Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

Og til þings
Þriðja jöfri
Hveðrungs mær
úr heimi bauð,
þá er Hálfdan,
sá er á Holti bjó
norna dóms
um notið hafði.
Hvethrung's maid
Invited the ("third") king
away from this world
to (or "Þriði-Odin's") Thing
when Halfdan
who dwelt at Holt,
had to suffer
the Norn's judgement.
Since all the dead, whether they are destined for Valhall or for Hel (in the sense of
the subterranean realms of bliss), or for Niflhel, must first report themselves in Hel, their
psychopomps, whether they dwell in Valhall, Hel, or Niflhel, must do the same. This
arrangement is necessary also from the point of view that the unhappy who "die from Hel
into Niflhel" (Vafþrúðnismál) must have attendants who conduct them from the realms of
bliss to the Na-gates, and from there to the realms of torture. Those dead from disease,
who have the subterranean kinswoman of Loki as a guide, may be destined for the realms
of bliss -- then she delivers them there; or be destined for Niflhel -- then they die under
her care and are brought by her through the Na-gates to the worlds of torture in Niflhel.
Far down in Christian times, the participle leikinn was used in a manner which
points to something mythical as the original reason for its application. In Biskupasögur (I.
464) 1 it is said of a man that he was leikinn by some magic being (flagð). Of another
person who sought solitude and talked with himself, it is said in Eyrbyggja Saga, chap.
53 that he was believed to be leikinn. 2 Ynglingatal gives us the mythical explanation of
this word. 3
In its strophe about King Dyggvi, who died from disease, this poem says
(Ynglingingasaga 17) that, as the lower world dis had chosen him, Loki's kinswoman
came and made him leikinn (alvald Yngva þjóðar Loka mær um leikinn hefir). 4 The
person who became leikinn is accordingly visited by Loki's kinswoman, or, if others have
had the same task to perform, by some being who resembled her, and who brought
mental or physical disease.
1 Biskupasögur (The Sagas of the Bishops), a semi historic account of the lives of bishops circa the 11th
through the 14th centuries. Under the entry "leikr," the Vigfusson dictionary quotes: Maðr sá er Snorri hét
var leikinn af flagði einu. "A man named Snorri was bewitched by a hag."
2 Sýndist mönnum þann veg helst sem hann mundi leikinn því að hann fór hjá sér og talaði við sjálfan sig
og fór svo fram um hríð. He remained shy of other people and everyone thought he must have been leikinn,
because he kept talking to himself.
3 Leikinn, a participle of the verb leika, can mean "bewitched," "affected by magic," but there is no need to
presuppose something mythic behind it. These examples can be explained by the common useages of the
word which are: 1) to play, play with; 2) to play at sports; 3) to treat, usually with a negative connotation:
leika einhvern illa = "treat someone badly, harm." Related to this meaning is leika á = "to trick, delude,
confound."; 4) to act, do, know how to do; 5) to pretend, imitate, act; 6) to move, to tremble, to move
freely, revolve.
In the examples given above, these men may be conceived of as being treated badly, to be harmed by a
flagd or similar creature, and thus leikinn (deluded). From this point on, Rydberg's attempt to associate the
name Leikin (sic Leikn) with the word leikinn is seriously flawed.
4 Here the Loki-daughter does delude (leikinn) King Dyngvi, but as the previous reference to the flagd
demonstrates, she is not the only being capable of such action.