Norse Mythology

by Patrick Auerbach

  Grimhild wanted to see her sons well married as well as her daughter, and she urged her firstborn, Gunnar, to court Brynhild. So Gunnar rode away to woo her, accompanied by his sworn brother Sigurd.

  Now since Sigurd had left, Brynhild had refused all offers of marriage although her brother, the king Atli, had tried to make her marry to gain him strong allies. She would not agree to marry at his word, and he would not agree to let her stay always unmarried, At last they reached an agreement. When there was war she rode with the warriors. When there was peace she went back to her castle on the high fells and caused a ring of enchanted flames to burn high around it, and she swore that she would marry only the man who dared to ride to her through the flames. She thought in her heart that only Sigurd would dare to come to her so.

  Gunnar steeled himself to face the fire, but his horse shied and baulked and could not be coaxed or forced into the flames. So Gunnar asked that he might ride Sigurd’s grey stallion, Odin’s choice for him. Sigurd agreed, but that horse would carry no man but Sigurd. At last they used the magic Grimhild had taught them to exchange shapes. Now Sigurd’s face and body were those of Gunnar, but his mind and voice were the mind of Sigurd. His horse still knew him and they rode straight at the wall of flames, which rose and crackled all the more fiercely as they rode up to it. But Sigurd struck his stallion with his sword to force him through, and as they touched the flame it died before them so they rode through unscathed.

  When Brynhild saw that her guest was Gunnar she was reluctant to marry him, but ‘Gunnar’ pled that she had sworn to marry the one who passed through the flame so she gave herself to him. They passed three nights together, but each night Sigurd laid his sword between them in the bed, saying that he had to do this to ward off a curse that was laid on him. Brynhild gave Andvare’s ring to him, not knowing that she had given it back to its first owner. Nor did Sigurd remember where she had gotten that ring, for Grimhild’s spell still darkened his memory.

  When the three days were over Sigurd rode back to Gunnar, and each man took on his own shape again. Then Heimir gave Brynhild and Gunnar a great wedding feast where Gudrun and Brynhild drank and laughed together. But as he saw them side by side, the spell on Sigurd broke and he remembered how he had loved Brynhild.

  V. The End of the Curse

  One day Brynhild and Gudrun fell to quarreling about the merits of their husbands. Brynhild said Gunnar was the bravest man living, for he had passed through the fire. Gudrun laughed scornfully and said that Gunnar never did any such thing, that this brave deed like many others rightly belonged to Sigurd. She said that for the wooing he had taken Gunnar’s shape, and she showed Brynhild Andvare’s ring which Sigurd had given to her after the wedding feast.

  Brynhild turned as white as a corpse, and she was silent all that day and the following night. The next day Gudrun taunted her, and they quarreled hotly. Brynhild accused Gudrun of deceiving Sigurd with spells, and Gudrun accused Brynhild of giving herself to Sigurd like a wanton before she was married.

  Brynhild was sick with grief, and she cursed Gunnar her husband and swore never to give him joy or comfort again. She shut herself into her chamber, and all feared that she would kill herself. When Sigurd spoke at her door she let him in and cursed him for his faithlessness. He pled that he had been placed under a spell and had known nothing. He begged her to live and forgive him, and he offered to put Gudrun aside and marry Brynhild. Brynhild answered that it would do no good for him to break his vows to Gudrun as he had broken his vows to her, that she herself had sworn her oath to Gunnar and would not break it and that there was no way out but her own death and Sigurd’s. Later she said the same thing to her husband, vowing to leave him if he did not kill Sigurd. Gunnar was desperate then for he had pledged to be a brother to Sigurd, but he thought he would be shamed in all men’s sight if his wife left him. He also reflected that, if Sigurd died, the dragon-treasure would be his. So he promised honor and treasure to his young brother Guttorm, who had sworn no oaths to Sigurd, and Guttorm crept into Sigurd’s bedchamber and gave him a death-blow in his sleep. Sigurd awoke in time to kill his killer but far too late to save himself.

  Brynhild who had hated him wept for him then, and she killed herself in grief for him. But Andvare’s ring and all the cursed treasure passed into the hands of Gunnar and his brothers, and the curse went with it.

  Gudrun, at the insistence of her kin, married Brynhild’s brother Atli who coveted the gold that had been Sigurd’s. He invited Gunnar and his brothers to come to his court as honored guests and to receive both lands and treasures, and because of Gunnar’s pride he agreed. But Gunnar’s wife and the wives of his brothers had evil dreams and warned the king that Atli meant to betray them. Gunnar would not take back his acceptance of Atli’s invitation for fear of being called a coward, but before they rode to Atli’s court they hid Andvare’s gold in the depths of a river in a lonely place.

  Atli ambushed them as the women had foreseen, and in the fighting that followed Gunnar, his brothers and all Atli’s house died, and the secret of the hoard was lost. Somewhere in the wilderness it may be that the gold still lays hidden, waiting for another finder- and that the curse waits as well.

  Chapter Nine: The Death of Balder

  Andvare’s curse did great harm in the world of men, but perhaps even the brief possession of it cursed the gods as well. After that time Odin and Loki’s lives were darkened, as this tale tells.

  Balder, Odin and Frigga’s son, was the most beautiful and beloved of all the gods and for long ages his dwelling was a place of peace and joy. But a time came when Balder was troubled by evil dreams and filled with fear and sorrow. Then Odin, fearing for his dearest son, rode out of Asgard to Helheim, the world of the dead, where he saw a great feast being prepared. He did not go into Helheim’s great hall, but by its gates he summoned an enchantress to rise from her grave and tell him the meaning of Balder’s dreams. (Odin could see all that passed in the Nine Worlds as it happened, but foretelling the future seems always to have been a woman’s gift.) Concealing his own name and nature and putting off his real question for a moment, he asked her what Helheim’s folk were preparing to celebrate. “The arrival of Balder,” she said.

  In his grief and anxiety Odin sought to question her more closely, but she perceived who he was and refused to speak to any of the gods again until Loki should come to raise the giants against the gods at Ragnarok.

  Odin hurried home and told the gods that he had heard that Balder must die. Frigga, his mother, was gravely distressed and she traveled throughout the worlds, taking oaths from all things that might be made into weapons or cause destruction- from metal and stone, from fire and water, from every strong tree, from every beast and bird and from every poison and sickness-oaths that they would never harm Balder. At last she rode back to Asgard, content, and announced what she had done.

  Then the gods made a game of what they had feared, and often they gathered to cast weapons of all kinds at Balder and laugh to see him unhurt by all. But Loki disguised himself as a woman and came before Frigga to ask her what game the gods were playing. She told him. He appeared impressed and asked “Have all things really sworn not to harm Balder?” Frigga said that all things that mattered had sworn; there was a little shrub called mistletoe that seemed too young and small to pose a danger or to swear an oath. Then the woman left Frigga and took on Loki’s shape again. Loki found where the mistletoe grew, and he carved an arrow from it. Then he hurried back to where the gods still cast their weapons at Balder.

  One god, Hoder, sat sadly apart from the others. Loki went up to him and asked why he did not join in the game. Hoder answered that his blindness made it impossible. Loki then gave him the mistletoe dart and promised to guide his hand, saying that surely all the gods should take part in honoring Balder by showing his invincibility. Hoder agreed happily and took the shot. The arrow, guided by Loki, struck Balder in the heart and Balder fell dead to the ground.

  The gods were overwhelm
ed with sorrow and horror. Frigga cried out for someone to win her love by riding into Helheim and trying to bring Balder back, and Odin’s young son Hermod agreed to make the journey. They set Balder’s body in a ship, together with that of his wife Nanna who had died of grief at his loss, and they set fire to that ship and sent it out over the sea.

  Hermod rode nine days and nights through dark cold places, crossed the narrow bridge and leaped the great gate and finally came to the hall of Helheim. Going in, he saw his brother Balder seated in the place of honor with a face full of sorrow. Hel the goddess, the mistress of the world of Helheim, sat at Balder’s side. Hermod knelt before her, told her how everything in all the worlds grieved for Balder, and begged her to let Balder return with him to Asgard. Hel answered that she would let Balder go only if Hermod could prove the truth of his words by having everything in the world weep for Balder.

  Hermod rode back to the gods with Hel’s demand, and soon messengers were sent to every being in the worlds. Gods, men and elves, beasts and birds and trees and stones all wept for Balder’s loss. But one messenger stopped at a cave where a great giantess sat alone, and when she heard his words she refused to mourn for Balder. “Neither in life nor death did he give me gladness,” she said. “Let Hel keep what she has!” She could not be persuaded, so the messenger rode home in sorrow and reported that their last hope was gone, and Balder would remain among the dead.

  Now all the gods desperately grieved and Odin was also afraid, for in Balder’s death he saw the beginning of the ruin of Asgard and of the entire world. As the gods talked over the causes of their grief they realized that it was Loki who had learned of the one thing which had not vowed to harm Balder, Loki who had made the mistletoe dart and Loki disguised as a giantess, who had refused to weep for Balder. Loki fled, but the gods caught him and bound him to the rocks beneath a serpent that dropped venom onto his face. Loki’s wife Sigyn stayed with him and caught the falling poison in a cup to spare him pain, and while the cup was filling Loki plotted vengeance. But whenever the cup filled Sigyn had to turn aside to empty it and the venom fell on Loki’s face, he writhed so in his pain that the world was shaken with earthquakes. It may be that Loki wept then but never for Balder, only for himself.

  Chapter Ten: The End and the Beginning

  These stories and many more were told as tales of the past. But there was one story always left in the future, glimpsed only through prophecy. That was the tale of Ragnarok, the doom of the gods and the end of the world.

  Odin kept Ragnarok always in mind. He traveled far and wide seeking the visions of seers so that he might know what would happen; he gave up his right eye for the Water of Wisdom so that he might learn how best to defend the worlds from destruction; he kept and trained his dead heroes in Valhalla to take part in that great battle. But he knew, always, that all his wisdom and strength could not save him or Asgard in the end.

  Like all prophecies of the end, the predictions of Ragnarok were many, varied, and sometimes obscure. But this much was known:

  At the end chaos would burst forth to overwhelm the order that the gods had made and preserved. In Midgard the end would begin with three winters of war and general lawlessness; men would fight without mercy, murder one another and betray their own kin through adultery and with violence. After this would come three years of winter, with the sun’s warmth weakened and terrible winds sweeping the earth so that its people died of hunger. Then the wolves that ran behind the moon and sun would overtake them, and darkness would fall on the land.

  In Asgard Loki would break from his bonds and so would his son, the wolf Fenrir. In the depths of the sea Loki’s other monster-son, the Midgard Serpent, would rise in anger. The giants out of Jotunheim and the fire-demons out of Muspelheim would come to Loki’s call and attack the gods. The battle would be desperate. Thor would kill and be killed by the Midgard Serpent, and Heimdall the sentry of Asgard would kill and be killed by Loki. Odin would fight against the wolf Fenrir and die, but his son Vidar would destroy the wolf. At the end, when the best part of both armies lay dead, Surt the fire-bearer would come from the burning world of Muspelheim and set Asgard, Midgard and the World Tree itself ablaze. The sea would rise, churned up by the death-throes of the Midgard Serpent, and the ruined land would be drowned.

  But this destruction, while great and terrible, was not quite final. Out of the empty seas land would rise again and green plants would grow there; indeed, fine crops of grain would grow without any man tending them. Balder would return from the dead, Honir would return with the gift of prophecy added to his other strengths, and Thor’s sons would arise carrying their father’s great hammer. Soli would not return from death to drive the chariot of the sun but her daughter, even stronger and lovelier than she, would rise and give light to the worlds again. And a man and a woman, long concealed in a safe place hidden from the ruin, would emerge to drink of the dew and eat of the plants of the field and start the human race again. Some said also that the dead humans in Helheim would be raised to life again, but some said otherwise.

  What would be the end of this new world? That also was unclear. Some said that this healed and blessed earth would endure forever in beauty. But the seer who told Odin most about the end and the new beginning went on from describing Balder’s rebirth and the green land to speak of a devouring dragon rising from the earth with its mouth full of dead men. Then she refused to speak more. All that seemed certain was that there would be a new beginning.

  Afterword: Sources

  This is only a sampling of the rich and diverse collection of Norse myths. Retellings of the myths abound, some more faithful to the original sources than others. The primary sources of Norse mythology are the Eddas and the Volsungasaga.

  The Poetic Eddas, or Elder Eddas, are a collection of tales and poems by anonymous poets, gathered from various sources and often contradicting each other. There are dramatic stories, collections of advice, bewildering prophecies, lore-rhymes full of names and etymologies, trash-talk contests between various gods and more. Henry Adams Bellows’ English translation, with copious notes, is available online.

  The Prose Edda, or Younger Edda, brings together oral-tradition legends and written ballads to make some kind of coherent account of Norse cosmology and legend. It also makes some additions and alterations in an attempt to harmonize the Norse mythology with Christianity. Rasmus Anderson’s translation of the Prose Edda is available online free of charge from Project Gutenberg.

  The Volsungasaga tells the story of the Cursed Hoard in considerable depth, incorporating the fragments of the story which occur in the Elder Edda. William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson’s translation is available online from Project Gutenberg.

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