Northern mythology

148 NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY.
the gradual transition through Dwarfs (stones)^ Swartelves
(metals)^ Dark-elves (earth and mould), Light-elves
(plants).
Between the ^sir and the Elves are the Vanir.
Their creation is nowhere spoken of; they are the powers
of the sea and air ; as active beings they appear only in
their relation to the ^Esir and Elves, that is, to heaven and
earth. They made war against and concluded peace with
the ^Esir, and one of them, Frey, obtained the sovereignty
over the Light-elves ^ The A^anir rule in the sea and air,
encircling the whole earth in a liigher and remoter sphere.
The Light-elves rule in the rivers and air, surrounding
the inhabited earth in a lower and more contracted sphere.
Illustration.—Besides the before-mentioned appellation
of purs (Goth. )?aursus, dry ;
]7aursjan, to thirst), the
giants are also
called jotunn, pi. jotnar {A. S. eoten, Lat.
edo, edonis), from at eta, to eat, thus signifying the voracious,
greedy'^. These beings use stones and fragments
of rock as weapons, and, within the mountains, iron bars
also. Among the common people the belief is still lively,
how mountains, islands, etc. have arisen through their
wanderings, how they hurled vast stones and rocks, and
how they fled before the husbandmen. The giants dwell in
large caverns, in
rocks and mountains, and are intelligent
and wise, for all nature has proceeded from them ; voracious,
large, powerful, proud, insolent ^ : were it not for
1
Page 25.
2 Ic mesan maeg
•
meahtlicor
•
and efan eten ealdutn )?yrre (J^yrse), /caw
feast and also eat more heartily than an old giant. Cod. Exon. p. 425,
I. 26-29.
^ They are represented as having many hands and heads : Stserkodder
had six arms ; in Slvirnis-fdr a three-headed Thurs is mentioned. Of their
relative magnitude to man an idea may be formed from the following.
" At the entrance of the Black forest, on the Iliinenkoppe, there dwelt a
giantess (hiinin) with her daughter. The latter having found a husbandman
in the act of ploughing, put him and his plough and his oxen into her
apron, and carried the ' little fellow with ids kittens ' to her mother, who
angrily bade her take them back to the place whence she had taken them,