Like Alf, the word Duergr has retained its place in the Teutonic languages. Dverg[120] is the term still used in the north; the Germans have Zwerg, and we Dwarf,[121] which, however, is never synonymous with Fairy, as Elf is. Ihre rejects all the etymons proposed for it, such, for example, as that of Gudmund Andreæ, [Greek: theoi ergon]; and with abundant reason.
Some have thought that by the Dwarfs were to be understood the Finns, the original inhabitants of the country, who were driven to the mountains by the Scandinavians, and who probably excelled the new-comers in the art of working their mines and manufacturing their produce. Thorlacius, on the contrary, thinks that it was Odin and his followers, who came from the country of the Chalybes, that brought the metallurgic arts into Scandinavia.
Perhaps the simplest account of the origin of the Dwarfs is, that when, in the spirit of all ancient religions, the subterranean powers of nature were to be personified, the authors of the system, from observing that people of small stature usually excel in craft and ingenuity, took occasion to represent the beings who formed crystals and purified metals within the bowels of the earth as of diminutive size, which also corresponded better with the power assigned them of slipping through the fissures and interstices of rocks and stones. Similar observations led to the representation of the wild and awful powers of brute nature under the form of huge giants.
[107] Some think, but with little reason, they were originally a part of the Finnish mythology, and were adopted into the Gothic system.
[108] The giant Ymir is a personification of Chaos, the undigested primal matter. The sons of Börr (other personifications) slew him. Out of him they formed the world; his blood made the sea, his flesh the land, his bones the mountains; rocks and cliffs were his teeth, jaws, and broken pieces of bones; his skull formed the heavens.
[109] Gudmund Andreas in notis ad Völuspá.
[110] That they are not insensible to kindness one of the succeeding tales will show.
[111] The habitual reader of the northern and German writers, or even our old English ones, will observe with surprise his gradually diminished contempt for many expressions now become vulgar. He will find himself imperceptibly falling into the habit of regarding them in the light of their pristine dignity.