Part 4

With distinct consciousness of its symbolic signification, the greater mill is mentioned in a strophe by the skald Snæbjörn (Skáldskaparmál 33). The strophe appears to have belonged to a poem describing a voyage. "It is said," we read in this strophe, "that Eylúður's nine women violently turn the Grotti of the skerry dangerous to man out near the edge of the earth, and that these women long ground Amlodi's lid-grist."

Hvatt kveða hræra Grótta
hergrimmastan skerja
út fyrir jarðar skauti
Eylúður's níu brúðir,
þær er . . . . fyrir löngu
liðmeldr . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . Amlóða mólu.

To the epithet Eylúður, and to the meaning of lið- in lid-grist, I shall return below. The strophe says that the mill is in motion out on the edge of the earth, that nine giant-maids turn it (for the lesser Grotti-mill two were more than sufficient), that they had long ground with it, that it belongs to a skerry very dangerous to seafaring men, and that it produces a peculiar grist.

The same mill is suggested by an episode in Saxo, where he relates the saga about the Danish prince, Amlethus, who on account of circumstances in his home was compelled to pretend to be insane. Young courtiers, who accompanied him on a walk along the sea-strand, showed him a sand-bank and said that it was meal. The prince said he knew this to be so: he said it was "meal from the mill of the storms" (Hist. Dan., Book III, p. 85).

The myth concerning the cosmic Grotti-mill was intimately connected partly with the myth concerning the fate of Ymir and the other primeval giants, and partly with that concerning Hvergelmir's fountain. Vafþrúðnismál 21 and Grímnismál 40 tell us that the earth was made out of Ymir's flesh, the rocks out of his bones, and the sea from his blood. With earth is here meant, as distinguished from rocks, the mould, the sand, which cover the solid ground. Vafþrúðnismál calls Ymir Aurgelmir, Clay-gelmir or Moldgelmir; and Fjölsvinnsmál gives him the epithet Leirbrimir, Clay-brimir, which suggests that his "flesh" was changed into the loose earth, while his bones became rocks. Ymir's descendants, the primeval giants, Þrúðgelmir and Bergelmir perished with him, and the "flesh" of their bodies cast into the primeval sea also became mould. Of this we are assured, so far as Bergelmir is concerned, by strophe 35 in Vafþrúðnismál, which also informs us that Bergelmir was laid under the mill-stone. The mill which ground his "flesh" into mould can be none other than the one grinding under the sea, that is, the cosmic Grotti-mill.

When Odin asks the wise giant Vafþrúðnir how far back he can remember, and which is the oldest event of which he has any knowledge from personal experience, the giant answers: "Countless ages ere the earth was shapen Bergelmir was born. The first thing I remember is when he var á lúður um lagður."

This expression was misunderstood by the author of Gylfaginning himself, and the misunderstanding has continued to develop into the theory that Bergelmir was changed into a sort of Noah, who with his household saved himself in an ark when Bur's sons drowned the primeval giants in the blood of their progenitor. Of such a counterpart to the Biblical account of Noah and his ark our Teutonic mythical fragments have no knowledge whatever.

The word lúður (with radical r) has two meanings: (1) a wind-instrument, a loor, a war-trumpet; (2) the tier of beams, the underlying timbers of a mill, and, in a wider sense, the mill itself [illustration].

The first meaning, that of war-trumpet, is not found in the songs of the Elder Edda, and upon the whole does not occur in the Old Norse poetry. Heimdall's war-trumpet is not called lúður, but horn or hljóð. Lúður in this sense makes its first appearance in the sagas of Christian times, but is never used by the skalds. In spite of this fact the signification may date back to heathen times. But however this may be, lúður in Vafþrúðnismál does not mean a war-trumpet. The poem can never have meant that Bergelmir was laid on a musical instrument.

The other meaning remains to be discussed. Lúðr, partly in its more limited sense of the timbers or beams under the mill, partly in the sense of the subterranean mill in its entirety, and the place where it is found, occurs several times in the poems: in the Grotti-song, in Helgakviða Hundingsbana II, 2, and in the above-quoted strophe by Snæbjörn, and also in Gróugaldur and in Fjölsvinnsmál. If this signification is applied to the passage in Vafþrúðnismáll: var á lúður um lagður, we get the meaning that Bergelmir was "laid on a mill," and in fact no other meaning of the passage is possible, unless an entirely new signification is to be arbitrarily invented.

But however conspicuous this signification is, and however clear it is that it is the only one applicable in this poem, still it has been overlooked or thrust aside by the mythologists, and for this Gylfaginning is to blame. So far as I know, Vigfusson is the only one who (in his Dictionary, p. 399) makes the passage á lúður lagður mean what it actually means, and he remarks that the words must "refer to some ancient lost myth".

The confusion begins, as stated, in Gylfaginning. Its author has had no other authority for his statement than the Vafþrúðnismál strophe in question, which he also cites to corroborate his own words; and we have here one of the many examples found in Gylfaginning showing that its author has neglected to pay much attention to what the passages quoted contain. When Gylfaginning 7 has stated that the frost-giants were drowned in Ymir's blood, then comes its interpretation of the Vafþrúðnismál strophe, which is as follows: "One escaped with his household: him the giants call Bergelmir. He with his wife betook himself upon his lúður and remained there, and from them the races of giants are descended" (nema einn komst undan með sínu hyski: þann kalla jötnar Bergelmi; hann fór upp á lúður sinn og kona hans, og hélzt þar, og eru af þeim komnar), &c.

What Gylfaginning's author has conceived by the lúður which he mentions it is difficult to say. That he did not have a boat in mind is in the meantime evident from the expression: hann fór upp á lúður sinn. It is more reasonable to suppose that his idea was, that Bergelmir himself owned an immense mill, upon whose high timbers he and his household climbed to save themselves from the flood. That the original text says that Bergelmir was laid on the timbers of the mill Gylfaginning pays no attention to. To go upon something and to be laid on something are, however, very different notions.

An argument in favour of the wrong interpretation was furnished by the Resenian edition of the Younger Edda (Copenhagen, 1665). There we find the expression fór upp á lúður sinn "amended" to fór á bát sinn. Thus Bergelmir had secured a boat to sail in; and although more reliable editions of the Younger Edda have been published since from which the boat disappeared, still the mythologists have not had the heart to take the boat away from Bergelmir. On the contrary, they have allowed the boat to grow into a ship, an ark.

As already pointed out, Vafþrúðnismál tells us expressly that Bergelmir, Aurgelmir's grandson, was "laid on a mill" or "on the supporting timbers of a mill". We may be sure that the myth would not have laid Bergelmir on "a mill" if the intention was not that he was to be ground. The kind of meal thus produced has already been explained. It is the mould and sand which the sea since time's earliest dawn has cast upon the shores of Midgard, and with which the bays and strands have been filled, to become sooner or later green fields. From Ymir's flesh the gods created the oldest layer of soil, that which covered the earth the first time the sun shone thereon, and in which the first herbs grew. Ever since the same activity which then took place still continues. After the great mill of the gods transformed the oldest frost-giant into the dust of earth, it has continued to grind the bodies of his descendants between the same stones into the same kind of mould. This is the meaning of Vafþrúðnir's words when he says that his memory reaches back to the time when Bergelmir was laid on the mill to be ground. Ymir he does not remember, nor Þrúðgelmir, nor the days when these were changed to earth. Of them he knows only by hearsay. But he remembers when the turn came for Bergelmir's limbs to be subjected to the same fate.

"The glorious Midgard" could not be created before its foundations raised by the gods out of the sea were changed to bjóð (Völuspá). This is the word (originally bjóðr) with which the author of Völuspá chose to express the quality of the fields and the fields themselves, which were raised out of the sea by Bor's sons, when the great mill had changed the "flesh" of Ymir into mould. Bjóð does not mean a bare field or ground, but one that can supply food. Thus it is used in Haustlaung 5 (af breiðu bjóði, the place for a spread feast), and its other meanings (perhaps the more original ones) are that of a board and of a table for food to lie on. When the fields were raised out of Ymir's blood they were covered with mould, so that, when they got light and warmth from the sun, then the grund became gróin grænum lauki. The very word mould comes from the Teutonic word mala, to grind (cp. Eng. meal, Latin molere). The development of language and the development of mythology have here, as in so many other instances, gone hand in hand.

That the "flesh" of the primeval giants could be ground into fertile mould refers us to the primeval cow Auðhumbla by whose milk Ymir was nourished and his flesh formed (Gylfaginning). Thus the cow in the Teutonic mythology is the same as she is in the Iranian, the primeval source of fertility. The mould, out of which the harvests grow, has by transformations developed out of her nourishing liquids.

Here, then, we have the explanation of the liðmeldur which the great mill grinds, according to Snæbjörn. Liðmeldur means limb-grist. It is the limbs and joints of the primeval giants, which on Amlodi's mill are transformed into meal.

In its character as an institution for the promotion of fertility, and for rendering the fields fit for habitation, the mill is under the care and protection of the Vans. After Njord's son, Frey, had been fostered in Asgard and had acquired the dignity of lord of the harvests, he was the one who became the master of the great Grotti. It is attended on his behalf by one of his servants, who in the mythology is called Byggvir, a name related both to byggja, settle, cultivate, and to bygg, barley, a kind of grain, and by his kinswoman and helpmate Beyla. So important is the calling of Byggvir and Beyla that they are permitted to attend the feasts of the gods with their master (Frey). Consequently they are present at the banquet to which Ægir, according to Lokasenna, invited the gods. When Loki uninvited made his appearance there to mix harm in the mead of the gods, and to embitter their pleasure, and when he there taunts Frey, Byggvir becomes wroth on his master's behalf and says:

Beyla, too, gets her share of Loki's abuse. The least disgraceful thing he says of her is that she is a deigja (a slave, who has to work at the mill and in the kitchen), and that she is covered with traces of her occupation in dust and dirt.

As we see, Loki characterises Byggvir as a servant taking charge of the mill under Frey, and Byggvir characterises himself as one who grinds, and is able to crush an "evil crow" limb by limb with his mill-stones. As the one who with his mill makes vegetation, and so also bread and malt, possible, he boasts of it as his honour that the gods are able to drink ale at a banquet. Loki blames him because he is not able to divide the food among men. The reproach implies that the distribution of food is in his hands. The mould which comes from the great mill gives different degrees of fertility to different fields, and rewards abundantly or niggardly the toil of the farmer. Loki doubtless alludes to this unequal distribution, else it would be impossible to find any sense in his words.

In the poetic Edda we still have another reminiscence of the great mill which is located under the sea, and at the same time in the lower world (see below), and which "grinds mould into food". It is in a poem, whose skald says that he has seen it on his journey in the lower world. In his description of the "home of torture" in Hades, Sólarljóð's Christian author has taken all his materials from the heathen mythological conceptions of the worlds of punishment, though the author treats these materials in accordance with the Christian purpose of his song. When the skald dies, he enters the Hades gate, crosses bloody streams, sits for nine days á norna stóli, is thereupon seated on a horse, and is permitted to make a journey through Mimir's domain, first to the regions of the happy and then to those of the damned. In Mimir's realm he sees the "stag of the sun" and Nidi's (Mimir's) sons, who "quaff the pure mead from Baugregin's well". When he approached the borders of the world of the damned, he heard a terrible din, which silenced the winds and stopped the flow of the waters. The mighty din came from a mill. Its stones were wet with blood, but the grist produced was mould, which was to be food. Fickle-wise (svipvísar, heathen) women of dark complexion turned the mill. Their bloody and tortured hearts hung outside of their breasts. The mould which they ground was to feed their husbands (Sólarljóð 57-58).

This mill, situated at the entrance of hell, is here represented as one of the agents of torture in the lower world. To a certain extent this is correct even from a heathen standpoint. It was the lot of slave-women to turn the hand-mill. In the heroic poem the giant-maids Fenja and Menja, taken prisoners and made slaves, have to turn Frodi's Grotti. In the mythology "Eyludur's nine women," thurs-maids, were compelled to keep this vast mechanism in motion, and that this was regarded as a heavy and compulsory task may be assumed without the risk of being mistaken.

According to Sólarljóð, the mill-stones are stained with blood. In the mythology they crush the bodies of the first giants and revolve in Ymir's blood. It is also in perfect harmony with the mythology that the meal becomes mould, and that the mould serves as food. But the cosmic signification is obliterated in Sólarljóð, and it seems to be the author's idea that men who have died in their heathen belief are to eat the mould which women who have died in heathendom industriously grind as food for them.

The myth about the greater Grotti, as already indicated, has also been connected with the Hvergelmir myth. Sólarljóð has correctly stated the location of the mill on the border of the realm of torture. The mythology has located Hvergelmir's fountain there (see No. 59); and as this vast fountain is the mother of the ocean and of all waters, and the ever open connection between the waters of heaven, of the earth, and of the lower world, then this furnishes the explanation of the apparently conflicting statements, that the mill is situated both in the lower world and at the same time on the bottom of the sea. Of the mill it is said that it is dangerous to men, dangerous to fleets and to crews, and that it causes the maelstrom (svelgr) when the water of the ocean rushes down through the eye of the mill-stone. The same was said of Hvergelmir, that causes ebb and flood and maelstrom, when the water of the world alternately flows into and out of this great source. To judge from all this, the mill has been conceived as so made that its foundation timbers stood on solid ground in the lower world, and thence rose up into the sea, in which the stones resting on this substructure were located. The revolving "eye" of the mill-stone was directly above Hvergelmir, and served as the channel through which the water flowed to and from the great fountain of the world's waters.