THE TERRIBLE ONE'S HORSE: CHAPTER 17

THE MEAD OF POETRY: ELIXIR OF THE MUSE AND OF ETERNAL LIFE

The story of the mead of poetry begins with a god named Kvasir.  Outside of Snorri Sturluson’s account of this personage and the occurrence of the kenning ‘Kvasir’s blood” for the mead of poetry in ‘Vellekla’ 1, there is no cultic evidence for him.

I have always suspected Kvasir is merely another of the many epithets applied to Odin.  In Snorri’s ‘Skaldskaparmal’, Kvasir is made from the mixed spittle of the two tribes of the gods, the Aesir and the Vanir.  His name has been associated (see Simek) with Norwegian kvase and Russian kvas, words for berries that were chewed and then spat into a vat for fermentation.  Kvasir is extremely wise and “traveled throughout the world, teaching men knowledge.”  Characteristic and function together sound suspiciously like Odin.

In the ‘Saga of King Half and His Champions’, we are told that Hott, aka Odin, spits into the mash to create the mead that Geirhild needs in order to become wife of Alrek.  Odin’s price for offering his spittle is “what was between the mash tub and her”.  As Geirhild is pregnant, this turns out to be Alrek’s son Vikar, who would be given to Odin by Starkad through the process of human sacrifice by hanging.

The fact that it is Odin’s spittle here which engenders the fermentation of the best mead points to his identification with Kvasir, literally the god who was the personification of mead-producing spittle.  Or perhaps it would be more proper to say that Kvasir IS the spittle of Odin.

After the creation of Kvasir, he is slain and his blood poured into three vats.  The three vats end up in the possession of the giant Suttung, who places them inside a mountain with his daughter Gunnlod as guardian.  Gunnlod, ‘Battle-inviter’, is the goddess as valkyrie and is shown depicted on Gotland picture stones offering mead horns to gods or warriors entering Valholl.  Odin, calling himself Bolverk or ‘Evil-worker’, bores his way into the mountain, passing through the hole in the form of a snake.  He seduces Gunnlod, drinks the mead from the three vats, changes into an eagle and flies back to Asgard.  Suttung pursues in eagle form, but Odin beats him to the home of the gods, spitting out the mead into three more vats.

What are we to make of this myth?  The following would be my interpretation (which will make more sense as additional Odinic wisdom-winning stories are treated of in the near future):

The three vats (cf. the three round underworld stones to which the god Loki is bound) are representative of the three major phases of the moon – waxing, full and waning.  The eagle-form assumed by Odin and Suttung is the solarized Jupiter/Sky bird.  The mead of poetry, which is taken from the three lunar vats by the solar-eagle and then spat back into essentially the same vats is the light of the sun.  It is the sun’s light that causes the moon to shine and creates it three phases.  If the sun’s light is removed from the moon, we have the invisible New Moon.  So the filling and emptying of the three vats is a poetic way of describing how the moon goes from being dark or devoid of the sun’s light to being lit again.

I would remind readers who might object to this interpretation that the Nine Muses of Classical tradition, who were all subject to Apollo the sun god’s governorship, were a multiplication of the lunar goddess.  Nine is the moon’s number and in the context of the Muses designates the presence of the ‘Triple Threefold’ goddess.  It was the Muse who, by making use of the sun god’s light, inspired poets, artists, musicians and anyone who was undertaking a creative endeavor.

Thus there was the belief that the mead consumed by human beings – which could have an inspiring effect – was the earthly counterpart of the sun god’s blood or Odin’s spittle.  The cup or horn dipped into the mead vat, like Odin the eagle, was symbolic of the sun taking light away from the moon.

The sun and moon are not only divine, but eternal.  Men who partake of the sun's light as it is found in the lunar vat become One with the celestial bodies.  Such Oneness confers a species of immortality.  This goes beyond whatever immortality might be obtained through one's poetry or art.  It is the immortality of the identification of self with divinity.

There is a further seasonal dimension to the mead story.  We are told Odin enters the earth-mountain of Hnitbjorg at the beginning of winter.  This usually was marked sometime in October.  The three nights the god sleeps with Gunnlod are the vetr-naet or 'Winter Nights' festival.  Once Odin steals the mead and flies off with it was the sun-eagle, the goddess's father Suttung pursues in the same shape.  While we not told what fate the giant suffers, we can compare this seasonal motif with that found in the Thjazi and Idunn story, found in Snorri Sturluson's Edda immdiately before the mead story.

In brief, Idunn and her solar apples are stolen by the giant Thjatsi.  Without the fruit of immortality, the gods begin to grow old.  So Loki is sent to retrive the goddess.  Once he has her, he flies back in the hawk-form loaned to him by Freyja.  Thjatsi pursues and is lit on fire at the wall of Asgard, i.e. passes through the fiery cloud before setting into the earth, and is then killed within the gates.  While we're not told when this killing happened, we must assume it was probably at the beginning of the summer half year.

What we have in the story of Idunn and her sun-apples, then, is the transferrence of the goddess from the solar giant of winter, i.e. Thjatsi, to the solar god of summer, i.e. Loki.  Each god would be alternately "killed" when his twin took over for his half-year reign, a reign he enjoyed precisely because of his possession of the goddess.