Part 5

The circumstances which first drew my attention to the necessity of investigating whether Thjazi and Völund were not different names of the same mythic personality, which the mythology particularly called Thjazi, and which the heroic saga springing from the mythology in Christian times particularly called Völund, were the following: (1) In the study of Saxo I found in no less than three passages that Njörd, under different historical masks, marries a daughter of Völund, while in the mythology he marries a daughter of Thjazi. (2) In investigating the statements anent Völund's father in Völundarkviða's text and prose appendix I found that these led to the result that Völund was a son of Sumbli, the Finn king - that is to say, of Ölvaldi, Thjazi's father. (3) My researches in regard to the myth about the mead produced the result that Svigdir-Ölvaldi perished by the treachery of a dwarf outside of a mountain, where one of the smith-races of the mythology, Suttung's sons, had their abode. In Vilkinasaga's account of the death of Völund's father I discovered the main outlines of the same mythic episode.

The correspondence of so different sources in so unexpected a matter was altogether too remarkable to permit it to be overlooked in my mythological researches. The fact that the name-variation itself, Alvaldi (for Ölvaldi), as Thjazi's father is called in Hárbarðsljóð, was in meaning and form a complete synonym of Ivaldi I had already observed, but without attaching any importance thereto.

The next step was to examine whether a similar proof of the identity of Thjazi's and Völund's mother was to be found. In one Norse mythological source Thjazi's mother is called Greip. Völund's and Egil's (Ajo's and Ibor's, Aggo's and Ebbo's) mother is in Paulus Diaconus and in Origo Longobardorum called Gambara, in Saxo Gambaruc. The Norse stem in the Latinised name Gambara is Gammur, which is a synonym of Greip, the name of Thjazi's mother. Thus I found a reference to the identity of Thjazi's mother and Völund's mother.

From the parents I went to the brothers. One of Völund's brothers bore the epithet Aurnir, "wild boar". Aurnir's wife is remembered in the Christian traditions as one who forebodes the future. Ebur's wife is a mythological seeress. One of Thjazi's brothers, Idi, is the only one in the mythology whose name points to an original connection with Ivaldi (Idvaldi), Völund's father, and with Idunn, Völund's half-sister. Völund himself bears the epithet Brunni, and Thjazi's home is Brunns-acre. One of Thjazi's sons is slain at the instigation of Loki, and Loki, who in Lokasenna takes pleasure in stating this, boasts in the same poem that he has caused the slaying of Thjazi.

In regard to bonds of relationship in general, I found that on the one side Völund, like Thjazi, was regarded as a giant, and had relations among the giants, among whom Vidolf is mentioned both as Völund's and Thjazi's relative, and that on the other hand Völund is called an elf-prince, and that Thjazi's father belonged to the clan of elves, and that Thjazi's daughter is characterised, like Völund and his nearest relatives, as a ski-runner and hunter, and in this respect has the same epithet as Völund's nephew Ull. I found, furthermore, that so far as tradition has preserved the memory of star-heroes, every mythic person who belonged to their number was called a son of Ivaldi or a son of Ölvaldi. Örvandil-Egil is a star-hero and a son of Ivaldi. The Watlings, after whom the Milky Way is named, are descendants of Vati-Vadi, Völund's father. Thjazi is a star-hero and the son of Ölvaldi. Idi, too, Thjazi's brother, "the torch-bearer," may have been a star-hero, and, as we shall show later, the memory of Völund's brother Slagfinn was partly connected with the Milky Way and partly with the spots on the moon; while, according to another tradition, it is Völund's father whose image is seen in these spots (see Nos. 121, 123).

I found that Rögnir is a Thjazi-epithet, and that all that is stated of Rögnir is also told of Völund. Rögnir was, like the latter, first the friend of the gods and then their foe. He was a "swan-gladdener," and Völund the lover of a swan-maid. Like Völund he fought against Njörd. Like Völund he proceeded to the northernmost edge of the world, and there he worked with magic implements through the powers of frost for the destruction of the gods and of the world. And from some one he has taken the same ransom as Völund did, when the latter killed Nidad's young sons and made goblets of their skulls.

I found that while Ölvaldi's sons, Idi, Aurnir (Gang), and Thjazi, still were friends of the gods, they had their abode on the south coast of the Elivagar, where Ivaldi had his home, called after him Geirvaðils setur, and where his son Örvandil-Egil afterwards dwelt; that Thor on his way to Jötunheim visits Idi's setur, and that he is a guest in Egil's dwelling; that the mythological warriors who dwell around Idi's setur are called "warrior-vans," and that these "Gang's warrior-vans" have these very persons, Egil and his foster-son Thjalfi, as their leaders when they accompany Thor to fight the giants, wherefore the setur of the Ölvaldi sons Idi and Gang must be identical with that of the Ivaldi sons, and Idi, Gang, and Thjazi identical with Slagfinn, Egil, and Völund.

On these foundations the identity of Ölvaldi's sons with Ivaldi's sons is sufficiently supported, even though our mythic records had preserved no evidence that Thjazi, like Völund, was the most celebrated artist of mythology. But such evidence is not wanting. As the real meaning of Reginn is "shaper," "workman," and as this has been retained as a smith-name in Christian times, there is every reason to assume that Thjazi, who is called fjaðrar-blaðs leik-Reginn and vingvagna Rögnir, did himself make, like Völund, the eagle guise which he, like Völund, wears. The son of Ivaldi, Völund, made the most precious treasures for the gods while he still was their friend, and the Ölvaldi son Thjazi is called hapta snytrir, "the decorator of the gods," doubtless for the reason that he had smithied treasures for the gods during a time when he was their friend and Thor's ofrúni (Thor's confidential friend). Völund is the most famous and, so far as we can see, also the first sword-smith, which seems to appear from the fact that his father Ivaldi, though a valiant champion, does not use the sword but the spear as a weapon, and is therefore called Geirvandill. Thjazi was the first sword-smith, otherwise he would not have been called faðir mörna, "the father of the swords". Splendid implements are called verk Rögnis and Þjaza þingskil, Iðja glysmál, Iðja orð - expressions which do not find their adequate explanation in the Younger Edda's account of the division of Ölvaldi's estate, but in the myth about the judgment which the gods once proclaimed in the contest concerning the skill of Sindri and the sons of Ivaldi, when the treasures of the latter presented in court had to plead their own cause.