# Northern Antiquities/An Idea of the More Ancient Edda

AN
IDEA
OF THE
MORE ANCIENT
EDDA.
IT is now time to describe what remains of the former Edda, compiled by Soemund, surnamed the Learned, more than an hundred years before that of Snorro. It was a collection of very ancient poems, which had for their subject some article of the Religion and Morality of Odin. The share that Sæmund had in them, was probably no more than that of first collecting and committing them to writing. This collection is at present considered as lost, excepting only three pieces, which I shall describe below: But some people have, not without good reason, imagined that this ancient Edda, or at least the greatest part of it, is still preserved. It were to be ​wished, that the possessors of such a treasure could be induced to esteem the communication of it to the world, the greatest advantage they can reap from it; and they are now urged, in the name of the public, to this generous action. Be that as it may, the admirers of the antiquities of the north have, in the fragments of this work, which may be seen and consulted, sufficient to reward their researches. The remainder is probably less interesting; and this may perhaps have been the cause of its being consigned to oblivion.
THE first of these pieces is that which I have so often quoted under the title of Voluspa; a word which signifies the Oracle, or the Prophesy of Vola. It is well known, that there were among the Celtic nations, women who foretold future events, uttered oracles, and maintained a strict commerce with the Divinity. Tacitus makes frequent mention of one of them, named Velleda, who was in high repute among the Bructeri, a people of Germany, and who was afterwards carried to Rome. There was one in Italy, whose name had a still nearer affinity to this of Vola, viz. that Sibyl, whom Horace (Epod. V.) calls Ariminensis Folia. Vola or Folia might perhaps be a general name for all the women of this kind. As these names are evidently connected with ​the idea of Folly or Madness, they would at least be due to those enthusiastick ravings and mad contortions with which such women delivered their pretended oracles. The word Fol bore the same meaning in the ancient Gothic, as it does in French, English, and in almost all the languages of the north; in all which it signifies either a Fool or a Madman.
This Poem attributed to the Sibyl of the north, contains within the compass of two or three hundred lines, that whole system of Mythology, which we have seen disclosed in the Edda; but this laconic brevity, and the obsoleteness of the language in which it is written, make it very difficult to be understood. This, however, does not prevent us from observing frequent instances of grandeur and sublimity, and many images extremely fine: then the general tenor of the work, the want of connection, and the confusion of the style, excite the idea of a very remote antiquity, no less than the matter and subject itself. Such were, ​doubtless, the real Sibylline verses so long preserved at Rome, and so ill counterfeited afterwards. The Poem of the Voluspa is perhaps the only monument now remaining, capable of giving us a true idea of them.
I need not here quote any passages from this Poem: the text of the Edda, is (as we have seen) quite full of them: and I have given pretty long extracts from it in my Remarks. It is sufficient briefly to observe, that the Prophetess having imposed silence on all intellectual beings, declares, that she is going to reveal the decrees of the Father of Nature, the actions and operations of the Gods, which no person ever knew before herself. She then begins with a description of the chaos; and proceeds to the formation of the world, and of that of its various species of inhabitants, Giants, Men and Dwarfs. She then explains the employments of the Fairies or Destinies; the functions of the Gods, their most remarkable adventures, their quarrels with Loke, and the vengeance that ensued. At last, she concludes with a long description of the final state of the universe, its dissolution and conflagration: the battle of the inferior Deities and the Evil Beings: the renovation of the world: the happy lot of the good, and the punishment of the wicked.
​THAT Poem is followed by another no less deserving of regard. It made part of the Edda of Soemund; and, in point of antiquity, does not yield to the Voluspa: this is called Havamaal, or “The Sublime Discourse of Odin,” and is attributed to that God himself, who is supposed to have given these precepts of wisdom to mankind. This piece is the only one of the kind now in the world. We have, directly from the ‘ancient’ Scythians themselves, no other monument on the subject of their morality: whatever we know from any other quarter on this article, being imperfect, corrupted and uncertain. Thus this moral system of Odin’s may, in some measure, supply the loss of the maxims which Zamolxis, Dicenæus, and Anacharsis gave to their Scythian countrymen: maxims which those sages pretended to have derived from heaven, and which were frequently the envy of the Greek Philosophers.
The Havamaal, or Sublime Discourse, is comprised in about one hundred and twenty stanzas. There are very few which are not good and sensible; but as some of them contain only common truths, and others, allusions which it would be tedious and difficult to explain, I shall give only ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/262 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/263 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/264 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/265 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/266 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/267 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/268 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/269 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/270 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/271 ​THESE Fragments of the Ancient Edda are followed, in the Edition of Resenius, by a little Poem called, The Runic Chapter, or the Magic of Odin. I have before observed, that the Conqueror, who usurped this name, attributed to himself the invention of Letters; of which, they had not probably any idea in Scandinavia before his time. But although this noble art is sufficiently wonderful in itself, to attract the veneration of an ignorant people towards the teacher of it: yet Odin caused it to be regarded as the Art of Magic by way of excellence, the art of working all sorts of miracles: whether it was that this new piece of fallacy was subservient to his ambition, or whether he himself was barbarous enough to think there was something supernatural in writing. He speaks, at least in the following Poem, like a man who would make it so believed.
“Do you know (says he) how to engrave Runic characters? how to explain them? how to procure them? how to prove their virtue?” He then goes on to enumerate the wonders he could ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/273 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/274 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/275 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/276 ​Page:Northern Antiquities 2.djvu/277 ​“If I will, I can explain the nature of all the different species of Men, of Genii, and of Gods. None but the wife can know all their differences.
“If I aspire to the love and the favour of the chastest virgin, I can bend the mind of the snowy-armed maiden, and make her yield wholly to my desires.
“I know a secret, which I will never lose; it is to render myself always beloved by my mistress.
“But I know one which I will never impart to any female, except my own sister, or to her whom I hold in my arms. Whatever is known only to one’s self, is always of very great value.”
After this, the Author concludes with exclamations on the beauty of the things he has been describing.
“NOW, says he, have I sung in my august abode, my sublime verses; which are both necessary to the sons of men, and useless to the sons of men. Blessed ​be he who hath sung them! Blessed be he who hath understood them! May they profit him, who hath retained them! blessed be they, who have lent an ear to them!”
The End of the EDDA.
* ↑ Fool, (antiq. Fol) Stultus, delirus, fatuus, rationis expers. Gallicè Fol. Islandice Fol, ferox, iracundus, fatuus insipiens. Folska, Stultitia. Ang. Folly: Gall. Folie. Hinc forsan Ital. Fola, Ineptiæ, nugæ, quid vanum, fatuum fabulosum, &c. Inde verbum Folare, Ineptias, aut stultas & inanes fabulas recitare, nugas venditare. Hickes, in Junij Etymolog. a Lye Edit. T.
* ↑ Des Celtes & des Scythes. Fr.
* ↑ Barthol. p. 658.