The Monthly Magazine or British Register/Volume 6/December 1798/Runic Sagas
ORIGINAL POETRY.
RUNIC SAGAS.
MR. Cottle's Icelandic Poetry is by this time in the hands of every lover of wild imagery and harmonious verse. It is a rimed paraphrase of the Latin version of Sœmund's Edda, published in 1787, at Copenhagen. As this interpretation departs widely from the text, it may not appear superfluous to the curious in antiquity, to attempt a less free translation of the first and most curious of these sagas, which unfolds the Gothic cosmogony.
The Runic alphabet is of uncertain origin; but as most of the inscriptions in this character which have been discovered on the Scandinavian rocks, record the fortunes of some soldier who had been in the service of the[1] Greek emperor, it may be presumed, that the art of writing was derived by the Goths from Constantinople. Antiquaries, however, have ascribed to far[2] earlier periods the literary firstlings of the north, and consider the sagas, or mythic songs, which constitute the Edda, as productions contemporary with the heroes whom they celebrate.
The age and history of Odin is again liable to controversy. Schöning and Suhm incline to distinguish between Woden the god of war, and Odin chief of the Asæ; and suppose the apotheosis of the former to have long preceded that of the latter, who perhaps was merely the conductor of the first colony of Goths which ventured to forsake the southern shores of the Baltic and to take up its abode in Scandinavia. Gibbon (i. 204) inclines to the speculation which makes the enterprises of the northern Mahomet co-æval with those of Pompey. Gröter, struck with a resemblance between the cosmogony of the Edda and that of Melissus of Samos, as described by Diogenes Laertius, has attempted to prove from a passage in the Ægisdrecka (Str. 24.), that Odin visited the island of Samos (Sams-egio), and derived his doctrines from this Grecian philosopher, who flourished in the eighty-fourth Olympiad. In confirmation of a theory which aligns to this earlier æra the exploits of the northern divinities, it might be pleaded that Herodotus mentions (Melpomene LXXXI.) an immense brewing-copper, in high estimation among the Scythians, the acquisition of which by Thor, appears to be celebrated in the Hymis-Quida. The identity of the elder Anacharsis, and of Odin, may one day not seem indefensible.
But at whatever period those persons flourished, whose actions form the themes of the Edda: whether their deeds and their doctrines were chronicled in verse by the [3]Scalds of their own times; or were preserved by tradition merely, until the northern dawn of literature broke forth over Iceland; the sagas which preserve these transactions, are equally interesting. They are, and must remain the earliest monuments of Gothic intellect. They are, and must remain the first fruits of that noble stem of language, whose spreading branches yet overshadow Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain. They are the childhood stammerings of those nations who have created a school of poetry superior to the Greek. They will acquire an increasing interest among all the descendants from the Gothic stock. They are supplying to new poets the outlines of an original mythology: and they will afford a favourite text for commentary to all the antiquaries who shall in future busy themselves with arctic paleosophy.
The poetical value of the elder northern reliques, is far inferior to that of the fanciful stories, which compose the new Edda: no metaphors equally bold, no adventures equally prodigious, no descriptions equally romantic here startle and reward the curiosity. In their stead occur definite allegories, which throw much light on the manner in which rude nations endeavour to account to themselves for the origin of things, and in which moral facts assume in their minds a mythic, form. Much information too is afforded concerning the different tribes into which the Goths and the contiguous nomade nations were divided, and concerning the geographical allotment of their respective territory. But it is time to pass from prosing to scanning.
Whose unquiet bosom broods
A journey to Vafthruni's hall,
With the wise and crafty Jute,
To contend in Runic lore.
In the dwelling-place of Goths,
Let me counsel thee to stay;
For to none among the Jutes[4],
Is Vafthruni's wisdom given.
In the kingdoms of the earth;
But Vafthruni's royal hall
I have still the wish to know.
May the fatal sisters grant!
The father of the years that roll,
Shield my daring traveller's head!
To contend in Runic lore,
With the wise and crafty Jute.
To Vafthruni's royal hall
Came the mighty king of spells.
To thy lofty hall I come,
Beckon'd by thy wisdom's fame.
Art thou, I aspire to learn,
First of Jutes in Runic lore?
Doubts Vafthruni's just renown?
Know that to thy parting step
Never shall these doors unfold,
If thy tongue excel not mine
In the strife of mystic lore.
Needing hospitality,
To thy palace-gate I come;
Long and rugged is the way
Which my weary feet have trodden.
Let thy loitering limbs repose:
Then begin our strife of speech.
To the presence of the great,
Let him speak the needful word;.
But forbear each idle phrase,
If he seek a listening ear.
Still thou court the learned strife—
Tell me, how is nam'd the steed,
On whose back[6] the morning comes?
Who bears aloft the smiling day
To all the regions of mankind:
His the ever-shining mane.
Still thou court the learned strife—
Tell me, how is sam'd the steed
From the east who bears the night.
Fraught with showering joys of love?[8]
From the east who brings the night
Fraught with showering joys of love:
As he champs the foamy bit,
Drops of dew are scatter'd round,
To adorn the vales of earth.
Still thou court the learned strife—
Tell me, how is nam'd the flood,
From the dwellings of the Jutes
That divides the haunt of Goths?
Parts the ancient sons of earth
From the dwellings of the Goths,
Open flows the mighty flood,
Nor fhall ice arrest its course
While the wheel of ages rolls.
Tell me how is nam'd the field
Where the Goths shall strive in vain,
With the flame-clad Surtur’s[10] might
Where the Goths to Surtur bend.
He who rides a hundred leagues
Has not crost the ample plain.
Mount the footstep of my throne,
And on equal cushion plac’d
Thence renew the strife of tongues,
Big with danger, big with death.
Whence the earth and whence the sky?
Ymer’s bone, it's rocky ribs;
Ymer’s skull, the skiey vault;
Ymer’s teeth, the mountain-ice;
Ymer’s sweat, the ocean-salt
Who was parent to the moon
That shines upon the sleep of man?
And who is parent to the sun?
Father to the moon and sun:
Age on age shall roll away
While they mark the months and years.
Tell me whence arose the day,
That smiles upon the toil of man?
And who is parent to the night?
But from Naurvi sprang the night,
Fraught with showering joys of love,
Who bids the moon to wax and wane,
Marking months and years to man.
Tell me whence the winter comes?
Whence the soothing summer's birth
Showers of fruitage who bestows?
Who begot the winter's god;
Summer from Suafuthur sprang:
Both shall walk the way of years
Till the twilight of the Gods.
Name the first of Ymer’s sons,
Eldest of the Asa-race?
Lay conceal’d in wintry womb,
Bergelmer had long been born:
He from Thrugelmer descends,
Aurgelmer’s unbrother’d son.
Whence, the first of all the Jutes,
Father Aurgelmer is sprung?
The curdled drops of teeming blood
That grew and form’d the first of Jutes.
Sparks that spurted from the south
Inform’d with life the crimson dew.
If so far thy wisdom reach,
How the Jute begat his brood
Tho’ denied a female’s love?
To the water-giant grew
Both a male and female seed:
Also foot with foot begat
A son in whom the Jute might joy.
What within the bounds of space
First befell of all that's known
Lay conceal’d in wintry womb,
Bergelmer had long been born;
First of all recorded things,
Is that his gigantic length
Floated on the ocean-wave.
And so far thy wisdom reach,
Tell me whence proceeds the wind
O’er the earth and o’er the sea
That journeys viewless to mankind?
Who sits beyond the ends of heaven,
And winnows wide his eaglewings,
Whence the sweeping blasts have birth.
Know the whole lineage of the gods,
Tell me whence is Niord sprung?
Holy hills and halls hath he
Tho’ not born of Asa-race.
In Vaunheim scop’d a wat’ry home,
And pledg’d it to the upper Gods:
But when the smoak of ages climbs
He with his Vauns shall stride abroad,
Nor spare the long-respected shore.
Know the whole of mystic lore,
Tell me how the chosen heroes[18]
Live in Odin's shield-deck’d hall
Till the ruin of ruin’d gods.
Daily ply the trade of war:
From the fields of festal fight
Swift they ride in gleaming arms,
And gaily at the board of gods
Quaff the cup of sparkling ale,
And eat Sæhrimni’s vaunted flesh.
What of all thy Runic lore
Is most certain, sure, and true?
And the counsels of the gods;
For I’ve wander’d far and wide,
Nine the nations I have known;
And in all, that overarch
The murky mists and chills of hell,[19]
Men are daily seen to die.
In the kingdoms of the earth;
But I’ve still a wish to know
How the sons of men shall live,
When the iron winter comes?
In the well-head that Mimis[20] feeds,
With dews of morn and thaws of eve:
These again shall wake mankind.
In the kingdoms of the earth,
But I’ve still a wish to know
Whence, to deck the empty skies,
Shall another sun be drawn,
When the jaws of Fenrir ope
To ingorge the lamp of day?
Shall the sun[21] a daughter bear,
Who in spite of shower and sleet,
Rides the road her mother rode.
Who the guardian maidens are
That hover round the haunts of men?
Wander through the peopled earth:
One to guard the hours of love:
One to haunt the homely hearth,
One to cheer the festal board.
Who shall sway the Asa-realms,
When the flame of Surtur fades?
Heirs the empty realm of gods:
Mothi's then and Magni's night
Sways the massy mallet's weight,
Won from Thor, when Thor must fall.
Who shall end the life of Odin
When the gods to ruin rush?
Slay the ire of rolling years:
Vithar shall avenge his fall,
And struggling with the shaggy wolf[23]
Shall cleave his cold and gory jaw,
What did Odin's lip pronounce
To his Balder's hearkening car.
When he climb'd the pyre of death?
Knows the words which thou hast spoken
To thy son in days of yore.
I hear the coming tread of death,
He soon shall raze the Runic lore
And knowledge of the rise of Gods,
From his ill-fated soul who strove
With Odin's self the strife of wit.
Wisest of the wise that breathe,
Our stake was life and thou hast won.
- ↑ Schlötzer's Nordische Geschichte, p. 550.
- ↑ The Runic alphabet expreffes only the long vowels a, o, and u: it has but one cha- rafter for band p, but one for dand t, but one forg and t, and in all fixteen letters. This ftructure countenances the hypotheſis of an Oriental origin. The Phoenicians, as appears from the Aufculcationes mirabiles afcribed to Ariftotle, came to fish on the coafts of Thule (probably, Norway), falted there the Thyn- nus which they caught, and carried it to the Mediterranean. From them, perhaps, the Runes.
- ↑ Klopstock erroneously ascribes bards to
the Gothic nations on the faith of a false
reading in Tacitus: this word is Cimbric, or
Welth, and includes both the civil and ecclesiastical magistracy. Milton, with learned
accuracy, notices the steep,
“Where your old bards, the famous druids lie.”
- ↑ The Danish interpreters should not be always followed in the use of the words god and giant. The Goths and the Jutes were contiguous nations, part of whom ultimately became stationary in Gothland and Jutland. From the name of the latter, by coalescence with the article, is formed the denomination Teutones, Deutch. (Thus the French call the Antinous le L'antin, instead of l’ Amin, and the English say a newt, instead of an ewt, using in fact a double article. These two nations were early hostile: Lucian (in his letter to Philo on history-writing) alludes to some account of a war between the Goths and the Jutes: and the Edda abounds with traces of their habitual rivalry.Vafthruni was a king of the Jutes.
- ↑ Gangrath means seek-advice. If this was the travelling name of Odin, it would easily assume in Greek the form Anacharsis.
- ↑ In the Grecian mythology, the gods of day are charioteers; but in the Gothic, notwithstanding Goranson, they seem to have been cavaliers.
- ↑ Skin-faxi means shiny-locks; but to this horse is never ascribed the supremacy among horses. On the contrary, the saga quoted in Percy's edition of “Mallet's Northern Antiquities,” vol. ii. page 109, expressly says: “The ash Ydrafil is the first of trees; Sleipner, of horses; Bifrost, of bridges,” &c.
- ↑ The line Nott oc nyt reginn, literally night eke bliss showers, is misrendered by the Danish interpreter. It is only capable of the sense here given, as will appear by consulting the word Nyt in the vocabulary of the Edda Sæmundar.
- ↑ The river Ifing was in Polish Prussia.
- ↑ The last day of the week was consecrated to Surtur, and named from him.
- ↑ Vigrith seemingly means drunkenness and Surtur the funeral flame: The allegory in this case intimates that a loss of the faculties is the harbinger of death. Gräter however translates it by noise of battle, burly-burly; and is perhaps in the right. It might however be sought in real geography.
- ↑ The former half of this Saga exhibits symptoms of a higher antiquity, more allusions to local nature, and a mythology less, evolved.
- ↑ Ymer answers to chaos: it means ever,or eternity.
- ↑ Mundilfær means gift-bestowing. The allegory therefore describes Beneficence as producing the sun and moon.
- ↑ Delling, twilight; Naurvi, north; Vindsual, wind-swell; Suafuthur, much-soothing; Bergelmer, old man of the mountain; Thrugelmer, old man of the deep: Aurgelmer, original old man.
- ↑ Vagom, waves, ocean. The waves, the subjects of Niord the sea-god, are often personified in Scaldic song; and are called Vanes and Vauns in Percy’s Mallet. For what reason two words have been contracted into one to form the proper name Elivogi appears not: yet Goranson and all the authorities countenance Mr. Cottle’s interpretation of this passage.
- ↑ Hræsvelger, corse-greedy.
- ↑ The Danish interpreters render Einheriar by Monoheroes, whereas it seems rather to answer, to the Teutonic Anherr, patriarch, ancestor, forefather. What idea should be annexed to this newly minted term monohero? That of Champion, perhaps of a warrior, who, by solitary exploits and without co-operation, attains the heroic rank: In this case it were a fit epithet for but few of the inmates of Valhalla. For Starkader, indeed, the Samson or Herkules of the north.
- ↑ The Niflhel of the text is probably an erroneous reading for Nifelheim, home of mists, which was the favourite epithet of the Goths for the nether world. Does Vafthruni mean by the nine nations, the nine, regions subject to Hela?
- ↑ The giant Mimis, and the spring which he has in custody, are mentioned in the eighth fable of the newer Edda: to this fountain-head the words bod mimis seem to allude. Gräter translates—“Life and warmth shall lie hidden in the flesh of the earth.” See Nordische Blumen, p. 141.
- ↑ The Goths make the sun feminine, and the moon masculine. This is natural in a cold climate. Among savages every male is a foe, every female a friend. Displeasing and unwelcome objects therefore are in their languages masculine, pleating and welcome objects feminine. In hot countries where the night is more welcome than the day, an opposite allotment of gender takes place.
- ↑ Vali and Vithar are apparently the gods of death and sleep. Mothi signifies mould, corruption; and Magni nobody: so that these allegories obviously describe the state of the departed.
- ↑ Vitnis, wolf, is here mistaken for a proper name by the Danish interpreter; and for a name of Odin by the English poet.