A LOOK AT THE MYTH CONCERNING THJASSE-VOLUND. HIS EPITHET HLEBARDR. HIS WORST DEED OF REVENGE.
What our mythic records tell us about the sons of Olvalde and the sons of Ivalde is under such circumstances to be regarded as fragments which come to us from one and the same original myth. When combined, the fragments are found to dovetail together and form one whole. Volundarkvida (28) indicates that something terrible, something that in the highest degree aroused his indignation and awakened his deep and satanic thirst for revenge, had happened to Volund ere he, accompanied by his brothers, betook himself to the wintry wilderness, where he smithied the sword of revenge and the gand rings; and the poem makes Volund add that this injustice remained to be avenged when he left the Wolf-dales. It lies in the nature of the case that the saga about Volund did not end where the fragment of the Volundarkvida which we possess is interrupted. The balance of the saga must have related what Volund did to accomplish the revenge which he still had to take, and how the effort to take vengeance resulted. The continuation probably also had something to say about that swan-maid, that dis of vegetation, who by the name Hervor Alvitr spends nine years with Volund in the Wolfdales, and then, seized by longing, departs with the other swan-maids, but of whose faithful love Volund is perfectly convinced (Volundarkvida, 10). While Volund is Nidhad's prisoner, the hope he has built on the sword of revenge and victory smithied by him seems to be frustrated. The sword is in the power of Mimer-Nidhad, the friend of the gods. But the hope of the plan of revenge must have awakened again when Svipdag, Volund's nephew, succeeded in coming up from the lower world with the weapon in his possession. The conflict between the powers of frost and the kinsmen of Ivalde, who had deserted the gods, on the one side, and the gods and their favourite Halfdan, the Teutonic patriarch, on the other side, was kindled anew (see No. 33). Halfdan is repulsed, and finally falls in the war in which Volund got satisfaction by the fact that his sword conquered Thor's Mjolner and made Thor retreat. But once more the hope based on the sword of revenge is frustrated, this time by the possessor of the sword itself, Volund's young kinsman, who--victor in the war, but conquered by the love he cherished for Freyja, rescued by him--becomes the husband of the fair asynje and gives the sword of Volund to Frey, the god of the harvests. That, in spite of this crossing of his plan of revenge, Volund still did not give it up may be taken for granted. He is described not only as the most revengeful, but also as the most persistent and patient person (see "Doer the Scald's Complaint"), when patience could promote his plans. To make war on the gods with the aid of the giants, when the sword of victory had fallen into the hands of the latter, could not give him the least hope of success. After the mythology has given Volund satisfaction for the despicable judgment passed on the products of his skill, it unites the chain of events in such a manner that the same weapon which refuted the judgment and was to cause the ruin of the gods became their palladium against its own maker. What was Volund able to do afterwards, and what did he do? The answer to this question is given in the myth about Thjasse. With Idun--the Hervor Alvitr of the heroic poem--he confined himself in a mountain, whose halls he presumably decorated with all the wonders which the sagas of the middle ages, describing splendid mountain-halls and parks within the mountains, inherited from the mythology. The mountain must have been situated in a region difficult of access to the gods--according to Bragarædur in Jotunheim. At all events, Thjasse is there secure against every effort to disturb him, forcibly, in his retreat. The means against the depredations of time and years which Idun possesses have their virtue only when in her care. Without this means, even the gods of Asgard are subject to the influence of time, and are to grow old and die. And in the sense of a myth symbolising nature, the same means must have had its share in the rejuvenation of creation through the saps rising every year in trees and herbs. The destruction of the world--the approach of which Volund wished to precipitate with his sword of revenge--must come slowly, but surely, if Idun remains away from Asgard. This plan is frustrated by the gods through Loke, as an instrument compelled by necessity--compelled by necessity (Haustlaung, str. 11), although he delighted in the mischief of deceiving even his allies.