Northern mythology

134 NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY.
;
often consist in dark allusions only^ a defect which the
Younger cannot supply, for here we too often meet with
trivial and almost puerile matter, such as we may imagine
the old religious lore to have become, when moulded into
the later popular belief. It follows, therefore, that several
myths now appear as poor, insipid fictions, which, in their
original state, were probably beautiful both in form and
substance. In both Eddas, the language is often obscure,
and the conception deficient in clearness; it appears,
moreover, that several myths are lost\ so that a complete
exposition of the Northern Mythology is no longer to be
obtained.
All illustration of Northern mythology must proceed
from the Eddas, and the most faithful is, without doubt,
that which illustrates them from each other. It may in
the meanwhile be asked, whether their matter has its original
home in the North, or is of foreign growth ? For
myths may either have originated among the Northern
people themselves, and gradually in course of time have
developed themselves among their descendants as a production
of the intellectual and political life of the people
or they may have found entrance from without, have been
forced on the people of the North at the conquest of their
countries, and with the suppression of their own ideas ; or,
lastly, they may consist of a compound of native and
foreign matter. This question has been the subject of
strict and comprehensive investigation. To the faith of
the ancient Finnish race is with great probability referred
1
Instances of lost myths are, " How Idun embraced her brother's
murderer," Loka-glepsa, Str. 17 ;
" Odin's sojourn in Samso," ib. Str. 24 ;
" How Loki begat a son with Ty's wife," ib. Str. 40 ; j\Iyths concerning
Heimdall's head, and his contest with Loki for tlie Brisinga-men, Skaldskap.
8 (see p. 29) ; a myth concerning the giant Vagnhofdi, Saxo, edit.
Stephanii, p. 9 ; edit. Miiller, pp. 34, 36, 45 ; and of Jotnaheiti, in Snorra-
Edda, p. 211 ; of the giant Thrivahli slain by Thor, and otlier of his feats,
Skaldskap. 4, and HarbarlSslj. Str. 29, 35, 37, etc.