# Northern Antiquities/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
Of the Religion, which prevailed in the North, and particularly in Scandinavia, after the death of Odin.
THE most striking alteration in the doctrines of the primitive religion, was in the number of the Gods who were to be worshipped. A capital point among the Scythians, was that preheminence, I have been describing, of one only all-powerful and perfect being over all the other intelligences with which universal nature was peopled. The firm belief of a doctrine so reasonable had such influence on their minds, that they openly testified on several occasions their hatred and contempt for the polytheism of those nations, who treated them as Barbarians; and made it their first care to destroy all the objects of idolatrous worship in whatever place they established their authority. But the descendants of ​these people being, in all appearance, weary of this simplicity of religion, associated to the supreme God many of those Genii or subaltern divinities, who had been always subordinate to him. As these differed rather in degree of power, than in essence, the transition was very easy to a people, who were not very refined and subtle. To this another reason also contributed. As each of these inferior divinities governed with absolute power every thing within his respective sphere; fear, desire, all their wants, and passions inclined a rude people to have recourse to them, as to a more present, speedy and more accessible help in time of need, rather than to the supreme God, whose name alone imprinted so much respect and terror. It is an inevitable mistake of the human mind to carry the imperfections of its own nature into the idea it forms of the Deity. The deep conviction we have every moment of our own weakness, prevents us from conceiving how it is possible for one single being to move and support all parts of the universe. This is especially inconceivable to an ignorant ​people, who have never suspected that there is any connection between the several parts of nature, and that a general mechanism can produce so many different phænomena. Accordingly, all barbarous nations have ever substituted, instead of the simple and uniform laws of nature which were unknown to them, the operation of spirits, genii and divinities of all kinds, and have given them as assistants to the supreme Being in the moral and physical government of the world. If they have paid to any of them greater honours than to others, it has usually been to those whose dominion extended over such things as were most dear to them, or appeared most worthy of admiration. This was what happened in Scandinavia. In process of time that supreme Being, the idea of whom takes in all existence, was restrained to one particular province, and passed among the generality of the inhabitants for the God of war. No object, in their opinion, could be more worthy his attention, nor more proper to shew forth his power. Hence those frightful pictures which are left us of him in the Icelandic Mythology, where he is always meant under the name of Odin. He is there called “The terrible and severe God; the ​father of slaughter; the God that carrieth desolation and fire; the active and roaring deity; he who giveth victory, and reviveth courage in the conflict; who nameth those that are to be slain.” The warriors who went to battle, made a vow to send him a certain number of souls, which they consecrated to him; these souls were Odin’s right, he received them in Valhall, his ordinary place of residence, where he rewarded all such as died sword in hand. There it was that he distributed to them praises and delight; there he received them at his table, where in a continual feast, as we shall see hereafter, the pleasures of these heroes consisted. The assistance of this Deity was implored in every war that was undertaken; to him the vows of both parties were addressed; and it was believed that he often descended to intermix in the conflict himself, to inflame the fury of the combatants, to strike those who were to perish, and to carry their fouls to his celestial abodes.
This terrible Deity, who took such pleasure in shedding the blood of men, was at the same time, according to the Icelandic mythology, their father and creator. So easily do gross and prejudiced minds reconcile the most glaring contradictions: this same God, whom they served under a ​character that would make even a man abhorred, according to the Edda, “liveth and governeth during the ages, he directeth every thing which is high, and every thing which is low, whatever is great and whatever is small; he hath made the heaven, the air, and man, who is to live for ever: and before the heaven and the earth existed, this God lived already with the giants.” The principal strokes of this picture are found many times repeated in the same work. They have been frequently used by other northern poets. Nor were they peculiar to the inhabitants of Scandinavia. Many ancient people, the Scythians, and the Germans for example, attributed in like manner to the supreme God a superintendance over war. They drew their gods by their own character, who loved nothing so much themselves, as to display their strength and power in battle, and to signalize their vengeance upon their enemies by slaughter and desolation. Without doubt, this idea had taken deep root in the minds of the ancient Danes before the arrival of Odin. The expedition of the Cimbri plainly shows, that war was already in those early times become their ruling passion, and most ​important business: but it is nevertheless probable that this northern conqueror increased their natural ferocity, by infusing into minds so prepared the sanguinary doctrines of his religion. Without doubt, that intimate persuasion of theirs, that the supreme God appeared in battle; that he supported those who defended themselves with courage; that he fought for them himself; that he carried them away into heaven, and that this delightful abode was only open to such as died like heroes, with other circumstances of this kind was either the work of this ambitious prince, or only founded upon some events of his life, which they attributed to the supreme God, when they had once confounded them together. The apotheosis of this Chief and his companions which followed it, involves the history of those times in great obscurity. The Icelandic mythology never distinguishes the supreme Being, who had been adored in the north under the name ​of Odin many ages before, from this prince of the Ases, who usurped his name and the worship that was paid to him. All that one can just make shift to discover amidst so much darkness, is that the Scandinavians were not seduced by the impostures of the Asiatic Odin so far as to be generally persuaded, that he was the supreme God, whose name he had assumed, and to lose all remembrance of the primary belief. I think one may conjecture that it was principally the poets, who delighted to confound these two Odins for the better adorning the pictures they drew of them both. Mention is sometimes made of an ancient Odin, who never came out of Scythia, and who was very different from that other Odin that came into Sweden, and caused divine honours to be paid him at Sigtuna. Some authors make mention also of a third Odin, so that it is very possible this name may have been usurped by many different warriours out of policy and ambition; of all whom posterity made in process of time but one single person; much in the same manner as hath happened with regard to Hercules, in those rude ages when Greece and Italy were no less barbarous than the ​northern nations. However that be, there remains to this-day some traces, of the worship paid to Odin in the name given by almost all the people of the north to the fourth day of the week, which was formerly consecrated to him. It is called by a name which signifies Odin’s day: For as this God was reputed also the author of magic, and inventor of all the arts, he was thought to answer to the Mercury of the Greeks and Romans, and the name of the day consecrated to him was expressed in Latin Dies Mercurii.
The principal Deity among the ancient Danes, after Odin, was Frigga or Frea his wife. It was the opinion of all the Celtic nations, of the ancient Syrians, and of the first inhabitants of Greece, that the supreme Being or celestial God had united ​with the Earth to produce the inferior divinities, man, and all other creatures. Upon this was founded that veneration they had for the Earth, which they considered as a goddess, and the honours which were paid her. They called her Mother earth, and mother of the Gods. The Phenicians adored both these two principles under the names of Tautes and Astarte. They were called by some of the Scythian nations Jupiter and Apia; by the Thracians Cotis and Bendis; by the inhabitants of Greece and Italy, Saturn and Ops. All antiquity is full of traces of this worship, which was formerly universal. We know that the Scythians adored the Earth as a goddess, wife of the supreme God; the Turks celebrated her in their hymns; the Persians offered sacrifices to her. Tacitus attributes the same worship to the Germans, particularly to the inhabitants of the north of Germany. He says, “They adore the goddess Herthus, (meaning the Earth”) and ​gives a circumstantial description of the ceremonies which were observed in honour of her in an island, which he does not name, but which could not have been far from Denmark. We cannot doubt, but this same goddess was the Frigga or Frea of the Scandinavians. The word Frea or Frau signifies a woman in the German language. When therefore the Asiatic prince came into Denmark, and had found the worship of Odin and his wife the Earth established, there is no doubt but the same people, who gave him the name of Odin ​or God, gave his wife also the name of Frea consecrated to the Earth, and that they paid her the same compliment they had done her husband. Thus the same confusion, which prevails in the descriptions given us of Odin, equally obtains in that of his wife; and without doubt the worship of both the one and the other underwent an alteration at this period. This Frea became in the sequel, the goddess of love and debauchery, the Venus of the north, doubtless because she passed for the principle of all fecundity, and for the mother of all existence. It was she that was addressed in order to obtain happy marriages and easy child-births. She dispensed pleasures, enjoyments and delights of all kinds. The Edda stiles her the most favourable of the goddesses; and in imitation of the Venus of the Greeks, who lived in the most tender union with Mars, Frea went to war as well as Odin, and divided with him the souls of the slain and indeed it would have been very hard if the goddess of pleasures had been deprived of an amusement which her votaries were so fond of. It appears to have been the general opinion, that he was the same with the Venus of the Greeks and Romans, since the sixth day of the week which was confecrated to her under the ​name of Freytag, Friday, or Frea’s day, was rendered into Latin Dies Veneris, or Venus’s day.
The third principal deity of the ancient Scandinavians was named Thor, and was no less known than the former among the Celtic nations. Julius Caesar speaks expresly of a God of the Gauls, who was charged with the conduct of the atmosphere, and presided over the winds and tempests. He mentions him under the Latin name of Jupiter: But Lucan gives him a name, which bears a greater resemblance to that of Thor, he calls him Taranis, a word which to this day in the Welsh language signifies thunder. It plainly appears, and is the express opinion of Adam of Bremen, that the authority of this god, extended over the winds and seasons, and particularly over thunder and ​lightning. In the system of the primitive Religion, the God Thor was probably only one of those genii or subaltern divinities, sprung from the union of Odin or the supreme being, and the Earth. The Edda calls him expresly the most valiant of the sons of Odin, but I have not discovered that the employment of launching the thunder was ever attributed to him. In reading the Icelandic mythology, I find him rather considered as the defender and avenger of the Gods. He always carried a mace or club, which as often as he discharged it, returned back to his hand of itself; he grasped it with gauntlets of iron, and was further possessed of a girdle which ​had the virtue to renew his strength as often as was needful. It was with these formidable arms that he overthrew to the ground the monsters and giants, when the Gods sent him to oppose their enemies.
The three deities, whom we have mentioned, composed the court or supreme council of the gods, and were the principal objects of the worship and veneration of all the Scandinavians: but they were not all agreed among themselves about the preference which was due to each of them in particular. The Danes seem to have paid the highest honours to Odin. The inhabitants of Norway and Iceland appear to have been under the immediate protection of Thor: and the Swedes had chosen for their tutelar deity Freya, or rather Frey, an inferior divinity, who, according to the Edda, presided over the seasons of the year, and bestowed peace, fertility and riches. The number and employment of these deities of the second order, it is not very easy to determine, and the matter besides being of no great consequence, I shall point out some of the most material. The Edda reckons up twelve gods and as many goddesses, to whom divine honours were ​due, and who though they had all a certain power, were nevertheless obliged to obey Odin the most ancient of the gods, and the great principle of all things. Such was Niord, the Neptune of the northern nations, who reigned over the sea and winds. This was one of those genii, whom the Celts placed in the elements. The extent of his empire rendered him very respectable, and we find in the North to this day traces of the veneration which was there paid him. The Edda exhorts men to worship him with great devotion for fear he should do them mischief: a motive like that which caused the Romans to erect temples to the Fever: for fear is the most superstitious of all the passions.
Balder was another son of Odin, wife, eloquent, and endowed with such great majesty, that his very glances were bright and shining. Tyr, who must be distinguished from Thor, was also a warrior deity, and the protector of champions and ​brave men. Brage presided over eloquence and poetry. His wife, named Iduna, had the care of certain apples, which the gods tasted, when they found themselves grow old, and which had the power of instantly restoring them to youth. Heimdal was their porter. The gods had made a bridge between heaven and earth: this bridge is the Rain-bow. Heimdal was employed to watch at one of the extremities of this bridge, for fear the giants should make use of it to get into heaven. It was a difficult matter to surprize him, for the gods had given him the faculty of sleeping more lightly than a bird, and of discovering objects by day or night farther than the distance of a hundred leagues. He had also an ear so fine that he could hear the very grass grow in the meadows and the wool on the backs of the sheep. He carried in the one hand a sword, and in the other a trumpet, the sound of which could be heard through all the ​worlds. I suppress here the names of the other gods, who made up the number of twelve; but I ought to bestow a word upon Loke, whom the ancient Scandinavians seem to have regarded as their evil principle, and whom notwithstanding they ranked among the gods. The Edda calls him “the calumniator of the gods, the grand contriver of deceit and frauds, the reproach of gods and men. He is beautiful in his figure, but his mind is evil, and his inclinations inconstant. No body renders him divine honours. He surpasses all mortals in the arts of perfidy and craft.” He hath had many children by Segnie his wife: besides three monsters who owe their birth to him; the wolf Fenris, the serpent Midgard, and Hela or Death. All three are enemies to the gods; who after various struggles have chained this wolf till the last day, when he shall break loose and devour the sun. The serpent hath been cast into the sea, where he shall remain till he is conquered by the god Thor. And Hela or death shall be banished into the lower regions, where she hath the government of nine worlds, into which she distributes those who are sent to her. We find here and there in the Edda ​several other strokes concerning Loke, his wars with the gods, and especially with Thor, his frauds, their resentment againſt him, and the vengeance they took of him, when he was seized and shut up in a cavern formed of three keen-edged stones, where he rages with such violence that he causes all the earthquakes that happen. He will remain there captive, adds the same mythology, till the end of the ages; but then he shall be slain by Heimdal the doorkeeper of the gods.
We have seen above that the Icelandic mythology reckons up twelve goddesses, including Frea or Frigga, the spouse of Odin, and the chief of them all. Each of them hath her particular functions. Eira is the goddess of medicine; Gefione of virginity: Fulla is the confident of Frea and takes care of her dress and ornaments. Freya is favorable to lovers, but more faithful than the Grecian Venus, she weeps incessantly for the absence of her husband Odrus, and her tears are drops of gold. Lofna makes up differences between lovers and married persons though never so much at variance. Vara receives their oaths and punishes such as violate them. Snotra is the goddess of learning and of good manners. Gna is the messenger of Frea. ​Besides these twelve goddesses there are other virgins in Valhall or the paradise of the heroes. Their business is to wait upon them, and they are called Valkeries. Odin also employs them to chuse in battles those who are to perish, and to make the victory incline to whatever side he pleases. The court of the gods is ordinarily kept under a great ash-tree, and there they distribute justice. This ash is the greatest of all trees; its branches cover the surface of the earth, its top reaches to the highest heaven, it is supported by three vast roots, one of which extends to the ninth world, or hell. An eagle, whose piercing eye discovers all things, perches upon its branches. A squirrel is continually running up and down it to bring news; while a parcel of serpents, fastened to the trunk, endeavour to destroy him. From under one of the roots runs a fountain wherein Wisdom lies concealed. From a neighbouring spring (the fountain of past things) three virgins are continually drawing a precious water, with which they water the ash-tree: this water keeps up the beauty of its foliage, and after having refreshed its leaves, falls back again to the earth, where it forms the dew of which ​the bees make their honey. These three virgins always keep under the ash; and it is they who dispense the days and ages of men. Every man hath a Destiny appropriated to himself, who determines the duration and events of his life. But the three Destinies of more especial note are Urd (the past), Werandi (the present), and Sculde (the future).
Such were the principal deities, formerly worshipped in the north of Europe. Or rather these were the ideas which the poets gave of them to that credulous people. It is easy to discover their handy-work in these fictions, sometimes ingenious, but more frequently puerile, with which they thought to set off the simplicity of the antient religion; and we ought not to believe, as we shall prove hereafter, that such of them as were men of sense and discernment ever considered them in any other light. But after having shewn the names and attributes of their principal Deities, let us proceed to set forth after the Edda and the poem named Voluspa, the other Doctrines of their Religion.
​We have seen that among the qualities of which they supposed Odin or the Supream God to be possessed, that of the creator of heaven and earth is expressly attributed to him. It is very probable that most of the nations which were of Celtic race held opinions similar to this, although the few monuments which remain at present of the Celtic religion, leave us ignorant in what manner their Druids or their philosophers conceived this great event to have happened. What the Icelandic mythology hath preserved to us on this head, merits so much the more attention, as it discovers to us the sentiments of the ancient Scythians on this important point, and at the same time expresses them frequently with a greatness and sublimity equal to the finest strokes of classical antiquity on the same subject. The poet begins by a ​description of Chaos. “In the day-spring of the ages, says he, there was neither sea, nor shore, nor refreshing breezes. There was neither earth below, nor heaven above to be distinguished. The whole was only one vast abyss without herb, and without seeds. The sun had then no palace: the stars knew not their dwelling-places, the moon was ignorant of her power.” After this, continues he, “there was a luminous, burning, flaming world towards the south; and from this world flowed out incessantly into the abyss that lay towards the north, torrents of sparkling fire, which in proportion as they removed far away from their source, congealed in their falling into the abyss, and so filled it with scum and ice. Thus was the abyss by little and little filled quite full: but there remained within it a light and immoveable air, and thence exhaled icy vapours. Then a warm breath coming from the south, melted those vapours, and formed of them living drops, whence was born the giant Ymer. It is ​reported that whilst he slept, an extraordinary sweat under his arm-pits produced a male and female, whence is sprung the race of the giants; a race evil and corrupt, as well as Ymer their author. Another race was brought forth, which formed alliances with that of the giant Ymer: This was called the family of Bor, so named from the first of that family, who was the father of Odin. The sons of Bor slew the giant Ymer, and the blood ran from his wounds in such abundance, that it caused a general inundation, wherein perished all the giants, except only one, who saving himself in a bark, escaped with all his family. Then a new world was formed. The sons of Bor, or the Gods, dragged the body of the giant in the abyss, and of it made the earth: the sea and rivers were composed of his blood; the earth of his flesh; the great mountains of his bones; the rocks of his teeth and of splinters of his bones broken. They made of his scull the vault of heaven, which is supported by four dwarfs named South, North, East and West. They fixed there tapers to enlighten it, and assigned to other fires certain spaces which they were to run through, some of them in heaven, others under ​the heaven: The days were distinguished, and the years were numbered. They made the earth round, and surrounded it with the deep ocean, upon the banks of which they placed the giants. One day, as the sons of Bor, or the gods, were taking a walk, they found two pieces of wood floating upon the water; these they took, and out of them made a man and a woman. The eldest of the gods gave them life and souls; the second motion and knowledge; the third the gift of speech, hearing and sight, to which he added beauty and raiment. From this man and this woman, named Askus and Embla, is descended the race of men who are permitted to inhabit the earth.”
It is easy to trace out in this narration vestiges of an ancient and general tradition, of which every sect of paganism hath altered, adorned or suppressed many circumstances, according to their own fancy, and which is now only to be found intire in the books of Moses. Let the strokes we have here produced be compared with the beginning of Hesiod's Theogony, with the mythology of some Asiatic nations, and with the book of Genesis, and we shall instantly be convinced, that the conformity which is found between many circumstances of their recitals, cannot be the ​mere work of chance. Thus in the Edda the description of the Chaos; that vivifying breath which produces the giant Ymer; that sleep during which a male and female spring from his sides; that race of the sons of the gods; that deluge which only one man escapes, with his family, by means of a bark; that renewal of the world which succeeds; that first man and first woman created by the gods, and who receive from them life and motion: all this seems to be only remains of a more ancient and more general belief, which the Scythians carried with them when they retired into the North, and which they altered more slowly than the other nations. One may discover also in the very nature of these alterations the same spirit of allegory, the same desire of accounting for all the phænomena of nature by fictions, which hath suggested to other nations the greatest part of the fables with which their theology is infected. To conclude, the style itself, in which the expressions, one while sublime, one while extravagant and gigantic, are thrown together without art; the littlenesses that accompany the most magnificent descriptions; the disorder of the narrative; the uniform turn of the phrases, confirms to all who read this work an idea of a very remote antiquity, and a mode of thinking and ​writing peculiar to a simple and gross people, who were unacquainted with any rules of composition, and whose vigorous imagination, despising or not knowing any rules of art, displays itself in all the liberty and energy of nature.
It was thus the world was created; or to express it in a manner, more conformable to the Celtic notions, It was thus that the matter already existing but without order and without life, was animated and disposed by the Gods in the present state in which we behold it. I have already remarked, that they were far from supposing that after it had received the first motion from the hands of the Gods, the world continued to subsist, and to move independent of its first movers. Perhaps no religion ever attributed so much to a divine providence as that of the northern nations. This doctrine served them for a key, as commodious, as it was universal, to unlock all the phænomena of nature without exception. The intelligencies united to different bodies, penetrated and moved them; and men needed not to look any farther than to them, to find the cause of every thing they observed in them. Thus entire nature animated and always moved immediately by one or more intelligent causes, was in their system nothing more ​than the organ or instrument of the divinity, and became a kind of book in which they thought they could read his will, inclinations and designs. Hence that weakness formerly common to so many nations, and of which the traces still subsist in many places, that makes them regard a thousand indifferent phænomena, such as the quivering of leaves, the crackling and colour of flames, the fall of thunderbolts, the flight or singing of a bird, mens involuntary motions, their dreams and visions, the movements of the pulse, &c. as intimations which God gives to wise men, of his will. Hence came oracles, divinations, auspices, presages, and lots; in a word all that rubbish of dark superstitions, called at one time religion, at another magic, a science absurd to the eyes of reason, but suitable to the impatience and restlessness of our desires, and which only betrays the weakness of human nature, in promising to relieve it. Such notwithstanding was the principal consequence which the ‘Gothic’ nations drew from the doctrine of a Divine Providence. The ancient Danes carried it to as extravagant a pitch as the rest, as will appear from what I shall say of their sacrifices and presages, when I come to treat of their exterior worship. With respect to the moral precepts, we know very well that ​it hath ever been the failing of mankind to regard these as the least essential part of religion. When they admitted that continual and immediate action of the divinity on all creatures, the Scandinavians had thence concluded that it was impossible for men to effect any change in the course of things, or to resist the destinies. The Stoics themselves did not understand this term in a more rigorous sense than the people of the North. Nothing is more common in the ancient Chronicles than to hear their warriours complaining that the destinies are inflexible, that they are unatirable and cannot be surmounted. We have seen above that they reckoned the Parcae or Goddesses of destiny to be three in number, as well as the Greeks; and like them attributed to them the determination of all events. Every man had also his own destiny, who assisted at the moment of his birth, and marked before hand the period of his days. It is yet probable that they considered Odin or the supreme God, as the author and arbiter of the destinies. This ​the Edda insinuates pretty clearly, when it tells us, that he hath established from the beginning governors to regulate the destinies of mortals. One may conceive what impression this doctrine must have made upon men who were naturally warlike. Recent examples have shewn us, that it never fails among men to add strength to their ruling passion, and to produce particularly in such as love war, a blind temerity which knows neither measure nor danger. But to this unlucky prejudice the ancient inhabitants of the north added another, the effects of which were no less barbarous: which was, that the term of a man’s life might be prolonged, if any one would put himself in his place and die in his stead. This was often practised when a prince or illustrious warrior was ready to perish by some accident; Odin appeased by such a sacrifice, and content to have a victim, revoked, they said, the decree of the destinies and lengthened the thread of his life whom they were so desirous to save.
The other precepts of this religion probably extended no farther than to be brave and intrepid in war, to serve the ​Gods, and to appease them by sacrifices, not to be unjust, to show hospitality to strangers, to keep their words inviolably, and to be faithful to the marriage bed. There are many remarks to be made upon the sense in which these precepts were taken, and upon the manner in which they were observed; but to avoid repetitions, I shall reserve them for the article in which I shall treat of the Manners of the ancient Danes: There we shall be best able to judge, what influence their religion had upon these people, and by a natural circle, thence form the most exact idea of the spirit of the religion itself. It is now time to discuss another of its doctrines, that of the state of man after death, and the final destiny of the world he now inhabits.
“There will come a time, says the Edda, a barbarous age, an age of the sword, when iniquity shall infest the earth, when brothers shall stain themselves with brothers blood, when sons shall be the murderers of their fathers, and fathers of their sons, when incest and ​adultery shall be common, when no man shall spare his friend. Immediately shall succeed a desolating winter; the snow shall fall from the four corners of the world, the winds shall blow with fury, the whole earth shall be hard bound in ice. Three such winters shall pass away, without being softened by one summer. Then shall succeed astonishing prodigies: Then shall the monsters break their chains and escape: the great Dragon shall roll himself in the ocean, and with his motions the earth shall be overflowed: the earth shall be shaken; the trees shall be torn up by the roots; the rocks shall be dashed against each other. The Wolf Fenris, broke loose from his chains, shall open his enormous mouth which reaches from heaven to earth; the fire shall flash out from his eyes and nostrils; he shall devour the sun and the great Dragon who follows him, shall vomit forth upon the waters and into the air, great torrents of venom. In this confusion the stars shall fly from their places, the heaven shall cleave asunder, and the army of evil Genii and Giants conducted by Sortur (the black) and followed by Loke, shall break in, to attack the gods. But Heimdal the door-keeper of the Gods, rises up, he sounds his clanging trumpet; ​the Gods awake and assemble; the great Ash-tree shakes its branches; heaven and earth are full of horror and affright. The Gods fly to arms; the heroes place themselves in battle-array. Odin appears armed in his golden casque and his resplendant cuirass; his vaft fcimetar is in his hands. He attacks the Wolf Fenris; he is devoured by him, and Fenris perishes at the same instant. Thor is suffocated in the floods of venom which the Dragon breathes forth as he expires. Loke and Heimdal mutually kill each other. The fire consumes every ​thing, and the flame reaches up to heaven. But presently after a new earth springs forth from the bosom of the waves, adorned with green meadows; the fields there bring forth without culture, calamities are there unknown, a palace is there raised more shining than the sun, all covered with gold. This is the place that the just will inhabit, and enjoy delights for evermore. Then the powerful, the valiant, he who governs all things, comes forth from his lofty abodes, to render divine justice. He pronounces decrees. He establishes the sacred destinies which shall endure for ever. There is an abode remote from ​the sun, the gates of which face the North; poison rains there through a thousand openings: This place is all composed of the carcasses of Serpents: There run certain torrents, in which are plunged the perjurers, assassins, and those who seduce married women. A black, winged Dragon flies incessantly around, and devours the bodies of the wretched who are there imprisoned.”
Notwithstanding the obscurities which are found in these descriptions, we see that it was a doctrine rendered sacred by the religion of the ancient Scandinavians, that the soul was immortal, and that there was a future state reserved for men, either happy or miserable according to their behaviour here below. All the ‘Gothic and’ Celtic nations held the same opinions, and it was upon these they founded the obligation of serving the Gods, and of being valiant in battle: But although the Greek and Latin historians who have spoke of this people, agree in attributing these notions to them, yet none of them have given any particular account of the nature of these doctrines; and one ought to regard in this respect the Icelandic mythology as a precious monument, without which we can know but very imperfectly this important part of the religion of our fathers. I must here sacrifice to brevity ​many reflections, which the picture I have here copied from thence, naturally presents to the mind. Many in particular would arise on the surprizing conformity that there is between several of the foregoing strokes, and those employed in the gospel to describe the same thing. A conformity so remarkable that one should be tempted to attribute it to the indiscreet zeal of the Christian writer who compiled this mythology, if the Edda alone had transmitted to us this prophecy concerning the last ages of the world, and if we did not find it with the same circumstances in the Voluspa, a poem of greater antiquity, and in which nothing can be discovered that has an air of interpolation, or forgery.
One remark however ought not to be omitted, which is, that this mythology expresly distinguishes two different abodes for the happy, and as many for the culpable: Which is what several authors who have writ of the ancient religion of Europe, have not sufficiently attended to. The first of these abodes was the palace of Odin named Valhalla, where that God received all such as died in a violent manner, from the beginning to the end of the world, that is, to the time of that universal desolation of nature which was to be followed by a new creation, and what they called ​Ragnarockur, or the Twilight of the Gods. The second, which after the renovation of all things was to be their eternal abode, was named Gimle, that is, the Palace covered with Gold, the description of which we have seen above, where the just were to enjoy delights for ever. It was the same as to the place of punishments; they distinguished two of those, of which the first named Niflheim, was only to continue to the renovation of the world, and the second that succeeded it, was to endure forever. This last was named Nastrond; and we have seen in the description of the end of the world, what idea was entertained of it by the ancient Danes. With regard to the two first places, the Valhalla and Niflheim, they are not only distinguished from the others, in being only to endure till the conflagration of the world, but also in that they seem rather intended to reward violence than virtue, and rather to stifle all the social affections than to deter men from crimes. Those only, whose blood had been shed in battle, might aspire to the pleasures which Odin prepared for them in Valhalla. The pleasures which they expected after death, shew us plainly ​enough what they relished during life. "The heroes, says the Edda, who are received into the palace of Odin, have every day the pleasure of arming themselves, of passing in review, of ranging themselves in order of battle, and of cutting one another in pieces; but as soon as the hour of repast approaches, they return on horseback all safe and sound back to the Hall of Odin, and fall to eating and drinking. Though the number of them cannot be counted, the flesh of the boar Serimner is sufficient for them all; every day it is served up at table, and every day it is renewed again intire: their beverage is beer and mead; one single goat, whose milk is excellent mead, furnishes enough of that liquor to intoxicate all the heroes: their cups are the skulls of enemies they have slain. Odin alone, who sits at a table by himself, drinks wine for his entire liquor. A crowd of virgins wait upon the heroes at table, and fill their cups as fast as they empty them.” Such was that happy state, the bare hope of which rendered all the inhabitants of the North of Europe intrepid, and which made them not only to defy, but even seek with ardor the most cruel deaths. Accordingly ​King Regner Lodbrog when he was going to die, far from uttering groans, or forming complaints, expressed his joy by these verses. "We ‘are’ cut to pieces with swords: but this fills me with joy, when I think of the feast that is preparing for me in Odin’s palace. Quickly, quickly seated in the splendid habitation of the Gods, we shall drink beer out of the skulls of our enemies. A brave man fears not to die. I shall utter no timorous words as I enter the Hall of Odin.” This fanatic hope derived additional force from the ignominy affixed to every kind of death but such as was of a violent nature, and from the fear of being sent after such an exit into Niflheim. This was a place consisting of nine worlds, reserved for those that died of disease or old age. Hela or death, there exercised her despotic power; her palace was Anguish; her table Famine; her waiters were Expectation and Delay; the threshold of her door, was Precipice; her bed Leanness: she was livid and ghaftly pale; and her very looks inspired horror.
After this defcription of the religion of the Scandinavians, can we be surprized ​that they should make war their only business, and carry their valour to the utmost excesses of fanaticism. Such also will be the features which I shall most frequently have occasion to present, when I come to give a picture of their manners: there the influence of a doctrine so pernicious will be felt in its utmost extent. But justice obliges me to observe here, that the reproach arising from it does not affect the ancient inhabitants of the North more, than those of all Europe in general, unless it be that they continued to deserve it longer. However strange to a man who reasons coolly may appear the madness of making war habitually, for the sake of war itself: it must not-withstanding be allowed, that this hath been for a succession of ages the favourite passion of all those nations at present so polite; and it is but, as it were, of yesterday that they began to be sensible of the value of peace, of the cultivation of arts, and of a government favourable to industry. The farther we look back towards their infancy, the more we see them occupied in war, divided among themselves, cruelly bent on the destruction of each other, by a spirit of revenge, idleness and fanaticism. There was a time when the whole face of Europe presented the same spectacle as the forests of America; viz. a thousand little wandering ​nations, without cities or towns, or agriculture, or arts; having nothing to subsist on but a few herds, wild fruits and pillage, harrassing themselves incessantly by inroads and attacks, sometimes conquering, sometimes conquered, often totally overthrown and destroyed. The same causes every where produce the same effects: a savage life necessarily produces cruelty and injustice; disquiet, idleness and envy naturally lead to violence, and the desire of rapine and mischief. The fear of death is no restraint when life has no comfort. What evidently proves the unhappiness of those nations who live in such a state as this, is the facility with which they throw their lives away. The pleasure arising from property, from sentiment and knowledge, the fruits of industry, laws and arts, by softening life and endearing it to us, can alone give us a relish for peace and justice.
* ↑ They demolished the temples and statues of their Gods: this was done by the Persians (whose religion seems originally to have differed but little from that of the Scythians and Celtes) when under the banners of Xerxes they entered Greece. See Cicero de legibus, L. 2.
* ↑ See the Edda, Mythol. 3. & seq.
* ↑ See Mythol. 3.
* ↑ Abbe Banier says very sensibly, that we should always distinguish in the Gods of Antiquity, those whose worship has been antecedent to the existence of their great men, from those who having been deified for some great actions, have been honoured with the same worship, as the Gods whose names they have taken. See his mythology. Vol. 3. Book 7. c. 2.
* ↑ Wormii Monumenta Danica. Lib. 1. p. 12. Therm. Torfœi Series Regum & Dynaft. Dan. Lib. 2. c. 3.
* ↑ ‘Several learned men have proved very clearly that the word Hercules, was a name given to all the leaders of Colonies, who came out of Asia to settle in Greece, Italy and Spain. May not one conjecture with some probability, that the name of Odin was given in like manner to all the leaders of Scythian colonies, who came from Asia to form settlements in the north?’
* ↑ It is called in Icelandic Wonsdag, in Swedish Odinsdag, in Low Dutch Woensdag, in Anglo-Saxon Wodensdag, in English Wednesday, that is, the day of Woden or Odin. Vide Junii Etymologicon Anglicanum. Fol. 1748.
* ↑ In French Mecredi.
* ↑ The name which Tacitus gives to this goddess, signifies the Earth in all the northern (or Teutonic) languages. Thus it is in the ancient Gothic, Airtha: in the Anglo-Saxon, Eorthe, Ertha, Hertha: English, Earth: in Danish, Jord: in Belgic, Aerde, &c. Vid. Junii Etymolog. Anglican. T.
* ↑ Cluverius pretends that it is the isle of Rugen, which is in the Baltic sea, on the coast of Pomerania. Germ. Antiq. p. 134. Yet as Tacitus places it in the ocean, it is more likely to have been the isle of Heiligeland, which is not far from the mouth of the Elb. The Angles (Angli, from whom our English ancestors derived their name) were seated on this coaft: and Arnkiel hath shown in his Cimbric Antiquities, that the ancient Germans held this island in great veneration. The word Heiligeland, signifies “Holy Land.” See Pelloutier’s Hist. des Celtes. Tom. 2. Chap. 18. ——— Other learned men pretend that the isle in question was Zealand, but it is after all, not very certain or important. Vid. Mallet’s First Edit. T.
* ↑ The Lydians and other people of Asia minor acknowledged her under the name of Rhea, which is doubtless the same as Frea with a different aspiration. First Edit.
* ↑ She was also known under the name of Astagod or the goddess of love, a name which is not very remote from that of Astarte, by which the Phenicians denoted her; and under that of Goya, which the ancient Greeks gave to the earth. She was sometimes confounded with the moon who was thought as well as her to have influence over the increase of the human species, for which reason the full moon was considered as the most favourable time for nuptials.
* ↑ Cæsar Comment. L. 6. c. 17.
* ↑ Pellout. Hist. des Celtes. Lib. 3. c. 6.
* ↑ Thor præsidet in aere; fulmina, fruges gubernat. (Adam Brem. Hist. Eccles. c. 233.) Dudo de St. Quentin observes the fame thing of the Normans and Goths, adding that they offered human sacrifices. There was also a day consecrated to Thor, which still retains his name in the Danish, Swedish, English, and Low-dutch languages. [e. g. Dan. Thorsdag, Sued. Tors-dag. Eng. Thursday. Belg. Donderdag. Vide Jun. Etym.] This word has been rendered into Latin, by Dies Jovis, or Jupiter’s day; for this Deity, according to ideas of the Romans also, was the God of Thunder. In consequence of the same opinion, this day hath received a similar name in the dialect of High-Germany. It is called there by a name composed of the word Pen or Penning, which signifies the summit of a mountain, and the God, who presides (in that place) over thunder and tempest.
* ↑ Edda Mythol. 7.
* ↑ Edda, Mythol. 18.
* ↑ Mythol. 21.
* ↑ Niord was the father of that Frey, the patron of the Swedes, whom I have mentioned above, and of Freya the goddess of beauty and love, who hath been confounded with Frea or Frigga, the wife of Odin. See the Edda, 20. First Edit.
* ↑ From Tyr is derived the name given to the third day of the week in most of the northern languages, viz. in Dan. Tyrsdag or Tiisdag; Sued. Tisdag; English, Tuesday; in Low Dutch, Dings-tag: in Latin, Dies Martis. This proves that Tyr answered to Mars. The Germans in High Dutch call this day Erichs-tag, from the word Heric, or Harec, a Warrior, which comes to the same thing.
* ↑ Edda Mythol. 25.
* ↑ Mythol. 26.
* ↑ See the Edda: Mythol. 14.
* ↑ It is believed, that Sæmond, surnamed the learned, compiled a very extensive Mythology, of which at present we have only an abridgment. We have still three or four fragments of this first Edda, the most valuable of which is a poem of about 400 verses, which is still extant, and intitled the Voluspa, that is to say, “The Oracle of the Prophetess.” It contains an abstract of all the northern Mythology, and appears very ancient; but is not every where easy to be understood.
* ↑ I quote as much as possible the very words of the Voluspa, and when they appear to me too obscure, I supply them from the Edda, which is for the most part, only a kind of paraphrase of this poem. See especially Mythol. 4, 5, & seqq. Edd. Island. Resenii. Havniæ, 1665. First Edit.
* ↑ It is this doctrine of the ancient Celtic (and northern) Mythology, which has produced all the stories of fairies, and the marvellous of modern Romances, as that of the ancient Romances, is founded on the Greek and Roman Mythology. This will appear more plainly in the sequel of this work.
* ↑ The author (I suppose) alludes to Charles XII of Sweden: See his Hiftory by Voltaire.
* ↑ As among all the Celtic nations. Orig.
* ↑ See Mythol. 48. and 49. and the Poem of the Voluspa towards the end, as it is found in the Edit. of Resenius. See also the fragments cited by Bartholin. De Caus. Contempt. a Dan. Gentil. mortis. L. 2. c. 14.
* ↑ It is very difficult to comprehend why the Scandinavians make their Gods to die thus, without ever returning again to life: For after the defeat of the three principal divinities, we see an all-powerful Deity appear upon the stage, who seems to have nothing in common with Odin. The Stoics had probably the same ideas: there is at least a very remarkable passage of Seneca the tragedian on this subject. It is where he describes that conflagration which is to put an end to this world. Jam jam legibus obrutis Mundo cum veniet dies Australis polus obruet Quicquid per Lybiam jacet, &c. Arctous polus obruet Quicquid subjacet axibus. Amissum trepidus polo Titan excutiet diem. Cœli regia concidens Ortus atque obitus trahet Atque omnes pariter Deos Perdet mors aliqua, et Chaos Et mors et fata novissima In se constituet sibi Quis mundum capiet locus? So remarkable a conformity seems to suppose that the two systems had one common original, nor would it be astonishing if they had. There were among the barbarous nations Sages of great repute, as is acknowledged by the Greeks and Romans themselves, strongly prejudiced as they were against them: And it is very probable that more than one philosopher had picked up among the Scythians or Thracians, considerable information, especially with regard to religion and morality. 1st Ed.
* ↑ This word signifies the Abode of the wicked, from the island Nifl evil, and Heim home.
* ↑ The shore of the dead.
* ↑ Edda Iceland. Mythol. 31, 33, 34, 35.
* ↑ See “Five Pieces of Runic Poetry, translated from the Icelandic.” Lond. 1763. 8vo.—Olaii Wormii Literatur. Run. ad calc.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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