Alfaleith.org - Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology

Just as in the names Alveig and Almveig, Bil-röst and Bif-röst, Arinbjörn and Grjótbjörn, so also in the name Ívaldi or Ívaldr, the latter part of the word forms the permanent part, corresponding to the Old English Valdere, the German Walther, the Latinised Waltharius. [* Elsewhere it shall be shown that the heroes mentioned in the middle age poetry under the names Valdere, Walther, Waltharius manufortis, and Valthere of Vaskasten are all variations of the name of the same mythic type changed into a human hero, and the same, too, as Ivaldi of the Norse documents (see No. 123).] The former part of the word may change without any change as to the person indicated: Ívaldi, Allvaldi, Ölvaldi, Auðvaldi, may be names of one and the same person. Of these variations Ívaldi and Allvaldi are in their sense most closely related, for the prefixed Í (Ið) and All may interchange in the language without the least change in meaning. Compare all-líkr, ílíkr, and iðlíkr; all-lítill and ílítill; all-nóg, ígnóg, and iðgnóg. On the other hand, the prefixes in Ölvaldi and Auðvaldi produce different meanings of the compound word. But the records give most satisfactory evidence that Ölvaldi and Auðvaldi nevertheless are the same person as Allvaldi (Ívaldi). Þjazi's father is called Allvaldi in Hárbarðsljóð 19; in the Younger Edda (i. 214) Ölvaldi and Auðvaldi. He has three sons, Idi, Gang, also called Aurnir (Gróttasöngr 9), and the just-named Þjazi, who are the famous ancient artists, "the sons of Ivalde" (Ívalda synir). We here point this out in passing. Complete statement and proof of this fact, so important from a mythological standpoint, will be given in Nos. 113, 114, 115.

Nor is it long before it becomes apparent what the consequences are of the decision pronounced by the Asas on Loki's advice upon the treasures presented to the gods. The sons of Ivaldi regarded it as a mortal offence, born of the ingratitude of the gods. Loki, the originator of the scheme, is caught in the snares laid by Þjazi in a manner fully described in Thjodolf's poem "Haustlaung," and to regain his liberty he is obliged to assist him (Þjazi) in carrying Idun away from Asgard. Idun, who possesses "the Asas' remedy against old age," and keeps the apples which symbolise the ever-renewing and rejuvenating force of nature, is carried away by Þjazi to a part of the world inaccessible to the gods. The gods grow old, and winter extends its power more and more beyond the limits prescribed for it in creation. Þjazi, who before was the friend of the gods, is now their irreconcilable foe. He who was the promoter of growth and the benefactor of nature - for Sif's golden locks, and Skidbladnir, belonging to the god of fertility, doubtless are symbols thereof - is changed into "the mightiest foe of earth," dólg ballastan vallar (Haustlaung 6), and has wholly assumed the nature of a giant.

At the same time, with the approach of the great winter, a terrible earthquake takes place, the effects of which are felt even in heaven. The myth in regard to this is explained in No. 81. In this explanation the reader will find that the great earthquake in primeval time is caused by Þjazi's kinswomen on his mother's side (Gróttasöngr) - that is, by the giantesses Fenja and Menja, who turned the enormous world-mill, built on the foundations of the lower world, and working in the depths of the sea, the prototype of the mill of the Grótta-song composed in Christian times; that the world-mill has a möndull, the mill-handle, which sweeps the uttermost rim of the earth, with which handle not only the mill-stone but also the starry heavens are made to whirl round; and that when the mill was put in so violent a motion by the angry giantesses that it got out of order, then the starry constellations were also disturbed. The ancient terrible winter and the inclination of the axis of heaven have in the myth been connected, and these again with the close of the golden age. The mill had up to this time ground gold, happiness, peace, and good-will among men; henceforth it grinds salt and dust.

The winter must of course first of all affect those people who inhabited the extensive Svithiod north of the original country and over which another kinsman of Heimdal, the first of the race of Skilfings or Ynglings, ruled. This kinsman of Heimdal has an important part in the mythology, and thereof we shall give an account in Nos. 89, 91, 110, 113-115, and 123. It is there found that he is the same as Ivaldi, who, with a giantess, begot the illegitimate children Idi, Aurnir, and Þjazi. Already before his sons he became the foe of the gods, and from Svithiod now proceeds, in connection with the spreading of the fimbul-winter, a migration southward, the work at the same time of the Skilfings and the primeval artists. The list of dwarfs in Völuspá has preserved the record of this in the strophe about the artist migration from the rocks of the hall (salar steinar) and from Svarin's mound situated in the north (the Völuspá strophe quoted in the Younger Edda; cp. Saxo., Hist., 32, 33, and Helg. Hund., i. 31, ii. to str. 14). The attack is directed against aurvanga sjöt, the land of the clayey plains, and the assailants do not stop before they reach Jöruvalla, the Jara-plains, which name is still applied to the south coast of Scandinavia (see No. 32). In the pedigree of these emigrants -

þeir er sóttu
frá Salar steini (or Svarins haugi)
aurvanga sjöt
til Jöruvalla -

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