Snorro, as we have observed, is the reputed collector of the prose Edda, and of the Heimskringla. A collector merely he seems to have been; but he exhibited great judgment in selecting, arranging, and modernising the poetic compositions which he followed. For his history, no less than his mythology, the pagan Scalds were his authorities.
So much for matter purely introductory. From the two Eddas, assisted by the commentaries of the best northern scholars, we proceed to lay before the reader the most striking features of the cosmogony and religion of the Scandinavians; and to accompany them by such reflections as may seem necessary to show their origin and nature.
THE SCANDINAVIAN UNIVERSE, ITS WORLDS, AND THEIR INHABITANTS IN GENERAL, WITH THE PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.
CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE.—YMER.—THE GIANTS.—THE GODS.—OTHER BEINGS.—THE NINE WORLDS, WITH THEIR POSITION AND PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION.—THE TWELVE HOUSES OF ASGARD.—SWARTALFAHEIM.—INHABITANTS OF THE NINE WORLDS.—THE ASER.—THE VEVER, &c.
In the Voluspa, or Song of the Prophetess, the Vala, who is probably Urda, the Norny of the past, being seated on a high throne, and surrounded by the deities, acquaints them with the wonders of creation, and of the destiny reserved for them all,—destruction. In the Grimnis-mâl[21], Odin gives a similar account of the origin of all things; and throughout the elder Edda, we have allusion to the same doctrines. From them was derived the relation in the younger or prose Edda, with the merit of being much clearer. According to both, there existed in the beginning, on the site of the world, a vast abyss, Ginnunga-gap, which contained nothing. But to the north of that abyss there was another world, called Nifleheim, the cold and misty. It contained nothing but a spring, Vergelmer, from which flowed eleven great rivers into the abyss. They were called Elivagar (the cold waters), and their streams were poisonous as they were cold. As they flowed on, owing to the cold they became more sluggish in their course; so that when they reached the centre of the abyss, they were converted into ice. Still they flowed, and still the ice increased, until the whole Ginnunga-gap was filled. Out of such materials what could be made? It was necessary to create some other power before the visible universe could be formed. This northern realm, Nifleheim, which contained nothing except the fountain, which had no quality except that of coldness, which was covered with darkness, could, of itself, produce nothing; it could only send the sluggish poisonous waters into the centre of the abyss. That these waters were eternal we may infer; but we cannot infer how long the ice had accumulated when the real events of creation began. The agent of that creation is placed in another region, or rather world, Muspelheim, which lay far to the south of Ginnunga-gap, and which was intolerably hot,—more hot than Nifleheim was cold. The origin of this earth and its inhabitants, therefore, was the work of these two agencies, heat and cold, operating on the poisonous waters which lay between them. (Muspelheim, we suppose, with its numerous fiery inhabitants, and their mighty chief Surtur, the dark, the incomprehensible, the great evil principle, had no beginning; or if it had, the Odinian theologians were unacquainted with it.) What was frozen by the one influence was thawed by the other. It was probably some centuries before the heat from Surtur’s fiery empire dissolved the prodigious mass into a liquid element. From that element sprung the giant Ymer, by a process of generation which the northern sages do not deign to explain; and his vast bulk filled no inconsiderable portion of the abyss, as will soon appear from the use made of his corpse. This giant begat others. How? By a process no less odd than that which brought him into being. While asleep, a male and a female sprung from his left armpit; and he had the felicity too, by rubbing one foot against another, to produce a son. Why there should be _three_ ancestors to the Rimthurser, or frost-giants, when, in our humble notion, two might have sufficed, is another mystery which we shall not attempt to penetrate. How were all nourished, seeing that there was no alimentary substance created? By the Supreme Being, the Great Alfadur, a cow with four teats was created; and from these flowed four rivers of milk. The cow herself was sustained by licking the salt-rocks, on which the hoar frost still lay. But her destiny was not fulfilled by this service; she was to call into existence a new race. When she had licked one day, the hair appeared; when she had licked two, there was a head; when three, there was a complete animal,—a man or giant, named Burè.