TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

348 HEROES,
robore debellato, Suetiam reversus, which orientals again are
Rutheni ; but what is most remarkable is, that Saxo p. 17-8 puts
in the mouth of this Danish king and his wife Regnilda a song
which in the Edda is sung by Niorffr and Ska&i (Sn. 27-8). 1 We
may accordingly take Hadding to be identical with NibrSr, i.e., a
second birth of that god, which is further confirmed by Frioleifr
(
Frealfif, whom we have already identified with the simple Fred,
p. 219) appearing in the same line, exactly as Freyr is a son of
Nib rftr, and Saxo says expressly, p. 16, that Hadding offered a
Froblot, a sacrifice in honour of Freyr. Whether in Frdffi (OHG.
Fruoto, MHG. Fruote), the hero of the Danish story, who makes
himself into three, and whose rule is praised as peaceful and bliss
ful, we are to look for Freyr over again, is another question.
In the god-hero of Tacitus then there lingers, still recognisable,
a Norse god ; and the links I have produced must, if I mistake
not, set the final seal on the reading Nerthus . If we will not
admit the goddess into the ranks of a race which already has a
Terra mater standing at its very head, it is at all events no great
stretch to suppose that certain nations transferred her name to the
god or hero who formed one of the succeeding links in the race.
There are more of these Norse myths which probably have to
do with this subject, lights that skim the deep darkness of our
olden time, but cannot light it up, and often die away in a dubious
flicker. The Formali of the Edda, p. 15, calls OSinn father of
Yngvi, and puts him at the head of the Ynglingar : once again we
see ourselves entitled to identify Oolnn with Mannus or Tvisco.
Nay, with all this interlacing and interchange of members, we
could almost bear to see 0<5inn made the same as Nib rftr, which is
clone in one manuscript. But the narrative fra Fornioti ok hans
ffittmbnnum in Fornald. sog. 2, 12 carries us farther: at the top
stands Bum, like the king of Tyrkland, followed by Burr, Offinn,
Freyr, Nidrftr, Freyr, Fiolnir; here then is a double Freyr, the
first one taking Yngvi s place, i.e., the Yngvifreyr we had before ;
but also a manifold O&inn, Fiolnir being one of his names (Saem.
10 a 46 b 184 a . Sn. 3). Burri and Burr, names closely related to
1 So Wh. Miiller (Haupt s zeitschr. 3, 48-9) has justly pointed out, that
SkaoTs Si s choice of the muffled bridegroom, whose feet alone were visible (Sn.
82), agrees with Saxo s eligendi mariti libertas curiosiore corporum attrectatione,
but here to find a ring that the flesh has healed over. SkaSi and
Eagnhild necessarily fall into one.