Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

the gods, and is born á eld 478 into the maternal lap, after being mentally fructified with
óðr by Hoenir.
Út af hans (Mímameiðs) aldni
skal á eld bera
fyr kelisjúkar konur;
utar hverfa
þess þær innar skýli,
sá er hann með mönnum mjötuður. 479
Above, in No. 83, it has been shown that Lóðurr is identical with Mundilföri, the
one producing fire by friction, and that Hænir and Lóðurr are Odin's brothers, also called
Véi and Vili. With regard to the last name it should be remarked that its meaning of "will"
developed out of the meaning "desire," "longing," and that the word preserved this older
meaning also in the secondary sense of cupido, libido, sexual desire. This epithet of
Lóðurr corresponds both with the nature of the gifts he bestows on the human child
which is to be -- that is, the blood and the human, originally divine, form -- and also with
his quality of fire-producer, if, as is probable, the friction-fire had the same symbolic
meaning in the Germanic mythology as in the Rigveda. 480 Like Hoener, Lodur causes the
knitting together of the human generations. While the former fructifies the embryo
developing on the world-tree with óður, it receives from Lodur the warmth of the blood
and human organism. The expression Vilja byrðr, "Vili's burden," "that which Vili has
produced," is from this point of view a well-chosen and at the same time an ambiguous
paraphrase for a human body. The paraphrase occurs in Ynglingatal (Ynglingasaga 14).
When Visbur loses his life in the flames it is there said of him that the fire consumed his
Vilja byrði, his corporal life.
To Lodur's and Hoenir's gifts the highest Asa-god adds the best element in human
nature, önd, spirit, 481 that by which a human being becomes participator in the divine also
in an inner sense, and not only as to form. The divine must here, of course, be understood
in the sense (far different from the ecclesiastical) in which it was used by our heathen
ancestors, to whom the divine, as it can reveal itself in men, chiefly consisted in power of
thought, courage, honesty, veracity, and mercy, but who knew no other humility than that
of patiently bearing such misfortunes as cannot be averted by human ingenuity.
These six elements, united into one in human nature, were of course constantly in
reciprocal activity. The personal kernel óður is on the one hand influenced by önd, the
478 The text of this verse is difficult and its meaning uncertain. Rydberg likely took á eld to mean "in
warmth."
479 "Its fruit is taken and laid upon a fire; for women in labour; out then will come; that which they carry
inside; thus it metes out fate among men." Eysteinn Björnsson tr.
480 When we consider that Rig-Heimdall, as the representative of the holy friction-fire, is said to sleep
between the man and the wife of each of three households, and that a child was born to them nine months
later, it is probable that friction fire had the symbolic significance of sexual union. In regard to Askur and
Embla, Ursula Dronke (PE II, p. 123) says: "…a second mythologem, that of a god as kindler of life
between a male and a female, made of wood. In archaic fire-making rituals fire is sparked by boring with a
hard spike of wood into a softer wooden block: a simulation of sexual action, in which the spark of life is
given by the god."
481 Önd is usually translated as "breath" or "life." Rydberg translates önd with the Swedish ande meaning
"breath" or "spirit."