Alfaleith.org - Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology

Of the names of their father Sumbli, Ölvaldi, Ölmóðr, it may be said that, as nature-symbols, "öl" (ale) and "mjöðr" (mead), are in the Teutonic mythology identical with soma and somamadhu in Rigveda and haoma in Avesta, that is, they are the strength-developing, nourishing saps in nature. Mimir's subterranean well, from which the world-tree draws its nourishment, is a mead-fountain. In the poem "Haustlaung" Idun is called Ölgefn; in the same poem Groa is called Ölgefjun. Both appellations refer to goddesses who give the drink of growth and regeneration to nature and to the gods. Thus we here have a family, the names and epithets of whose members characterise them as forces, active in the service of nature and of the god of harvests. Their names and epithets also point to the family bond which unites them. We have the group of names, Iðvaldi, Iði, Iðunn, and the group, Ölvaldi (Ölmóðr), Ölgefn, and Ölgefjun, both indicating members of the same family. Further on (see Nos. 113, 114, 115) proof shall be presented that Groa's first husband, Orvandel the brave, is one of Þjazi's brothers, and thus that Groa, too, was closely connected with this family.

As we know, it is the enmity caused by Loki between the Asa-gods and the lower serving, yet powerful, divinities of nature belonging to the Ívaldi group, which produces the terrible winter with its awful consequences for man, and particularly for the Teutonic tribes. These hitherto beneficent agents of growth have ceased to serve the gods, and have allied themselves with the frost-giants. The war waged by Halfdan must be regarded from this standpoint. Midgard's chief hero, the real Teutonic patriarch, tries to reconquer for the Teutons the country of which winter has robbed them. To be able to do this, he is the son of Thor, the divine foe of the frost-giants, and performs on the border of Midgard a work corresponding to that which Thor has to do in space and in Jotunheim. And in the same manner as Heimdal before secured favourable conditions of nature to the original country, by uniting the sun-goddess with himself through bonds of love, his grandson Halfdan now seeks to do the same for the Teutonic country, by robbing a hostile son of Ívaldi, Orvandel, of his wife Groa, the growth-giver, and thereupon also of Alveig, the giver of the nourishing sap. A symbol of nature may also be found in Saxo's statement, that the king of Svithiod, Sigtrygg, Groa's father, could not be conquered unless Halfdan fastened a golden ball to his club (Hist., 31). The purpose of Halfdan's conflicts, the object which the norns particularly gave to his life, that of reconquering from the powers of frost the northernmost regions of the Teutonic territory and of permanently securing them for culture, and the difficulty of this task is indicated, it seems to me, in the strophes above quoted, which tell us that the norns fastened the woof of his power in the east and west, and that he from the beginning, and undisputed, extended the sceptre of his rule over these latitudes, while in regard to the northern latitudes, it is said that Neri's kinswoman, the chief of the norns (see Nos. 57-64, 85), cast a single thread in this direction and prayed that it might hold for ever:

Þær austur og vestur
enda fálu,
þar átti lofðungur
land á milli;
brá nift Nera
á norðurvega
einni festi,
ey bað hún halda.

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