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4- BRONZE AGE (B.C. 1500500). THE VANIR. 15
a word meaning light and glittering
10
possibly akin to the
Latin Venus were gods of the earth and water; whereas
the Aesir were gods of the sky.
However Fro may have come into Swedish religion, his
worship was particularly strongly established in the
country. He formed a third with Thor and Odin in the
great Upsala Temple even in the eleventh century Thor
being throned in the middle, Odin on his right, and
Fricco, as Adam de Bremen calls him, on the left.
11
He
embodies the elemental powers of nature force, produc
tiveness and riches. The Aesir are more human. To them
belong the attributes of skill, wisdom, foresight, cunning,
poetry, inspiration and the like used no doubt pre
eminently in or with regard to war, the chief game, as
Northmen always thought it, of human life, but quite
separable from it. Fro, on the other hand, is the son of
Niord, the earth or sea, at any rate of the lower world be
neath the sky,
12
and the goddess of the waterfall. Fro
is a purely nature god. His father is sent by the Vanir,
who are subdued by the Aesir, to dwell among the latter.
Fro takes a lower place than he had at first occupied, which
the myth indicates by saying that he gave away his mar
vellous sword. His magic ship,
"
Skidbladnir," was large
enough to take all the Aesir on board it, but could be taken
to pieces and put away in the pocket. I suppose it was a
gigantic skate or snow-shoe or pair of snow-shoes. Some
may remember the poet TegneVs use of this myth, as a
10
See Geijer : H. of 5., p. 12, E. T., Corpus Poeticum
Boreale, Vol. ii., pp. 465-6, Golther: G. M., p. 220. The
latter refers to the adjective
"
wanum," found in the Heliand
in the sense of "bright."
There is a lake and a parish
called Vendel, with many remarkable heathen tombs, a
few miles north of Upsala, which possibly may be connected
with this matter. Wendel is a name for the devil in some parts
of Germany (See Grimm : 7). M., p. 375, E. T., s. n. Orentil).
11
Gesta Pontif. Hammaburgensium 233 ; cp. C. P. JB., Vol.
i., p. 97, Golther :
I.e., 218 foil.
12
Some connect the names with Nereus, some with veprepot,,
(gods of the lower world), others with "
Nertu "
good-will (cp.
Golther :
p. 219, C. P. ., Vol, ii., p. 465).
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