Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

the linking of a ship with the deities of peace and plenty. We need to remember too that there was an obvious link between the Vanir and the sea for the people of the north, for much of their food came from it. A dearth of fish was as terrible a calamity as a failure of the crops, and on the poor farms folk depended on their store of dried fish to get them through the worst of the winter. Men prayed to the gods for a double harvest, from the earth and from the ocean, and it would naturally be to the Vanir to whom they would turn to bless the fishing boats and to draw the fish into the sounds and fiords.

3. The Depths of the Sea

There is little doubt however that the connexion of water with fertility, existing in some form in all the great pagan religions, goes deeper than dependence on sea and river as a source of food. Water is seen as the source of inspiration, of wisdom, even of life itself. It is regarded also as a cleansing and renewing element, from which man can rise new-born. Thus, according to the myth of the end of the northern gods, a new world was destined to rise from the old, and would emerge from the ocean after the fires of destruction had been quenched. This world was in fact the old one cleansed and renewed, since the gold playing-pieces of the ancient gods still lay forgotten in the grass. Out of the sea also came the rulers who were to bring peace and prosperity to the land. The image which men liked to form of them was of a little child voyaging alone in a boat, as the cycle began anew and an infant coming from the sea formed the link between the world of men and that of the gods.

The sea at the same time was the element of. destruction. At Ragnarok it was to rise and cover the earth, devouring the dwellings of men and gods along with the overwhelming fire. The chief enemy of Thor, who protected mankind and the gods from chaos and anarchy, was the ancient serpent who dwelt in the ocean depths. This serpent, called by the poets the ‘girdle of earth’, lay coiled round the world, and it was when he lashed himself into giant rage at the end of the world that the sea covered the land and men and gods perished. The implication in the story of Thor’s fishing is that had the god been worsted in his struggle with the monster in the sea, it would have meant the world’s destruction then and there. Even in the comic tale of Thor’s struggle to lift the serpent in the form of a great grey cat, there was a moment of terror for those who watched to see what the end would be. Like Leviathan and the Kraken, the serpent was a monster of the ocean depths, the eternal enemy of the guardian of the sky. The serpent is linked with the giants, and with the snakes that inhabit the world of death and are its symbols. Beside him we must set the fiery dragon of northern mythology, emerging from the depths of the earth, from rocks, caves, or burial mounds of the dead. To him we shall return in the next chapter.

Thus the fertile sea, source of inspiration and life, and yet a force of destruction, must be set beside the earth, which forms both the cradle of life and its engulfing grave. The dark depths of earth and sea are an essential part of all mythologies. They form the foundations on which the northern Asgard was built.

Chapter 6 - The Gods of the Dead

Graves are the mountain tops of a distant, lovely land.

Attributed to the Koran

1. Odin and Mercury

We know that in the early days the Germanic peoples made costly sacrifices both to Tiwaz and to Wodan, dedicating to them those who fell in battle or who came into their hands as captives. Gradually Wodan, whom the Romans called Mercury, supplanted his rival. He was regarded as the ancestor of kings, and he welcomed them to his halls after death; he was the deity to whom human sacrifices were offered by burning, strangling, and stabbing with a spear. In the myths known to Snorri he had grown greatly in stature, and become Odin, father of the gods and ruler of Asgard. Even the powerful Thunder God was now viewed as his son, although Snorri had doubts about this, and in his preface made Thor the first of the gods of the north. Odin, as we have seen, was the god of battle, whose symbols were the spear and the raven, but in the poems and sagas known to Snorri he is shown in other aspects. He was also the ancient one-eyed god, crafty and skilled in magic lore, a great shape-changer, and an expert in the consultation of the dead. He was the rider on the eight-legged steed, the wanderer up and down the earth, the god knowing the secrets of travel between the worlds.

Since the Romans equated Wodan with Mercury, we may assume that similarities between the two deities existed as early as the days of Tacitus. Even if Wodan, like Odin, resembled Mercury in wearing a hat, this is not enough to account for the identification; the Romans were not likely to be misled by superficial features of this kind. Mercury was the god of trade, the patron of wisdom and learning, the god who was carried by his winged sandals over land and sea, and the guide who directed souls to the Other World. This gives us a starting point to the study of Wodan as god of the dead.

Like Mercury, Wodan was evidently concerned with trade, for German inscriptions to Mercury in the Roman period bear titles such as Mercator and Negotiator. Among Scandinavian names given to Odin, we similarly find Farmantyr, ‘god of cargoes’. As for learning, Odin was renowned for his discovery or invention of the runic letters, which for the Germanic peoples before their conversion represented both learning and magic lore. Wodan seems to have had the same reputation. In the Old English poem Solomon and Saturn, the reply to the question: ‘Who first set down letters ?’ is ‘Mercurius the Giant’. Many myths known to Snorri testify to Odin’s habit of wandering about the earth and of flying through the air, either in bird form or on his horse Sleipnir, while in the sagas he frequently appears as the one-eyed stranger, arriving when least expected. His favourite method of travel was on his eight-legged steed, and Wodan before him rode on horseback. The Second Merseburg Charm, in which Wodan heals a horse’s leg, suggests that this connexion was known in heathen Germany. Most interesting of the characteristics of Mercury is his function as psychopompos, the guide of souls down to the underworld. This in particular is the aspect of Odin which must hold our attention when we come to consider him as God of the Dead.

2. Odin as a Shaman

Reference has already been made (pp. 118–19) to the practice of shamanism, a form of religion current up to recent times in north-eastern Europe, and many parts of Asia and America, and one which has by no means wholly disappeared. The shaman’s main function is to act as a kind of priest or witch-doctor – though neither term is wholly satisfactory – and to offer himself as a link between the human community to which he belongs and the Other World. While in a state of trance, he is believed to journey in spirit to the furthest heaven or to the land of the dead, so that he may visit the gods to obtain knowledge, or rescue some soul which disease or madness has expelled from its body. He acts as a seer, sometimes foretelling the future, finding the reason for calamities and disease, and answering questions concerning the destinies of those who consult him. We have seen that the volva, whose links appear to be with the Vanir, possessed certain of the characteristics of the shaman. The figure of Odin in his aspect as god of the dead undoubtedly fits into the same pattern, and this is an important side of his cult to set beside his character as a war god.

First, the eight-legged horse of Odin is the typical steed of the shaman. In his journeys to the heaven or the underworld, the shaman is usually represented as riding on some bird or animal. The character of the creature varies, but the horse is fairly common in the lands where horses are in general use, and Sleipnir’s ability to bear the god through the air is typical of the shaman’s steed. Eliade in his detailed study of shamanism throughout the