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Chapter 6. The Sky 158
From here, Óðínn and his followers continued to move to the north where Snorri
tells us in the “Ynglingasaga” that he initially settled around Sweden and eastern
Norway.
If one understands the piece of folk knowledge that the aurora borealis is connected
with the daily battling of the Einherjar, which covers the northern hemisphere
of the sky at night in the North lands, then the final “home” of the Æsir is to the
North and the water loving Vanir settled to the West. In reading the sagaic and
eddaic literature, however, one gets the feeling that it was not the actual location
of the “homes” of the Gods and Goddesses that were important, but the directions.
Thus, the East and the South were where both men and Gods went to “battle the
enemy.” In several of the eddaic poems, Þór is quoted to have been “off to the
East” doing battle with the inhabitants of Jötunheim, and, of course, to the South
lay Muspell from where the sons of Surt would come for the final battle at the
end of time, the Ragnarök. The compass directions and their significance to the
ancient Germanic spiritual philosophy and world view have already been dealt with
in preceding chapters.
The sky realm, according to the above descriptions seems to have been pretty
much a reflection of the Underworld except that in the sky realm lived the Gods
and only a few ancestors whereas in the Underworld lived the largest percentage
of the ancestors and few Gods or Goddesses being restricted to the Vanir and the
Goddess of the Underworld. Jötunheim appears to have extended across all three
worlds and the homes of the Gods apparently being near the northern and western
horizons where the three worlds come together. The large expanse overhead as could
be viewed from Midgard is the field where the lives of the Gods were played out, and
the effects of Their actions were rained down upon the earth. The winds, weather,
the seasonal giants (Summer and Winter), the giants of time (Day, Night, Dawn),
and the various luminaries (the stars, Sunna, Máni, Bil and Hjúki) all entered into
the sky field and let their effects fall into Mannheim from their respective directions
(187)
It was from the sky realm that fell the “poet’s draught” from Óðínn’s mouth
while in the shape of an eagle, the contents of the cauldron, óðroerir, after He stole
it back from Suttung the Giant. Honeydew fell from the antlers of Eikþyrnir. The
rumble of Þór’s chariot was heard rolling across the skies as He protected Midgard
from the onslaught of the frost giants (188). Óðínn and His followers, the Einherjar,
roared through the night sky dooming those to be caught up in the Wild Hunt’s
endless battle- frenzy and to be forever kept from a final home in the Land of the
Ancestors. From the skies came luck, power and guidance (in the form of omens),
on the one hand, and madness or death on the other.
Christianity brought with it many changes, especially in philosophy regarding