Towards the Baldur Myth - Germanic Mythology

elief that these were still reports of actual tribes of people and actual kingdoms, sought
to adapt the mythic information to the demands of reality as best as he could. That said,
we should remind ourselves that when any one of the adventurers in the Norse sagas
wants to seek the descent to the underworld in order to witness its wonders and its horrors
firsthand, he must either sail into a northern sea concealed in darkness or else travel over
a high mountain range like Saxo‘s Hotherus. Here, the Suebian mountain range serves
this purpose.
Beyond this mountain range, Tacitus writes, live many people, among whom the
Lygii name is most widespread. The name Lygii is also written Ligii, Logii, and Lugii.
Although the matter is uncertain, I will already willingly concede that we may yet have
here the name of an actual Germanic tribe who, around the year 277 under the chieftain
Semno, broke into Gallien and fought against the Roman Caesar Probus. If this
assumption is correct, then the Lygii in Tacitus‘ time were settled in easternmost Suebia,
little known or unknown regions for the remaining Teutons, and his informers had heard
hearsay concerning them. But when we come to the community over which the Lygii
name was supposed to extend, I do not entertain the slightest doubt that mythic
information was put into service as evidence for it, and that this ―community‖ was
assigned the name Lygii because, as I shall demonstrate below, the name Lygii can also
have a mythological meaning.
The inhabitants of the communities in question are:
a) Harii;
b) Heluecones or Heluetones (as the name is written in Vatican manuscript no.
1862 and in the Leyden manuscript);
c) Inanimi (as the name is written in the Stuttgart manuscript. The variant Manimi
is easily explained as a misreading. When i is joined with n, it can be difficult to
distinguish from m in manuscripts.);
d) Elysii, Elisii;
e) Nahanarvali or Naharuali.
Of these five names, three are of Germanic origin; however, the other two are
obviously romana interpretatione, that is to say, are translated into Latin by an informer
who chose to give his Roman questioner the meanings of the words. These two names are
Inanimi, ―those who are lifeless‖ or, literally and mythologically more correct, ―those
who are without spirit‖ (compare náir), and Elysii, Elisii, ―those that dwell on the fields
of bliss.‖
Now, if one wanted to suppose that pure chance was at work here and that it made
an actual Germanic tribe‘s name resemble the Latin words Inanimi and Elysii, I will not
deny the possibility of such chance, although these names would then be left unexplained
by the Germanic store of language. But then it would also be chance that these names,
which in their Roman form refer to beings that belong to the kingdom of death, are
connected with a name such as Harii and with a description of these Harii that likewise
refers to inhabitants of the kingdom of death—and further connected with names such as
Heluecones or Heluetones and Nahanarvali or Naharuali, which however one seeks to
interpret them, observing all linguistic caution, ventures into the same area, namely the