NORTH-EASTERN PASSAGE NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY. 



253 



a Supplement (in 1815); and Memoirs of Titian 

 (1830). He died in 1830. 



NORTH-EASTERN PASSAGE. See North Po- 

 lar Expeditions. 



NORTHERN LIGHT. See Aurora Borealis. 



NORTHERN LITERATURE. See Scandina- 

 vian Literature. 



NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY. The interesting 

 discoveries made by a more intimate acquaintance 

 with the mythologies of the East Indies and Egypt, 

 and a comparison of them with that of Greece (dis- 

 coveries which, in the opinion of some scholars, 

 prove the existence of a universal original religion 

 a pure deism, as some think and, at all events, 

 show the eternal thirst of man to explain the origin 

 of nature, of himself, and, above all, of good and 

 evil), justify us in assigning a separate place to the 

 mythology of the North, which, even if its general 

 traits were borrowed from Asia, must yet be con- 

 sidered as a distinct system. The northern mytho- 

 logy, in the systematic condition in which we now 

 possess it, is the work of scalds, that is, of the ancient 

 northern minstrels of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, 

 and Iceland. Religion and civilization here, as is 

 often the case, sprang from poetry : and here, also, 

 as is so common, cosmogony (q. v.) was the basis of 

 the religion a cosmogony which, at the same time, 

 proves the wild imagination of its authors, and the 

 nature of the country where it originated. The fol- 

 lowing are its most important features : There were 

 originally no heavens above nor earth below ; but 

 only a bottomless deep and a world of mist (Niflheim), 

 in which flowed the fountain that strives to devour 

 every thing (Hwergelmer). Twelve rivers, called 

 Eliwagar, issue from this fountain. When they had 

 flowed so far from their source that the liquid they 

 contained had become hardened, they ceased flowing, 

 and froze into ice, and one layer accumulating over 

 another, the great deep was filled up. Southwards 

 from the world of mist was the world of light, or fire 

 (Musspellheim, Mispelheim). From the former pro- 

 ceeded every thing dark and cold ; from the latter, 

 whatever is warm and light ; a warm wind blowing 

 from the latter upon the ice (the rays of the sun from 

 Mispelheim encountered the ice from Niflheim) melted 

 it. The drops became living by the power of him 

 who had sent the wind ; and from them sprang Ymir, 

 the ice-giant. Under Ymir's left arm grew a little 

 man and woman, and one of his legs begot a son from 

 the other. From them proceeded the ice-giants. 

 From the mixture of ice and heat originated, also, 

 the cow Audumbla, from whose dugs ran four streams 

 of milk, by which Ymir was fed. The cow sup- 

 ported herself by licking the salt stones of the ice. 

 As she was thus one day licking the stones, lo, in 

 the evening, human hair grew out of them ; on the 

 next day appeared a head ; and, on the third, an 

 entire man, called Sure. His son was Bor, who 

 married Belsta, daughter of the giant Mountain- 

 Gate. By her he had three sons/Odin, Wile, and 

 Ve, who became the rulers of heaven and earth. 

 The children of Bor were good, those of Ymir 

 wicked ; and they were constantly at war with each 

 other. The sons of Bor finally slew the ice-giant, 

 dragged his body into the deep, and from it created 

 the world. Out of his blood they made the sea and 

 rivers ; of his flesh, earth ; of his hair, grass ; of his 

 bones, rocks; and stones of his teeth and broken 

 jaws ; of his head they made the heavens, which 

 they extended over the earth by its four ends, at 

 each of which they placed a dwarf, Austre, Westre, 

 Sudre, Nordre. Of the sparks and light which had 

 proceeded from Musspellheim they made stars, and 

 fastened them to the heavens, to give light to the 

 earth. They threw Ymir's brain into the air, and it 



formed the clouds. As Bor's sons were once walking 

 on the sea-shore, they found two blocks, of which they 

 created a 'man, called Askur (ash), and a woman, 

 Embla (alder). One gave them life and soul ; the 

 second, motion and reason ; the third, the face, 

 language, hearing, and sight. This cosmogony is 

 plainly a northern view of nature ; we here see na- 

 ture passing from the death of winter into life, and 

 the beginning of the world connected with the ap- 

 pearance of spring. It was natural that, to the early 

 Scandinavians, ice should have appeared as the 

 primeval matter, and that it should be represented 

 as evil, because it destroys the life of nature. The 

 whole cosmogony is therefore a physical allegory, 

 not inferior to those of other mythologies. The 

 creation of day and night, the sun and moon, is thus 

 related : The giant Darkness (Nib'rwi, Narft) had a 

 daughter of the name of Nig/it (Nott), dark and 

 sombre like her race. She was thrice married, and 

 bore to Nagelfari (Air, Ether) a son, Andur (Mat- 

 ter) ; to Anar (the forming principle) Jord (the 

 Earth); to Dellingar (Twilight) Dagur (Day), who 

 was light, like his paternal race. Alfadur now took 

 Nott and Dagur (Night and Day) to the heavens, 

 and gave them each a horse and car, to drive round 

 the earth daily. Night rode first on her horse, 

 Hrimfaxi (Blackmane), which every morning be- 

 dews the earth with the foam from his mouth. The 

 horse of Dagur, Skinfaxi (Shiningmane), illumines, 

 with his mane, the air and earth. Mundilfari (Mover 

 of the Axis) had two beautiful children, Sool and 

 Maan (Sun and Moon). Proud of the beauty of his 

 daughter, he married her to Glemur, the god of joy. 

 The gods, offended at his presumption, took away 

 his children, and transported them to the heavens. 

 Sool was employed in driving the horses of the car of 

 the sun, and Maan those of the car of the moon, and 

 to watch over her increase and decrease. So far the 

 most ancient mythology, which creates giants (jotun) 

 from the elements of nature. It is remarkable that, 

 in this mythology, the giants dwelling around the 

 original chaos produce the lords of the heavens, the 

 earth, and lower regions ; and giants, Titans and 

 Cyclops are also the ancestors of the Grecian gods ; 

 and, in the Grecian as in the northern mythology, a 

 new race of gods drives out the ancient ; or, in other 

 words, historical traditions were confounded with 

 the original ideas of nature. 



The ancient and modern systems seem to have 

 their connecting point in Odin, as with Jupiter in 

 the Greek system. We must doubtless distinguish 

 an earlier and a later Odin. The former was the 

 symbol and deity of light and the sun, and there are 

 several interesting fables relating to him ; as, for in- 

 stance, of his marriage with the earth; his daily 

 amour with the goddess of the waters, to whom he 

 descends every night, to drink of her element from 

 the golden cup ; of the marriage of his rays with the 

 vapours of mother Earth, of which the fruit is the 

 god of thunder, &c. All these fictions, however, 

 were transferred to the younger Odin, the chief of 

 the council of the Aser. The Aser (Asiatics) are 

 the new race of gods, which came in with the 

 younger Odin, or descended from him: It appears, 

 from northern chronicles, that, in the first centuries 

 of the vulgar era, if not still earlier, Sigge, the chief 

 of the Aser, an Asiatic tribe, emigrated from the 

 Caspian sea and the Caucasus (probably driven out 

 by the Romans) into Northern Europe. He directed 

 his course northwesterly from the Black sea to Rus- 

 sia, over which, according to the tradition, he placed 

 one of his sons as a ruler, as he is also said to liave 

 done over the Saxons and Franks. He then ad- 

 vanced through Cimbria to Denmark, which acknow- 

 ledged his fifth son, Skiold, as its sovereign, and 



