Alfaleith.org - Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology

(j) Following Gevarr-Nökkvi's directions, Svipdag goes to the northernmost edge of the world, and finds there a descent to the lower world; he conquers the guard of the gates of Hades, sees the wonderful regions down there, and succeeds in securing the sword of victory (see Nos. 53, 97, 98, 101, 103, 112).

(k) Svipdag begins a new war with Halfdan. Thor fights on his son's side, but the irresistible sword cleaves the hammer Mjölnir; the Asa-god himself must yield. The war ends with Halfdan's defeat. He dies of the wounds he has received in the battle (see Nos. 101, 103; cp. Saxo, Hist., 34).

(l) Svipdag seeks and finds Menglad, who is Freyja who was robbed by the giants. He liberates her and sends her pure and undefiled to Asgard (see Nos. 96, 98, 100, 102).

(m) Iðunn is brought back to Asgard by Loki. Þjazi, who is freed from his prison at Mimir's, pursues, in the guise of an eagle, Loki to the walls of Asgard, where he is slain by the gods (see the Eddas).

(n) Svipdag, armed with the sword of victory, goes to Asgard, is received joyfully by Freyja, becomes her husband, and presents his sword of victory to Frey. Reconciliation between the gods and the Ívaldi race. Njord marries Þjazi's daughter Skaði. Orvandel's second son Ullr, Svipdag's half-brother (see No. 102), is adopted in Valhall. A sister of Svipdag is married to Forseti (Hyndluljóð 20). The gods honour the memory of Þjazi by connecting his name with certain stars (Hárbarðsljóð 19). A similar honour had already been paid to his brother Orvandel (Prose Edda).

From this series of events we find that, although the Teutonic patriarch finally succumbs in the war which he waged against the Þjazi-race and the frost-powers led by Þjazi's kinsmen, still the results of his work are permanent. When the crisis had reached its culminating point; when the giant hosts of the fimbul-winter had received as their leader the son of Orvandel, armed with the irresistible sword; when Halfdan's fate is settled; when Thor himself, Miðgarðs véurr (Völuspá), the mighty protector of earth and the human race, must retreat with his lightning hammer broken into pieces, then the power of love suddenly prevails and saves the world. Svipdag, who, under the spell of his deceased mother's incantations from the grave, obeyed the command of his stepmother to find and rescue Freyja from the power of the giants, thereby wins her heart and earns the gratitude of the gods. He has himself learned to love her, and is at last compelled by his longing to seek her in Asgard. The end of the power of the fimbul-winter is marked by Freyja's and Iðunn's return to the gods by Þjazi's death, by the presentation of the invincible sword to the god of harvests (Frey), by the adoption of Þjazi's kinsmen, Svipdag, Ull, and Skadi in Asgard, and by several marriage ties celebrated in commemoration of the reconciliation between Asgard's gods and the kinsmen of the great artist of antiquity.

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