Part 4

Nott herself is the daughter of a being whose name has many forms.

All these variations are derived from the same original appellation, related to the Old Norse verb njörva, the Old English nearwian, meaning "the one that binds," "the one who puts on tight-fitting bonds".

Simply the circumstance that Narvi is Nott's father proves that he must have occupied one of the most conspicuous positions in the Teutonic cosmogony. In all cosmogonies and theogonies night is one of the oldest beings, older than light, without which it cannot be conceived. Light is kindled in the darkness, thus foreboding an important epoch in the development of the world out of chaos. The being which is Night's father must therefore be counted among the oldest in the cosmogony. The personified representatives of water and earth, like the day, are the children of his daughter.

What Gylfaginning tells of Narvi is that he was of giant birth, and the first one who inhabited Jotunheim (Nörvi eða Narfi hét jötunn, er byggði fyrst Jötunheima - Gylfaginning 10). In regard to this we must remember that, in Gylfaginning and in the traditions of the Icelandic sagas, the lower world is embraced in the term Jtunheim, and this for mythical reasons, since Niflheim is inhabited by rimthurses and giants (see No. 60), and since the regions of bliss are governed by Mimir and by the norns, who also are of giant descent. As the father of the lower-world dis, Nott, Narvi himself belongs to that group of powers, with which the mythology peopled the lower world. The upper Jotunheim did not exist before in a later epoch of the cosmogonic development. It was created simultaneously with Midgard by Odin and his brothers (Gylfaginning).

In a strophe by Egil Skallagrimson (ch. 56), poetry, or the source of poetry, is called niðerfi Narfa, "the inheritance left by Narvi to his descendants". As is well known, Mimir's fountain is the source of poetry. The expression indicates that the first inhabitant of the lower world, Narvi, also presided over the precious fountain of wisdom and inspiration, and that he died and left it to his descendants as an inheritance.

Finally, we learn that Narvi was a near kinsman to Urd and her sisters. This appears from the following passages:

(a) Helgakviða Hundingsbana I, 4. When Helgi was born norns came in the night to the abode of his parents, twisted the threads of his fate, stretched them from east to west, and fastened them beneath the hall of the moon. One of the threads nipt Nera cast to the north and bade it hold for ever. It is manifest that by Neri's (Narvi's) kinswoman is meant one of the norns present.

(b) Sonatorrek 25. The skald Egil Skallagrimson, weary of life, closes his poem by saying that he sees the dis of death standing on the ness (Digraness) near the grave-mound which conceals the dust of his father and of his sons, and is soon to receive him:

It goes without saying that the skald means a dis of death, Urd or one of her messengers, with the words, "the kinswoman of Njorvi (the binder) of Odin's foes," whom he with the eye of presentiment sees standing on the family grave-mound on Digraness. She is not to stop there, but she is to continue her way to his hall, to bring him to the grave-mound. He awaits her coming with gladness, and as the last line shows, she whose arrival he awaits is Hel, the goddess of death or fate. It has already been demonstrated that Hel in the heathen records is always identical with Urd.

Njorvi is here used both as a proper and a common noun. "The kinswoman of the Njorvi of Odin's foes" means "the kinswoman of the binder of Odin's foes". Odin's foe Fenrir was bound with an excellent chain smithied in the lower world (dwarfs in Svartálfaheimr - Gylfaginning 34), and as shall be shown later, there are more than one of Odin's foes who are bound with Narvi's chains (see No. 87).

(c) Höfuðlausn 10. Egil Skallagrimson celebrates in song a victory won by Erik Blood-axe, and says of the battle-field that there trað nipt Nara náttverð ara ("Nari's kinswoman trampled upon the supper of the eagles," that is to say, upon the dead bodies of the fallen). The psychopomps of disease, of age, and of misfortunes have nothing to do on a battle-field. Thither come valkyries to fetch the elect. Nipt Nara must therefore be a valkyrie, whose horse tramples upon the heaps of dead bodies; and as Egil names only one shield-maid of that kind, he doubtless has had the most representative, the most important one in mind. That one is Skuld, Urd's sister, and thus a nipt Nara like Urd herself.

(d) Ynglingatal 7 (Ynglingasaga, ch. 17). Of King Dyggvi, who died from disease, it is said that jódís Narva chose him. The right to choose those who die from disease belongs to the norns alone (see No. 69). Jódís, a word doubtless produced by a vowel change from the Old Germanic idis, has already in olden times been interpreted partly as horse-dis (from jór, horse), partly as the dis of one's kin (from jóð, child, offspring). In this case the skald has taken advantage of both significations. He calls the death-dis jódís úlfs og Narva, the wolf's horse-dis, Narvi's kin-dis. In regard to the former signification, it should be remembered that the wolf is horse for all giantesses, the honoured norns not excepted. Cp. grey norna as a paraphrase for wolf.

Thus what our mythic records tell us about Narvi is:

(a) He is one of the oldest beings of theogony, older than the upper part of the world constructed by Bur's sons.

(b) He is of giant descent.

(c) He is father of Nott, father-in-law of Naglfari, Onar, and of Delling, the elf of the rosy dawn; and he is the father of Dag's mother, of Unnr, and of the goddess Jord, who becomes Odin's wife and Thor's mother. Bonds of kinship thus connect him with the Asas and with gods of other ranks.

(d) He is near akin to the dis of fate and death, Urd and her sisters. The word nipt, with which Urd's relation to him is indicated, may mean sister, daughter, and sister's daughter, and consequently does not state which particular one of these it is. It seems upon the whole to have been applied well-nigh exclusively in regard to mythic persons, and particularly in regard to Urd and her sisters (cp. above: Njörva nipt, nipt Nara, nipt Nera), so that it almost acquired the meaning of dis or norn. This is evident from Nafnaþulur 26: Nornir heita þær er nauð skapa; Nipt ok Dís nú eru taldar, and from the expression heil Nótt og Nipt in the above-cited strophe from Sigurdrífumál. There is every reason for assuming that the Nipt, which is here used as a proper noun, in this sense means the dis of fate and as an appellation of kinship, a kinswoman of Nott. The common interpretation of heil Nótt og Nipt is "hail Nott and her daughter," and by her daughter is then meant the goddess Jord; but this interpretation is, as Bugge has shown, less probable, for the goddess Jord immediately below gets her special greeting in the words: heil sjá in fjölnýta Fold! ("hail the bounteous earth!")

(e) As the father of Nott, living in Mimir's realm, and kinsman of Urd, who with Mimir divides the dominion over the lower world, Narvi is himself a being of the lower world, and the oldest subterranean being: the first one who inhabited Jotunheim.

(f) He presided over the subterranean fountain of wisdom and inspiration, that is to say, Mimir's fountain.

(g) He was Odin's friend and the binder of Odin's foes.

(h) He died and left his fountain as a heritage to his descendants.

As our investigation progresses it will be found that all these facts concerning Narvi apply to Mimir, that "he who thinks" (Mimir) and "he who binds" (Narvi) are the same person. Already the circumstances that Narvi was an ancient being of giant descent, that he dwelt in the lower world and was the possessor of the fountain of wisdom there, that he was Odin's friend, and that he died and left his fountain as an inheritance (cp. Mims synir), point definitely to Narvi's and Mimir's identity. Thus the Teutonic theogony has made Thought the older kinsman of Fate, who through Nott bears Dag to the world. The people of antiquity made their first steps toward a philosophical view of the world in their theogony.

The Old English language has preserved and transferred to the Christian Paradise a name which originally belonged to the subterranean region of bliss of heathendom - Neorxenavang. Vang means a meadow, plain, field. The mysterious Neorxena looks like a gentive plural. Grein, in his Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, and before him Weinhold, refers neorxena to Narvi, Nari, and this without a suspicion that Narvi was an epithet of Mimir and referred to the king of the heathen regions of bliss. I consider this an evidence that Grein's assumption is as correct as it is necessary, if upon the whole we are to look for an etymological explanation of the word. The plural genitive, then, means those who inhabit Narvi's regions of bliss, and receive their appellation from this circumstance. The opposite Old Norse appellation is njarir, a word which I shall discuss below.

To judge from certain passages in Christian writings of the thirteenth century, Mimir was not alone about the name Narvi, Nari. One or two of Loki's sons are supposed to have had the same name. The statements in this regard demand investigation, and, as I think, this will furnish another instructive contribution to the chapter on the confusion of the mythic traditions, and on the part that the Younger Edda plays in this respect. The passages are:

(a) The prosaic afterword to Lokasenna: "He (Loki) was bound with the entrails of his son Nari, but his son Narfi was turned into a wolf".
(b) Gylfaginning 33. (1) Most of the codices: "His (Loki's) wife is hight Sigyn; their son is Nari or Narvi".
(2) Codex Hypnonesiensis: "His (Loki's) wife is hight Sigyn; his sons are hight Nari or Narvi and Vali".
(c) Gylfaginning 50. (1) Most of the codices: "Then were taken Loki's sons Vali and Nari or Narfi. The Asas changed Vali into a wolf, and the latter tore into pieces his brother Narfi. Then the Asas took his entrails and therewith bound Loki."
(2) Codex Upsalensis: "Then were taken Loki's sons Vali and Nari. The Asas changed Vali into a wolf, and the latter tore into pieces his brother Nari."
(d) Skáldskaparmál 23. (1) "Loki is the father of the wolf Fenrir, the Midgard-serpent, and Hel, 'and also of Nari and Ali'."
(2) Codex Wormianus and Codex Hypnonesiensis: "Loki is father of the Fenris-wolf, of the Midgard-serpent, and of Hel, 'and also of Nari and Vali'.".

The mythology has stated that Loki was bound with chains which were originally entrails, and that he who contributed the materials of these chains was his own son, who was torn into pieces by his brother in wolf guise. It is possible that there is something symbolic in this myth - that it originated in the thought that the forces created by evil contend with each other and destroy their own parent. There is at least no reason for doubting that this account is a genuine myth, that is to say, that it comes from a heathen source and from some heathen poem.

But, in regard to the names of Loki's two sons here in question, we have a perfect right to doubt.

We discover at once the contradictions betrayed by the records in regard to them. The discrepancy of the statements can best be shown by the following comparisons. Besides Fenrir, the Midgard-serpent, and Hel, Loki has, according to:

The discrepancy shows that the author of these statements did not have any mythic song or mythic tradition as the source of all these names of Loki's sons.

The matter becomes even more suspicious when we find -

That the variations Nari and Narvi, both of which belong to one of the foremost and noblest of mythic beings, namely, to Mimir, are here applied in such a manner that they either are given to two sons of Loki or are attributed to one and the same Loki-son, while in the latter case it happens -

That the names Vali and Ali, which both belong to the same Asa-god and son of Odin who avenged the death of his brother Baldur, are both attributed to the other son of Loki. Compare Gylfaginning 30: Áli eða Váli heitir einn, sonur Óðins og Rindar.

How shall we explain this? Such an application of these names must necessarily produce the suspicion of some serious mistake; but we cannot assume that it was made wilfully. The cause must be found somewhere.

It has already been demonstrated that, in the mythology, Urd, the dis of fate, was also the dis of death and the ruler of the lower world, and that the functions belonging to her in this capacity were, in Christian times, transferred to Loki's daughter, who, together with her functions, usurped her name Hel. Loki's daughter and Hel became to the Christian mythographers identical.

An inevitable result was that such expressions as nipt Nara, jódís Narfa, nipt Njörva, had to change meaning. The nipt Njörva, whom the aged Egil saw standing near the grave-mound on Digraness, and whose arrival he awaited "with gladness and good-will," was no longer the death-dis Urd, but became to the Christian interpreters the abominable daughter of Loki who came to fetch the old heathen. The nipt Nara, whose horse trampled on the battlefield where Erik Blood-axe defeated the Scots, was no longer Urd's sister, the valkyrie Skuld, but became Loki's daughter, although, even according to the Christian mythographers, the latter had nothing to do on a battle-field. The jódís Narfa, who chose King Dyggvi, was confounded with Loka mær, who had him leikinn (see No. 67), but who, according to the heathen conception, was a maid-servant of fate, without the right of choosing. To the heathens nipt Nara, nipt Njörva, jódís Narfa, meant "Nari-Mimir's kinswoman Urd". To the mythographers of the thirteenth century it must, for the reason stated, have meant the Loki-daughter as sister of a certain Nari or Narvi. It follows that this Nari or Narvi ought to be a son of Loki, since his sister was Loki's daughter. It was known that Loki, besides Fenrir and the Midgard-serpent, had two other sons, of which the one in the guise of a wolf tore the other into pieces. In Nari, Narvi, the name of one or the names of both these Loki-sons were thought to have been found.

The latter assumption was made by the author of the prose in Lokasenna. He conceived Nari to be the one brother and Narvi the other. The author of Gylfaginning, on the other hand, rightly regarded Nari and Narvi as simply variations of the same name, and accordingly let them designate the same son of Loki. When he wrote chapter 33, he did not know what name to give to the other, and consequently omitted him entirely. But when he got to the 50th chapter, a light had risen for him in regard to the name of the other. And the light doubtless came from the following half strophe in Völuspá:

þá kná Vála
vígbönd snúa,
heldur voru harðgjör
höft úr þörmum.

This half strophe says that those were strong chains (for Loki) that were made of entrails, and these fetters were "twisted" from "Váli's vígbönd". Víg as a legal term means a murder, slaughter. Vála víg was interpreted as a murder comitted by Vali; and Vála vígbönd as the bonds or fetters obtained by the slaughter committed by Vali. It was known that Loki was chained with the entrails of his son, and here it was thought to appear that this son was slain by a certain Vali. And as he was slain by a brother according to the myth, then Vali must be the brother of the slain son of Loki. Accordingly chapter 50 of Gylfaginning could tell us what chapter 33 did not yet know, namely, that the two sons of Loki were named Vali and Nari or Narvi, and that Vali changed to a wolf, tore the brother "Nari or Narvi" into pieces.

The next step was taken by Skáldskaparmál, or more probably by one of the transcribers of Skáldskaparmál. As Vali and Ali in the mythology designated the same person (viz., Baldur's avenger, the son of Odin), the son of Loki, changed into a wolf, "Vali" received as a gift the name "Ali". It is by no means impossible that the transcriber regarded Baldur's avenger, Vali, and the son of Loki as identical. The oldest manuscript we have of Skáldskaparmál is the Upsala Codex, which is no older than the beginning of the fourteenth century. The mythic traditions were then in the continuation of that rapid decay which had begun in the eleventh century, and not long thereafter the Icelandic saga writings saw Valhall peopled by giants and all sorts of monsters, which were called einherjes, and Thor himself transferred to the places of torture where he drank venom from "the auroch's horn," presented to him by the daughter of Loki.

In the interpretation of the above-cited half strophe of Völuspá, we must therefore leave out the supposed son of Loki, Vali. The Teutonic mythology, like the other Aryan mythologies, applied many names and epithets to the same person, but it seldom gave two or more persons one and the same name, unless the latter was a patronymic or, in other respects, of a general character. There was not more than one Odin, one Thor, one Njord, one Heimdall, one Loki, and there is no reason for assuming that there was more than one Vali, namely, the divine son of this name. Of Baldur's brother Vali we know that he was born to avenge the slaying of Baldur. His impatience to do that which he was called to perform is expressed in the mythology by the statement, that he liberated himself from the womb of his mother before the usual time (Baldurs bróðir var um borinn snemma - Völuspá 32), and only one night old he went to slay Hodur. The bonds which confine the impatient one in his mother's womb were his vígbönd, the bonds which hindered him from combat, and these bonds were in the most literal sense of the word úr þörmum. As Loki's bonds are made of the same material and destined to hinder him from combat with the gods until Ragnarok, and as his prison is in the womb of the earth, as Vali's was in that of the earth-goddess Rind's, then Vála vígbönd as a designation of Loki's chains is both logically and poetically a satisfactory paraphrase, and the more in order as it occurs in connection with the description of the impending Ragnarok, when Loki by an earthquake is to sever his fetters and hasten to the conflict.