Myths of the Norsemen

by Roger Green

  ‘The doom of death!’ they cried with one voice, and rising all together they cast their spears at her. Through her body the keen weapons passed from every side and clattered on the golden floor. But Gullveig stood before them still, unharmed and laughing.

  Then a great fire was built in the hall and Gullveig was placed on it and consumed to ashes. But when the flames died down, she stepped forth living and unharmed – shining and glittering more brightly than before.

  Three times they burned her to ashes in the Hall of Odin, and thrice she stepped forth out of the fire, even fairer than before – even as gold that is smelted in the furnace grows richer and deeper and more valuable each time it is poured into the mould.

  Then Gullveig stepped to the nearest door of Valhalla, and turning, cried to the Æsir: ‘I have brought division among men, and you have brought division among gods! Behold now, I came as the messenger of the Vanir – and see how you have treated me! Now I return to tell them that there is no faith in Asgard: that there a guest is riddled with spears, the herald is cast on the fire. But my purpose is accomplished – and now there shall be war between the Æsir and the Vanir!’

  So saying Gullveig sprang upon the nearest sunbeam and was gone out of Asgard in a moment.

  Then the Æsir took council together, for Odin suspected that as Gullveig had cheated them, she was probably deceiving the Vanir as well and trying to bring about a war between them, which would give the Giants their chance of conquering Asgard.

  Sure enough, before they had decided what to do, a great army of the Vanir came out of the clear sky and began tearing down the walls of Asgard.

  Odin advanced against them and hurled his spear at the leader. But he caught it as it flew and returned it with a low bow.

  ‘King of the Vanir, how are you named?’ asked Odin.

  ‘I am Niord, lord of Vanaheim,’ replied the shining warrior, ‘and I do not come against you in anger, but in sorrow for your treatment of my messenger.’

  ‘If you speak of Gullveig the witch,’ said Odin, ‘she can be no messenger between Æsir and Vanir. For she is of the Jotun race, and her one desire is to bring ruin upon your people and upon mine – yes, and upon the dwellers in Midgard as well, so that the Giants may rule.’

  He went on to tell how Sin had been let loose among men, and when Niord heard, and understood how desperate was the struggle which the Æsir waged against the Giants, he flung down his shining sword and clasped Odin by the hand.

  ‘Let there be peace between us,’ he cried, ‘peace between Æsir and Vanir, between earth and air. We will help you against the Giants; we will be as one people; we will swear eternal friendship and exchange hostages.’

  The Æsir rejoiced greatly at this, and Honir, Odin’s brother, volunteered to go and live among the Vanir as a pledge of good faith.

  ‘And I myself will remain here in Asgard,’ said Niord.

  ‘Be welcome then,’ cried Odin, ‘welcome not as a hostage of a different race, but as one of ourselves. Here you may build your palace and live as freely, and in as great honour as the Æsir live. In all our councils you shall have a place as if you were indeed my brother.’

  So the union between the Vanir and the Æsir was sealed, and a solemn ceremony was held at which every one of the Æsir and Vanir swore an oath of loyalty to each other, and in token of good faith spat into a crock of gold.

  Thus Niord came to live in Asgard, and there in after years were born his son Frey who became lord of the weather and master of agriculture, and his daughter Freya the lady of love and beauty, and splendid palaces were built for each of them.

  Now Odin saw a way to gain still greater wisdom. He took the golden crock which was the seal of union between the Æsir and the Vanir, and by the arts which the wisdom of Mimir had already taught him, he made of it a man called Kvasir. This man came into being fully grown, remembering no childhood: but instead he was filled with all the knowledge both of the Vanir and the Æsir.

  In Asgard he was loved for his goodness; but in Midgard he was adored by all men for bringing peace among them, teaching them manners and showing them many of the arts and crafts which made their lives better and happier. Anyone who was in trouble, or in need of advice, had only to send for Kvasir, and he would go wherever he was needed.

  But in the end this proved his undoing, for two wicked Dwarfs named Fialar and Galar begged him to come and advise them on a very private matter.

  Kvasir in the goodness of his own heart could suspect no evil, so he went secretly to the Dwarfs and they, as soon as they had him deep in their hidden caves, murdered him and drew off his magic blood into two vats and a kettle.

  Then they mixed honey with the blood of Kvasir and brewed with it a magic mead which had the power of making anyone who drank of it into a poet, a scholar, and a seer.

  The Dwarfs made no use of this treasure, but merely gloated over it in secret. To account for his disappearance they put it about that Kvasir had been worn out by his own cleverness, and had choked for lack of anyone who could carry on an argument with him.

  No one seemed to suspect them, so the wicked couple decided to murder a Giant as well. First they invited a certain Gilling and his wife to visit them and entertained them very kindly.

  On the first morning they suggested that Gilling should come out in their boat with them while they caught fish for breakfast.

  ‘Then you must row carefully,’ said the Giant, ‘for I cannot swim.’

  Fialar winked at Galar, and away they went over the smooth sea. But on the return journey they steered the boat into rough water by some overhanging rocks, and it was upset. Gilling was drowned, but the Dwarfs who were excellent swimmers righted the boat and rowed home again.

  When they told the Giant’s wife that Gilling had fallen out of the boat and tipped it up trying to climb in again, she shrieked and wept until they were nearly deafened.

  ‘Come with me!’ shouted Fialar at last. ‘I’ll take you to a door of our caves from which you can see the very place where your husband was drowned. Surely that will comfort you!’

  The Giantess agreed to this, and while she was getting ready to follow him, Fialar drew his brother aside and said in a low voice:

  ‘Now’s our chance to kill her too! Go to the window above.’

  Having given Galar a little time, Fialar led the Giantess through the caves to a doorway looking towards the sea.

  ‘Walk out through there,’ he told her, ‘and you will be so near where your husband was drowned that you’ll almost find yourself with him.’

  Suspecting nothing, she went forward quickly through the doorway, and Galar dropped a millstone on her head from the window above and killed her.

  Gilling’s son, Suttung, was, however, suspicious about the mysterious disappearance of both his parents, and he arrived at the Dwarfs’ cave before they could hide the body of the Giantess.

  Fialar and Galar were so terrified when the great Giant Suttung suddenly pounced on them, that they made no attempt to deny what they had done.

  ‘So,’ rumbled the Giant. ‘You killed my parents with water and with rock, and they both died quickly. Now I’m going to kill you in the same way – with water and with rock – but as slowly as I can.’

  Then he carried them far out to sea and set them down on a low ridge of rock.

  ‘The tide is out now as far as it goes,’ he told them. ‘At this time of year the rock you are on is never quite covered even when the tide is high. But in a few weeks’ time high tide will cover the rock and sweep you off into the sea. Even Dwarfs can’t swim to land from here but I know you can live without food for several months … so you’ll have plenty of time to think what it’s like to be drowned, and I’ll come every day to see how you are getting on!’

  Giant Suttung went away over the sea, laughing grimly to himself, and the two Dwarfs huddled miserably on the rock as the cold northern night gathered about them.

  Several days went by, and they grew more and more wr
etched and frightened as the tide came higher and higher, until at last, even on the highest point of the rock, the sea came up to their knees.

  Each day Giant Suttung came to gloat over them, and shouted jeering remarks in answer to their prayers for mercy.

  ‘We’ll pay you a huge ransom!’ they cried. ‘Mountains of gold and treasure. We’ll work for you and make cunning tools and weapons!’

  ‘I’ve all the gold I want,’ answered Suttung, ‘and what use are tools to me? All I want is plenty to eat and drink, and to spend my life comfortably without doing any work.’

  Then the Dwarfs remembered the magic mead which they had made from the blood of Kvasir, and Fialar cried:

  ‘Noble Giant, we will give you the most precious thing in the world, a drink which even the Æsir do not possess – a drink for which great Odin himself would give his other eye!’

  ‘What drink is that?’ growled the Giant.

  ‘It is called the Mead of Inspiration,’ answered the Dwarfs, ‘or so we have heard – for we do not know what Inspiration means. But we have tasted it, and no mead in the world is so good. It was made from the blood of Kvasir the Wise, which we mingled with honey – and it makes one more deliciously drunk than any other mead. But when you’re drunk, instead of falling under the table, you get up and talk and sing: and nobody can resist what you say. That’s how we got the better of your mother and father.’

  Thinking that there might be something to this, and also being anxious to prevent the Æsir from ever possessing the precious drink, Suttung at last took the two shivering Dwarfs to land.

  In return they handed over the three vessels containing the precious liquor, and Suttung took it away to his castle on a mountain on the borders of Jotunheim. There he stored it away in his treasure chamber which was hollowed out of the solid rock in the very heart of the mountain.

  Now Odin knew nothing of what had happened. For the wise Mimir had left him and gone with Honir to live in Vanaheim, the chief dwelling-place of the Vanir. There a quarrel broke out between Mimir and the lords of the Vanir, for it seemed to them that he had cast a spell upon Honir who on a sudden could not answer any question they put to him, but would always reply: ‘Mimir must answer that.’

  At last, thinking that Mimir must be a sorcerer or warlock, they killed him and sent his head to the Æsir.

  Odin grieved greatly over Mimir’s death, but he did not seek to be revenged on the Vanir, feeling sure that they must have acted under some misunderstanding.

  But by his arts he kept the head of Mimir from decay, and set it beside the Fountain of Wisdom which had been Mimir’s well, and from that day the head of Mimir kept him warned of dangers to come, telling him what should be avoided.

  The very first thing the magic head told him was about Kvasir’s death and the Mead of Inspiration.

  ‘You must win that mead and bear it to Asgard,’ the head told him. ‘Not a drop should be left with the Giants. Suttung has it now in his castle, but he has not yet dared to taste it.’

  When Odin had learnt the whole story of Suttung’s revenge, he called a council in Asgard and told the other Æsir all that had happened.

  ‘We cannot send to demand or buy the mead,’ he said, ‘for that would show the Giant how anxious we are to have it. Someone must go in disguise and try to win or steal it.’

  No one seemed anxious to attempt this desperate venture, and it was Odin himself who set out next day, disguised as an old farm labourer.

  With a broad-brimmed hat pulled down over his blind eye, and a scythe on his shoulder, Odin strode through Midgard, until he came to the lands on the edge of Jotunheim where Baugi, Suttung’s brother, lived.

  Out in the fields he found nine men mowing a meadow of hay, and he stopped to talk with them.

  ‘How do you enjoy working for a Giant?’ he asked.

  ‘Well enough,’ answered one of the mowers, ‘but we cannot keep our scythes sharp enough to mow as quickly as Master Baugi wants.’

  ‘That is easily remedied,’ said the disguised Odin, ‘let me sharpen them for you.’

  He took his hone out of his belt, and set to work. When he had finished, the scythes cut like razors and the men were amazed.

  ‘I should like to buy that hone!’ cried one of them. ‘Stranger, will you sell?’

  ‘No, no!’ exclaimed another, pushing in front of him. ‘Sell it to me! I have more money, since Master Baugi gave me richer reward after we followed him beyond Mirk Wood to sack and burn the houses there.’

  So each tried harder and harder to outbid the others, and in their excitement told Odin far more about their own wicked deeds than they intended; and at last he cried:

  ‘I’ll sell the hone for a thousand rings of money. Now, he who catches it shall have it!’

  With that he tossed it into the air suddenly, and each of the nine men sprang forward to catch it as it fell. But they all met in a confused mass, still holding their razor-like scythes; and every man of them got his death from the sharp blades.

  When Odin saw that a just doom had befallen them, he picked up his hone, flung his cloak about him, and went on his way.

  That night he came to the house of Baugi the Giant, and asked for shelter.

  ‘I am a poor labouring man,’ he said, ‘and my name is Bolverker. I am not unskilled in the evil arts, as my name shows – and I can earn my night’s lodging.’

  ‘Bolverker or Bale Worker, it’s all the same to me,’ grumbled Baugi. ‘One man is no use, however skilled in evil. How am I going to get my harvest in? Those nine men of mine seem to have had a fight amongst themselves and killed one another. I wouldn’t have minded so much if they had cut the hay first. But where I’m to get more men from now I don’t know. I’ve killed most of the people round here, and chased the rest away. These nine were my special followers: mowers of hay in the summer, and mowers of men in the winter! … One man is no good.’

  ‘You should try me before you taunt me,’ remarked Odin, leaning on his scythe. ‘What will you give me if I do your nine men’s work in less time than they would have taken?’

  ‘Give you?’ repeated the Giant, staring stupidly at Odin. ‘It is not possible. But if you can do it, I’ll give you anything you ask for.’

  ‘Well,’ said Odin, ‘I’ve heard that your brother, the great Giant Suttung, has a very fine mead in his cellars called Kvasir’s Blood. Give me one drink of that, and I’ll harvest your crops better than you’ve ever had them harvested before.’

  ‘Kvasir’s Blood!’ rumbled Baugi, rubbing his nose. ‘Suttung will never give you even a sip of that! Why, he won’t even give me any.’

  ‘Well, will you promise to help me get a drink of it without him knowing?’ suggested Odin. ‘A Giant like you and a Bale Worker like me ought to be able to find a way.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll promise that,’ said Baugi. ‘But you’ll have to be as cunning as a whole mountain of Dwarfs to do it.’

  Once the oath was sworn, Odin in his disguise set to work. He had the haycrop scythed and carted and made into neat little stacks before the corn was ripe. Then he reaped the cornfields too, dried and threshed the grain and stored it away in Baugi’s granaries.

  ‘Well, Master Bolverker,’ said the Giant when he had seen that all was done. ‘You’ve worked harder than nine men, and you’ve earned a better reward than even a drink of brother Suttung’s precious mead. Come with me to his castle and I’ll see if I can persuade him to reward you as you deserve.’

  So Odin went with Baugi to the castle of Suttung, but when the Giant heard his brother’s request, he refused flatly. Indeed he flew into a great rage.

  ‘You were always a fool, Baugi,’ he roared. ‘I have secret information that our enemies the Æsir themselves want my mead – and you’d waste it on a good-for-nothing farmhand, just because he cuts hay better than those robbers of yours. This mead of mine must be precious indeed if Odin himself desires it. So I’m not even going to drink it myself just yet. It’s down in my treasure vau
lt under the mountain where no one can get at it. And, just to make quite sure, my daughter Gunnlod is locked up with it as its guardian. I put her there as soon as I heard that the Æsir wanted it. Now go back to your farm, and if you don’t take this Bolverker with you, I’ll make his blood into mead. And I won’t waste time drinking that, I can tell you!’

  Off went Baugi, looking very angry and rather foolish, and Odin walked behind him, thinking hard.

  ‘I fear there’s no way of getting you your drink, friend Bolverker,’ said Baugi at last. ‘When my brother makes up his mind, no one can persuade him to change it.’

  ‘Remember the rest of your promise,’ said Odin. ‘If Suttung would not give me a cup of the mead, you were to help me to take one without his knowledge.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll help you if you can find a way,’ grunted Baugi. ‘But you heard what he said? Under the mountain, and guarded by Gunnlod.’

  ‘We’ll manage it all the same,’ answered Odin. ‘Just take me to the nearest place to this cave where Suttung keeps it.’

  Looking puzzled, Baugi led him into a cave under the mountain, and at last paused in front of a solid wall of rock.

  ‘This is the nearest place outside the castle itself,’ he said. ‘But there’s half a mountain of solid rock between here and Suttung’s cellar.’

  ‘If you do as I tell you, I’ll get all I want,’ answered Odin. With that he took an auger out of his pocket and handed it to Baugi.

  ‘This is a magic auger,’ he said. ‘As you bore with it, it gets longer and longer no matter how deep you drill; and it only stops when it comes out the other side. The rock’s too hard for me, but a Giant like you ought to be able to use it.’

  More puzzled than ever, Baugi took the auger in both hands and set to work boring a hole straight into the stone. On and on he worked, until he began to grow tired. At last he pulled out the auger and flung it down exclaiming:

  ‘There! I’m right through! But what the use of that little hole is, I don’t know!’