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824 TIME AND WOELD.
Again, as Valholl had only received men who died by weapons
(vapn-dau3a vera), whilst other dead men were gathered in Folk-
vangr with Freyja (p. 304), and virgins with Gefjon (Sn. 36) ;
from this time forward Gimill takes in without distinction all the
just, the good, and Hel all the bad, the criminal ; whereas the
former Hel, as a contrast to Valholl, used to harbour all the resi
due of men who had not fallen in fight, without its being implied
that they were sinners deserving punishment.
The most difficult point to determine is, how matters exactly
stand with regard to Surtr, to whom I must now return. That
he is represented, not as a god, but as a giant of the fire-world,
has been shown, p. 809 ; nor is he named among the renovated
gods a gimli in Ssem. 10 a or Sn. 76, which would have been
the place for it. In one MS. alone (Sn. 75, var. 3) is apparently
y
interpolated a Gimli meffr Surti ; and it is mainly on this that
Finn Magnusen rests his hypothesis, that Surtr is an exalted god
of light, under whose rule, as opposed to that of OSinn, the new
and universal empire stands. He takes him to be that mightier
one from whose power in the first creation days the warmth
proceeded (p. 562), the strong (oflugr) or rich one revealed by the
vala, who shall direct all things (sa er ollu rseftr, Sa3m. 10 b
), like
wise the mighty one foreseen by Hyndla, whose name she dare
not pronounce (j?a kemr annar enn mattkari, ]?6 J?ori ec eigi ]?ann
at nefna, Seem. 119 a
) ; conf. the strengra of the AS. homily (p.
812).
But why should she have shrunk from naming Surtr, of
whom no secret is made in Sasm. 8 ab . 9 a . 33 a
, the last passage
positively contrasting him with the mild merciful gods (in svaso
with the liberated Loki
go$) ? The invasion of Surtr in company
must anyhow be understood as a hostile one (of giant s or devil s
kin) ; his very name of the swart one points that way.
The unuttered god may be likened to the ayvcoo-To? Oeos (Acts
17, 23), still more to the word that OSinn whispered in the ear
of his son Baldr s
corpse, as it ascended the funeral : pile a secret
which is twice alluded to, in Saem. 38 a and Hervarars. p. 487; so
an Etruscan nymph speaks the name of the highest god in the
ear of a bull. 1
It has already been suggested (p. 815) that
presentiments of a mightier god to come may have floated before
1 0. Mailer s Etr. 2, 83, with which must be conn, the medieval legend of
Silvester (Conrad s poem, pref. p. xx).