Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

wicked. But there is one place which has been inaccessible to them, a field proclaimed
inviolable by divine command (Gorm's saga, Saxo Hist., Book 8), a place surrounded by
a wall, which can be entered only by such beings as can pass through the smallest
crevices (Hadding's saga). 3 But that this difficulty of entrance also was meant to exclude
the moral evil, by which the mankind of our age is stained, is not expressly stated.
Thus we have yet to look and see whether the original documents from the
heathen times contain any statements which can shed light on this subject. In regard to
the point (1), the question it contains as to whether the mythology conceived Lif and
Leifthrasir as physically and morally undefiled at the time when they entered Mimir's
grove, can only be solved if we, in the old records, can find evidence that a wise,
foreseeing power opened Mimir's grove as an asylum for them, at a time when mankind
as a whole had not yet become the prey of physical and moral misery. But in that very
primeval age in which time most of the events of mythology are supposed to have
happened, creation had already become the victim of corruption. There was a time when
the life of the gods was happiness and the joy of youthful activity; the condition of the
world did not cause them anxiety, and, free from care, they amused themselves with the
wonderful game of tafl (Völuspá 8 - Tefldu í túni, teitir voru). But the golden age ended
in physical and moral catastrophes. The air was mixed with treacherous evil; Freyja, the
goddess of fertility and fecundity, was treacherously delivered into the hands of the frost
giants; on the earth the sorceress Heid (Heiður) strutted about teaching the secrets of
black magic, which was hostile to the gods and hurtful to man (Völuspá 22). The first
great war broke out in the world (Völuspá 21, 24, 26). The effects of this are felt down
through the historical ages even to Ragnarok. The corruption of nature culminates in the
fimbul-winter of the last days; the corruption of mankind has its climax in "the axe- and
knife-ages." The separation of Lif and Leifthrasir from their race and confinement in
Mimir's grove must have occurred before the above catastrophes in time's beginning, if
there is to be a guarantee that the human race of the new world is not to inherit and
develop the defects and weaknesses of the present historical generations.
53.
AT WHAT TIME DID LIF AND LEIFTHRASIR GET THEIR PLACE OF
REFUGE IN MIMIR'S GROVE? THE ASMEGIR. MIMIR'S POSITION IN THE
MYTHOLOGY. THE NUMINA OF THE LOWER WORLD.
It is necessary to begin this investigation by pointing out the fact that there are
two versions of the last line of strophe 45 in Vafþrúðnismál. The version of this line
quoted above was - en þaðan af aldir alast: "Thence (from Lif and Leifthrasir in Mimir's
grove) are born races." The Uppsala Codex has instead - og þar um aldur alast: "And
they (Lif and Leifthrasir) have there (in Mimir's grove) their abiding place through ages."
Of course only one of these versions can, from a text-historical standpoint, be the original
one. But this does not hinder both from being equally legitimate from a mythological
standpoint, providing both date from a time when the main features of the myth about Lif
3 Prodeuntibus murus aditu transcensuque difficilis obsistebat, quem femina nequiequam transilire conata
cum ne corrugati quidem exilitate proficeret; "The woman (the subterranean goddess who is Hadding's
guide) tried to leap it, but in vain, being unable to do so even with her slender wrinkled body" Saxo, Hist.,
Book 1. Elton translation.