Alfaleith.org - Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology

For its mission the child had to be equipped with strength, endurance, and wisdom. It was given to drink jarðar magn, svalkaldr sær and Sónar dreyri (Völuspá in Skamma 10). It is necessary to compare these expressions with Urðar magn, svalkaldr sær and Sónar dreyri in Guðrúnarkviða in forna 21, a song written in Christian times, where this reminiscence of a triple heathen-mythic drink reappears as a potion of forgetfulness allaying sorrow. The expression Sónar dreyri shows that the child had tasted liquids from the subterranean fountains which water Yggdrasil and sustain the spiritual and physical life of the universe (cp. Nos. 63 and 93). Són contains the mead of inspiration and wisdom. In Skáldskaparmál, which quotes a satire of late origin, this name is given to a jar in which Suttung preserves this valuable liquor, but to the heathen skalds Són is the name of Mímir's fountain, which contains the highest spiritual gifts, and around whose rush-bordered edge the reeds of poetry grow (Eilífr Guðrúnarson, Skáldskaparmál). The child Heimdal has, therefore, drunk from Mímir's fountain. Jarðar magn (the earth's strength) is in reality the same as Urðar magn, the strength of the water in Urd's fountain, which keeps the world-tree ever green and sustains the physical life of creation (Völuspá). The third subterranean fountain is Hvergelmir, with hardening liquids. From Hvergelmir comes the river Svöl, and the venom-cold Elivágar (Grímnismál, Gylfaginning). Svalkaldr sær, cool sea, is an appropriate designation of this fountain.

When the child has been strengthened in this manner for its great mission, it is laid sleeping in the decorated ship, gets the grain-sheaf for its pillow, and numerous treasures are placed around it. It is certain that there were not only weapons and ornaments, but also workmen's tools among the treasures. It should be borne in mind that the gods made on the Iða-plains not only ornaments, but also tools (tangir skópu ok tól görðu). Evidence is presented in No. 82 that Scef-Heimdal brought the fire-auger to primeval man who until that time had lived without the blessings produced by the sacred fire.

The boy grows up among the inhabitants on the Scandian coast, and, when he has developed into manhood, human culture has germinated under his influence and the beginnings of classes in society with distinct callings appear. In Rígsþula, we find him journeying along "green paths, from house to house, in that land which his presence has blessed". Here he is called Rígr - it is true of him as of nearly all mythological persons, that he has several names - but the introduction to the poem informs us that the person so called is the god Heimdal (einhverr af ásum sá er Heimdallr hét). The country is here also described as situated near the sea. Heimdal journeys fram með sjávarströndu. Culture is in complete operation. The people are settled, they spin and weave, perform handiwork, and are smiths, they plough and bake, and Heimdal has instructed them in runes. Different homes show different customs and various degrees of wealth, but happiness prevails everywhere. Heimdal visits Ái's and Edda's unpretentious home, is hospitably received, and remains three days. Nine months thereafter the son Þræll (Thrall) is born to this family. Heimdal then visits Afi's and Amma's well-kept and cleanly house, and nine months thereafter the son Karl (Churl) is born in this household. Thence Rig betakes himself to Faðir's and Móðir's elegant home. There is born, nine months later, the son Jarl. Thus the three Teutonic classes - the thralls, the freemen, and the nobility - have received their divine sanction from Heimdal-Rig, and all three have been honoured with divine birth.

In the account of Rig's visit to the three different homes lies the mythic idea of a common fatherhood, an idea which must not be left out of sight when human heroes are described as sons of gods in the mythological and heroic sagas. They are sons of the gods and, at the same time, from a genealogical standpoint, men. Their pedigree, starting with Ask and Embla, is not interrupted by the intervention of the visiting god, nor is there developed by this intervention a half-divine, half-human middle class or bastard clan. The Teutonic patriarch Mannus is, according to Tacitus, the son of a god and the grandson of the goddess Earth. Nevertheless he is, as his name indicates, in the full physical sense of the word, a man, and besides his divine father he has had a human father. They are the descendants of Ask and Embla, men of all classes and conditions, whom Völuspá's skald gathered around the seeress when she was to present to them a view of the world's development and commanded silence with the formula: "Give ear, all ye divine races, great and small, sons of Heimdal". The idea of a common fatherhood we find again in the question of Faðir's grandson, as we shall show below. Through him the families of chiefs get the right of precedence before both the other classes. Thor becomes their progenitor. While all classes trace their descent from Heimdal, the nobility trace theirs also from Thor, and through him from Odin.

<< Previous Page | Back | Next Page >>