Viktor Rydberg - Teutonic Mythology - The Gods and Goddesses of the Northland (Vol. 1-3)

If we compare the statements in Saxo with those in Groagalder and Gylfaginning we get the following result:

Saxo: King Sigtrygg has a daughter Groa.

Gylfaginning: Groa is married to the brave Orvandel.

Groagalder: Groa has a son Svipdag.

Saxo: Groa is robbed by Gram-Halfdan.

Saxo: } Hostilities on account of the robbing of

Hyndluljod: } the woman. Gram-Halfdan kills

Skaldskap.mal:} Groa's father Sigtrygg.

Saxo: With Gram-Halfdan Groa has the son Gudhorm.

Gram-Halfdan is separated from Groa. He courts

Signe (Almveig in Hyndluljod; Alveig in Skaldskaparmál),

daughter of Sumbel, king of the Finns.

Groagalder: Groa with her son Svipdag is once more with

her first husband. Groa dies. Svipdag's father Orvandel

marries a second time. Before her death Groa

has told Svipdag that he, if need requires her help,

must go to her grave and wake her out of the sleep

of death.

The stepmother gives Svipdag a task which he thinks surpasses

his strength. He then goes to his mother's

grave. From the grave Groa sings protecting incantations

over her son.

Saxo: Svipdag attacks Gram-Halfdan. After several conflicts

he succeeds in conquering him and gives him a

deadly wound.

Svidpdag pardons the son Gram-Halfdan has had with

Groa, but persecutes his son with Signe (Alveig).

In this connection we find the key to Svipdag's irreconcilable conflict with Gram-Halfdan. He must revenge himself on him on his father's and mother's account. He must avenge his mother's disgrace, his grandfather Sigtrygg's death, and, as a further investigation shows, the murder also of his father Orvandel. We also find why he pardons Gudhorm: he is his own half-brother and Groa's son.

Sigtrygg, Groa, Orvandel, and Svipdag have in the myth belonged to the pedigree of the Ynglings, and hence Saxo calls Sigtrygg king in Svithiod. Concerning the Ynglings, Ynglingasaga remarks that Yngve was the name of everyone who in that time was the head of the family (Yngl., p. 20). Svipdag, the favourite hero of the Teutonic mythology, is accordingly celebrated in song under the name Yngve, and also under other names to which I shall refer later, when I am to give a full account of the myth concerning him.

Table of Contents

With Gram-Halfdan the Teutonic patriarch period ends. The human race had its golden age under Heimdal, its copper age under Skjold-Borgar, and the beginning of its iron age under Halfdan. The Skilfinga-Ynglinga race has been named after Heimdal-Skelfir himself, and he has been regarded as its progenitor. His son Skjold-Borgar has been considered the founder of the Skjoldungs. With Halfdan the pedigree is divided into three through his stepson Yngve-Svipdag, the latter's half-brother Gudhorm, and Gudhorm's half-brother Hading or Hadding. The war between these three—a continuation of the feud between Halfdan and Svipdag—was the subject of a cycle of songs sung throughout Teutondom, songs which continued to live though greatly changed with the lapse of time, on the lips of Germans throughout the middle ages (see Nos. 36–43).

Like his father, Halfdan was the fruit of a double fatherhood, a divine and a human. Saxo was aware of this double fatherhood, and relates of his Halfdan Berggram that he, although the son of a human prince, was respected as a son of Thor, and honoured as a god among that people who longest remained heathen; that is to say, the Swedes ( Igitur apud Sveones tantus haberi cæpit, ut magni Thor filius existimatus, divinis a populo honoribus donaretur ac publico dignus libamine censeretur ). In his saga, as told by Saxo, Thor holds his protecting hand over Halfdan like a father over his son.

It is possible that both the older patriarchs originally were regarded rather as the founders and chiefs of the whole human race than of the Teutons alone. Certain it is that the appellation Teutonic patriarch belonged more particularly to the third of the series. We have a reminiscence of this in Hyndluljod, 14–16. To the question, "Whence came the Skjoldungs, Skilfings, Andlungs, and Ylfings, and all the free-born and gentle-born?" the song answers by pointing to "the foremost among the Skjoldungs"—Sigtrygg's slayer Halfdan—a statement which, after the memory of the myths had faded and become confused, was magnified in the Younger Edda into the report that he was the father of eighteen sons, nine of which were the founders of the heroic families whose names were at that time rediscovered in the heathen-heroic songs then extant.

According to what we have now stated in regard to Halfdan's genealogical position there can no longer be any doubt that he is the same patriarch as the Mannus mentioned by Tacitus in Germania , ch. 2, where it is said of the Germans: "In old songs they celebrate Tuisco , a god born of Earth ( Terra ; compare the goddess Terra Mater , ch. 40), and his son Mannus as the source and founder of the race. Mannus is said to have had three sons, after whose names those who dwell nearest the ocean are called Ingævonians ( Ingævones ), those who dwell in the centre Hermionians ( Hermiones , Herminones ), and the rest Istævonians ( Istævones )." Tacitus adds that there were other Teutonic tribes, such as the Marsians, the Gambrivians, the Svevians, and the Vandals, whose names were derived from other heroes of divine birth.

Thus Mannus, though human, and the source and founder of the Teutonic race, is also the son of a god. The mother of his divine father is the goddess Earth, mother Earth. In our native myths we rediscover this goddess—polyonomous like nearly all mythic beings—in Odin's wife Frigg, also called Fjorgyn and Hlodyn . As sons of her and Odin only Thor (Völusp.) and Balder (Lokasenna) are definitely mentioned.

In regard to the goddess Earth (Jord), Tacitus states (ch. 40), as a characteristic trait that she is believed to take a lively interest and active part in the affairs of men and nations ( eam intervenire rebus hominum, invehi populis arbitrantur ), and he informs us that she is especially worshipped by the Longobardians and some of their neighbours near the sea. This statement, compared with the emigration saga of the Longobardians (No. 15), confirms the theory that the goddess Jord, who, in the days of Tacitus, was celebrated in song as the mother of Mannus' divine father, is identical with Frigg. In their emigration saga the Longobardians have great faith in Frigg, and trust in her desire and ability to intervene when the fate of a nation is to be decided by arms. Nor are they deceived in their trust in her; she is able to bring about that Odin, without considering the consequences, gives the Longobardians a new name; and as a christening present was in order, and as the Longobardians stood arrayed against the Vandals at the moment when they received their new name, the gift could be no other than victory over their foes. Tacitus' statement, that the Longobardians were one of the races who particularly paid worship to the goddess Jord, is found to be intimately connected with, and to be explained by, this tradition, which continued to be remembered among the Longobardians long after they became converted to Christianity, down to the time when Origo Longobardorum was written.

Tacitus calls the goddess Jord Nerthus. Vigfusson (and before him J. Grimm) and others have seen in this name a feminine version of Njördr . Nor does any other explanation seem possible. The existence of such a form is not more surprising than that we have in Freyja a feminine form of Frey, and in Fjorgyn-Frigg a feminine form of Fjörgynr. In our mythic documents neither Frigg nor Njord are of Asa race. Njord is, as we know, a Van. Frigg's father is Fjörgynr (perhaps the same as Parganya in the Vedic songs), also called Annarr , Ánarr , and Ónarr , and her mother is Narve's daughter Night. Frigg's high position as Odin's real and lawful wife, as the queen of the Asa world, and as mother of the chief gods Thor and Balder, presupposes her to be of the noblest birth which the myth could bestow on a being born outside of the Asa clan, and as the Vans come next after the Asas in the mythology, and were united with them from the beginning of time, as hostages, by treaty, by marriage, and by adoption, probability, if no other proof could be found, would favour the theory that Frigg is a goddess of the race of Vans, and that her father Fjörgyn is a clan-chief among the Vans. This view is corroborated in two ways. The cosmogony makes Earth and Sea sister and brother. The same divine mother Night (Nat), who bears the goddess Jord, also bears a son Udr , Unnr , the ruler of the sea, also called Audr (Rich), the personification of wealth. Both these names are applied among the gods to Njord alone as the god of navigation, commerce, and wealth. (In reference to wealth compare the phrase audigr sem Njördr —rich as Njord.) Thus Frigg is Njord's sister. This explains the attitude given to Frigg in the war between the Asas and Vans by Völuspa, Saxo, and the author of Ynglingasaga, where the tradition is related as history. In the form given to this tradition in Christian times and in Saxo's hands, it is disparaging to Frigg as Odin's wife; but the pith of Saxo's narrative is, that Frigg in the feud between the Asas and Vans did not side with Odin but with the Vans, and contributed towards making the latter lords of Asgard. When the purely heathen documents (Völusp., Vafthr., Lokas.) describe her as a tender wife and mother, Frigg's taking part with the Vans against her own husband can scarcely be explained otherwise than by the Teutonic principle, that the duties of the daughter and sister are above the wife's, a view plainly presented in Saxo (p. 353), and illustrated by Gudrun's conduct toward Atle.