Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

frequently they perish in this abyss. But sometimes, when they are on the point of being
swallowed up, they are driven back with the same terrible swiftness."
From what Paulus Diaconus here relates we learn that in the eighth century the
common belief prevailed among the heathen Teutons that in the neighborhood of that
ocean-maelstrom, caused by Hvergelmir ("the roaring kettle"), seven men slept from time
immemorial under a rock. How far the heathen Teutons believed that these men were
Romans and Christians, or whether this feature is to be attributed to a conjecture by
Christian Teutons, and came through influence from the Christian version of the legend
of the seven sleepers, is a question which it is not necessary to discuss at present. That
they are some day to awake to preach Christianity to "the stubborn," still heathen
Germanic tribes is manifestly a supposition on the part of Paulus himself, and he does not
present it as anything else. It has nothing to do with the saga in its heathen form.
The first question now is: Has the heathen tradition in regard to the seven
sleepers, which, according to the testimony of the Longobardian historian, was common
among the heathen Teutons of the eighth century, since then disappeared without leaving
any traces in our mythic records?
The answer is: Traces of it reappear in Saxo, in Adam of Bremen, in Norse and
German popular belief, and in Völuspá. When compared with one another these traces are
sufficient to determine the character and original place of the tradition in the epic of the
Germanic mythology.
I have already given above (No. 46) the main features of Saxo's account of King
Gorm's and Thorkil's journey to and in the lower world. With their companions they are
permitted to visit the abodes of torture of the damned and the fields of bliss, together with
the gold-clad world-fountains, and to see the treasures preserved in their vicinity. In the
same realm where these fountains are found there is, says Saxo, a tabernaculum within
which still more precious treasures are preserved. It is an uberioris thesauri
secretarium. 23 The Danish adventurers also entered here. The treasury was also an
armory, and contained weapons suited to be borne by warriors of superhuman size. The
owners and makers of these arms were also there, but they were perfectly quiet and as
immovable as lifeless figures. Still they were not dead, but made the impression of being
half-dead (semineces). By the enticing beauty and value of the treasures, and partly, too,
by the dormant condition of the owners, the Danes were betrayed into an attempt to
secure some of these precious things. Even the usually cautious Thorkil set a bad
example and put his hand on a garment (amiculo manum inserens). We are not told by
Saxo whether the garment covered anyone of those sleeping in the treasury, nor is it
directly stated that the touching with the hand produced any disagreeable consequences
for Thorkil. But further on Saxo relates that Thorkil became unrecognizable, because a
withering or emaciation (marcor) had changed his body and the features of his face. With
this account in Saxo we must compare what we read in Adam of Bremen 24 about the
Frisian adventurers who tried to plunder treasures belonging to giants who in the middle
of the day lay concealed in subterranean caves (meridiano tempore latitantes antris
subterraneis). This account must also have conceived the owners of the treasures as
sleeping while the plundering took place, for not before they were on their way back were
23 "a privy chamber with a yet richer treasure" Elton tr.
24 Adam Bremenis, Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum. "A History of the Arch-Bishops of
Bremen (Hamburg)" c. 1068. Book 4 contains a treatise on geography.