Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

grotto" - reka einn fyrir Geitis gnýskúta - was a phrase synonymous with damning a
person to death and hell. 7
The gates between the clamor-grottos are watched by various kinds of demons.
Before each gate stand several who in looks and conduct seem to symbolize the sins over
whose perpetrators they keep guard. Outside of one of the caves of torture Gorm's men
saw club-bearers who tried their weapons on one another. Outside of another gate the
keepers amused themselves with "a monstrous game" in which they "mutually gave their
ram-backs a curved motion." 8 It is to be presumed that some sort of perpetrators of
violence were tortured within the threshold, which was guarded by the club-bearers, and
that the ram-shaped demons amused themselves outside of the torture-cave of
debauchees. It is also probable that the latter is identical with the one called Geitir's. The
name Geitir comes from geit, goat. Saxo, who Latinized Geitir into Götharus, tells
adventures of his which show that this giant had tried to get possession of Freyja, and that
he is identical with Gymir, Gerd's father. 9 According to Skírnismál 35, there are found in
Niflhel goats, that is to say, trolls in goat-guise, probably of the same kind as those
above-mentioned, and it may be with an allusion to the fate which awaits Gymir in the
lower world, or with a reference to his epithet Geitir, that Skirnir threatens Gerd with the
disgusting drink (geita hland) 10 which will there be given her by "the sons of misery"
(vílmegir). One of the lower-world demons, who, as his name indicates, was closely
connected with Geitir, is called "Geitir's Howl-foot" (Geitis gnýfeti); and the expression
"to thrust anyone before Geitir's Howl-foot" thus has the same meaning as to send him to
damnation. 11
Continuing their journey, Gorm and his men came to Geirrod's skúti (see No. 46).
We learn from Saxo's description that in the worlds of torture there are seen not
only terrors, but also delusions which tempt the eyes of the greedy. Gorm's prudent
captain Thorkil (see No. 46) earnestly warns his companions not to touch these things, for
hands that come in contact with them are fastened and are held as by invisible bonds. The
illusions are characterized by Saxo as ædis supellectilis, an expression which is
ambiguous, but may be an allusion that they represented things pertaining to temples. The
statement deserves to be compared with Sólarljóð's strophe 65, where the skald sees in
the lower world persons damned, whose hands are riveted together with burning stones.
They are the mockers at religious rites (they who minnst vildu halda helga daga) 12 who
are thus punished. In the mythology, it was probably profaners of temples who suffered
this punishment.
7 Here Rydberg is taking a skaldic kenning too literally. Geitis gnýskúti simply means a "giant's echoing
cave." Egilsson states that "reka fyr Geitis gnýskúta must be equivilent to reka fyr björg to 'chase someone
off a cliff' (to his death)."
8 Elton and Fisher agree in translating this passage as a gruesome game played by tossing a goathide back
and forth. A similar scene occurs in Þorsteins Saga Bæjarmagns (The saga of "Thorstein Mansion-might"
Seven Viking Romances, Penguin, 1985).
9 This refers to the events of Gerd and Frey's marriage. To my knowledge, Rydberg never fully discusses
this episode in the whole of his work on the mythology. A summary appears in the synopis of the mythic
epic in Volume 2 of this work, number 109. The source of this tale is found in Book 5 of Saxo's History.
There King Frodi (Frey) weds Alvid, the daughter of Gotharus.
10 goat urine
11 gnýfeti is simply a variant of gnýskúti in the verse by Þórvaldr inn veili above.
12 They who "would not mind the holy days."