Northern mythology

NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY. 143
from above, darkness from beneath. Night was before
day_, winter before summer. Light existed before the sun.
The moon preceded, the sun followed.
Illustratcgn.— Here are several denominations, the
significations of which are of little importance, and also
very doubtful. The three husbands of Night, it is supposed,
bear allusion to the three divisions of the night
(eyktir). The similarity of the name of her first husband,
Naglfari, to Naglfar, that of the ship formed of the nails
of the dead, that is to appear at Ragnarock^, is remarkable,
though probably purely accidental. Aud, the name of
their son, denotes void, desert. Annar, her second husband^s
name, signifies merely second, other. Onar, as he
is also called, has been compared with the Gr. ovap, a
dream. Celling (Dogling), her third husband's name,
may be a diminutive of dagr, day, and signify dawn'^.
Hrimfaxi, the name of the horse of night, signifies rimeor
frosty-mane.
rendered life-obscurer.
His other appellation, Fiorsvartnir, may be
Skinfaxi, the name of the horse of
day, denotes shining-mane-, his other name. Glad, brightness.
Mundilfori has been derived from 0. Nor. mondull, an
axis ;
a derivation, if to be relied on, which seems to indicate
a knowledge of the motion of the heavens round the
earth. The spots in the moon, which are here alluded to,
require but little illustration^. Here they are children
carrying water in a bucket, a superstition still preserved
in the popular belief of the Swedes'^.
it
Other nations see in
a man with a dog, some a man with a bundle of brushwood,
for having stolen which on a Sunday he was condemned
to figure in the moon^, etc.
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Page 80. "
Page 5. 3 Page 6.
* Ling's Eddornas Sinnebildslara, i. 78.
^ Lady Cynthia is thus described by Chaucer (Tesfam. of Cresseide,
260-263) :—
Her gite was gray and ful of spottis blake,
And on her brest a chorle paintid ful even,