Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas

E. M. (Ethel Mary) Wilmot-Buxton

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• Publié par: epsea
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 20
• Langue: English

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E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
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Title: Told by the Northmen:
Stories from the Eddas and Sagas
Author: E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
Release Date: July 30, 2009 [EBook #29551]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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TOLD BY THE NORTHMEN:
Stories from the Eddas and Sagas

E. M. WILMOT-BUXTON



George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., London
1908
Contents Hakon's Lay ix
CHAPTER
I. How All Things Began 1
II. How All-Father Odin

Became Wise 6
III. How the Queen of the Sky

Gave Gifts to Men 14
IV. How a Giant Built a

Fortress for the Asas 17
V. The Magic Mead 22
VI. How Loki Made a Wager

with the Dwarfs 29
VII. The Apples of Youth 34
VIII. How the Fenris Wolf was

Chained 41
IX. How the Pride of Thor was

Brought Low 46
X. How Thor's Hammer was

Lost and Found 56
XI. The Giant's Daughters 64
XII. The Story of Balder the

Beautiful 69
XIII. How Hermod Made a

Journey to the Underworld 78
XIV. How Loki was Punished at

Last 83
XV. The Story of the Magic
Sword 87
XVI. How Sigmund Fought His

Last Battle 96
XVII. The Story of the Magic

Gold 101
XVIII. How Sigurd Slew the

Dragon 107
XIX. How Sigurd Won the Hand

of Brunhild 114
XX. How the Curse of the Gold

is Fulfilled 116
XXI. The Boyhood of Frithiof the

Bold 123
XXII. Frithiof and Ingeborg 127
XXIII. Frithiof Braves the Storm 131
XXIV. Balder Forgives 134
XXV. How the End of All Things

Came About 140
Pronouncing Index of

Proper Names 145[ix]Hakon's Lay
By James Russell Lowell
"O Skald, sing now an olden song,
Such as our fathers heard who led great
lives;
And, as the bravest on a shield is borne
Along the waving host that shouts him king,
So rode their thrones upon the thronging
seas!"
Then the old man arose: white-haired he
stood,
White-bearded, and with eyes that looked
afar
From their still region of perpetual snow,
Over the little smokes and stirs of men:
His head was bowed with gathered flakes of
years,
As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine,
But something triumphed in his brow and
eye,
Which whoso saw it, could not see and
crouch:
Loud rang the emptied beakers as he mused,
Brooding his eyried thoughts; then, as an
eagle
Circles smooth-winged above the wind-
vexed woods,
So wheeled his soul into the air of song
High o'er the stormy hall; and thus he sang:
"The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks out
Wood closest-grained, long-seasoned,
straight as light;
And, from a quiver full of such as these,
The wary bow-man, matched against his
peers,
Long doubting, singles yet once more the
best.
Who is it that can make such shafts as Fate?
What archer of his arrows is so choice,
Or hits the white so surely? They are men,
The chosen of her quiver; nor for her
Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained stick
At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked:
Such answer household ends; but she will
have
Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre,
[x]sound
Down to the heart of heat; from these she
strips
All needless stuff, all sapwood; hardens
them,From circumstance untoward feathers plucks
Crumpled and cheap, and barbs with iron
will:
The hour that passes is her quiver-boy;
When she draws bow, 'tis not across the
wind,
Nor 'gainst the sun, her haste-snatched arrow
sings,
For sun and wind have plighted faith to her:
Ere men have heard the sinew twang,
behold,
In the butt's heart her trembling messenger!
"The song is old and simple that I sing:
Good were the days of yore, when men were
tried
By ring of shields, as now by ring of gold;
But, while the gods are left, and hearts of
men,
And the free ocean, still the days are good;
Through the broad Earth roams Opportunity
And knocks at every door of hut or hall,
Until she finds the brave soul that she
wants."
He ceased, and instantly the frothy tide
Of interrupted wassail roared along.
TOLD BY THE NORTHMEN:
[1]Chapter I
How All Things Began
This is the tale which the Northmen tell
concerning the Beginning of Things.
nce upon a time, before ever this world was made, there was neither
earth nor sea, nor air, nor light, but only a great yawning gulf, full of
twilight, where these things should be.
To the north of this gulf lay the Home of Mist, a dark and dreary land, out of
which flowed a river of water from a spring that never ran dry. As the water in its
onward course met the bitter blasts of wind from the yawning gulf, it hardened
into great blocks of ice, which rolled far down into the abyss with a thunderous
roar and piled themselves one on another until they formed mountains of
glistening ice.
South of this gulf lay the Home of Fire, a land of burning heat, guarded by a
giant with a flaming sword which, as he flashed it to and fro before the entrance,sent forth showers of sparks. And these sparks fell upon the ice-blocks and
partly melted them, so that they sent up clouds of steam; and these again were
frozen into hoar-frost, which filled all the space that was left in the midst of the
mountains of ice.
Then one day, when the gulf was full to the very top, this great mass of frosty
rime, warmed by the flames from the Home of Fire and frozen by the cold airs
from the Home of Mist, came to life and became the Giant Ymir, with a living,
moving body and cruel heart of ice.
Now there was as yet no tree, nor grass, nor anything that would serve for food,
in this gloomy abyss. But when the Giant Ymir began to grope around for
something to satisfy his hunger, he heard a sound as of some animal chewing
the cud; and there among the ice-hills he saw a gigantic cow, from whose
udder flowed four great streams of milk, and with this his craving was easily
[2]stilled.
But the cow was hungry also, and began to lick the salt off the blocks of ice by
which she was surrounded. And presently, as she went on licking with her
strong, rough tongue, a head of hair pushed itself through the melting ice. Still
the cow went on licking, until she had at last melted all the icy covering and
there stood fully revealed the frame of a mighty man.
Ymir looked with eyes of hatred at this being, born of snow and ice, for
somehow he knew that his heart was warm and kind, and that he and his sons
would always be the enemies of the evil race of the Frost Giants.
So, indeed, it came to pass. For from the sons of Ymir came a race of giants
whose pleasure was to work evil on the earth; and from the Sons of the Iceman
sprang the race of the gods, chief of whom was Odin, Father of All Things that
ever were made; and Odin and his brothers began at once to war against the
wicked Frost Giants, and most of all against the cold-hearted Ymir, whom in the
end they slew.
Now when, after a hard fight, the Giant Ymir was slain, such a river of blood
flowed forth from his wounds that it drowned all the rest of the Frost Giants save
one, who escaped in a boat, with only his wife on board, and sailed away to the
edge of the world. And from him sprang all the new race of Frost Giants, who at
every opportunity issued from their land of twilight and desolation to harm the
gods in their abode of bliss.
Now when the giants had been thus driven out, All-Father Odin set to work with
his brothers to make the earth, the sea, and the sky; and these they fashioned
out of the great body of the Giant Ymir.
Out of his flesh they formed Midgard, the earth, which lay in the centre of the
gulf; and all round it they planted his eyebrows to make a high fence which
should defend it from the race of giants.
With his bones they made the lofty hills, with his teeth the cliffs, and his thick
curly hair took root and became trees, bushes, and the green grass.
With his blood they made the ocean, and his great skull, poised aloft, became
the arching sky. Just below this they scattered his brains, and made of them the
[3]heavy grey clouds that lie between earth and heaven.
The sky itself was held in place by four strong dwarfs, who support it on their
broad shoulders as they stand east and west and south and north.
The next thing was to give light to the new-made world. So the gods caughtsparks from the Home of Fire and set them in the sky for stars; and they took the
living flame and made of it the sun and moon, which they placed in chariots of
gold, and harnessed to them beautiful horses, with flowing manes of gold and
silver. Before the horses of the sun, they placed a mighty shield to protect them
from its hot rays; but the swift