Neither Snorri's mythodology nor the Elder Edda give us a reliable basis for sketching the picture of how the heathen folk viewed their world. As Nordal (Young 1964:12) has pointed out, some of these stories about the gods are the product of poetic imagination and others derive from speculation current during the decline of heathen religious practices. Yet, being familiar with the philosophy of existence and the pattern of beliefs characteristic of the magically oriented Eskimo, the Amerindians, the Bantu, and other such peoples, and having become familiar with the unmagical view of the sophisticated saga writers and antiquarians of the thirteenth century, I could often distinguish earlier heathen themes and ideas from later heathen and Christian ones. For example, it is most unlikely that Snorri Sturluson himself believed such incidents in the tales he recorded as that a young man might mate with a Being whose shape might change into a swan. But his ancestor, Egil Skallagrímsson, did likely believe such things could happen, and some of Egil's ancestors almost certainly knew people who believed they had undergone this kind of experience.
In this chapter I will try to present a picture not of the heathen "reality" or "religion" but of the logic and guiding principles of the most enchanted and ancient of the Old Scandinavian world views. I do this primarily so that the reader will be able to approach the subsequent discussions of disenchantment with a fairly clear working notion of just what a thoroughly primitive or magical world view is. Without this background he will not understand what I mean when, for example, I assert that the formal body of Old Scandinavian law does not seem to be hostile to magic—whereas the heroic ethic, or, as some scholars call it, the ethic of manly excellence, represents a relatively disenchanted tradition.
In this world of the gods and ancient heroes, the only important atrribute is what has been called supernatural power. A better term is Vital Power, for people who live in the enchanted world do not usually distinguish between power and life or between the natural and the supernatural. Vital Power is the only kind of blessing, and its presence ensures well being. All good and desirable things follow from it and the only fundamental or true misfortune is its diminution or loss (cf. Tempels 1959; Gluckman 1944:32).
Óðin appears insatiable in his desire for Power. It was for magical power to see into the future that he gave his wondrous eye, which saw everything that happened in the universe. It was for the magical mead that he took the form of a snake and tunneled into the giant's cave, there seduced the giant's daughter and swallowed the mead, and, then, in the form of an eagle flew back to Ásgarð. It was for the magical power of the runes that he hanged himself on the world tree Yggdrasill and wounded himself with his own spear (Hollander 1962:36)
I wot that I hung on the wind-tossed tree
all of nights nine,
wounded by spear, bespoken to Óthin,
bespoken myself to myself,
upon that tree of which none telleth
from what roots it doth rise
Neither horn they upheld nor handed me bread;
I looked below me—
aloud I cried—
caught up the runes, caught them up wailing,
thence to the ground fell again.
Most of the stories about the gods depict them as setting out deliberately to wrest or steal Vital Power from the magically potent giants, or as defending themselves against the loss of Power, or as sallying forth to recover Power that has been stolen from them. As in all magically conceived universes, the possession of this Power was not a matter of mere conceit or aggrandizement over other beings, but of life and death. For example, when the giant Thjatsi kidnapped Iðunn and her youth-giving apples, he made off, not only with a beautiful goddess and her magical trinkets, but with a part of the life force maintaining the community of the gods.
Men like Helgi and Völund also moved within a universe governed by the Vital Power principle. Indeed some of the early lays are not primarily stories of adventure or heroic deeds, but (like the tales told by tribal Africans or American Indians) detailed descriptions of how certain heroes obtained their wondrous Powers and how they lost them. Thus, many verses are taken up in telling how Atli, Sigurð, or Helgi were instructed in Power-giving rituals by wonderful beings, who might assume the form of swans, women, or Valkyries; whereas relatively little is said about the battles they fought or the great deeds they accomplished. In contrast, the later sagas give us elaborate blow-by-blow descriptions of a particular hero's every battle or remarkable deed.
Equally important and inseparable from the "power principle" is the assumption in this mythological literature that all of the phenomena perceptible to man are the manifestations of living beings, so that the universe is alive—not in the sense that most sophisticated or scientific men define animate as against inanimate, but in the sense of an Indian who told de Angulo (1950:372), "Everything is alive. White people think everything is dead." [3] Since these beings are vital, a man may enter into social and emotional relationships with them. Thus, the universe of the Old Scandinavian gods and heroes teems with dwarfs, giants, monsters, troll-women, and speaking birds. There are trees, stones, and streams from whom one may demand an oath and who may, as in the Baldr myth, weep in concert. There are speaking birds who talk to men and Valkyries or swan women who enter into romantic attachments with young warriors and favor them in battle. All of these vital creatures, from the lowest troll to the high gods, possess what we today consider a uniquely human attribute—a will of their own. They interfere in the world of men or with each other, play favorites, and are prone to all of the weaknesses and passions of humanity, including love and death.
The heroes of the ancient lays exhibit another characteristic common to many primitives but very rare among civilized peoples. They expect to meet nonhuman beings. Indeed, if they did not encounter them they would not obtain Power or virtues. Moreover, like the Biblical Jacob, the heroes are seldom in doubt as to the meaning of a divine visitation. They know they have been favored or have been given information that will enable them to manipulate the universe to their advantage. Or, sometimes, they know that they are doomed and will be slain in their next battle.
Another intrinsic aspect of the magical world view is the idea that man, the gods, and all other phenomena are related or connected to each other by a web of empathy. The mightiest being is, somehow, related to the humblest. As Father Tempels has put it (1959:39, 41), the
"concept of separate beings ... which find themselves side by side, entirely independent one of another, is foreign to Bantu thought .... All creatures are found in relationship according to the laws of a hierarchy .... Nothing moves in this universe of forces [Vital Powers] without influencing other forces by its movement. The world of forces is held like a spider's web of which no single thread can be caused to vibrate without shaking the whole network."
A fine exemplification of this perspective appears in an autobiography of a Papago Indian woman especially in such incidents as when she, her mother, and all members of the village observed ritual precautions when the men left on a war party, and how even the owls (who were the souls of the Papago dead) helped the medicine man spy on the enemy (Chona 1936:11-13).
Snorri's Edda contains a number of examples of how the heathen Northmen may have seen this web of being. Thus, with tongue in cheek, he tells us (Young 1964:88) that people who want to help the Aesir [4] should throw away the leather straps they cut from their shoes as these scraps go to form the material of the god Viðar's shoe. Viðarr, at the Ragnarok is destined to place his foot on the lower jaw of Fenrir, seize the upper jaw in his hands and tear the wolf's gullet apart. Similarly we are told (Young 1964:106) that hones should never be thrown across the floor, for Thór, after a battle with a hone-wielding giant, was left with a hone sticking in his head. Consequently, the careless handling of hones gives Thór the headache.
The fundamental sensitivity of all things may, perhaps, be as beautifully expressed in the Baldr myth as in any mythology in the world. Baldr the Good, the son of Óðin, dreams that his life is in danger. Hearing of this, his mother Frig exacts an oath from all creatures, whatever their form, that they will not harm him. She neglects, however, to obtain this oath from the mistletoe, "because it was too young to ask an oath of." When Baldr is killed by the mistletoe it is discovered that he may be brought back from Hel (the abode of the dead) if all creatures on the earth weep.
"Thereupon the Aesir sent messengers throughout the whole world to ask for Baldr to be wept out of Hel; and everything did that—men and beasts, and the earth, and the stones and trees and all metals —just as you will have seen these things weeping when the come out of frost and into the warmth" (Young 1964:80-84).
Snorri's picture of the weeping of the stones, trees, and metals as they become warm may be a poetic simile. On the other hand, some scholars suggest that Baldr was a god of the Spring, and, if this was so, rites involving universal weeping could be seen as hastening the arrival of Spring by simulating a thaw, just as the drinking ceremonies of the Papago were seen as intoxicating the clouds so that they poured down rain (Chona 1936: 10-11), or the fertility rites of the ancient Near East were seen as encouraging the reproduction of the grain (Frazer: Vol. 2, Ch. xi). The Old Scandinavian literature tends to express the notion of the web of being most strongly in its frequent reference to dreams and omens. But these for the most art manifest themselves without being sought and they usually foretell evil rather than good fortune.
Many students of the Old Scandinavian literature comment adversely on the absence of morality among the gods and contrast their expediency and trickery with the stern code of ethics followed by the human heroes of the later lays and sagas. This judgement is hardly fair to the inhabitants of Ásgarð, for the behavior of the gods is, in its general nature, very like that of the divine or powerful characters of most magical tales. Mythological personages, be they American, Indian, Eskimo, or Greek, are not interested in conflicting moral imperatives, abstract definitions of justice, or the dilemmas that accompany a rigid code of honor. Rather, as the old gods of Scandinavia, they wish to obtain and augment the magical Power that brings all the good of life and they hope to avoid those actions that lead to its "neutralization" or loss.
Moreover, as a number of observers and scholars have pointed out, peoples with a thoroughly enchanted outlook do not tend to judge deeds by the means employed in their achievement. Success in the hunt or in battle is a demonstration of the presence of Vital Power, and Vital Power, as we have remarked, is the source of all good things. As Huizinga (1955:81-82) notes, it is not how a man wins but the fact that he wins which shows that he has found favor with the supernaturals. Or as a Crow Indian explained to Lowie (1948:8), "When I hear a song and have good luck immediately after that, then I consider the song sacred."
It is likely that most of the examples in which the Old Scandinavian poets accuse the gods of misdeeds, and especially of trickery, reflect a quasi-sophisticated point of view rather than an enchanted one. In any case, the accusations are not to be taken in their modem sense. Most tribal peoples admire the successful trickster. It is the unsuccessful trickster, the one who is caught and punished, who has done "wrong," or better, who has revealed his lack of power. If he had sufficient Power he would not have been found out.
I suspect that in the ancient heathen days, the Aesir were seen as living according to norms very like those of men. A few hints of the nature of these norms may still be gained from the older poems and from Snorri's redaction. Thus, the story of the binding of the Fenriswolf (Young 1964:56-59) shows us how much labor and ingenuity the gods were willing to expend rather than defile their sanctuary by slaying the wolf within it. Again, the elaborate scene (Young 1964:99) of conciliation between the gods and the giant's daughter sounds as if it might once, for all its burlesque, have reflected an ancient peace-making ceremony. But on the whole, the picture of "divine morality" is so fragmentary and distorted that, for me at least, it yields no satisfactory Gestalt. I therefore use the professional eye-witness reports of social anthropologists as sources for my models when I discuss the moral logic of the enchanted world view.
Very fine brief introductions to the moral logic of the enchanted world view are to be found in Gluckman's (1944) discussion of Evans-Pritchard's book on the Azande and in a recently published article by Winans and Edgerton (1964). Gluckman (p. 67) holds that "witchcraft works as a theory of causes" and that the theory is "reasonable and logical, even if it is not true," whereas, Winans and Edgerton (p. 745) assert that magic is "manifestly a negative sanction against violation of moral norms," and that is not only moral, but jural.
If one looks at magical causation as an integral part of a world view, one may carry these observations a step farther and assert that magical causality is moral in its very essence. "The universe is morally significant. It cares" (Redfield 1953:106). The man who becomes seriously ill or suffers great misfortune knows that he has offended or irritated some being, human or otherwise, who has used Power against him. Whether the offense is intentional or accidental does not matter—the results are the same. Conversely, the man whose children are hale, who is always prosperous, who escapes unscathed from storms and battles, has always managed to do all the "right" things and none of the "wrong." (Or should he offend some Being or Power and suffer no misfortune, it is because he is under the protection of a more powerful being.) Should such a man be visited by ill fortune, everyone knows that he has somehow fouled up his relationships with the Beings of Power. In fine, the essential principle of magical logic is that all blessing and all suffering have a cause.
Viewed from this perspective, many of the basic stories of the early Old Scandinavian literature are profoundly moral. In the lay of Grotti (Hollander 1962:153-158), King Fróði;s giant servants grind out a terrible fate for him, after he has abused them by granting them no rest. The magically gifted Völand (Hollander 1962:159-167) kills King Níð's sons and dishonors his daughter, after the king has enslaved and crippled him. The downfall of the gods is traced to the foresworn oaths, which they pledged to the giant who built Valholl for them (Hollander 1962: p. 5, verse 26). Numerous instances of ill fortune following on offense or error appear in the histories and sagas. Thus, in Eyrbyggja saga (Schach and Hollander 1959:107-115), many folk die because the instructions of a dying woman are not carried out; King Eirík Bloodyaxe (Eddison 1930) loses his throne because he cheats Egil Skallagrímsson out of his wife's inheritance; Koráik, the skald (Hollander 1949:20-23), is never able to possess his beloved, because he refuses to compensate a witch for the death of her sons. Moreover, he refuses to co-operate with the curing witch whom his mother hires to remove the spell.
On the other hand, most of these examples of magical morality appear in works in which—as we shall see—the major aim of the author was secular or quasi-secular. It is perhaps for this reason that the implications of many of the stories —and particularly the myths —are often blurred. For though some of the men who collected and recorded the myths knew a great deal about their ancestors, they were not particularly sympathetic to their ancestors' moral point of view. A discussion of Old Scandinavian law will prepare the way for further analysis of this development.
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Last Modified 2 May 2000
Comments to Manny Olds, oldsma@pobox.com