download - Sage's Lore Library

240 RELIGION OF THE NORTHMEN.
we find they swore by certain objects wbich were
looked upon as boly, or. as symbols of something
holy. Such oaths are named in various places in
the old Eddaic poems : for instance, by the Deck
of the Ship, by the Margin of the Shield, by the
Edge of the Sword, by the Lightning's light "Water,
*. 6., flash, by the southward declining Sun, i. e.,
Mid-day Sun, and many such things. When
Volund wishes to secure his bride, the daughter of
King NibaS, against the molestations of her father,
he exacts of the king an oath that he wiU not do her
any harm
:
"First shalt thou swear me
All the oaths :
—
—
By the Ship's deck
And the Shield's margin,
By the Steed's neck
And the Sword's edge,
That thou torment not
The wife of Volund,
Nor of my bride
Become the destroyer."*
Sigrun upbraids her brother Dag, for having broken
his oath to her husband Helgi, in the following
words
:
" May all the oaths
Eecoil upon thee.
Which thou hast sworn
To Helgi,—
By the light waters
Of Leiptur's streani,f
» The 0. Edda: VolundarkviBa, 31.
f'Leiptr—^lightning—is one of the mythic streams mentioned-
jn the Edda as flowing out from Hvergelmir, the great source of'
all streams. " |iaSan eiga votn 611 vega," " thence the streams all
have their ways,"