THE FOREVER WAR OF THE
AESIR AND VANIR: SLAYING AND BEING SLAIN FOR THE GODDESS
1.
The War Over the Goddess
While
Snorri Sturluson in both his Prose or Younger Edda and the Ynglinga Saga of
Heimskringla tells stories about the aftermath of the war (specifically the
peace treaty involving the exchange of hostages) of the two tribes of Norse
gods, the war itself is recounted only in some cryptic verses in the Voluspa
poem of the Poetic or Elder Edda.
Although
not discussed in the context of the War of the Aesir and Vanir, strophe 8 of
Voluspa contains our first major clue when looking for a cause of the war:
They
played chequers in the meadow,
They
were merry –
For
them there was no
Want
of gold –
Until
there came three
Ogres’
daughters,
Of
redoubtable strength.
From
Giant Realms.
(translation
Ursular Dronke)
These
three are, of course, the Norns. With
their “arrival” in the world, time begins, the passage of the seasons, the
differentiation of life and experience into past, present and future. Skipping, then, to strophe 20, we learn more
about these three daughters of giants:
From
there come maidens
Deep
in knowledge,
Three,
from the lake
That
lies under the tree.
Urdr
they called one, ‘Had to be’,
The
second Verdandi, ‘Coming to be’,
-
they incised the slip of wood –
Skuld
the third, ‘Has to be’. [Skuld is said in Voluspa 30 to be a valkyrie.]
They
laid down laws,
They
chose out lives
For
mankind’s children,
Men’s
destinies.
The
poem continues (strophes 21-26):
She
remembers the war,
The
first in the world,
When
Gold Brew [or Gold Strength]
They
studded with spears
And
burned her
In
Harr’s [Odin’s] hall,
Three
times burned her
Three
times reborn
-
often, not stinting –
yet
still she lives.
Bright
Heidr they called her
At
all the houses she came to,
A
good seer of fair fortunes
-
she conjured spirits who told her.
Sorcery
[seid] she had skill in,
Sorcery
she practiced, possessed.
She
was ever the darling
Of
an evil wife.
The
the powers all strode
To
their thrones of fate,
Sacrosanct
gods,
And
gave thought to this:
Whether
the Aesir should
Pay
such a price
And
all the gods
Get
recognition [were obliged to pay the price in Orchard; or whether all the gods
should partake in the sacrifices in Larrington].
Odin
flung
And
shot into the host –
I
was war still, the first in the world.
Torn
was the timber wall
Of
the Aesir’s stronghold.
Vanir
were – by a war charm –
Live
and kicking on the plain.
Then
the powers strode
To
their thrones of fate,
Sacrosanct
gods,
And
gave thought to this:
Who
had laced all
The
air with ruin
And
to the giant’s kin
Wedded
Odr’s girl?
Thor
alone smote there
Swollen
with wrath
-
he seldom sits idle
when
he hears such a thing!
Oaths
paid for oaths,
The
vows and sworn pledges,
All
the words of weight
That
intervened.
Now,
scholars have elucidated some of the points in this obscure narrative. First, the view was long ago put forward that
Gullveig and Heidr are both merely epithets for the goddess Freyja – Odr’s girl
in the second to the last stanza. I
completely agree with this idea. Odr
(“Frenzy” or “Ecstasy”) is a hypostasis of Odin. Freyja was called the Vanadis, ‘Goddess of
the Vanir’, and she was allotted half the dead who fell in battle, meaning that
she served both war goddess/valkyrie and fertility functions. She was also the main practitioner of the magic
known as seid, which was the art practiced by Heidr.
Snorri
has precious little on the war, and what he has is found in Chapter 4 of
Ynglinga Saga:
“Odin
made war on the Vanir, but they resisted stoutly and defended their land; now
the one, now the other was victorious, and both devastated the lands of their
opponents, doing each other damage. But when both wearied of that, they agreed
on a peace meeting and concluded a peace, giving each other hostages.”
[Lee
M. Hollander translation, 1964]
It
has been suggested that Snorri’s story of the Master Builder from Giant Land
should be associated with the War. Here
is that story, drawn from the translation by Jean I Young:
“In
the early days of the settlement of the gods, when they had established Midgard
and made Valhalla, a builder came to them and offered to make a stronghold so
excellent that it would be safe and secure against cliff giants and frost
ogres, even if they got inside Midgard.
He
stipulated that as his reward he was to have Freyja as his wife and possession
of the sun and moon besides.
The
Æsir had a conference, and they struck this bargain with the builder. He should
receive what he asked for, if he succeeded in building the stronghold in one
winter. But if, on the first day of summer, any part of it was unfinished, he
was to forfeit his reward; nor was he to receive anyone's help in the work.
When
they told him these terms, however, he asked them to let him have the help of
his horse, which was called Svadilfari, and acting on the advice of Loki, the
gods granted this to him.
He
began building the stronghold the first day of winter, and by night used his
horse for hauling the stones for it. The Æsir were astonished at the size of
the huge boulders the horse hauled. It performed twice as much of that
tremendous task as the builder.
Now
there were strong witnesses to their bargain. It had been confirmed with many
oaths, because the giant had not considered it safe to be among the Æsir
without promise of safe-conduct, if Thor should come home. At that time he had
gone into the east to fight trolls.
As
winter drew to an end, the building of the stronghold had made good progress.
It was so high and strong that it could not be taken. By three days before
summer the work was almost finished.
The
gods then sat down in their judgment seats and sought for a way out. They
recalled that it had been Loki who had given the advice to marry Freyja into
Giantland and also to ruin the sky and heaven by giving the sun and moon to the
giants. They threatened him with an evil death if he did not devise a plan whereby
the builder would forfeit his wages. Loki swore that he would do this, no
matter what it might cost him.
That
same evening, when the builder was driving out after stones with his stallion
Svadilfari, a mare ran out of a wood up to the horse and whinnied to him. The
stallion became frantic and ran into the wood after the mare. The two these
horses galloped about all night, and the work was delayed.
The
next day, when the builder saw that the work would not be finished, he flew
into a rage. As soon as the Æsir saw for certain that it was a giant who had
come there, they disregarded their oaths and called on Thor.
He
came at once and raised the hammer Mjölnir aloft. Thor paid the builder his
wages, and it was not the sun and the moon. He struck him such a blow that his
skull shivered into fragments, and he sent him down to Niflhel.”
To
backtrack a bit, the Norns are indisputably of a lunar nature. The ancient Germanic calendar was a lunar
one, and time further divided into nights, not days. Although Norse myth lists the moon (Mani) as
being male and the sun (Sol) as being female, there is ample evidence for a
moon goddess and a sun god. I have
discussed such before in other chapters in this book.
Thus
when we think of the triple burning of Gullvieg, we must first bear in mind
that as a Norn she could appear in triple aspect. We must also remind ourselves of the obvious
fact that things look black after they are burned. The burned Gullveig is, therefore, the
invisible or black New Moon, which is reborn as the waxing crescent. In the story of the mead of poetry, I
explained how the drinking of the mead from the three lunar vats symbolized the
removal of the sun’s light, an act which produces a New Moon.
As
is true of the mead story and that of Idunn’s abduction by Thjatsi the giant,
the promising of Freyja to the giant builder is a seasonal myth. The giant begins his task of building the
fortress in exchange for Freyja and the sun and the moon at the beginning of winter. If he can accomplish this feat before the
beginning of summer, the gods will be forced to live up to their pledge. The stallion chasing the mare (the
shape-shifted Loki) day and night doubtless represents the very sun and moon
the giant had initially bargained for.
When the building does not get done, the enemy of the gods is slain on
the first day of summer.
Now
the difficulty here is determining just why this story should be related to
Voluspa’s War of the Aesir and Vanir. While there is conflict between the Giant
Builder and Thor (one of the Aesir), and Freyja is a key player, the Vanir
themselves do not seem to be present at all as warriors in a battle.
In
the past, it has been fashionable to define the Aesir and the Vanir in terms of
two opposing theories. In the first,
proposed in the early 20th century, Bernhard Salin suggested that the War
“…contains
in corrupted form the memory of great, historical, authentic events: a long migration
of a people according to a precise itinerary from north of the Black Sea to Scandinavia,
and a struggle between two peoples, one worshipping the Aesir and the other the
Vanir. This struggle, according to the
tradition that transposed men into gods or rather confused gods with their
worshippers, ended in a compromise, a fusion. “
[“Gods
of the Ancient Northmen”, Georges Dumezil, p. 11]
The
alternate theory, championed by Dumezil himself, has to do with the so-called
tripartite mythological model. The
Aesir, according to this interpretive system, represent both the
magico-juridical and warrior functions, while the Vanir belong to the fertility
function.
While
both theories may contribute elements that help explain the War of the Aesir
and Vanir from a modern academic perspective, there is no evidence whatsoever
that the ancient Norse viewed this myth in the same way. Instead, to them it was plainly about the
‘Everlasting Battle’ of the opposing seasonal aspects of the participating
deities.
Still,
something is missing. Just where is the
actual conflict with the Vanir? Why does
Odin dedicate the Vanir host by throwing his spear over them? Why are the latter said to breach the Aesir
fortress?
Clearly,
the war happened BEFORE the events of the Giant Builder story. The Aesir tried
and failed to kill Freyja, who as the three giant women or Norns had ruined the
paradisiac Timeless existence the gods had earlier enjoyed. If they could kill her, then they could bring
back that earlier Golden Age and put an end to aging and disease and
death. Having failed in their attempt,
they merely incensed the Vanir, of whom Freyja was queen. The war was fought as the first bout of the
Everlasting Battle, with neither side winning permanent victory. So peace was made and the two tribes of the
gods were reconciled. The world would
remain one with Time, and the seasons would continue in their endless round.
At
some point after this, the sun god of the winter half-year in the guise of the
Giant Builder demands Freyja, sun and moon as payment for his building of a
mighty Asgard fortress. This myth is simply a continuation of the same eternal
competition between the lords of the summer and winter-half years.
Were
it not for the mead story, which presents a sort of mirror image of the
seasonal myth, we could pretty much diagram out the motif as follows:
Aesir
(summer) Giants (winter)
Three
myths I’ve treated of in this book can further be diagrammed this way:
BEGINNING
OF WINTER
Giant
Builder starts building
BEGINNING
OF SUMMER
Giant
Builder killed
BEGINNING
OF WINTER
Idunn
abducted, sun-apples stolen
BEGINNING
OF SUMMER
Thjatsi
the Giant killed
BEGINNING
OF WINTER
Volund
loses Hervor, sun-ring, is killed/lamed
BEGINNING
OF SUMMER
Volund
regains goddess and ring and flies up into the sky
The
mead story is a reversal of the standard theme:
BEGINNING
OF WINTER
Odin
sleeps with goddess and steals the mead
BEGINNING
OF SUMMER
Odin
spits mead into Asgard lunar vats; Suttung not killed
In
the Giant Build story, the protagonist is to collect his wages at the beginning
of of summer. In the mead myth, Odin
collects his wages at the beginning of winter.
I’ve elsewhere discussed the fact that Odin descends in the mead
earth-mountain of Hnitbjorg not as the sun, but in the form of a lunar
serpent. This does suggest that he is
the dead sun god of the summer half-year in this particular myth, while his
taking of the goddess and the mead from Suttung at the beginning of winter
tells us this is properly the time when the giant himself, here the summer
king, “dies”. Odin’s death would be
concurrent with his spitting the mead back into the same three lunar vats from
which he had previously drunk it at the beginning of winter.
Thus
we cannot say that the contest for the Vanadis was only between the Aesir of
summer and the giants of winter. Odin
could act as the winter king. The gods
themselves descend from giants and marry giants, and much has been written
about the “blurring of the lines” between what is a deity and what is a giant.
2.
Peace and Hostages
Snorri
tells two different versions of the peace made between the warring divine
factions. In Ynglinga Saga, hostages are
offered up by both sides. The Vanir hand
over Njord and Frey, as well as Kvasir.
For their part, the Aesir contribute Hoenir and Mimir. Snorri continues thusly:
“Now,
when Hoenir came to Vanaheim he was immediately made a chief, and Mimir came to
him with good counsel on all occasions.
But when Hoenir stood in the Things or other meetings, if Mimir was not
near him, and any difficult matter was laid before him, he always answered in
one way -- "Now let others give their advice"; so that the Vanaland
people got a suspicion that the Asaland people had deceived them in the
exchange of men. They took Mimir, therefore, and beheaded him, and sent his
head to the Asaland people. Odin took
the head, smeared it with herbs so that it should not rot, and sang
incantations over it. Thereby he gave it
the power that it spoke to him, and discovered to him many secrets.”
[Samuel
Laing translation]
In
Chapter 2 of “Skaldskaparmal” in his Edda, Snorri preserves or invents a very
different version of the making of peace between the Aesir and Vanir:
“The
beginning of this was, that the gods had a war with the people that are called
the Vanir. They agreed to hold a meeting for the purpose of making peace, and
settled their dispute in this wise, that they both went to a jar and spit into
it. But at parting the gods, being unwilling to let this mark of peace perish,
shaped it into a man whose name was Kvasir, and who was so wise that no one
could ask him any question that he could not answer. He traveled much about in
the world to teach men wisdom. Once he came to the home of the dwarfs Fjalar
and Galar. They called him aside, saying they wished to speak with him alone,
slew him and let his blood run into two jars called Son and Bodn, and into a
kettle called Odrerir. They mixed honey with the blood, and thus was produced
such mead that whoever drinks from it becomes a skald and sage.”
The
god Hoenir is a constant companion of Odin in different triads and we can thus
be fairly certain he is yet another hypostasis of the latter. Mimir has been linked to both another word
for the world tree, Mimameidr, and to a Hoddmimir or ‘Treasure-Mimir’ of
Hoddmimis holt (“H.’s wood”). One of the
famous wells of the world tree was called Mimis brunnr in his honor. I have in my chapter on Norse cosmology identified
this well with the sea. Mimir’s head is none other than the sky. i.e. Odin the
Sky-Father himself, referred to elsewhere as the skull of the primeval giant
Ymir. Thus when the seeress in Voluspa
tells us that Mimir drinks mead every morning from Odin’s eye, which he pledged
by placing in the well, we are being told the sky god drinks from the sun each
time it rises out of the sea and into the heavens. The tree itself, of course, is the sky-tree
whose top is the North Star upon which the heavens turn.
The
mead here is not sea-water, but sunlight – the same sunlight Odin drinks from
the three lunar vats and then spits back into the same containers in the
mead-theft myth.
And
so the making of peace after the war serves merely to continue the movement of
the heavenly bodies and the passage of the seasons, all of which had started
the war to begin with! Time and seasonal
conflict – the Everlasting Battle fought in honor of the moon goddess – will
not cease until Ragnarok, the Doom of the Powers, according to Norse
belief. The catch here, of course, is
that AFTER the end of the world, a new one will arise, and the world tree will
still spread it branches benignly over it.
Various gods survive, including Balder and his slayer Hod the Blind
(none other than Odin, who is both one-eyed and, according to the epithet
Tviblindi, ‘Blind in Both Eyes’), although no goddesses escape the
cataclysm. The same game pieces the gods
played with before the arrival of the three giant women at the start of Time
magically reappear. A man and a woman
will survive, sheltering from the apocalypse in the world tree, and even the
sun will shine forth – although, conspicuously, there is no mention of the
rebirth of the moon.
Perhaps,
it was thought, at long last Gullveig will have finally been destroyed.
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