SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Voluspa 129
want to have others work for them, and try to trick them
out of their rewards. Loki makes use of their own giantinherited
quality of inertia.
The builder completes his task and demands his fee.
Then the gods wake as from sleep and ask who has caused
this terrible dilemma. For now there are only two choices
open to them - either to give Freyja, the sun and the
moon back to the giants (make the world again into dead
uncreation) or break their oaths to the builder. The latter
choice must be made. The oaths, mal all meginlig, are
broken. Now the world of gods and men is totally
corrupt. Now the giants need only await the harvest of
their sowing.
Itis an especially noteworthy idea to make oathbreaking
the cause of the "fall" of the gods. What are breaches of
oath or promise in their nature? Nothing but inconsistency
and disharmony. One part, one strand of man's
temperament, promises that which the whole cannot
perform. The keeping of one's word is the vital nerve
of all ethics: to be punctilious in carrying out promises to
others and in carrying out one's own intentions. He who
is constantly in accord with the best in himself, who is
always whole and sincere, cannot be a bad man. He who
is constantly in accord with the worst in himself can
never be dangerous, because no one could be mistaken in
him. "But because thou art lukewarm and neither hot
nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth" (Rev. iii, 16).
The dual nature of the gods causes their oathbreaking.
They want to use the giants, and think the end justifies
the means. They do not understand that the strongest
fortress round Asgar6r was their own innocence. They
fall into a trap from which crime is the only way out.
The author of Voluspa could not have drawn this understanding
of the fall from Christianity. The biblical fall
is not nearly so well explained. Adam and Eve are
created sinless, in the image of God. Whence came the
serpent's rights in them? From whom did he receive his