The Heroes of Asgard Part 17

Siguna was a kind woman, far too good and kind for Loki. She felt sorry for him now that she saw he was in great fear, and that every living thing had turned against him, and she would have hidden him from the just anger of the aesir if she could; but the two sons cared little about their father's dread and danger; they spent all their time in quarrelling with each other; and their loud, angry voices, sounding above the waterfall, would speedily have betrayed the hiding-place, even if All-Father's piercing eye had not already discovered it. If only the children would be quiet, Siguna used to say anxiously every day; but Loki said nothing; he was beginning to know by experience that there was that about his children that could never be kept quiet or hidden away.

At last, one day when he was sitting in the middle of his house looking alternately out of all the four doors, and amusing himself as well as he could by making a fis.h.i.+ng net, he spied in the distance the whole company of the aesir approaching his house. The sight of them coming all together--beautiful, and n.o.ble, and free--pierced Loki with a pang that was worse than death. He rose without daring to look again, threw his net on a fire that burned on the floor, and, rus.h.i.+ng to the side of the little river, he turned himself into a salmon, swam down to the deepest, stillest pool at the bottom, and hid himself between two stones. The aesir entered the house, and looked all round in vain for Loki, till Kvasir, one of Odin's sons, famous for his keen sight, spied out the remains of the fis.h.i.+ng-net in the fire; then Odin knew at once that there was a river near, and that it was there where Loki had hidden himself. He ordered his sons to make a fresh net, and to cast it into the water, and drag out whatever living thing they could find there. It was done as he desired. Thor held one end of the net, and all the rest of the aesir drew the other through the water. When they pulled it up the first time, however, it was empty, and they would have gone away disappointed, had not Kvasir, looking earnestly at the meshes of the net, discovered that something living had certainly touched them.

They then added a weight to the net, and threw it with such force that it reached the bottom of the river, and dragged up the stones in the pool.

Loki now saw the danger he was in of being caught in the net, and, as there was no other way of escape, he rose to the surface, swam down the river as quickly as he could, and leaped over the net into the waterfall. He swam and leaped quickly as a flash of lightning, but not so quickly but that the aesir saw him, knew him through his disguise, and resolved that he should no longer escape them. They divided into two bands. Thor waded down the river to the waterfall; the other aesir stood in a group below. Loki swam backwards and forwards between them. Now he thought he would dart out into the sea, and now that he would spring over the net back again into the river.

This last seemed the readiest way of escape, and, with the greatest speed, he attempted it. Thor, however, was watching for him, and, as soon as Loki leaped out of the water, he stretched out his hand, and caught him while he was yet turning in the air. Loki wriggled his slippery, slimy length through Thor's fingers; but the Thunderer grasped him tightly by the tail, and, holding him in this manner in his hand, waded to the sh.o.r.e. There Father Odin and the other aesir met him; and, at Odin's first searching look, Loki was obliged to drop his disguise, and, cowering and frightened, to stand in his proper shape before the a.s.sembled Lords. One by one they turned their faces from him; for, in looking at him, they seemed to see over again the death of Baldur the Beloved.

I told you that there were high rocks looking over the sea not far from Loki's house. One of these, higher than the rest, had midway four projecting stones, and to these the aesir resolved to bind Loki in such a manner that he should never again be able to torment the inhabitants of Manheim or Asgard by his evil-doings. Thor proposed to return to Asgard, to bring a chain with which to bind the prisoner; but Odin a.s.sured him that he had no need to take such a journey, "Loki," he said, "has already forged for himself a chain stronger than any you can make. While we have been occupied in catching him, his two sons, Ali and Nari, transformed into wolves by their evil pa.s.sions, have fought with, and destroyed, each other. With their sinews we must make a chain to bind their father, and from that he can never escape."

It was done as Asa Odin said. A rope was made of the dead wolves'

sinews, and, as soon as it touched Loki's body, it turned into bands of iron, and bound him immoveably to the rock. Secured in this manner the aesir left him.

But his punishment did not end here. A snake, whose fangs dropped venom, glided to the top of the rock, and leaned his head over to peer at Loki. The eyes of the two met and fixed each other. The serpent could never move away afterwards; but every moment a burning drop from his tongue fell down on Loki's shuddering face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PUNISHMENT OF LOKI.]

In all the world there was only one who pitied him. His kind wife ever afterwards stood beside him, and held a cup over his head to catch the poison. When the cup was full, she was obliged to turn away to empty it, and drops of poison fell again on Loki's face. He shuddered and shrank from it, and the whole earth trembled. So will he lie bound till Ragnarok be come.

Loki, as we have seen all along, whatever his origin may have been, had come to mean evil by the time these myths were formed,--the destructive principle, the originator of all corruption--as, father of devouring Hel, of Fenrir, the wolf annihilator, and of Jormungand, the universal wolf. There is a curious story in one of the _Eddas_ about a feast which the King of the Sea gave to the G.o.ds. By the way, one song says of aegir, "Sat the Rock-dweller, glad as a child:" which is the introduction to another feast he gave the G.o.ds. If he began by being glad on this latter occasion, expecting a happy entertainment, he must have had a grievous disappointment, for Loki, bent on mischief, would insist upon feasting with the aesir. Things rarely went well where Loki was, which the G.o.ds knew and begged him not to come. But Loki would come, and directly he was seated at the table he began his mischief-making, doing his best to make the G.o.ds quarrel with one another, insulting them by turns, reminding each of some fault or misfortune least pleasant to remember. Altogether it must have been a most uncomfortable dinner-party. At last Thor, who had been on a journey, came back; and, after a good deal of abuse had pa.s.sed between him and Loki, the latter appeared to take alarm and slank away from his enraged companions. One account says that it was immediately after this the G.o.ds caught Loki and bound him, but another does not mention his capture in connection with aegir's feast.

Simrock says that Loki, in his character of accuser at this banquet, represents the guilty conscience of the G.o.ds. From this he becomes the guilty conscience itself, a personification of the consciousness of sin. His attempts at concealment, the four doors of his house placed every way that he might be alert in descrying danger, his making the net by which he was caught (for the aesir were said to copy the net which they found in Loki's house), his being bound with the entrails of his own children--results of evil deeds--all carry out this idea. He is, says Simrock, the Bad itself as well as the consciousness of it. He is sin chained as Fenrir is destruction chained. The G.o.ds are moral power, they are his chains, for it is said that when he shudders they tremble. And yet, how real he has become in this myth, so much a _person_ that we can scarcely help wis.h.i.+ng him to escape by means of his ingenious disguises, and are certainly glad that at last some one is left to pity him--the faithful wife, standing by, who wards off from him so much of his punishment.

We now come to Ragnarok; and "first," as Har said, "there will come a winter." But that is not exactly how we tell the story.

CHAPTER IX.

RAGNARoK, OR THE TWILIGHT OF THE G.o.dS.

Since the day that Baldur died no one had walked in the bright halls of Broadblink--no one had even stepped through the expanded gates.

Instead of undimmed brightness, a soft, luminous mist now hung over the palace of the dead Asa, and the Asyniur whispered to one another that it was haunted by wild dreams.

"I have seen them," Freyja used to say; "I have seen them float in at sunset through the palace windows and the open doors; every evening I can trace their slight forms through the rosy mist; and I know that those dreams are wild and strange from the shuddering that I feel when I look at them, or if ever they glance at me."

So the Asyniur never went into Broadblink, and though the aesir did not think much about the dreams, they never went there either.

But one day it happened that Odin stood in the opening of the palace gates at sunset. The evening was clear and calm, and he stood watching the western sky until its crimson faded into soft blue grey; then the colours of the flowers began to mix one with another--only the tall white and yellow blossoms stood out alone--the distance became more dim. It was twilight, and there was silence over the earth whilst the night and the evening drew near to one another. Then a young dream came floating through the gates into Broadblink. Her sisters were already there; but she had only just been born, and, as she pa.s.sed Odin, she touched him with a light hand, and drew him along with her into the palace. She led him into the same hall in which Baldur had dreamed, and there Odin saw the night sky above him, and the broad branches of Yggdrasil swaying in the breeze. The Norns stood under the great ash; the golden threads had dropped from their fingers; and Urd and Verdandi stood one on each side of Skuld, who was still veiled. For a long time the three stood motionless, but at length Urd and Verdandi raised each a cold hand, and lifted the veil slowly from Skuld's face. Odin looked breathlessly within the veil, and the eyes of Skuld dilated as he looked, grew larger and larger, melted into one another, and, at last, expanded into boundless s.p.a.ce.

In the midst of s.p.a.ce lay the world, with its long sh.o.r.es, and vast oceans, ice mountains, and green plains; aesirland in the midst, with Manheim all round it; then the wide sea, and, far off, the frost-bound sh.o.r.es of Jotunheim. Sometimes there was night and sometimes day; summer and winter gave place to one another; and Odin watched the seasons as they changed, rejoiced in the suns.h.i.+ne, and looked calmly over the night.

But at last, during one sunrise, a wolf came out of Jarnvid, and began to howl at the sun. The sun did not seem to heed him, but walked majestically up the sky to her mid-day point; then the wolf began to run after her, and chased her down the sky again to the low west. There the sun opened her bright eye wide, and turned round at bay; but the wolf came close up to her, and opened his mouth, and swallowed her up. The earth shuddered, and the moon rose. Another wolf was waiting for the moon with wide jaws open, and, while yet pale and young, he, too, was devoured. The earth shuddered again; it was covered with cold and darkness, while frost and snow came driving from the four corners of heaven. Winter and night, winter and night, there was now nothing but winter.

A dauntless eagle sat upon the height of the Giantess' Rock, and began to strike his harp. Then a light red c.o.c.k crowed over the Bird Wood. A gold-combed c.o.c.k crowed over Asgard, and over Helheim a c.o.c.k of sooty red. From a long way underground Garm began to howl, and at last Fenrir broke loose from his rock-prison, and ran forth over the whole earth. Then brother contended with brother, and war had no bounds. A hard age was that.

"An axe age, A sword age, s.h.i.+elds oft cleft in twain; A storm age, A wolf age, Ere the earth met its doom."

Confusion rioted in the darkness. At length Heimdall ran up Bifrost, and blew his Giallar horn, whose sound went out into all worlds, and Yggdrasil, the mighty ash, was shaken from its root to its summit.

After this Odin saw himself ride forth from Asgard to consult Mimer at the Well of Wisdom. Whilst he was there Jormungand turned mightily in his place, and began to plough the ocean, which caused it to swell over every sh.o.r.e, so that the world was covered with water to the base of its high hills. Then the s.h.i.+p Naglfar was seen coming over the sea with its prow from the east, and the giant Hrym was the steersman.

All Jotunheim resounded, and the dwarfs stood moaning before their stony doors. Then heaven was cleft in twain, and a flood of light streamed down upon the dark earth. The sons of Muspell, the sons of fire, rode through the breach, and at the head of them rode the swarth Surt, their leader, before and behind whom fire raged, and whose sword outshone the sun. He led his flaming bands from heaven to earth over Bifrost, and the tremulous bridge broke in pieces beneath their tread. Then the earth shuddered again; even giantesses stumbled; and men trod the way to Helheim in such crowds that Garm was sated with their blood, broke loose, and came up to earth to look upon the living. Confusion rioted, and Odin saw himself, at the head of all the aesir, ride over the tops of the mountains to Vigrid, the high, wide battle-field, where the giants were already a.s.sembled, headed by Fenrir, Garm, Jormungand, and Loki. Surtur was there, too, commanding the sons of fire, whom he had drawn up in several s.h.i.+ning bands on a distant part of the plain.

Then the great battle began in earnest. First, Odin went forth against Fenrir, who came on, opening his enormous mouth; the lower jaw reached to the earth, the upper one to heaven, and would have reached further had there been s.p.a.ce to admit of it. Odin and Fenrir fought for a little while only, and then Fenrir swallowed the aesir's Father; but Vidar stepped forward, and, putting his foot on Fenrir's lower jaw, with his hand he seized the other, and rent the wolf in twain. In the meantime Tyr and Garm had been fighting until they had killed each other. Heimdall slew Loki, and Loki slew Heimdall. Frey, Beli's radiant slayer, met Surtur in battle, and was killed by him.

Many terrible blows were exchanged ere Frey fell; but the Fire King's sword outshone the sun, and where was the sword of Frey? Thor went forth against Jormungand; the strong Thunderer raised his arm--he feared no evil--he flung Miolnir at the monster serpent's head.

Jormungand leaped up a great height in the air, and fell down to the earth again without life; but a stream of venom poured forth from his nostrils as he died. Thor fell back nine paces from the strength of his own blow; he bowed his head to the earth, and was choked in the poisonous flood; so the monster serpent was killed by the strong Thunderer's hand; but in death Jormungand slew his slayer.

Then all mankind forsook the earth, and the earth itself sank down slowly into the ocean. Water swelled over the mountains, rivers gurgled through thick trees, deep currents swept down the valleys--nothing was to be seen on the earth but a wide flood. The stars fell from the sky, and flew about hither and thither. At last, smoky clouds drifted upward from the infinite deep, encircling the earth and the water; fire burst forth from the midst of them, red flames wrapped the world, roared through the branches of Yggdrasil, and played against heaven itself. The flood swelled, the fire raged; there was now nothing but flood and fire.

"Then," said Odin, in his dream, "I see the end of all things. The end is like the beginning, and it will now be for ever as if nothing had ever been."

But, as he spoke, the fire ceased suddenly; the clouds rolled away; a new and brighter sun looked out of heaven; and he saw arise a second time the earth from ocean. It rose slowly as it had sunk. First, the waters fell back from the tops of new hills that rose up fresh and verdant; raindrops like pearls dripped from the freshly budding trees, and fell into the sea with a sweet sound; waterfalls splashed glittering from the high rocks; eagles flew over the mountain streams; earth arose spring-like; unsown fields bore fruit; there was no evil, and all nature smiled. Then from Memory's Forest came forth a new race of men, who spread over the whole earth, and who fed on the dew of the dawn. There was also a new city on Asgard's Hill--a city of gems; and Odin saw a new hall standing in it, fairer than the sun, and roofed with gold. Above all, the wide blue expanded, and into that fair city came Modi and Magni, Thor's two sons, holding Miolnir between them. Vali and Vidar came, and the deathless Hnir; Baldur came up from the deep, leading his blind brother Hodur peacefully by the hand; there was no longer any strife between them.

Two brothers' sons inhabited the s.p.a.cious Wind-Home.

Then Odin watched how the aesir sat on the green plain, and talked of many things. "Garm is dead," said Hod to Baldur, "and so are Loki, and Jormungand, and Fenrir, and the world rejoices; but did our dead brothers rejoice who fell in slaying them?"

"They did, Hod," answered Baldur; "they gave their lives willingly for the life of the world;" and, as he listened, Odin felt that this was true; for, when he looked upon that beautiful and happy age, it gave him no pain to think that he must die before it came--that, though for many, it was not for him.

By-and-bye Hnir came up to Hod and Baldur with something glittering in his hand--something that he had found in the gra.s.s; and as he approached he said, "Behold the golden tablets, my brothers, which in the beginning of time were given to the aesir's Father, and were lost in the Old World."

Then they all looked eagerly at the tablets, and, as they bent over them, their faces became even brighter than before.

"There is no longer any evil thing," said Odin; "not an evil sight, nor an evil sound."

But as he spoke dusky wings rose out of Niflheim, and the dark-spotted serpent, Nidhogg, came flying from the abyss, bearing dead carcases on his wings--cold death, undying.

Then the joy of Odin was drowned in the tears that brimmed his heart, and it was as if the eternal gnawer had entered into his soul. "Is there, then, no victory over sin?" he cried. "Is there no death to Death?" and with the cry he woke. His dream had faded from him. He stood in the palace gates alone with night, and the night was dying.

Long since the rosy clasp of evening had dropped from her; she had turned through darkness eastward, and looked earnestly towards dawn.

It was twilight again, for the night and the morning drew near to one another. A star stood in the east--the morning star--and a coming brightness smote the heavens. Out of the light a still voice came advancing, swelling, widening, until it filled all s.p.a.ce. "Look forth," it said, "upon the groaning earth, with all its cold, and pain, and cruelty, and death. Heroes and giants fight and kill each other; now giants fall, and heroes triumph; now heroes fall, and giants rise; they can but combat, and the earth is full of pain. Look forth, and fear not; but when the worn-out faiths of nations shall totter like old men, turn eastward, and behold the light that lighteth every man; for there is nothing dark it doth not lighten; there is nothing hard it cannot melt; there is nothing lost it will not save."

Of course the _Eddas_ do not say anything about Odin seeing Ragnarok in a dream, or about his having any idea of a light that was to come; but, divested of this slender veil, the story as it here stands is almost an exact likeness of the northern myth. In one _Edda_ it is given as the prophecy of a Vala or seeress, and the last line is "Now she will descend," meaning that the Vala had finished her prophesying, and would come down from her high seat.

We have now heard a little about the aesir, those G.o.ds in whom Har said we were to believe; and, are they like each other or unlike? we ask ourselves. At first we say unlike, but after thinking about them a little while, very much alike indeed. It is certain that the _Eddas_ speak of them as distinct, but then, as we saw before, the _Eddas_ are not really very old; compared with the religion they explain, they are almost young.

Simrock points out clearly the likenesses between the G.o.ds--a very few of them we touch upon. Let us begin, by putting in a line for ourselves to look at, Odin, Tyr, Heimdall, Thor, Frey, and Baldur.

Odin--air, stormy and serene, the heavens with sun, moon and stars; Odin the wanderer; Odin on Air-throne, seeing over the whole world; Odin, the Summer, as Odur; the patron of battles, the chooser of the slain, the pledger of one eye, drinking from Mimer's horn. Tyr, the s.h.i.+ning, the warrior G.o.d, the pledger of one hand. Heimdall, as Irmin, the s.h.i.+ning, a dweller upon heavenly mountains, who sees and hears far off, who wanders over the earth, blows his golden horn.

Thor, whose dwelling is the heavens; G.o.d of the storm, of cultivation; the warrior, the chooser of the slain; for it is said that whilst Odin had all the Jarls that fell in battle, Thor claimed the Thralls for his share. Frey, the Summer, G.o.d of the fruitful year, the pledger of his sword. It is supposed that Frey was once the husband of Freyja, and that it was their separation which founded the myth of Freyja's wanderings and tears; this would connect him with Odur or Odin. Baldur, Summer, or Sun G.o.d, pledges his life to the under-world. In leaving the earth to weep for him, he recalls the desertion of Freyja and her tears. Turning to the G.o.ddesses, we see Jord or the earth spoken of as a wife of Odin; Rind, the winterly earth; Freyja, so nearly joined to Frigg, the summerly earth; Iduna, the spring of the earth; Gerda, also the winterly earth; Hela, the under-world. What strikes us through all this is that it would be natural for the early earth dwellers first to wors.h.i.+p the heavens with all that they contain and suggest, whilst the action of heavenly influences upon the earth would reveal her to them as the great mother, stern, cold, tender, fruitful, consuming, embosoming, reproducing all in one. There are many ways in which G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses multiply. In the first place Gylfis will begin to ask questions and pry into first causes and ways and means of existence, whence would easily arise a division of nature into elementary powers, air, water, fire, to say nothing of the giants and chaotic regions which would suggest themselves. One side or another of life must always be uppermost, and nature in its differences grows into new personalities; from nature myths again moral ones easily develop, and new variations meet the new requirements. Again, tribe joins tribe and pantheons mingle, the chief G.o.d of one race becoming the son, say, or the brother, of another tribe's chief G.o.d, and so on.

The fact of Thor receiving Thralls in battle whilst Odin claimed the Jarls, looks as if Thor had fallen at one time from the first to a second place. Simrock says that Tyr answers to Zeus, and that perhaps he was the oldest of the Asgard G.o.ds; but he says also that Odin has gathered up into himself all the highest attributes of the G.o.ds. The only allusions that can be relied on as genuine which the _Eddas_ contain to a higher G.o.d than Odin is one very obscure strophe in the Voluspa which says speaking of Ragnarok,--

"Then comes the Mighty One, To the great judgment, The powerful from above Who rules over all.

He shall doom p.r.o.nounce And strifes allay, Holy peace establish Which shall ever be."