The Edda, Volume 1 | Page 4

one in turn trying to interfere, only to provoke a
taunt from Loki. At last Thor, who had been absent on a journey, came
in and threatened the slanderer with his hammer, whereupon Loki said,
"I spoke to the Aesir and the sons of the Aesir what my mind told me;
but for thee alone I will go away, for I know thou wilt strike." Some of

the poem is rather pointless abuse, but much touches points already
suggested in the other poems.
Hyndluljod is much later than the others, probably not before 1200. The
style is late, and the form imitated from _Völuspa_. It describes a visit
paid by Freyja to the Sibyl to learn the genealogy of her favourite Ottar.
The larger part deals with heroic genealogies, but there are scanty
allusions to Baldr, Frey, Heimdal, Loki's children, and Thor, and a
Christian reference to a God who shall come after Ragnarök "when
Odin shall meet the wolf." It tells nothing new.
We have here then, omitting Hyndluljod, five poems (four of them
belonging to the first half of the tenth century) which suggest a general
outline of Norse mythology: there is a hierarchy of Gods, the Aesir,
who live together in a citadel, Odin being the chief. Among them are
several who are not Aesir by origin: Njörd and his son and daughter,
Frey and Freyja, are Vanir; Loki is really an enemy and an agent in
their fall; and there are one or two Goddesses of giant race. The giants
are rivals and enemies to the Gods; the dwarfs are also antagonistic, but
in bondage. The meeting-place of the Gods is by the World-Ash,
Yggdrasil, on whose well-being the fate of Gods and men depends; at
its root lies the World-Snake. The Gods have foreknowledge of their
own doom, Ragnarök, the great fight when they shall meet Loki's
children, the Wolf and the Snake; both sides will fall and the world be
destroyed. An episode in the story is the death of Baldr. This we may
assume to be the religion of the Viking age (800-1000 A.D.), a
compound of the beliefs of various ages and tribes.
_The Aesir._--The number of the Aesir is not fixed. Hyndluljod says
there were twelve ("there were eleven Aesir when Baldr went down
into the howe"). Snorri gives a list of fourteen Aesir or Gods (Odin,
Thor, Baldr, Njörd, Frey, Tyr, Bragi, Heimdal, Höd, Vidar, Vali, Ullr,
Forseti, Loki), and adds Hoeni in another list, all the fifteen occurring
in the poems; and sixteen Goddesses (Asynjor), the majority of whom
are merely personified epithets, occurring nowhere else. Of the sixteen,
Frigg, Gefion, Freyja and Saga (really an epithet only) are Goddesses in
the poems, and Fulla is Frigg's handmaid. In another chapter, Snorri

adds Idunn, Gerd, Sigyn and Nanna, of whom the latter does not appear
in the Elder Edda, where Idunn, Gerd (a giantess) and Sigyn are the
wives of Bragi, Frey and Loki; and two others, the giantess Skadi and
Sif, are the wives of Njörd and Thor.
A striking difference from classical mythology is that neither Tyr (who
should etymologically be the Sky-god), nor Thor (the Thunder-god),
takes the highest place. Tyr is the hero of one important episode, the
chaining of the Wolf, through which he loses his right hand. This is
told in full by Snorri and alluded to in Lokasenna, both in the prose
preface ("Tyr also was there, with only one hand; the Fenris-wolf had
bitten off the other, when he was bound") and in the poem itself:
Loki. "I must remember that right hand which Fenri bit off thee."
Tyr. "I am short of a hand, but thou of the famous wolf; to each the loss
is ill-luck. Nor is the wolf in better plight, for he must wait in bonds till
Ragnarök."
Otherwise, he only appears in connexion with two more popular Gods:
he speaks in Frey's defence in Lokasenna, and in Hymiskvida he is
Thor's companion in the search for a cauldron; the latter poem
represents him as a giant's son.
Thor, on the other hand, is second only to his father Odin; he is the
strongest of the Gods and their champion against the giants, and his
antagonist at Ragnarök is to be the World-Snake. Like Odin, he travels
much, but while the chief God generally goes craftily and in disguise,
to gain knowledge or test his wisdom, Thor's errands are warlike; in
Lokasenna he is absent on a journey, in Harbardsljod and Alvissmal he
is returning from one. His journeys are always to the east; so in
_Harbardsljod_: "I was in the east, fighting the malevolent
giant-brides.... I was in the east and guarding the river, when Svarang's
sons attacked me." The Giants live in the east (Hymiskvida 5); Thor