Alfaleith.org - Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology

What the Edda tells about king Saturnus and his son, king Jupiter, is found in a general way, partly in the Church-father Lactantius, partly in Virgil's commentator Servius, who was known and read during the middle age. As the Edda claims that Saturnus knew the art of producing gold from the molten iron, and that no other than gold coins existed in his time, this must be considered an interpretation of the statement made in Latin sources that Saturnus' was the golden age - aurea secula, aurea regna. Among the Romans Saturnus was the guardian of treasures, and the treasury of the Romans was in the temple of Saturnus in the Forum.

The genealogy found in the Edda, according to which the Trojan king Priam, supposed to be the oldest and the proper Odin, was descended in the sixth generation from Jupiter, is taken from Latin chronicles. Herikon of the Edda, grandson of Jupiter, is the Roman-Greek Erichtonius; the Edda's Lamedon is Laomedon. Then the Edda has the difficult task of continuing the genealogy through the dark centuries between the burning of Troy and the younger Odin's immigration to Europe. Here the Latin sources naturally fail it entirely, and it is obliged to seek other aid. It first considers the native sources. There it finds that Thor is also called Lorridi, Indridi, and Vingthor, and that he had two sons, Modi and Magni; but it also finds a genealogy made about the twelfth century, in which these different names of Thor are applied to different persons, so that Lorridi is the son of Thor, Indridi the son of Lorridi, Vingthor the son of Indridi, &c. This mode of making genealogies was current in Iceland in the twelfth century, and before that time among the Christian Anglo-Saxons. Thereupon the Edda continues its genealogy with the names Bedvig, Atra, Itrman, Heremod, Skjaldun or Skold, Bjæf, Jat, Gudolf, Fjarlaf or Fridleif, and finally Odin, that is to say, the younger Odin, who had adopted this name after his deified progenitor Hermes-Priam. This whole genealogy is taken from a Saxon source, and can be found in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle name for name. From Odin the genealogy divides itself into two branches, one from Odin's son, Veggdegg, and another from Odin's son, Beldegg or Baldur. The one branch has the names Veggdegg, Vitrgils, Ritta, Heingest. These names are found arranged into a genealogy by the English Church historian Beda, by the English chronicler Nennius, and in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle. From one of these three sources the Edda has taken them, and the only difference is that the Edda must have made a slip in one place and changed the name Vitta to Ritta. The other branch, which begins with Baldur or Beldegg, embraces eight names, which are found in precisely the same order in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle.

In regard to Baldur, the Edda says that Odin appointed him king in Westphalia. This statement is based on the tradition that Baldur was known among the heathen Germans and Scandinavians by the name Fal (Falur, see No. 92), with its variation Fol. In an age when it was believed that Sweden got its name from a king Sven, Götaland from a king Göt, Denmark from a king Dan, Angeln from a king Angul, the Franks from a duke Francio, it might be expected that Falen (East- and West-Phalia) had been named after a king Fal. That this name was recognised as belonging to Baldur not only in Germany, but also in Scandinavia, I shall give further proof of in No. 92.

As already stated, Thor was, according to the Edda, married to Sibil, that is to say, the Sibylla, and the Edda adds that this Sibil is called Sif in the North. In the Teutonic mythology Thor's wife is the goddess Sif. It has already been mentioned that it was believed in the middle age that the Cumæan or Erythreian Sibylla originally came from Troy, and it is not, therefore, strange that the author of the Younger Edda, who speaks of the Trojan descent of Odin and his people, should marry Thor to the most famous of Trojan women. Still, this marriage is not invented by the author. The statement has an older foundation, and taking all circumstances into consideration, may be traced to Germany, where Sif, in the days of heathendom, was as well known as Thor. To the northern form Sif corresponds the Gothic form Sibba, the Old English Sib, the Old Saxon Sibbia, and the Old High German Sibba, and Sibil, Sibilla, was thought to be still another form of the same name. The belief, based on the assumed fact that Thor's wife Sif was identical with the Sibylla, explains a phenomenon not hitherto understood in the saga-world and church sculpture of the middle age, and on this point I now have a few remarks to make.

In the Norse mythology several goddesses or dises have, as we know, feather-guises, with which they fly through space. Freyja has a falcon-guise; several dises have swan-guises (Völundarkviða, Helreið Brynhildar 6). Among these swan-maids was Sif (see No. 123). Sif could therefore present herself now in human form, and again in the guise of the most beautiful swimming bird, the swan.

A legend, the origin of which may be traced to Italy, tells that when the queen of Saba visited king Solomon, she was in one place to cross a brook. A tree or beam was thrown across as a bridge. The wise queen stopped, and would not let her foot touch the beam. She preferred to wade across the brook, and when she was asked the reason for this, she answered that in a prophetic vision she had seen that the time would come when this tree would be made into a cross on which the Saviour of the world was to suffer.

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