Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

30; Grímnismál 36; Skáldskaparmál 9, Jónsson ed.; Skáldska. 2, Faulkes ed.). But the
third of the norns, Skuld, is the chief one in this group (Völuspá 31), and, as shall be
shown below, they for ever remain in the most intimate association with Urd and the
lower world.
65.
ON THE COSMOGRAPHY. THE WAY OF THOSE FALLEN BY THE SWORD TO
VALHALL IS THROUGH THE LOWER WORLD.
The modern conception of the removal of those fallen by the sword to Asgard is
that the valkyries carried them immediately through blue space to the halls above. The
heathens did not conceive the matter in this manner.
It is true that the mythological horses might carry their riders through the air
without pressing a firm foundation with their hoofs. But such a mode of travel was not
the rule, even among the gods, and, when it did happen, it attracted attention even among
them. Compare Gylfaginning, 35, which quotes strophes from a heathen source. 27 The
bridge Bifröst would not have been built or established for the daily connection between
Asgard and Urd's subterranean realm if it had been unnecessary in the mythological
world of fancy. Mani's way in space would not have been regarded as a road in the
concrete sense, that quakes and rattles when Thor's thunder-chariot passes over it (mána
vegur dundi - Haustlöng 1, Skáldskaparmál 25), had it not been thought that Mani was
safer on a firm road than without one of that sort. To every child that grew up in the
homes of our heathen fathers the question must have lain near at hand, what such roads
and bridges were for, if the gods had no advantage from them. The mythology had to be
prepared for such questions, and in this, as in other cases, it had answers with which to
satisfy that claim on causality and consistency which even the most naive view of the
world presents. The answer was: If the Bifröst bridge breaks under its riders, as is to
happen in course of time, then their horses would have to swim in the sea of air (Bilröst
brotnar, er þeir á brú fara, og svima i módu marir -- Fáfnismál 15 28 ; compare a strophe
of Kormak, Kormak's Saga, p. 259, where the atmosphere is called the bay of the gods,
Día fjörðr). 29 A horse does not swim as fast and easily as it runs. The different
possibilities of travel are associated with different kinds of exertion and swiftness. One
method is more practical than the other. The solid connections which were used by the
gods and which the mythology built in space are, accordingly, useful and convenient. The
27
"Né eg flýg,
þó eg fer
og að lofti líðk
á Hófvarpni
þeim er Hamskerpir
gat við Garðrofu."
I am not flying
although I fare
and pass through the air
on Hofvarpnir
whom Hamskerpir
begat with Gardrofa."
28 "Bifröst will break, when they journey across the bridge, and the horses will swim in the river."
Vigfusson notes that the word móða means "a large river" but also "the condensed vapor on a glass and the
like caused by breathing on it," as well as "mist, haziness."
29 Also quoted in Skáldskaparmál 9, Jónsson ed.; 2, Faulkes, ed. The word fjördr is properly defined as a
bay, a firth, an estuary. Anderson has incorrectly rendered the Swedish word fjärd, used by Rydberg, as
fjord. Día fjörðr, the bay of gods, refers to the poetic mead, rather than to the atmosphere.