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demi-gods [1], and there were traditions of more than
one Odin, nay, of a false Odin, who arrogated to
himself the consideration and power of the true [2].
That pagans were even found who had little
reverence for Odin, although, it is said, they were
worshippers of Thor; that Odin had temples in
Sweden indeed, but neither in Norway, nor in
Iceland, which was chiefly settled by Norwegians,
although at the sacrificial feasts cups were quaffed
in honour of him before any of the other gods; all
this seems to prove that the Odin of history had
not succeeded universally and completely in
transferring to himself the veneration which in the older
religion was paid to the father of the gods.
More recent inquirers have denied all historical
weight to the beginning of the Ynglingasaga, and
refused to see in the immigration any thing but a
learned fable, and the more, that the preface to the
new Edda gives sufficient ground for suspicion by
tracing the ancestors of Odin through the Trojan
heroes up to Noah. The importance of Odin as a
fabulous divinity has been recognized, while it has
been considered that to enter upon the question of
his historical personality would not repay inquiry.
But this opinion places its supporters at variance
with the mythology itself, in which Odin is
undoubtedly both a godlike hero and a prophet
among the people; a view that wants not
confirmation from other quarters, and is connected
by other testimony than that of the Ynglingasaga
with the belief of his oriental extraction. Tacitus
had already heard that in Northern Germany a
wandering hero was worshipped from the most
ancient times, on whom, according to usage, he
bestows a Roman name [3]. Paul Warnefrid relates
that the same Odin, to whom the Lombards, like
the rest of the Germans, paid divine honours, had
sojourned in Greece (a name commonly given by
the Northerns to several eastern countries), before
his arrival in Germany. The Anglo-Saxons point
to a Troy, instead of the Oriental Asgard; in Saxo
this is called Byzantium. With the Franks a
similar learned garb, not only for their own but
the northern legends of descent was so usual, that
an old chronicler relates how the Northmen who
ravaged France themselves declared that their
people were of Trojan extraction [4].
Again, the name Asæ is historical in the east.
Strabo places an Asia, in the narrower sense, on
the eastern side of the Mæotis, and in the same
quarter, a people whom he styles Aspurgians,
literally the inhabitants of Asburg or Asgard. The
Alans were a people nearly akin to the Goths, who
formed a junction with them on the Black Sea, and
also boasted of a royal line whose ancestors were
gods. Arabian geographers of the tenth century
speak of this people as dwelling northwards of the
Caucasus, under the name of Alans or Asæ [5]. They
extended formerly to the Tanais, where their
remains, blended with those of the Goths, are
mentioned by travellers in the fifteenth century, as still
settled. It is added, that they styled themselves
Asæ, and in their own estimation had been
denizens of this region longer than the Goths, who had
come in as conquerors [6].
Now if Goths were in fact anciently seated (as
may be proved) upon both sides of the Baltic, of
whom a great branch afterwards moved in a
southeasterly direction towards the Black Sea, and there
formed a union with their kinsmen of the ancient
stock; it is at least not improbable that an
intercourse was carried on conversely between these
and the Northerns, by which the tradition of eastern
descent may have been originated or revived in
Scandinavia. Later examples of such communication,
attested by history, are not wanting. A
band of Herulers, also a Gothic people, appearing
first on the Black Sea, marched at the end of the
fifth century from the Danube to Scandinavia, and
the division which remained in the south afterwards
sent thither in order to procure a prince of
their royal blood. The fact is related by a
contemporary witness [7].
It is not, however, the arrival of the Goths in
Scandinavia, but that of the Swedes, which is
described in the Ynglingasaga; races nearly allied
indeed, and now blended, yet in the olden time
separate, and first united under a common spiritual
head. The chief seat of their worship was placed
among the Swedes, a preference which they owed
to Odin, and the great sacrifices instituted by him
in Upsala. This prerogative was already acknowledged
in the days of Tacitus, since in his account
the Suiones stand for the whole commonwealth. If
we allow a reasonable time for the establishment of
this superiority, the Swedish Odin may be fairly
removed to a period beyond the Christian era. To
this conclusion the Anglo-Saxon genealogies cannot
be adduced as repugnant, seeing that they are so
little in unison as to derive their princes, who
crossed over into Britain during the latter half of
the fifth century, sometimes in the fourth,
sometimes in the tenth, twelfth, or thirteenth generation
from the same Odin [8]. Among his ancestors they
enumerate a god bearing the Gothic name [9]; who
is himself, perhaps, referrible to one still older.
Probably the arrival of the Swedes in Scandinavia
occasioned the emigration of the Goths. At all
events, the latter does not ascend to the antiquity
to which Jordanes, by confounding the Goths with
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