Northern mythology

NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY. 21
Lerad are eaten also by the hart Eikthyrnir, from whose
horns drops fall into Hvergelmir, of which many rivers are
formed, some of which flow
gods, others in
through the domains of the
the neighbourhood of men, and fall from
thence to Hel. Odin takes no food, but gives that
which is set before him at table to his wolves, Geri
and Freki j Odin lives solely on wine. His attendant is
his son Hermod (Hermo^r), whom he sends on his
messages
' .
Thor, or Asa-Thor, a son of Odin and the earth (Fiorgvin,
the vivifying ;
Hlodyn, the warming'^), is the strongest
of all the gods^. He rules over the realm of Thrudvang
(pru^vangur) or Thrudheim (pruSheimr), and his mansion
is named Bilskirnir, in which there are five hundi'ed
and forty floors. It is the largest house ever seen by men.
He is also called Hlorridi (the Fire-driver or rider), Ving-
1
Gylf. 20, 36, 38-41. Skaldskap. 34. Vafkudnism. Str. 41. Grimnism.
Str. 8-10, 18, 19, 21-28, 36. Hrafnag. OtJ. Str. 10. Hyndlulj. Str. 2.
2 The goddess Hlodyn seems also to have been known to the Germans.
Near Buten, on the Lower Rhine, the following inscription was found, now
preserved at Bonn: De.e Hludan.e sacrum C. Tibbrius Verus. Thorlaeius,
with great probability (Antiq. Bor. Spec, iii.), identifies Hludana
with the Hlodyn of the North, and certainly Hludana was neither a Roman
nor a Celtic divinity ; though Schreiber (Die Feen in Europa, p. 63)
refers the name to the town of Liiddingen, not far from Birten. Grimm,
D.M. p. 235. Miiller, Altdeutsche Rehgion, p. 88.
3 Thor is described sometimes as an old man, though usually as a tall,
slender, comely young man with a red beard ; on his head there is a crown
of twelve stars (Steph. Notae in Sax. p. 139). When he waxes wroth he
blows in his red beard, and thunder resounds among the clouds.
And St.
Olaf the king—to whom, on the suppression of heathenism in the Noith,
much of Thor's character was transferred by the missionaries, for the purpose,
no doubt, of reconciling their converts to the new faith—is celebrated
as resembling his prototype even to the hue of his beard, as we
learn from the troll-wife's address to him, when he caused a rock, that had
obstructed his course, to part in two :
" Saint Olaf with thy beard so red,
Why sailest thou through my cellar wall V