Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

In the strophe immediately preceding (the 45th) Völuspá describes how it looks
on the surface of Midgard when the end of the world is at hand. Brothers and near
kinsmen slay each other. The sacred bonds of morality are broken. It is the storm-age and
the wolf-age. Men no longer spare or pity one another. Knives and axes rage. Völund's
world-destroying sword of revenge has already been fetched by Fjalar in the guise of the
red cock (str. 42), and from the Ironwood, where it previously had been concealed by
Angurboda and guarded by Eggther; the wolf-giant Hati with his companions have
invaded the world, which it was the duty of the gods to protect. The storms are attended
by eclipses of the sun (str. 41).
Then suddenly the Gjallar-horn sounds, announcing that the destruction of the
world is now to be fulfilled, and just as the first notes of this trumpet penetrate the world,
Mimir's sons spring up. "The old tree," the world-tree, groans and trembles. When
Mimir's sons "spring up" Odin is engaged in conversation with the head of their father,
his faithful adviser, in regard to the impending conflict, which is the last one in which the
gods are to take a hand.
I shall here give reasons for the assumption that the blast from the Gjallar-horn
wakes Mimir's sons from a sleep that has lasted through centuries, and that the Christian
legend concerning the seven sleepers has its chief, if not its only, root in a Germanic
myth which in the second half of the fifth or in the first half of the sixth century was
changed into a legend. At that time large portions of the Germanic race had already been
converted to Christianity: the Goths, Vandals, Gepidians, Rugians, Burgundians, and
Swabians were Christians. Considerable parts of the Roman empire were settled by the
Teutons or governed by their swords. The Franks were on the point of entering the
Christian Church, and behind them the Alamannians and Longobardians. Their myths
and sagas were reconstructed so far as they could be adapted to the new forms and ideas,
and if they, more or less transformed, assumed the garb of a Christian legend, then this
guise enabled them to travel to the utmost limits of Christendom; and if they also
contained, as in the case here in question, ideas that were not entirely foreign to the
Greek-Roman world, then they might the more easily acquire the right of Roman nativity.
In its oldest form the legend of "the seven sleepers" has the following outlines
(Miraculorum Liber, VII., I. 92) 17 :
Seven brothers 18 have their place of rest near the city of Ephesus, and the story of
them is as follows: In the time of the Emperor Decius, while the persecution of the
Christians took place, seven men were captured and brought before the ruler. Their
names were Maximianus, Malchus, Martinianus, Constantius, Dionysius, Joannes, and
Serapion. All sorts of persuasion was attempted, but they would not yield. The emperor,
writes: "I have chosen to interpret Míms here as 'Heimdallr's' and his sons as 'mankind'. …If we take Míms
synir as giants, then leika implies that they are rejoicing as mankind's, and the gods', fate approaches." (PE
II, p. 144)
17 Later Rydberg refers to this simply as Miraculorum Liber, I. 92. Gregorius Turonensis (Gregory of
Tours; c.539-594 AD), best known for his Historia Francorum ("The History of the Franks"), also wrote
seven books of "Miracles," among them his Liber in gloria martyrum ( "Book of the Glories of the
Martyrs") in 587. Modern references list the source of the legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus as
Gregorious' De Gloria Martyrum ("The Glory of the Martyrs") I, 92.
18 For "brothers" the text, perhaps purposely, used the ambiguous word germani. This would, then, not be
the only instance where the word is used in both senses at the same time. Cp. Quintil., 8, 3, 29. [Rydberg]