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royal line. Anglo-Saxon authors, some of whom
wrote while the north was still Pagan, denominate
him ‘the primogenial Woden, from whom the
kingly families of well-nigh all the barbaric tribes
derive their origin’; ‘the prince of the barbarian
multitudes, whom the deluded northern heathens,
Danes, Normans, Swedes, to this day worship as
God [1].’ According to the chronicles of the northern
kings and the Edda, the same ‘Woden, whom we
call Oden,’ had set his sons to rule over Saxonland;
the Edda adds, also over Frankland, and derives
from thence the famous lineage of the Folsungs.
Although among the Franks, who embraced Christianity
earlier, no confirmation of this legend remains,
it is nevertheless probable that the ‘race
of gods,’ mentioned among them, was that of
Odin [2]. We have irrefragable testimony that
Woden was adored as a god by all the German
nations [3], and this is besides expressly stated of
the Vandals, Lombards, and Suevers [4]. The
last-named tribe was a branch of the Goths. Anses,
which is rendered by demi-gods, was the term
applied by the Goths of the south to their kingly
lineage, celebrated in the same songs which
perpetuated the memory of their Scandinavian
extraction [5]. The word is the same in all its meanings
with the northern Asar; the formal variation being
merely one of dialect, which reappears similarly in
other instances [6].
All these nations, therefore, traced their royal
families to the same gods, and were connected by
the same religion. Yet we would by no means
maintain that the whole northern mythology, as it
has been transmitted to us, was ever common to
the Germanic race. Much of it belongs exclusively
to the north, some equally to other nations,
especially the Anglo-Saxons, and in the end it
received from the later court-Scalds and the
Icelanders a kind of over-elaboration, which however
is observable more in an artificial poetic
phraseology than in the substance. In its essential
features, and the themes of which it chiefly treats,
it is a lore as venerable for age as rich in interest,
a not unworthy exponent of the views embraced
by a great and noble race of men in their first
contemplations on the universe. Its historical
compass and extent of diffusion are attested by its
own oracles. The Odin of the north is also
explicitly represented as the god wandering far
among the nations, who adore him, according to
a declaration ascribed to himself by an old bard [7],
under many names and in various guises. In the
Scalds he appears under the most different
appellations, taken, among many others, from light,
from fire, the Runes, the shades of the dead,
victory, the battle-field, and the Gothic name. But
in his loftiest significance, he is father of all,
father of gods and men, father of time; the earth
born of night is his progenitress; the earth irradiated
by the sun is his daughter and spouse, when
with his brethren he has subdued and disposed
Matter, typified by the body of the giant Ymer,
slain in the abyss. The twelve divine Asæ, a
bright and beautiful kin, form his council of gods.
In conjunction with him they are also the first
priests, the first lawgivers and judges upon earth,
builders of the first temple and the first towns.
Their chief city is Asgard [8], of ancient days, lying
in the centre of Midgard [9], or Manhem, the world
of men, divided by a wall from Jotunhem, the
home of the giants, at the end of the earth, where,
under the uttermost root of the world-tree, in the
realms of darkness and of cold, the dwarfs too
have their abode.
There was a happy time, when the gods invented
the arts most indispensable to man’s life,
wrought metals, stone, and wood, possessed
abundance of gold, showed in all things their divine
power, sported and were merry; until their bliss
was disturbed by the arrival of certain giant maids
from Jotunhem, the peace made with the race of
giants was broken, Odin hurled his spear amidst
the people, and the first war was kindled. Then
began the victorious, but direful, strife against that
evil race, of which some scenes are celebrated in
Pagan odes yet preserved [10]. When the gods
retired to heaven, it was continued by the heroic
families of earth who sprung from them. During
this struggle, Odin calls home the fallen to himself
in Valhalla, in order with them to advance to the
last combat of Ragnarauk (the twilight of the
gods). Then at length are burst the bonds which
chain the powers of nature, subdued in the
beginning of time. Cold and heat, from whose
intermixture this world arose, send their demons out of
Nifelhem and Muspelhem to a war in which the
gods themselves are overthrown. Then after the
conflagration of the world, a new earth arises,
verdant with self-sown fields, the home of a race
whose lives are unvexed by toil;
All evil vanishes away.
Back comes Balder,
And dwells with Höder [11],
In Odin’s triumph-hall,
Bright in the sacred seat of high-throned gods.
Understand ye yet, or how?
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