Alfaleith.org - Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology

The fundamental traits of "King Ruther" resemble Saxo's story. There, too, it is a king who undertakes a perilous journey of courtship and must fight several battles to win the wondrous fair maiden whose previous suitors had had to pay for their eagerness by having their heads chopped off and fastened on poles. The king is accompanied by Berter, identical with Berchtung-Borgar, but here, as always in the German story, described as the patriarch and adviser. A giant, Vidolt - Saxo's Vitolphus, Hyndluljóð's Vidolfr (Völuspá in Skamma 5) - accompanies Ruther and Berter on the journey; and when Vitolphus in Saxo is mentioned under circumstances which show that he accompanied Borgar on a warlike expedition, and thereupon saved his son Halfdan's life, there is no room for doubt that Saxo's saga and "King Ruther" originally flowed from the same mythic source. It can also be demonstrated that the very name Ruther is one of those epithets which belong to Heimdal. The Norse Hrútr is, according to the Younger Edda (i. 588, 589), a synonym of Heimdali, and Heimdali is another form of Heimdall (Isl., i. 231). As Hrútr means a ram, and as Heimdali is an epithet of a ram (see Younger Edda, i. 589), light is thrown upon the bold metaphors, according to which "head," "Heimdal's head," and "Heimdal's sword" are synonyms (Younger Edda, i. 100, 264; ii. 499). The ram's head carries and is the ram's sword. Of the age of this animal symbol we give an account in No. 82. There is reason for believing that Heimdal's helmet has been conceived as decorated with ram's horns. [* That some one of the gods has worn a helmet with such a crown can he seen on one of the golden horns found near Gallehuus. There twice occurs a being wearing a helmet furnished with long, curved, sharp pointed horns. Near him a ram is drawn, and in his hand he has something resembling a staff which ends in a circle, and possibly is intended to represent Heimdal's horn.] A strophe quoted in the Younger Edda (i. 608) mentions Heimdal's helmet, and calls the sword the fyllir of Heimdal's helmet, an ambiguous expression, which may be interpreted as that which fills Heimdal's helmet; that is to say, Heimdal's head, but also as that which has its place on the helmet. Compare the expression fyllir hilmis stóls as a metaphor for the power of the ruler.

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