It should by now be evident that the study of the northern myths is neither simple nor straightforward. There are, however, more cheering factors to be taken into account. It would be fair to say that the student of early mythology today has a better chance of understanding it than at any previous period since interest in the northern gods was first aroused in the eighteenth century. We have new evidence to draw on, and new disciplines in which to work.
One of the most important of these is archaeology, in which development has been rapid during the last thirty years. We are unlikely to discover fresh written records from the heathen period, but the emergence of a new ship-burial or heathen temple is something which can happen at any time. Such discoveries can show us the way in which the people who worshipped the gods lived, the nature of their religious ceremonial, and how they treated their dead. Funeral rites in particular can tell us much about the use of religious symbolism, and what the worship of the gods meant to those who believed in them. A major archaeological discovery, like that of the Anglo-Saxon ship-burial at Sutton Hoo, may cause us to revise many of our former ideas about religious practice and symbolism. Sacred places like Jelling in Denmark and Old Uppsala in Sweden have been excavated not long ago; as recently as 1962 the site of the first little Christian church in Greenland, set up by the wife of Eric the Red, was discovered. Indeed archaeological evidence increases to an almost bewildering extent: from England alone the excavation of new Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of the pagan period and revaluation of records of earlier excavations are bringing to light fresh facts every year.
There is no doubt that all our resources are needed if we are to read archaeological evidence aright. We want knowledge of written records, the history of religions, and the use of symbolism, as well as the use of all available scientific methods for the preservation of finds. The effort is infinitely worth making, for a temple site or a royal grave, wisely excavated and recorded, can be like a voice speaking directly to us from the past.
Other sources of knowledge are less dramatic, demanding the slow amassing of data rather than sudden discovery. Such sources are the study of place-names, particularly of places named after the heathen gods; the study of religious symbolism, images of gods or monsters on memorial stones or signs representing the gods; and again the study of early inscriptions in Latin or in runes. All these kinds of evidence need to be used with much caution, for it is tempting to base wild assumptions on isolated details. But if assessed prudently, such evidence can throw light on the past, and students of religion too pedantic or cowardly to take it into account cannot hope to make real progress. Moreover there must be ready and generous cooperation between experts in different fields of knowledge if we are to make profitable use of the wealth of new information piling up concerning the pagan religion from which the myths emerged.
Above all, it is fair to say that we are now beginning to understand better the true meaning of the myth because of the great strides made in psychology and the study of the human mind. Every age, from that of Tacitus onwards, has shown interest in the legends of the past, and each has been influenced in its approach by its own particular interests and preconceptions. At the close of the nineteenth century it was believed that myths were essentially attempts to explain natural phenomena. Gods, giants, monsters, and demons who appeared in them were interpreted as standing for the sun and moon, wind, frost, or winter darkness, or for some other manifestation of the natural world. The god Freyr was a sun god, pure and simple. The monster Grendel in the poem
A new step towards the understanding of myth was made when C. G. Jung showed how the symbolism of ancient legends was echoed in the dreams of his patients, in cases where they were quite unfamiliar with the tales. It became clear that certain symbols, such as the dragon emerging from his den, or the climbing of a tree up to heaven, have a widespread significance for mankind. They recur in many parts of the world, in many periods. Our tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, for instance, is paralleled in Polynesia by the story of the hero Maui climbing to the sky; Jacob’s ladder is echoed by the rite of the priest-king of Ancient Ur ascending the Ziggurat, and by the magician-shaman in Siberia in our own times climbing a ladder cut in a beech tree. The symbols are found in folk- tales, in nursery rhymes, and in the imagery of poets, as well as in the legends of the gods. Such symbols may be borrowed in the first instance by one religious system from another, but the reason why they are retained and develop such vigorous life in the new context seems to be due to the deep appeal which they possess to the human mind. They express something of the desires, urges, and fears common to men of every age, to which, in Dr Johnson’s words, ‘every bosom returns an echo’. Thus it is that when we meet them in a legend or in poetic imagery, we experience immediate recognition of their rightness and power.
This method of approach, like the others, is most dangerous if carried to excess. We must not assume that all myths have equal value, as some writers of Jung’s school tend to do. Some have come down to us in a childish or distorted form, some have been copied deliberately by artists or writers, and cannot be regarded as genuine myths expressing an inner experience. We must have the necessary knowledge of the sources and the background before we can attempt to assess and interpret the legends themselves. In a number of books on religious imagery Mircea Eliade has put forward an eloquent plea for the discipline of the history of religions rather than that of depth psychology in interpreting the significance of myths.
Indeed the study of the history of religions has made very great progress during recent years. We now know much more than we did about the attitude of early peoples towards the supernatural. Thanks to the work of anthropologists in many different parts of the world, we can now contradict some of the dogmatic theories which were based on insufficient evidence. We can no longer accept the idea that a universal totemism preceded the belief in gods and spirits, as Freud too rashly assumed from the work of early anthropologists like Taylor. We now know that totemism is completely lacking in the life of many of the most primitive tribes. The idea of an impersonal sacred force, like the ‘mana’ of Melanesia, is apparently not the inevitable precursor of the idea of a god, nor is sun-worship the earliest form of recognizable religion everywhere in the world. We have still much to discover, but it now seems safe to say that at the root of religious beliefs there lies the idea of the sacred, of a power outside man and greater than men. This may be embodied in many different forms: in sacred trees or stones, in the person of the divine king, in the mystery of the Christian incarnation. The instinctive sense of this power, recognized in some form wherever men come together, however simple or complex their society may be, appears to be the moving principle of religious belief.
As our knowledge increases, it also becomes evident that certain patterns are present in the mythologies of the world. These can be traced in widely separate regions and at different ages of civilization. The idea of a Sky God, of a distant father in heaven, is gradually emerging as one of the most widespread conceptions in early religion. The Australian aborigines and many African tribes have such a sky god, the Chinese had an ancient sky god, of whom the emperor was the representative on earth, and the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter appear to have developed out of such a conception. In general however the Sky God remained distant and remote from men’s lives. Other manifestations of the divine became of more immediate importance, such as the worship of dead ancestors or of the totem animal of the tribe, or the deities associated with the earth. Besides the Sky God existed the Earth Mother, the earth who gives birth to all, who gives men food and wealth, and who receives them back to herself when life is over. The Earth as bride of the Sky is one of the universal motifs of world mythology, and there are many myths of how these two were once joined together and had to be separated by force when men were created. The Great Goddess of vegetation and harvest was a development of the Earth Mother. She became increasingly important as agriculture developed among men, and flourished in the fertile Mediterranean lands, under such names as Isis, Demeter, and Cybele. Other divine figures have been emphasized in the work of different scholars. Frazer emphasized that of the Dying God, the male deity linked with the Great Mother, who must perish as the world of nature declines in winter to be reborn in the new life of the spring. As Osiris or Tammuz and under many other names he was lamented throughout the ancient world when his time came to perish in the seasonal round, and in spring he became the symbol of new life emerging from the dead. In the theory occurring throughout his books, Dumezil has taught us to see other figures of widespread significance: the Terrible Sovereign, whose
