Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

serpent-symbol of eternity, the liquids of the three world-fountains which give life to all
the world, and thereby their litur gets a higher grade of body and nobler blood (see Nos.
72, 73). Those sentenced to torture must also drink, but it is a drink eitri blandinn mjög,
"much mixed with venom," and it is illu heilli, that is, a warning of evil. This drink also
restores their bodies, but only to make them feel the burden of torture. The liquid of life
which they imbibe in this drink is the same as that which was thought to flow in the veins
of the demons of torture. When Hadding with his sword wounds the demon-hand which
grasps after Hardgreip and tears her into pieces (see No. 41), there flows from the wound
"more venom than blood" (plus tabi quam cruoris - Saxo, Book 1).
When Lodur had given Ask and Embla litur goða, an inner body formed in the
image of the gods, a body which gives to their earthly tabernacle a human-divine type,
they received from Hoenir the gift which is called óður. 474 In signification this word
corresponds most closely to the Latin mens, 475 the Greek noûs (cp. Vigfusson's
Dictionary), and means that material which forms the kernel of a human personality, its
ego, and whose manifestations are understanding, memory, fancy, and will.
Vigfusson has called attention to the fact that the epithet langifótur and
aurkonungr, "Long-leg" and "Mire-king" applied to Hoenir, is applicable to the stork, and
that this cannot be an accident, as the very name Hænir suggests a bird, and is related to
the Greek kuknos and the Sanscrit sakunas (Corpus Poet. Bor., I. p. cii.). 476 It should be
borne in mind in this connection that the stork even to this day is regarded as a sacred and
protected bird, and that among Scandinavians and Germans there still exists a nursery tale
telling how the stork takes from some saga-pond the little fruits of man and brings them
to their mothers. The tale which now belongs to the nursery has its root in the myth,
where Hoenir gives our first parents that very gift which in a spiritual sense makes them
human beings and contains the personal ego. It is both possible and probable that the
conditions essential to the existence of every person were conceived as being analogous
with the conditions attending the creation of the first human pair, and that the gifts which
were then given by the gods to Ask and Embla were thought to be repeated in the case of
each one of their descendants -- that Hoenir consequently was believed to be continually
active in the same manner as when the first human pair was created, giving to the motherfruit
the ego that is to be. The fruit itself out of which the child is developed was
conceived as grown on the world-tree, which therefore is called manna mjötuður 477
(Fjölsvinnsmál 22). Every fruit of this kind (aldin) that matured (and fell from the
branches of the world-tree into the mythic pond ?) is fetched by the winged servants of
474 Vigfusson defines the word as "mind, wit, soul, sense." LaFarge-Tucker define the word as "mental
faculties or voice." It is significant to note that this is one of the bynames of Freyja's husband Svipdag, the
subject of the poem Fjölsvinnsmál discussed more fully in the next section.
475 "mind, intellect, attitude, understanding, reason"
476 "In the Eddaic legend one of these gods is called Hænir; he is the speech-giver of Vóluspá, and is
described in praises taken from lost poems as "the long-legged one" [langifótr], "the lord of the ooze"
[aurkonungr]. Strange epithets, but easily explainable when one gets at the etymology of Hæni = hohni =
Sansc. sakunas = Gr. kuknos = the white bird, swan, or stork, that stalks along in the mud, lord of the
marsh; and it is now easy to see that this bird is the Creator walking in chaos." Vigfusson, Corpus Poeticum
Boreale, vol. I., Introduction, p. cii.
477 "The one who metes out fate among men." Mjötuður is related to OE metod. Yggdrasil is designated
mjötviður in Völuspá 2.