégé Hadding and Hafli's foster-son Gudhorm. And as Hadding's foster-father, the giant Vagnhofdi, faithfully supports the young chief whose childhood he protected, then the myth could scarcely avoid giving a similar part to the giant Hafli, and thus make the foster-fathers, like the foster-sons, contend with each other. The heroic poems are fond of parallels of this kind.

When Svipdag learns that Hadding has suddenly made his appearance in the East, and gathered its tribes around him for a war with Gudhorm, he descends from Asgard and reveals himself in the primeval Teutonic country on the Scandian peninsula, and requests its tribes to join the Danes and raise the banner of war against Halfdan's and Alveig's son, who, at the head of the eastern Teutons, is marching against their half-brother Gudhorm. The friends of both parties among the gods, men and giants, hasten to attach themselves to the cause which they have espoused as their own, and Vagnhofdi among the rest abandons his rocky home to fight by the side of his foster-son and daughter.

This mythic situation is described in a hitherto unexplained strophe in the Old English song concerning the names of the letters in the runic alphabet. In regard to the rune which answers to I there is added the following lines:

Ing väs ærest mid Eástdenum
geseven secgum oð he siððan eást
ofer væg gevât. Væn æfter ran;
þus Heardingas þone häle nemdon.

The Heardings are the Haddings - that is to say, Hadding himself, the kinsmen and friends who embraced his cause, and the Teutonic tribes who recognised him as their chief. The Norse Haddingr is to the Anglo-Saxon Hearding as the Norse haddr to the Anglo-Saxon heard. Vigfusson, and before him J. Grimm, have already identified these forms.

Ing is Yngvi-Svipdag, who, when he left Asgard, "was first seen among the East-Danes". He calls Swedes and Danes to arms against Hadding's tribes. The Anglo-Saxon strophe confirms the fact that they dwell in the East, separated by a sea from the Scandian tribes. Ing, with his warriors, "betakes himself eastward over the sea" to attack them. Thus the armies of the Swedes and Danes go by sea to the seat of war. What the authorities of Tacitus heard among the continental Teutons about the mighty fleets of the Swedes may be founded on the heroic songs about the first great war not less than on fact. As the army which was to cross the Baltic must be regarded as immensely large, so the myth, too, has represented the ships of the Swedes as numerous, and in part as of immense size. A confused record from the songs about the expedition of Svipdag and his friends against the East Teutons, found in Icelandic tradition, occurs in Fornaldarsögur, pp. 406-407, where a ship called Gnoð, and capable of carrying 3000 men, is mentioned as belonging to a King Asmund. Odin did not want this monstrous ship to reach its destination, but sank it, so it is said, in the Lessö seaway, with all its men and contents. The Asmund who is known in the heroic sagas of heathen times is a son of Svipdag and a king among the Sviones (Saxo, Hist., 44). According to Saxo, he has given brilliant proofs of his bravery in the war against Hadding, and fallen by the weapons of Vagnhofdi and Hadding. That Odin in the Icelandic tradition appears as his enemy thus corresponds with the myth. The same Asmund may, as Gisli Brynjulfsson has assumed, be meant in Grímnismál (49), where we learn that Odin, concealing himself under the name Jálkr, once visited Asmund.

The hero Vagn, whom "the Haddings so called," is Hadding's foster-father, Vagnhofdi. As the word höfði constitutes the second part of a mythic name, the compound form is a synonym of that name which forms the first part of the composition. Thus Svarthöfði is identical with Svartr, Surtr. In Hyndluljóð 33 (Völuspá in skamma 5), all the mythical sorcerers (seiðberendur) are said to be sprung from Svarthöfði. In this connection we must first of all think of Fjalar, who is the greatest sorcerer in mythology. The story about Thor's, Thjalfi's, and Loki's visit to him is a chain of delusions of sight and hearing called forth by Fjalar, so that the Asa-god and his companions always mistake things for something else than they are. Fjalar is a son of Surtr (see No. 89). Thus the greatest agent of sorcery is descended from Surtr, Svartr, and, as Hyndluljóð states that all magicians of mythology have come of some Svarthöfði, Svartr and Svarthöfði must be identical. And so it is with Vagn and Vagnhöfði; they are different names for the same person.

When the Anglo-Saxon rune-strophe says that Vagn "made haste to follow" after Ing had gone across the sea, then this is to be compared with Saxo's statement (Hist., 45), where it is said that Hadding in a battle was in greatest peril of losing his life, but was saved by the sudden and miraculous landing of Vagnhofdi, who came to the battle-field and placed himself at his side. The Scandian fylkings advanced against Hadding's; and Svipdag's son Asmund, who fought at the head of his men, forced his way forward against Hadding himself, with his shield thrown on his back, and with both his hands on the hilt of a sword which felled all before it. Then Hadding invoked the gods who were the friends of himself and his race (Hadingo familiarium sibi numinum præsidia postulante subito Vagnophtus partibus ejus propugnaturus advehitur), and then Vagnhofdi is brought (advehitur) by some one of these gods to the battle-field and suddenly stands by Hadding's side, swinging a crooked sword [*] against Asmund, while Hadding hurls his spear against him. This statement in Saxo corresponds with and explains the old English strophe's reference to a quick journey which Vagn made to help Heardingas against Ing, and it is also illustrated by a passage in Grímnismál 49, which, in connection with Odin's appearance at Asmund's, tells that he once by the name Kjalar "drew Kjalki" (mig hétu Jálk að Ásmundar, en þá Kjalar, er eg Kjálka dró). The word and name Kjálki, as also Sleði, is used as a paraphrase of the word and name Vagn. [**] Thus Odin has once "drawn Vagn" (wagon). The meaning of this is clear from what is stated above. Hadding calls on Odin, who is the friend of him and of his cause, and Odin, who on a former occasion has carried Hadding on Sleipnir's back through the air, now brings, in the same or a similar manner, Vagnhofdi to the battle-field, and places him near his foster-son. This episode is also interesting from the fact that we can draw from it the conclusion that the skalds who celebrated the first great war in their songs made the gods influence the fate of the battle, not directly but indirectly. Odin might himself have saved his favourite, and he might have slain Svipdag's son Asmund with his spear Gungnir; but he does not do so; instead, he brings Vagnhofdi to protect him. This is well calculated from an epic standpoint, while dii ex machina, when they appear in person on the battle-field with their superhuman strength, diminish the effect of the deeds of mortal heroes, and deprive every distress in which they have taken part of its more earnest significance. Homer never violated this rule without injury to the honour either of his gods or of his heroes.

[* The crooked sword, as it appears from several passages in the sagas, has long been regarded by our heathen ancestors as a foreign form of weapon, used by the giants, but not by the gods or by the heroes of Midgard.]

[** Compare Fornaldarsögur, ii. 118, where the hero of the saga cries to Gusi, who comes running after him with "2 hreina ok vagn" -

Skríð þú af kjálka,
kyrr þú hreina,
seggr síðförull,
seg hvattú heitir!]