MacCULLOCH, JOHN ARNOTT (1930) Eddic Mythology. CHAPTER 33 COSMOGONY AND THE DOOM OF THE GODS
MacCULLOCH, JOHN ARNOTT (1930) Eddic Mythology. CHAPTER 33 COSMOGONY AND THE DOOM OF THE GODS
MacCULLOCH, JOHN ARNOTT (1930) Eddic Mythology. CHAPTER 33 COSMOGONY AND THE DOOM OF THE GODS
OF ALL RACES
IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES
eddic
BY
VOLUME II
of it the earth. Sea and waters came from his blood; gravel and
stones from his teeth and such bones as were broken j rocks from
his bones. The sea was placed as a ring round the earth. His
skull became the sky, set up over the earth and upheld by four
dwarfs. The earth is ring-shaped, and on its coasts the gods
gave lands to the giants. Within the earth they erected a wall
against the giants, made of Ymir’s eyebrows. This they called
Midgard. Of Ymir’s brain, thrown into the air, they made the
clouds. The glowing embers and sparks from Muspellheim
were set in the Heaven, above and beneath, to illumine Heaven
and earth. The gods assigned places to all, even to such as were
wandering free.1
This is Snorri’s account, based partly on sources now lost,
partly on stanzas of Volusia, Grimnismal, and V aft hr udnismal.
Volus'pa says:
r .T ‘••::
• -s.
V •'
- ...
• • 'a. : v • fi, ..
, \.cr • y
• -
(
PLATE XLV
The gods are gone, men destroyed, the earth sunk in the sea
or burned, but now appears a new world. This is the theme of
the final stanzas of Voluspa:
COSMOGONY AND DOOM OF THE GODS 345
Anglo-Saxon Draughtsmen
happy mortals, who will repeople the earth after the devastating
winter has passed.83 There will be a new sun, and certain gods
will reappear, their names differing from those in Voluspa. The
giant maidens who act as guardian spirits, presumably to the
dwellers on the new earth, descend over Mogthrasir’s ‘ thorp y
or dwelling-place j and, as Boer suggests, Mogthrasir, £ he who
desires sons,’ may be the same as Lif, progenitor of the new
race.84
Snorri combines the V olusp a and V aft hrudnismal passages in
his account of the new world. But he adds a description of
places of bliss and punishment, and here, as we have seen, he
seems to have misunderstood his sources.85
Apart from the reference to Gimle, which appears to be for
the righteous dead, the poems say nothing about the lot of the
dead in the renewed world.
NOTES 383
Chapter XXXIII
14* Gy If., c. 9*
15. iff? c. 3*
16. See Clarke, p. 107 and note.
17. Tacitus, Germ., c. 2.
18. Gylf., c. 34; Brag., c. I; Skaldsk., cc. 17, 23; Harb19; cf.
CP5 ii. 9.
19. Fo/., 56.
20. Gylf., cc. 35, 45, 47; Hym., 23; Vol., 50.
21. Gylf., cc. 9, 14. Asgard is mentioned twice in the Poetic Edda.
Loki tells Thor that, if his hammer is not recovered, the giants will dwell
in Asgard, Thrym., 17. Thor and Tyr go from Asgard to get the giant
Hrym’s kettle, Hym., 7.
2 2. Gylf., cc. 13, 15, 27, 51; Grim., 29, 44; Faf., 15; HH ii. 48.
23. Vol., 2; Vaf., 43; Alviss., see Sijmons and Gering, i. 152.
24. So Gering, Edda, note to Vaf., 43, p. 66.
25. Mogk, ‘ Neunzahl,’ in Hoops, iii. 312.
26. Gylf., c. 4 and see Gering’s note, p. 300; cc. 5, 34, 42; BDr.y
2; Vaf., 43; Grim., 26.
27. Vol., 2, 19 f.
28. ib., 27, 47; Svif., 29 f.
29. Gering, Edda, p. 132.
30. Grim., 31 f.
31. Gylf., cc. 15 f.
32. R. M. Meyer, p. 477.
33. Bugge, [b], Introd., p. xxiv.
34. Skaldsk., c. 34.
35. Grim., 25 f.
36. Chadwick [b], p. 78.
37. ib., p. 75 f.; Mlillenhoff [a], v. 103 f.
38. E. Welsford, c Old Prussians,’ ERE ix. 489.
39. Cf. Gering, Edda, p. 105.
40. CPB i. 246.
41. Chadwick [b], p. 75.
42. Cf. U. Holmberg, Der Baum des Lebens, Helsinki, 1922, pp.
67, 68.
43. ib., p. 75 and fassim; cf. also Siberian Mythology in this Series,
PP- 349 #•
44. Gylf., c. 16; Grim., 26.
NOTES 385
45. MacCulloch [cl, pp. 442-3.
46. ib., Chapter XVI.
47. ib., p. 441; Holmberg, Finno-Ugric and Siberian Mythology,
pp. 222, 333 ff.
48. Holmberg, p. 337.
49. ib., pp. 221—2; Der Baum des Lebens, p. 17 f.
50. ib., Der Baum, p. 19; MacCulloch [a], pp. 228, 232.
51. Grimm [a], i. 116.
52. MGR Serif., iii. 423.
53. A. Olrik, 4 Irminsul og Gudestptter,’ Maal og Minne, 1910,
p. 4 f.; Holmberg, Der Baum, p. 10.
54. E. H. Meyer [b], § 112; Golther, p. 530; Bugge, Studien,
pp. 421 ff.
55. Vol., 44, 49, 58; Vaf., 55; BDr., 14; HR ii. 39; Am., 21,
.,
38, 42. Cf. Vaf., 38, 39, 42, tiva rok (tivar,4 gods ’). Lok 39.
56. Vol., 8, 21 f., 32; cf. Mogk, ERE iv. 845, c the golden age of
the gods came to an end when the Norns came into being/
57. Vol., 25 f.
58* ib., 39*
59. ib., 57, cf. 45, 4 the world falls’; Hynd., 44; Vaf., 46 f. and
Vol., 40. Cf. p. 199. Gy If., c. 5 I, speaks of the wolf swallowing the
sun, and the other wolf swallowing the moon. The stars vanish from
the Heavens. This follows the passage in Grim., 39, and Snorri’s own
earlier narrative in c. 12. For Eclipse myths see MacCulloch [a],
р. 178; A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion,2 London, 1906, i. 132 f.;
Grimm [a], i. 244, ii. 705; ERE x. 368. Swedish, Danish, and
Norse folk-lore knows the sun-wolf. In Iceland an eclipse is 4 Ulfa-
kreppa.’ Golther, p. 524.
60. Vaf., 44 f.; Gylf., c. 53; Hynd., 44; Vol., 41, 45, cf. Gylf.,
с. 51.
61. Vol., 52, 57; Vaf., 50 f.; Grim., 38; Gylf., cc. 4, 17, 51.
62. In Gylf., c. 51, the mighty winter precedes or is contemporary
with these evils.
63. Perhaps Mimir’s sons are giants, if Mimir is to be regarded as a
giant, cf. Boer, ii. 22. Hence Heimdall blows his horn, because the
giants are in motion.
64. After the account of the mighty winter Snorri here inserts the
swallowing of the sun and moon; the trembling of earth and breaking
of all fetters; the advance of the Wolf; the sea rushing over the land
because the Serpent is stirring in giant fury; the ship Naglfar loose and
floating on the flood, steered by Hrym. In Vol., 50, Hrym comes from
the East; the Midgard-serpent and the Eagle seem to be with him. The
stanza ends with 4 Naglfar is loose.’ Does this mean that they are on
board it? Or should this line go with the next stanza, which tells of a
386 EDDIC MYTHOLOGY
vessel coming from the North steered by Loki, with the people of Hel.
Is this vessel Naglfar? If the people of Hel are the dead, not giants,
Naglfar would be a ship of the dead, and, by a false etymology, the ship
made of dead men’s nails. But why should the dead attack the gods?
Snorri elsewhere assigns Naglfar to the sons of Muspell, Gylf.y c. 43.
In c. 51 Snorri says that this ship is made of dead men’s nails, wherefore
men should be warned that if a man die with uncut nails he is adding
material to this ship, which gods and men would fain see unfinished.
65. The 4 wild hosts,’ fifl-meger} are perhaps the people of fifty a
giant or monster, or 4 the nameless host who follow without knowing
why.’
66. Gylf.y c. 51.
67. Vaf., 18, 39, 41 f.
68. BDr.y 14; Grim.y 4; Vaf., 52.
69. CPB i. 261, 265, ii. 65, 197; Skaldsk.y c. 49; HR ii. 39.
70. E. W. West, Pahlavi Texts, in Sacred Books of the Easty xviii.
109 f.; N. Soderblom, ha vie future ddafres Ma’z.deismey Paris, 1901,
p. 179 f.; Rydberg, pp. 256 ff.; L. H. Grey, ERE ii. 703; A. J.
Carnoy, Iranian Mythology, in this Series, p. 307.
71. See MacCulloch [a], p. 232, [b], p. 34.
72. Gylf., c. 51, cf. cc. 4, s, 8, ii, 13, 37, 43, 51.
73. Lok.y 42; Vol.y 51.
74. Faf.y 15; Grim.y 29.
75. Grimm [a], ii. 808.
76. ib.; Heliandy 2591, 4358.
77. Golther, p. 541.
78. See these in W. Braune, Althochdeutsche Lesebuchf p. 190 f.
79. Mogk, in Hoops, iii. 288.
80. Vol.y 59 ff.
81. Hynd.y 45.
82. Vaf.y 44 ff.
83. Svif.y 30; ERE ii. 702 f.
84. Boer, ii. 58 f.
85. Gylf., c. 52. Seep. 318.