The Heroes of Asgard Part 7

Then did the rocks burst; it thundered through the caverns; old mother earth all shrank; even the fishes sought the bottom of the ocean; but the serpent sank back, with a long, dull sound, beneath the waves, a deep wound in his head, and smothered vengeance in his heart.

Ill at ease and silent, Hymir then turned to go home, and Thor followed him, carrying boat and oars, and everything else, on his shoulders. Now, every fresh sight of Thor increased the giant's envy and rage; for he could not bear to think that he had shown so little courage before his brave guest, and, besides, losing his boat and getting so desperately wet in his feet by wading home through the sea, did not by any means improve his temper. When they got home, therefore, and were supping together, he began jeering and taunting Thor.

"No doubt, Asa Thor," he said, "you think yourself a good rower and a fine fisher, though you did not catch anything to-day; but can you break that drinking-cup before you, do you think?"

Thor seized the cup, and dashed it against an upright stone. But, lo!

the stone was shattered in pieces, and the cup unbroken. Again, with greater strength, he hurled the cup against the pillars in the rock: it was still without a crack.

Now, it happened that the beautiful woman was sitting spinning at her wheel just behind where Thor was standing. From time to time she chanted s.n.a.t.c.hes of old runes and sagas in soft tones; and now, when Thor stood astonished that the cup was not broken, the woman's voice fell on his ear, singing low the following words:--

"Hard the pillar, hard the stone, Harder yet the giant's bone.

Stones shall break and pillars fall; Hymir's forehead breaks them all."

Then Thor once more took the cup, and hurled it against the giant's forehead. The cup was this time shivered to pieces; but Hymir himself was unhurt, and cried out, "Well done at last, Ving-Thor; but can you carry that mile-deep kettle out of my hall, think you?"

Tyr tried to lift it, and could not even raise the handle.

Then Thor grasped it by the rim, and, as he did so, his feet pressed through the floor. With a mighty effort he lifted it; he placed it on his head, while the rings rang at his feet; and so in triumph he bore off the kettle, and set out again for aegir's Hall.

After journeying a little way he chanced to look round, and then he saw that a host of many-headed giants, with Hymir for their leader, were thronging after him. From every cavern, and iceberg, and jagged peak some hideous monster grinned and leered as a great wild beast waiting for his prey.

"Treachery!" cried Thor, as he raised Miolnir above his head, and hurled it three times among the giants.

In an instant they stood stiff, and cold, and dead, in rugged groups along the sh.o.r.e; one with his arm raised; another with his head stretched out; some upright, some crouching; each in the position he had last a.s.sumed. And there still they stand, petrified by ages into giant rocks; and, still pointing their stony fingers at each other, they tell the mighty tale of Thor's achievements, and the wondrous story of their fate.

"Pa.s.s round the foaming mead," cried King aegir, as Thor placed "Mile-deep" on the table; and this time it happened that there was enough for every one.

Thor, as his name implies, was the thunder G.o.d; his realm was called Thrudvang, which is said to mean the "Region of Fort.i.tude." Of his hall, Bilskirnir (storm-serene), Odin says, "Five hundred floors, and forty eke, has Bilskirnir with its windings. Of all the roofed houses that I know is my son's the greatest." His hammer, Miolnir, "To pound, or grind,"--Megingjardir, his belt of prowess--his goats, whose names signify "To crack, grind, gnash" and "race at intervals"--his attendant Thialfi, the swift falling thunder shower, all help to picture him in this character; but he ought to be understood, also, in the larger sense of a G.o.d of cultivation and the order of nature, in opposition to the whole tribe of the Hrimthursar, frost-giants, mountain-giants, fog-enchantments, and the like sterile portions and r.e.t.a.r.ding forces of the physical world. The principle of combat in the physical world, Thor appears also as the chief hero-G.o.d and warrior; his victories are moral as well as physical--his life was unceasing warfare.

In the _Edda_ account of Thor going to Utgard, the giant-king whom he finds there is called Utgard-_Loki_; and it is to be observed that Loki, who, we saw, had his own root in fire, is in Utgard opposed to Logi who is also fire, so that in this myth Loki stands in opposition to two beings nearly akin to himself. This may be explained as follows. Utgard, outer-world, or under-world, means outside of both the human and G.o.dly regions, and reminds us of the chaotic, elementary powers. Utgard-Loki, or out-worldly-Loki, represents outside of human world in its evil aspect--the destructive apart from the formative principle. Connected with him appears elementary fire (Logi), and Loki is opposed to the latter because at the time this myth was conceived he had come to mean evil _in_ the world rather than that elementary double-natured fire out of which the idea of his evil had originally crept. This view of Utgard, viz., its connection with the chaotic powers, explains the apparent defeats of Thor during his visit there, for Thor is a deity of the formed universe, he can subdue _that_ to his will, not the first double-natured elements out of which it was built up.

How naturally would the dark frozen land and misty mountain shapes of the north, suggest to the ancient song singers these ideas concerning outworldly and inworldly giants and wild unfathomable powers and enchanted combatants.

It must be confessed that Asa Thor does not always appear in the favourable light in which the tales given here represent him. There are one or two very uncomfortable stories about him, bringing out those dark traits of craft and cruelty which, as we saw before, so often stained the bright shields of northern warriors. In particular, there is a story of his losing his hammer and going to Jotunheim to recover it, disguised as Freyja. When his craft had succeeded, and he felt the hammer in his grasp again, "Loud laughed," says the lay, "the fierce hearted one's soul in his breast." After which he slew, first the giant who had robbed him, then _all_ the giant's race.

Perhaps, even so far as that we could have forgiven him, but--the giant, it is said, had "a luckless sister, an aged sister," and the hero-G.o.d must need slay her too. "Blows she got, a hammer's stroke,"

and "so," ends the lay, "did Odin's son get his hammer back,"

apparently well satisfied with the whole performance. But are the Warrior-G.o.d's descendants so very different from himself--the giant's sister, the aged, luckless sister, who does not seem as if she could do anybody much harm, is she not apt even now to fall beneath the vengeful hammers of our modern Thors, remorselessly stricken down after the real battle has been fought and won?

From the fierce thunder deity we turn to Njord's bright children, Frey and Freyja, "Beauteous and mighty."

CHAPTER III.

FREY.

PART I. ON TIPTOE IN AIR THRONE.

I told you, some time ago, how Van Frey went away into Alfheim with the light elves, of whom Odin made him king and schoolmaster.

You have heard what Frey was like, and the kind of lessons he promised to teach his pupils, so you can imagine what pleasant times they had of it in Alfheim.

Wherever Frey came there was summer and sunshine. Flowers sprang up under his footsteps, and bright-winged insects, like flying flowers, hovered round his head. His warm breath ripened the fruit on the trees, and gave a bright yellow colour to the corn, and purple bloom to the grapes, as he pa.s.sed through fields and vineyards.

When he rode along in his car, drawn by the stately boar, Golden Bristles, soft winds blew before him, filling the air with fragrance, and spreading abroad the news, "Van Frey is coming!" and every half-closed flower burst into perfect beauty, and forest, and field, and hill, flushed their richest colours to greet his presence.

Under Frey's care and instruction the pretty little light elves forgot their idle ways, and learned all the pleasant tasks he had promised to teach them. It was the prettiest possible sight to see them in the evening filling their tiny buckets, and running about among the woods and meadows to hang the dew-drops deftly on the slender tips of the gra.s.s-blades, or to drop them into the half-closed cups of the sleepy flowers. When this last of their day's tasks was over they used to cl.u.s.ter round their summer-king, like bees about the queen, while he told them stories about the wars between the aesir and the giants, or of the old time when he lived alone with his father Niord, in Noatun, and listened to the waves singing songs of far distant lands. So pleasantly did they spend their time in Alfheim.

But in the midst of all this work and play Frey had a wish in his mind, of which he could not help often talking to his clear-minded messenger and friend Skirnir. "I have seen many things," he used to say, "and travelled through many lands; but to see all the world at once, as Asa Odin does from Air Throne, _that_ must be a splendid sight."

"Only Father Odin may sit on Air Throne," Skirnir would say; and it seemed to Frey that this answer was not so much to the purpose as his friend's sayings generally were.

At length, one very clear summer evening, when Odin was feasting with the other aesir in Valhalla, Frey could restrain his curiosity no longer. He left Alfheim, where all the little elves were fast asleep, and, without asking any one's advice, climbed into Air Throne, and stood on tiptoe in Odin's very seat. It was a clear evening, and I had, perhaps, better not even try to tell you what Frey saw.

He looked first all round him over Manheim, where the rosy light of the set sun still lingered, and where men, and birds, and flowers were gathering themselves up for their night's repose; then he glanced towards the heavenly hills where Bifrost rested, and then towards the shadowy land which deepened down into Niflheim. At length he turned his eyes northward to the misty land of Jotunheim. There the shades of evening had already fallen; but from his high place Frey could still see distinct shapes moving about through the gloom.

Strange and monstrous shapes they were, and Frey stood a little higher, on tiptoe, that he might look further after them. In this position he could just descry a tall house standing on a hill in the very middle of Jotunheim. While he looked at it a maiden came and lifted up her arms to undo the latch of the door. It was dusk in Jotunheim; but when this maiden lifted up her white arms, such a dazzling reflection came from them, that Jotunheim, and the sky, and all the sea were flooded with clear light. For a moment everything could be distinctly seen; but Frey saw nothing but the face of the maiden with the uplifted arms; and when she had entered the house and shut the door after her, and darkness fell again on earth, and sky, and sea,--darkness fell, too, upon Frey's heart.

PART II. THE GIFT.

The next morning, when the little elves awoke up with the dawn, and came thronging round their king to receive his commands, they were surprised to see that he had changed since they last saw him.

"He has grown up in the night," they whispered one to another sorrowfully.

And in truth he was no longer so fit a teacher and playfellow for the merry little people as he had been a few hours before.

It was to no purpose that the sweet winds blew, and the flowers opened, when Frey came forth from his chamber. A bright white light still danced before him, and nothing now seemed to him worth looking at. That evening when the sun had set, and work was over, there were no stories for the light elves.

"Be still," Frey said, when they pressed round, "If you will be still and listen, there are stories enough to be heard better than mine."

I do not know whether the elves heard anything; but to Frey it seemed that flowers, and birds, and winds, and the whispering rivers, united that day in singing one song, which he never wearied of hearing.

"We are fair," they said; "but there is nothing in the whole world so fair as Gerda, the giant-maiden whom you saw last night in Jotunheim."

"Frey has dew-drops in his eyes," the little elves said to each other in whispers as they sat round looking up at him, and they felt very much surprised; for only to men and the aesir is it permitted to be sorrowful and weep.

Soon, however, wiser people noticed the change that had come over the summer king, and his good-natured father, Niord, sent Skirnir one day into Alfheim to inquire into the cause of Frey's sorrow.

He found him walking alone in a shady place, and Frey was glad enough to tell his trouble to his wise friend.

When he had related the whole story, he said,--