TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

CHAPTER XII.
OTHER GODS.
In addition to the gods treated of thus far, who could with
perfect distinctness be pointed
out in all or most of the Teutonic
races, the Norse mythology enumerates a series of others, whose
track will be harder to pursue, if it does not die out altogether. To
a great extent they are those of whom the North itself has little or
nothing to tell in later times.
1. (HEIMDALL.)
Heimffallr, or in the later spelling Heimdallr, though no longer
mentioned in Saxo, is, like Baldr, a bright and gracious god :
hvitastr asa (whitest of ases, Saam. 72 a 1
), sverSas hvita, Ssem. 90 a ,
hviti as, Sn. 104 ; he guards the heavenly bridge (the rainbow), and
dwells in Himinbiorg (the heavenly hills). The heim in the first
part of his name agrees in sound with himinn ; ]?allr
seems akin to
J?611, gen. J?allar (pinus), Swed. tall, Swiss dale, Engl. deal (Staid. 1,
259, conf. Schm. 2, 603-4 on mantala), but J?611 also means a river,
Sn. 43, and Freyja bears the by-name of Mardoll, gen. Mardallar,
Sn. 37. 154. All this remains dark to us. No proper name in the
other Teutonic tongues answers to HeimSallr; but with Himinliorg
(Sasm. 41 b 92 b
) or the common noun himinfioll (Saem. 148a
Yngl. saga cap. 39), we can connect the names of other hills : a
Himilinbcrg (mons coelius) haunted by spirits, in the vita S. Galli,
Pertz 2, 10 ; Himelberc in Lichtenstein s frauend. 199, 10 ; a Himi-
lesberg in the Fulda country, Schannat Buchon. vet. 336 ;
several in
1 *
When this passage says further, vissi hann vel fram, sem Vanir a&rir,
liter. he foreknew well, like other Vanir, his wisdom is merely likened to
that of the Vanir (Gramm. 4, 456 on ander], it is not meant that he was one of
them, a thing never asserted anywhere [so in Homer, Greeks and other Trojans
means and Trojans as weW]. The Fornald. sog. 1, 373 calls him, I know not
why, heimskastr allra asa, heimskr usually signifying ignorant, a greenhorn,
what the MH.G. poets mean by tump.